by Oliver North
“I'm forwarding all this to you in hopes that you may be able to find some responsible officials in the Department of Justice or up on Capitol Hill to look into what really happened to the brave Americans and British involved with this operation. The present British government apparently doesn't want to open an investigation, but maybe someone in Washington will care to try to find out why all these good people were killed carrying out what they believed to be a legitimate counterterrorist activity. At the very least, if the guilty can't be punished, those who died ought to be remembered for their courage instead of the phony story that they were all killed by accident on some UN humanitarian flight over Iraq.
“As for me, I'll be taking delivery of a new sloop in the next few weeks. After a shakedown cruise, I may head for the Caribbean for a while. If you need to contact me, use the new e-mail address that I will send you separately.
Semper Fidelis,
William
When we finished reading all that was in the first file on the disc, Dave Smolinski looked at me and said, “Look, Boss, there's a whole lot here that I don't understand and it's none of my business. Why don't you just keep this stuff, and if you want me to do anything with any of it, just let me know?”
I thanked him, and after Smolinski left the file room and returned to his office, I re-read Bill Goode's communiqué. As usual, Goode was right. Someone at Justice or up on the Hill ought to look into what happened to Peter Newman and his UN International Sanctions Enforcement Group. Unfortunately, nobody would.
For the better part of a year, efforts to get the attention of anyone who would listen at the Department of Justice were stonewalled. No one at the Attorney General's office wanted to touch the matter. And up on Capitol Hill, it was even worse. Several calls and letters to Senator James Waggoner's office eventually provoked a curt note in reply:
“The matters you have raised have been fully investigated by the Senate Armed Services Committee and the matter is closed. Senator Waggoner has personally looked into the unfounded rumors that you are spreading about current and former U.S. and UN officials and regards them to be potential violations of law.”
That's the note that prompted this book. It was the only means for the real story of Peter Newman to be told. As for the others:
Mir Aimal Kansi, the Al-Qaeda terrorist who assassinated three CIA officers in the 1993 ambush at Langley, was apprehended in Pakistan and returned to the U.S. to stand trial. A jury convicted him, and he is presently on Death Row in a Virginia prison.
Senator James Waggoner continues to serve as his state's “senior senator” on the Armed Services Committee.
General Bob Storey, formerly employed by Silicon Cyber Technologies International, at the urging of General George Grisham, testified before a closed session of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. His testimony concerned the EncryptionLok-3's widespread distribution to non-U.S. government entities. As a consequence of General Storey's testimony, corroborated by that of Jules Wilson, all government funds for EncryptionLok-3 production were terminated in July 1996.
Peter and Rachel Newman were honored at a memorial service in the Old Fort Meyer Chapel in April 1995. General George Grisham delivered the eulogy and presented Newman's mother with the flag that would have covered his coffin had his body been found. A marker was erected in Arlington Cemetery, next to Jim Newman's, with Peter's and Rachel's names and birth dates inscribed upon it, along with the notation: “Killed by terrorists on 10 March 1995.”
Lieutenant General George Grisham, USMC, was named Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command in April 1996.
Jules Wilson retired as Deputy Director, National Security Agency, in October 1997 and moved to Coronado, California. He serves as a consultant to the FBI and the U.S. Navy on matters pertaining to communications security.
Dr. Simon Harrod, National Security Advisor to the President, resigned his post suddenly in early April 1995 and returned to Harvard. In a written deposition submitted to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in June 1996, he denied “categorically that the U.S. government had any role in the creation of a United Nations assassination program.” He currently teaches a course entitled “U.S. Responsibilities in the New World Order.”
Marty Korman and Stanley Marat, the founders of Silicon Cyber Technologies International, dissolved their partnership in September 1996 as a consequence of the U.S. government decision to buy no additional EncryptionLok-3s. In January 1997, the company's remaining assets were sold at auction to pay taxes and legal fees. In May 1997, Korman was allowed to plead guilty to violating various campaign contribution laws and regulations relating to selling national security equipment to foreign entities in violation of Commerce Department and Department of Defense regulations. Marty Korman is currently serving a fifteen-year prison sentence at a minimum-security facility in Marion, Illinois. Stanley Marat teaches computer science at a high school in Nebraska.
General Dimitri Komulakov resigned from his post as Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations in June 1995. He announced that he was planning to retire in Sweden, but in November of that year he returned to Russia to “develop new business ventures.”
Lieutenant Colonel Wilbur Ellwood, the senior watch officer at the UN's command center and the man who detected Komulakov's calls to Baghdad during Newman's mission, returned to duty with Her Majesty's Special Air Service in June of 1995. Once back in England, he formally requested that the British Defense Ministry initiate an investigation into the calamity of March 1995. In August, just as the investigation was about to commence, Lieutenant Colonel Ellwood was killed in a training accident.
Leonid Dotensk, Dimitri Komulakov's Ukrainian business partner, is still selling former Soviet-bloc weapons to the highest bidder. After the botched effort to kill Peter Newman in Syria in March 1995, he traveled to Amman, Jordan, to facilitate the defection of Hussein Kamil from Iraq. He currently maintains offices and residences in Bern, Switzerland; Damascus, Syria; London, England; and Kiev. However, he no longer travels to Iraq.
Hussein Kamil, his brother, their wives, and families defected from Iraq in August 1995 and sought asylum in Jordan. He had several meetings with the CIA, but it was determined by the agency that his information was unreliable and they were reluctant to pay him for it. On February 23, 1996, following a promise from Saddam Hussein to pardon Kamil and other family members, they returned to Baghdad. Upon arriving at the airport, the two brothers were taken into custody and immediately assassinated.
Mohammed Farrah Aidid, having eluded two UN assassination attempts, died on August 2, 1996, as a consequence of wounds received during an intertribal military action in Somalia. He was sixty-one years old. He was not invited to, nor did he attend, the March 6, 1995, “Terror Summit” in Tikrit, Iraq.
Saddam Hussein crushed the INC/Kurd Northern Opposition Coalition in the aftermath of the ill-fated UN assassination attempt on March 6, 1995. The promised British and U.S. air support for the opposition forces never materialized. Thousands of CIA-supported opposition fighters and their families were killed.
Osama bin Laden flew from Baghdad to Khartoum, Sudan, on March 6, 1995, within hours of the UAV attack on Tikrit. When he arrived in Sudan, he ordered a new round of terrorist attacks on Americans. Two days later, Al-Qaeda terrorists killed two American diplomats and wounded a third in Karachi, Pakistan. Charges that he was able to acquire weapons of mass destruction from Iraq have never been proven, though bin Laden's subsequent attacks on U.S. citizens and property have killed thousands.
Eli Yusef Habib and his son Samir returned safely to their homes along the banks of the Euphrates after helping Peter Newman escape from Iraq. Both men continue to ply their risky trade in hard-to-get consumer products along a sales route that takes them from the Mediterranean to Pakistan. In December 1995, Eli Yusef Habib celebrated Christmas in Bethlehem. With him at the midnight service in Manger Square was a couple from the Hospice of Saint Patrick in Jerusalem, John
and Sarah Clancy, who entered Israel in March on Irish passports. After the service, Habib took great pleasure in playing with their infant son, James.