from the Associated Press via the San Francisco Chronicle, 2001-Sep-26:
Senator says bin Laden had accounts in bank shut down in worldwide fraud scandal
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Investigators have learned that Osama bin Laden was among those with accounts in a bank shut down in 1991 in one of the world's biggest banking scandals, Sen. John Kerry said Wednesday.
The Bank of Credit and Commerce International was closed after bank regulators around the globe linked it to fraud, theft, secret weapons deals, terrorist financing and drug-money laundering.
Investigators didn't know it at the time, but it turns out bin Laden had accounts at BCCI, said Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who led an investigation into the Third World bank.
"We have learned since from law enforcement and intelligence that when we shut it down, we dealt him a very serious economic blow because of the size of those accounts and his dependency on that flow," Kerry said.
Saudi Arabian multimillionaire bin Laden and his al-Qaida network are the prime suspects in the Sept. 11 hijackings of four U.S. commercial jetliners and attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
U.S. officials are trying to trace the money behind bin Laden's network, leading to a renewed push by Kerry and other lawmakers for tougher money laundering laws.
Kerry commented on BCCI's link to bin Laden at a Senate Banking Committee hearing on money laundering legislation.
Arab terrorist Abu Nidal and Colombian cocaine cartels also were among the bank's 1.3 million customers. Depositors lost millions of dollars when authorities seized BCCI's assets.
from TPDL 2001-Jan-8, from the Chicago Sun-Times, by Robert Novak:
A political Lord of Money
In a day when dictators no longer launch invading armies across borders, the one mortal who on his own can shock the world is a 74-year-old central banker. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan last Wednesday energized global markets with an unexpected drop in interest rates. But why? The answer has more to do with politics than economics.
Only two weeks earlier, on Dec. 19, the Federal Open Market Committee determined that the economy was slowing down but the time was not ripe to lower interest rates. That disappointment for investors was reflected in a sharp market slump. During the blah business period between Christmas and the Fed's surprise move Jan. 3, however, nothing much happened financially.
But there was something going on politically. President-elect George W. Bush had assembled captains of industry for an "economic forum" in Austin, mainly to endorse his tax cut proposals. Greenspan's sensitive political antenna perceived that their mood about the economy--and about himself--was ugly. As interpreted by experienced Fed-watchers, he decided on a preemptive strike.
The Lord of Money can be guided by political considerations because of the Federal Reserve's unique status. In an ever more democratic and transparent government, Greenspan controls an institution that remains autocratic and opaque. He also presides over the Fed's weakest Board of Governors in memory.
With this authority, Greenspan led the Fed to six consecutive interest rate increases despite no tangible signs of inflation. This relentless money tightening contributed to a serious global corporate crunch.
The corporate chiefs who met in Austin with Bush last Wednesday were boiling. "A lot of folks in this room brought some pretty bad news," the president-elect told reporters, citing slow sales and reduced work forces. But that hardly did justice to what Bush heard behind closed doors. Jack Welch, the General Electric chief who has ready access to Greenspan, led the way in bemoaning the economy and what the Federal Reserve is doing about it.
Greenspan has been free from criticism during his long tenure at the Fed. But business leaders were free with their private criticism. They told the president-elect that Greenspan's soft landing had evolved to a hard soft landing, to a hard landing, to a recession--and maybe to something worse.
One big interest rate cut cannot really transform that outlook overnight. But it did soften the mood in Austin and prevented any criticism of Greenspan from seeping into the public arena. The Fed supposedly acted because of an adverse purchasing agents report. But the chairman had that data in hand about 10 days earlier. The timing of his move was political.
Lawrence Lindsey, just unveiled as Bush's assistant for economic policy, rushed to a television set in Austin when he heard Greenspan's surprise strike. "Great. The Fed is always right," said Lindsey, who as a Federal Reserve governor dissented from the majority more than anyone else did.
Of course, the Fed is not always right, and for the first time in eight years, Greenspan must confront a critic in the White House. Bush caused a stir Wednesday when he said, "I'm pleased that the Fed has cut interest rates," ending Bill Clinton's iron no-comment policy about anything that the Federal Reserve does. An institution that can be praised can also be panned.
Democrats in Congress pray that Greenspan will open fire on the Bush tax cuts. Bush could respond to that by telling the nation that there is no way to maintain prosperity with interest rates that are too high and taxes that are too high. That would be recognition that the Lord of Money is just another government official.
from the Washington Post, 2004-May-22, p.A1, by Michael Powell and Michelle Garcia:
Ground Zero Funds Often Drifted Uptown
Money Also Went to Luxury Apartments
NEW YORK -- Six months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress approved an $8 billion program to repair this city's damaged office towers, build apartment buildings and finance the rebirth of the financial district.
But two years later, city records show that much of the money, dubbed Liberty Bonds, has gone to developers of prime real estate in midtown Manhattan and Brooklyn and to builders of luxury housing.
Local and state officials -- over the objections of their own downtown development chief -- gave one developer $650 million from the Liberty Bonds to erect an office tower for the Bank of America near Times Square, miles from the shattered precincts of Ground Zero. According to city records, another developer got $113 million to build a tower for Bank of New York in Brooklyn. One of the few projects downtown has gone to actor and sometime developer Robert De Niro, who picked up nearly $39 million from the bonds in November to build a boutique hotel in Tribeca, directly north of Ground Zero.
Congress designated $1.6 billion of the Liberty Bonds for rental housing. Nearly all the money from those bonds has gone to prominent developers to build luxury apartment towers in the neighborhoods around Ground Zero, accelerating its transformation into one of New York's richest neighborhoods, the city records show.
Local political leaders, urban planners and neighborhood residents have sharply criticized these spending choices, saying that wealthy developers shouldn't need subsidies to build office towers in midtown -- where private construction is booming -- or luxury housing downtown. The new luxury towers will contain just a small percentage of apartments for the tens of thousands of moderate-income residents who live in Lower Manhattan.
Cont ...