Completing the French Connection(The reasoning behind the forged Niger Documents)
Self | 21 November, 2005 | Paperjam


Posted on 11/21/2005 6:34:19 AM PST by paperjam




Completing the French Connection


(The reasoning behind the forged Niger Documents)











On January 2, 2001 the Niger Embassy in Rome was broken into. A short time later the home of Aarfou Mounkaila, the second secretary, was also broken into and ransacked. Both incidents were reported to the Italian Carabinieri and since nothing of importance seemed to be missing, the stories received scant attention. However, we now know that the incidents were very important as the break-ins were the source of forged documents that reportedly detailed attempts by Iraq to purchase 500 tons of Yellow Cake uranium. President Bush mentioned it his State of the Union address in January, 2003 and set off a firestorm of heated debate ever since. This single item is a hot point of contention used by those against the war to infer that Bush lied to the Americans and to the world in the run up to the war with Iraq over weapons of mass destruction (WMD.)





What follows next is a story that would put the Bond 007 story writers to task, as we now have the clearest picture yet of what happened in the Niger document scandal, the major players involved and why. It’s a twisted story of OIL, MONEY, and POWER. But, it wasn’t the United States who made the grab for it, it was the French and I think the proof is right here in these pages.





Let us start out by thanking the Italian government for continuing to follow up on a story that seemed lost on most of us. They managed to get Rocco Martino, a known agent for hire to admit to magistrates in Rome that he was working for the French Government and that it was they who created the forged Niger documents. Without that bombshell piece of information we wouldn’t know now what we know today.





He originally told the international press that it was the secret services arm of the Italian government who had put him up to passing forged documents to bolster the American and British case for war with Iraq. He said at the time that he thought the documents were real, but after the Digos, Italy's anti-terrorist police, found numerous documents in Mr. Martino's home he freely admitted his role in the forgery scandal much to the infuriation of the French.

It’s also reported that Rocco Martino has since tendered his resignation with a letter to the French DGSE intelligence service.





But the biggest question of all and still remaining to be answered is “Why?” Why would the French want to pass forged documents onto the international stage in what appeared to be an attempt to “bolster” the US and Britton’s case for war? What could they possibly gain from such a stunt and how could the forged documents change anything? Well it seems that they had a lot to gain and they were relying on the forged documents to change more than just the run-up to war, those documents were meant to change the world as we know it.





Hang on to your seats it’s going to be a bumpy ride.





In investigating the background of former US Ambassador, Joseph Wilson IV and the outing of his third wife Valerie Plame, I did what everyone did and used public information and his own words to look into his life. This is the very thing that led to the eventual outing of Valerie in the first place. Be that as it may, it seems that his second wife Jacqueline is quite a woman of mystery. Very little is known of her and it seems to all who look into her life that she shares one at least as intriguing as Valerie, at least that was before Valerie was outed as an agent in the employ of the CIA.





As a former French Diplomat, the last known location of his second wife Jacqueline was in Gabon under the employ of the President Omar Bongo's daughter, Pascaline Mferri Bongo. Between August and November 2000, she was paid $60,000 to write letters to the office of National AIDS policy at the White House. That’s quite a lot of money for simply writing a few letters. She’s reported to have worked for them at least through November of 2000 and is currently whereabouts unknown. I want to take this opportunity to remind everyone that Joseph Wilson IV was the US Ambassador to Gabon from 1992 to 1995.





In looking at the former French colony of Gabon, it turns out that Gabon is a pretty big oil producer in Africa. One of the oil companies in Gabon is a French oil company called Elf Aquitaine. Created in 1965 by Charles de Gaulle, Elf was a state controlled oil company. It also served as an important intelligence service agency for France covertly collecting information on the African nations. The company privatized in 1994 but the intelligence services have reportedly remained in tact and fully functioning.





In 1999, the French oil company Total, merged with the Belgian oil company PetroFina to form TotalFina and in 2000, Elf Aquitaine merged with them to form TotalFinaElf. Total, a French company, is a product of Iraq itself. Originally created by French industrialists and financiers in 1924, they took over France’s 23.8% share of Iraq Petroleum (then known as Turkish Petroleum.) The French Government purchased a 25% share in Total in 1930 and later increased it to 34%. The company, as far as we know, has retained its independence and its executive management free from the typical French government control exerted on most French corporations, especially those in which France has a national interest.





Total is the world's fourth largest integrated oil and gas company. Based in Paris, it operates in 120 countries with exploration and production activity in 44 countries and production in 27. The company has 2.4 million barrels per day of production, which compares with 4.2 million barrels daily for Exxon Mobil Corp. and 3.5 million barrels/day for BP plc. The company has 11.2 billion barrels of reserves and has been averaging a 2.5 percent annual growth in production. Between 2001 and 2002 its growth rate in production jumped to10 percent.





In 1972, Iraq nationalized its entire oil industry. Total was forced out of all its interests in production and development in Iraq but returned in 1991 to pursue expected development of the Bin ‘Omar oil fields after UN sanctions were lifted after the first Gulf War. While unable to work in Iraq due to continued sanctions, TotalFinaElf started working with the Iranians. They are operating under contracts to help develop the South Pars gas field. It is the Iranians’ portion of what is probably the largest gas field in the world. The other part of the field, in Qatari waters, is known as North Field and TotalFinaElf is pursuing contracts to develop that field as well. With the South Pars project, TotalFinaElf has become the foremost oil company in partnership with Iran and has bolstered its position in the Middle East.





To curry support from the UN Security Council members and bring an end to the sanctions against Iraq, Saddam Hussein negotiated huge oil and gas contracts worth billions to France, Russia and China. For example;





In a completely lopsided $6 billion deal, Russia’s second largest oil company Lukoil was negotiating the development of the West Qurna-2 fields west of Basra near the Rumaila field. They held a 68.5 percent share in a production consortium with its partners Zarubezhneft and Mashinoimport. They each held a 3.25 percent option with the remaining 25 percent going to the former Iraqi Oil Ministry. With an estimated production potential of 800,000 to 1 million bbl/d it represented a huge amount of potential capital.





Russia's state owned company Gazprom, tied directly to the political arm of Russia also negotiated options to develop the al-Anfal gas field in western Iraq near the Syrian border. It holds a proven reserve of 1.8 Tcf (Trillion Cubic Feet) and estimated reserves of about 4.5 Tcf. Another huge gas field was discovered in the Akas region of western Iraq containing an estimated 2.1 Tcf of gas reserves but it’s still unclear if the fields are associated or not.





It might also be notable that in 2003, Yukos which was Russia’s largest private oil producer at the time was charged by the Russian state with tax evasion. The company’s owner was arrested and the company itself was eventually broken up and sold to the highest bidder. That highest bidder turned out to be none other than Gazprom.





Not to be left out, China's National Petroleum Company (CNPC) along with China North Industries Corporation (Norinco) signed on to conduct a 22-year-long exploitation of the Al-Ahdab field located in southern Iraq. They had also shown high interest in developing the 4.5-billion-barrel Halfayah field in southern Iraq.





The French oil company Total had managed to secure contracts to develop the massive Majnoon and Bin Umar oilfields in southern Iraq. Those contracts were worth billions. In fact, estimates put their value at over $100 billion. David Perle, former US Assistant Defense Secretary said “What’s distinctive about the Total contract is that it’s not favorable to Iraq, it’s favorable to Total.” He called the contracts “extraordinarily lopsided” in favor of the French oil company and the well connected Canadian shareholders.





Those well connected Canadian shareholders turned out to be Power Corporation’s owner Paul Desmarais and his family. Together, they hold a controlling interest in Total. The 75 year old Paul Desmarais couldn’t get much more connected. His son Andre Desmarais married France Chretien, the daughter of the former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Jean Chretien is known to have sat on the board of Power Corporations subsidiary Consolidated Bathurst Inc.





Jean Chretien stepped down as Canada’s Prime Minister on 12 December, 2003. His first trip after leaving office was to lead a delegation to China on trade deals. His next trip was to Iran on behalf of an oil company. Mr. Chretien went to Iran as a "special adviser" to the Calgary oil company PetroKazakhstan, which wanted to ship Kazakhstan’s oil to China and Iran. His job was to convince the Iranians that it was is a good idea. His work was part of the Silk Road Group that had been founded in the early 1990’s. The goal of the group is to create new oil routes for a number of major companies, among them TotalFinaElf and PetroKazakhstan.





Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and his mentor Maurice Strong, senior advisor to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, each have worked for Power Corporation and are reportedly good friends of Paul Desmarais. Maurice Strong, if you recall, is in trouble with Kofi Annan’s son Kojo in the Oil-For-Food scandal. Paul Volcker, the former head of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, who currently heads up the Independent Inquiry Commission into the Iraqi Oil-For-Food scandal, has also held a seat on Power Corp’s international advisory board as did former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt.





Volcker’s number two man on the Independent Inquiry Committee, Reid Morden, has close connections to Paul Desmarais in his role of selling nuclear plants to China and others for companies dominated by Desmarais. He’s also known for serving as Canada’s former Intelligence Chief, the US equivalent to CIA Director.
Power Corporation has ties to the Iraqi Oil-For-Food program through the New York branch of the Banque National De Paris-Paribas or BNP Paribas. This is the bank that controlled the Iraqi accounts under the Oil-For-Food program that started in 1996. It’s through this program that Saddam is reported to have skimmed over $10 billion dollars in kickbacks.





In February 2001, one of Belgium’s top 10 companies Groupe Bruxelles Lambert which is 25% owned by Power Corporation, acquired control of BertelsmannAG. (BAG) is Germany’s largest publishing empire and is reported to be even bigger than Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. The publishing empire employs some 80,000 workers in 51 countries and posted an overall cash flow of $18.3-billion in 2002. Paul Desmarais’ son Andre, who serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Power Corp., was named to the BAG board after taking control of the company.





Andre Desmarais also sits on the board of the China International Trust & Investment Corp (CITIC). It’s described as the alleged investment arm of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) which is the more formal name of the Chinese military. Through its subsidiaries, the CITIC is probably the largest manufacturer of weapons and arms in the world.





China has a great need for natural resources and in the coming years will face an energy crisis of its own if steps aren’t taken to avert them. It seems that they may have found a friend not only in Canada but Hong Kong as well through an individual named Li Ka-Shing. Li Ka-Shing is the owner of Hutchison-Whampoa and is the world’s 19th richest man. Li Ka-Shing operates in the critical markets of port operations, petroleum, mining, and telecommunications.





His company Hutchison-Whampoa is a shipping monolith. Hardly a product or commodity that ships by boat can get by without being handled by one of his ports. His company also runs the Panama Canal Ports company operating at each end of the Panama Canal which President Jimmy Carter gave up in the Carter-Torrijos Treaty in 1978. The official hand over occurred on December 31, 1999. In 2000, the Panama Ports Company completed construction of the Cristobal Cruise Terminal-Peir 6 and officially opened the port of Balboa Container Terminal at the other end.





Interestingly, Li Ka-Shing, also owns Gordon Securities where Jean Chretien once worked before becoming the Canadian Prime Minister.





Expanding his holdings further, Li Ka-Shing is in the process of purchasing Husky Oil of Canada. Husky Energy Inc. employs approximately 3,000 people and holds almost $13 billion in assets. They also own the largest holdings in the oil sands of northern Alberta, which is reported to be the largest single oil deposit in the world.





He’s also in the process of purchasing the Canadian mining giant Noranda. Noranda recently merged with Falconbridge after acquiring 58.4% of available shares in an ownership buyout and retained the Falconbridge name after the merger. Falconbridge is the world's largest producers of zinc and nickel and a significant producer of copper, primary and fabricated aluminum, cobalt, lead, molybdenum, silver, gold and sulfuric acid. Falconbridge is also one of the world's largest recyclers and processors of metal-bearing materials. They employ approximately 14,500 people and have operations and offices in 18 countries.





French President Jacques Chirac recently made Li Ka-Shing a member of the national order of the Legion of Honor. This was after he carried out a friendly takeover of France’s Marionnaud perfume retail group, in a deal worth 900 million euros ($1.17 billion.) The deal made the Watson unit of Li Ka-Shing’s retail conglomerate the world’s largest company in the toiletries sector.





With the help of people like Li Ka-Shing, China continues to position itself in the world. The China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) recently won a bidding war to buy Canadian oil company PetroKazakhstan for a whopping 4.18 billion US dollars.





So just where, do the forged documents fit in? Hang on, were almost there.





In 1986, 12 countries became signatories of the Single European Act. It had the effect of creating "an area without internal frontiers in which the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is ensured in accordance with the provisions of this Treaty." It went far to fulfill a major goal of Charles de Gaulle and the tenets of European Economic Community (EEC) with the combining of their national monetary systems. By 1992, the EEC would evolve into the European Union (EU).





In 1999, the Euro became the new currency for eleven member states representing more than 300 million people and comprising 23 percent of the world's GDP. The single monetary policy was introduced under the authority of the EU, Economic Control Board. It was the final stage of monetary unity among the member states. Electronic transfers between banks would be conducted only in euros but member states had up to three years to convert publicly held currency to the new notes and coins.





On Sept. 24, 2000, in a little reported but monumentally significant event, Saddam Hussein demanded to be allowed to sell Iraqi oil in euros only. Iraq had also banned the United States, Japan, Britain and Switzerland from selling anything to Iraq under the Oil-For-Food scheme. The ban of sales under Oil-For-Food was viewed as punishment by Saddam for the continued sanctions but the changeover to the euro was seen by many as inexplicable as there seemed no clear beneficiary.





The UN Security Council’s Iraqi sanctions committee, known as “the 661 Committee,” created under the UN Security Council Resolution 661, initially balked at the changeover. However, one individual, French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte, Senior Diplomatic Adviser to President Chirac, pressed hard to permit the Iraqis to sell oil under the new currency. Finding no legal reason or precedent to prevent the denomination from dollars to euros the UN finally gave Iraq approval to sell oil for euros but only after November 6th, 2000. At the time, many financial experts believed that Iraq stood to lose millions in making the conversion.





However, the move had a tremendous effect on the Euro. Shortly after its initial launch, the euro was trading at around 80 cents to the dollar. Iraq’s denomination from the dollar to the euro in addition to huge sales under Oil-For-Food stabilized the currency on the world markets and provided a much needed underpinning for the currency. At the time, France ranked No. 1 among European countries doing business with Iraq, with over $1.5 billion in trade. From the beginning of the oil-for-food program in1996, France ranked third overall with $3.1 billion in trade. Iraq’s move to the euro smoothed out and even reversed its declining exchange rate. By 2001 the euro had gained 25% against the dollar to approximately USD$1.05 for one Euro.





Seeing that the Euro had achieved parity with the Dollar so quickly and combined with Iraq’s denomination of the dollar for euros, France recognized an opportunity to finally wrest control of the world oil markets from the US. Hoping that the dominos would fall one by one the real possibility of pushing the dollar off the worlds pedestal finally became a reality.





For the French, September 11, 2001 probably couldn’t have come at a better time. A strike against our financial heart tied together a series of seemingly unrelated events.





To quickly recap what we now know; in January, 2001 there is a break-in at the Niger Embassy in Rome. Nothing of significance seems to have been taken and the story receives little attention. In the fall of 2001, rumors of attempts to sell uranium to Iraq are floated about the intelligence communities. By early 2002, word reaches the White house that Iraq may be attempting purchases of uranium from Niger. Questions are passed to the CIA, who at the behest of Valerie Plame decides to send her husband, former US Ambassador to Gabon, Joseph Wilson, to investigate the allegations. In late February, 2002 Wilson returns from Niger after eight days stating that reported attempts by Iraq to purchase yellow cake are false and tells as much to the CIA in an oral debriefing at his home.





By the fall of 2002, documents reportedly showing Iraqi attempts to purchase yellow cake uranium are being shopped around in Italy. The Italian reporter Elizabetta Burba of the Italian magazine Panorama takes the documents and shows them to her boss who in-turn decides not to publish them but instead instructs her to take them to the US embassy. From there, they are transmitted forward to Washington where they are given to the State Department's Bureau of Nonproliferation and copies are passed to the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Additionally copies are given to the CIA, and eventually the Pentagon.





President Bush asked the CIA to verify the information for inclusion in his upcoming State of The Union Address in January, 2003. However, the CIA could not verify the accuracy of the accounts so the decision was made to use the information from the British White Papers drawn up around the same time. They reportedly relied on information from other sources than the French or the forged Niger documents. Those famous 16 words in the State of the Union address read as follows: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”





But that’s not what the French were counting on happening!





The French were counting on exposing the fake documents at the right time to show that the US intelligence gathering was misleading if not outright complicit in attempts to make up intelligence to justify continuing sanctions against Iraq. The goal was to muddy the intelligence information we had on WMD’s and to shame the US into dropping the sanctions altogether. President Clinton had begun to step up bombing in Iraq and continued to press for further sanctions. Once President Bush took office, he too pressed hard for leaving the sanctions in place. France, Russia, and China all stood to lose billions if the sanctions were not removed so the decision was made by France to “set-up” both America and Britton’s intelligence gathering apparatus.





Had the attacks of September 11, 2001 caused more harm to the US economy than it did, the use of the documents might not ever be needed. However, with the quick fall of Afghanistan and the increasing rhetoric from the Bush administration over Iraq, the need became clear that the fake documents would have to be played out.





So what was real the purpose of the forged documents?





The forged Niger documents were to be used in a coordinated effort to keep the US out of Iraq and end the sanctions. France’s greatest fear was that the US might re-enter Iraq and re-denominate Iraqi oil back to dollars that Saddam had converted in September, 2000. After all, this is what provided the much needed underpinning for the valuation of the euro. It would also most likely mean an end the lucrative Oil-For-Food program. The billions of euros in trade enjoyed by European Union countries would come to an immediate and abrupt halt.





One of the final steps taken by France to outright delay if not prevent the inevitable war with Iraq was to threaten Turkey with a “No” vote for admission into the EU membership if they helped the Americans. France, Belgium, and Germany, also opposed NATO support for Turkey that would have allowed them to open their bases for use by American forces to enter Iraq from the north. This is a move seen by many as causing unnecessary American loses by eliminating the ability of Allied forces to attack from two fronts and quickening the pace that Saddam’s army’s could be defeated. It also greatly hindered the US forces ability to close the northern routes out of Iraq through Syria where many suspect the majority of WMD’s were moved to.





As an OPEC member, Iraq being tied to the euro was no small matter. All oil trade in the world is conducted in dollars. Additionally, two-thirds of all corporate transactions are conducted in dollars. This allows the United States to run huge deficits without much harm to its economy. However, should this situation be somehow ended, our national debts might become unserviceable. Rampant inflation would surely result and a devaluation of the dollar would fall to somewhere about 40% of its current value. While I am not steeped in macroeconomics, should this happen suddenly, the outlook for America would be catastrophic.





Since the war in Iraq, France has taken additional strides to increase usage of the euro in the worlds markets and to defeat the dollar further. They have opened trade with Iran, an OPEC member, who in 2002, Iran’s central bank shifted the majority of its reserve funds to euros in what many see as the first big step in converting fully to euros for their oil currency. They have also opened air travel with the Iranians after being suspended in 1997. French exports to Iran have increased 28.4 percent between 2002 and 2003.





Both Russia and China have begun to move their central reserve funds into euros as well. With corporations like Power Corp., and Hutchison-Whampoa controlling huge markets, France is pushing even harder to convince such corporations to conduct their business in euros instead of dollars.





The French have courted Venezuelan President Hugo Chaves, another OPEC member nation. The French oil giant Total, is working to develop the countries oil sands through a consortium called Sincor I and Sincor II. Chaves said in Paris that “Venezuela could double its output from 200,000 to 400,000 barrels a day after several billion dollars were invested.”





France has also gone after Algeria. As an OPEC member and a Mediterranean neighbor, Algeria is Europe’s third largest supplier of natural gas, just behind Russia and Norway. They are also in debt with France for billions. Using the carrot and stick approach, French Foreign Minister de Villipin flew to Algeria on 18 December, 2002 to offer debt conversion if trade and commerce were increased between the two nations. Final arrangements between the two nations were to be hammered out in a final 2003 agreement where more than $60 million in debts were forgiven. However, the country has been continually fighting an Islamic insurrection sparked after canceling parliamentary elections in 1992, a move then that was backed by France, frustrating further economic reforms.





Other activities to expand use of the euro over the dollar are going on daily. However, the main stream media has almost a complete blackout on the subject. I can only surmise that they are hoping for a gradual and subtle change. I just wonder when they expect to let the public in on the news.








As a Follow-up: Iraqi oil was re-denominated back to dollars on 5 June, 2003 after 10 million barrels of oil were offered to the highest bidder from tanks that had been sitting full for some time. The move was made to make room for oil to flow through the pipelines to the ports and restore Iraq’s oil production.





OPEC, in its April 14th 2002 meeting in Spain expressed interest in converting to euros in lieu of the dollar for trade in oil.





On December 7th, 2002 North Korea officially dropped the dollar and began using euros for trade.





Since 2003, the European Union has grown to 25 nation states. Together, they represent a free-trade-block of more than 455 million people who operate under the euro as the dominant currency for trade and commerce. Clearly, the euro is here to stay, but what is so difficult to predict is its future effect on international trade overall and the dollars position in the world as the dominant currency.

This one folks is an oldie but a goodie. It not only bears retelling but recalling also:
A HISTORY LESSON

Beer and evolution and other facts The two most important events in all of
history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel
was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern
civilization, and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity
into two distinct subgroups: Liberals and Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered it required grain, and that was the beginning of
agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can was invented yet, so
while our early human ancestors were sitting around waiting for them to be
invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were
formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to BBQ at night while
they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the
Conservative movement. Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting
learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly BBQ and
doing the sewing, fetching and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the
Liberal movement.

Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became
known as girliemen. Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the
domestication of cats, the trade union, the invention of group therapy and
group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the
meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most
powerful land animal on earth,!
the elephant.

Liberals are symbolized by the jackass. Modern liberals like imported beer
(with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water.
They eat raw fish, but like their beef well done.
Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. Another evolutionary
side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their
men.

Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in
Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the
designated hitter rule in baseball, because it wasn't fair to make the
pitcher also bat.
Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for
their women. Conservatives are rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction
workers, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, soldiers,
athletes, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own
companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and
decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe that Europeans are
more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained
in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. The liberals crept in
after the Wild West was tamed, and created a business of trying to get MORE
for nothing.

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