Did The CIA Blow Up Pan Am Flight 103 To Cover Up US Drug Dealing: Then Blackmailed Libya To Take the Blame? Part 2: Lockerbie Doubts
skep...@aol.com
By Lisa Pease
August 21, 2009
In any kind of major transnational event, there is the historical
truth, what actually happened, and the political truth, what must have
happened for the nations involved to continue on as before.
Sometimes, these accounts match; other times, these “truths” are
wildly divergent, which appears to be the case with the Lockerbie
bombing.
On Thursday, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence
officer convicted of planting a bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103 which
exploded over the hills over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988,
was released. The Scottish authorities said they were letting al-
Megrahi go free on “compassionate grounds” because he was terminally
ill from cancer.
This decision caused an uproar in the United States. Obama
administration officials lodged angry protests; family members of the
victims decried the move, and TV pundits joined in the lamentations.
But what do they really know about the Lockerbie bombing, beyond what
they’ve read in the last few days?
The truth about what happened at Lockerbie appears quite a bit more
complex than the cookie-cutter version presented by the mainstream
media. Several longtime observers of the al-Megrahi case have
concluded that it has always been weak, at best.
According to British journalist Hugh Miles in a 2007 article for
London Review of Books, many “lawyers, politicians, diplomats and
relatives of Lockerbie victims now believe that the former Libyan
intelligence officer is innocent.”
Miles quoted Robert Black QC, an Edinburgh University professor
emeritus of Scottish law, as saying, “No reasonable tribunal, on the
evidence heard at the original trial, should or could have convicted
him and it is an absolute disgrace and outrage what the Scottish court
did.”
Al-Megrahi was tried along with fellow Libyan intelligence officer Al
Amin Khalifa Fhimah. With distraught relatives of victims filling the
courtroom, the Scottish judges understandably feared the reaction to
two not guilty verdicts. Instead, the judges acquitted Fhimah and
found al-Megrahi guilty.
A U.N. observer to the trial, Austrian philosophy Professor Hans
Koschler, noted, "You cannot come out with a verdict of guilty for one
and innocent for the other when they were both being tried with the
same evidence.”
The only important piece of evidence that differentiated al-Megrahi
from Fhimah was the dubious identification of al-Megrahi by a
storekeeper in Malta who fingered the Libyan as the buyer of clothing
found in the bomb suitcase.
But this storekeeper had earlier identified several other people,
including one who was a CIA agent. When he finally identified al-
Megrahi from a photo, it was after al-Megrahi's photo had been in the
world news for years.
There also were major discrepancies between the shopkeeper's original
description of the clothes-buyer and al-Megrahi's actual appearance.
The shopkeeper told police that the customer was "six feet or more in
height" and "was about 50 years of age." Al-Megrahi was 5'8" tall and
was 36 in 1988.
The Scottish judges acknowledged that the initial description "would
not in a number of respects fit the first accused [al-Megrahi]" and
that "it has to be accepted that there was a substantial discrepancy."
Nevertheless, the judges accepted the identification as accurate.
Other Scenarios
As the Scottish judges pieced together their curious rationale for a
guilty verdict, they also were rejecting earlier scenarios for the
bombing.
For instance, Scottish radio reporter David Johnston devoted a chapter
of his book Lockerbie: The Tragedy of Flight 103 to the prevalent
theory in the months following the attack, that the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) was
responsible.
Scottish journalist Magnus Linklater, in an article for the London
Timesonline on Aug. 13, noted that this was hardly a wild conspiracy
theory at the time:
“It is sometimes forgotten just how powerful the evidence was, in the
first few months after Lockerbie, that pointed towards the involvement
of the Palestinian-Syrian terror group the PFLP-GC, backed by Iran and
linked closely to terror groups in Europe. At The Scotsman newspaper,
which I edited then, we were strongly briefed by police and ministers
to concentrate on this link, with revenge for an American rocket
attack on an Iranian airliner as the motive.”
Indeed, the Sunday Times of London reported in its front-page headline
of March 26, 1989, “Pan Am Bombers Identified.” The article stated
that anonymous intelligence sources knew who was behind the bombing:
“the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—General Command,
led by Ahmed Jibril, a Damascus-based PLO renegade who opposes Yasser
Arafat’s current peace drive.”
The paper claimed that PLO sources had told it the group had received
$10 million to bring down the plane in retaliation for the downing of
an Iranian civilian airline by the American cruiser Vincennes the
summer before.
(The U.S. claimed the Vincennes thought it was being attacked, and
fired in self-defense, a claim which had no basis in reality, despite
having been voiced by President Ronald Reagan and Vice President and
former CIA director George H.W. Bush. President Reagan refused to
apologize to Iran for this tragic mistake.)
The Observer reported that, after the shootdown of the Iranian plane,
the Iranian chargé d’affaires in Beirut invited Ahmed Jibril and other
terrorists to a meeting attended by representatives of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard, where plans were made to bring down a plane with
a bomb.
The final meeting purportedly took place at the Carlton Hotel in
Beirut just days before the Lockerbie incident.
On Dec. 24, 1989, the Sunday Times reported that white plastic residue
found at the Lockerbie crash site matched material in alarm clocks
purchased from a couple of Jibril’s PFLP-GC associates just before
their arrest in West Germany in October 1988, just two months before
the Lockerbie bombing.
As Bill Blum’s report, recently republished at Consortiumnews.com,
noted, the Iranian-PFLP-GC conspiracy “was the Original Official
Version, delivered with Olympian rectitude by the U.S. government —
guaranteed, sworn to, scout’s honor, case closed — until the Gulf War
came along in 1990 and the support of Iran and Syria were needed.”
Political Truth
Enter the political truth. With Iran and Syria no longer available as
sponsors, given the new political reality, Libya became the new enemy.
Never mind that the evidence was nearly nonexistent.
In a BBC report from 2002, U.N. trial observer Koschler stated it
appeared to him the U.S. and UK authorities exerted undue influence
over al-Megrahi’s trial. Why would U.S. and UK authorities try to
influence the court? Beyond their roles as advocates for the victims,
what did theyhave to gain or to hide?
Authors John Ashton and Ian Ferguson, who together wrote Cover-up of
Convenience: The Hidden Scandal of Lockerbie, point out that more than
just bodies were found in the wreckage of Flight 103.
Along with the 270 dead were approximately $500,000 in American bills
and an envelope marked with $547,000, carrying travelers checks. But
according to a few key witnesses, something else was found. Drugs.
Heroin, to be exact.
Additionally, locals were perturbed by the immediate presence of large
numbers of Americans who showed up in Lockerbie within a couple of
hours of the downing of the plane.
When the CIA agents arrived on the scene, they were looking for highly
confidential papers that should have been found on the body of the
pilot, Captain James McQuarrie, No such papers were found. They also
sought something of great importance, but would not specify what it
was. They told the Scottish officials they’d know it when they found
it.
Among the victims was a man alleged to have been planning a rescue
operation for the American hostages then being held in Beirut, U.S.
Army Major Charles McKee, a Defense Intelligence Agency employee who
had been assigned temporarily to the CIA.
McKee had been accompanied by four others that were later identified
as CIA men: Matthew Gannon, the CIA’s Beirut Deputy Station Chief;
Ronald Larivier, Daniel O’Connor, and Bill Leyrer. Was the presence of
these men on the flight significant in any way? Were they targets?
One investigator believed that was a possibility.
Drug Scandal
Pan Am’s attorney James Shaughnessy hired Juval Aviv, president of a
private intelligence firm named Interfor and a former Mossad member,
to conduct an investigation into the bombing. Pan Am was facing a
civil suit from families of victims regarding lax security policies.
The more they knew about the bombing, the better Pan Am could
determine whether to contest the suit or settle.
Aviv’s report, commonly called the Intefor Report, contains several
claims, which, if true, are remarkable. It’s hard to know how much
credibility to give the report, although Aviv’s firm had done business
with the IRS and other government agencies, and had even been hired by
the Secret Service to investigate potential threats against President
Reagan.
The Interfor Report claims that one or more baggage handlers at Pan
Am’s facilities in Frankfurt serviced the drug trade, swapping out
innocent baggage for drug-laden baggage. The Report also claims that a
CIA team (referred to as CIA-1 in the Report) had learned about this
drug operation and was using their knowledge of it to extract
concessions from those holding the hostages in Beirut.
The report claims that the McKee-led team of CIA people – in Beirut to
plan a hostage rescue operation – learned of this drug smuggling
operation and the role of some CIA people in it. According to the
report, “The [McKee] team was outraged, believing that its rescue and
their lives would be endangered by the double dealing.”
The report said, “By mid-December the team became frustrated and angry
and made plans to return to the U.S. with their photos and evidence to
inform the government, and to publicize their findings if the
government covered it up. They did not seek permission to return,
which is against the rules. The return was unannounced. … Sources
report eight CIA team members on that flight, but we only have
identified the five names reported herein.”
According to the report, an undercover Mossad agent tipped off the
German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) 24 hours in advance that a
bomb was to be placed on Pan Am Flight 103. BKA, said the report,
passed that information to CIA-1, which reported that information to
its control, but received no guidance one way or another back.
The Interfor Report alleges that a Turkish baggage handler stashed a
suitcase in the employee locker area, as was his usual practice with
drug shipments.
During the loading of bags, a BKA agent noticed a bag that looked
different than the usual drug bags. Since he was on alert for a
potential bomb, he notified CIA-1, which again passed that information
to its control.
The report said, “Control replied: don’t worry about it, don’t stop
it, let it go.” The report said CIA-1 gave no instructions to BKA, and
BKA did nothing to stop the bag.
In one of its most startling allegations, the report said, “The BKA
was then covertly videotaping that area on that day. A videotape was
made. It shows the perpetrator in the act. It was held by BKA. A copy
was made and given to CIA-1. The BKA tape has been ‘lost.’ However,
the copy exists at CIA-1 control in the U.S.”
Aviv encouraged Pan Am to obtain a copy of that tape, warning that the
CIA would deny its existence, and that Pan Am would need to be
persistent.
Press Attention
This story took on new dimensions in 1990, when both ABC and NBC did
their own report on a drug ring link to the bombing. Both chose,
however, to focus on a DEA operation, and the CIA was never mentioned
by either network.
NBC named Khalid Jaafar, the only Arab on Flight 103, as the unwitting
courier whose bag got swapped for the bomb. The Interfor Report had
named the same person.
According to Cover-up of Convenience authors Ashton and Ferguson, on
Oct. 30, 1990, NBC reported:
“NBC news has learned that Pan Am flights from Frankfurt, including
[Flight] 103, had been used a number of times by the DEA as part of
its undercover operations to fly information and suitcases of heroin
into Detroit as part of a sting operation to catch dealers in Detroit.
The undercover operation, code-named Operation Courier, was set up
three years ago by the DEA in Cyprus to infiltrate Lebanese heroin
groups in the Middle East and their connections in Detroit …
“[I]nformants would put suitcases on the Pan Am flights, apparently
without the usual security checks, according to one airline source,
through an arrangement between the DEA and German authorities. Law
enforcement officials say the fear now is that the terrorists that
blew up Pan Am 103 somehow learned about what the DEA was doing,
infiltrated the undercover operation and substituted the bomb for the
heroin in one of the DEA shipments” so the bomb would sail through the
security loophole, undetected.
ABC produced a similar report the next day, and also claimed that
Khalid Jaafar was one of the drug couriers.
The DEA investigated itself in the wake of these stories, and declared
itself clean to a House subcommittee. The DEA claimed only three drug
operations had been run through Frankfurt, and none in December of
1988 when the bombing took place.
In 1992, long after the DEA’s denials, a new report supporting the
Interfor Report surfaced, in Time magazine of all places, supporting
some of the reports core allegations.
The article, by Roy Rowan, stated that Ahmed Jibril used a Middle
Eastern heroin traffic operation to get the bomb on the plane, and
that McKee was heading back to Washington to expose the CIA unit’s
operations with the drug dealers.
So is this the true history of what happened at Lockerbie? I don’t
know.
The direction of the case shifted dramatically in the fall of 1990 as
President George H.W. Bush was scrambling to assemble a coalition to
drive Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. The Bush administration was in need
of Iranian and Syrian help, too, in freeing U.S. hostages then held by
Islamic militant groups in Lebanon.
Also in 1990, spin-off investigations from the Iran-Contra scandal
were underway with Iranian officials possessing possible information
that could have incriminated President Bush as he was looking toward a
tough reelection battle in 1992. In short, the Iranians held a number
of cards that would have made them inconvenient targets of the Pan Am
investigation.
However, the Libyans were opposing Bush’s Persian Gulf intervention
and had long ranked near the top of the list of America’s favorite
enemies. Laying the blame on the Libyans let a lot of influential
people off the hook.
While I don’t know if the alternative theories of the Pan Am 103
bombing are true, what I do know is that there is a lot more support
for some of them than there ever was for the conviction of the
unfortunate and now cancer-ridden al-Megrahi, whose release on
Thursday was widely condemned by U.S. officials and media figures with
almost no reference to the lingering doubts about his conviction
beyond brief mentions that he continues to assert his innocence.
How did we get so far off track on this story? In part, by not having
a truly independent media to investigate and report on the truth
behind this case.
Lisa Pease is a historian and writer who specializes in the mysteries
of the John F. Kennedy era.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/082109a.html
Uncle Fairy Dust
Subject: Did The CIA Blow Up Pan Am Flight 103 To Cover Up US Drug
Dealing:
Then Blackmailed Libya To Take the Blame?
Nope.
The San Francisco 49ers didn't do it either
Get help.
panam...@hotmail.com
snip
Y'know...just looking at the title, I knew it had to be more of your
pinheaded tinfoil hat crap.
Atlantis called, they say your UFO to the Face on Mars is ready. Just
for a disguise, they'll be dressed as mental health care workers when
they come to pick you up.
-Panama Floyd, Atlanta.
aa#2015/Member, Knights of BAAWA!
skep...@aol.com
The United States government is the largest organization smuggling
drugs and poisoning neighbhorhoods, on the planet. Where do you think
drugs come from anyway?
Don Martin
I have no idea, but reading one of your posts gives me a pretty shrewd idea of
where they are ending up.
-
aa #2278 Never mind "proof." Where is your evidence?
Fidei defensor (Hon. Antipodean)
The Squeeky Wheel: http://home.comcast.net/~drdonmartin/
panam...@hotmail.com
From your therapist. You should get back on them.
haiku jones
You mean originally?
Although so-called "historians" have long suppressed
the answer to that, no doubt under pressure from the
DEA, which has cut off funding to any "historian" who
trys to get the truth out (even imprisoning and
torturing some of the more determined ones), no one can
keep the truth hidden forever, and now those capable of
thinking for themselves have been given the real,
uncensored answer: drugs came from Atlantis.
In their desperate, centuries-long struggle for
Galactic Hegemony against the tyrannical Hive Mind
(which originally came from M31, the Andromeda galaxy)
the cephalopod-like creatures of Upsilon Omicron tried
to enlist the aid of our early human ancestors.
Ancient monuments around the world, from Egyptian
pyramids to Aztec towers to miles-long Peruvian chalk
drawings -- all contain depictions of these early squid-
human encounters, driven deep into the collective
consciousness of our ancestors by the shock of their
natural revulsion to anything that looked like an eight-
foot tall, heavily armed, talking octopus.
Frantic to gather allies, the U-O beings then turned to
the biochemists of Atlantis, who possessed technologies
far beyond our so-called "medical science" of today.
In return for giving the Atlanteans an advanced
"cloaking device" which would forever hide them from
the barbaric, gold-seeking surface dwellers, the
biochemists of Atlantis developed certain compounds
which, when administered to surface dwellers, would
cause euphoria, forgetfulness, visions, pleasure -- all
emotions the U-O beings could use to manipulate these
early humans, causing them to drop their instinctive
revulsion to cephalopods.
Along with these compounds, the advanced biologists of
Atlantis had given the U-O beings the genetic knowledge
to insert genes for these compounds into plants, thus
making sure that these placidity-inducing chemicals
could always be found in the humans' environment.
The Upsilon-Omicron creatures of course lost their
battle in the long run, when the Hive Mind released
titanic energies across the solar system, causing Venus
to be ejected from Jupiter and go careening across the
solar system, just as that true historian, Doctor
Velikovsky, has discovered.
But their drugs -- the extraterrestrial compounds,
improved by the genius of the civilization of Atlantis --
they remain to this day.
Why, where did YOU think drugs come from?
Haiku Jones