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Bin Laden Profits from US
Anthrax Vaccine Manufacture?
By Ian Gurney.
Author of "The Cassandra
Prophecy." Well, on December 1st. last
year the Pakistan News Service announced that documents
belonging to a United States company called BioPort
Corporation were found in the possession of the al-Qaeda
in Kabul, Afghanistan. Seven weeks later, on January
16th, the United States Food and Drug Administration,
which had, since 1999 prohibited BioPort from manufacture
and production at its Michigan laboratories, announced
that it had given its conditional approval for BioPort to
begin the manufacture, production and shipping of its
product to the US military. On February 1st. the US
government gave BioPort Corp a green light on to resume
production that had been shut down by the Food and Drug
Administration for three years.
So, exactly what is BioPort, what do they produce and
who runs the company? Well, BioPort, based in North
Lansing, Michigan, is the only corporation in the United
States with a license to make the Anthrax vaccine. Except
that BioPort doesn't actually make the vaccine, BioPort
simply bought the laboratory that does make the vaccine,
Michigan Biologic Products Institute, from the State of
Michigan in 1998.
Less than a month after it took over the business,
BioPort acquired Michigan Biologic Products Institute's
sole and exclusive customer for the Anthrax vaccine, the
US Department of Defence, and an exclusive $29 million
contract with the Department of Defence to
"manufacture, test, bottle and store the anthrax
vaccine." The Pentagon agreed to pay BioPort $4.70
per shot and each member of the armed forces, that's 2.4
million soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, is
supposed to get six shots over an 18-month period.
Thats a huge, guaranteed market for BioPorts
product. Indeed, according to former Central Intelligence
Agency military analyst Patrick Eddington, the estimated
$60 million worth of anthrax vaccine BioPort is expected
to produce for the Defence Department over the next five
years could just be the beginning.
"The Pentagon has a $322 million, 10-year
programme to develop at least three, and perhaps as many
as a dozen additional biological warfare vaccines, making
BioPort a huge profit." Eddington told ABCNews.
However, since acquiring Michigan Biologic Products
Institute, BioPort has only delivered a small amount of
the anthrax vaccine to the US Defence Department. In
fact, just 4% of the vaccine contracted for has so far
been delivered because Food and Drug Administration
audits uncovered suspicious record keeping as well as
security and contamination problems at BioPort's
laboratories, causing the FDA to ban delivery of the
product until a few days ago.
So now lets look at who owns and runs BioPort
Corporation. Let's begin with Admiral William J. Crowe
Jr. former Head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and a
former US ambassador to Great Britain. It seems that back
when President George H. W. Bush was setting up Osama Bin
Laden as a "freedom fighter" (Afghanistan's
"freedom fighters" were credited with shooting
down more than 270 Soviet aircraft using American made
Stinger missiles in the 1980's) the good Admiral and his
associates on the Joint Chiefs of Staff were, according
to some reports, selling American made weapons-grade
Anthrax to Saddam Hussein in the hopes that he would use
it against Iran. These days Admiral Crowe sits on the
Board of Directors and owns 13% of BioPort Corp.
According to ABC News reporter Howard L. Rosenberg:
"BioPort Corp. was created solely to take over the
assets of Michigan Biologic Products Institute by Admiral
Crowe, his partners in a company called Intervac L.L.C.
and a group of former managers of the Michigan-based
institute."
It is Intervac that has the most interesting history
here. According to Crowes associate and spokesman,
Jay Coupe, Crowe owns 22.5 percent of Intervac shares,
although he hasnt "invested a penny" in
the venture. Another 30 percent of Intervac shares are
owned by Nancy El-Hibri, a mother and homemaker in
suburban Maryland and the rest of the company is in the
hands of "I&F Holdings," a company directed
by Nancy El-Hibris father-in-law, Ibrahim El-Hibri,
a Venezuelan citizen, and her husband, Fuad El-Hibri, a
German citizen of Lebanese descent. According to Coupe,
when Crowe returned from England in 1997, he was
approached by Fuad El-Hibris father, Ibrahim
El-Hibri. The elder El-Hibri, whom the admiral had met a
decade before, invited Crowe to serve on the board of
Intervac.
Fuad El-Hibri appears to be the real day-to-day
director of Intervac and is listed by Dun &
Bradstreet as the "chief executive" of Bioport.
The reclusive Ibrahim El Hibri, who grants no interviews,
has homes in Caracas, Maryland, Paris and Beirut, which
he visits all year around, being careful of avoiding tax
residence in any of them. Where he got his millions is a
mystery. He invested in Porton International, a British
pharmaceutical firm where his son worked, in the early
90s and according to a US Congressional review,
Porton International sold anthrax vaccines to the Saudi
Arabian Government. In Venezuela, Ibrahim El Hibri runs
the countrys third largest cell phone operator
Digitel, despite having sold control of the company to
Telecom Italia Mobile. Meanwhile in El Salvador, his son
Fuad El Hibri, finds the time to run Digicel, a cellular
telephone concession which the family bought two years
ago.
After the attacks of September 11th. President Bush
placed BioPort's North Lansing laboratory under
protection, invoking the national interest. Interestingly
enough, the Italian magazine Il Manifesto reported, in
its October issue, that this happened at the same time
that the FBI also placed the El Hibris at the top
of their list of suspects for sending anthrax spores
through the mail system.
So, it seems that Admiral Crowe, the El-Hibris and
their fellow investors in BioPort are set to make a nice
profit from the Anthrax scare. And who are those fellow
investors? Reports in the US media, denied by BioPort,
have suggested that one major investor in the company is
the Carlyle Group, one of America's most successful
investment companies, well known for generating
"extraordinary returns" for its customers
through investments in the US defence industry. Because
the Carlyle Group remains privately held, it is not
required to disclose details of its investments or
business activities, it has, however, an impressive array
of board members. Former President George Bush Sr. and
former UK Prime Minister John Major are directors of The
Carlyle Group, as are other top US Republicans including
former Secretary of State James A. Baker, and former
Defence Secretary and deputy CIA Director Frank Carlucci.
Now comes the interesting part of this story.
According to reports in the US media, until October last
year a major investor with The Carlyle Group was (and you
had better sit down before you read this) the bin Laden
family! For many years The Carlyle Group has maintained
financial ties with the family of Osama bin Laden, but
those links were supposedly severed after September 11th.
when it was agreed that the relationship was becoming a
tad embarrassing for all concerned.
The story behind the Carlyle Group and the links
between George Bush Sr. and the bin Ladens is fascinating
to say the least.
In the 1970's, Salem Bin Laden, the eldest of Osama
Bin Laden's 55 brothers and sisters, invested heavily in
George H. W. Bush's first business venture, Arbusto
Energy. Salem became Bush's business partner through
James Bath, a close friend of the future American
president. Salem appointed Bath as his representative in
Houston, Texas. It was Bath who invested $50,000 in
Bush's company Arbusto and also bought Houston Gulf
Airport on behalf of Osama's elder brother. Since then
business links between Bush Sr. and the Bin Laden family
have flourished, particularly since Bush Sr. joined the
Carlyle Group. On September 27th. last year The Wall
Street Journal reported that:
"George H.W. Bush, the father of President Bush,
works for the bin Laden family business in Saudi Arabia
through the Carlyle Group, an international investment
consulting firm. The senior Bush has met with the bin
Laden family at least twice.
Osama bin Laden has supposedly been
"disowned" by his family, which runs the Saudi
Bin Laden Group, a multi-billion dollar construction
business in Saudi Arabia. However, Osama's sister-in-law,
in a recent interview with America's ABC News, said that
she believed that members of her family still supported
Osama bin Laden.
If the rumours are correct about the Carlyle Group's
investment in BioPort, then it's quite possible the bin
Laden family is an investor in the only company able to
make Anthrax vaccine in the United States, and because
their beloved Osama might have some of the stuff, the
family will make a fortune. In fact, the shortage of
vaccine created by the now withdrawn FDA ban will make
all those involved in BioPort extremely wealthy, as
market forces drive the price of the vaccine up. A very
cosy arrangement. The Bushes, El Hibri's and bin Ladens
(and the occasional complicit Admiral) could all be
making money off the fear and death of Americans. Is it
any wonder, then, that documents relating to BioPort were
found in the possession of bin Laden's al-Qaeda network
in Kabul?
Copyright: Ian Gurney. 2002.
See also: Anthrax and
9/11 - Index of What Really Happened
It's a story straight off the pages of a John Le
Carre or Robet Ludlum thriller. A mysterious Lebanese
millionaire, who already owns telecoms companies in
Venezuela and El Salvador, uses his influence to take
over the sole manufacture, production and distribution of
one of Americas most sought after defence products.
Meanwhile, the world's most wanted terrorist appears to
be profiting from his family's investment in the self
same manufacturing process, assisted by no less a
personage than the father of the President of the United
States. Sounds fanciful?