Faisal Gill Last Updated: May 01, 2008
How did the spokesman for an organization founded by a declared Hamas supporter, and
convicted Al Qaeda financier, land a top policy position at the Department of
Homeland Security?
The answer involves the terror donor’s funding of
another Muslim group, set up by Washington core insider Grover Norquist.
Total access lobbyist
(GOP donors only), Bush vassal and Rove counselor, Norquist has been strategy
point-man for Muslim votes and dollars. He’s provided White House entrée for a long
list of “moderate Muslim” leaders to meet with the President.
Though never
officially tallied, six of the ten most prominent guests have since been charged
with financing global terror, and the remaining four were connected with groups
similarly charged.
Gill’s former boss, Abdurrahan Alamoudi, was among the
unfortunate seven, and is now serving a 23 year sentence. His American Muslim
Council, despite Gill’s efforts, was named a terror front group and disbanded. The
group Alamoudi funded for Grover Norquist,
called the Islamic Institute, remained unscathed. Gill was also its Director of
Government Affairs.
Gill has never been investigated for financing or
supporting terror. He is one of several with close ties to Norquist given high posts
in the Bush Administration. Only one of them has been criminally charged, and
convicted.
Though lacking any known experience in security or information
analysis, Gill’s position at DHS was Senior Policy Analyst of Information Analysis
Infrastructure Protection (IAIP)
At 32 , former terror group spokesman
Faisal Gil was among those drafting policy on “sensitive homeland security
information.” He had top security clearance.
Gill did have a bit of a problem
in June ’04, when it was reported he’d omitted his previous position with Alamoudi
on his resume.
He was suspended for five days, then reinstated, the
explanation being that he’d worked for Alamoudi through his two-partner firm, AG
Consulting, which he did include.
His partner Asim Ghafoor, also spokesman for the Alamoudi
and Norquist groups, has been public liason for several major designated terror
entities. Representing fugitive Soliman
al-Buthe, indicted for terrorism, Ghafoor learned of government wiretaps without
proper warrants, and sued for more than $1million.
Though the Senate Finance
Committee, in August 2004, asked how Gill’s terror group connections weren’t
discovered by DHS background checks, nothing came of the matter, and Gill was still
at DHS in December of that year.
That’s when press reports caused a seven
month postponement to the purchase of American owned, FCC-licensed Cypress
Communications by Arcapita, a pan-Arabic
privately owned $50 billion conglomerate..
Arcapita’s chairman, Mohammed
Abdulaziz Aljomaih, is among the names on the “Golden Chain,” a list of Al Qaeda’s
top 20 financiers seized in a Bosnia anti-terror raid in 2002.
Foreign
takeovers of American companies in sensitive industries are reviewed by the Council
on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS). It’s a cross-agency panel
Chaired by the Treasury Secretary, at that time John Snow.
Prior to his appointment one
year earlier, Snow had sold part of the American transport company he headed, to
Dubai. He’d sold another chunk to the Bush-related Carlyle Group,
One year after the
delayed Arcapita deal was allowed,
Secretary Snow was also the one formally approving the sale of US ports’ management
to Dubai.
When the NY Times broke the story, President Bush first claimed
he’d known nothing about it, but two days later threatened a veto, his first in six
years, if Congress tried to stop it. Bill
Clinton was a high paid lobbyist for the Dubai deal, but it ultimately didn’t go
through.
As for the Arcapita
purchase of an FCC licensed company in 2005, that did go through. The company’s
president simply claimed the Al Qaeda financier on the “Golden Chain” document was
some other Mohammed Abdulaziz Aljomaih, though there’s no other known Arab
billionaire with that name.
Gill’s role in the approval process is not known,
though his position was specifically defined for such matters.
As of early
2008, Faisal Gill and partner Asim Ghafoor have a DC consulting firm company
called Sapentia, whose website boasts of their Homeland Security
expertise.
Sapentia’s focus, they say, is finding opportunities for
government contractors, and “directing Federal resources to them through the
appropriations process.”
At that same time, Gill was running for Virginia’s
House of Delegates.
Categories
Homeland Security | Terror Funding | Functionaries | Government Officials
Sources
• www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/07/haramain_appeal• dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/06/24/gill_review/index.html
• www.theworld.org/latesteditions/05/20060504.shtml
• Approval of Cypress/Arcapita deal: hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-05-1850A1.txt, www.state.tn.us/tra/orders/2004/0400417g.pdf
• page15.com/2005/06/dhs-probes-bank-chairmans-terror-links.html• FCC Public Notice, June 28, 2005
• Report from “Northeast Intelligence Network”: www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/m-n/manion/2005/manion063005.htm