Is WTC cover-up another motive for war with Iraq?

By Margie Burns, Prince George's Journal

Is there another agenda behind the White House's frenzied drive against Iraq, such as to distract attention from Sept. 11, 2001?

The site of the World Trade Center - where more than 3,000 people died - is a daily reminder of everything that was neither disclosed nor investigated.

Along with the human cost, the destruction included companies that were harmed or thrown out of business. Wall Street's multi-billion-dollar efforts to safeguard the center meant billions lost through security firms and insurance companies alone.

The more information comes to light about the fallen WTC, the more the behind-the-scenes dealing and connections look odd.

A brother of George W. Bush was connected to at least three companies in business with the site, though the White House has not mentioned this fact. HCC Insurance, formerly Houston Casualty Company, a multi-billion-dollar insurance holding company, was a World Trade Center insurance carrier for years.

Marvin P. Bush, the president's youngest brother, joined HCC's Board of Directors in 1999, remaining until November 2002.

A company called Stratesec, a security contractor with the World Trade Center from 1996 to 2001, was backed by a private D.C. investment firm, the Kuwait-American Corporation, linked to the Bush family since the Gulf War. Marvin Bush was a director at Stratesec from 1993 to 2000.

White House responses to 9/11 have not mentioned family links to the security business or to the World Trade Center.

This secrecy extends to Bush's SEC filings. The April 23, 1999, proxy statement for Stratesec does not mention Bush's connections to HCC. The April 28, 1999 proxy statement for HCC does not mention his directorship at Stratesec.

Thus, Marvin Bush was elected to two boards on May 20 and May 25, 1999, each with a major interest in the World Trade Center, but neither proxy filing mentions the other.

According to attorney Robert Plesnarski, special counsel in the Office of Chief Counsel at the SEC, because both companies were publicly traded, "the information [on other directorships] would have been required."

Had the companies been private, "the information would probably not have been included," Plesnarski stated in a phone conversation, but regarding public companies, he cites "Item 401 of Regulation SK." Marvin Bush has not replied to requests for comment.

Regulation 229.401 in SEC law, "Identification of directors," requires filers to "Indicate any other directorships held by each director or person nominated or chosen to become a director," etc. Each director is also required to "Briefly describe [his] business experience during the past five years," with "the name and principal business of any corporation or other organization," etc.

It is hard for a non-lawyer to see why these items would be omitted from lists of Bush's other positions. Shareholders at Stratesec were not told of Bush's connection with HCC, a huge insurance company with enough leverage to easily force companies off the WTC project.

HCC shareholders were also not told of his connection to a security company working on the WTC. Stratesec was eventually excused from the WTC project, according to a former employee. HCC sustained sizable losses from 9/11, and withdrew from workers' compensation.

Attorney Frank Razzano, formerly at the SEC and now a partner at the D.C. law firm Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky, says, "I think it's pretty clear that you have to disclose your other directorships" in proxy filings.

The SEC regulation states clearly, according to Razzano, that "that information has to be disclosed; I don't have any idea why it would have been left out."

Razzano turns out to have a personal perspective on what happened at the World Trade Center: "I was under the buildings when they fell," he says rather matter-of-factly. He was staying in the Marriott Hotel at the time, "between the North Tower and the South Tower," and "was hit on the head," ending up in the hospital with a subdural hemotoma.

Razzano was among the lucky ones. Fortunately, the internal bleeding stopped after a three-day hospital stay.

Troubled companies or not, less-than-full disclosure impedes access to full information about a company's clients, subcontractors, litigation, political connections and investors.

Why is the White House preventing a full investigation of security at the WTC and the financial stream behind it? Is the administration pretending that security lapses happen only among baggage handlers?

Margie Burns, a teacher and writer, lives in Cheverly. Her email address is margie.burns@verizon.net.

Reprinted from The Prince George's Journal:
http://www.jrnl.com/cfdocs/new/pg/