Baker-Botts defends Saudis on 9-11

Who is this "scum Liberal Law firm" Baker-Botts, protecting alleged Al-Qaeda financers?
Why it's none other than President Bush's attorney, James A. Baker III, Bush family confidante for 4 decades.

Why is the President's attorney vigorously defending Al-Qaeda funders in the first place?
Why are they blocking discovery of records?  Afraid what might show up?
Reagan & CIA pushed the Saudis into funding Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

It sure appears like Baker is covering up for terrorism, potentially defending terrorists. and helping terrorism financiers. (But I'll repeat, I'm not taking the "Saudis are to blame" path.  Saudis owe their very existence to the US military and the CIA.  They are heavily invested in Wall Street banks and have done oil price-fixing for Henry Kissinger.)

This incredible story is scrupulously-documented, with memos, govt reports, etc.

CUBAN TERRORISTS and the Bush family, CIA
Clandestine CIA-run terrorists attacks on Cuba continued through 1975 at least, per CIA records.  Luis Posada, a close Bush ally, shot a Cuban passenger plane out of the sky in 1976, killing many students aboard.  These "evil commies" were a student Fencing Team flying to Venezuela for competition.

James A. Baker helped set up Zapata Petroleum for Bush, in conjunction with CIA's Operation Zapata in the Carribean.

Does it bother anyone that two of 'W's and Poppy's and Jeb's closest allies are admitted (nay, bragging) mass murderers.   That One was called an "unrepentant terrorist" by a former Atty Gen., and one of the most deadly terrorists working "within the hemisphere",  per the Bush-41 Defense Dept. --gg

Luis Posada Carriles: The Declassified Record   (at George Washington University)
The National Security Archive today posted additional documents that show that the CIA had concrete advance intelligence, as early as June 1976, on plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups to bomb a Cubana airliner. The Archive also posted another document that shows that the FBI's attache in Caracas had multiple contacts with one of the Venezuelans who placed the bomb on the plane, and provided him with a visa to the U.S. five days before the bombing, despite suspicions that he was engaged in terrorist activities at the direction of Luis Posada Carriles.
CIA, June 22, 1976, Report, "Possible Plans of Cuban Exile Extremists to Blow Up a Cubana Airliner"

FBI, October 9, 1976, "Unknown Subjects; Suspected Bombing of Cubana Airlines DC-8 Near Barbados, West Indies, October 6, 1976"

State Department, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, October 18, 1976, Memorandum, "Castro's Allegations"

The documents include a November 1976 FBI report on the bombing cited in New York Times article "Case of Cuban Exile Could Test the U.S. Definition of Terrorist," CIA trace reports covering the Agency's recruitment of Posada in the 1960s, as well as the FBI intelligence reporting on the downing of the plane.

Posada Boasted of Plans to "Hit" Cuban Plane.  The 1976 terrorist bombing of Cubana Airlines flight 455 killed 73 passengers.  "A bus with 73 dogs went off a cliff and all got killed."

Posada's cohort Orlando Bosch (long history) took part in the Cuban plane hit, and fired a missile at a Polish ship in a Florida harbor, because that ship had dared to visit Cuba before travelling to the US.  The gang also orchestrated the assassination of Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier.  Letelier was killed by a car bomb explosion on September 21, 1976, in Washington DC, in Sheridan Circle in an area known as area known as Embassy Row, along with his American assistant, Ronni Karpen Moffitt; her husband Michael Moffitt was injured but survived.  According to Jean-Guy Allard, after consultations with the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU) leadership, including Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, those elected to carry out the murder were Cuban-Americans José Dionisio "Bloodbath" Suárez, Virgilio Paz Romero, Alvin Ross Díaz and brothers Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampoll.
Conspiracy THEORY???????
Attorney General Dick Thornburgh called Bosch an "unrepentant terrorist."
In 1968 Bosch was arrested in Florida for an attack on a Polish freighter with a 57 mm recoilless rifle.

Bosch was pardoned of all American charges by President George H.W. Bush on July 18, 1990 at the request of his son Jeb Bush, who later became Governor of Florida; this pardon was despite objections by the then President's own defense department, that Bosch was one of the most deadly terrorists working "within the hemisphere."
"Although many countries seek Bosch's extradition he remains free in the United States. The political pressure to grant Bosch a pardon was begun during the congressional campaign run by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, herself a Cuban American, and overseen by her campaign manager Jeb Bush. The resultant pardon reputedly saw huge celebrations in Miami, in what was then called 'Free Orlando Day.'

Bush Junior refused to extradite Posada to Venezuela for legal prosecution for mass murder. 

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In 1985, Posada escaped from prison in Venezuela where he had been incarcerated after the plane bombing and remains a fugitive from justice.
When Posada was captured by Venezuela, CIA helped him escape. --gg

He went directly to El Salvador, where he worked, using the alias "Ramon Medina," on the illegal contra resupply program being run by Lt. Col. Oliver North in the Reagan National Security Council. 

Another anti-Castro Cuban exile cohort of Posada, Felix Rodriguez (Bush ally, a former CIA intelligence operative), was famous for his involvement in the  Bay of Pigs Invasion, his involvement in the interrogation and execution of Che Guevara.  His uncle was minister of Public Works during the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship.  He was in charge of a small airlift of arms and supplies to the contras in Southern Nicaragua.

Felix Rodriguez: Coca Contra Airport Manager
LOCAL COPY

Latchinian, was arrested for smuggling $10.3 million in cocaine. Latchinian maintained that this was a CIA fund-raising operation. According to authors Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall, he was a "former business partner of Felix Rodriguez".

Eugene Hasenfus (sole survivor of a crash in Nicaragua, which exposed Iran-Contra) told reporters that he worked for "Max Gomez" (an alias for Felix Rodriguez) and "Ramon Medina" (an alias for Luis Posada Carriles) of the CIA. On 10 October 1986, Clair George, head of CIA clandestine operations, testified before Congress that he did not know of any direct connection between Hasenfus and Administration officials. In Fall of 1992, George was convicted on two charges of false statements and perjury before Congress; he was pardoned Christmas Eve that year by then-President Bush.

In 1998 Posada was interviewed by Ann Louise Bardach for the New York Times at a secret location in Aruba, and claimed responsibility for a string of hotel bombings in Havana during which eleven people were injured and one Italian businessman was killed. Most recently he was imprisoned in Panama for trying to assassinate Fidel Castro in December 2000 with 33 pounds of C-4 explosives. In September 2004, he and three co-conspirators were suddenly pardoned, and Posada went to Honduras (where the US/CIA has military allies and bases). Venezuela is now preparing to submit an official extradition request to the United States for his return.

THE CIA CONNECTION

Luis Posada Carriles had a long relationship with the CIA. In February 1961, he joined the CIA's Brigade 2506 to invade Cuba, although the ship to which he was assigned never landed at the Bay of Pigs. While in the U.S. military between 1963 and 1965 the CIA recruited him and trained him in demolitions; he subsequently became a trainer of other paramilitary exile forces in the mid 1960s. CIA documents posted below reveal that he was terminated as an asset in July 1967, but then reinstated four months later and apparently remained an asset until 1974. The documents also show that he remained in contact with the Agency until June 1976, only three months before the plane bombing. 

During the time that Posada was on the CIA payroll in the mid-1960s, he participated in a number of plots that involved sabotage and explosives.  The FBI transmits information in 1965 obtained from the CIA's Mexico station titled "Intention of Cuban Representation in Exile (RECE) to Blow up a Cuban or Soviet Vessel in Veracruz, Mexico."  FBI links Posada to a major plot to overthrow the government of Guatemala. U.S. Customs agents force Posada and other co-conspirators to turn over a cache of weapons that are listed in this document. The weapons include napalm, 80 pounds of C-4 explosives, and 28 pounds of C-3 explosives.

FBI reporting recorded some of Posada's earliest activities, including his financial ties to Jorge Mas Canosa, who would later become head of the powerful anti-Castro lobby, the Cuban American National Foundation.

The CIA was beginning to have some "concerns" about him in 1972, based on reports that he had taken CIA explosives equipment to Venezuela, and that he had ties to a Miami mafia figure named Lefty Rosenthal.
War against Terrorism, anyone?