[casi] Paladin Capital, US war profiteer

["ppg" <ppg@DELETETHISnyc.rr.com>]

Bush ally set to profit from the war on terror

Antony Barnett and Solomon Hughes
Sunday May 11, 2003
The Observer

James Woolsey, former CIA boss and influential adviser to President George
Bush, is a director of a US firm aiming to make millions of dollars from the
'war on terror', The Observer can reveal.

Woolsey, one of the most high-profile hawks in the war against Iraq and a
key member of the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board, is a director of the
Washington-based private equity firm Paladin Capital. The company was set up
three months after the terrorist attacks on New York and sees the events and
aftermath of September 11 as a business opportunity which 'offer[s]
substantial promise for homeland security investment'.

The first priority of Paladin was 'to invest in companies with immediate
solutions designed to prevent harmful attacks, defend against attacks, cope
with the aftermath of attack or disaster and recover from terrorist attacks
and other threats to homeland security'.

Paladin, which is expected to have raised $300 million from investors by the
end of this year, calculates that in the next few years the US government
will spend $60 billion on anti-terrorism that would not have been spent
before September 11, and that corporations will spend twice that amount to
ensure their security and continuity in case of attack.

The involvement of one of the most prominent hawks in Washington with a
company standing to cash in on the fear of potential terror attacks will
raise eyebrows in some quarters.

In 2001 US Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz sent Woolsey to Europe, where he
argued the case for links existing between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. He
was one of the main proponents of the theory that the anthrax letter attacks
in America were supported by Iraq's former dictator.

More recently Woolsey told CNN about Saddam's attempts to produce a
genetically modified strain of anthrax. He told the US broadcaster: 'I would
be more worried over the mid to long term about biological weapons, because
the chemical gear, we're - I think we're pretty well equipped to deal with.
But there have been stories that Saddam has been working on genetically
modifying some of these biological agents, making anthrax resistant to
vaccines or antibiotics.'

Little evidence was provided for the Iraq link to the anthrax attacks and
the FBI is now investigating a lone US scientist whom it believes was
responsible. But Woolsey's assertions added to a political atmosphere in
which spending on equipment designed to protect individuals and firms from
terror was predicted to mushroom.

One of Paladin's first investments was $10.5m in AgION Technologies, a firm
devising anti-germ technology that it hopes will 'be the leader in the fight
against bacterial attacks initiated by terrorists on unsuspecting civilian
and military personnel'.

Woolsey is not alone among the members of the Pentagon's highly influential
Defence Policy Board to profit from America's war on terror.

The American watchdog, the Centre for Public Integrity, showed that nine of
the board's members have ties to defence contractors that won more than
$76bn in defence contracts in 2001 and 2002.

Woolsey's fellow neo-conservative, Richard Perle, had to resign his
chairmanship of the board because of conflicts of interest, although he
remains a board member.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,953647,00.html

And re anthrax, today:  Washington Post
New Find Re-ignites Anthrax Probe
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40034-2003May10?language=printer



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