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NB: This stream con­tains both FTRs 431 and 432 in sequence. Each is a 30 minute broad­cast.

This pro­gram is a fol­low-up to FTR#392, which deals with some of the Mid­dle East­ern busi­ness con­nec­tions of Mar­vin Bush—the Pres­i­den­t’s younger broth­er. Intro­duc­ing the major focal point of the pro­gram, the broad­cast high­lights Mar­vin Bush’s posi­tion on the boards of Stratesec and HCC. The for­mer held elec­tron­ic secu­ri­ty con­tracts for the World Trade Cen­ter, Dulles Inter­na­tion­al Air­port and Unit­ed Air­lines. The lat­ter was a major insur­ance under­writer for the World Trade Cen­ter. (Dulles Inter­na­tion­al Air­port was the depar­ture point for the plane that attacked the Pen­ta­gon and one of the air­craft that crashed into the World Trade Cen­ter was a Unit­ed Air­lines flight.) The par­ent cor­po­ra­tion of Stratesec was the Kuwaiti-Amer­i­can Cor­po­ra­tion, a firm that linked the Bush fam­i­ly with mem­bers of the Kuwaiti fam­i­ly. One of the cen­tral ques­tions aris­ing in con­nec­tion with the Bush fam­i­ly rela­tion­ship with this nexus con­cerns the pos­si­ble use of these con­nec­tions for intel­li­gence gath­er­ing or oper­a­tional manip­u­la­tion in con­nec­tion with the attacks. Could this rela­tion­ship have had any bear­ing on the hir­ing of for­mer FBI agent John O’Neill—who was killed at Ground Zero on his first day as direc­tor of the WTC? O’Neil­l’s inves­ti­ga­tion had been active­ly frus­trat­ed by cor­po­rate inter­ests linked to Sau­di Ara­bia; his team barred from con­tin­u­ing their work in Yemen by Bush’s State Depart­ment. He (O’Neill) alleged­ly had a brief­case stolen from his pos­ses­sion in the sum­mer of 2001 con­tain­ing fund­ing and per­son­nel assign­ments for all coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence and counter-ter­ror oper­a­tions in the New York area. As will be seen below, Wirt D. Walk­er III was the man­ag­ing direc­tor of the Kuwaiti-Amer­i­can Cor­po­ra­tion and deeply involved with Stratesec. Walk­er is also a mem­ber of the Bush fam­i­ly. Inter­est­ing­ly (and per­haps sig­nif­i­cant­ly), Walk­er is also chair­man and CEO of Avi­a­tion Gen­er­al, a Tul­sa, Okla­homa, avi­a­tion firm. Among Avi­a­tion Gen­er­al’s links are busi­ness con­nec­tions in the Mid­dle East (Egypt in par­tic­u­lar) and flight schools in Flori­da. Again, the ques­tion aris­es as to pos­si­ble con­nec­tions with the events of 9/11.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Mar­vin Bush’s fail­ure to prop­er­ly list his direc­tor­ships of HCC and Stratesec on SEC proxy fil­ings; pres­i­den­tial uncle Jonathan Bush’s links to Sau­di bank accounts tan­gen­tial to the milieu of 9/11; Jonathan Bush crony William Don­ald­son’s acces­sion to being head of the SEC.

1. Intro­duc­ing the major focal point of the pro­gram, the broad­cast high­lights Mar­vin Bush’s posi­tion on the boards of Stratesec and HCC. The for­mer held elec­tron­ic secu­ri­ty con­tracts for the World Trade Cen­ter, Dulles Inter­na­tion­al Air­port and Unit­ed Air­lines. The lat­ter was a major insur­ance under­writer for the World Trade Cen­ter. (Dulles Inter­na­tion­al Air­port was the depar­ture point for the plane that attacked the Pen­ta­gon and one of the air­craft that crashed into the World Trade Cen­ter was a Unit­ed Air­lines flight.) The par­ent cor­po­ra­tion of Stratesec was the Kuwaiti-Amer­i­can Cor­po­ra­tion, a firm that linked the Bush fam­i­ly with mem­bers of the Kuwaiti fam­i­ly. One of the cen­tral ques­tions aris­ng in con­nec­tion with the Bush fam­i­ly rela­tion­ship with this nexus con­cerns the pos­si­ble use of these con­nec­tions for intel­li­gence gath­er­ing or oper­a­tional manip­u­la­tion in con­nec­tion with the attacks. Could this rela­tion­ship have had any bear­ing on the hir­ing of for­mer FBI agent John O’Neill—who was killed at Ground Zero on his first day as direc­tor of the WTC? O’Neil­l’s inves­ti­ga­tion had been active­ly frus­trat­ed by cor­po­rate inter­ests linked to Sau­di Ara­bia; his team barred from con­tin­u­ing their work in Yemen by Bush’s State Depart­ment. He (O’Neill) alleged­ly had a brief­case stolen from his pos­ses­sion in the sum­mer of 2001 con­tain­ing fund­ing and per­son­nel assign­ments for all coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence and counter-ter­ror oper­a­tions in the New York area.

Might the Mar­vin Bush con­nec­tion to Stratesec and HCC have had any bear­ing on the appar­ent short-sell­ing of air­line and insur­ance stocks in the run-up to the inves­ti­ga­tion? Obvi­ous­ly, this is what Mr. Emory calls “Food For Thought and Grounds for Fur­ther Research”—it is inde­ter­mi­nate, at this point in time. In light of the fact that both Jeb Bush and his broth­er Neil helped their father’s efforts in con­nec­tion with covert sup­port for the Con­tras this would not are alto­geth­er sur­pris­ing.

“George W. Bush’s broth­er was on the board of direc­tors of a com­pa­ny pro­vid­ing elec­tron­ic secu­ri­ty for the World Trade Cen­ter, Dulles Inter­na­tion­al Air­port and Unit­ed Air­lines, accord­ing to pub­lic records. The com­pa­ny was backed by an invest­ment firm, the Kuwait-Amer­i­can Corp., also linked for years to the Bush fam­i­ly. The secu­ri­ty firm, for­mer­ly named Secu­ra­com and now named Stratesec, is in Ster­ling, VA. Its CEO, Bar­ry McDaniel, said the com­pa­ny had a ‘com­ple­tion con­tract’ to han­dle some of the secu­ri­ty at the World Trade Cen­ter ‘up to the day the build­ings fell down.’ It also had a three-year con­tract to main­tain elec­tron­ic secu­ri­ty sys­tems at Dulles Air­port, accord­ing to a Dulles con­tract­ing offi­cial. Securacom/Stratesec also han­dled some secu­ri­ty for Unit­ed Air­lines in the 1990’s, accord­ing to McDaniel, but it had been com­plet­ed before his arriv­ing on the board in 1998.”

(“Bush-linked Com­pa­ny Han­dled Secu­ri­ty for the WTC, Dulles and Unit­ed” by Margie Burns; Prince George’s Jour­nal [Mary­land]; 2/4/2003; p. 1.)

2. Not­ing Stratesec’s con­tracts for secu­ri­ty at the Los Alam­os lab­o­ra­to­ry, it is also inter­est­ing to spec­u­late on the Wen Ho Lee case and a major secu­ri­ty scan­dal at the lab that helped to desta­bi­lize the Clin­ton admin­is­tra­tion and dis­cred­it the Ener­gy Depart­ment under Bill Richard­son. (For more about this sub­ject, see FTR#236.)

“McDaniel con­firmed that the com­pa­ny has secu­ri­ty con­tracts with the Depart­ment of Defense, includ­ing the U.S. Army, but did not detail the nature of the work, cit­ing secu­ri­ty con­cerns. It has an ongo­ing line with the Gen­er­al Ser­vices Administration—meaning that its bids for con­tracts are noncompetitive—and also did secu­ri­ty work for the Los Alam­os lab­o­ra­to­ry before 1998.”

(Idem.)

3.

“Mar­vin P. Bush, the pres­i­den­t’s youngest broth­er, was a direc­tor at Stratesec from 1993 to fis­cal year 2000. But the White House has not pub­licly dis­closed Bush con­nec­tions in any of its respons­es to 9/11, nor has it men­tioned that anoth­er Bush-linked busi­ness had done secu­ri­ty work for the facil­i­ties attacked. Mar­vin Bush has not respond­ed to tele­phone calls and e‑mails for com­ment. KuwAm has been linked to the Bush fam­i­ly finan­cial­ly since the Gulf War. One of its prin­ci­pals and a mem­ber of the Kuwaiti roy­al fam­i­ly, Mishal Yousef Saud al Sabah, served on the board of Stratesec.”

(Idem.)

4. As will be seen below, Wirt D. Walk­er III was the man­ag­ing direc­tor of the Kuwaiti-Amer­i­can Cor­po­ra­tion and deeply involved with Stratesec. Walk­er is also a mem­ber of the Bush fam­i­ly.

“The man­ag­ing direc­tor at KuwAm, Wirt D. Walk­er III, was also a prin­ci­pal at Stratesec and Walk­er, Mar­vin Bush and al Sabah are list­ed in SEC fil­ings as sig­nif­i­cant share­hold­ers in both com­pa­nies dur­ing that peri­od. Mar­vin Bush’s last year on the board at Stratesec coin­cid­ed with his first year on the board of HCC Insur­ance, for­mer­ly Hous­ton Casu­al­ty Co., one of the insur­ance car­ri­ers for the WTC. He left the HCC board in Novem­ber 2002.”

(Ibid.; pp. 1–2.)

5. Inter­est­ing­ly (and per­haps sig­nif­i­cant­ly), Walk­er is also chair­man and CEO of Avi­a­tion Gen­er­al, a Tul­sa (Okla­homa) avi­a­tion firm. Among Avi­a­tion Gen­er­al’s links are busi­ness con­nec­tions in the Mid­dle East (Egypt in par­tic­u­lar) and flight schools in Flori­da. Again, the ques­tion aris­es as to pos­si­ble con­nec­tions with the events of 9/11.

“But none of these con­nec­tions has been looked at dur­ing the exten­sive inves­ti­ga­tions since 9/11. McDaniel says prin­ci­pals and oth­er per­son­nel at Stratesec have not been ques­tioned or debriefed by the FBI or oth­er inves­ti­ga­tors. Walk­er declined to answer the same ques­tion regard­ing KuwAm, refer­ring to the pub­lic record. Walk­er [a Bush fam­i­ly rel­a­tive] is also chair­man and CEO of Avi­a­tion Gen­er­al, a Tul­sa, Okla.-based avi­a­tion com­pa­ny with two sub­sidiaries. SEC fil­ings also show al Sabah as a prin­ci­pal and share­hold­er in Avi­a­tion Gen­er­al, which was recent­ly delist­ed by the Nas­daq. Stratesec was delist­ed by the Amer­i­can Stock Exchange in Octo­ber 2002.”

(Ibid.; p. 2.)

6. Oth­er inter­est­ing evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries con­nect­ing the Bush fam­i­ly to the HCC, KuwAm milieu involve the leas­ing of the suite used for board elec­tions to the Sau­di Gov­ern­ment and the Rig­gs Bank. The lat­ter has the Pres­i­den­t’s Uncle Jonathan Bush as an exec­u­tive. Rig­gs han­dles the vast bulk of accounts for D.C. Embassies and was the repos­i­to­ry for Sau­di Princess al-Faisal’s account used on behalf of some of the hijack­ers.

“The suite in which Mar­vin Bush was annu­al­ly re-elect­ed, accord­ing to pub­lic records, is locat­ed in the Water­gate in space leased to the Sau­di Gov­ern­ment. [Ital­ics are Mr. Emory’s.] The com­pa­ny now holds share­hold­er meet­ings in space leased by the Kuwaiti gov­ern­ment there. The White House has not respond­ed to var­i­ous requests for com­ment. Speak­ing of the Water­gate, Rig­gs Nation­al Bank, where Sau­di Princess al-Faisal had her ‘Sau­di mon­ey trail’ bank account, has as one of its exec­u­tives Jonathan Bush, an uncle of the pres­i­dent. The pub­lic has not learned whether Riggs—which, ser­vices 95 per­cent of Wash­ing­ton’s for­eign embassies—will be turn­ing over records relat­ing to Sau­di finance.”

(Idem.)

7. One of Jonathan Bush’s Yale classmates—William Donaldson—was appoint­ed head of the SEC. Don’t expect any inquiries into the secu­ri­ties manip­u­la­tions pri­or to and after 9/11.

“Mean­while, Bush has nom­i­nat­ed William H. Don­ald­son to head the Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion. Don­ald­son, a long­time Bush fam­i­ly friend, was a Yale class­mate of Jonathan Bush. On the very day of the trag­ic space shut­tle crash, the gov­ern­ment appoint­ed an inde­pen­dent inves­tiga­tive pan­el, and right­ly so. Why did­n’t it do the same on Sept. 12, 2001?”

(Idem.)

8. Bush, how­ev­er, did not list his direc­tor­ship at Stratesec on the proxy state­ment for HCC, and did not list his con­nec­tions with HCC on the proxy state­ment for Stratesec. Why not? It is ille­gal to fail to report such rela­tion­ships under the cir­cum­stances.

“In the spring of 1999, Mar­vin Pierce Bush, youngest broth­er of George W. Bush, was a nom­i­nee for the boards of direc­tors of two com­pa­nies, both with a sig­nif­i­cant inter­est in secu­ri­ty at the World Trade Cen­ter. One was HCC Insur­ance, for­mer­ly Hous­ton Casu­al­ty Com­pa­ny, a giant hold­ing com­pa­ny and major insur­ance car­ri­er for the cen­ter. The oth­er was a secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny named Stratesec, one of the cen­ter’s numer­ous secu­ri­ty con­trac­tors. Bush, how­ev­er, did not list his direc­tor­ship at Stratesec on the proxy state­ment for HCC, and did not list his con­nec­tions with HCC on the proxy state­ment for Stratesec. [Ital­ics are Mr. Emory’s]. Accord­ing to offi­cials at the Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion and oth­er experts, list­ing oth­er direc­tor­ships is required, in proxy state­ments, for direc­tors and offi­cers of pub­lic com­pa­nies.”

(“The Best Unreg­u­lat­ed Fam­i­lies” by Margie Burns; Online Jour­nal 3/24/2003.)

9.

“Stratesec was even­tu­al­ly excused from the World Trade Cen­ter project. HCC sus­tained sig­nif­i­cant loss­es when with­draw­ing from work­ers com­pen­sa­tion as a result. Stratesec, for­mer­ly called Secu­ra­com but forced to change its name after some bad-blood lit­i­ga­tion with anoth­er secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny, filed its SEC proxy state­ment on April 23, 1999. The share­hold­ers met on May 25, 1999, in a Water­gate office suite, leased by the Sau­di Ara­bi­an gov­ern­ment, to elect sev­en mem­bers includ­ing Bush, who had been on the board since 1993. Bush was also on the com­pa­ny’s audit and com­pen­sa­tion com­mit­tees. A prin­ci­pal in the com­pa­ny, Wirt D. Walk­er III, is also a Bush rel­a­tive.”

(Ibid.; pp. 1–2.)

10.

“HCC Insur­ance filed its proxy state­ment on April 28, 1999, for the share­hold­ers meet­ing in Hous­ton on May 20, 1999. It was Bush’s entrance on HCC’s 13-mem­ber board. He had been on the board of direc­tors at Fresh Del Monte Pro­duce Inc. since 1998, appoint­ed by HCC’s CEO and chair­man of the board, Stephen Way, a long­time friend. The Stratesec proxy also omit­ted the Fresh Del Monte Pro­duce (FDP) con­nec­tions. By law, proxy state­ments filed with the SEC for pub­licly trad­ed com­pa­nies list, along with oth­er required infor­ma­tion, the age, cre­den­tials and busi­ness con­nec­tions of direc­tors and nom­i­nees.”

(Ibid.; p. 2.)

11.

“Bush’s infor­ma­tion dis­closed to Stratesec’s share­hold­ers list­ed his ongo­ing direc­tor­ship at Stratesec, his pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence at invest­ment firms, his part­ner­ship at his own company—Winston Part­ners, a pri­vate invest­ment firm in North­ern Virginia—and his direc­tor­ship at Ker­rco, an oil and gas com­pa­ny. Only his direc­tor­ships at HCC and Fresh Del Monte, where he was also on the Audit and Com­pen­sa­tion com­mit­tees, were omit­ted. (See http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1037453/0000928385–99-001383.txt .)

(Idem.)

12.

“The infor­ma­tion dis­closed to HCC’s share­hold­ers list­ed Bush’s posi­tions at Win­ston Part­ners and Fresh Del Monte, his mem­ber­ship on the Board of Trustees of the George Bush Pres­i­den­tial Library and on the Board of Man­agers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia. Only Stratesec and Ker­rco were omit­ted. (http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/888919/0001047469–99-016818.txt.) Bush left Stratesec’s board with­in the year. He was reelect­ed to the HCC board for the next two years, again omit­ting the Stratesec con­nec­tion.”

(Idem.)

13.

“Accord­ing to expert opin­ion, these omis­sions vio­late SEC reg­u­la­tions. Attor­ney Robert Plesnars­ki, spe­cial coun­sel in the Office of Chief Coun­sel at the Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion, said by tele­phone that a per­son run­ning for the board of direc­tors of a pub­lic com­pa­ny is required to list all oth­er direc­tor­ships. When asked about the proxy state­ments involv­ing Mar­vin Bush, Plesnars­ki answers that [if] the com­pa­nies [had] been pri­vate, prob­a­bly the infor­ma­tion would not have been includ­ed. How­ev­er, cit­ing ‘Item 401 of Reg­u­la­tion SK,’ Plesnars­ki states that since Stratesec and HCC were pub­lic trad­ed, ‘the infor­ma­tion would have been required.’ This con­clu­sion is also sup­port­ed by the SEC’s pub­lic ref­er­ence branch. . . .”

(Idem.)

14. Con­clud­ing with more thought-pro­vok­ing infor­ma­tion about KuwAm sub­sidiary Avi­a­tion Gen­er­al, head­ed by Bush rel­a­tive Wirt D. Walk­er III. In addi­tion to inter­fac­ing with the Egypt­ian orga­ni­za­tion that trains civil­ian pilots (NATCO) which, in turn, has a work­ing rela­tion­ship with flight schools at Embry-Rid­dle Uni­ver­si­ty in Flori­da. (Recall that Mohammed Atta was Egypt­ian, that most of the hijack­ers were based in Florida—Jeb Bush’s state. It is also interesting—and pos­si­bly significant—that an Egypt­ian Air­lin­er went down sev­er­al years ago, with the pilot heard invok­ing the Prophet Mohammed. There has been spec­u­la­tion in the media about whether it was an act of ter­ror­ism or sui­cide.)

” . . . An even big­ger ques­tion than finance is pub­lic safe­ty. Avi­a­tion Gen­er­al, for­mer­ly Com­man­der Air­craft, has an inter­na­tion­al clien­tele. A 1996 press release announced its sale of air­planes to the Nation­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Train­ing Orga­ni­za­tion (NCATO) of Giza, Egypt, ‘the sole civil­ian pilot train­ing orga­ni­za­tion in Egypt.’ ‘This deliv­ery was announced by Sheik Mishal Youssef Saud Al Sabah, Chair­man of KuwAm Cor­po­ra­tion and board mem­ber of Com­man­der Air­craft Com­pa­ny.’ NCA­TO’s con­trac­tu­al part­ner­ships with flight schools includ­ed Embry-Rid­dle Uni­ver­si­ty, in Flori­da. Embry-Rid­dle has not respond­ed to ques­tions about the part­ner­ship. There is no indi­ca­tion that inves­ti­ga­tors have looked into any of these con­nec­tions. . . .”

(Ibid.; p. 5.)