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Old news

Red Robin

Well-known member
I realize these type stories are old news but I can't help but think they wil resurface if Hillary wins the primary. Is it resolved enough to be a nonfactor?

Cilipi Airport, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 2:10 P.M.,
April 3, 1996:



Captain Amir Schic lands a twin-engine corporate jet
carrying the Croatian Prime Minister and the American
Ambassador.

It is one of five planes to land routinely on Runway 12 in the
hour preceding the scheduled 3:00 arrival of IFOR-2 1, the
Boeing T-43A carrying Ron Brown and his upbeat entourage
of American industrial deal-makers.



Cilipi Airport, 2:15 P.M.:

Businessmen begin to straggle into the lobby, a few carrying
umbrellas to ward off the very light to moderate rain.
They're early because they're anxious to greet the 35
Americans who at this moment are taking off from Tuzla,
Bosnia, 130 miles to the northeast. Outside, a perfect
breeze blows at 14 mph from east to west, perfect because
at 120' from north, it is only one degree off from being an
exact headwind for the landing pattern of IFOR-21.

Contrary to some U.S. news reports, it is not a dark and
stormy night. It is the middle of the afternoon.



The Radio Shack of Cilipi Airport, about 2:30 P.M.:

Maintenance Chief Niko Jerkuic, 46, nervously fiddles with
the dials on his NDR (Nondirectional Radio) beacon, the only
instrument he has that can guide approaching planes.

In a couple of hours, he will be a rich man, the two American
operatives told him, if he can quietly send IFOR-21 into Sveti
Ivan (St. John's Hill), one of the highest mountains in the
area at 2400 feet.


Jerkuic will simply shut his beacon down-at the same
moment that a decoy beacon is turned on by an American
operative sitting near the base of Sveti Ivan. This is an old
trick dating back to pirate days.

He inspects his terrain map again and again.

If he miscalculates ... well, the Americans did not look like
men who would forgive someone who botches a serious
assignment like this one.

All Jerkuic knows is that there is someone on the plane who
is very dangerous to the American President, and it is his
job to make sure the plane never lands.

With a shaky hand, he picks up a scrambled walkie-talkie
and rechecks with the American agent who is sitting in a
jeep at Sveti Ivan with another NDR in a suitcase beside him.

Jerkuic glances out at some broken clouds scudding by 400
feet above. They will have no effect. He will have to depend
on the main cloud cover at 2,000 feet. Sveti Ivan rises
almost 400 feet into this overcast. Jerkuic calculates that
the new signal will alter the plane's course by a full ten
degrees and send it far off course to the north into the
mountain. His timing will have to be perfect.

Money or no money, he begins to wonder if he's doing the
right thing.

Cilipi Airport, 2:48 P.M.:

Captain Schic climbs to the control tower to give IFOR-21 a
friendly radio greeting and reassurance that all is well.
He describes the Cilipi weather: Visibility eight kilometers (5
miles), winds still at 14 mph, all flights arriving non-normally.
Flying at about 10,000 feet and 40+ miles away, Co-captains
Ashley J. Davis, 35, and Tim Shafer, 33, thank Schic for his
words of welcome.

These conditions are later described by Newsweek and
others as "the worst storm in ten years" with "visibility just
100 yards." (Their portrayal of the weather is flatly denied by
Aviation Week and Space Technology.)



In the clouds over the Adriatic Sea. 2:50 P.M.:

IFOR-21 reports in to, Cilipi routinely. It is the last time their
voice is heard.

Split, Croatia, 2:52 P.M.:

The main regional radar station loses IFOR-21 from its
screen.

Cilipi Airport, 2:52 P.M.:

Jerkuic stops monitoring the control tower to detect any
other planes in the landing pattern. There are none, so he
calls the American at Sveti Ivan again. They countdown: 5,
4, 3, 2, 1. Simultaneously, Jerkuic shuts down and the
American powers up.

Kolocep Island, 2:54 P.M.:

IFOR-21 is on course as it passes over Cilipi's first beacon,
11.9 miles from the airport. It then locks onto the second
and final beam that is being transmitted from Sveti Ivan.
This changes the plane's actual direction from 119' to 109',
heading straight into Sveti Ivan. But the Cilipi control tower
doesn't know the plane is now off course. It has no radar.

Aboard an AWACS plane, 2:56 P.M.:

The U.S. Air Force plane keeping track of air traffic in the
Bosnian conflict area loses track of IFOR-21 just after it
passes over Dubrovnik. (Being the military version of a
Boeing 737-200, IFOR-21 is not easily lost.) Because it is
less than a mile off course at this point, no one on the
AWACS notes any problem.

Srebreno, Croatia, 2:57 P.M.:

Villagers hear a plane roaring past unusually low and close.

Plat, Croatia, 2:57 P.M.:

Villagers Ana and Miho Duplica rush outside and see
IFOR-21 looming "like a ghost out of the clouds."

Velji Do, Croatia, 2:58 P.M.:

Everyone in this tiny collection of stone huts at the base of
Sveti Ivan hears a plane go directly overhead in the clouds,
then rev its engines mightily for one instant.

Aboard the plane, the klaxon of its ground-proximity warning
device suddenly blares, jolting Captain Davis. He
immediately jerks the plane upward and to the left.

The two to three seconds of warning are far too little. The
plane's left wingtip touches ground, spinning it directly into
the rocky hillside, making an earth-shaking explosion.

There is the crackling hiss of a huge fireball as the plane
and its large load of gas bum. Then a dead silence in the
mist.

The tail section remains quite intact, but the rest of IFOR-21
is all over the hill, making later identification of many of the
passengers impossible. The nose of the fuselage is just a
blackish smudge in the ground.

All 35 people are dead except for stewardess Shelly Kelly,
who, riding in the tail, sustains only minor cuts and bruises.



Cilipi, 3:18 P.M.:

U.S. authorities are notified that IFOR-21 is down, location
completely unknown. However, they are to suffer II @ hours
of confusion before arriving at the scene-

Republic of South Africa, approximately 4:00 P.M.:

News reports say an attempt has been made on the life of
Ron Brown's law partner, Tommy Boggs, by unknown
assailants in a staged car accident in Capetown. Later,
Boggs refuses to discuss it.


Cilipi, later that afternoon:

Niko Jerkuic goes home to collect his reward, but the
reward is not waiting for him. It comes three days later: a
bullet through the chest, administered just shortly before he
is scheduled to be grilled by the U.S. Air Force accident
investigation team.

The hit squad wraps his hand around the gun and departs.
The Americans do not want a live witness who could spill
the beans later.

Like many of the Whitewater dead, Jerkuic is immediately
labeled a suicide, even though there's no evidence-and a
chest wound is a rather rare cause especially with a large
caliber pistol (unusual in Europe).

The quick official reason given for bachelor Jerkuic's death
is despondence over romantic troubles with his girlfriend.
At this point, however, we have not been able to find any
verification for this. Instead, what we have found is
neighbors and friends who all agree that Jerkuic was not
depressed. Like many of his friends who had survived the
years of the Bosnian war, he was excited that life was finally
getting better.

Crash site, 7:20 P.M.:

Four hours and 20 minutes after the crash, the first Croatian
Special Forces search party arrives on the scene and finds
only Ms. Kelly surviving. They call for a helicopter to
evacuate her to the hospital. when it arrives, she is able to
get aboard without assistance from the medics.

But Kelly never completes the short hop. She dies enroute.
According to multiple reports given to journalist/editor Joe L.
Jordan, an autopsy later reveals a neat three-inch incision
over her main femoral artery. It also shows that the incision
came at least three hours after all her other cuts and
bruises.

This datum, of course, creates in one's mind a horrifying
scene in the back of the chopper, as one Special Forces
operative holds down the struggling woman and muffles her
screams while another slices her leg.

Further necropsies will probably not happen. At this writing,
Clinton has ordered the cremation of all victims. It's hard to
perform autopsies on ashes.

All this cries, of course, for an explanation of why anyone
would be so eager to kill Ron Brown that they would take 34
innocent Americans along with him. I will address this issue
in a moment. But First let me describe the current state of
thinking on the cause of the crash.

Confusion or Coverup?

Ever since the crash, most reporters and officials have
refused to even consider the possibility of foul play.
Some of them have merely followed orders. But most of
them have instinctively fled from the highly disturbing
possibility that Ron Brown was assassinated by people
close to his own President.

So confronted with the total impossibility of two
experienced pilots following an NDR beam to a crash site
1.6 miles off course, they all shrug their shoulders in
bewilderment. None of their theories have come even close
to explaining how a beacon that is accurate to within two
feet at the landing point could lead the plane so far astray.
But they have tried:

- The Air Force's official explanation is that the pilots set the
compass on the IFOR-21 10' off course. That is impossible.
Pilots routinely set their compasses right before takeoff. If
they set the compass off 10', they would not have been on
course when they passed the first beacon, 11.8 miles from
the airport. Instead they would have been miles and miles
off course at this point. To make this explanation even more
absurd, the plane was flying on the NDR signal, not the
compass.

- One desperate explanation was a nasty crosswind that
"blew" the plane sideways. Not credible: This would require
a wind 90' off from the actual wind.

- Most of the press and officialdom have blamed poor
visibility to some extent. To do this, they have to take the
ferocity of the rainstorm later that afternoon and evening
and move it back in time to the crash hour. But records
show the weather from 2:54 P.M. to 2:58 P.M. was well
within the normal limits for landing. And NDR beacons never
get blown off course.

In any case, pilots more than a few miles from an airport
normally rely on a beam rather than visual sighting anyway.

- Pilot fatigue and strain? Not likely on a 45minute flight.

- Equipment malfunction on a rickety old plane? IFOR-21
was the number two plane in the White House fleet: in
essence, Air Force Two. It had carried Hillary and Chelsea
Clinton and Defense Secretary William Perry just the week
before. Everything about the flight was checked out and
rehearsed a week in advance.

- Lightning or other troubles causing the pilots to lose track
of the beam? No, they were both drilled in the standard
procedure for Cilipi: If you lose the beam or miss the airport,
you immediately veer TO THE RIGHT AND UP to make sure
you avoid Sveti Ivan. Indisputably, the pilots thought they
were following the beacon, or they would have executed the
standard right turn within seconds. Plus, their landing gear
was locked down, showing that they expected to land at any
moment.

In sum, none of the "official" explanations to date have held
any water. And all of them ignore the glaring fact that
IFOR-21 did not simply stray off the path at the last moment;
by all accounts, it went straight as an arrow to its doom the
moment it left the Kolocep Island beacon and picked up the
Cilipi beacon. The problem had to be the Cilipi beacon,
which was shut down at the airport while a substitute
transmitter at Sveti Ivan was turned on.

And Even Worse...

Could the problem have been that technician Niko Jerkuic
had let his equipment become rundown? No, thousands of
landings had taken place while his equipment was running,
some just minutes before the crash. To transmit an NDR
beacon that's ten degrees off, it takes more than an
accident.

Obviously, this explanation could do double duty by aiding
the suicide theory. In this scenario, Jerkuic simply felt so
bad about his shoddy work that he shot himself.
Unfortunately for the theory, you can't just accidentally
bump a knob and make the whole apparatus line planes up
with Sveti Ivan. It takes a sustained effort by a qualified
engineer. Plus, other planes had landed just before IFOR-21.
So Jerkuic had to shut off his beacon at the last minute.

The question arises: Could not the whole issue be resolved
by a quick review of the tapes at the control tower? They
probably could-if the tapes had not suddenly disappeared.

And couldn't the air traffic controller shed some light on
things? Certainly. But now he, too, has "committed suicide
which, by the way, is a rare event for such a cause in
Croatian culture.

I repeat: No official anywhere is facing these facts. As a
result, their "explanations" are laced with words like
mysterious and unknown and inexplicably.

The unanimous opinion of our informants: This information,
if widely known, would eliminate any chance of Clinton's
re-election.

The First Time in History: Air Force Kills Investigation

The chief investigator for Pratt & Whitney happened to be at
the Paris Air Show on April 3.

Because Pratt & Whitney always sends an investigator
when a plane powered by their engines has a mishap, the
man called his boss in America, and said, in effect, "We've
just had a crash in Croatia. I think I'd better get down there."
The response was, "Go pack."

But as the investigator was packing at his hotel, the boss
called back. "Don't go," he said to the astonished employee.

"There's not going to be a safety investigation."

Sure enough, the Air Force had, for the first time in its
history, canceled the safety investigation of a crash on
friendly soil. There would only be a quick token legal
investigation designed to enable a committee to blame the
pilots or some remote general and go home.

At this time it's an open question whether the black boxes
will play a role. Within hours of the crash, the Croatian
Ministry of Transport announced that they had the black
boxes. One and a half days after the crash, Croatian TV
(plus Russian and French TV) announced that the FDR (flight
data recorder) and the CVR (cockpit voice recorder) were
safely in the hands of U.S. Marines. They said that soon "the
cause of the crash will be assessed to find out what
happened."

The U.S. European command in Stuttgart, Germany, also
stated that a black box was aboard.

Later, the Pentagon brass stoutly disputed all this, stating
that there were no black boxes aboard. They claimed the
actual recovered boxes were designed to hold soda pop and
toilet paper. (The Croats, who feel they can tell a reel of tape
from a roll of toilet paper, are keeping mum.) Also, black
boxes are usually painted bright orange, and they can't be
opened with a thumb-or hardly at all.

It is difficult to imagine that America's #2 VIP plane had no
black box. And a veteran Air Force mechanic who claims to
have worked on just about every T-43A in the USAF tells us
he never saw one without a black box.


Why would anyone want to Murder Ron Brown?

By all accounts, Ron Brown was a charming fellow who
worked very hard and very effectively to promote U.S.
business.

Why, then, would anyone want to kill him? And who would
have the resources to do it by bringing down a large White
House airplane?

The answer, in brief, is that Ron Brown was going to
prison-no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Also, Bill Clinton's presidency was surely going down with
him. And that the President would not allow.

To anyone who has followed the story closely, this
conclusion is obvious. Brown was up to his neck in
numerous major scandals: Whitewater, the Denver airport
mess, Mena, the Keating Five, Lillian Madsen and her Haitian
prostitutes, etc., etc. Small wonder that 22 congressmen
wrote Clinton in February of 1995, demanding that he fire
Brown.

At the time of his murder, Brown was under investigation by:
- a special prosecutor in the Justice Dept.
- the FDIC
- the Congressional Reform and Oversight Committee
- the FBI
- the Energy Dept.
- the Senate Judiciary Committee
- and even his own Commerce Dept. Inspector General.

But in case you missed the piecemeal accounts in the
papers, here is an extremely condensed summary of II of
Brown's woes (which were shortly going to become
Clinton's woes, as I'll show below):

1. How did North Vietnam recently get us to drop our trade
embargo against them so suddenly? Easy. As a
Vietnamese businessman and official later revealed to the
press, the Communist government paid Brown $700,000 to
do it. The money went into a Singapore bank account, the
embargo fell, and Clinton squashed a feeble FBI attempt to
investigate. He and Brown also neutralized a federal grand
jury probe later.

2. Brown sold plane seats on other trade trips besides the
one to Bosnia/Croatia. Companies making big contributions
to the Democratic Party or the Clinton Victory Fund could
buy access and get tax breaks or regulatory favors.

3. The 1/23/95 U.S. News & World Report broke the news
that Brown had bought a $360,000 townhouse for his
girlfriend, Lillian Madsen, a prominent political player and
whorehouse madam from Haiti.

4. Brown used to receive $12,500 a month as the P.R. flack
for Baby Doc Duvalier, the much-loathed dictator of Haiti.
Brown also managed Baby Doc's $50 million investment
fund, most or all of which is now in Vietnam firms.

5. Brown was a key board member of Chemfix, a Louisiana
"waste management" corporation that landed a $2 1 0
million contract with New York City in 1990 with Brown's
help despite the fact that Chemfix had two contracts with
other municipalities canceled because of the company's
inability to perform. Brown got company stock at 24% of
market value (making him millions) and New York mayor
David Dinkins got to host the Democratic Convention. A
typical Ron Brown win-win deal.

6. Brown founded Capital/Pebsco, which-fresh out of the
box-got a contract with D.C. mayor Marion Barry to handle
the city's pension funds. Not a bad start for a new company
with no investing experience. Brown earned huge fees.

7. In a deal that left CIA people livid, Brown okayed the sale
of a new U.S. gas turbine engine to China for use in its
cruise missiles. McDonnell Douglas developed the turbine
as a military engine, but by arbitrarily reclassifying it as
"civilian," Brown enabled China to build a fleet of
missiles-which they can point at America (whom else?),
powered by our own engines. As part of the lucrative deal,
McDonnell Douglas agreed to set up an airplane
manufacturing plant using cheap slave labor in China.

8. Brown irked Congress and most of Europe by acting as
point man for Clinton to bring Iranian Muslims and their
weaponry into the Bosnia war. That broke the
U.S.-endorsed arms embargo. The money for the arms was
most likely from Commerce and Agriculture, slush fund
money channeled to U.S. manufacturers, thence to
U.S.friendly nations and firms overseas, thence to Iran. The
arms included: helicopter gunships stinger missiles

*land mines
*anti-aircraft guns
*anti-tank weapons
*grenade launchers
... and other quality weaponry, most of which will remain on
the European scene for decades to come, keeping the area
destabilized.

As one leading munitions dealer put it: "Iran/Contra was
slingshots and cap guns compared to the quantities and
size of arms given the Croatian Serbs."

That is why the Croatians were enthusiastically hosting
Brown's planeload of executives. They felt gratitude for the
free arms as well as a desire to do deals.

9. Brown was the partner of a Democratic fundraiser named
Nolanda Hill, who paid him $500,000 for his 50% interest in
First International, Inc., a company that never made any
profits. Most glaringly, Brown never invested a cent in First
Int'l.

First Int'l owned Corridor Broadcasting, which had defaulted
on massive government loans of $40 million. The loans
were passed to the FDIC, which was unsuccessful in
collecting anything from Hill, even though at that time the
firm was making large contributions to the Democratic
Party and paying hundreds of thousands to Brown through
shell corporations.

These payments to Brown (three checks for $45,000 each)
were the core of evidence gathered by Rep. William F.
Clinger, Jr., that forced Reno to hire Daniel Pearson as
special investigator of Brown's crimes. They were
cashier's checks, all cut on the same day in 1993 with
sequential numbers even though the money supposedly
came from three contributors acting independently.

Brown never disclosed or paid any taxes on these amounts.

10. By personally delivering a warning letter signed by
Clinton, Brown was able to force a bargain deal with the
Saudis for $6 billion in American military aircraft and
hardware. The quid pro quo: To get the planes, the Saudis
also had to accept a fat $4 billion phone contract with AT&T.
Also part of the deal: AT&T had a side agreement with
Brown's First International (see above). And the Democratic
National Committee and the Clinton campaign fund were
beneficiaries. This is how big business is done in Clinton's
America.

11. The last nail in Brown's coffin was pounded in four days
before the crash. FBI and IRS agents subpoenaed as many
as 20 witnesses for a serious new grand jury probe of
Brown in Washington. It seems that an Oklahoma gas
company called Dynamic Energy Resources gave Brown's
son Michael $500,000 in stock, a $160,000 cash payment,
and exclusive country club memberships. Fortner Dynamic
president Stewart Price told a Tulsa grand jury that the
money was to be routed to Ron Brown, who was expected
to "fix" a big lawsuit for Dynamic.

There is little chance you heard about this deathknell, grand
jury case. It was reported on radio station KTOK in
Oklahoma on March 28 and on the front page of the
Washington Times March 29. But then a lock was put on the
story; the AP and New York Times wire services blocked
any further release of the information. (Welcome to the New
World Order)

Final proof: the 2/8/96 Washington Post reported that Brown
had retained top legal gun Reid Weingarten, a former high
official in the Justice Department, as his criminal attorney.
You don't pay his prices ($750 an hour) unless you know a
criminal indictment is coming and you're probably going to
jail.

Janet Reno appointed Daniel Pearson as Brown's special
prosecutor. When she gave him blanket permission to
investigate anything, Brown angrily demanded that Clinton
force her to withdraw Pearson. But Reno couldn't do that;
she had been backed into a comer by Rep. Clinger, who is
chairman of the House Govemment Refonn and Oversight
Conimittee. Clinger had copies of Brown's First International
checks, among other incriminating documents.

When Clinton said he couldn't comply, Brown went ballistic.
His fatal mistake-according to Brown confidants who
requested anonymity-was telling Clinton that he wasn't
going to take the rap. He wasn't going to let his wife and son
take the rap, either. (Both had received hundreds of
thousands of dollars in under-the-table payments
themselves.) He was going to finger Bill and Hillary instead.
That would have sunk the reelection campaign on the spot.

Dead Man Walking
 

Mike

Well-known member
Was Ron Brown Assassinated? Experts Differ on Ron Brown's Head Wound

By Christopher Ruddy
FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
December 3, 1997

A circular hole in the skull of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown could have
been a gunshot wound and certainly should have prompted an autopsy,
according to an Air Force lieutenant colonel and forensic pathologist who
investigated the jet crash in which Brown died.

"Even if you safely assumed accidental plane crash, when you got something
that appears to be a homicide, that should bring everything to a screeching
halt," Lt. Col. Steve Cogswell, a doctor and deputy medical examiner with
the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, told the Tribune-Review.

In several interviews, Cogswell repeatedly referred to the wound as "an
apparent gunshot wound." However, he also said, "Whether it's a bullet or
something else, we don't know."

On April 3, 1996, an Air Force jet carrying Brown and 34 others, including
14 business executives on a trade mission to Croatia, crashed into a
mountainside. The Air Force, in a 22-volume report issued in June of 1996,
confirmed its initial judgment that the crash resulted from pilot errors
and faulty navigation equipment.

Cogswell, who has approximately 12 years' experience as a forensic
pathologist, contends evidence that Ron Brown might have been murdered was
ignored. He said the main evidence of possible homicide was a hole found on
the vertex, the very top of the skull. "Essentially ... Brown had a
.45-inch inwardly beveling circular hole in the top of his head, which is
essentially the description of a .45-caliber gunshot wound," Cogswell
added.

The wound, which was documented and photographed in a medical examination
at Dover, Del., was "as close to a perfectly circular hole as you can get"
in the skull, he said. The fact that the hole was "inwardly beveling" -
bigger on the inside of the skull - is also consistent with a gunshot entry
wound. Cogswell also cited as evidence of a possible gunshot an initial
X-ray that suggested small metal fragments inside Brown's head. The
pathologist said the fragments could be what pathologists sometimes call a
"lead snowstorm" pattern from a disintegrating bullet.

Cogswell has made no secret of his questions about the plane crash and
Brown's death. He has laid out the evidence in the case in a slide show he
calls "Mistakes and Failures in Forensic Pathology," which he has presented
at professional conferences and to FBI agents enrolled in homicide training
courses. Cogswell is in charge of training courses at AFIP.

The Brown crash figures prominently in Cogswell's slide program, which also
details some of the more than 100 military and civilian airplane crash
investigations he has been involved with since he joined the Air Force in
1991. In investigating Cogswell's claims, the Tribune-Review has obtained
photographs and X-rays of Brown's body that show the head wound. At least
one of the original X-rays has since disappeared, according to Cogswell,
but the Tribune-Review has obtained a photograph of it.

Cogswell arrived at the crash scene after bodies were removed, so he never
actually examined Brown's corpse. He bases his questions on discussions
with colleagues who did examine the corpse, and on reports, records,
photographs and X-rays. After conducting an external examination of Brown's
body, Air Force Col. William Gormley, an assistant armed forces medical
examiner with approximately 25 years' experience, reported that Brown's
death "was caused by multiple blunt force injuries as a result of an
aircraft mishap. The manner of death is accidental."

Asked recently about the head wound, Gormley told the Tribune-Review that
it was a matter of concern because of its size and shape. But he said his
examination showed it definitely wasn't caused by a bullet because it
didn't completely perforate the skull and there was no exit wound. The
institute's chief forensic scientist, who was present during the
examination, says evidence at the crash site ruled out the possibility of a
gunshot.

CROATIA

The first American military personnel arrived at the jet crash site 12
hours after the disaster occurred. Within days, investigators from the Air
Force, other branches of the military and the National Transportation
Safety Board were on the scene. Dr. Steve Cogswell arrived five days after
the crash.

AFIP, as the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology is often called, is an
interservice unit that deals with such incidents. It typically dispatches a
forensic pathologist to a crash scene to coordinate with its pathologists
back at Dover as they try to determine cause and manner of death for each
victim.

This plane crash investigation was different. Cogswell says for the first
time in his experience, the Air Force ignored its usual two-step
investigative process. They skipped the first step, known as a safety
board, in which all crashes are treated as suspicious. During a safety
board, investigators try to determine whether the crash was an accident or
the result of foul play. Instead, the Air Force immediately began the
second phase, an accident investigation, mirroring sentiments of Pentagon
and White House officials who implied the crash was nothing more.

Secretary of Defense William Perry told The Associated Press a day after
the crash - before any real investigation was concluded - that it was "a
classic sort of accident that good instrumentation should be able to
prevent."

Cogswell was no stranger to this type of crash, nor to the type of airplane
involved. The model, a T-43, is the military version of the Boeing 737.
Cogswell had been involved in the investigation of two previous Boeing 737
disasters, including the crash of US air Flight 427 near Pittsburgh. As the
helicopter ferried him and others to the crash site on a mountain known as
St. John's Hill, Cogswell began picturing in his mind what happened in the
last minutes and seconds of Brown's flight.

The crash took place in the vicinity of Croatia's Dubrovnik airport, which
is situated on a ledge of flat land between the Adriatic Sea on one side
and a Balkan mountain range on the other. Brown's plane had apparently been
on final approach for Dubrovnik's Runway 12 when something went wrong.
Clouds and fog rolling in from the Adriatic can completely blanket and hide
the mountain range. Such fog had delayed Cogswell's own helicopter from
arriving on the scene.

Contrary to initial press reports, however, no terrible storm was raging
when the jet crashed. As Cogswell's helicopter got close to the site, the
wreckage of the plane became apparent. The jet had literally run into the
mountain. Apparently, the pilots had been making an instrument approach
through dense cloud cover when the mountain's terrain suddenly appeared.

The Air Force later concluded the plane was 10 degrees off course as a
result of its pilots using improper navigation aids and ground beacons.
Questions about the ground beacons were never fully resolved. According to
the Air Force report, within days of the crash the maintenance chief for
Dubrovnik's airport, Niko Junik, was found dead by gunshot, an apparent
suicide.

The plane had not slammed nose-first into the mountain. Instead, the right
wing and right engine hit first, followed quickly by the fuselage. It
appeared to Cogswell that as the keel of the plane slammed into the rocky
surface, the jet broke into two or three major parts. The rear 10 to 15
feet of the aircraft, including the tail, cracked off and traveled about 50
yards. It remained almost completely intact.

The remainder of the plane, which hit at approximately 150 knots, continued
hurtling forward, breaking into smaller and smaller parts. By the time
Cogswell arrived, all bodies had been removed and transported back to Dover
Air Force Base. Cogswell had a set of pictures showing the bodies as they
were found, but investigators failed to draw a "body map" pinpointing the
precise location of each corpse.

[Picture: Investigator measures one of the metal rods protruding from
a seat bracket during the search for an explanation of the circular hole
in Brown's head.]

As the on-scene pathologist, Cogswell examined the photos and crash debris,
and developed a fairly good idea of the last moments of the T-43. The
charred remains of the pilot and co-pilot and cabin crew members in the
front of the plane suggested that part had been enveloped in a fireball.

The rest of the plane showed little or no fire damage. As the passenger
compartment came apart, passengers were thrown helter-skelter, some
breaking loose of their seats belts, others flying through the air still
buckled in. Most of the bodies were found intact. The pictures, reviewed by
the Tribune-Review, show that many of the victims were left partially
clothed; Garments had been shorn away as they were raked across the dense
brush and rocky ground.

Brown's body, as one photograph shows, was found amid plane wreckage.
Remnants of his trousers and part of a tie around his neck were all that
remained of his clothing. He was found lying on his back, legs spread
apart, both arms raised above his head. Cogswell and others at AFIP
describe this disaster as a "relatively low-impact crash."

Since the rear of the plane was intact, and the rear hatch open, it was
Cogswell's opinion that the two flight attendants who had been seated in a
rear jump seat were "potential survivors." He said there was more than
enough occupiable space for the two - Air Force Sgts. Shelley Kelly and
Cheryl Turnage - to have lived. Items in the plane would have been thrown
forward and should not have hit them, and the G-forces of deceleration were
relatively low.

In fact, Kelly did survive for several hours and was found alive by
Croatian rescuers. "Depending on who you talked to, Kelly was found near
her seat, on the floor of the plane or outside the plane," Cogswell
recalled. Croatian rescuers said she died while being transported for
medical assistance. Autopsies conducted at Dover indicate Kelly died of a
broken neck, and Turnage of "multiple blunt force injuries."

Upon arriving at the crash site the Monday after it occurred, Cogswell
received a call from Gormley, the pathologist who had examined Brown's body
and several others at Dover the day before. "I talked to Col. Gormley and
he told me there is a .45(-inch) inwardly beveling, perfectly circular hole
in the top of (Brown's) head," Cogswell said.

Gormley asked Cogswell, as AFIP man at the scene, to figure out what type
of cylindrical object could punch through the skull creating such a wound.
Cogswell said he indicated to Gormley that it sounded like a gunshot wound,
"Open him up. This man needs an autopsy," Cogswell said he told Gormley.
"This whole thing stinks."

Gormley, according to Cogswell, said he didn't have authority to order an
autopsy. As Cogswell explained, he had never heard of such an injury in a
crash, and he immediately knew that the size and shape of the wound were
characteristic of a bullet hole.

Cogswell, sifting through the wreckage, found various cylindrical rods,
bolts and seat brackets. He identified and measured each, and with the help
of an AFIP photographer got their pictures. Cogswell believed each was
either slightly too big or too small to explain the hole in Brown's head.

Cogswell also felt it would be very difficult for any rod or similar item
to pierce the skull then exit, leaving a perfect hole as it did. His
suspicions grew upon his return to the United States when he spoke to AFIP
colleagues who had stayed at Dover. He also reviewed the photographic and
X-ray evidence. "I talked to a few people who were there from our office
and asked them ... if they thought this wound looked like a gunshot wound,
or, `What do you think the hole looked like?' And the uniform response was,
`Yeah, it looked like a gunshot wound.'" he said.

DOVER

It was Easter weekend, and military personnel began arriving on the
Saturday night after the crash to prepare the base mortuary that is used
especially for mass disasters. Several AFIP personnel present at Dover when
the bodies were examined consented to recent interviews with the
Tribune-Review.

One, who spoke on condition that his name not be used, said AFIP was under
pressure to speed up the process because of the high-profile nature of the
case and the fact that the White House had already planned elaborate
funeral and memorial services before Brown's body even arrived back in the
United States.

AFIP has jurisdiction to conduct autopsies on all military personnel, and
did so on all military victims of this crash. According to Cogswell, it's
good practice to conduct autopsies on all victims in a plane crash. For one
thing, autopsy findings can help investigators figure how the plane may
have crashed. Cogswell also said an autopsy should have been conducted on
Commerce aide Naomi Warbasse because, he contended, the external
examination and X-rays showed no discernible cause of death.

While AFIP can't order autopsies of civilian victims, it usually seeks
authorization from families to do so. In this case, "people were very
reluctant to go ask the families" to conduct autopsies, Gormley told the
Tribune-Review. He said Brown's status as a Cabinet member did not mean
AFIP could order an autopsy. Others disagree, considering what
investigators at Dover discovered.

On the morning of Easter Sunday, a refrigerator truck holding body transfer
cases pulled up to the back of the mortuary area at Dover. The second case
pulled off the truck was tagged "CR0-002-01" - the identifying number of
the body, which translates, "Croatia, second body off the truck." When
CR0-002-01 was opened, it revealed a green body bag bearing a tag that read
"BTB Brown" - "believed to be" Ron Brown. That identification would be
confirmed by fingerprints.

All bodies passed through several stations, including the FBI's fingerprint
station, while at Dover. First, an X-ray machine checked for explosives
that might be attached to or hidden in the body. Second was the fingerprint
station. Another station took dental X-rays for identification and
comparison. Finally, full-body X-rays were taken before the body underwent
external examination or an autopsy.

During external examination, Gormley described Brown's body as the "intact
but partially burned body of a middle-aged black male with curly black
hair, brown eyes, a black mustache and natural dentition." Gormley noted
flash and chemical burns had spotted Brown's body. An X-ray noted a break
in the pelvic bone. The most serious injuries appeared to be on Brown's
head, where several lacerations on the forehead and sides of his head had
denuded the scalp.

At the very top of the cranium, Gormley observed a wide area of denuded
scalp, in the middle of which was a "depressed skull fracture" he described
as a "round, punched-out defect in the outer table of the skull
approximately 0.5 inches in diameter." He also noted that the hole got
wider as it got deeper.

Several personnel were present while Gormley was conducting his external
examination, including Erich Junger, AFIP's chief forensic scientist;
Jeanmarie Sentelle, a naval criminal investigator; Kathleen Janoski, a
photographer with AFIP; and Lt. Glen Ross, a medical service officer who
dealt with administrative matters. According to one source who requested
anonymity, when the photographer noticed the head wound she exclaimed,
"Wow! Look at the hole in Brown's head. It looks like a bullet hole."

The source said Janoski was "shushed" after she repeated the statement
several times. Janoski, contacted at AFIP, declined to comment. She
referred all questions to AFIP's press office. Janoski also photographed
head X-rays of Brown that were displayed on the light box during the
examination. Her photos would later become part of Cogswell's slide
program.

He tells his audiences that the frontal head X-ray shows the defect at the
top of the head, and something perhaps more sinister. Inside the left side
of Brown's head, in the area behind his eye socket, "there are multiple
small fragments of white flecks, which are metallic density on X-ray.
That's what we might describe as a `lead snowstorm' from a high-velocity
gunshot wound."

Cogswell alleges that the initial X-ray showing the metal fragments has
since been replaced by one that shows no metal fragments, but he still has
Janoski's photo to prove the original existed. The hole "got our attention
at first," Junger told the Tribune-Review.

The now-retired chief forensic scientist said concern about the wound
quickly dissipated because "we figured out what it was. Again, it was
nothing earth-shattering." Junger said that a "very reasonable explanation"
for the hole was found "when we looked around the aircraft area itself,"
indicating that some piece of the aircraft or its contents had hit Brown's
head and created the wound.

THE WOUND

Cogswell, AFIP's man at the crash scene, disputes the idea that any item
found among the debris could explain the hole. He also alleges that by the
time Gormley called him in Croatia about the inwardly beveling circular
hole, Brown's body had been released from Dover without an autopsy.

Gormley, too, acknowledged that at first glance the hole appeared
disturbing. "A perfectly round, nearly round .5-inch hole makes one think,
`Tell me more about this gunshot wound,' right?" he said. He also
acknowledged that no piece of the aircraft was found to explain the hole,
but argued that a metal fastener or rivet probably struck Brown's head. He
said it probably was not a metal rod because the hole "didn't go all the
way through the skull."

Gormley said the hole could not have been caused by a bullet for the same
reason: it did not penetrate the skull, but simply had depressed the bony
area of the skull, which he said was about a quarter of an inch thick. The
hole "didn't go anyplace," he said. "It turned out it didn't have a track."

Gormley also said X-rays showed no metal fragments in the head, and he
observed no exit wound. Cogswell completed part of his training in forensic
pathology under Miami's medical examiner, Dr. Joe Davis, a renowned expert
in gunshot wounds. Davis, now semi-retired, vouched for his former pupil.
"I always found him to be competent," he said, noting that during his
training in Miami Cogswell saw "an awful lot of gunshot wounds."

Cogswell, after reviewing photos and X-rays, came to dispute Gormley's
analysis. Cogswell contends brain matter was visible in the wound. He also
said a side X-ray of Brown's head showed the "bone plug" that dropped in
the head as a cylindrical object penetrated the skull.

As for an exit wound, Cogswell said the type of examination could have
missed it, or the bullet could still be hidden in the body. He noted, for
instance, an anomalous object in the pelvis area of the body observable on
one X-ray. Cogswell and another AFIP staff member allege that Brown's case
file no longer contains any full-head X-rays. They have disappeared. All
that remain are photographs taken of the original X-rays at Dover.

The Tribune-Review obtained copies of those images as well as detailed
photos of Brown's body and the circular wound. All were shown to Dr. Martin
Fackler, former director of the Army's Wound Ballistics Laboratory in San
Francisco.

While acknowledging he is not a pathologist, Fackler said he thought it
"very difficult to see" how something like a rivet could have produced the
head wound. He also said brain matter was visible. "It's round as hell.
That is extremely round," Fackler said with a chuckle. "I'm impressed by
how very, very round that hole is. That's unusual except for a gunshot
wound. It's unusual for anything else."

Fackler said he could not rule it a gunshot without a full autopsy and
better X-rays. He said the supposed metal fragments on the first X-ray were
not conclusive because they were very small, an autopsy had not been
conducted to locate them, and a side X-ray was overexposed, giving little
detail of the head. "They didn't do an autopsy. My God. It's astounding,"
he said.

He also was surprised that the hole was described on Gormley's report as
"approximately .5 inches." Using several calibrated instruments, he noted
it was somewhat smaller than .5 inches, "and a little bit small for a
.45-caliber bullet hole."

Fackler explained that the skull can be slightly "elastic" and bullet holes
can be slightly larger or smaller than the actual bullet caliber. He said
the hole was more consistent with a .40-caliber or 10 mm bullet, like those
widely used by law enforcement agencies.

Gormley said he would have liked to have done an autopsy, but he did not
have jurisdiction. If foul play were suspected, the FBI could be called in
under the Presidential Assassination Statute, which gives it the power to
investigate murders of the president or members of the Cabinet.

Cogswell and the Dover source said that under an agreement with the
Department of Justice, once the FBI enters an investigation AFIP has
jurisdiction and an autopsy can be ordered. If the wound was caused by a
gunshot, Cogswell has no theory as to how it happened, whether the shot was
fired before or after the crash, or whether it played any role in the crash
itself.

Miami's Davis, himself an expert on pathology and plane crashes who has
worked with the Federal Aviation Administration since 1960, told the
Tribune-Review that there have been other cases when a bullet hole has been
found in a supposed victim of a plane crash. In one instance several years
ago, he said, a deranged flight attendant smuggled a gun aboard a civilian
plane and killed the crew, causing the crash.

Davis said anytime a possible gunshot wound is found on a crash victim
"that in itself raises all sorts of alarms." "No way can you say it's a
simple accident. It's considered very suspicious," Davis said.

Cogswell said suspicion should have been aroused in this case. "You can't
ignore who this person is," he added. "You can't ignore the controversy
surrounding him. To stack up the coincidences: one of 36 people has got a
hole; the hole is in their head; the hole is dead center in the top of
their head; and it just happens to be the most important person on that
airplane from a political point of view. That's a whole of reason to
investigate it."

At the time of Brown's death, Independent Counsel Daniel Pearson was
seeking to determine whether Brown had engaged in several sham financial
transactions with longtime business partner Nolanda Hill shortly before he
became secretary of commerce.

On March 19, just weeks before Brown's sudden death, Pearson obtained
subpoenas that showed his probe had widened to include Brown's ties to
possibly illicit fund-raising activities involving the Democratic National
Committee and a DNC-affiliated group called the Asian Pacific Advisory
Council. Pearson's investigation was closed soon after Brown's plane
crashed. Unfinished matters, including the investigation of Hill and
Brown's son Michael, were turned over to the Justice Department.


HTTP://www.ruddynews.com/

Black leaders have questions in Brown death

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
December
 

Red Robin

Well-known member
Lest We Forget - Hillary’s $100K Cattle Scam
From Barbara Olson’s tremendous book, “Hell To Pay,” pp 138-144:

CATTLE QUEEN OF ARKANSAS


“The market was going up dramatically at that time,” Vice President Al Gore said in loyal defense of the Clintons when Hillary’s neat little cattle futures profit came to light. “That time” was October 11, 1979, three weeks before Bill Clinton was elected governor of Arkansas. Ten months later, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Governor Clinton made $100,000 in profit on a $1,000 investment. Eat your heart out Bill Gates.

When the story broke of how lawyer and commodities trader Jim Blair helped Hillary Rodham make a fortune in cattle futures, the first response of the White House was to react with feigned indignance.

“Hillary and Jim were friends; he gave her advice,” said aide John Podesta, later to become White House chief of staff. “There was no impropriety. The only appearance is being created by the New York Times.” Consider the chutzpah of that defense. The mean old New York Times making up nasty things about Hillary Clinton.

“Do they have to go weed their friends out and say they can only have friends who are sweeping the streets? “Podesta asked rhetorically, without a hint of the embarrassment he must have felt in making such an absurd statement.” They have friends who are high-powered lawyers. They have friends who write books, who write poetry.”35

In other words, what should we expect among members of the meritocracy? How unfair to deny the Clintons the friendship of poets and commodities traders.

Jim Blair was certainly no street sweeper. He had made millions of dollars himself trading in commodities. The White House could only defend Hillary by adopting an Arkansas perspective on the whole deal. In the end what did it matter if Blair helped a friend make a little of her own?

The story intensified in April 1994, when the first couple was forced to pay an additional $14,615 in back taxes and interest after it was learned that the first lady had made more money on commodity trades than had been revealed to the public or to the IRS.36

After trying to hold back the details of the deal, the White House released the facts one by one.

At first, we were told that Hillary “consulted with numerous people, and did her own research,” an aide to the first lady explained.37 The American people were left with the image of Hillary, shrewd investor, thumbing through the Wall Street Journal.

Then the White House acknowledged that she had indeed received a small helping of advice, “but not on a specific date or specific trade.”

The White House next conceded that Jim Blair—Springdale lawyer, former Fulbright aide, major figure in the Arkansas Democratic party, and the man Bill Clinton later married to Diane Kincaid—was one of several people who had given Hillary some advice in dealing with the market. When that story would no longer hold, Dee Dee Myers—always one of the most forthright, and therefore routinely humiliated, members of the Clinton team—said, bluntly, “I think it’s become clear that [James Blair] placed most of the trades.”38 But surely he had been guided by the Wall Street Journal.

Blair, of course, also worked for Tyson Foods, the poultry giant and largest employer in Arkansas, and a major Clinton donor. He bought land and made deals on behalf of the corporate giant. He would later become the company’s general counsel.

The company is run by “Big Daddy” Don Tyson—a man who wears a khaki uniform, which is required of all employees, with his name stitched on its breast; a political kingpin; a wheeler-dealer and corporate egoist. In keeping with his oversized persona, and perhaps the helping hand his general counsel gave to the president-to-be, Tyson’s office is a replica of the Oval Office.

“It would be irresponsible to my company and my industry if I didn’t have any influence,” Tyson said in a speech in Alabama. “Clinton understands the needs of business. There were several times in our company’s growth that we could have taken opportunities outside of the state, but we chose to stay in Arkansas because he understands the balance between economic development and environmental issues.”39

Hillary’s cattle futures were purchased through Robert L. “Red” Bone of the brokerage firm of Refco, Inc. It was Jim Blair who had put her in touch with Bone—who had previously worked for Tyson for more than a decade. Bone was an inveterate gambler, a high-profile, high-stakes poker player well known to the pit bosses of Las Vegas. He was a gambler at the office as well. The year before, Bone’s sharp practices had led the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to accuse him of allocating trades to investors after determining the winners and losers, a practice known as “straddling.” Bone was punished by having his license to trade pulled for one year.40

The deal was arranged in the following way. All Hillary had to do was put $1,000 of her own money into a block of cattle futures at a time when her husband, then the attorney general, had a thirty point lead for the governorship. How did Hillary make out?

From her initial investment of $1,000, she came away with $99,537. Among the community of experts, there is general agreement that between 75 percent and 90 percent of commodity players lose. And no one turns $1,000 into $100,000. “The average retail customer has about as much chance of that kind of success as I have of driving to Hawaii,” one Chicago-based investment advisor noted.41

At one point in the trading, Hillary was $60,000 in the hole, with less than $40,000 in her account. Typically, an investor would be asked to pay the margin. Hillary was not, and she held on to the commodities until she hit pay dirt. (Later, the White House would explain that she quit at that point because she was pregnant with Chelsea, and just did not need the additional stress of investing.)

On July 12, 1979, Hillary’s relationship with Refco remained intact even though she owed more than $100,000; but poor Stanley Greenwood, a fellow Refco investor, had his investments terminated when he failed to post $50,000 to cover his losses.42

By way of comparison, had Hillary instead invested $1,000 in the first offering of Microsoft stock in 1986, she would have made $35,839 by March 1994. The premier technology investment of our times, therefore, pales in comparison to what she had made on the world’s oldest commodity: livestock. Hillary’s cattle future investment gave her a 9,987 percent profit.43 Later, when asked of her incredible success as a novice in the tough world of commodities trading, Hillary denied any preferential treatment with the illuminating statement: “I was lucky.”

Unless you believe in good fairies, luck had nothing to do with it. It is pretty obvious that Hillary had something better than luck. She had well-placed friends who wanted her to have $100,000. The likelihood of such a return on such an investment was close to lottery odds, twenty-four chances in a million.44 This was in a decade in which no speculator made more than $400 profit a day with one contract of cattle futures. Yet Hillary managed to make $5,300 a day. Such a return would have required her holding thirteen contracts, involving 232 tons of beef with a value of $280,000.

The New York Post explained, “There is no way that the commodity exchange or a broker would permit a novice speculator to control $280,000 worth of cattle with a skimpy investment of $1,000. Not, that is, unless a friend, guardian or partner guaranteed her investment.”45

It seems unlikely that Hillary could have been unaware of the magnitude of this straddle or that her wins were at the expense of others. (Blair himself was a designated loser, losing millions on the cattle deals.) Many commodities traders suspected Hillary of allocated trading—an illegal procedure in which a broker buys block trades, waits for the win, then allocates it to favored customers after the fact. Just a few months after Hillary’s “lucky” day in commodities trading, Refco–specifically Hillary’s broker Red Bone–was disciplined by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Board for “serious and repeated violations of record-keeping functions, order-entry procedures, margin requirements and hedge procedures.” One person who has done well during the Clinton years is the man who provided the nexus between Red Bone, Jim Blair, and Bill Clinton. That man is Don Tyson. During the Clinton-era, Tyson’s company benefited from millions of dollars in state loans, tax breaks, and the relaxation of environmental regulations. He received $8 million in tax concessions for plant and workforce concessions, as well as $900,000 in state grant monies to build roads and upgrade sites for a $40 million processing plant in Pine Bluff.46 What was especially extraordinary was the kid glove treatment Tyson received from a governor who at least affected a tough and uncompromising stance on protecting the environment.

Before Clinton was elected, the state had reissued a license for a Tyson plant with the proviso that the company had to work out a plan with Green Forest city officials to treat its wastes, tons of chicken feces that the plant dumped into nearby Dry Creek. With Clinton in office, it soon became clear that nothing would have to be done to clean up the plant and save the river. Unfortunately, the runoff of chicken feces ultimately filtered into the town drinking water, sickening local residents and forcing Governor Clinton to declare the locality a disaster area.47

Tyson was not only an overt financial contributor to the Clintons. As reported by Time magazine in 1994, allegations of envelopes of cash coming from Tyson’s headquarters to the Clintons in the governor’s mansion had surfaced by Independent Counsel Donald Smaltz. These allegations were never pursued, however, because Smaltz’s request to widen his probe was shot down by Attorney General Janet Reno.

However murky the background, what is clear is that Hillary and her husband did quite well during their personal decade of greed. But one could not say that they were entirely uncharitable. Journalist Lisa Schiffren learned that Hillary donated to the less fortunate. Dozens of bags of old clothing she, Chelsea, and Bill had worn were given to charity, and Hillary valued these donations between $1,000 and $2,300 each year for tax deductions. She meticulously listed each item, and gave a value for them, including $10 for Bill’s old running shoes and $1 for each pair of Bill’s and Chelsea’s old underwear.

__________________
 

Texan

Well-known member
Red Robin said:
I realize these type stories are old news but I can't help but think they will resurface if Hillary wins the primary. Is it resolved enough to be a nonfactor?

If you keep posting stuff like this, itinerant bird watchers will find your carcass covered with buzzard crap on some railroad tracks outside of Mena, Arkansas.

This will possibly happen within the next few months. This means that you won't get to vote in the general election. This will be the same thing as half a vote for hitlery. This will help put her in the White House. So...

Yes, it could be a factor.
 

Tex

Well-known member
crony capitalism goes to both parties who play the game.

We need a whole new group of people (politicains) who can govern without the old system. It will be a mess to unravel.
 
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