AN ADMISSION OF GUILT?

De Borchgrave's Allegation and its Malta Problem
[Pan Am 103 Series]
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
January 4 2010
last update 1/8/10

An Atlas Twitches?
In the wee early minutes New Years Eve I posted a little analysis of the Libya confessed/didn't confess issue that was mildly valuable but not too exciting. It was quickly picked up by Professor Robert Black at his much higher-profile blog. By the evening, an e-mail was sent from Frank Duggan of Victims of Pan Am 103 Inc. to Prof. Black, subject-titled "Gadhafi admitted it!" Weird spelling aside (and there just too many spellings), it's something interesting, being spurred by an e-mail Duggan had just recieved from the renowned Arnaud de Borchgrave, recounting the admission he personally took from Gaddafi years ago.

De Borchgrave is a Belgian-born, 1926-born, globe-trotting phenomenon, plying the realm between politics and journalism from the dawn of the Cold War until today. His greatest renown is his ability to speak to world leaders, discretely one would think, and help them understand each other. (I studied the guy for 30 minutes or so - Wiki). He was briefly President and CEO of United Press International, currently an Editor-at-Large for both UPI and The Washington Times, which he has written for since 1985 (not the best recommendation). He’d previously worked at numerous outlets, including Newsweek, reportedly fired "in part for keeping dossiers on fellow employees". But a Newsweek editor has said of his reporting “despite his intimacy with major policymakers, he has never aligned himself with either side of a dispute.” (see the wiki).

Aaaand, since 1991 de Borchgrave has been a senior adviser for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and its director of the Global Organized Crime Project, which became the Transnational Threats Project after 9/11, and also resides in groups like the Atlantic Council. (source). This in turn is dedicated to creating and using trans-Atlantic “consensus” on "appropriate responses" to "bring ideas to power" in service of “American leadership” of the world. Specifically they focus on refining policies towards Russia, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, etc. as well as promoting NATO enlargement throughout Eurasia, and relevant here “drafting roadmaps for U.S. policy towards the Balkans, Africa, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, and Libya.” (source).

It's not certain my little post spurred this twitch from a giant, but I was lancing at Libya’s non-admission admission, and this is about offering more solid proof on precisely that issue - "Gadhafi admitted it!" I’m curious enough to check the timeline:
My posting was at 12:25 am local (PST), which would be 8:25am GMT. I think that's when I started it, rather than hitting publish. But I'm not sure.
Professor Black partially re-posted it at 13:09 GMT. According to Black, de Borchgrave's line to Duggan was sent at 6.15pm GMT, and Duggan’s to Black at 7:21pm on New Year’s Eve. The Professor apparently had better things to do that evening, but not tooooo much better, and posted on it prompltly at 8:45 on New Year’s Day. I take two days for another overblown yammerfest in response. It's rather a coincidence if these developments aren't all connected. So I'm probably "touching history" I guess, a small bit of it, and so far it feels, well... not quite fuzzy.

Alright, Alright, so What the Hell is it?
The e-mail sent to Black, as he posted it, passes on of de Borchgrave's original message:

"As Gaddafi explained it to me, which you are familiar with, it was indeed Iran's decision to retaliate for the Iran Air Airbus shot down by the USS Vincennes on its daily flight from Bandar Abbas to Dubai that led to a first subcontracting deal to Syrian intel, which, in turn, led to the 2nd subcontract to Libyan intel. As he himself said if they had been first at this terrorist bat, they would not have put Malta in the mix; Cyprus would have made more sense to draw attention away from Libya."

Up-front, it seems as if Duggan solicited this e-mail to support the admission he's heard about earlier. We can see three tracks worthy of note - Iranian genesis of the plot, which has been a confusing on-again, off-again sub-current in the case I need to study more. For the most part, an Iranian link (as the primary sponsors no less) played no role mentioned in renderings of "the official story" - for example, the final verdict (opinion of the Court) following the 2000 trial contains zero mentions of "Iran" in its 82 well-filled pages. There's also a potential problem for the Malta aspect of the official story (which I'll return to), and an acknowledgment that Libyan intel did agree to take some part in the (Iranian-initiated) bombing.

But the e-mail is too vague. Let's turn to the previous publication of this reported admission that likely spurred Duggan to ask for a statement. At the time of Megrahi’s release, in late August last year, de Borchgrave wrote for “The Atlanticist,” apparently a paper from Atlantis (kidding - from the Atlantic Council), on the interview he had with Gaddafi on June 6 1993. After the main session, de Borchgrave asked the leader “to explain, off the record, his precise involvement in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.” Gaddafi then “dismissed all the aides in his tent” and went candid, “in halting English without benefit of an interpreter.” Mostly he decried terrorism and offered to assist the West fight bin Laden-type terror networks (Libya is well known for realizing this threat specifically well before our 9/11, having suffered from them alongside U.S. sanctions, etc.).

Without offering an exact paraphrased quote, de Borchgrave states “Gaddafi candidly admitted that Lockerbie was retaliation for the July 3, 1988, downing of an Iranian Airbus," Iran Air 655 - shot down in a bizarre reckless action by an unusual US warship suffering a strange group psychosis while on a U.S.-engineered entrapment mission. Gaddafi explained how the Arab world could not accept that as accident (and for decent reason) and how he agreed with the Iranians:

"[R]etaliation, he said, was clearly called for. Iranian intelligence subcontracted retaliation to one of the Syrian intelligence services (there are 14 of them), which, in turn, subcontracted part of the retaliatory action to Libyan intelligence (at that time run by Abdullah Senoussi, Gaddafi's brother-in-law). "Did we know specifically what we were asked to do?" said Gaddafi. "We knew it would be comparable retaliation for the Iranian Airbus, but we were not told what the specific objective was," Gaddafi added."

I see no reason to either blindly trust or blindly doubt the veracity of this remembered talk. But taking it as true, we must still consider Gaddafi's understanding may be incomplete, or his statement may be slanted to fit an audience that's already convinced of his guilt. And then there are possible translation issues. But admittedly, it does sound like he agreed, or understood someone else's agreement, to take some part in a plan he knew would likely cause destruction of an American civil airliner. That would be a noteworthy development that might affect people's thinking on the subject. Libya is usually reported as "always inisisting on their innocence." Why did de Borchgrave wait sixteen years to report it? Did he?

No he didn't. Looks almost like he waited 11 years to make it public, while reporting it behind the scenes to the CIA, with a debriefing, immediately on returning home from the 1993 interview. He explained this in an article for NewsMax, from January 2004. Therein, de Borchgrave argued that Saddam Hussein's recent fall had increased Libya's anxiety to be even less for terrorism-tyranny-WMD-whatever. This led to Libya's 2003 moves to accept responsibility for Lockerbie (see first link at top), dismantle their WMD programs, and to really, really swear off terrorism, barring further frame-ups of course. To this end he had already come clean to the writer a decade before. He said of that meeting:

"[Gaddafi] admitted Libya's guilt for the downing of Pan Am 103, but made clear that it was originally an Iranian [plot] ... “So the Iranians subcontracted part of the job to a Syrian intelligence service, which, in turn, asked the Libyan Mukhabarat to handle part of the assignment," Col. Gadhafi explained. "That is the way these things were planned in those days. If we had initiated the plot, we would have made sure the accusing finger was pointed in the other direction and we would have picked Cyprus, not Malta, where some of the organization was done. The others picked Malta presumably to frame us.""

This to me is quite interesting. It would imply that someone not Libyan - it would seem Syrians - had directed al Megrahi to use Malta for the plot - or something, if Gaddafi's second-hand words are to be believed. Or alternately, the admission could read "we were involved in part of it, just not the part you "caught" our guy doing. The Syrians did the Malta stuff." That's not too helpful when your whole case against Libya was about the Libyan intel bigwig sent to Malta, by Tripoli, to plant the bomb because of his own (known) connections there and Libya's own, non-Iranian, grievances. Two JSO operatives, commanded by JSO higher-ups, had specifically targetted PA103 via Luqa airport, and were even stealing the "taggs" to write that on. No "framed" in that scenario. Is this just another Libyan non-admission admission?

And all this when the real evidence Gaddafi may or may not have known about highly suggests the bomb went on PA103 way up in London, with nothing physically to do with Malta at all. Don't lose focus.

A response by Peter Biddulph to Duggan's "admitted" e-mail got its own post on 2 January at Black's blog. Against the whole one-on-one admission, he stated from some experts that "Gaddafi never, repeat never, was without at least one armed personal bodyguard. To be alone with an American journalist with many contacts in Washington would be, for Gaddafi, impossible." de Borchgrave also claimed to be de-briefed by the CIA on this discussion in 1993:

"When we got back to Washington, we called Director of Central Intelligence Jim Woolsey to tell him what we had been told off the record. Woolsey asked me if I would mind being debriefed by the CIA. I agreed. And the rest is history." (NewsMax)

If history here means silence, then it was so. Biddulph points out this admission of guilt never made it into many if any pronouncements from, say Vincent Cannistraro, who headed the CIA's Lockerbie probe until 1991, and could be someone privy to such a debriefing even after this. Biddulph found no reference to it in the trial proceedings, the writings of various commentators, etc., running through a pretty good listing of places this amazing admission did not get repeated between 1993 and 2009. Indeed, the earliest mention I've seen anywhere is that Newsmax piece from three years after the verdict.

Biddulph called the e-mail "disinformation," and postulated "the real reasons for this late announcement" as affecting the Libyan leadership succession (smearing Senoussi), and to distract from the imminent release of SCCRC documents." An original publication in 2004 does seem to complicate the second reason at least, and perhaps Mr. Biddulph spoke too soon, as I had dismissing de Borchgrave without knowing a flit about him. This alleged admission and the man who has alerted us to it are too much to dismiss. There are several somethings wrong about this story I can't quite put my finger on, and I suspect others more influential have their own problems with it, and so it's unlikely to make more noise now than it did before.
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ANOTHER CALL ON MALTA

ADMIT IT ALREADY!
[Pan Am 103 Series]
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
December 11 2009

Note: The Following does not necessarily reflect the author's true views in all regards

The Status Quo
Two previous posts explained al Megrahi’s Malta-based plot to destroy Pan Am 103. First we witnessed the keen memory and staunch bravery of eyewitness Anthony Gauci, standing alone against an uncaring island subdued by Libyan barbarians. Next I chronicled the complete subjugation of Air Malta and its security operations at Luqa Airport, allowing the PA103 bomb to hurtle uncontrollably to Lockerbie. And finally, at the end of the second piece, I just started hinting at their infuriating denials after the fact that any such plot ever did pierce their magical force field.

It’s noteworthy that Air Malta has avoided the notoriety and bankruptcy that sunk Pan Am following this disaster. How, when their initial “failure” is what gave Pan Am its chance to fail as well? As usual in a world rife with anti-American plots, the true villain escapes unharmed, allowed to live and thrive, while the innocent passerby is shot to death. The distatsteful status quo is thus the Americans got their (little fish) bad guy, but lost a major airline, while the Libyans have paid up and admitted responsibility, while cynically denying responsibility, and all Malta had to do was keep quiet on its part. It’s a more than fair deal for the government in Velletta, and one should think they’d be grateful. And normally they act that way.

Demands of the Disgruntled
Some have agitated to upset that stasis, but so far the calls on Malta are quite one-sided, encouraging them to “clear their name” of the Lockerbie taint altogether. These pleas usually come from a small, well-known group of people who would like to de-blame Libya itself. Now if that doesn’t illustrate the axis of malice between Velletta and Triploi, nothing does.

Just in the last couple of months, Lockerbie trial “architect” and general grumpy gus Professor Robert Black piped up in late August. He opined “the Maltese government should be pressing very hard within the EU for an enquiry into Lockerbie,” and criticized the Scottish judges for accepting that Megrahi’s bag from Malta ever existed.

On 25 October that one UN guy, Köchler, that was at the trial and said some bad stuff about it, called for a Maltese probe of Gauci in particular: "If they are committed to the rule of law, the Maltese authorities should open their own investigation and interrogate Mr Gauci," One must wonder how much Gaddaffy is paying Herr Köchler to get at the hero of Silema like the lurking Libyans never were able to?

Never Enough Proof
The Maltese authorities have really done a great job “clearing their name” without the encouragement, but with it they went haywire. On 31 October the UK Daily Telegraph reported “Malta to investigate evidence of key Lockerbie witness.” This was based on an unnamed “Maltese legal official” who said “Tony Gauci is an area where we have to investigate more thoroughly and we are preparing for this. There was never enough proof, to be frank, on the circumstances of his evidence and there is pressure coming from many quarters on Malta to move to resolve the issue." There’s not enough proof in the world, apparently.

The following day, 1 November, the Justice Department specifically denied such preparations, disowning any comment that may have been made. However, their press release took the chance to repeat the infuriating claim that since 1988, the Maltese government has "always maintained the bomb which downed Pan Am flight 103 had not departed from Malta and ample proof of this was produced.” Oh, so now the mountain of proof of a Maltese-origin bomb, that’s “never enough,” is trumped by that tired old paperwork? It becomes clearer.

To top off this cowardly dodge, on the same day, Prime Mnister Gonzi affirmed their disinterest in Gauci. “Over the years we cooperated with every investigation,” he explained, which is technically true. But like the others, he ignores the terrorist plots hatched there that were uncovered by these efforts. “Our position,” he pronounced, “was always that Malta had nothing to do with the terrorist attack.” Well they did host the whole thing except the explosion, so presumably he means nothingconsciously to do with it. But this too is in doubt. When asked if his decision not to re-question Gauci was due to pressure from the U.S., Gonzi replied “it is totally untrue.” Indeed, their own embarrassment seems more at stake than America’s in again contrasting Tony’s sharp eye with the complacent approach everyone else in Malta takes towards the Libyans.

I’d like to quote Stuart Henderson, that proper Scottish copper who led the whole police investigation of Lockerbie. He wasn’t specifically referring to any of the Maltese vomiting this vile venom above when he spoke about Megrahi's release in August. But those who doubt the official story, as most Maltese seem to, “make my blood boil” and are “an insult to our police officers … an insult to the Americans, to the Germans, to the Swiss and the Maltese officers.” That’s right, you guys are slandering your own who helped prove just exactly how the Libyans killed 270 with a bomb your lame-ass airport just “missed” and somehow you can’t just admit it.

Another Call and Surely Not the Last
But it didn’t end there, as proved by a 29 November letter, urging Malta to “defend itself,” issued by the Orwellianly-named “Justice for Megrahi campaign.” The letter was signed by, among others, British MPs Tom Dalyell and Teddy Taylor, plus Noam Chomsky - all outspoken Leftist weirdos who argue that Megrahi is an innocent little lamb framed by “the West” (i.e. – the New World Order, aka “Illuminati”). Professor Chomsky, not surprisingly, called the proper conviction based on proof of a terrorist mass murderer "a remarkable illustration of the conformism and obedience of intellectual opinion in the West". Oh, Chomsky… yawn-skip-yawn-skip-yawn-skip… "I think the trial was very seriously flawed,” he further opined to the Times of Malta, “including crucially the alleged role of Malta. There is every reason to call for a very serious independent inquiry." Certainly Triploi has the roster for it drafted already, and a few more bought souls from now we might see Justice turned on its head, to Chomsky’s delight.

And finally to quote again then Minister of Home Affairs, Tonio Borg, quite a while back in early 2000: "We have no proof that these two Libyan suspects were involved in anything illegal in Malta regarding this case, particularly the placing of this bomb on Air Malta Flight ... 180.” I had hoped he would be fired since then, especially after the trial at camp Zeist shortly put the lie to such claims. Rather, he’s prospered just like Air Malta; since then he’s been Minister of Foreign Affairs and of Justice (ironically), and is currently honored with the titles Deputy Leader of the Nationalist Party, leader of the House of Representatives, and Deputy Prime Minister. Would Germany have been tolerated promoting its holocaust deniers like this?

The Final Call: Pull Malta Back From the Dark Side
Clearly this talk of a UN inquiry, under Libyan control, torturing Tony Gauci into recanting his story, and all the rest, has got to stop. That is hardly worth mentioning outright it's so elemental. But while we’re at it, we must ask if this tiny, easily manipulated island nation was really just used by the Libyans against its will? Or have they been swayed to the dark side all along? The petitioners seem to bet on the latter.

Historically, the Maltese are notoriously soft on Islam, and perhaps by now sympathetic to the anti-American Jihad. At the very least they’re likely to slide that way if Libya’s evil grip is allowed to continue unaddressed. Therefore, let’s make it more explicit and issue a new international call on Malta to “Admit it! You're Tripoli's little pet and happy about it!” Sign the informal petition by leaving a comment below. We are all Americans now, worldwide, and we will get our perps, be they Libyan, Maltese, and also otherwise. The case is open!

I specifically speak to Brits – Scots, Welsh, English, Etc. It must be asked if all this was caused by the UK letting go of the island’s hand in this world crowded with evil. Recall that after you freed Malta from the Freemason French, you cared for them and left your names all over, until you set them loose in the hippie 1960’s. But as usual permissiveness breeds wickedness and by 1988, planes were falling on the UK itself due to losing Malta. If those people can’t behave responsibly and face up to the consequences of their long dance with Libya, perhaps independence should be seriously re-considered.
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WHILE MALTA SLEPT?

HOW MALTA LET LOCKERBIE HAPPEN
[Pan Am 103 Series]
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
December 9 2009

Note: The Following does not necessarily reflect the author's true views in all regards

A previous post addressed the fateful clothes purchase by Lockerbie bomber al Megrahi on the island of Malta, well-known as occurring on December 7 1988 at the Gauci family’s shop Mary’s House. But this is only a sliver of the terrorist mastermind’s larger plot with many steps taken all within a few square miles around Silema, under the watchless eye of the Maltese authorities - especially at nearby Luqa airport where the main action went down.

Abdelbaset al Megrahi was a Libyan intelligence bigwig personally carrying out some hair-brained revenge by Col Gaddaffy for a two-year old US bombing of Libya that had killed his adopted daughter. Megrahi had connections at Luqa airport via his own Libyan Arab Airlines links, but the experts agree he could not likely do this all alone without at least one accomplice inside the airport. His exactly one (known) accomplice, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, also worked for LAA at Luqa and was a Libyan intelligence operative, high-level.

Of course Fhimah was later found not guilty on a technicality, that being the evidence against him, and the other incredible details flowing from star witness Abdulmajid Giaka, was found “inadmissible” by the three presiding judges. This was one of their more cautious and wimpy moves – a key witness ignored over a few piddling doubts raised by the defense about his meager repayments and the doubts of some memo-writer.

To be clear on this point, the prosecution and the CIA (who first worked the witness) have always known Mr, Giaka was honest and credible, with high-level connections at Luqa and in Libyan intelligence, and a knowledge both vast and intimate of the Megrahi-Fhimah plot. The judges didn’t specifically counter this, and any disinterested observer can note his story is still effectively true, as it mirrored the prosecution case. For the prime example, Giaka swears he saw both accused arrive at the airport with a mysterious brown Samsonite suitcase. That’s dynamite info, and all the other evidence proves they did exactly this. That his story so closely resembles that truth can hardly be coincidence, and his dismissal is but a technicality.

Giaka also alerted his handlers of genuine clues that panned out, like Fhimah’s diary entry noting he needed to get “TAGGS” (in English but misspelled). What business would an airline employee have with luggage tags besides planning to use one of them (with a few spares to practice on) to get a bomb onto PA103? It’s been suggested the diary explains he was taking sample tags to a local printer to get more made, but the question that begs an answer then is why write something this boring in your diary when you could jot down clues to your terrorist plot? In English? The critics cannot answer that.

Within that brown suitcase Giaka saw, we know Megrahi had the bomb, ready made with a flexible Mebo timer the Libyans were famous for having by then, packed into a radio with the memorable clothes and umbrella he didn’t need anymore. Fully confident in his ability to walk right through Luqa airport, he decided to send this bundle of malice right from there, correctly presuming gross negligence would repeatedly fail to stop it on its complex chosen path. It was perhaps the sheer arrogance of those “above the law” that made Megrahi time the bomb to just deny the ocean’s anonymity, and leave these scattered clues to be found on land and traced back to Mebo and Gauci and himself. It all makes sense in hindsight, and fits established and understood patterns of criminal behavior. For example, the professionals who write up James Bond villains know just this type all too well and should not be surprised at such mundane contrivances.

As to how this perfectly predictable plot continued on to fruition unopposed, that’s more troubling. All it took to penetrate “Mary’s House” and buy just the right clothes was a little money. It was Luqa Airport that really mattered, and that too proved easy enough for a determined mastermind to part like the Red Sea. The airline Air Malta ran security there, essentially the host airline. Air Malta security director Wilfred Borg has been quite defensive, always speaking up about their “stringent policies” of double-checking the number of bags, and reconciling each with the right passengers. They have produced the documentation for investigators and news cameras alike, to “prove” their case. But paper is just so darn thin as evidence when clearly a bag with a bomb DID come out of Malta.

Unaccompanied bags are not allowed, so couldn’t happen, the logic ran. Strangely, the Matlese police agreed as if they know anything about airports. Outside “experts” like Denis Phipps, former security director for British Airways, have found these records “reliable,” and as showing 55 pieces of luggage, all claimed by 39 passengers, with none unaccompanied. The answer, presuming for argument’s sake these are legitimate records, is that the 56th bag was simply not documented. Why would a terrorist be so stupid and arrogant as to allow his bomb bag to de recorded on the official paperwork to be traced back?

KM180 landed in Frankfurt at mid-day, and it was there the suitcase wormed its way onto PA103, using…. Yep, that “TAGG.” These magical tickets were the perfect tool; in the 1980s, airports routinely searched only bags without tags. One with proper tags was considered “good to go” and sent along. The proof it was sent along was provided by the diligent German Federal Police, BKA, who had sprung into action within days of the crash. It was widely reported in Germany that Flight 103 originated in Frankfurt, which it only sort-of did. So it’s understandable they would visit the airport, as they did on or around Christmas at the latest, looking for the luggage records, computer files and paper forms, relating to 103 and what went on it.

Now it’s no secret that police can goof things up and usually do. They forgot to get the records for what went onto Flight 103 when they were there, and the airport deleted that data a few days later with no official backup or paper copies kept. Luckily, a souvenir printout that an upright employee handed to the BKA in late January proved that an unaccompanied bag was routed from KM180 onto the ‘first leg’ of Flight 103. The BKA investigated the airport again and agreed, six months later alerting Scottish police. And that, good people, is solid proof of an unaccompanied bag from Malta, no matter what the Maltese and their apologists claim.

Few have the guts to openly verbalize the presumption one must make on considering all this. One exception is Vincent Cannistraro, head of the CIA’s Lockerbie investigation, who had been tenaciously telling the truth about Libya for years already before working with Giaka to ‘simulate’ it. In a 1994 documentary (Frontline Scotland: Silence over Lockerbie), Cannistraro told the truth about their northern island possession, masterfully dismissing the claims of Air Malta and their ilk:

“They have vindicated themselves on paper in terms of the security procedures, but if their security personnel are suborned by hostile intelligence service, and they are completely vulnerable to whatever that hostile service would want to put on their aircraft, with baggage tags, without baggage tags. Once you have basically infiltrated the security apparatus there is no barrier to doing exactly what Fhimah and Megrahi DID." (emph. Mine)

They aren't saying it aloud like this, these days, but that MUST still be the official story stood by in Washington and London. Malta was suborned into letting Lockerbie happen and have at least tacitly helped confuse this basic fact. Consider this outrageous claim by Malta's Minister of Home Affairs, Tonio Borg (any relation to the compromised Wilfred Borg, hmmm?): "We have no proof that these two Libyan suspects were involved in anything illegal in Malta regarding this case, particularly the placing of this bomb on Air Malta Flight ... 180.” The suspicious security breach, which they could just admit to but disown as a mistake, was now to be compounded with an equally dubious refusal to admit their … failure? It’s seeming less and less like a failure and Borg is sounding sort of like a German railroadman denying his part in the Holocaust.

Disingenuous and disgusting. I hope he's been fired or at least demoted since then.

To be continued...