>> AHEM...

'Let it happen' - Richard Clarke helped bin Laden family flee United States after 9/11
As counterterrorism czar, Richard Clarke helped the al Qaeda leader's family out of the US.
Former National Security Council counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke approved the evacuation of Osama bin Laden's relatives from the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"It was Clarke who personally authorized the evacuation by private plane of dozens of Saudi citizens, including many members of Osama bin Laden's own family, in the days immediately following September 11," the Boston Herald notes in a March 26 editorial.
According to the Herald, "Clarke's role was revealed in an October 2003 Vanity Fair article. 'Somebody brought to us for approval the decision to let an airplane filled with Saudis, including members of the bin Laden family, leave the country,' Clarke told Vanity Fair. 'My role was to say that it can't happen unless the FBI approves it. . . And they came back and said yes, it was fine with them. So we said "Fine, let it happen."'
"Vanity Fair uncovered that the FBI never fully investigated the passengers on those privately chartered flights (one of which flew out of Logan International Airport after scooping up a dozen or so bin Laden relatives.) But Clarke protested to Vanity Fair that policing the FBI was not in his job description."


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Hamas linked to area housing


By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


The terrorist organization Hamas invested millions of dollars during the past decade in real-estate projects nationwide, including in suburban Maryland, as part of a scheme to raise cash to fund acts of terrorism, records show.
The investments -- involving the construction of hundreds of new homes, including many in Oxon Hill -- were handled through BMI Inc., a defunct Secaucus, N.J., investment firm founded by Soliman S. Biheiri, an Egyptian and Hamas supporter, according to a newly released sentencing declaration by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In the declaration, ICE senior agent David Kane said Biheiri, sentenced in January to a year in prison on immigration violations, used the firm beginning in 1991 to raise "large amounts of money" through investments and as a front to route cash from more than 100 bogus Hamas charities and businesses, most of which operated in Virginia.
The Oxon Hill investment included a project known as Barnaby Knolls, financed by a BMI subsidiary BMI Real Estate Development Inc., the declaration said. Begun in January 1991, it involved the construction of 57 homes in the working-class Prince George's County neighborhood.
ICE agents refer to the project as "Hamas West," although no one living in the subdivision has been identified as being involved in the scheme or with the terrorist organization that is pursuing a Palestinian state.
One of the principle BMI investors in the Oxon Hill project, according to the Kane declaration, was Mousa Mohammad Abu Marzook, the self-proclaimed political leader of Hamas detained by U.S. authorities in 1995 on suspicion of being involved in terrorist activities. He later was expelled to Jordan, where he was deported to Syria for his ties to Hamas.
The U.S.-educated Marzook, who had lived in Falls Church, has been named by Israeli authorities on charges of murder, attempted murder, manslaughter and conspiracy in truck and bus bombings in Israel that killed 14 and injured 56. He also is accused of ordering the killing of 37 others in Hamas attacks in Israel.
According to the declaration, Marzook told a confidential U.S. Customs Service informant during a May 1991 meeting in Ruston, La., that he "has and currently is investing money with BMI," including a real-estate project in Oxon Hill, where he intended to build "more than 56 homes." In the tape-recorded conversation, Marzook noted that the suburban Maryland site was close to Washington.
According to the declaration, more than $1 million was invested by BMI in various real-estate projects, many of which are described but not identified.
The declaration said hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in the projects was returned to investors or were re-invested in other real-estate developments, with much of the cash being routed through banks in Virginia and New Jersey to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. It said significant amounts of cash obtained in the real-estate ventures were used "in furtherance of Hamas terrorist operations."
It was a U.S. investigation into Marzook's financial activities in this country that led to Biheiri, BMI and Ptech, a Boston-based computer software firm raided by customs agents in December 2002, authorities said. They said Biheiri and Yasin Qadi, a key BMI investor, were the primary Ptech financiers.
Qadi, a Saudi multimillionaire, was listed by the Treasury Department in 2002 as a terrorist and is thought by authorities to have diverted millions of dollars to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network through various charitable organizations.
Biheiri was a key figure in a scheme using private companies and interrelated Islamic charities operating out of business fronts in Herndon and Falls Church to divert millions of dollars to global terrorists, including Hamas and al Qaeda.
In 2002, federal agents raided 14 Islamic businesses in Virginia, seizing computers, bank statements and other documents in a customs investigation known as "Operation Green Quest." That probe focused on what authorities called a "financial relationship between" BMI and a Herndon corporation Sana-Bell Inc.
Authorities said Sana-Bell existed to generate funds for a Falls Church-based charity known as the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO). In an affidavit filed in connection with the Green Quest investigation, Mr. Kane said the CIA listed the IIRO as having "extremist connections" to Hamas and Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, the Egyptian terrorist organization that served as a precursor to al Qaeda.
Hamas was designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization in 1991. Although the number of hard-core members is unknown, supporters and sympathizers have been placed in the tens of thousands. Much of its fund raising takes place in the United States.

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A dangerous stalemate in Venezuela



Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been able to relegate a recall drive on his government to a kind of bureaucratic netherworld. This maneuvering hasn't stanched mounting tensions, though, and may well lead to a series of violent demonstrations. Such a conflict would test the ability of the regional players, such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and Brazil, to deal with a crisis.
At issue is a petition drive held last year calling for a recall referendum on the Chavezgovernment.Recently, Venezuela's electoral chamber of the Supreme Court cleared the way for a recall vote by finding that an electoral committee -- created to oversee the referendum drive -- was wrong in rejecting 876,000 signatures on mere technicalities. This gave the opposition more than the 2.43 million signatures needed to hold a referendum. But on Tuesday, the constitutional chamber of the court -- which is headed by Ivan Rincon, a staunch Chavez ally -- rejected the jurisdiction of the electoral chamber. That decision can be appealed to the full court, which is also headed by Mr. Rincon.
The current impasse helps Mr. Chavez run out the clock. According to the Venezuelan constitution, if a referendum isn't held by Aug. 19, then the Venezuelan people could vote against the Chavez government in a recall, but his vice president would remain in charge for the current term. Given the recent bureaucratic gyrations, it is highly unlikely a referendum could be held by the August deadline. In either scenario, "the opposition will probably react by trying to force [Mr. Chavez] out of power in a less formal way," said Ricardo Amorim, head of Latin America Research at IDEAglobal. This would probably lead to "confrontation on the streets, with very likely people getting killed," he added. Although it is unlikely such a confrontation would cause the same economic trauma as the general strike called at the end of 2002, it could still reverse Venezuela's oil-driven rebound. However, such a crisis is not expected to have any substantive impact on the global oil market.
Brazil, other Latin American countries and the United States should make clear to Mr. Chavez that his government could face international sanction should the OAS denounce the referendum process. The OAS must be the arbiter of the legitimacy of the process. Should Mr. Chavez abide by his obligations and prevail, the opposition must be firmly told that its efforts to unseat him before the 2006 elections have no backing.
Should the parties delay in alerting Mr. Chavez that they are unified in supporting whatever conclusions the OAS reaches, Mr. Chavez and his supporters could become entrenched in positions they may be unwilling to reverse for political reasons. Applying some pressure on Mr. Chavez now could yield stability for the country and the region.


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Venezuela forces tortured protesters -ombudsman
CARACAS, Venezuela, March 25 (Reuters) - Venezuelan security forces tortured some protesters detained during recent anti-government demonstrations, but did not shoot and kill demonstrators, the state ombudsman said on Thursday.
In a report to the National Assembly, German Mundarain, a state official who investigates complaints against public authorities, said nine civilians were killed in street clashes between troops, police and opposition protesters between Feb. 27 and March 5 in Caracas and other cities.
Human rights groups have accused President Hugo Chavez's government of using excessive force to control the protesters, who were demanding that Chavez submit to a recall referendum.
They cited cases of shootings, beatings and torture.
The left-wing president, who is resisting the opposition vote petition, has denied there were rights abuses, condemned the pro-referendum protesters as armed subversives and praised the actions of his security forces.
Mundarain, who has been repeatedly accused by the opposition of being biased in favor of the government, said 193 people were injured during the disturbances and 513 were detained, although most were quickly released.
"These detentions gave rise to cases in which some officers went beyond the legitimate use of force," he said in the report, citing seven cases of torture and 17 of "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment."
Human rights groups said detainees were subjected to severe beatings, burnings, electric shocks and mock executions.
The ombudsman urged the government to investigate these cases and prosecute those responsible if necessary, but also accused opposition leaders of "instigating violence" and said troops and police were fired on.
Mundarain said no deaths could be attributed so far to security forces because none of the deadly shooting injuries were caused by the regulation automatic rifles they carried.
Opposition leaders and a local human rights group put the death toll at 14, and cite eyewitness reports that troops killed some protesters. Witnesses say unidentified civilian gunmen also opened fire.
Opponents of former paratrooper Chavez, who was elected in 1998, accuse him of becoming increasingly dictatorial and repressive. He dismisses his enemies as U.S.-backed "oligarchs" trying to end his "revolution" seeking to fight poverty in the world's No. 5 oil exporter.

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>> CONGRESS FIDDLES...


Congressional talks on pension plan stall

ASSOCIATED PRESS
House and Senate negotiators yesterday hit an angry impasse over legislation that could save employers billions of dollars, with just days left before companies must begin making their quarterly pension payments.
There were no immediate plans to revive negotiations on the bill, which would provide employers two years of relief on payments they make into their pension plans. During that interval, Congress would work on long-term legislation to ensure viability of the pension system and retirement incomes of American workers.
Rep. John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican and chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said Democrats had rejected a compromise offer that "was as far as we could go."
Democrats, led by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, of Massachusetts, put the blame on the White House.
Mr. Kennedy said the Bush administration leaned on Republicans to resist help for union-based multiemployer pension plans, which he said "reflects an ideological viewpoint."
The deadlock complicates efforts to pass a compromise bill next week, before Congress leaves for its spring recess, and dims hopes that companies sponsoring single-employer plans will have new guidelines before April 15, when many have to make quarterly contributions.
The two sides are in general agreement on single-employer plans, which face the most serious financial problems and are the main focus of the bill.
The bill would determine a new corporate bond-based interest rate that would be used for the next two years to replace a formula, based on a very low interest rate, that has caused contributions to soar.
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), a government agency that insures the pensions of about 44 million American workers, estimated the new rate would save companies $80 billion, which could be used for new hiring and economic expansion and could save some plans from bankruptcy.
Without the fix, companies "are going to have to divert money that they could otherwise put back in their business," said Dorothy Coleman, vice president for tax policy at the National Association of Manufacturers. "This is a critical issue to our economy."
Asghar Alam, U.S. retirement practice leader at Mercer Human Resource Consulting, wrote the negotiators this week that, without quick action, companies may not be able to meet the contribution deadline. That, Mr. Alam wrote, would pose a risk to companies that they would contribute cash that would not be deductible or that they would face tax penalties or federal action by failing to contribute enough.
"We urge you to begin that effort without allowing any more blows to be dealt to the traditional plans that have weathered so much in the past few years," Mr. Alam said.
The main stumbling block is Senate language that would allow the nation's 1,700 multiemployer plans to defer losses over the next two years. The administration objected, saying that would encourage underfunding of plans, and threatened to veto the bill unless that provision was eliminated.
Mr. Boehner said Republicans offered a compromise yesterday that would help multiemployer plans with the greatest financial need, which Republican aides said would be accessible to significantly fewer than 20 percent of all plans.
Rep. Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey Democrat, said that would help fewer than 10 percent of plans, and "that was not acceptable."
Mr. Kennedy attributed the deadlock to intransigence, arbitrary interference and "punitive, antilabor provisions" from the White House.
Multiemployer plans, which cover about 9 million of the 44 million workers covered by the PBGC, are usually operated jointly by labor and management in such fields as construction and trucking.
The General Accounting Office, the investigative wing of Congress, released a report yesterday that said multiemployer plans, after two decades of relative stability, "have suffered recent and significant funding losses" because of stock market declines and poor economic conditions. Multiemployer plans are now underfunded by $100 billion, up from $21 billion in 2000.
In addition to general accord on single-employer plans, the negotiators were close on the third part of the legislation; those would reduce for two years what airlines and steelmakers with underfunded pension plans must pay into a required catch-up fund.