US War Criminals Exposed- The Grim Report

Todays Grim Report Exposes US War criminals For All To See....

June 16, 2005

---The Downing Street Memo---

[The Downing Street memo states the "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," recounting a July 23, 2002, meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his national security team. The meeting took place just after British officials returned from Washington.]

The Downing Street Memo shows how the Bush Administration planned to fabricate evidence to go to WAR in Iraq.

[This is the smoking gun revealing how the War Criminals in the White House intentionaly lied to the American public about it's reasons for invading and occupying the country of Iraq, which has already resulted in over 100,000 dead.]

SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY

DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02

cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell

IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY

Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.

This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.

Cliclk below for the full text of the Downing Street Memo...

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/memo.html

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Democrat Urges Inquiry on Bush, Iraq

[The Downing Street memo states the "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," recounting a July 23, 2002, meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his national security team. The meeting took place just after British officials returned from Washington.]

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
June 16, 2005 / 1 hour, 58 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Congress should conduct an official inquiry to determine whether President Bush intentionally misled the nation about the reasons for toppling Saddam Hussein, a senior House Democrat suggested Thursday.

New York Rep. Charles Rangel (news, bio, voting record) was among Democratic House members who participated in a forum to air demands that the White House provide more information about what led to the decision to go to war in Iraq.

"Quite frankly, evidence that appears to be building up points to whether or not the president has deliberately misled Congress to make the most important decision a president has to make, going to war," said Rangel, senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record) and other Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee organized the forum to investigate implications in a British document known as the "Downing Street memo." The memo says the Bush administration believed that war was inevitable and was determined to use intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the ouster of Saddam.

Click below for full story...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050616/ap_on_go_co/downing_street_memo

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Floor Statement by Senator Richard J. Durbin on
Guantanamo Bay
June 14, 2005

After the President decided to ignore Geneva Conventions, the administration unilaterally created a new detention policy.?They claim the right to seize anyone, including even American citizens, anywhere in the world, including in the United States, and hold them until the end of the war on terrorism, whenever that may be.

For example, they have even argued in court they have the right to indefinitely detain an elderly lady from Switzerland who writes checks to what she thinks is a charity that helps orphans but actually is a front that finances terrorism.

They claim a person detained in the war on terrorism has no legal rights -- no right to a lawyer, no right to see the evidence against them, no right to challenge their detention.?In fact, the Government has claimed detainees have no right to challenge their detention, even if they claim they were being tortured or executed.?
This violates the Geneva Conventions, which protect everyone captured during wartime.

U.S. military lawyers called this detention system ? legal black hole.? The Red Cross concluded, ?.S. authorities have placed the internees in Guantanamo beyond the law.?
In one e-mail that has been made public, an FBI agent complained that interrogators were using ?orture techniques.?
When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here -- I almost hesitate to put them in the record, and yet they have to be added to this debate.?Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw.?And I quote from his report:

[On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water.?Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more.?On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold....On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees.?The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him.?He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night.?On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.]?

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings.?Sadly, that is not the case.?This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

Click below for full statement from Senator Dick Durbin...

http://www.sj-r.com/extras/release/Gitmofloorstatement061405.htm

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[ABC News Exclusive]
Memo: Pentagon Concerned About Legality of Interrogation Techniques
Document Shows Top Pentagon Officials Warned About Guantanamo Bay Interrogation Tactics

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=852458&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

June 15, 2005 ?The interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center in 2002 triggered concerns among senior Pentagon officials that they could face criminal prosecution under U.S. anti-torture laws, ABC News has learned.

Notes from a series of meetings at the Pentagon in early 2003 ?obtained by ABC News ?show that Alberto Mora, General Counsel of the Navy, warned his superiors that they might be breaking the law.

Guantanamo inmates can be held 'in perpetuity' -U.S

During a January 2003 meeting involving top Pentagon lawyer William Haynes and other officials, the memo shows that Mora warned that "use of coercive techniques ?has military, legal, and political implication ?has international implication ?and exposes us to liability and criminal prosecution."

Mora's deep concerns about interrogations at Guantanamo have been known, but not his warning that top officials could go to prison.

In another meeting held March 8, 2003, the group of top Pentagon lawyers concluded ?according to the memo ?"we need a presidential letter approving the use of the controversial interrogation to cover those who may be called upon to use them."

No such letter was issued.

White House: Tactics Are Legal

Today, the White House insisted that tactics used at Guantanamo Bay are now ?and have been ?legal.

"All interrogation techniques that have been approved are lawful and consistent with our obligations," said White House press secretary Scott McClellan.

In another internal memo obtained by ABC News, a Navy psychologist observing the interrogation warned that the tactics used against Mohammed al Qahtani ?dubbed "the 20th hijacker" ?revealed "a tendency to become increasingly more aggressive without having a definite boundary."
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said on Tuesday that interrogating al Qahtani had produced results.

"Qahtani and other detainees have provided valuable information, including insights into al Qaeda planning for September 11th, including recruiting and logistics," he said during a news conference.

Guantanamo inmates can be held 'in perpetuity' -U.S

Human-rights lawyers say Mora was right to raise objections to what his superiors were doing.

"It's clear that individuals who engage in abusive treatment of this nature may be criminally liable for the conduct that they engage in," said Deborah Pearlstein, the director of the U.S. Law and Security Program at Human Rights First. "So if I were one of the troops who was being asked to conduct interrogations using these techniques, I would certainly want to ask my lawyer whether he thought this was legal."

ABC News' Terry Moran filed this report for "World News Tonight."
?REVIOUS´1.´?.?

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=852458&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
´
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US War Criminals drop 500 pound bombs on Iraqi's
By Luke Baker
Fri Jun 17,11:04 AM ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. F-16 fighter planes dropped a series of 500 lb (220 kg) bombs on insurgent targets in western Iraq overnight as the U.S. military launched a heavy offensive against rebels near the Syrian border.

Nine of the powerful bombs were dropped, the U.S. military said,

Four more were aimed at rebels as they fired mortars and assault rifles at U.S. ground forces near Qaim,

The leader in Qaim of the Muslim Clerics Association, a leading voice for the once-dominant Sunni Arab minority, said he was calling for businesses to remain closed and residents to stay in their homes after weekly Friday prayers in protest at U.S. action he said was endangering civilians.

"The U.S. forces are escalating the situation and we will declare a general strike after Friday prayers," the Association's Mudhafar al-Ani said.

Click below for full story...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050617/ts_nm/iraq_dc_26;_ylt=AnwOCtVEOjYK5c3KX68HIldX6GMA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

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Sweden Violated Torture Ban with U.S. Help

20 May 2005 22:45:36 GMT
Source: Human Rights Watch

(New York, May 20, 2005)-Sweden violated the absolute ban on torture by expelling a terrorism suspect to Egypt, the United Nations Committee Against Torture ruled today. Sweden justified the transfer saying it secured assurances from Egypt that the suspect would not be tortured upon return. Human Rights Watch said that other countries, including the United States, which assisted in the transfer, should take heed of the authoritative ruling.

U.S. intelligence operatives took custody of Agiza and another man, Mohammed al-Zari, during the expulsion process at Sweden's Bromma Airport on December 18, 2001. The men were transported from Stockholm to Cairo aboard a Gulfstream jet leased to the Central Intelligence Agency in what appeared to be one of the first documented cases of so-called "extraordinary rendition" after the September 11 attacks. In March, a report by the Swedish chief parliamentary ombudsman concluded that the Swedish security service and airport police "displayed a remarkable subordinance to the American officials" and "lost control of the situation," resulting in the ill-treatment of Agiza and al-Zari, including physical abuse and other humiliation, at the airport immediately before they were transported to Cairo.

U.S. authorities, including President George W. Bush and CIA Director Porter Goss, have stated publicly that the United States only renders terrorism suspects to countries that give assurances that suspects will not be tortured. However, the U.S. has rendered suspects to countries with long and well-documented records of torturing detainees, including Egypt and Syria.

"This was an illegal rendition, plain and simple. It violated international law, Swedish law, and U.S. law," said Cartner. "The U.N. Committee has rightly held Sweden accountable for violating the ban on torture. But the U.S. and Egyptian governments should also be held accountable for their actions in the case."

The U.S. renditions program and other torture-related abuses will be subjected to scrutiny for compliance with U.S. obligations under the Convention Against Torture.

The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment enshrines the absolute prohibition against transferring a person, no matter what his activities or suspected crimes, to a country where there are substantial grounds for believing that he or she would be in danger of being subjected to torture. No exceptions are permitted, even in times of war or other emergency.

Click below for full story...

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HRW/4a4913009b768a671699c6974d55a194.htm

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---White House War Criminals Use Aero Contractors To Further Their War Crimes---

The CIA War Criminals use "Aero Contractors" to transport their kidnapped victims to secret gulags around the planet for what they call "extraordinay renditions" to torture their ...

---Ex-CIA War Criminal Jim Rhyne founded Aero Contractors---

Click below for full story...

http://in.news.yahoo.com/050531/43/5yr5p.html

[Aero Contractotrs is a C.I.A.-operated air "proprietary," as the CIA agency-controlled companies are called.]

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) owns 26 planes that it operates through many shell companies to carry out several of its operations, The New York Times reported.

Just three years after the big Asian air company was closed in 1976, one of its chief pilots, Jim Rhyne, was asked to open a new air company, according to a former Aero Contractors employee.

--Documentation From Flight Info.com...

12-28-2004, 14:32 ?#1

Aero Contractors, LTD. ??

Anyone know what this company does for the government ? They're based in NC. Google wasn't much help. Thanks.

Click below for some inside info on Aero Contractors...

http://forums.flightinfo.com/showthread.php?t=45271

See more recent articles below about the secret activities of Aero Contractors...

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[Spy VS Spy -- See What The Nation's Spy Masters Are Looking At.]
Intelligence and Warning -- Homeland Security Focus Areas

Click below for news stories of concern to the nation's spy agencies...

http://homelandsecurity.osu.edu/focusareas/intelligence.html

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Listing For 500 CIA Front Companies

http://www.totse.com/en/politics/central_intelligence_agency/cia500.html

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House Votes to Limit Patriot Act Rules

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer
June 15, 2005 -- 44 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - In a slap at President Bush, lawmakers voted Wednesday to block the Justice Department and the FBI from using the Patriot Act to peek at library records and bookstore sales slips.

The House voted 238-187 despite a veto threat from Bush to block the part of the anti-terrorism law that allows the government to investigate the reading habits of terror suspects.

The vote reversed a narrow loss last year by lawmakers concerned about the potential invasion of privacy of innocent library users. They narrowed the proposal this year to permit the government to continue to seek out records of Internet use at libraries.

The vote came as the House debated a $57.5 billion bill covering the departments of Commerce, Justice and State. The Senate has yet to act on the measure, and GOP leaders often drop provisions offensive to Bush during final negotiations.

"This is a tremendous victory that restores important constitutional rights to the American people," said Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., the sponsor of the measure. He said the vote would help "rein in an administration intent on chipping away at the very civil liberties that define us as a nation."

Congress is preparing to extend the Patriot Act, which was passed quickly in the emotional aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Then, Congress included a sunset provision under which 15 of the law's provisions are to expire at the end of this year.

Supporters of rolling back the library and bookstore provision said that the law gives the FBI too much leeway to go on fishing expeditions on people's reading habits and that innocent people could get tagged as potential terrorists based on what they check out from a library.

"If the government suspects someone is looking up how to make atom bombs, go to a court and get a search warrant," said Jerold Nadler, D-N.Y.

Supporters of the Patriot Act countered that the rules on reading records are a potentially useful tool in finding terrorists and argued that the House was voting to make libraries safe havens for them.

"If there are terrorists in libraries studying how to fly planes, how to put together biological weapons, how to put together chemical weapons, nuclear weapons ... we have to have an avenue through the federal court system so that we can stop the attack before it occurs," said Rep. Tom Feeney (news, bio, voting record), R-Fla.

Last year, a similar provision was derailed by a 210-210 tie after several Republicans were pressured to switch votes.

In the meantime, a number of libraries have begun disposing of patrons' records quickly so they won't be available if sought under the law.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told Congress in April that the government has never used the provision to obtain library, bookstore, medical or gun sale records.

But when asked whether the administration would agree to exclude library and medical records from the law, Gonzales demurred. "It should not be held against us that we have exercised restraint," he said.

Authorities have gained access to records through voluntary cooperation from librarians, Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller said.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050616/ap_on_go_co/patriot_act_libraries_6

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[?hen the CIA is given a task it? usually because policy makers don? want 'US government?written all over it,?Jim Glerum, a retired CIA man, said. ?f you?e flying an executive jet into somewhere where there are plenty of executive jets, you can look like any other company.?

---CIA Frint Company/Aero Contractors Ltd.---
Domestic Dealers - North Carolina
SMITHFIELD. AERO CONTRACTORS, LTD. JOHNSTON COUNTY A/P P.O. BOX 1139 SMITHFIELD, NC 27577-1139 919-934-0978 Fax: 919-934-1161...
http://www.dacint.com/Domestic/DealersdomesticNC.htm

---New York Times Stroy---
Tuesday May 31, 11:04 AM

CIA's planes operate through shell companies: NYT By Indo-Asian News Service

New York, May 31 (IANS) The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) owns 26 planes that it operates through many shell companies to carry out several of its operations, The New York Times reported.

From transporting suspected members of the Al Qaeda from one country to another to dropping CIA operatives in different territories, these planes are used for many purposes to which the US government cannot officially lend its name.

The paper said it carried out an analysis of thousands of flight records, aircraft registrations and corporate documents, as well as interviews with former CIA officers and pilots, which showed the agency owns at least 26 planes, 10 of them purchased since 2001.

The Times report identified one of the shell companies, fronting for the CIA, as Aero Contractors Ltd. whose planes often take off from Johnston County Airport Smithfield, North Carolina.

"Nothing about the sleepy southern setting hints of foreign intrigue. Nothing gives away the fact that Aero's pilots are the discreet bus drivers of the battle against terrorism, routinely sent on secret missions to Baghdad, Cairo, Tashkent and Kabul," the paper said.

The report said Aero Contractors' planes dropped CIA paramilitary officers into Afghanistan in 2001; carried an American team to Karachi, Pakistan, right after the US consulate there was bombed in 2002; and flew from Libya to Guant?namo Bay, Cuba, the day before an American-held prisoner said he was questioned by Libyan intelligence agents last year.

"While posing as a private charter outfit - 'aircraft rental with pilot' is the listing in Dun and Bradstreet - Aero Contractors is in fact a major domestic hub of the CIA's secret air service. The company was founded in 1979 by a legendary CIA officer and chief pilot for Air America, the agency's Vietnam-era air company, and it appears to be controlled by the agency, according to former employees," it said.

"The civilian planes can go places American military craft would not be welcome. They sometimes allow the agency to circumvent reporting requirements most countries impose on flights operated by other governments. But the cover can fail, as when two Austrian fighter jets were scrambled on Jan 21, 2003, to intercept a CIA Hercules transport plane, equipped with military communications, on its way from Germany to Azerbaijan," the paper said.

"Some of the CIA planes have been used for carrying out renditions, the legal term for the agency's practice of seizing terrorism suspects in one foreign country and delivering them to be detained in another, including countries that routinely engage in torture. The resulting controversy has breached the secrecy of the agency's flights in the last two years, as plane-spotting hobbyists, activists and journalists in a dozen countries have tracked the mysterious planes' movements," it said.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/050531/43/5yr5p.html

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---CIA Frint Company/Aero Contractors Ltd.---
Domestic Dealers - North Carolina
SMITHFIELD. AERO CONTRACTORS, LTD. JOHNSTON COUNTY A/P P.O. BOX 1139 SMITHFIELD, NC 27577-1139 919-934-0978 Fax: 919-934-1161...
http://www.dacint.com/Domestic/DealersdomesticNC.htm

[Norman Richardson of Kenly is president of Aero Contractors Ltd.]

NORMAN J RICHARDSON Aug 1968 1 PO BOX 1559 KENLY NC (919) 284-2066 Background Check

NORMAN L RICHARDSON Jun 1935 1 JOHNSON RD KENLY NC (919) 284-2066

[Robert Blowers, assistant general manager of Aero Contractors Ltd.]

[The "60 Minutes" report said the jets had the tail numbers N379P and N313P. The jets Aero leased had those numbers, Blowers said.]

Published: Mar 11, 2005
Modified: Mar 11, 2005 9:26 AMAero denies CIA flight

Herald photo by Michael McLoone
Aero Contractors Ltd. was the subject of a ?0 Minutes?segment.

By JORDAN COOKE STAFF REPORTER
JOHNSTON COUNTY -- A "60 Minutes" report has linked a Johnston aviation company to the war on terrorism.

The report said the CIA used two North Carolina-based planes to fly terrorism suspects from country to country for questioning. Robert Blowers, assistant general manager of Aero Contractors Ltd., confirmed that his company flew the jets -- a Gulfstream V and a 737 -- out of the Johnston County Airport as recently as a year ago. But Blowers, whose airport-based company supplies planes and pilots for charter flights, said Aero Contractors had not flown terrorism suspects around the globe. "We flew those planes domestically," he said. " None of our guys have been overseas. We only deal in aviation, providing pilots and mechanics, nothing more."

Aero Contractors gave up its lease on the jets about a year ago, Blowers said. The company, which operates from a blue hangar at the airport, now leases turboprop planes like the DC-3, he said.

Norman Richardson of Kenly is president of Aero Contractors Ltd., which has been in business since 1979. He said he was not at liberty to talk about the company's clients.

Paul Forehand owns the JNX Flight School at the Johnston County Airport. He said he was aware that Aero Contractors flew charter flights for the U.S. State Department.

But that's not uncommon, Forehand said. "A lot of companies do the same thing," he said. "The planes they have at their hangar are relatively short-haul planes," Forehand added. "They don't seem like planes that could make long trips."

Forehand said Aero had rented planes from him in the past but only for short pleasure trips. Airport manager Ray Blackmon said he knew little about Aero, which leases its hangar from the public airport. But Blackmon said he had no reason to be suspicious of the company.

"They are excellent tenants and great neighbors," he said.

The "60 Minutes" report said the jets had the tail numbers N379P and N313P. The jets Aero leased had those numbers, Blowers said.

But tag numbers change often, Blowers added. "The buyer might want to add their husband or wife's initials to the end of the tag," he said. "You just never know."

The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed this week that other companies had reserved the tag numbers since Aero gave up its leases on the Gulfstream V and 737. But the FAA did not divulge the names of the new owners.

Blowers acknowledged that the CBS report had cast a shadow over his company. "People will be making all kinds of innuendoes," he said. "Now it's going to be my job to make sure our people are protected from the fallout. But I really don't understand what all the commotion is about."

Herald Staff Reporter Jordan Cooke can be reached at 934-2176, Ext. 133, or by e-mail at jcooke [at] nando.com.

http://www.smithfieldherald.com/news/story/2203088p-8584188c.html

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Posada Had Role in Iran-Contra Affair

Published Monday, May 30, 2005

By CURT ANDERSON
The Associated Press

MIAMI -- Shortly after escaping from a Venezuelan prison twenty years ago, Luis Posada Carriles turned up as "Ramon Medina" at a Salvadoran airfield that was part of a secret White House project to funnel weapons to U.S.-backed Contra rebels waging war against Nicaragua's Sandinista government.

Posada's involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, detailed in U.S. government documents, is one of the lesser-known episodes of a lifetime of militancy against Cuban President Fidel Castro and other leftist Latin American governments, which he viewed as communist.

Posada, 77, is now in U.S. custody in El Paso, Texas, facing deportation on charges of entering the United States illegally earlier this year. He is claiming U.S. residency status first gained in 1962 and political asylum, in part because of his past work for the CIA. Venezuela wants to extradite Posada for the prison escape, which came while he awaited a third trial in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people off Barbados.

An initial hearing for Posada on the immigration charges is set for June 13.

In 1985, Posada was deeply involved in the Reagan administration's attempt to topple the Soviet Union-leaning Sandinistas by selling weapons to Iran and using the money for the Contra rebels, according to the final Iran-Contra report issued by independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh.
Using the "Ramon Medina" alias, Posada worked closely with another militant Cuban exile known as "Max Gomez" at the major Contra staging area at Ilopango Air Base in El Salvador. "Max Gomez" was actually Felix Rodriguez, a longtime CIA operative.

According to the Walsh report, Posada helped ensure proper distribution of some of the $6 million collected for the Contras by Lt. Col. Oliver North, a White House National Security Council aide who spearheaded the operation. The cash was brought to El Salvador from Miami by Southern Air Transport, an air cargo company that was actually a CIA front.

As the Iran-Contra scheme began to unravel, a C-123 aircraft carrying weapons and supplies to the Contras was shot down in Nicaragua on Oct. 5, 1986. Two U.S. pilots were killed and a third crew member, Eugene Hasenfus, was captured after parachuting out.

Four days later, Hasenfus said publicly he had made 10 such flights -- six out of Ilopango and four out of an air base in Honduras. He said that "Medina" and "Gomez," the alias names for Posada and Rodriguez, "oversaw the housing for the crews, transportation, refueling and flight plans."
At the time, however, their true identities were a mystery.

After the Hasenfus plane was shot down, the end was near for the Ilopango air base. A top Salvadoran official ordered the resupply crews to leave the country, and the planes were taken to Honduras.

It was left to Posada to close up shop.

According to the Walsh report, Posada "cleaned out the houses where resupply personnel had stayed" and delivered documents to U.S. officials. "Posada also terminated the operation's leases, paid the bills and disposed of radio equipment, cars and other goods," the report says.

Rodriguez is now retired and living in Miami but has an unlisted number and could not be reached for comment for this story. In a 1989 book detailing his CIA adventures, "Shadow Warrior," Rodriguez contends that Venezuela blamed the 1976 Cuban airliner bombing on Posada because Posada -- at one time a Venezuelan security official -- possessed "some juicy tapes" of a former Venezuelan president talking with his girlfriend.

After his Iran-Contra duties in 1990, Posada was shot and wounded by unknown gunmen in Guatemala.

In March, he surfaced in Miami after crossing the U.S. border with Mexico to seek asylum in the United States.

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050530/NEWS/505300336/1004/RSS&source=RSS

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Free Information ...
Company Name: Aero Contractors Company of Nigeria Ltd.
Firm Type: International and Multinational Private company
Location: Nigeria
Phone: 234 1 496 1340
Web: http://www.acn.aero.com
Employees (Verification Letter): 450
Revenue (Estimate): $1,005.00 M SALES
Fiscal Year End: 31-DEC-02
Year Founded: 1959
Primary SIC: Air Transportation Scheduled
Primary NAICS: Scheduled Passenger Air Transportation
Description: Transportation: Airline charter services
Last Updated: 07-JUN-05

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Atlas Aviation - pilot resume
...A1153,Wien. 011-43-18656371.. ´?(Aero Contractors Ltd Lagos) ?3- Capt. Gary Smith.....Cessna Caravans, C-210. 1988-03/2000: Aero Contractors?. Nigeria Ltd Pmb21090.. M/M.....C/O Aero Contractors .. ´´ Nig. Ltd Pmb 21090..
http://www.atlasaviation.com/resumes/pilotresume/larry-njagu.htm

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In tucked-away corner, war on terror takes off

By Scott Shane, Stephen Grey and Margot Williams The New York Times

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, 2005

SMITHFIELD, North Carolina The airplanes of Aero Contractors Ltd. take off from Johnston County Airport here, then disappear over the scrub pines and fields of tobacco and sweet potatoes.
?othing about the sleepy Southern setting hints of foreign intrigue. Nothing gives away the fact that Aero's pilots are the discreet bus drivers of the battle against terrorism, routinely sent on secret missions to Baghdad, Cairo, Tashkent and Kabul.

?hen the CIA wants to grab a suspected member of Al Qaeda overseas and deliver him to interrogators in another country, an Aero Contractors plane often does the job.

?f agency experts need to fly overseas in a hurry after the capture of a prized prisoner, a plane will leave Johnston County and stop at Dulles Airport outside Washington to pick up the CIA team on the way.

?ero Contractors' planes dropped CIA paramilitary officers into Afghanistan in 2001; carried an American team to Karachi, Pakistan, right after the U.S. Consulate there was bombed in 2002; and flew from Libya to Guant?namo Bay, Cuba, the day before an American-held prisoner said he was questioned by Libyan intelligence agents last year, according to flight data and other records.

?hile posing as a private charter company - "aircraft rental with pilot" is the listing in Dun & Bradstreet - Aero Contractors is in fact a major domestic hub of the CIA's secret air service.
?he company was founded in 1979 by a legendary CIA officer and chief pilot for Air America, the agency's Vietnam-era company, and it appears to be controlled by the agency, according to former employees. Aero's much-larger ancestor, Air America, was closed down in 1976.

?ehind a surprisingly thin cover of rural hideaways, front companies and shell corporations that share officers who appear to exist only on paper, the CIA has rapidly expanded its air operations since 2001 as it has pursued and questioned terrorism suspects around the world.

?n analysis of thousands of flight records, aircraft registrations and corporate documents, as well as interviews.

?he planes can go where U.S. military craft would not be welcome.

?ith former CIA officers and pilots, show that the agency owns at least 26 planes, 10 of them purchased since 2001. The agency has concealed its ownership behind a web of seven shell corporations that appear to have no employees and no function apart from owning the aircraft.

?he planes, regularly supplemented by private charters, are operated by real companies controlled by or tied to the agency, including Aero Contractors and two Florida companies, Pegasus Technologies and Tepper Aviation.

?he civilian planes can go places U.S. military craft would not be welcome. They allow the agency to circumvent reporting requirements most countries impose on flights operated by other governments. But the cover can fail, as when two Austrian fighter jets were scrambled on Jan. 21, 2003, to intercept a CIA Hercules transport plane, equipped with military communications, on its way from Germany to Azerbaijan.

?When the CIA is given a task, it's usually because national policy makers don't want 'U.S. government' written all over it," said Jim Glerum, a retired CIA officer who spent 18 years with the agency's Air America but says he has no knowledge of current operations. "If you're flying an executive jet into somewhere where there are plenty of executive jets, you can look like any other company."

?ome of the CIA planes have been used for carrying out renditions, the legal term for the agency's practice of seizing terrorism suspects in one foreign country and delivering them to be detained in another, including countries that routinely engage in torture.

?he resulting controversy has breached the secrecy of the agency's flights in the past two years, as plane-spotting hobbyists, activists and journalists in a dozen countries have tracked the mysterious planes' movements.

?he authorities in Italy and Sweden have opened investigations into the CIA's alleged role in the seizure of suspects in those countries who were then flown to Egypt for interrogation. According to Georg Nolte, a law professor at the University of Munich, under international law, nations are obligated to investigate any substantiated human rights violations committed on their territory or using their airspace.

?epresentatives of Aero Contractors, Tepper Aviation and Pegasus Technologies, which operate the agency planes, said they could not discuss their clients' identities. "We've been doing business with the government for a long time, and one of the reasons is, we don't talk about it," said Robert Blowers, Aero's assistant manager.

?ost of the shell companies that are the planes' nominal owners hold permits to land at U.S. military bases worldwide, a clue to their global mission. Flight records show that at least 11 of the aircraft have landed at Camp Peary, the Virginia base where the CIA operates its training facility, known as "the Farm."

?everal planes have also made regular trips to Guant?namo. But the facility that turns up most often in records of the 25 planes is Johnston County Airport, which mainly serves private pilots and a few local corporations.
?Ford Fessenden contributed reporting.

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---New York Times Story---
May 31, 2005 Print | Send this article | Feedback

C.I.A. Expanding Terror Battle Under Guise of Charter Flights

Behind a cover of front companies and shell corporations, the C.I.A. has rapidly expanded its air operations as it has pursued and questioned terrorist suspects.

SMITHFIELD, N.C. - The airplanes of Aero Contractors Ltd. take off from Johnston County Airport here, then disappear over the scrub pines and fields of tobacco and sweet potatoes. Nothing about the sleepy Southern setting hints of foreign intrigue. Nothing gives away the fact that Aero's pilots are the discreet bus drivers of the battle against terrorism, routinely sent on secret missions to Baghdad, Cairo, Tashkent and Kabul.

When the Central Intelligence Agency wants to grab a suspected member of Al Qaeda overseas and deliver him to interrogators in another country, an Aero Contractors plane often does the job. If agency experts need to fly overseas in a hurry after the capture of a prized prisoner, a plane will depart Johnston County and stop at Dulles Airport outside Washington to pick up the C.I.A. team on the way.

Aero Contractors' planes dropped C.I.A. paramilitary officers into Afghanistan in 2001; carried an American team to Karachi, Pakistan, right after the United States Consulate there was bombed in 2002; and flew from Libya to Guant?namo Bay, Cuba, the day before an American-held prisoner said he was questioned by Libyan intelligence agents last year, according to flight data and other records.

While posing as a private charter outfit - "aircraft rental with pilot" is the listing in Dun and Bradstreet - Aero Contractors is in fact a major domestic hub of the Central Intelligence Agency's secret air service. The company was founded in 1979 by a legendary C.I.A. officer and chief pilot for Air America, the agency's Vietnam-era air company, and it appears to be controlled by the agency, according to former employees.

Behind a surprisingly thin cover of rural hideaways, front companies and shell corporations that share officers who appear to exist only on paper, the C.I.A. has rapidly expanded its air operations since 2001 as it has pursued and questioned terrorism suspects around the world.

An analysis of thousands of flight records, aircraft registrations and corporate documents, as well as interviews with former C.I.A. officers and pilots, show that the agency owns at least 26 planes, 10 of them purchased since 2001. The agency has concealed its ownership behind a web of seven shell corporations that appear to have no employees and no function apart from owning the aircraft.

The planes, regularly supplemented by private charters, are operated by real companies controlled by or tied to the agency, including Aero Contractors and two Florida companies, Pegasus Technologies and Tepper Aviation.

The civilian planes can go places American military craft would not be welcome. They sometimes allow the agency to circumvent reporting requirements most countries impose on flights operated by other governments. But the cover can fail, as when two Austrian fighter jets were scrambled on Jan. 21, 2003, to intercept a C.I.A. Hercules transport plane, equipped with military communications, on its way from Germany to Azerbaijan.

"When the C.I.A. is given a task, it's usually because national policy makers don't want 'U.S. government' written all over it," said Jim Glerum, a retired C.I.A. officer who spent 18 years with the agency's Air America but says he has no knowledge of current operations. "If you're flying an executive jet into somewhere where there are plenty of executive jets, you can look like any other company."

Some of the C.I.A. planes have been used for carrying out renditions, the legal term for the agency's practice of seizing terrorism suspects in one foreign country and delivering them to be detained in another, including countries that routinely engage in torture. The resulting controversy has breached the secrecy of the agency's flights in the last two years, as plane-spotting hobbyists, activists and journalists in a dozen countries have tracked the mysterious planes' movements.

Inquiries From Abroad

The authorities in Italy and Sweden have opened investigations into the C.I.A.'s alleged role in the seizure of suspects in those countries who were then flown to Egypt for interrogation. According to Dr. Georg Nolte, a law professor at the University of Munich, under international law, nations are obligated to investigate any substantiated human rights violations committed on their territory or using their airspace.

Dr. Nolte examined the case of Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen who American officials have confirmed was pulled from a bus on the Serbia-Macedonia border on Dec. 31, 2003, and held for three weeks. Then he was drugged and beaten, by his account, before being flown to Afghanistan.

The episode illustrates the circumstantial nature of the evidence on C.I.A. flights, which often coincide with the arrest and transporting of Al Qaeda suspects. No public record states how Mr. Masri was taken to Afghanistan. But flight data shows a Boeing Business Jet operated by Aero Contractors and owned by Premier Executive Transport Services, one of the C.I.A.-linked shell companies, flew from Skopje, Macedonia, to Baghdad and on to Kabul on Jan. 24, 2004, the day after Mr. Masri's passport was marked with a Macedonian exit stamp.

Mr. Masri was later released by order of Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser at the time, after his arrest was shown to be a case of mistaken identity.

A C.I.A. spokeswoman declined to comment for this article. Representatives of Aero Contractors, Tepper Aviation and Pegasus Technologies, which operate the agency planes, said they could not discuss their clients' identities. "We've been doing business with the government for a long time, and one of the reasons is, we don't talk about it," said Robert W. Blowers, Aero's assistant manager.

A Varied Fleet

But records filed with the Federal Aviation Administration provide a detailed, if incomplete, portrait of the agency's aviation wing.

The fleet includes a World War II-era DC-3 and a sleek Gulfstream V executive jet, as well as workhorse Hercules transport planes and Spanish-built aircraft that can drop into tight airstrips. The flagship is the Boeing Business Jet, based on the 737 model, which Aero flies from Kinston, N.C., because the runway at Johnston County is too short for it.

Most of the shell companies that are the planes' nominal owners hold permits to land at American military bases worldwide, a clue to their global mission. Flight records show that at least 11 of the aircraft have landed at Camp Peary, the Virginia base where the C.I.A. operates its training facility, known as "the Farm." Several planes have also made regular trips to Guant?namo.

But the facility that turns up most often in records of the 26 planes is little Johnston County Airport, which mainly serves private pilots and a few local corporations. At one end of the 5,500-foot runway are the modest airport offices, a flight school and fuel tanks. At the other end are the hangars and offices of Aero Contractors, down a tree-lined driveway named for Charlie Day, an airplane mechanic who earned a reputation as an engine magician working on secret operations in Laos during the Vietnam War.

"To tell you the truth, I don't know what they do," said Ray Blackmon, the airport manager, noting that Aero has its own mechanics and fuel tanks, keeping nosey outsiders away. But he called the Aero workers "good neighbors," always ready to lend a tool.

Son of Air America

Aero appears to be the direct descendant of Air America, a C.I.A.-operated air "proprietary," as agency-controlled companies are called.

Just three years after the big Asian air company was closed in 1976, one of its chief pilots, Jim Rhyne, was asked to open a new air company, according to a former Aero Contractors employee whose account is supported by corporate records.

"Jim is one of the great untold stories of heroic work for the U.S. government," said Bill Leary, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Georgia who has written about the C.I.A.'s air operations. Mr. Rhyne had a prosthetic leg - he had lost one leg to enemy antiaircraft fire in Laos - that was blamed for his death in a 2001 crash while testing a friend's new plane at Johnston County Airport.

Mr. Rhyne had chosen the rural airfield in part because it was handy to Fort Bragg and many Special Forces veterans, and in part because it had no tower from which Aero's operations could be spied on, a former pilot said.

"Sometimes a plane would go in the hangar with one tail number and come out in the middle of the night with another," said the former pilot. He asked not to be identified because when he was hired, after responding to a newspaper advertisement seeking pilots for the C.I.A., he signed a secrecy agreement.

While flying for Aero in the 1980's and 1990's, the pilot said, he ferried King Hussein, Jordan's late ruler, around the United States; kept American-backed rebels like Jonas Savimbi of Angola supplied with guns and food; hopped across the jungles of Colombia to fight the drug trade; and retrieved shoulder-fired Stinger missiles and other weapons from former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

Ferrying Terrorism Suspects

Aero's planes were sent to Fort Bragg to pick up Special Forces operatives for practice runs in the Uwharrie National Forest in North Carolina, dropping supplies or attempting emergency "exfiltrations" of agents, often at night, the former pilot said. He described flying with $50,000 in cash strapped to his legs to buy fuel and working under pseudonyms that changed from job to job.

He does not recall anyone using the word "rendition." "We used to call them 'snatches,' " he said, recalling half a dozen cases. Sometimes the goal was to take a suspect from one country to another. At other times, the C.I.A. team rescued allies, including five men believed to have been marked by Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, for assassination.

Since 2001, the battle against terrorism has refocused and expanded the C.I.A.'s air operations. Aero's staff grew to 79 from 48 from 2001 to 2004, according to Dun and Bradstreet.

Despite the difficulty of determining the purpose of any single flight or who was aboard, the pattern of flights that coincide with known events is striking.

When Saddam Hussein was captured in Iraq the evening of Dec. 13, 2003, a Gulfstream V executive jet was already en route from Dulles Airport in Washington. It was joined in Baghdad the next day by the Boeing Business Jet, also flying from Washington.

Flights on this route were highly unusual, aviation records show. These were the first C.I.A. planes to file flight plans from Washington to Baghdad since the beginning of the war.

Flight logs show a C.I.A. plane left Dulles within 48 hours of the capture of several Al Qaeda leaders, flying to airports near the place of arrest. They included Abu Zubaida, a close aide to Osama bin Laden, captured on March 28, 2002; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who helped plan 9/11 from Hamburg, Germany, on Sept. 10, 2002; Abd al-Rahim al-Nashri, the Qaeda operational chief in the Persian Gulf region, on Nov. 8, 2002; and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the architect of 9/11, on March 1, 2003.

A jet also arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from Dulles on May 31, 2003, after the killing in Saudi Arabia of Yusuf Bin-Salih al-Ayiri, a propagandist and former close associate of Mr. bin Laden, and the capture of Mr. Ayiri's deputy, Abdullah al-Shabrani.

Flight records sometimes lend support to otherwise unsubstantiated reports. Omar Deghayes, a Libyan-born prisoner in the American detention center at Guant?namo Bay, Cuba, has said through his lawyer that four Libyan intelligence service officers appeared in September in an interrogation cell.

Aviation records cannot corroborate his claim that the men questioned him and threatened his life. But they do show that a Gulfstream V registered to one of the C.I.A. shell companies flew from Tripoli, Libya, to Guant?namo on Sept. 8, the day before Mr. Deghayes reported first meeting the Libyan agents. The plane stopped in Jamaica and at Dulles before returning to the Johnston County Airport, flight records show.

The same Gulfstream has been linked - through witness accounts, government inquiries and news reports - to prisoner renditions from Sweden, Pakistan, Indonesia and Gambia.

Most recently, flight records show the Boeing Business Jet traveling from Sudan to Baltimore-Washington International Airport on April 17, and returning to Sudan on April 22. The trip coincides with a visit of the Sudanese intelligence chief to Washington that was reported April 30 by The Los Angeles Times.

Mysterious Companies

As the C.I.A. tries to veil such air operations, aviation regulations pose a major obstacle. Planes must have visible tail numbers, and their ownership can be easily checked by entering the number into the Federal Aviation Administration's online registry.

So, rather than purchase aircraft outright, the C.I.A. uses shell companies whose names appear unremarkable in casual checks of F.A.A. registrations.

On closer examination, however, it becomes clear that those companies appear to have no premises, only post office boxes or addresses in care of lawyers' offices. Their officers and directors, listed in state corporate databases, seem to have been invented. A search of public records for ordinary identifying information about the officers - addresses, phone numbers, house purchases, and so on - comes up with only post office boxes in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

But whoever created the companies used some of the same post office box addresses and the same apparently fictitious officers for two or more of the companies. One of those seeming ghost executives, Philip P. Quincannon, for instance, is listed as an officer of Premier Executive Transport Services and Crowell Aviation Technologies, both listed to the same Massachusetts address, as well as Stevens Express Leasing in Tennessee.

No one by that name can be found in any public record other than post office boxes in Washington and Dunn Loring, Va. Those listings for Mr. Quincannon, in commercial databases, include an anomaly: His Social Security number was issued in Washington between 1993 and 1995, but his birth year is listed as 1949.

Mr. Glerum, the C.I.A. and Air America veteran, said the use of one such name on more than one company was "bad tradecraft: you shouldn't allow an element of one entity to lead to others."

He said one method used in setting up past C.I.A. proprietaries was to ask real people to volunteer to serve as officers or directors. "It was very, very easy to find patriotic Americans who were willing to help," he said.

Such an approach may have been used with Aero Contractors. William J. Rogers, 84, of Maine, said he was asked to serve on the Aero board in the 1980's because he was a former Navy pilot and past national commander of the American Legion. He knew the company did government work, but not much more, he said. "We used to meet once or twice a year," he said.

Aero's president, according to corporate records, is Norman Richardson, a North Carolina businessman who once ran a truck stop restaurant called Stormin' Norman's. Asked about his role with Aero, Mr. Richardson said only: "Most of the work we do is for the government. It's on the basis that we can't say anything about it."

Secrecy Is Difficult

Aero's much-larger ancestor, Air America, was closed down in 1976 just as the United States Senate's Church Committee issued a mixed report on the value of the C.I.A.'s use of proprietary companies. The committee questioned whether the nation would ever again be involved in covert wars. One comment appears prescient.

When one C.I.A. official told the committee that a new air proprietary should be created only if "we have a chance at keeping it secret that it is C.I.A.," Lawrence R. Houston, then agency's general counsel, objected.

In the aviation industry, said Mr. Houston, who died in 1995, "everybody knows what everybody is doing, and something new coming along is immediately the focus of a thousand eyes and prying questions."

He concluded: "I don't think you can do a real cover operation."

Ford Fessenden contributed reporting for this article.

This article was reported by Scott Shane, Stephen Grey and Margot Williams and written by Mr. Shane.

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Johnston Hangar May Be Involved In War Against Terrorism

Terror Suspects Reportedly On Secret CIA Flights

POSTED: 5:55 pm EST March 7, 2005
UPDATED: 6:58 am EST March 8, 2005

JOHNSTON COUNTY, N.C. -- A small, blue hangar tucked away at the Johnston County Airport may be caught up in the war on terror.

Journalists from around the world are pressuring the U.S. government for information on "secret" CIA flights. In a WRAL Investigation, the journey appears to begin in North Carolina.

On Sunday, the CBS show "60 Minutes" aired an investigative report on secret CIA flights in which terror suspects around the world are kidnapped. They are apparently flown to other countries and tortured. The "60 Minutes" story tracked flights that originated in North Carolina. WRAL found out a Swedish news crew is also investigating.

They report the planes are maintained and based at Aero Contractors Ltd. in Smithfield. WRAL tracked that name to a hangar at the Johnston County Airport. The news report focused on two planes with tail numbers N379P and N313P.

Aero Contractors said they do not think their flights are involved in what "60 Minutes" is investigating. However, a representative with the company said the company was familiar with the two tail numbers and the company has leased those planes before.

WRAL checked the history of Aero Contractors through North Carolina records. The company, which opened in 1979, contracts planes and coordinates pilots.

WRAL called the president of the company and he said he cannot discuss the nature of the business. The manager for the airport said he has no idea what goes on inside the blue hangar, but he does not want to be connected with it.

The two planes in question may no longer be running any missions. The Swedish news crew told WRAL the planes were sold. The Federal Aviation Administration said the numbers are now reserved for other companies.

Reporter: Kelcey Carlson
Photographer: Terry Cantrell
OnLine Producer: Kamal Wallace

Copyright 2005 by WRAL.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.wral.com/news/4261797/detail.html