The Info Web

#BNLScandal

16 entries

People (11)

  • Amir al-Saadi German-trained chemist with an honorary general's rank who ran Iraq's state war industries from 1975, its chemical weapons and missile programs under Hussein Kamel, and was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the BNL case.
  • Brent Scowcroft Vice chairman of Kissinger Associates, where he advised Banca Nazionale del Lavoro for fees, who as national security adviser kept agricultural credits flowing to Iraq in 1990 while his staff resisted measures singling Iraq out.
  • Henry B. Gonzalez House Banking Committee chairman who read classified documents on American aid to Iraq into the Congressional Record in 1992 after the Justice Department asked him to stop his inquiry on national security grounds.
  • Hussein Kamel Son-in-law of Saddam Hussein who ran Iraq's military industries and their Western procurement network, went unindicted in the BNL case, defected in 1995, and told United Nations inspectors that all the weapons had been destroyed.
  • Ihsan Barbouti Iraqi-born London architect who designed Libya's chemical weapons plant at Rabta, sought nerve gas precursors through an Oklahoma company, held real estate in Texas, and was reported dead on his 63rd birthday in July 1990.
  • James A. Baker III Lawyer and Republican campaign manager who was Reagan's chief of staff and Treasury Secretary and Bush's Secretary of State, then Baker Botts senior partner, Carlyle senior counselor, Iraqi debt envoy and Iraq Study Group co-chair.
  • Lawrence Eagleburger President of Kissinger Associates while Banca Nazionale del Lavoro was its client, director of a Yugoslav bank that did a fifth of its business with BNL, and deputy secretary of state during the Iraq loans.
  • Marvin Shoob Federal judge in Atlanta who in 1992 let Christopher Drogoul withdraw his guilty plea, removed himself from the BNL case saying the bank's Rome officers had approved the Iraqi loans, and called the defendants pawns.
  • Safa al-Habobi Iraqi official who ran the London front companies of Hussein Kamel's military industry ministry, chaired Matrix Churchill, was indicted in Atlanta in 1991 with Christopher Drogoul, and was named Iraq's oil minister in 1993.
  • Wafai Dajani Jordanian grain trader close to King Hussein whom Atlanta prosecutors planned to indict in the BNL case in 1991 and who was named instead as an unindicted co-conspirator after the State Department noted his connections.
  • William Barr Former CIA employee who became Attorney General in 1991 and again in 2019; he appointed the INSLAW and BNL special counsels and urged the Iran-Contra pardons of 1992.

Organizations (3)

  • Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Italian state bank whose Atlanta branch lent Iraq billions off the books, whose head office was warned a year before the raid, and whose new chairman asked the American ambassador for damage control.
  • Commodity Credit Corporation Federally chartered corporation within the Department of Agriculture that supports farm prices and guarantees export credit, whose guarantees financed about five billion dollars of Iraqi purchases from 1983 to 1990.
  • SerVaas Inc. Indianapolis company that sold Iraq a 40 million dollar brass recycling plant financed by BNL Atlanta, which its owner told Congress was for commercial products and Iraqi documents assigned to cartridge cases and artillery fuses.

Programs (1)

  • Commodity Credit Corporation Iraq Program Agriculture Department credit guarantees that backed about five billion dollars of Iraqi purchases from 1983 to 1990, financed largely through Banca Nazionale del Lavoro's Atlanta branch, and continued after the fraud there was found.

Events (1)

  • Gulf War The 1990 to 1991 war in which a United States-led coalition expelled Iraq from Kuwait, after years of credits and exports to Baghdad, with Kuwaiti-paid publicity beforehand and veterans' illnesses afterward.