From: KuCh@nine.com   
      
   Karl Rove's White House " Murder, Inc."   
      
   By Wayne Madsen .   
   Online Journal Contributing Writer .   
      
   OCT, 2004- On September 15, 2001, just four days after the 9-11 attacks,   
   CIA Director George Tenet provided President [sic] Bush with a Top Secret   
   "Worldwide Attack Matrix"-a virtual license to kill targets deemed to be a   
   threat to the United States in some 80 countries around the world. The Tenet   
   plan, which was subsequently approved by Bush, essentially reversed the   
   executive orders of four previous U.S. administrations that expressly   
   prohibited political assassinations.   
      
   According to high level European intelligence officials, Bush's counselor,   
   Karl Rove, used the new presidential authority to silence a popular Lebanese   
   Christian politician who was planning to offer irrefutable evidence that   
   Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon authorized the massacre of hundreds of   
   Palestinian men, women, and children in the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra   
   and Shatilla in 1982. In addition, Sharon provided the Lebanese forces who   
   carried out the grisly task. At the time of the massacres, Elie Hobeika was   
   intelligence chief of Lebanese Christian forces in Lebanon who were battling   
   Palestinians and other Muslim groups in a bloody civil war. He was also the   
   chief liaison to Israeli Defense Force (IDF) personnel in Lebanon. An   
   official Israeli inquiry into the massacre at the camps, the Kahan   
   Commission, merely found Sharon "indirectly" responsible for the slaughter   
   and fingered Hobeika as the chief instigator.   
      
   The Kahan Commission never called on Hobeika to offer testimony in his   
   defense. However, in response to charges brought against Sharon before a   
   special war crimes court in Belgium, Hobeika was urged to testify against   
   Sharon, according to well-informed Lebanese sources. Hobeika was prepared to   
   offer a different version of events than what was contained in the Kahan   
   report. A 1993 Belgian law permitting human rights prosecutions was unusual   
   in that non-Belgians could be tried for violations against other   
   non-Belgians in a Belgian court. Under pressure from the Bush   
   administration, the law was severely amended and the extra territoriality   
   provisions were curtailed.   
      
   Hobeika headed the Lebanese forces intelligence agency since the mid- 1970s   
   and he soon developed close ties to the CIA. He was a frequent visitor to   
   the CIA's headquarters at Langley, Virginia. After the Syrian invasion of   
   Lebanon in 1990, Hobeika held a number of cabinet positions in the Lebanese   
   government, a proxy for the Syrian occupation authorities. He also served in   
   the parliament. In July 2001, Hobeika called a press conference and   
   announced he was prepared to testify against Sharon in Belgium and revealed   
   that he had evidence of what actually occurred in Sabra and Shatilla.   
   Hobeika also indicated that Israel had flown members of the South Lebanon   
   Army (SLA) into Beirut International Airport in an Israeli Air Force C130   
   transport plane. In full view of dozens of witnesses, including members of   
   the Lebanese army and others, SLA troops under the command of Major Saad   
   Haddad were slipped into the camps to commit the massacres. The SLA troops   
   were under the direct command of Ariel Sharon and an Israeli Mossad agent   
   provocateur named Rafi Eitan. Hobeika offered evidence that a former U.S.   
   ambassador to Lebanon was aware of the Israeli plot. In addition, the IDF   
   had placed a camera in a strategic position to film the Sabra and Shatilla   
   massacres. Hobeika was going to ask that the footage be released as part of   
   the investigation of Sharon.   
      
   After announcing he was willing to testify against Sharon, Hobeika became   
   fearful for his safety and began moves to leave Lebanon. Hobeika was not   
   aware that his threats to testify against Sharon had triggered a series of   
   fateful events that reached well into the White House and Sharon's office.   
      
   On January 24, 2002, Hobeika's car was blown up by a remote controlled bomb   
   placed in a parked Mercedes along a street in the Hazmieh section of Beirut.   
   The bomb exploded when Hobeika and his three associates, Fares Souweidan,   
   Mitri Ajram, and Waleed Zein, were driving their Range Rover past the   
   TNT-laden Mercedes at 9:40 am Beirut time. The Range Rover's four passengers   
   were killed in the explosion. In case Hobeika's car had taken another route   
      
   through the neighborhood, two additional parked cars, located at two other   
   choke points, were also rigged with TNT. The powerful bomb wounded a number   
   of other people on the street. Other parked cars were destroyed and   
   buildings and homes were damaged. The Lebanese president, prime minister,   
   and interior minister all claimed that Israeli agents were behind the   
   attack.   
      
   It is noteworthy that the State Department's list of global terrorist   
   incidents for 2002 worldwide failed to list the car bombing attack on   
   Hobeika and his party. The White House wanted to ensure the attack was   
   censored from the report. The reason was simple: the attack ultimately had   
   Washington's fingerprints on it.   
      
   High level European intelligence sources now report that Karl Rove   
   personally coordinated Hobeika's assassination. The hit on Hobeika employed   
   Syrian intelligence agents. Syrian President Bashar Assad was trying to   
   curry favor with the Bush administration in the aftermath of 9-11 and was   
   more than willing to help the White House. In addition, Assad's father,   
   Hafez Assad, had been an ally of Bush's father during Desert Storm, a period   
   that saw Washington give a "wink and a nod" to Syria's occupation of   
   Lebanon. Rove wanted to help Sharon avoid any political embarrassment from   
   an in absentia trial in Brussels where Hobeika would be a star witness. Rove   
   and Sharon agreed on the plan to use Syrian Military Intelligence agents to   
   assassinate Hobeika. Rove saw Sharon as an indispensable ally of Bush in   
   ensuring the loyalty of the Christian evangelical and Jewish voting blocs in   
   the United States. Sharon saw the plan to have the United States coordinate   
   the hit as a way to mask all connections to Jerusalem.   
      
   The Syrian hit team was ordered by Assef Shawkat, the number two man in   
   Syrian military intelligence and a good friend and brother in law of Syrian   
   President Bashar Assad. Assad's intelligence services had already cooperated   
   with U.S. intelligence in resorting to unconventional methods to extract   
   information from al Qaeda detainees deported to Syria from the United States   
   and other countries in the wake of 9-11. The order to take out Hobeika was   
   transmitted by Shawkat to Roustom Ghazali, the head of Syrian military   
   intelligence in Beirut. Ghazali arranged for the three remote controlled   
   cars to be parked along Hobeika's route in Hazmieh; only few hundred yards   
   from the Barracks of Syrian Special Forces which are stationed in the area   
   near the Presidential palace , the ministry of Defense and various   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)