From: "Mike Ruppert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -----Original Message----- From: Mike Ruppert [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, February 14, 2000 10:42 PM To: From The Wilderness Subject: From The Wilderness News Bulletin 00-02 Importance: High MONDAY FEBRUARY 14, 2000 - 2145 PST HOUSE VOL. II FINAL CIA DRUG REPORT COMPLETE ACCORDING TO SOURCES According to reliable sources, including a network news producer who was tipped in advance, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) has completed its final report on Volume II of the CIA Inspector General's allegations of drug trafficking during the Contra War. A classified and closed door session of the committee is scheduled for tomorrow, February 15, to finalize the committee's plans for release of a public version of the report. Since Volume II was released to the public in a declassified version on October 8, 1998, HPSCI has several times attempted to quietly close out its look at the damning CIA report without attracting much attention. After a secret closed door hearing in May 1999, which was mislabeled, HPSCI failed to complete its investigation throughout the summer months. Last October staff members from the Committee traveled to FTW's offices in Los Angeles and copied more than 6,000 pages of our files in order to review them before closing out their investigation. Continuing outcry over Volume II has been over whether or not the House Committee, chaired by former CIA officer Porter J. Goss, (R) Fla., would hold open and public hearings on the CIA report which admits to both direct CIA involvement in protecting and employing known traffickers and in lying to Congress about it. Activists and publications like FTW have been clamoring for open hearings on Volume II in light of stark revelations from the CIA's own records that contract agents working for the CIA and the National Security Council were actively and directly involved in hands-on drug smuggling. HPSCI has apparently learned from earlier mistakes. Open hearings on Volume I of the report, looking strictly at California, backfired on the committee and CIA even though they were held without advance notice and covered only by C-SPAN. The March 15, 1998 hearings, once reported by FTW, guaranteed continued public interest when it was learned that new revelations in the session demonstrated CIA guilt and involvement. The revelations in declassified version of Volume II proved to be near total vindication for journalist Gary Webb, whose landmark 1996 Dark Alliance series for The San Jose Mercury News prompted the investigations initially. CIA documents released with Volume II demonstrated a conspiracy before-the-fact, between CIA and the Department of Justice, to permit and overlook drug trafficking, and have formed the basis for class actions suits filed in both Los Angeles and Oakland. Those suits were initiated after FTW Publisher/Editor Mike Ruppert sought out bay area attorneys Bill Simpich and Katya Komisaruk in February, 1999 with the basic elements of the suit. "What is critical at this moment," said Ruppert who still hopes to testify before the committee, "is that everyone with an interest on this issue reach out to the committee via telephone and make your wishes heard on Tuesday, February 15. Even three and half years after we were promised a speedy investigation, our demands are still the same. We want open and fully publicized hearings, covered in depth by the major media and we want key witnesses like Celerino Castillo of DEA and me and others like us to be allowed to finally tell our stories where the public can hear us. We want the committee to say to the public that they have read the CIA report and that the Agency's conduct was reprehensible. "A closed door hearing and a quietly released sanitized report closing out this horrible, shameful and continuing episode in American history is not acceptable." A final report, possibly authored by ranking Democrat Julian Dixon of California, has been in the works for some time. It is, according to one confidential source, "Not something that Dixon, as a Californian or as an African-American should be proud of." FTW is urging all subscribers to place calls tomorrow to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence at (202)225-7690 and repeat these demands for justice. The Republican Chairman, Porter Goss (202) 225-2536 and the Ranking Democrat, Julian Dixon of California (202) 225-7084 should be contacted at their congressional offices to make your wishes known. FTW does not possess e-mail addresses for the committee and has been unsuccessfully attempting to locate a HPSCI web site. If any of our 600 subscribers come up with one please let us know. They think that we have forgotten. They think we do not care. Let us demonstrate otherwise and make a lasting impression in so doing. END --------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ---------------------------- FREE ADVICE FROM REAL PEOPLE! Xpertsite has thousands of experts who are willing to answer your questions for FREE. Go to Xpertsite today and put your mind to rest. <a href=" http://clickme.onelist.com/ad/XpersiteCPC ">Click Here</a> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
