Not many, if any, news reports have focused on the unpublicized connections of this Bush administration's family members with politically–and financially–sensitive operations. Business Week recently noted that "dads and sons and other relatives reign so widely in this administration that there have never been so many family combos in an administration at the same time." And the British Economist has said that "George Bush's Washington is a study in family influence." End of storyfew details.

But there are a small number of journalists with enough patience, energetic curiosity and research ability to dig for some of those untold details. One of them is our occasional contributor Margie Burns, a scholarly investigator with a Ph.D. who teaches English literature at the University of Maryland in Baltimore when she is not probing Internet sources for her next article.

She has written for us on White House connections with Halliburton (September 15, 2003); the Bush family's profiteering in Iraq (February 1, 2004); and the right-wing Washington "neocons" who promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq (May 1, 2004).

For more than 20 years the Bush family has had extensive business ties to Middle East geopolitics. Among other connections, during the 1990s certain suites at the Watergate office building in Washington, rented by the embassies of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, were also home to a Bush-linked private investment firm.

The investment company, called the Kuwait-American Corporation (KuwAm), backed and largely controlled a security company named Stratesec and an aircraft company named Aviation General. Both Stratesec and Aviation General convened their annual shareholders' meetings from 1999 through 2001 in Suite 900 at the Watergate, then rented by the Saudi embassy!!!!!!

Marvin P. Bush, the youngest brother of George W. Bush and a director of Stratesec, was reelected annually to his directorship there, near the Saudi Arabian Airlines offices. In 2002, the companies moved their shareholders meetings to the Watergate's Suite 500, held by the Kuwaiti embassy.

Aviation General was founded in the early 1980s as Commander Aircraft. It manufactured and sold private planes to international clients. Stratesec was founded as Securacom (formerly the engineering firm Burns and Roe Securacom). It was reinvented shortly after the first Gulf War, and thereafter marketed large security contracts to big clients, including the World Trade Center, Washington's Reagan National Airport and Dulles International Airport, various municipalities and airlines.

Stratesec and Aviation General shared top executives, including Wirt D. Walker III, a distant relative "in the Walker branch of the Bush family," according to a former colleague, and Mishal Yousef Saud Al Sabah of the Kuwaiti ruling family. Walker and Al Sabah also headed KuwAm, the backer of Stratesec and Aviation General.

TIGHT LINKS–The boards and shareholders of the three companies–the investment firm KuwAm, the security company Stratesec, and the aircraft company Aviation General–were tightly connected. Walker, a director at all three companies, was at various times CEO and chairman of the board at Stratesec while at the same time managing director at KuwAm, including when Stratesec hired KuwAm for corporate secretarial services at $2,500 a month. Stratesec, which was de-listed on the American Stock Exchange in the fall of 2002 and went bankrupt, also paid Walker $130,500 annually for consulting, according to its quarterly filings. Both Stratesec and Aviation General are bankrupt now, and KuwAm has relocated its headquarters from the Watergate to Walker's home in McLean, Virginia, a Washington suburb.

Mishal Al Sabah, son of the former Emir of Kuwait and ex-son-in-law of the current Emir, also served on the boards of both KuwAm and Stratesec and sometimes as chairman of KuwAm. Walker and Al Sabah were major shareholders in both companies. According to interviews Walker has given, their close relationship began when Al Sabah came to America at age 15. When Al Sabah turned 21, he invested in Walker's companies, including KuwAm, where another Al Sabah relative also served on the board.
http://www.washingtonspectator.com/arti … shes_1.cfm

Follow the money:
http://www.netscape.com/viewstory/2006/ … frame=true

MARGIE BURNS
The Best Unregulated Families

In spring 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.

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.

Stratesec was eventually excused from the World Trade Center project. HCC sustained significant losses when the Center collapsed after the attacks of 9/11, 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.

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.

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 &endash;- Winston Partners, a private investment firm in northern Virginia -&endash; 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 www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1037453/0000928385-99-001383.txt.)

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. (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.

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 publicly traded, "the information would have been required." This conclusion is also supported by the SEC's public reference branch. Regulation 229.401, Item 401, "Identification of directors," states:

"List the names and ages of all directors of the registrant and all persons nominated or chosen to become directors; indicate all positions and offices with the registrant held by each such person; state his term of office as director and any period(s) during which he has served as such; describe briefly any arrangement or understanding between him and any other person(s) (naming such person(s)) pursuant to which he was or is to be selected as a director or nominee."

Again (farther down), "Indicate any other directorships held by each director or person nominated or chosen to become a director" etc., and:

"Briefly describe the business experience during the past five years of each director, executive officer, person nominated or chosen to become a director or executive officer," etc., with "the name and principal business of any corporation or other organization in which such occupations and employment were carried on."

Attorney Frank Razzano, formerly at the SEC and now a partner at D.C. law firm Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky says, "I think it's pretty clear that you have to disclose your other directorships." Also citing Item 401, Razzano explains that regardless of how material the omission turns out to be in other ways, "it is a fortiori material" &endash;- [that is, the law defines it as material] "That information has to be disclosed."

Razzano has a personal perspective on the collapse of the World Trade Center: He was there at the time. "I was staying at the Marriott Hotel, which is between the North Tower and the South Tower," he says, "under the building when it fell." "It fell on my head," he comments rather matter-of-factly. Razzano was one of the lucky ones; he was in the hospital for three days with a subdural hemotoma which fortunately dissipated and resolved.

Responding to questions, Razzano reiterates that regulation clearly requires disclosure; "I don't know why it [the information] would be left out." He does not speculate the harm done, if any -- "I don't have any idea at all why it wouldn't have been included" -&endash; and points out that mistakes are always possible.

Bush has not responded to requests for comment.

Bush left Stratesec's board in 2000, during the presidential election campaign, and resigned from the boards of HCC and Fresh Del Monte in 2002. The exact date and cause of his resignation at Fresh Del Monte, along with Stephen Way, are undisclosed. BB&T analyst Heather Jones has noted Fresh Del Monte's quietness about the resignations of two outside directors.

HCC announced Bush's resignation from its board in a press release on November 22, 2002, titled "HCC appoints new director." Bush remains an advisor to the chairman and the board of directors and is still on HCC's Investment Committee.

HCC suffered $29 million in net losses after 9/11, largely from World Trade Center-connected property losses, medical stop-loss payouts in New York City, and workers compensation reinsurance losses, and exited the workers' compensation insurance business. With HCC's stock price dropping, Way, its CEO, exercised 350,000 stock options Sept. 27, 2001, and another 350,000 HCC options a month later, selling the blocks of shares and acquiring comparable blocks at a lower price.

L. Byron Way, HCC's vice president, explains in a telephone interview that HCC "handled easily maybe a dozen or so coverages for the World Trade Center," mainly property and workers compensation. The coverages go back well through the 1990s. However, given that "the policies were rewritten annually," with different amounts of coverage from year to year depending on the type of coverage, Way is unable to say exactly when HCC became a carrier for the Center or how much its exposure with the WTC totaled. "With stakes that big, premiums can vary," Way explains, adding that all property coverages were done through the company's London office.

The company has not responded to questions, left with Way, regarding Bush's proxy statements.

According to Jeff Gallup, formerly with Stratesec's West Coast branch and now at Landtek, Inc., Stratesec installed the initial security description at the Center. Gallup speaks with close knowledge of the site. Landtek was one of the Center's prime contractors along with EJ Electric &endash;- which took over Stratesec's work -- and "I was intimately involved [with WTC security], up to the day the FBI left my office with all the contents" of the WTC visitors database &endash;- three quarters of a million visitors' badges.

Gallup declines to say why Stratesec was excused from the project. But another former Stratesec executive, who declines to be named, links the change to the company's financial problems.

Signs of those problems abounded long before its delisting on the American Stock Exchange in October 2002. Some of the problems appear -&endash; from off-the-record comments by former personnel &endash;- to have been managerial style, or personality differences. Previous management was "eased out," as Gallup puts it, for the new management, including Bush, who came in with a massive infusion of capital from the Kuwait-American Corporation, in 1992. Wirt Walker, "of the George Herbert Walker family name," according to the former executive, was also a principal in KuwAm.

Stratesec left a trail of small tax liens against it in California, Texas, and Florida, and another paper trail of small court judgments for unpaid vendors. It has announced plans to negotiate its federal tax bill with the IRS and its state taxes with the Commonwealth of Virginia, to cut its taxes by nine-tenths.

The company received ample funding through the 1990s, with several large contracts, including the WTC, Dulles and Reagan National airports; capital infusions from two other companies following KuwAm; and millions through its 1997 IPO. A partial list of funds investing in Stratesec while Bush was on board includes the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Capital Appreciation Fund, the Munder Funds, the Fidelity Adviser Series, the Putnam Capital Appreciation Trust, and several funds at John Hancock.

However, it was linked top-wise to another troubled company, Aviation General, where Wirt D. Walker III is also CEO. Mishal Yousef Saud Al-Sabah, in the Kuwaiti royal family, was also a principal in both KuwAm and Aviation General. Understandably, since September 2001, aviation has not been a cash cow; Aviation General was delisted on the Nasdaq in October 2002. But even before 2001, potholes opened in the green-eyeshade terrain. Gallup concurs, saying, "I was always fighting to get paid." "We kept hearing that things were going great ... but I was always saying, 'If things are going so well, then why won't they pay my dang bill?'"

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 Yousef 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 amidst administration security measures or proposals including monitoring citizens' library use, a "TIPS" program of citizen surveillance, monitoring individual computers, a nationwide system of citizen ID cards, and infiltrating American mosques. As attorney Razzano comments, there is "a real divide, between the government and the people these days." He added, "The government buildings all have barriers around them. There's concrete all over the place. You go as a citizen to see a public official, you go through a metal detector, you get searched, you take your shoes off." ("And then when you get in to see him, he ignores you.")

This rigorous scrutiny, however, has not yet been extended to possible security breaches in corporate suites, perhaps partly because of the Bush brothers' own pattern of difficulties with the SEC. George W. Bush's non-reported insider trading of Harken Energy stock generated a spate of news reports. And Neil Bush's failure to disclose conflicts of interest at collapsed Silverado Savings and Loan, in the 1980s, were noted by regulators.

Any civil penalties for violating SEC regulations are determined case by case. According to John Heine, Deputy Director in the Office of Public Affairs at the SEC, "there's no 'bright shining line'"; each case is determined on its own merits.

Perhaps this particular SEC infraction will face scrutiny. However, Bush's appointee to head the SEC is William H. Donaldson, a Yale classmate of Bush's uncle Jonathan Bush (at Riggs Bank) and longtime Bush family friend.

Margie Burns is a Texas native who now writes from Washington, D.C. Email margie.burns@verizon.net.

October 10 , 2003, 1200 PDT, (FTW) --

By Wayne Madsen

WASHINGTON, At around 9 PM on September 29, Fairfax County, Virginia police responded to a 911 call describing an accident. However, they soon discovered they were not dealing with a routine emergency but the mysterious death of an employee of the 47-year old brother of President George W. Bush, venture capitalist Marvin Bush.

Sixty-two year old Bertha Champagne, described as a long time "baby sitter" for Marvin and Margaret Bush's two children, son Walker, 13, and daughter Marshall, 17, was found crushed to death by her own vehicle in a driveway in front of the Bush family home in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County. Champagne reportedly lived at the Bush family home.
( Read More... | 4129 bytes in body )

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w … death.html

Champagne had left the residence to retrieve something from her car, which police say had somehow been left in gear. According to the police report, the car rolled forward and pinned the woman between it and a small building next to the driveway (possibly a checkpoint built by the Secret Service when Marvin's father, George H. W. Bush, was president).

The car crossed Edgehill Drive, a small street in front of the Bush compound. The vehicle then crossed a busy two-lane street, Fort Hunt Road, finally coming to rest in a wooded area across the street that adjoins the prestigious Belle Haven Country Club. No explanations have been offered as to why the vehicle did not move until Champagne was in a position to be crushed.

Champagne was pronounced dead on arrival at Inova Mount Vernon Hospital. Courtney Young, a spokesperson for the Fairfax County police was surprised when asked about the circumstances surrounding Champagne's death. She indicated the media was primarily focused on another Fairfax County story, the kidnapping and holdup of the wife of New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg on October 7. More mystifying is the fact that the Washington Post waited almost an entire week to publish the story about the baby sitter's death.

The incident occurred on September 29, but the Post did not report it until October 5 and buried it on page 3 of the Metro section. Nevertheless, the Washington Post was the only media outlet to cover the story at all. Young said police still did not know the exact cause of Champagne's death.

Young said the police had posted the incident on its web site in a press release, although the report makes no mention of Marvin Bush. It reads: A 62-year-old Alexandria area woman died after being pinned between a rolling car and a building. The crash happened on Monday, around 9 pm, near the intersection of Fort Hunt Road and Edgehill Drive. Bertha Champagne had gone outside to get something from a car in a driveway.

The car, which was left in gear, began to roll forward. Champagne was pinned between the car and a small building next to the driveway. The car continued to roll down the driveway, crossed Fort Hunt Road, and came to rest in a wooded area. Champagne was taken to Inova Mount Vernon Hospital where she was pronounced dead.

The press release is dated September 30 at 1330 (1:30 PM), some sixteen and a half hours after the incident occurred. The police were well aware of Marvin Bush's controversial role in serving on corporate boards for companies associated with the 911 terrorist attacks, however, they emphasized that Champagne's death was merely a quirky accident and no foul play was involved.

...According to two articles in the Progressive Populist written by Margie Burns, from 1993 to 2000, Bush served on the board of Securacom (since renamed Stratesec). The chairman of the board of Stratesec is Wirt D. Walker III, a cousin of Marvin and George W. Bush. Securacom had contracts to provide security for Dulles International Airport (the airport from which American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon, originated) and the World Trade Center in New York.

Securacom's backers include a number of Kuwaitis through a company called KuwAm Corp (Kuwaiti-American Corp.). Stratesec also has Saudi investors.

Walker also serves as a managing director of KuwAm, which maintains offices within the Watergate complex along with Riggs Bank, on whose board Bush's uncle, Jonathan Bush, sits. Saudi Princess Haifa al Faisal, the wife of Saudi Ambassador to the US Prince Bandar, used a Riggs account to funnel money to Omar al Bayoumi and Osama Basnan, two Saudi students in California associated with two of the 911 hijackers.

More at FTW

Please check out also Marvin Bush at 911review.org
http://www.911review.org/Sept11Wiki/Bush,Marvin.shtml
====================================
Bush Family Babysitter Killed in Fairfax
Sunday, October 5, 2003; Page C03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar … 3Oct5.html

A babysitter for the family of Marvin Bush was found dead Monday night outside the family's Fairfax County home, and police said that she had been crushed when her car rolled into her, pinning her between the vehicle and an outbuilding on the property.

Fairfax County police said Bertha Champagne, 62, had worked for several years for Marvin Bush, President Bush's brother, and lived at the family home on Fort Hunt Road in the Alexandria section of Fairfax.

Officer Courtney Young, a police spokeswoman, said Champagne had gone outside the house about 9 p.m. Monday, reportedly to retrieve something from her car.

The vehicle had been in gear, police said, and appeared to have rolled in her direction when Champagne was in front of it.

After pinning Champagne, Young said, the car continued rolling toward Fort Hunt Road, near the intersection of Edgehill Drive.

Champagne was taken to an area hospital and declared dead that evening. Young said she did not know the cause of death.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company
===============================================

Marvin Bush
911dossier notes 25.1.2003:
http://anderson.ath.cx:8000/911/hj05.html

For those who do not accept the Official Story on the collapse of the Twin Towers, this article is a minor smoking gun. It explains their biggest problem: if the Towers were brought down with explosives how could anyone get them in. Step in Marvin Bush whose company installed the security system...

Vol. 9, No. 2021 - The American Reporter - January 20, 2003
SECRECY SURROUNDS A BUSH BROTHER'S ROLE IN 9/11 SECURITY

by Margie Burns

Washington, D.C. WASHINGTON, Jan 19, 2003 -- A company that provided security at New York City's World Trade Center, Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., and to United Airlines between 1995 and 2001, was backed by a private Kuwaiti-American investment firm with ties to a brother of President Bush and the Bush family, according to records obtained by the American Reporter.

Two planes hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001 were United Airlines planes, and another took off from Dulles International Airport; two, of course, slammed into the World Trade Center. But the Bush Administration has never disclosed the ties of a presidential brother and the Bush family with the firm that intersected the weapons and targets on a day of national tragedy.

Marvin P. Bush, a younger brother of George W. Bush, was a principal in the company from 1993 to 2000, when most of the work on the big projects was done. But White House responses to 9/11 have not publicly disclosed the company's part in providing security to any of the named facilities, and many of the public records revealing the relationships are not public.

Nonetheless, public records reveal that the firm, formerly named Securacom, listed Bush on its board of directors and as a significant shareholder. The firm, now named Stratesec, Inc., is located in Sterling, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C., and emphasizes federal clients. Bush is no longer on the board.

Marvin Bush has not responded to repeated telephoned and emailed requests for comment on this story.

The American Stock Exchange delisted Stratesec's stock in October 2002. Securacom also had a contract to provide security at Los Alamos National Laboratories, notorious for its security breaches and physical and intellectual property thefts.

According to its present CEO, Barry McDaniel, the company had an ongoing contract to handle security at the World Trade Center "up to the day the buildings fell down." Yet instead of being investigated, the company and companies involved with it have benefited from legislation pushed by the Bush White House and rubber-stamped by Congressional Republicans. Stratesec, its backer KuwAm, and their corporate officers stand to benefit from limitations on liability and national-security protections from investigation provided in bills since 9/11.
FULL REPORT:
http://anderson.ath.cx:8000/911/hj05.html

ALL OF A SUDDEN THE PRESIDENT BUSH TAKES A 9-DAY OUT OF THE
COUNTRY TRIP..... WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE????

1. Securacom was in control of all electronic security for the WTC complex.

2. There was a power down in the WTC towers the weekend before the 9/11 attack and teams of men were seen and heard "servicing" the elevators (access to all floors).

And last yet very far from least...  look what I just f*cking found!

3. Securacom went public on September 11, 1997. At IPO, it listed among its clients the World Trade Center, Dulles Airport, United Airlines, and Los Alamos National Laboratories.

KuwAm had significant ownership of Securacom, and the related company, Stratesec, from 1996 through 1999. Ownership was sometimes executed indirectly through holding companies such as "Special Situations Investment Holdings".

Marvin Bush served on the Stratesec board of directors from 1993 through 1999. His last term ended in June 2000.

In 1993, after the first attack on the World Trade Center, Burns and Roe Securacom obtained contracts among many other contractors for related security upgrades.

In 1993, as part of a new management team, including Wirt Walker, which was hired when Securacom separated from Burns and Roe, Marvin Bush joined Securacom's board of directors and he remained until 2000.

The World Trade Center and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority were listed as two of the company's prominent clients in 1996 and 1997.

The security company, 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.'

R. Michael Lagow, http://www.systemsgroup-us.com was vice president of Securacom, and the related company, Stratesec, in 1993, and he lists clients on his resume such as World Trade Center, Amtrak, and TVA Nuclear Power facilities. He joined Securacom in August of 1993 and founded the Dallas, Texas offices of Securacom. After the company went public on September 11, 1997, Securacom was ordered through a court of law, to change its name to Stratesec, due to a name infringement suit. Lagow was promoted to Executive Vice President in 1999.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securacom

It's too obvious - there is no debate. Inside job all the way.