Sunday, August 03, 2008

PROJECT ANTHRAX & THE COVER-UP (PART TWO): SAIC, PROTECTED CO-CONSPIRATOR STEPHEN HATFILL & BIO-ECONOMIC STATE TERRORISM (B)/INTRODUCTION TO BIOPORT

" ... As it happens, one of the Scouts' favored tactics was the mailing of anthrax spores, embedded in the glue on envelope flaps. ... "

By Alex Constantine
REVISED AND EXPANDED

The epidemic swept through Zimbabwe (the former British colony of Southern Rhodesia) in the late 1970s. It killed 180 people, infected over 10,000, devastated livestock, brought with it economic disaster and widespread hunger ... but not throughout Zimbabwe indiscriminately, as one might expect. Only in black neighborhoods.

This epidemic was respectful of gated white communities and politely kept out.1

Stephen Hatfill signed on with the Rhodesian Special Air Service (SAS) and the Selous Scouts, a counter-insurgency death squad that enforced apartheid rule, before arriving at the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine.

Some of the faculty were curious why the Yank would stoop to studying at a backwater academy like Huggins.

His admission to the school was arranged by Robert Burns Symington, an anatomy professor and devoted neo-Nazi. "Symington is strongly believed to have worked with the Ian Smith-led white supremacist regime on its biological warfare project," Africa's Sunday Mirror reported in 2002.
"The Zimbabwe authorities have since established that [Smith's] security forces, particularly the much feared Selous Scouts, stealthily distributed the deadly anthrax spore among the hungry cattle of the Rhodesian Tribal Trust Lands, where most Africans lived, and seeded cholera into the rivers."

STURM UND DRANG (UND JURMS)

After the war, a former senior officer of the Rhodesian security force admitted, "it is true that anthrax was used in an experimental role and the idea came from the Army Psychological Operations." Guerillas were scapegoated for the outbreak.2

As it happens, one of the Scout's favored tactics was the mailing of anthrax spores, embedded in the glue on envelope flaps.3

Hatfill … you may know the type. A student at the medical school's radiation oncology department recalls that he sported a 9mm pistol and boasted of past paramilitary glories in Vietnam and Zimbabwe.4

In 1984, he moved on to study at South African medical schools and joined the military. While in the area, Hatfill befriended Eugene Terre Blanche, leader of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement, the South African Nazi Party.5

After a year-long tour in Anarctica, he pressed on to the States and found employment at the National Institutes of Health. "The PhD certificate he submitted to NIH could have easily been tracked back by authorities and exposed as a forgery," Marilyn Thompson, author of The Killer Strain: Anthrax and a Government Exposed, explained in a blogged Q&A hosted by UCLA's School of Public Health in 2003, "but it was overlooked and Hatfill's credentials helped him gain access to sensitive government agencies.

"USAMRIID allowed him in as a contract researcher."6

The first casualty of the anthrax mailings was Bob Stevens, a photo editor at a tabloid that had run an article blasting the Saudi royals" … Hatfill's friend Prince Bandar, for instance.

From the CDC report: "On October 4, 2001, we confirmed the first bio-terrorism-related anthrax case identified in the United States is a resident of Palm Beach County, Florida. Epidemiologic investigation indicated that exposure occurred at the workplace through intentionally contaminated mail."7

It is within the univserse of possibility that 911 hijackers Mohammed Atta and Ahmed Alhanzawi were among the first to come into contact with the spores, despite FBI denials. These have not held up well against the fusillade of questions from the press.

In March 2002, the New York Times reported that Atta and his entourage "identified themselves as pilots when they came to the emergency room of Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., last June. One had an ugly, dark lesion on his leg," and "in October, a pharmacist in Delray Beach, Fla., said he had told the F.B.I. that two of the hijackers, Mohamad Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, came into the pharmacy looking for something to treat irritations on Mr. Atta's hands."

Dr. Christos Tsonas thought Alhanzawi's wound curious, but cleaned it and prescribed medication. "After Sept. 11, when federal investigators found the medicine among the possessions of one of the hijackers, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Dr. Tsonas reviewed the case and arrived at a new diagnosis." The lesion "was consistent with cutaneous anthrax.'" Dr. Thomas Inglesby of John Hopkins, and Dr. Tara O'Toole, assistant secretary for health and safety at the Energy Department, sided with Dr. Tsonas.

Thompson followed every step in the Bureau's investigation, and she finds it probable that Atta and Alhaznawi had some contact with anthrax spores:
"The FBI contends that it pursued a hijacker connection in the early days and became convinced that they were not involved in these mailings - mainly because the anthrax strain used was a military research strain. Many people in Florida, however, who know about the hijackers' movements in that part of the country in the months before 9/11, do not believe the FBI pursued this with enough vigor..."

The Times: "In an interview, Dr. O'Toole said that after consulting with additional medical experts on the Alhaznawi case, she was `more persuaded than ever' that the diagnosis of cutaneous anthrax was correct ..."

It has been widely reported that Mohammed Atta's cell took flight school training in Boca Raton, not far from American Media, Inc., where Stevens worked, and rented apartments from the wife of an editor of The Sun, published by AMI.8

The mailings continued after the fall of the towers. The Times: "They would probably have needed an accomplice to mail the tainted letters.... The four recovered anthrax letters were postmarked on Sept. 18 and Oct. 9 in Trenton."9

But the mailings weren't confined by domestic borders. In November 2001, the CDC's web site in Atlanta confirmed that a tainted letter had been sent from Switzerland to Chile. Dr. Antonio Banfi, a pediatrician at a children's hospital in Santiago, received the letter. He suspected that something was amiss because it had been postmarked in Zurich but had a Florida return address.10

In 2003, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports, Maureen Stevens, the widow of the first victim, filed a wrongful-death suit that "could embarrass the U.S. government and provide insight into the ongoing investigation of the fall 2001 bioterrorism attacks."

The "embarrassing" suit held that anthrax spores "were known to be missing from an Army laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., as early as 1992," and that the litigants "accuse the government of failing to adequately secure them. 'The bottom line is that a lot of our [FOIA] requests were not acknowledged or were not answered.'"11

Maureen Stevens' lawsuit was filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. It named Ft. Detrick-USAMRIID, Battelle Memorial Institute, other possible sources of the anthrax - and BioPort Corp., of Lansing, Mich., a vaccine manufacturer.

The name BioPort is synonymous with mismanagement and contaminated product.

The company was founded on June 22, 1995 by Yoav Stern, a former avionics system officer specializing in F-15, A-4, Mirage and Kfir fighter jets for the Israeli Air Force. He was also commander of a flight training unit, and a deputy squadron commander. The BioPort web site reports that one Zive R. Nedivi has been the CEO, president and a director of the company since June 1995. Mr. Nedivi also served in the Israeli Air Force and was the founder "of the predecessor of the company, an indirectly wholly-owned subsidiary of Rada Electronic Industries Ltd."12

Also on Bioport's board of directors:

Niv Harizman: A director of the Company since December 1997. From January 1998 on, Harizman was a principal with BT Alex. Brown Incorporated, the investment banking subsidiary of Bankers Trust New York Corporation. From June 1996 until January 1998, Mr. Harizman was a Vice President with Alex. Brown. He started there in 1995.

General William Lyon: Retired Air Force general, currently serves as a director of Board of Fidelity National Financial, Inc. Chairman of the Research and Development Institute at the Air Force Academy.

Yet another Iran-contra connection to 9/11 sat on the BioPort board:

Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr.: Named a director in March 1999. From 1985-89, the Admiral held the position of chairman of the Joint Chiefs under President Reagan. After retirement from the military in 1989, Admiral Crowe was a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. He has also served as chairman of the notorious President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, 1993-94, and served as U.S. ambassador to the UK and Northern Ireland, 1994-97. Admiral Crowe has been a director of Merrill Lynch, Texaco and General Dynamics. He is currently a director of Bioport and Intervac, an investment firm. He is a part-time senior advisor to Global Options LLC. Admiral Crowe commanded U.S. forces in the Middle East, was the commander-in-chief of NATO forces in Southern Europe, and headed up the nation's largest geographical military operation, the U.S. Pacific Command.13

Very military, very industrial, but the Project Anthrax complex reaches deeply into the financial sector.

It's all in BioPort's records: Compare them with the well-known inside-trade put option activity preceding 911, find a jostling for position in financial circles that suggests premeditation of both 911 and the anthrax attacks, according to a financial researcher consulted for this report:
"Niv Harizman was with Alex. Brown (BT for Bankers Trust. This is the firm that executed the `puts' prior to September 11, plunging the stocks of American Airlines, United Airlines, Boeing, some brokerage houses, and several reinsurance companies (some inter-locked) including AXA Assurance, Swiss Re and Munich Re. These trades hubbed from Alex. Brown, which was acquired with Deutsche Bank's acquisition of Bankers Trust. The gent heading Alex. Brown unit, Deutsche's trading-brokerage arm, was terminated rather suddenly. Former director of enforcement for SEC, Richard Walker, took a position as staff counsel for Deutsche."

Niv Harizman "is a dark side" on the Chicago Board of Options Exchange "(put into play by First Chicago group, Robert Angelo Podesta) when Peter G. Peterson (school under MI-6) was Secretary of Commerce in 1972-73 under Nixon. And Robert Podesta was UnderSecretary of Commerce - both Chicago - pushed through legislation to approve creation of Chicago Board of Options Exchange. (Can't have options trading as it exists in its current form without options on equities to pair, i.e., can't have a bubble economy without a bubble machine). Peterson, currently chairman of the New York Fed, moved up the ranks along notorious Chicago bank lines - 1985 sets up the Blackstone Group* and [Iran-contra's] Frank Carlucci sets up the Carlyle Group the same year. Admiral Crowe, following retirement in 1989, held board positions at Merrill Lynch, General Dynamics and Texaco, all very `Republican' companies at the time ... "14

TO BE CONTINUED ...

NEXT: BIOPORT
•••••••
NOTES

1) Meryl Nass, M.D., "Zimbabwe's Anthrax Epizoodic," Bioterror: Manufacturing Wars the American Way, edited by Ellen Ray and William H. Schaap, New York: Ocean Press, 2003, p. 29.

2) "Zimbabwean authorities have made several reports that indicate that Rhodesians were using biological warfare against guerillas during the liberation war, but these have not received international coverage." - Innocent Chofamba-Sithole and Norman Mlambo, "Ex-Rhodesian under probe for US anthrax attacks," Sunday Mirror, July 9, 2002.
http://www.africaonline.co.zw/mirror/stage/archive/020709/national8599.html

3) Wayne Madsen, "Anthrax and The Agency," CounterPunch.org, April 8, 2002.

4) See, "The Anthrax Letters"
http://www.monitor.net/monitor/0208a/0208a-404.html ... This site features a description of the paramilitary tactics of the Selous Scouts wolf pack. A handful of fighters would drop into the back country disguised as rebels. Living off the land for weeks, "they would relentlessly track down their opponents and kill them, even if it meant crossing into neighboring countries in violation of international law. Their training taught them to live off the barren land during their long pursuit on foot, drinking fetid water and eating carrion scraps. Some articles claim that they were responsible for two out of every three enemy fatalities in the civil war. Admirers and vets boast that the Selous Scouts were the most skilled and ruthless guerrilla warfare fighters in history."

5) See, "The Biovangelist" web site. http://jdo.org/hatfill.htm

6) UClA Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, "Reporter Interview on Steven Hatfill Article," September 15, 2003.
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/reporterinterview.html,";

7) Centers for Disease Control, "Bioterrorism-Related Anthrax: First
Case of Bioterrorism-Related Inhalational Anthrax in the United States, Palm Beach County, Florida, 2001."
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol8no10/02-0354.htm

8) William J. Broad and David Johnston, "Report Linking Anthrax and Hijackers Is Investigated," New York Times, March 23, 2002.

9) Ibid.

10) AP report, "Anthrax Case in Chile Confirmed," November 23, 2001.
http://www.usenet.com/newsgroups/talk.environment/msg06625.html

11) Kathy Bushouse, "Security at Issue in Widow's Case," South Florida Sun-Sentinel, September 28, 2003.

12) A. Constantine post, "Adm. Crowe, Bioport and the Put Option Activity," December 5, 2001.
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&frame=right&th=88439d0c0d6bf5d2&se
ekm=alexx1265A234.12015319122000%40nntp.we.mediaone.net

13) CSIS web site: http://www.csis.org/html/alumni/crowew.html

14) E-mail exchange with author, December 5, 2001.
•••••••
* Warren Buffett and Blackstone

Marietta Cauchi, LBO Wire
30 May 2008

Blackstone Group has been looking at German utility giant RWE, a person familiar with the situation told Dow Jones. The person was responding to market rumors that Blackstone was working with Permira and Warren Buffett on a joint bid for RWE.


Blackstone Group eyes German utility giant RWE
Marietta Cauchi, LBO Wire

30 May 2008

Blackstone Group has been looking at German utility giant RWE, a person familiar with the situation told Dow Jones. The person was responding to market rumors that Blackstone was working with Permira and Warren Buffett on a joint bid for RWE.
•••••••
Blackstone Group, Larry Silverstein, Kroll Associates, Eliot Spitzer

From: Spitzer's Real Scandal
http://www.nymegaphone.com/node/24

Larry Silverstein

... New York real estate baron Larry Silverstein became primary lease-holder on the World Trade Center a mere six weeks before 9/11. It had never changed hands before. For a down payment, Silverstein put up only $14 million of his own money, and his friends at the powerful investment bank Blackstone Group kicked in another $111 million. After 9/11, Silverstein demanded a whopping $7 billion insurance payout, in the form of two $3.5 billion payments. He argued the two different plane crashes were two separate “occurrences” of two separate attacks.

The Megaphone has now learned that as attorney general, Spitzer got involved behind the scenes, and in the courts, filing a amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief on Silverstein’s behalf on Jan. 15, 2003. For years, this brief languished in the files of the public records room on the 17th floor of the Second Circuit Court in Manhattan, until it was discovered and brought to The New York Megaphone by NYC attorney and author Carl Person. The court ended up agreeing with Spitzer and Silverstein, over-turning the decision of a lower court. Spitzer helped mid-wife a fat compromise and an eventual $4.5 billion payout for Silverstein. The Megaphone’s multiple requests for comment from Governor Spitzer were ignored.

Attorney Carl Person told The Megaphone, “I was surprised to see that Spitzer had used his position as attorney general to support one private litigant over another. Normally, this is not done…Silverstein could well have been someone who destroyed evidence concerning the 9/11 events by apparently ordering or consenting to the tearing (pulling) down of 7 WTC and the removal of the debris from his multiple ground leased premises thereafter.”

Silverstein’s World Trade Center Building 7 collapsed at 5:20 p.m. on 9/11 without being hit by an airplane. Thirty seven eyewitnesses working on the ground as firefighters, EMTs, and reporters, recalled being warned in advance the tower was coming down. The official story however, claims a fire ignited a fuel tank in the building, hastening its sudden collapse.

WTC 7 was the NY headquarters of CIA and the SEC office investigating Enron. 9/11 skeptics believe the building was taken down by controlled demolition. Larry Silverstein himself said in a 2002 episode of PBS’s Frontline that on 9/11 he recalled remarking, "Maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it…they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse." Silverstein later claimed that by “pull,” he meant removing firefighters, not pulling the building down. However, all firefighters had been “pulled” from the building three hours earlier.

The Kroll Connection

This past August, another scandal radiated from the Spitzer circle. This time it was Nixon’s arch-strategist Roger Stone leaving a threatening voice mail for Spitzer’s dad, Bernard. Stone allegedly claimed he would subpoena the elder Spitzer for the $5 million in illegal loans Spitzer senior made to his son during his 1998 Attorney General campaign. Stone denied he had made the call. To prove he did, the Spitzer family hired Kroll Associates to trace the call. Why Kroll? Spitzer has a long relationship with this powerful, cryptic security company.

Kroll’s CEO on 9/11 was one of Spitzer’s old mentors from the Manhattan DA’s office, Michael Cherkasky. Cherkasky investigated bank BCCI (which had links to both Islamic terror and the CIA), and the mysterious 1993 World Trade Center (WTC) bombing. Cherkasky’s 2002 book Forewarned: Why the Government is Failing to Protect Us, and What We Must Do to Protect Ourselves is a confused mix of fear-mongering and insider’s analysis. He sheepishly admits that the CIA was in part culpable for the 1993 WTC bombing, since they helped pull known terrorist “Blind Sheikh” Abdel bin-Rahman into the country. Cherkasky admits the FBI had a mole inside Rahman’s 1993 WTC bombing cell, and lays blame for the bombing on the FBI.

After observing the 1993 WTC bombing as an operation penetrated by CIA and FBI, Cherkasky he became head of Kroll, the “the CIA of Wall Street.” Kroll took on the management of WTC after the 1993 bombing. Blackstone Group, the same financiers who backed the Larry Silverstein, have also been involved with Kroll, owning big chunks of Kroll stock on occasion, according to SEC reports.

Cherkasky has donated $14,500 to Eliot Spitzer's political campaigns.

The Anthrax Connection

Eliot Spitzer’s connection to key 9/11 players extends to fellow life-long Democrat, Jerome Hauer, managing director of Kroll on 9/11. Only Jerome Hauer and his former boss, Rudolph Giuliani, were indicted by the San Diego Citizens Grand Jury.

According to Bay Area News (a San Francisco-bay based publication) and Wikipedia, Jerome Hauer warned the Bush White House to go on Cipro, the anti-anthrax drug, on 9/11/01. Hauer denied this allegation to The Megaphone. The White House did go on Cipro. Six days later, the anthrax attacks started, and sent the country back into paroxysms of terror.

Government watchdog group Judicial Watch demanded to know who warned the Bush White House, but not the public, about anthrax. The White House stonewalled their Freedom of Information Act requests.

“I read that the White House did know, and they went on the anti-biotics,” says Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman. He got involved because, “African American employees at Brentwood [US Postal Facility] were basically left out there to twist in the wind when the white guys up on Capitol Hill got immediate treatment.”

Post-9/11, Jerome Hauer went on to be Coordinator of the National Institute of Health's investigation of anthrax deaths. His report blamed Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. That assertion has been widely discredited, since the five deaths in 2001 were from a fine, “weaponized” form of anthrax, the “Ames Strain” that only the U.S. military and U.S. federal government possessed.

On 9/11, Jerome Hauer appeared on television with Dan Rather. Rather posited that the 9/11 attacks must have had state sponsorship. Hauer urged Rather to blame Bin Laden only. When Rather voiced suspicions about the way the buildings fell, Hauer offered that they simply came down because they were hit by a plane. Without an investigation, Hauer somehow knew two major parts of 9/11’s official story before it emerged.

Hauer is biological terrorism expert whose resume includes time at Science Applications International Corp (SAIC), a military contractor doing work in nuclear issues and psy-ops, and Bioport, manufacturer of the controversial anthrax vaccine.

Jerry Hauer and anthrax go way back. In May of 1998, he spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations on the topic of "Building a 'Biobomb': Terrorist Challenge." That evening Hauer co-presented on the topic Steven Hatfill.

Yes, that Steven Hatfill, the one who later became the FBI’s prime suspect in the anthrax mailings. A year after their CFR presentations, Hatfill and Hauer would become coworkers at SAIC's Center for Counterterrorism Technology and Analysis.

Hatfill had worked at Ft. Detrick, the U.S. Army’s bio-weapons lab in Maryland. Hatfill was never convicted, nor even prosecuted, for anything. Today he’s suing reporters for defamation. On Aug. 15, a judge ruled that five top national reporters would have to reveal confidential government sources who fingered Hatfill.

In his interview with The Megaphone, Hauer repeatedly referred to the Grand Jury as “a bunch of nutjobs” and he defended Steven Hatfill. But when asked directly if Hatfill was innocent, Hauer was less than clear:
“I think that the FBI should not have said anything about Hatfill until they knew more. I do not believe Hatfill is a murderer. And I think Steve Hatfill is very passionate, but I don’t think he’s a murderer, and I don’t believe he did it.”

Hauer was not willing to conclusively say that Hatfill was uninvolved in the anthrax attacks, stating, “I’m not going to get into those details.”

Of the five people who died from anthrax exposure, one was a New Yorker. Kathy Nguyen, a hospital worker in the Bronx, was a victim of inhalation anthrax. She died alone in a hospital on October 31, 2001.

A 2004 petition gathered 100,000 signatures begging then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to investigate the real source of the 2001 attacks. A Zogby poll that year likewise found that 66 per cent of voters wanted Eliot Spitzer, to tackle these tough questions. What those poll respondents didn’t know is that Spitzer can’t investigate 9/11 or anthrax. He would have to indict his friends from Kroll, Jerry Hauer and Michael Cherkasky. That’s the real scandal.

To listen to Sander Hicks’s interview with Jerry Hauer, or see the Spitzer/Silverstein Amicus Brief in full, log onto the new
•••••••
SCAM: BEAR STEARNS - TIMOTHY GEITHNER AND THE BLACKSTONE-BCCI SET UP

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14995

SUMMARY


The Blackstone Group, a major private equity firm tied to foreign policy influence lobbying groups such as Kissinger Associates, Scowcroft Advisors, and the Madeline Albright Group, had an affiliated spinoff company, BlackRock, a Caymans Island foreign bank associate, evaluate the “fairness” to shareholders of the JP Morgan Acquisition of Bear Stearns. The deal involved a bailout of Bear Stearns creditors directly, and indirectly through cash infusions via the Fed’s open window of lending, including lending billions to Citibank in exchange for mortgage collateral. The lead negotiator of the deal, the President of the NY Fed, Geithner, is a former employee of Kissinger Associates, a Saudi-China lobbying firm, and was appointed to the Fed by Peter Peterson of Blackstone. He also worked for Secretary Rubin at the Clinton Treasury Department. Secretary Rubin is now an executive with Citibank a major beneficiary of the bailout. Citibank has major Saudi shareholders, and as such is not an American bank, per se. Citibank has been investigated for illegal terrorist money laundering activities in the Middle East, and Geithner was an employee at Kissinger Associates when it was engaged in discussions of mergers with BCCI, which was later indicted for drug money laundering.


CHRONOLOGY


1988 Blackstone forms BlackRock as mortgage investment subsidiary. Its CEO is Peter Peterson, also CEO of the Council on Foreign Relations, for which Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, and Robert Rubin are officers.
1986 East Asian International economic specialist, Timothy Geithner joins Kissinger and Associates, a major Chinese Financial lobbying firm with strong ties to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. At the time both Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft are partners, as well as international economist Alan Stoga. It is not clear whether Geitner worked with Stoga at this time, but his expertise in China would be welcome in its China Joint Venture.


1986-1989 Kissinger Associates, Stoga and consultant ambassador Sergio Correa discuss a merger between BCCI and Kissinger Associates. Correa acts as a front man for BCCI in acquisition explorations as a paid retained consultant to both BCCI, and separately to Kissinger Associates. toga arranges contacts between BCCI Saudi linked executives Gaith Pharaon and Abol Helmy. It is not known whether Geithner worked on these transactions.


c. 1989 BCCI is indicted and Kissinger Associates ends discussions.

Geithner leaves Kissinger Associates and begins work as a civil servant in the Treasury Department. He is confirmed as Asst. Sec. for International Affairs in Treasury working for Secretary Rubin of the Clinton Administration.[Senior executive at Goldman Sachs and later Citibank a Saudi controlled foreign bank]. Rubin also serves as an officer of the CFR managed by Peter Peterson CEO of Blackstone.
1992 BlackRock is spinoff Blackstone and becomes independent.


2001 Geithner joins International Monetary Fund IMF.


2003 Blackstone CEO Peter Peterson names Geithner as President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. 
2007 Peterson’s Blackstone sells 3 Billion dollar stake in Blackstone to the People’s Republic of China. 
2007 Rubin ‘s Citibank receives billions in bailout loans in exchange for mortgage collateral. 
March 2008 Blackrock creates firm to buy distressed mortgage securities 
April 3, 2008 Blackstone mentioned as advisor to Bear Stearns valuation, later amended to be Blackrock, founded by Blackstone.

REFERENCES
Bernanke Defends Fed's Role in Bear Stearns Deal http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/business/jan-june08/fed_04-03.html
BCCI AND KISSINGER ASSOCIATES, Congressional Report, 1992, http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/20kiss.htm
Blackstone?

BlackRock? Whoever

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/04/03/blackstone-blackrock-whoever/?mod=WSJBlog
BlackRock set to profit from Mortgage Distress Bailout, The new company has been formed by BlackRock, Highfields, and a management team of mortgage industry led by Stanford Kurland, Private National Mortgage Acceptance Company's (PennyMac) chairman and CEO. PennyMac will raise capital from private investors, acquire loans from financial institutions seeking to reduce its mortgage exposures, and seek to create value for both borrowers and investors through distinctive loan servicing. http://www.banking-business-review.com/article_news.asp?guid=17D0DB88-3917-44F6-AFF3-1D1AECC10E77
New York Fed Names Timothy F. Geithner President