BNL Iraq BushSR Kissinger = Corruption Big Time

[protect freedom impeach bush now]

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/h920428g.htm

Several of BNL's high level friends in the United States should have been aware of the BNL loans to Iraq. The high level patrons that I am referring to are Henry Kissinger, and his Kissinger Associates compadres, Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger.

Several Kissinger Associates clients had extensive dealings with Iraq including Volvo, Midland Bank, Chase Manhattan Bank, Fiat, and Asea Braun Boveri and those same companies also were the beneficiaries of BNL loans to Iraq or were involved in some way with BNL-Atlanta.

Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Eagleburger maintain that they were unaware of the BNL loans to Iraq. I offer no definitive proof that they were aware of the BNL loans, but I will explore in more detail their interlocking relationships with BNL and Iraq.

In addition, I will reveal that both Mr. Eagleburger and Mr. Scowcroft played a key role in the Bush administration's handling of the BNL scandal, even though BNL was a paying client of Kissinger Associates just months prior to the BNL scandal becoming public.


...skip large sections....





CONCLUSION
BNL was a client of Mr. Scowcroft's while he was the vice-chairman of Kissinger Associates. Mr. Scowcroft regularly provided advice to BNL's management and received hefty fees in return.

Mr. Scowcroft and his staff at the National Security Council, along with the State Department, masterminded the Bush administration's handling of the BNL scandal in order to mitigate the damage it would have caused to United States-Iraq relations. In the process they trampled on United States law enforcement efforts and repeatedly misled the Congress and the American public about the United States policy toward Iraq.

BNL was not Mr. Eagleburger's client at Kissinger Associates although he did meet with BNL's management for at least one briefing. But I did show in an April 25, 1991 and February 24, 1992 floor statements that several of Mr. Eagleburger's Yugoslavian-related business ventures, the LBS Bank and the Yugo automobile, relied on BNL-Atlanta financing. Despite these ties Mr. Eagleburger did not recuse himself from the handling of the BNL case.

These revelations are not surprising--Mr. Scowcroft and Mr. Eagleburger refused to recuse themselves from the handling of the BNL scandal even though BNL was a client of Kissinger Associates just months earlier. Their actions provide a revealing example of the ethical atmosphere at the White House and the top levels of the State Department.

As for Mr. Kissinger, he misled the public about his relationship with BNL and about his firm's contact with Saddam Hussein. Mr. Stoga misled the Banking Committee about the reasons for his trip to Iraq in the summer of 1989 when he met with Saddam Hussein to discuss Iraq's debt problems.

Their ethical behavior is just as deplorable as Mr. Scowcroft's and Mr. Eagleburger's. Is anyone really surprised?



Ministers have come under obligations to great interests; and it can be presumed or alleged that their votes or speeches have been corrupt: W. Churchill.