Nexus - 0802 - New Times Magazine-pages

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It is perhaps not by coincidence again that Cheney and the Bahamas and South America. Lehder was known during the Armitage share membership in the prestigious Aspen Institute, an 1980s as "the genius of transportation". I can well imagine Dick exclusive bi-partisan research think-tank, and also in the US- Cheney, having witnessed the complete restructuring of the global Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. In November 1999, in what drug trade in the last eight years, going to George W. and saying, may be a portent of things to come, Armitage played the role of "Look, I know how we can make it even better". Secretary of Defense in a practical exercise at the Council on One thing is for certain. As quoted in the CPI article, one Foreign Relations, of which he and Cheney are both members. Halliburton vice-president noted that if the Bush-Cheney ticket Many of the longest-serving and best Bush apparatchiks like were elected, "the company's government contracts would obvi- Richard Armitage and CIA veteran Ted Shackley have heavy ously go through the roof". political baggage. Since governmental power is so evenly split after the long election as to appear contrived, it is unlikely that | THE DARK PAST controversial nominees for cabinet positions like Armitage or In July 1977, this writer, then a Los Angeles Police officer, Shackley will be placed before a 50-50 Senate which is unlikely struggled to make sense of a world gone haywire. In a last-ditch to confirm them. Armitage is more likely to appear as a quasi- effort to salvage a relationship with my fiancée, Nordica official adviser in troubled European regions. This is similar to | Theodora D'Orsay (Teddy), a CIA contract agent, I had travelled the roles he performed for George Bush in 1989 in Russia and in to New Orleans to find her. On a hastily arranged vacation, 1992 in Albania. Armitage's travels secured with the blessing of my com- presaged both the Chechen and manding officer, Captain Jesse Brewer Kosovar conflicts and the rampant of LAPD, I had gone on my own, unof- expansion of the drug trade through 4 ' ficially, to avoid the scrutiny of LAPD's those regions. Armitage ) travels presaged Organized Crime Intelligence Division (OCID). DRUG PIPELINE STREAMLINED both the Chechen and Kosovar Teddy had wanted me to join her The Clinton Administration took care conflicts and the rampant operations from within the ranks of of all that wasted travel for heroin with i LAPD, starting in the late spring of the 1999 destruction of Serbia and expansion of the drug trade 1976. I had refused to get involve Kosovo and the installation of the KLA through those regions. with drugs in any way, and everything as aregional power. That opened a she mentioned seemed to involve either direct line from Afghanistan to Western heroin or cocaine, along with the guns Europe—and Brown & Root was right which she was always moving out of in the middle of that, too. the country. The Director of the CIA The Clinton skill at streamlining drug operations was described then was George Herbert Walker Bush. in detail in the April 2000 issue of FTW in a story entitled "The Although officially on staff at the LAPD Academy at the time, I Democratic Party's Presidential Drug Money Pipeline". That arti- had been unofficially lent to OCID since January when Teddy, cle has since been reprinted in three countries. The essence of the | announcing the start of a new operation planned in the fall of drug economic lesson was that by growing opium in Colombia 1976, suddenly disappeared. She left many people, including me, and by smuggling both cocaine and heroin from Colombia to New baffled and twisting in the breeze. The OCID detectives had been York City through the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (a pressuring me hard for information about her and what I knew of virtual straight line), traditional smuggling routes could be short- her activities. It was information I could not give them. Hoping ened or even eliminated. This reduced both risk and cost, against hope that I would find some way to understand her increased profits and eliminated competition. involvement with CIA, LAPD, the royal family of Iran, the Mafia FTW suspects the hand of Medellin cartel co-founder Carlos and drugs, I set out alone into eight days of Dantean revelations Lehder in this process, and it is interesting to note that Lehder, which have determined the course of my life from that day to this. released from prison under Clinton in 1995, is now active in both Arriving in New Orleans in early July 1977, I found Teddy liv- ing in an apartment across the river in Gretna. Equipped with scrambler BORDER phones and night vision devices, and working ¢ from sealed communiqués (0) delivered by navy and air force personnel from near- by Belle Chasse Naval Air Station, she was involved in something truly ugly. Teddy was arranging for large quantities of weapons to be loaded onto ships leaving for Iran. At the same time, she was Ww . ” working with Mafia asso- r thought You said you knew how to read amap. ciates oF New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos the Bahamas and South America. Lehder was known during the 1980s as "the genius of transportation". I can well imagine Dick Cheney, having witnessed the complete restructuring of the global drug trade in the last eight years, going to George W. and saying, "Look, I know how we can make it even better". One thing is for certain. As quoted in the CPI article, one Halliburton vice-president noted that if the Bush-Cheney ticket were elected, "the company's government contracts would obvi- ously go through the roof". conflicts and the rampant expansion of the drug trade through those regions. "LZ thought you said you knew how to read a map.” es re oy Cer 14 = NEXUS FEBRUARY — MARCH 2001