By Alan Jones and Mary Fanning | March 23, 2018
The Obama administration placed a declared enemy of the United States (who was on U.S. Central Command’s Operation Iraqi Freedom “Blacklist”) inside the wire at Port Canaveral, Florida with a 35 year cargo container terminal lease. That lease bypassed the congressionally-mandated national security review by 16 intelligence agencies.
In 2014 Obama and Clinton operatives positioned Gulftainer, a Middle Eastern ports company, only a few thousand feet from U.S. Navy Trident submarines at Port Canaveral and within sight of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. UAE-based Gulftainer is now embedded amidst America’s most sensitive space, naval submarine, and air force defense installations.
The congressional record reveals that the UAE has leveraged its convenient geography — a strip of desert along the Persian Gulf a stone’s throw away from Iran — into a bazaar for the sale of weapons of mass destruction.
Dictatorial sheikhs with obscene amounts of money make the rules in this desert oasis and maritime crossroads, where anyone with a briefcase, planeload, or ocean vessel of cash or contraband is a potential customer.
The UAE is where weapons merchants, nuclear proliferators, terrorist financing “bankers,” WMD outfitters, drug and arms aircraft pilots, and shady shipping lines all converge at this sometimes-glitzy outpost where the general rule of business is “don’t ask questions.”
Under the UAE’s hypocritical sharia code of conduct “businessmen” can, and do, sell and transport nuclear weapon components to barbaric terrorists and sell to the brutal regimes running communist China and North Korea.
Alabama Republican Senator Richard Shelby stated during a 2006 Senate hearing on the Dubai Ports World deal:
While Dubai is an important ally in the war on terror, it is nevertheless a country in the Persian Gulf, a region where support for al Qaeda is very strong and through which funding for terrorist activities, including the attacks of September 11, flowed. It is also the location where the most dangerous nuclear weapon black market smuggling operation in history operated.
The fact that two of the 9/11 hijackers were Emiratis is hardly a surprise. The UAE laundered money used to finance the 9/11 attacks. UAE royals flew an official UAE aircraft to an Afghan desert hunting camp to hang out with Osama Bin Laden. These disturbing events are not rare anomalies tarnishing an otherwise pristine kingdom. This is business as usual.
In a 2017 Huffington Post piece, 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser asks:
Why did nearly every hijacker travel through the Emirates immediately prior to carrying out the 9/11 attacks? By mere coincidence? Or was the choice of the UAE as an operational hub and last point of contact/departure for the hijackers a knowing, tactful, and fully predictable decision?
Gulftainer is co-owned by a United Arab Emirates sheikh, who rules his own emirate, and Saddam Hussein loyalists who funded and directed Saddam’s Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs.
Those Saddam loyalists are members of the notorious Iraqi Jafar family of the Crescent Petroleum oil empire — led by Gulftainer co-owner Hamid Jafar and his brother, rogue nuclear physicist Dr. Jafar Dhia Jafar. Dr. Jafar was declared an enemy of the United States in 2003 and was wanted for capture or kill by coalition forces.
Dr. Jafar is the scientific mastermind who directed Saddam’s nuclear weapons program in a race to build the first “Arab Bomb.”
Dr. Jafar’s brother Hamid Jafar was investigated by three Congressional committees and the U.S. Treasury Department for his “Oil for Superweapons” scheme that was hatched in order to secretly fund Saddam’s and his brother Dr. Jafar’s WMD programs.
Audio tapes captured by Coalition Forces revealed that Saddam Hussein discussed with his Iraqi cabinet members a possible nuclear, chemical, or biological WMD terror attack against Washington, D.C., reported NBC News. The “Saddam Tapes” include recordings of Saddam, Deputy Defense Minister Dr. Jafar and other senior Iraqi regime officials. Notwithstanding the leak of the tape, all the tapes remain classified.
Under CFIUS staff chairman linked to ISNA, Gulftainer deal was never subjected to 30 and 45 day CFIUS national security investigations
The Dubai Ports World deal, under pressure from congress, was subjected to a full 45 day CFIUS national security threat analysis. Gulftainer’s Port Canaveral deal, on the other hand, was never subjected to either the 30 day review, or the more in-depth 45 day CFIUS national security threat analysis, which would have included input from 17 U.S. intelligence agencies.
At the center of the Gulfainer CFIUS national security lapse was the CFIUS staff chairman, a Treasury department employee named Aimen Nabi Mir. Aimen Mir, who was hired by Treasury in 2009, was the president of the youth wing of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). His father, Kashmiri-born Dr. Ghulam Nabi Mir, is a member of ISNA’s founders’ committee and a close associate of Ghulam Nabi Fai. Fai was arrested by the FBI for acting as an agent of Pakistani intelligence service the ISI while buying influence in Washington on behalf of the Pakistani government. Fai was sent to federal prison.
Gulftainer wants second U.S. port, makes move to take over Port of Wilmington, Delaware
Gulftainer is in the midst of taking over cargo container operations at a second U.S. port, the Port of Wilmington in Delaware, The News Journal reported on March 22, 2018.
The Port of Wilmington is located 110 miles from Washington D.C. and 125 miles from New York City.
The man who protected New York from nuclear attacks after 9/11
Dr. Joseph F. King is the former Chief of the National Security Section at the Department of Homeland Security’s New York City office.
In 2003, Dr. King was tasked with setting up and running a brand new post-9/11 intelligence nerve center in midtown Manhattan for the then-recently-established Department of Homeland Security.
King’s daunting mission: protect New York from another massive terrorist attack as devastating as, or possibly worse than, the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks.
King was assigned responsibility for all weapons of mass destruction (WMD) issues, including nuclear, chemical, biological (NBC), in the New York metropolitan area. Terrorism expert King oversaw all covert DHS operations inside Iraq and the Middle East while serving as Chief of the National Security Section at the DHS’s New York City office. King had previously been stationed in Lebanon.
King is the renowned expert on the aborted Dubai Ports World (DPW) debacle. That 2006 deal would have given a foreign Middle Eastern government, the UAE-government’s DPW, control of cargo operations at six major U.S. ports.
The American people, upon being informed of the DPW deal, rose up and strenuously objected. Congress held hearings. DPW went home.
“Project Pelican” is the code-name used for the Obama administration’s 2014 secretly-negotiated deal pursuant to which a 35-year lease handed over control of cargo container operations at Florida’s Port Canaveral to United Arab Emirates-based Gulftainer. The American people were not informed of the Project Pelican deal until officials from Gulftainer’s UAE headquarters, led by Dr. Jafar’s nephew Badr Jafar, flew into Port Canaveral, where the deal was announced at the signing ceremony.
Dr. King reviewed the Center for Security Policy Project Pelican papers “What Could Possibly Go Wrong,” “The Perfect Storm,” and “The Real Russia Story.”
In an exclusive interview with these reporters, Dr. King stated:
The detailed information that has been amassed regarding Project Pelican makes it clear that the threats to our Ports and Terminals, our first line of defense, and the corruption and criminal conduct in these conspiracies, surpass the scope of the “Iran Contra” and “Whitewater” affairs combined.
Dr. King further opined:
I find it mind-boggling that this Byzantine attack on our national security has been swept under the rug by the previous administration. I hope that someone in the Trump administration will pursue this dangerous and criminal attack on our Ports and Terminals and ultimately our national security so that, unlike Churchill, we will not have to fight them on our beaches.
Senator Hillary Clinton quoted Joseph King during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Bush Administration’s Dubai Ports World deal:
“…Dubai Ports World would be able to get hundreds of visas to relocate managers and other employees to the United States. Using appeals to Muslim solidarity or threats of violence, al Qaeda operatives could force low-level managers to provide some of those visas to al Qaeda sympathizers…Those sympathizers could obtain legitimate driver’s licenses, work permits, and mortgages that could then be used by terrorist operatives.”
Other U.S. officials also objected vociferously to the Dubai Ports World deal.
Representative Duncan L. Hunter of California agreed with Senator Hillary Clinton that Dubai Ports World should not be operating in any U.S. ports.
The Chicago Tribune reported in 2006:
Rep. Duncan L. Hunter (R-Calif.) chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said “Dubai cannot be trusted” to manage U.S. ports because of what he called its long record of assisting the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons…
“Everything in this country can’t be for sale” Republican Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, told Bush administration officials in 2006 according to a Washington Post story about the Dubai Ports World deal.
President Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions also opposed the Dubai Ports World deal while serving as Alabama’s junior senator, stating “Generally, the UAE has been friendly. But the UAE, even if their leadership is friendly, there’s evidence that people from the UAE have participated in terrorist activity” and that the ports deal “provides an opportunity for a terrorist to penetrate, scout our ports and identify vulnerabilities” the Decatur Daily reported. President Bush “may get licked on this one” Sessions accurately predicted.
Yet, at that very same time, Hillary’s husband was working behind the scenes as an adviser to Dubai Ports World and the UAE.
According to the Chicago Tribune, “Former President Bill Clinton coached United Arab Emirates officials on how to handle the Dubai ports controversy…while the former president was traveling in Pakistan” and while his wife was a sitting U.S. senator. This was business as usual for the Clintons.
Seventy billion dollars. Quid pro quo? What was being bought, and what was being sold?
Crescent Petroleum CEO Majid Jafar, who is Hamid Jafar’s son and Dr. Jafar’s nephew, co-launched a Dubai-based educational initiative called Business Backs Education with former President Bill Clinton. Majid Jafar and Bill Clinton were photographed together in Dubai in March 2014, six weeks before the secret Project Pelican deal was announced and shortly after Dr. Jafar’s other nephew Badr Jafar, the chairman of Gulftainer’s executive board, visited the Obama White House.
Six weeks later, and only seven days after long-time Clintonista-turned Obama Treasury Secretary Jacob ‘Jack’ Lew flew to the UAE to meet with Emirati officials to discuss foreign investment in U.S. “infrastructure, real estate, and security.” The secret Project Pelican deal that put Gulftainer at Port Canaveral was announced and signed without prior notice or public discussion, bypassing Florida’s open bidding and sunshine laws.
Business Backs Education is funded by the Varkey GEMS (Global Education Management Systems) Foundation, which, according to its own website, secured $70 billion in commitments to the Clinton Global Initiative. Seventy billion dollars divided by the 2,300 pledged donor commitments put toward that sum equates to an average individual commitment of $30.4 million. What was being bought and what was being sold?
According to the Financial Times: “In addition to the $16.5m that Mr Clinton received from Laureate between 2010 and 2014, he was paid $5.6m as honorary chairman of the Varkey Gems Foundation, the charitable arm of Gems Education, a Dubai-based company founded by Sunny Varkey, an Indian-born billionaire.” According to Forbes, Varkey “never went beyond high school himself.”
Dubai Ports World deal attorney Jonathan Winer was Obama State Department official connected to the anti-Trump dossier, Christopher Steele, Blumenthal, Russia, Clinton Global Initiative, and P.R. firm APCO Worldwide, which represents Rosatom and Gulftainer
Breitbart Jerusalem Bureau Chief Aaron Klein reported:
Jonathan M. Winer, the Obama State Department official who acknowledged regularly interfacing and exchanging information with the author of the largely discredited 35-page anti-Trump dossier, headed a firm that helped the company owned by the United Arab Emirates government in its controversial failed bid to take over some terminal operations at major American ports.
Former Obama State Department official Jonathan M. Winer, who was the cutout conduit from shadowy Clinton operatives Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer to former British spy Christopher Steele, was a partner at law firm Alston & Bird, which represented Dubai Ports World in its attempted takeover of six U.S. ports. Winer passed key components used in the anti-Trump dossier to Steele. “Winer’s name and signature were on Alston & Bird’s application for two of its employees to register as lobbyists on behalf of DP World” Breitbart reported.
While Winer was senior vice-president at public relations firm APCO Worldwide, APCO Worldwide represented Tenex, a subsidiary of Rosatom, the Russian state-owned company that acquired Uranium One, according to another Breitbart report.
Rosatom subsidiary Inter RAO UES formed a strategic alliance to build power stations in the Middle East with the Jafars’ Crescent Investments and Dr. Jafar’s Crescent Group subsidiary Uruk Power, where Dr.Jafar serves as CEO.
As we previously reported at the Center for Security Policy, Gulftainer is connected to Uranium One through the Jafars’ Crescent Investment deal to team up uranium enrichment expert Dr. Jafar with Russia’s Rosatom subsidiary Inter RAO UES on power plant projects throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
John Solomon at The Hill reported that FBI informant Douglas Campbell “said in the statement obtained by The Hill that he was told by Russian nuclear executives that Moscow had hired the American lobbying firm APCO Worldwide specifically because it was in position to influence the Obama administration, and more specifically Hillary Clinton.”
“APCO was expected to give assistance free of charge to the Clinton Global Initiative as part of their effort to create a favorable environment to ensure the Obama administration made affirmative decisions on everything from Uranium One to the U.S.-Russia Civilian Nuclear Cooperation agreement” Campbell testified. Campbell also stated that Russian nuclear officials “told me at various times that they expected APCO to apply a portion of the $3 million annual lobbying fee it was receiving from the Russians to provide in-kind support for the Clintons’ Global Initiative.”
Gulftainer, we can report exclusively, is also a client of APCO Worldwide. APCO Worldwide’s name appears on multiple Gulftainer press releases.
Gulftainer is also represented by another Hillary Clinton-connected public relations firm, Burson-Marsteller.
Gulftainer’s connections to Iraqi WMDs, Dr. Jafar’s miniaturized nuclear weapon “Beach Ball,” Russia’s Club-K, and North Korea
The Obama administration’s 2014 secretly-negotiated Project Pelican deal handed over control of cargo container operations at Florida’s Port Canaveral to United Arab Emirates-based Gulftainer. Port Canaveral. Port Canaveral is considered critical national security military infrastructure, harbors a U.S. Navy Trident nuclear submarine base and is near two U.S. Air Force Space Command bases.
The lease of critical national security infrastructure to a foreign government or individuals involved in WMD is, under the CFIUS and the Foreign Investment Nationals Security Act of 2007 (FINSA), verboten.
Rogue Iraqi nuclear physicist Dr. Jafar Dhia Jafar and his brother and business partner, oil magnate Hamid Jafar, directed and schemed to fund Saddam Hussein’s secret nuclear weapons and uranium enrichment programs.
The mainstream media has avoided reporting on the Obama administration’s Project Pelican national security disaster, despite having dedicated wall-to-wall coverage to the Bush administration’s Dubai Ports World scandal and the hoax Trump Russia investigation. Project Pelican is The Real Russia Story.
Hamid Jafar had “intimate relations” with the Iraqi Baathist government, a characterization of his business dealings with the Butcher of Baghdad’s regime that was upheld by a British court.
As Saddam’s Deputy Defense Minister, Dr. Jafar also oversaw WMD procurement and technology transfer according to CIA documents. The Pentagon placed Dr. Jafar on CENTCOM’s Operation Iraqi Freedom secret “Blacklist,” officially designating the rogue nuclear scientist as an enemy of the United States. The senior Saddam regime official was wanted for capture and could be engaged by U.S. forces as a legitimate military target.
Dr. Jafar oversaw a team of 27,000 scientists and technicians in Iraq’s own “Manhattan Project” to develop the “Arab bomb,” with technical assistance from the Soviet Union and KGB/SVR superspy Yevgeny Primakov. Primakov was also Russia’s Ambassador to Iraq.
Dr. Jafar perfected a uranium enrichment process called electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS), a technology Dr. Jafar procured by spending time at CERN in Switzerland and by sending spies to the U.S. to gather intelligence about the Manhattan Project. Dr. Jafar built secret uranium enrichment facilities in Iraq closely modeled after the American production sites in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Dr. Jafar told Saddam that he needed electric power plants in Iraq for his secret EMIS uranium enrichment sites.
Dr. Jafar sent Iraqi nuclear scientist and intelligence agents to the United States with specific instructions to procure nuclear weapons documents and technology according to the book “Iraq’s Nuclear Mirage” by former Iraqi nuclear scientist Imad Khadduri. The agents obtained sensitive documents in California and, in a rendevouz with Indian agents at the Miami airport, exchanged a briefcase of cash for lasers Dr. Jafar needed for uranium enrichment experiments.
Gulftainer, has teamed up with Russian state-owned weapons conglomerate Rostec in a joint venture called “Gulftainer Russian Technologies.”
Rostec, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Rosoboronexport, exports the Club-K container missile launch system, a Trojan Horse advanced weapons system disguised as a standard intermodal cargo container.
Club-K “containers” can be smuggled undetected through U.S. ports of entry and then transported inconspicuously aboard trucks and trains to every hamlet in America.
Once prepositioned for attack, Club-K containers can lie in wait for months or years until they are remotely activated by satellite. Within minutes, those Russian cruise missiles could launch from from locations throughout the United States, armed with nuclear, EMP, chemical, biological, or conventional payloads capable of wiping out military bases, aircraft carriers, factories, and cities.
Dr. Peter Pry, foremost authority on EMP, declared the Club-K a game changer.
Dr. Jafar developed an Iraqi miniaturized nuclear weapon called “Beach Ball.” North Korean television showed Kim Jong Un posing with a suspected miniaturized nuclear weapon bearing an uncanny resemblance to “Beach Ball.”
Nuclear WMD security expert Joseph King: U.S. ports are not secure, Gulftainer could be collecting signals intelligence
Former DHS official Dr. Joseph King maintains that U.S. ports are vulnerable to nuclear weapons smuggling.
“King said ports are already poorly secured, insisting he could bring anything ‘from heroin and coke, to machine guns … to a nuclear device — and I could get it through the port’” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Before attempting to take over cargo container operations at Port Canaveral, in 2012 Gulftainer quietly attempted to “take over” Port Jacksonville. Port Jacksonville is near Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, home of American nuclear missile submarines. Gulftainer’s attempt to become a silent behind the scenes partner in a $250 million deal fell through after it was exposed by the Jacksonville Business Journal.
Dr. King stated that Gulftainer and the Jafars could be engaged in signals intelligence gathering operations at Port Canaveral, monitoring U.S. Navy submarines and U.S. space operations.
Russian spy ship Viktor Leonov, which hunts U.S Navy Trident submarines, navigated near Port Canaveral, “snooping on rocket telemetry from launches at Cape Canaveral” the Washington Free Beacon reported. The Russian spy ship once again appeared off the U.S. coast just days after Vladimir Putin boasted about new “invincible” Russian nuclear weapons aimed at the U.S. and threatened to nuke Florida.
Team Russia: Gulftainer, the Jafars, and the Clintons partner with Putin
Gulftainer and the Jafars operate Russian smuggling and money laundering nexus Port Ust Luga on the Baltic Sea near St. Petersburg under Gulftainer’s joint venture with Club-K exporter Rostec. Vladimir Putin attended the signing of that joint venture alongside Dr. Jafar’s nephew, Badr Jafar.
“The Russian government discussed turning Ust-Luga into a strategic naval base for the Russian Baltic Fleet numerous times…It is no secret Putin personally supervised the Ust-Luga project for a while” according to Crime Russia.
The Jafars are also closely connected to former KGB agent Igor Sechin, the “Darth Vader of Russia.” “To some well-known businessmen and politicians, Sechin is more powerful than Vladimir Putin” Forbes observed in February 2018.
Christopher Steele’s Trump dossier attempts to connect Carter Page to Igor Sechin, but it is the Clintons’ associates the Jafars of Iraq who are verifiably connected to Sechin. That is one more reason why Project Pelican is the Real Russia Story.
Sechin is Chairman of the Board of Inter RAO UES, the Russian electric grid monopoly that entered into a strategic alliance to build power plants with Crescent Investments and Dr. Jafar’s Uruk Power.
At a business conference last month in the UAE, where former President George W. Bush was speaking, Dr. Jafar’s nephew Badr Jafar crowed about plans to take over a second U.S. port. Now it has happened — in Delaware, 110 miles from Washington D.C. and 125 miles from New York City
While speaking at the MENA Summit 2018 business conference in UAE capital Abu Dhabi, Dr. Jafar’s nephew Badr Jafar, CEO of Gulftainer parent Crescent Enterprises, a subsidiary of Hamid Jafar’s conglomerate The Crescent Group, boasted that Gulftainer “aimed to close an acquisition on the U.S. East Coast this year” Reuters reported in February.
Former President George W. Bush, who in 2006 threatened to veto any proposed legislation to block the Dubai Ports World deal, was also a speaker at the conference where Badr Jafar announced Gulftainer’s plans for a second U.S. port operation.
The News Journal reported on March 22, 2018 that Gulftainer CEO Peter Richards:
this week briefed Delaware officials on his company’s proposal to take over operations at the Port of Wilmington and develop a container port on state-owned property in Edgemoor…They have started pitching a partnership with United Arab Emirates-based Gulftainer to state lawmakers…The goal is to have a contract the General Assembly can debate when the body returns from Easter break
The report also quoted a local official that claimed the Delaware Gulftainer deal could create “thousands of blue-collar jobs.” Exactly the concern Hillary Clinton foresaw as a way for Al Qaeda or other terrorists to gain access to the homeland.
Dr. Joseph King’s undercover service to U.S. national security
Dr. King served for 30 years as a special agent with the Treasury Department’s U.S. Customs Service and DHS’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Special agent King directed covert intelligence operations tasked with intercepting WMDs, conventional weapons, and other contraband smuggled inside containers through maritime ports in the United States and around the world. King also investigated global organized crime networks, corrupt dock workers, and Russian money laundering rings.
The Washington Post, the Associated Press, the San Francisco Chronicle, NBC News, NPR, and CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interviewed Dr. King about Dubai Ports World.
Dr. King, a member of the White House Legal Task Force, Iran-Contra Matters, was awarded unit citations in Arms Trafficking and Nuclear Trafficking, and received counter-terrorism training in Israel.
In 1984, King “posed as an American businessman interested in selling prohibited materials into Iran” in a sting operation against an Iranian arms smuggling operation according to the New York Times.
In a 13-month long sting operation in 1984 King posed as “Joe Kennedy,” pretending to be an Irish arms dealer working as a broker for Saddam’s Iraq, procuring Zirconium “smuggled from the former Soviet Union” headed to Iraq via Cyprus in “the largest seizure ever of nuclear materials in the United States” according to a New York Times profile of King’s career as an undercover agent.
Former Soviet Bloc spy: Obama “might have had some intelligence connection with the Kremlin”
The laundry list of reason why Gulftainer is a national security risk leads one to wonder if Barack “Flexibility” Obama and Hillary Clinton, not President Donald Trump, are the ones working for the Kremlin.
Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking Soviet-bloc spy to ever defect to the West and cooperate with the CIA, has already reached that conclusion.
Pacepa wrote on February 9, 2018 in a PJ Media piece titled “I Should Know: Dems’ Intel Abuse Is Reminiscent of My Work for Ceausescu”:
To a knowledgeable eye, Obama’s actions suggest he might have had some intelligence connection with the Kremlin, such as Whittaker Chambers once had…Seen through the perspective of history, Obama’s undercover Marxism constituted a malignant tumor on the body of the United States…The Democratic Party’s open Marxism is a national emergency. – Ion Mihai Pacepa
Copyright 2018 Alan Jones and Mary Fanning. All rights reserved.
