Gaith Rashad Pharaon

[MGKrebs]

I happened across an old story about an attempt by the FBI to arrest Gaith Pharaon by boarding his yacht as it left Malta in 2006. I knew I had heard the name but couldn't remember exactly why, so a quick Google and a Wikipedia entry reminds me:

"Pharaon was a key player in the global oil and banking industries in the 1970s and 1980s...he attained brief notoriety in the U.S. for his having been identified by the Federal Reserve Board as the "frontman" for the BCCI enterprise..."

"After the events of September 11th, he re-emerged as a subject of public interest, due in part to having been a former classmate of George W. Bush at Harvard Business School, and a prominent investor in Bush's short-lived venture Arbusto Energy. According to a 70-page French parliamentary report released in October of 2002, Pharaon has been identified as a recent player in the informal money- and value-transferring (or hawala) networks of al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden.

Gaith Pharaon resumé:

BCCI scandal.
Partner with Adnan Khashoggi (arms dealer, BCCI alumnus, Iran/Contra middleman).
Arbusto investor.
Harken Energy investor (we were all distracted by the potential insider trading of GW Bush, but the real story may be the investors).
Osama bin Laden financier.
Fugitive from justice.

I hope someone has a big file on GW Bush that they can use once he no longer is under the protection of his own personal justice department. There's just too much smoke for their not to be a smoldering fire in there. The guy is completely surrounded by criminals. He actually hires them to work for him as President: Elliott Abrams (convicted of lying to Congress); John Poindexter (convicted of lying to Congress, destroying evidence, among other things); Otto Reich (unauthorized declassification of material, domestic covert propaganda, implicated in the 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez, sweatshop advocate, fixer for Orlando Bosch); John Negroponte (torture enabler, Iran/Contra heavy, Iraq war arm-twister).

Anybody else seen associating with known criminals like that would be picked up and harshly questioned. At least.

[peacetalksforall]

1. If you're talking Iran-Contra players - include Mz Liar, Condi and Mr. Liar, Powell.

[MGKrebs]

2. I am not familiar with Rice's involvement in Iran/Contra.

I thought she had been a Russian expert before becoming Bush's mistress... I mean Secretary of State?

[peacetalksforall]

3. I'm confused - I was positive that she was there during that period -

1983-1988, but the bio says no - that she was invited by Skowcroft and served on the Council on on one of the NS's, but not until 1989? When she ended up at the NSA in 2001, there were so many articles about her having already worked with Powell and Abrams during the 80's.