EXCERPT:
Viktor Bout – Coming to America
August 20, 2010 — ForsetiI see the Viktor Bout aka “Merchant of Death” and the alleged owner of the charter airline(s) used to transport KBR personnel and cargo in and out of Baghdad is finally being extradited to the US. Doing business with Viktor Bout or any of his airlines has been illegal by way of Executive Order 13348 of President Bush and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1532 and has been since March 2004 if not earlier. But that didn’t seemed to bother KBR and they contracted either directly or indirectly with Viktor Bout to transport personnel and cargo in and out of Iraq.
I hope Bout gets the chance to experience the same luxury accommodations aboard the ‘Elvis’ plane, that so many of us enjoyed. For more information on Viktor Bout and his business in Iraq click HERE ~Forseti
By John Pomfret – Washington Post – August 20, 2010
A reputed Russian arms dealer will be extradited to the United States, an appeals court in Thailand decided Friday, overturning a lower court’s rejection of a U.S. extradition request and ending concern that the man dubbed the “merchant of death” would be set free.
The court set a three-month deadline to extradite Viktor Bout, who appeared in court shackled in leg irons, the Associated Press reported. He cried upon hearing the verdict and hugged his wife and daughter.
“This is the most unfair decision possible,” his wife told reporters, speaking in Russian through a translator. “It is known the world over that this is a political case.”
The decision followed stepped-up pressure on Thailand by the Obama administration and members of Congress amid worries that the Bangkok government might free Bout.
The State Department called in Thailand’s ambassador this week to tell him of U.S. concerns about the potential release. And six senior members of Congress, three Democrats and three Republicans, issued a letter to the Thai government Wednesday contending that if Bout is freed, he would sell arms to groups that seek to kill Americans.
“We find the potential release of a man responsible for countless deaths of innocents in Africa and elsewhere simply astounding,” wrote the lawmakers, who included Reps. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the chairman and ranking Republican, respectively, on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Bout, 43, was indicted in federal court in 2008 for allegedly conspiring to provide weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC — which Washington has designated a foreign terrorist organization. The weapons were to be used, the indictment alleged, to kill Americans. Bout was subsequently indicted in January on separate charges of money laundering and sanctions busting in connection with gun-running activities to Afghanistan, Angola, Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Sudan.
But Bout, through numerous transport companies he controlled, also worked for the United Nations in Sudan and at one point moved cargo for the United States into Iraq following the U.S. invasion of that country in 2003.
I hope Bout gets the chance to experience the same luxury accommodations aboard the ‘Elvis’ plane, that so many of us enjoyed. For more information on Viktor Bout and his business in Iraq click HERE ~Forseti
Thailand decides to extradite accused Russian arms dealer to U.S.
By John Pomfret – Washington Post – August 20, 2010
A reputed Russian arms dealer will be extradited to the United States, an appeals court in Thailand decided Friday, overturning a lower court’s rejection of a U.S. extradition request and ending concern that the man dubbed the “merchant of death” would be set free.
The court set a three-month deadline to extradite Viktor Bout, who appeared in court shackled in leg irons, the Associated Press reported. He cried upon hearing the verdict and hugged his wife and daughter.
“This is the most unfair decision possible,” his wife told reporters, speaking in Russian through a translator. “It is known the world over that this is a political case.”
The decision followed stepped-up pressure on Thailand by the Obama administration and members of Congress amid worries that the Bangkok government might free Bout.
The State Department called in Thailand’s ambassador this week to tell him of U.S. concerns about the potential release. And six senior members of Congress, three Democrats and three Republicans, issued a letter to the Thai government Wednesday contending that if Bout is freed, he would sell arms to groups that seek to kill Americans.
“We find the potential release of a man responsible for countless deaths of innocents in Africa and elsewhere simply astounding,” wrote the lawmakers, who included Reps. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the chairman and ranking Republican, respectively, on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Bout, 43, was indicted in federal court in 2008 for allegedly conspiring to provide weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC — which Washington has designated a foreign terrorist organization. The weapons were to be used, the indictment alleged, to kill Americans. Bout was subsequently indicted in January on separate charges of money laundering and sanctions busting in connection with gun-running activities to Afghanistan, Angola, Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Sudan.
But Bout, through numerous transport companies he controlled, also worked for the United Nations in Sudan and at one point moved cargo for the United States into Iraq following the U.S. invasion of that country in 2003.
http://instapaperstories.tumblr.com/post/1269718467/viktorbout
EXCERPT:
Part 4: Hired to Supply US Forces in Iraq
Priorities changed after the horrific terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. Wolosky, a Democrat, was at odds with Republican President George W. Bush’s new administration, and his special unit was dissolved. In a July 2002 opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, Wolosky sharply criticized Washington’s failure to act in the Bout case. He was also critical of Moscow, which had apparently given him “official protection.” Wolosky decided to return to the more lucrative — and less frustrating — pursuit of practicing law.
But then something happened that Wolosky couldn’t have imagined in his worst nightmares: The US government began collaborating with the merchant of death and hired him to supply its war in Iraq.
To this day, it remains unclear whether the collaboration was the result of sloppy work on the part of US officials or whether Washington knew who was the owner of Irbis Air, a company registered in Kazakhstan. It is clear, however, that Bout’s aircraft were subcontracted to the US Air Mobility Command, as well as to defense contractor KBR, a company owned by the Halliburton conglomerate. Then-US Vice President Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton until 2000. It is also clear that the subcontracted Irbis Air flights were landing in Baghdad and at Balad Airbase, for which all pilots required a special US military clearance.
Multi-Million Donation
Reporters Farah and Braun later discovered that Irbis completed at least 1,000 flights to Iraq in 2003 and 2004. They write: “U.S. taxpayers donated as much as $60 million to the Viktor Bout organization.” At a time when President Bush was demanding that the US’s allies be “either with us or against us” in the war on terror, the Russian arms dealer was accomplishing a balancing act. He was both a hunted man and a subcontractor to a US defense contractor.
The US State Department blacklisted Bout in 2005. From then on, he was only seen in Moscow’s expensive sushi restaurants or in the bars of five-star hotels. He also paid regular visits to the partially government-owned foreign trade company Isotrex, which dealt with Russian weapons factories. The party of ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky offered Bout a slot on its election list that would have guaranteed him a seat in the Russian parliament. “What would I do there? I can solve all my problems on my own,” Bout responded.
By 2008, things had grown quiet around Bout, who was living in a luxury apartment with his wife and daughter. Newsweek claimed that Bout was involved in arms shipments to Hezbollah in Lebanon, but if that was true, he must have been pulling the strings from a distance. He had grown cautious and no longer left Russia, with the exception of two mysterious trips to China.
That was also about the time that the individuals interviewed by SPIEGEL abandoned the idea that Bout could be brought to justice. Belgian journalist Draulans was still reporting from Africa, but now he was avoiding civil wars and arms dealers, trying to forget about Bout. Investigator Peleman still felt committed to his sense of idealism and was coordinating UN peacekeeping troops in Congo. Former National Security Council expert Wolosky had been made a partner at the New York law firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, where one of his clients was the insurance company AIG, whose brokers — warlords of a different sort — almost brought down the global economy.
Now there was only one person left who could ruin Viktor Bout and bring him to justice: Bout himself. That could happen through his delusions of grandeur or his recklessness — or both.
Trapping the Lord of War: The Rise and Fall of Viktor Bout [Der Spiegel]
10/6/2010
Viktor Bout, who has been dubbed the “lord of war” and the “merchant of death,” has had his fingers in many bloody conflicts over the years. The Russian arms dealer, who has been in a Thai prison since 2008, is now likely to be extradited to the United States. Will he reveal the names of his backers? By SPIEGEL Staff
Anyone who meets with an arms dealer in Moscow can expect the rendezvous to take place in a dark bar in the suburbs, while walking in a densely wooded park or perhaps in an underground parking garage. The Starlite Diner on Mayakovsky Square, on the other hand, is an unlikely meeting point. The fast food restaurant is popular with local youth and foreign tourists and is brightly lit, saturated with the smell of hamburgers and covered with Elvis posters.
EXCERPT:
UK aid flights linked to arms dealer
Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1415628_1,00.htmlBy: Gareth Walsh
(The article has only been reproduced in part, one or two alineas have been omitted)
Date: December 26th, 2004
The (UK) government has been flying supplies to Iraq using an airline linked to a Russian trafficker wanted for running arms to Al-Qaeda.
Jet Line International, which is used by the Department for International Development (DfID) for work in Iraq, has been named by the American government as being associated with Victor Bout, 37.
Bout has made millions of pounds from breaking United Nations sanctions and has been condemned by a British minister as a "merchant of death".
http://www.ruudleeuw.com/vbout22.htm
EXCERPT:
Connected: Aerocom, Jet Line and Air Mero
During Jan.2005 I received the following information:
QUOTE:
A company called Chapman Freebourne has a subcontract with KBR (Kellogg Brown & Root, Inc. ) to fly passengers for KBR and other Western Contracting entities into and around Iraq.
Chapman Freeborn is merely a broker and they subcontracted the work to Aerocom. Aerocom is a suspected Victor Bout Company as you are aware. Aerocom was flying un-registered aircraft between August and November 2004, when the planes were switched to a company called Jetline International - you also know the apparent connection between Jetline International and Victor Bout. Check out the link between Aerocom and Jet line - their contact details are exactly the same address/telephone & fax numbers etc.
[Check comment at bottom of page regarding Chapman Freeborn - webmaster]
Aerocom (and I believe Jet Line) also fly/are flying planes for KBR under the name Air Mero. See attached photo of current Air Mero Antonov An-24 aircraft (registered ER-AFB) being used for passenger services for KBR.
Prefix ER- refers to Moldova. Company titles seem conspicuously absent, though this is in itself not rare or proof of wrongdoing.
It seems that this An-24 ER-AFB (c/n 87310810.2) has been destroyed at Fujairah,U.A.E. in July 2003 but apparently it has also been reported repaired by Oct.2003. (Source: http://www.aerotransport.org/).
RAMCC - Regional Air Movement Control Center coordinates movements of fixed-wing airlift in support of coalition military, humanitarian and commercial air operations throughout the Kabul and Baghdad FIRs; by assigning arrival and departure times at selected Iraqi, Afghan and Pakistani airfields; and coordinating overflights of Iraq.
Air Mero is a KBR name for the services provided by Chapman Freeborn and they use the name "Echolines" when they submit flightplan documents to RAMCC in Qatar. But why would they use yet another name, one could think the various names function as a smokescreen.
END QUOTE
http://www.rense.com/general69/roads.htm
EXCERPT:
All Roads Lead
Back To Cheney
By Wayne Madsen
12-14-5
Spy: Stolen U.S. dollars exit Afghan airport controlled by Karzai brotherBy Jeff Stein Afghan intelligence service reports in the hands of NATO-led forces say that the major exit point for stolen American dollars is through the airport in Kandahar, controlled by President Hamid Karzai’s brother. According to a Washington Post report on Friday, U.S. and Afghan authorities, “alarmed by an exodus of money from Afghanistan … are trying to constrict a flow of cash through the country's main airport," in Kabul. The airport, according to the report, is "believed to be a major conduit for drug proceeds and diverted foreign aid.” But a former CIA official who works with Afghanistan's spy service said the airport at Kandahar dwarfs Kabul as an exit point for millions of dollars in pilfered U.S. aid money and drug proceeds. The president's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, president of the provincial council in Kandahar, has been repeatedly accused of controlling the opium trade there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariel_boatlift EXCERPT: Upon their arrival, many Cubans were placed in refugee camps. Others were held in federal prisons pending deportation hearings. Crowded conditions in South Florida immigration processing centers forced U.S. federal agencies to move many of the Marielitos to other centers in Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, Camp Santiago, Puerto Rico, and Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. Riots in the Fort Chaffee center were a factor in the re-election defeat of then-Governor Bill Clinton.[citation needed] President Jimmy Carter was also heavily criticized for his handling of the situation.[citation needed] Alleged Arms Dealer Viktor Bout to Stand Trial in New York Wednesday, November 17, 2010 at 9:01AM  Photo Courtesy - Christophe Archambault/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Viktor Bout sold death, the government alleges, and now he faces life. Dubbed the "Merchant of Death" for his reputed international arms deals, including the alleged attempted sale of weapons to terrorists, Bout was extradited from Thailand to New York following a two-year negotiation process. The suspected arms dealer arrived at New York's Stewart Airport in manacles Tuesday night following a flight from Bangkok aboard a Drug Enforcement Administration charter plane. As he deplaned, a helmet was slapped on his head and he was packed into a government SUV with a team of federal agents for the 60 miles to Manhattan, where he will be held at the Metropolitan Correction Center during his trial. He now faces 25 years to life in a federal prison if convicted on all counts of a four-count federal arms-trafficking indictment. According to the Deparment of Justice, between November 2007 and March 2008, Bout, a Russian, allegedly agreed to sell to the Colombian narco-terrorist organization, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) millions of dollars worth of weapons -- "including surface-to-air missile systems; armor-piercing rocket launchers; AK-47 firearms; millions of rounds of ammunition; Russian spare parts for rifles; anti-personnel land mines; C-4 plastic explosives; night-vision equipment; 'ultralight' aircraft that could be outfitted with grenade launchers and missiles; and unmanned aerial vehicles." Copyright 2010 ABC News Radio |
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