Bush Spiked Probe of Pakistan's Dr. Strangelove

On November 7, 2001, BBC TV and the Guardian of London reported that the Bush Administration thwarted investigations of Dr. A.Q. Kahn who this week confessed selling atomic secrets to Libya, North Korea, and Iran.

The Bush Administration has expressed shock at the disclosures that Pakistan, our ally in the war on terror, has been running a nuclear secrets bazaar. In fact, according to the British News Team sources', Bush did not know of these facts because, shortly after his inauguration, his National Security Agency defectively stymied the probe of Kahn Research Laboratories. CIA and other agents could not investigate the spread of Islamic Bombs through Pakistan because funding appeared to originate in Saudi Arabia.

Greg Palast and David Pallister received a California State University Project Censored Award for this expose based on the story broadcast by Palast on BBC Television Newsnight.

According to both sources and documents obtained by the BBC, the Bush Administration Spike of the investigation of Dr. Kahn's Lab followed from a wider policy of protecting key Saudi Arabians including the Bin Laden Family.

Noam Chomsky, who read the story on page one of the Times of India, has wondered, "Why wasn't this all over US papers?"

To learn why, read the following excerpt from the 2003 edition of Palast's book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy @ www.GregPalast.com

... A top-level CIA operative who spoke with us on condition of strictest anonymity said that, after Bush took office, "There was a major policy shift" at the National Security Agency. Investigators were ordered to "back off " from any inquiries into Saudi Arabian financing of terror networks, especially if they touched on Saudi royals and their retainers. That put the Bin Ladens, a family worth a reported $12 billion and a virtual arm of the Saudi royal household, off limits for investigation. Osama was the exception; he remained a wanted man, but agents could not look too closely at how he filled his piggy bank. The key rule of any investigation, "follow the money," was now violated, and investigations-at least before September 11-began to die.

And there was a lot to investigate-or in the case of the CIA and FBI under Bush-a lot to ignore. Through well-known international arms dealers (I'm sorry, but in this business, sinners are better sources than saints) our team was tipped off to a meeting of Saudi billionaires at the Hotel Royale Monceau in Paris in May 1996 with the financial representative of Osama bin Laden's network. The Saudis, including a key Saudi prince joined by Muslim and non-Muslim gun traffickers, met to determine who would pay how much to Osama. This was not so much an act of support but of protection-a pay off to keep the mad bomber away from Saudi Arabia.

TO READ FULL EXTRACT SEE…
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=312&row=0

© Scoop Media