The Jeb Bush Connection
This is a murky story with connections
to the Nicaraguan Contras, the Mafia, Cuban-American terrorists,
Iran-Contra, bribery and corruption, coverups and the CIA. Essentially,
IMC was contracted to give medical assistance to the Nicaraguan Contras
but the story is in fact, a lot more complex and gives you some idea of
just how inter-connected events really are, especially when you’re dealing
the Bush clan. Perhaps this review of a book by Duncan Campbell The Bush
Dynasty and the Cuban Criminal, will give you some idea:
"The Bush
family connections go back to 1984 when Jeb Bush began a close association
with Camilo Padreda, a former intelligence officer with the Batista
dictatorship overthrown by Fidel Castro.
Jeb Bush was then the
chairman of the Dade county Republican party and Padreda its finance
chairman. Padreda had earlier been indicted on a $500,000 (£320,000)
embezzlement charge along with a fellow exile, Hernandez Cartaya, but the
charges were dropped, reportedly after the CIA stated that Cartaya had
worked for them.
Padreda later pleaded guilty to defrauding the
housing and urban development department of millions of dollars during the
1980s.
The president's younger brother was also on the payroll in
the 80s of the prominent Cuban exile Miguel Recarey, who had earlier
assisted the CIA in attempts to assassinate President
Castro.
Recarey, who ran International Medical Centers (IMC),
employed Jeb Bush as a real estate consultant and paid him a $75,000 fee
for finding the company a new location, although the move never took
place, which raised questions at the time. Jeb Bush did, however, lobby
the Reagan/Bush administration vigorously and successfully on behalf of
Recarey and IMC. "I want to be very wealthy," Jeb Bush told the Miami News
when questioned during that period.
In 1985, Jeb Bush acted as a
conduit on behalf of supporters of the Nicaraguan contras with his father,
then the vice-president, and helped arrange for IMC to provide free
medical treatment for the contras.
Recarey was later charged with
massive medicare fraud but fled the US before his trial and is now a
fugitive.
Jeb Bush sealed his popularity with the Cuban exile
community by acting as campaign manager for another prominent
Cuban-American, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, when she ran successfully for
Congress.
George Bush Sr famously appeared with her during her
campaign in Miami declaring: "I am certain in my heart I will be the first
American president to step foot on the soil of a free and independent
Cuba."
She has since lobbied successfully for the release of
several exiles convicted of terrorist offences held in US jails but who
now live freely in Miami.
Most controversially, at the request of
Jeb, Mr Bush Sr intervened to release the convicted Cuban terrorist
Orlando Bosch from prison and then granted him US
residency.
According to the justice department in George Bush Sr's
administration, Bosch had participated in more than 30 terrorist acts. He
was convicted of firing a rocket into a Polish ship which was on passage
to Cuba. He was also implicated in the 1976 blowing-up of a Cubana plane
flying to Havana from Venezuela in which all 73 civilians on board were
killed.
CIA memorandums strongly suggest, according to Bardach's
book, that Bosch was one of the conspirators, and quotes the then
secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, as writing that the "US government
had been planning to suggest Bosch's deportation before Cubana airlines
crash took place for his suspected involvement in other terrorist acts and
violation of his parole".
Bosch's release, often referred to in the
US media as a pardon, was the result of pressure brought by hardline
Cubans in Miami, with Jeb Bush serving as their point man. Bosch now lives
in Miami and remains unrepentant about his militant activities, according
to Bardach.
In July this year, Jeb Bush nominated Raoul Cantero,
the grandson of Batista, as a Florida supreme court judge despite his lack
of experience. Mr Cantero had previously represented Bosch and acted as
his spokesman, once describing Bosch on Miami radio as a "great Cuban
patriot"".
Source: