MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 27 September 2003:
There is a considerable history in recent times of covert Mossad
assassination, kidnapping, and blackmailing. Most of the stories remain
still deeply hidden and unknown. A few leak out over time or by
accident....and sometimes by design. The details of course, as with the
American CIA, are always obscured with intense secrecy, mucho
disinformation, multiple cut-outs, and various 'plausible deniability'
strategies and schemes. In fact, being so much smaller and working by
Israeli standards, Mossad operations are probably far harder to penetrate
and then to find out about than the CIA's.
Remember how in the 1980s super-spy Jonathan Pollard was unmasked right
in the heart of the most highly classified American military intelligence -
the Israelis at first trying hard to deny it all, then to minimize Pollard's
significance, then to claim it was all a mistaken 'roque' operation. But
now we know in this particular case that Pollard was a Jewish American who
was a top level Israeli spy controlled by the most senior Mossad operatives
reporting all the way up to the office of the Israeli Prime Minister.
Just why on his last day as President Bill Clinton mysteriously
pardoned super-rich super-fugitive Marc Rich is still not fully known. But
that Bill owed much in his Presidentcy to 'dually-loyal' American Jews known
for their own close ties to Israel, that much is known even if only rarely
talked about in public. After all, Clinton rewarded 'the lobby' immediately
upon his election in many ways beyond the 'Kosher Kitchen' pledge. Most of
all Clinton rushed through the citizenship papers of Martin Indyk - himself
known for his extensive intelligence connections before he was brought to
the US to head up the new Israeli/Jewish lobby think-tank in Washington -
first putting him in charge of Middle East affairs in the White House before
making him Assistant Secretary of State for the region and then Ambassador
to Israel. And Dennis Ross, Clinton's Ambassador in Charge of the Middle
East 'peace negotiations...guess what, now 'out of power' heading up that
same Israeli/Jewish lobby think-tank while Indyk has moved on to head up
another new one funded by American Zionists coordinating with Israel at the
Brookings Institution.
http://jahtruth.net/clint.htm
The reality of secret pay-offs and bribes, carefully co-ordinated with
the enticement of rewards and threats of penalties, is very much a part of
modern-day affairs in Washington, especially on matters relating to and
affecting Israel. The American capital is in fact seeded with those who can
rightly be said to be 'dually-loyal' American Jews - one group closely
associated with Labor another with the Likud wing of the Israeli-Zionist
establishment - and at the highest levels of government, media and finance.
No American politician on the national level has been able to successfully
go up against 'the lobby'. The few who have tried were made examples - the
names Fulbright and Percy, both once Chairmen of the powerful Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, stand out and everyone in power in Washington
remembers...or is told.
http://jahtruth.net/freedman.htm
Remember as well that it was as a favor to some of his American Jews
friends in California who had helped propel him to the Oval Office that
Monica Lewinsky became an intern in the White House. And many in
Washington believe the rumors that the Mossad bugged the once secret late
night sex talk between Clinton in the White House and Monica on her
unsecured home phone at Watergate. And if true, who knows what other things
the Israelis had over the American President as he pushed and pushed the
Palestinians, and so many others, to do what the Israelis wanted them to do
during his years in office
Now Irish author Gordon Thomas, himself well-known for his extensive
intelligence connections over the years in the UK and Israel, provides much
more detail into the Clintons, fugitive billionaire Marc Rich, and the
Mossad. Thomas' connections with sources and operatives in and around
Mossad from the past is quite on the record. He is the author in fact of a
book the Mossad cooperated in his writing - Gideon's Spies : The Secret
History of the Mossad.
PRESIDENT CLINTON?S CLOSE FRIEND, BILLIONAIRE AND FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE, WAS
A TOP MOSSAD SOURCE ? AND COULD WRECK PLANS BY HILARY CLINTON TO RUN FOR THE
PRESIDENCY
by Gordon Thomas
Billionaire fugitive Marc Rich, a close personal friend of President Bill
Clinton and his wife, Hilary, was one of the most important high-level
contacts Mossad had in the United States.
The revelations published here for the first time, could be a serious blow
for Hilary Clinton?s plans to run for the Presidency.
Today Rich, a Belgium-born Jew who has taken Spanish nationality, lives in
Switzerland under heavy armed guard protection. There is no extradition
treaty with the United States to enable him to be questioned by the FBI
about his until now secret connection to Mossad.
In January, 2000, his last day in office, President Clinton pardoned Rich,
a secretive commodities trader indicted in 1983 on charges of evading almost
$50 million tax and illegally buying oil from Iran during the Tehran hostage
crisis in 1979.
The question that will inevitably dog Hilary Clinton, if she runs for the
Presidency, will be how much did she and her husband even suspect about
Rich?s Israeli intelligence links.
An MI6 file covering the Clinton years in the White House reveals that Rich
is also suspected of knowing the real identity of a top Mossad informer in
the Clinton Administration.
The informer is still only known as ?Mega?. The name was first discovered
on February, 1997, by the National Security Agency, NSA. It provided the FBI
with an intercept of a late-night telephone conversation from the Israeli
Embassy in Washington.
It was between a Mossad intelligence officer, still identified only as
?Dov? and his superior in Tel Aviv. He was later named as Mossad
director-general, Danny Yatom.
?Dov? had asked for guidance as to whether he ?should go to Mega? for a
copy of a letter written by Warren Christopher, then Secretary of State, to
PLO chairman, Yasser Arafat.
Yatom instructed Dov, according to a transcript of the intercept, ?this is
not something we use Mega for?.
The MI6 file indicates that Mega had been in place towards the end of the
first Bush Administration.
It also describes how Rich had acted as a ?conduit? for the powerful Jewish
lobby in the United States to counter FBI demands that the hunt for Mega
should be pursued as vigorously as the FBI dealt with spies from other
countries.
The then MI6 head of station at the British Embassy sent a memo to London
stating that ?dinner guests at the White House dining table ? who include
Hollywood stars, attorneys, editors and senior members of the
Anti-Defamation League ? lose no opportunity to remind Clinton of the damage
he could face in this matter. They argue the hunt is not properly grounded
and that Israel has already explained to DOS (Department of State) the use
of Mega?.
Mossad sayanim ? the Hebrew name for ?helpers? ? in the US media had
already planted stories that Mega was an incorrect hearing of the Mossad
slang for the CIA, Elga.
?Further, Mega is supposedly a well known word in USIC (US intelligence
community). It is said to be a joint code for shared intelligence with
Mossad?, the MI6 memo stated.
President Clinton?s only comment on pardoning Marc Rich came after he left
office.
?It was terrible politics. It wasn?t worth the damage to my reputation?, he
told Newsweek magazine.
There has been widespread speculation among opponents of the Clintons that
Marc Rich ?bought? the pardon with political donations and gifts that his
former wife, Denise Rich, gave the president and other democrats.
But in a hint of Rich?s important connections to Mossad, Clinton has
admitted that he granted the pardon ?partly because the Justice Department
did not oppose a pardon and because I had received a request from the
government of Israel?.
"Marc Rich played a key part in supporting the apartheid regime in South
Africa, and the economic rape of post-Soviet Russia.
His former wife, the Manhattan socialite, pleaded his cause by throwing
money at the Clintons..."
That request came in a personal handwritten note from another old friend of
Bill Clinton, Israel?s former prime minister, Ehud Barak.
The MI6 file reveals that the pardon was stitched into the Camp David peace
agreement by another plea-bargainer, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Clinton was convinced there were ?strong mitigating circumstances for a
pardon?.
Rich and his first wife, Denise, fled to Switzerland in 1983 ? just before
US prosecutors brought charges against him of tax evasion and trading with
the outlawed regime in Iran.
The couple divorced a decade later and Denise, 59, now lives in a
magnificent Fifth Avenue duplex overlooking Central Park.
Rich, 69, has remarried and lives in similar splendour in the exclusive
town of Zug in Switzerland. He still deals in commodities. His company, Marc
Rich Co Investment, has recently been taken over by the Russian Alfa Group
for a reported $3 billion.
Rich?s secret work for Israel included organising Israeli passports for
members of the Russian Mafia. So far thirty known members of various Mafia
groups are currently travelling on Israeli passports.
The FBI were also investigating Rich?s connections to various
money-laundering operations involving mid-European banks and those in Canada
and the United States.
Rich?s prime use for Mossad was as someone who moved in the highest
financial circles in Europe, the Middle East and South America.
It is those links the FBI and other teams of US investigators were
examining to see if they link to the large sums of money Rich paid to the
Clintons and other Democrats before the pardon was granted.
At the time, US Federal prosecutor Mary Jo White launched a criminal
investigation into Rich?s financial links with Clinton and his wife.
White obtained copies of Clinton?s White House phone logs and those of Air
Force One, the Presidential aircraft. The logs covered all calls the
President and Mrs Clinton made to Rich. There was also a complete record of
all his calls to them.
All official calls are monitored by the US communications team that
accompany the President and his wife on all visits. The calls were described
at the time as ?a key element in our investigation? by one of White?s aides.
Clinton himself received from Rich, just before leaving office, a cheque
for $450,000 to help him set up his Presidential Library Fund. Rich also
sent $1.1 million last year to the Democratic Party to help Al Gore fight
for the Presidency.
Until now, all the financial links to Rich?s past have not been pursued.
But it is the Mossad connection which could prove to be a ?smoking gun? for
Hilary Clinton, should she enter the Presidential race ? either next year or
in 2008.
Shortly before he was kidnapped by Hezbollah in October, 2000, Mossad agent
Hanan Tannenbaum visited Rich in his Swiss home.
Tannenbaum had been sent by former Mossad director, Danny Yatom, to discuss
what Tel Aviv sources later admitted were ?intelligence matters of the
highest order?. At the time, Yatom was personal security adviser to prime
minister Ehud Barak.
Hezbollah somehow spirited Tannenbaum out of Europe to their base in the
Beka?a Valley. His fate remains unknown.
In January, 2000, shortly before the Rich pardon was granted, the Senate
Judiciary Committee received documents that showed Marc Rich played a
crucial role in helping the Bank of Credit and Commercial International
(BCCI) arrange for Abu Nidal to receive ?hundreds of millions of US dollars
for illegal arms transactions in an effort to persuade its wealthy Middle
East backers that the bank was staunchly pro-Arab?.
A sworn affidavit by Ghassan Quassem, for 17 years a senior officer with
BCCI, states: ?British weapons secretly destined for Abu Nidal were financed
through BCCI offices and shipped under export documents that Marc Rich knew
to be phoney. My role at the bank was to handle the Nidal account. I later
became a spy for the CIA and MI6?.
With the coming election years promising to be a knuckle-duster fight,
there is a real possibility that the closest Jewish friend the Clintons had
may once more step back into a spotlight he has never welcomed. Nor them.
Rich was one of 140 pardons Clinton granted for what was a rogues gallery.
The clutch of shady characters included a heroin dealer.
But it was the odious figure of Marc Rich who has left a permanent stain on
Clinton?s presidency ? and raised questions now.
Marc Rich played a key part in supporting the apartheid regime in South
Africa, and the economic rape of post-Soviet Russia.
His former wife, the Manhattan socialite, pleaded his cause by throwing
money at the Clintons ? even giving Bill a saxophone.
A hint of Clinton?s feelings for Rich is contained in a book proposal he
has entered into with Knoph, the New York publisher, for $10 million.
In an outline for a chapter headed ?How A Man Gets What He Really Wants?,
Clinton writes: ?Sometimes people who seem to have very little in common can
discover what they have in common?.
"The American capital is in fact seeded with those who can rightly be said
to be 'dually-loyal' American Jews - one group closely associated with Labor
another with the Likud wing of the Israeli-Zionist establishment - and at
the highest levels of government, media and finance."
Was he referring to Rich?
Certainly the billionaire is not quite as rich as he was two years ago. In
March, 2001, British Customs officers at Gatwick airport seized $1.9 million
of Rich?s money.
The money was seized under UK laws designed to ?prevent the movement of
money from suspected drug trafficking?.
Last week in Zug, Rich refused to answer questions about his intelligence
links ? or his connections to Saddam Hussein and the remaining members of
the ?axis of evil?, North Korea and Iran.
Having renounced his American citizenship, he now travels on Spanish and
Israeli passports. He has dual nationality with both countries. Until
recently, he also held a Bolivian passport.
The power for a President to grant a pardon stems from the Constitution.
This states that the President ?may grant reprieves and pardons for offences
against the United States.
A President can issue a pardon for ?any Federal crime for any reason and no
reason ? before or after conviction?.
The Clinton pardon stopped the prosecution in their tracks. Post-pardon
Rich is free to return to the United States without fear of prosecution ?
except possibly in the case of compromised national security.
There is no precedent for that ? and Rich is unlikely to provide one.
But his links to Mossad remain a ticking time bomb for Hilary Clinton.
