Bush Backs Banned Bilderberger

• You heard it here first. Bush's new pick for deputy secretary of state -- a seasoned Washington power broker -- is deeply embroiled in international crime.

President Bush has chosen an unsavory character as deputy secretary of state who was forced out by Bush's father in 1989 to avoid embarrassing the White House.

President Bush the Elder had chosen Richard Armitage as secretary of the Army but, to keep the lid on a boiling national security scandal, the president told him to "forget it," The SPOTLIGHT reported exclusively on June 12, 1989.

Armitage followed the Washington drill in such matters, announcing that he would "withdraw" from government service to go into private business. Armitage badly wanted the Pentagon post, associates acknowledged.

Armitage, a Bilderberg participant, had served in high Defense Department positions under President Ronald Reagan and his successor, Bush. A graduate of the Navy Academy, Armitage served three combat tours in Vietnam and is a close friend of Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Yet, in 1989, Bush, a member of the Bilderberg brother group, the Trilateral Commission, was compelled to dump Armitage despite his gleaming public record.

It was Armitage's unpublic record, unearthed by The SPOTLIGHT, that forced his firing. It involved international narcotics dealings and money laundering.

Armitage had become deputy to Fred Ikle, under secretary of defense for policy, in the early 1980s.

"We used to call them 'Fred and his three stooges' -- that is, Ikle and his three closest aides in the Pentagon: Richard Perle, Stephen Bryen and Armitage," an Army officer was quoted at the time. Perle was also a Bilderberg regular during those years.

It was the close association with Ikle that proved Armitage's undoing.

"They knew how to take charge of key programs -- Special Forces, covert operations, high technology transfers, strategic planning, media contacts -- and ran things to suit themselves," said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Lt. Col. James "Bo" Gritz, who emerged from the Vietnam War as the most highly decorated Special Forces officer, had revealed that Armitage maintained hidden connections to a number of Asian drug magnates, The SPOTLIGHT reported.

"The charges made by Gritz against Armitage -- first reported nationally by this populist newspaper -- were subsequently substantiated by other sources in Southeast Asia and in Washington," The SPOTLIGHT reported. "But the Establishment media ignored the mounting evidence against Armitage and maintains silence about his alleged links to notorious drug traffickers."

The linkage was more than casual, according to a congressional investigator who said Armitage had allegedly sabotaged an important offer from Burmese and Thai opium warlords to close down the drug trade in return for relatively modest financial rewards.

"This move could have cut our underworld heroin and cocaine imports, perhaps as much as half, but Armitage aborted the venture," the investigator said.

New questions about Armitage's covert involvement had popped up a earlier after Elizabeth Kopp, Switzerland's minister of police and justice, was ousted amid accusations that the private law office she shared with her husband was a front for major drug traffickers, The SPOTLIGHT reported.

As Mrs. Kopp was placed under criminal investigation, the trail led to the Pentagon, Swiss investigators told The SPOTLIGHT. Mrs. Kopp reportedly held frequent meeting in Washington with her cousin: Under Secretary Fred Ikle, during the late 1880s.

When Swiss Vice President Achille Cassanova admitted at a press conference that Kopp had been a key figure in the international dug scandal, he also said the same drug banks were used by the CIA and "other secret American authorities" to provide sanitized cash and other covert financing.

He was referring to the Pentagon policy office headed by Ikle and Armitage, The SPOTLIGHT learned from Swiss sources.

The Swiss investigation determined that Ikle and Armitage were in command of major covert action programs in, among others, Afghanistan, Iran, Nicaragua and Cambodia. Funding for these projects were reportedly processed by Ikle and Armitage while Ikle's cousin was in charge of both police and justice, Swiss sources reported.

Funding was arranged through the private bank house headed by Kopp's husband, Hans.

Despite the mainstream media blackout in the United states, investigators working for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) Picked up the scent. Several senators were reportedly eager to question Armitage when he appeared for confirmation hearing.

Rather than face exposure, President Bush dumped Armitage. Today, the second President Bush is rehabilitation Armitage with high office.