The Washington Post reported on August 12, 2007:

In a hidden corner of Rome's busy Fiumicino Airport, police dug quietly through a traveler's checked baggage, looking for smuggled drugs. What they found instead was a catalog of weapons, a clue to something bigger.

Their discovery led anti-Mafia investigators down a monthslong trail of telephone and e-mail intercepts, into the midst of a huge black-market transaction, as Iraqi and Italian partners haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons into the bloodbath of Iraq.

As the secretive, $40 million deal neared completion, Italian authorities moved in, making arrests and breaking it up. But key questions remain unanswered.

For one thing, The Associated Press has learned that Iraqi government officials were involved in the deal, apparently without the knowledge of the U.S. Baghdad command -- a departure from the usual pattern of U.S.-overseen arms purchases.

Why these officials resorted to "black" channels and where the weapons were headed is unclear.

The purchase would merely have been the most spectacular example of how Iraq has become a magnet for arms traffickers and a place of vanishing weapons stockpiles and uncontrolled gun markets since the 2003 U.S. invasion and the onset of civil war.

Some guns the U.S. bought for Iraq's police and army are unaccounted for, possibly fallen into the hands of insurgents or sectarian militias. Meanwhile, the planned replacement of the army's AK-47s with U.S.-made M-16s may throw more assault rifles onto the black market. And the weapons free-for-all apparently is spilling over borders: Turkey and Iran complain U.S.-supplied guns are flowing from Iraq to anti-government militants on their soil.

Iraqi middlemen in the Italian deal, in intercepted e-mails, claimed the arrangement had official American approval. A U.S. spokesman in Baghdad denied that.

"Iraqi officials did not make MNSTC-I aware that they were making purchases," Lt. Col. Daniel Williams of the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq (MNSTC-I), which oversees arming and training of the Iraqi police and army, told the AP.

Operation Parabellum, the investigation led by Dario Razzi, anti-Mafia prosecutor in this central Italian city, began in 2005 as a routine investigation into drug trafficking by organized-crime figures, branched out into an inquiry into arms dealing with Libya, and then widened to Iraq.

Court documents obtained by the AP show that Razzi's break came early last year when police monitoring one of the drug suspects covertly opened his luggage as he left on a flight to Libya. Instead of the expected drugs, they found helmets, bulletproof vests and the weapons catalog.

Tapping telephones, monitoring e-mails, Razzi's investigators followed the trail to a group of Italian businessmen, otherwise unrelated to the drug probe, who were working to sell arms to Libya and, by late 2006, to Iraq as well, through offshore companies they set up in Malta and Cyprus.

Four Italians have been arrested and are awaiting court indictment for allegedly creating a criminal association and alleged arms trafficking -- trading in weapons without a government license. A fifth Italian is being sought in Africa. In addition, 13 other Italians were arrested on drug charges.

In the documents, Razzi describes it as "strange" that the U.S.-supported Iraqi government would seek such weapons via the black market.

Investigators say the prospect of an Iraq deal was raised last November, when an Iraqi-owned trading firm e-mailed Massimo Bettinotti, 39, owner of the Malta-based MIR Ltd., about whether MIR could supply 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 10,000 machine guns "to the Iraqi Interior Ministry," adding that "this deal is approved by America and Iraq."

The go-between -- the Al-Handal General Trading Co. in Dubai -- apparently had communicated with Bettinotti earlier about buying night visors and had been told MIR could also procure weapons.

Al-Handal has figured in questionable dealings before, having been identified by U.S. investigators three years ago as a "front company" in Iraq's Oil-for-Food scandal.

The Interior Ministry's need at that point for such a massive weapons shipment is unclear. The U.S. training command had already reported it would arm all Interior Ministry police by the end of 2006 through its own three-year-old program, which as of July 26 has bought 701,000 weapons for the Iraqi army and police with $237 million in U.S. government funds.

Negotiations on the deal progressed quickly in e-mail exchanges between the Italians and Iraqi middlemen of the al-Handal company and its parent al-Thuraya Group. But at times the discussion turned murky and nervous.

The Iraqis alternately indicated the Interior Ministry or "security ministries" would be the end users. At one point, a worried Bettinotti e-mailed, "We prefer to speak about this deal face to face and not by e-mail."

The Italians sent several offers of various types and quantities of rifles, with photos included. The negotiating focused on the source of the weapons: The Iraqi middlemen said their buyer insisted they be Russian-made, but the Italians wanted to sell AK-47s made in China, where they had better contacts.

"We are in a hurry with this deal," an impatient Waleed Noori al-Handal, Jordan-based general manager of the Iraqi firm, wrote the Italians on Nov. 13 in one of the e-mails seen by AP.

He added, in apparent allusion to the shipment's clandestine nature, "You mustn't worry if it's a problem to import these goods directly into Iraq. We can bring the product to another country and then transfer it to Iraq."

By December, the Italians, having found a Bulgarian broker, were offering Russian-made goods: 50,000 AKM rifles, an improved version of the AK-47; 50,000 AKMS rifles, the same gun with folding stock; and 5,000 PKM machine guns.

The Iraqis quibbled over the asking price, $39.7 million, but seemed satisfied. The Italians were set for a $6.6 million profit, the court documents show, and were already discussing air transport for the weapons. At this point prosecutor Razzi acted, seeking an arrest warrant from a Perugia court.

"The negotiation with Iraq is developing very quickly," he wrote the judge.

On Feb. 12, in seven locations across Italy, police arrested the 17 men, including the four alleged arms traffickers: Bettinotti; Gianluca Squarzolo, 39, the man whose luggage had yielded the original clue; Ermete Moretti, 55, and Serafino Rossi, 64. If convicted, they could be sentenced to up to 12 years in prison.

The at-large fifth man, Vittorio Dordi, 42, was believed to be in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he apparently is involved in the diamond trade. Italian authorities were seeking information on him from the African country.

In the parallel Libya case, the Italians allegedly paid two Libyan Defense Ministry officials about $500,000 in kickbacks to speed that transaction for Chinese-made assault rifles. It isn't known whether such bribes were a factor in the Iraq deal. No Libyans or Iraqis are known to have been detained in connection with the cases.

Al-Handal's operations have caught investigators' notice before. In 1996-2003, the company was involved as a broker in the kickback scandal known as Oil for Food, the CIA says.

In that program, Iraq under U.N. economic sanctions bought food and other necessities with U.N.-supervised oil revenues. Foreign companies, often through intermediaries, surreptitiously kicked back payments to officials of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government in exchange for such supply contracts.

Those Iraqi middlemen also engaged in "misrepresenting the origin or final destination of goods," said the 2004 report of the CIA's Iraq Survey Group, which investigated both Iraq's defunct advanced weapons programs and Oil for Food.

That report also alleged that during this period Al-Handal General Trading, from its bases in Dubai and Jordan, secretly moved unspecified "equipment" into Iraq that was forbidden by the U.N. sanctions.

Reached at his office in Amman, Jordan, Waleed Noori al-Handal denied the family firm had done anything wrong in the Italian arms case.

"We don't have anything to hide," he told the AP.

Citing the names of "friends" in top U.S. military ranks in Iraq, al-Handal said his company has fulfilled scores of supply and service contracts for the U.S. occupation. Asked why he claimed U.S. approval for the abortive Italian weapons purchase, he said he had a document from the U.S. Army "that says, 'We allow al-Thuraya Group to do all kinds of business.'"

In Baghdad, the Interior Ministry wouldn't discuss the AK-47 transaction on the record. But a senior ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity, acknowledged it had sought the weapons through al-Handal.

Asked about the irregular channels used, he said the ministry "doesn't ask the supplier how these weapons are obtained."

Although this official refused to discuss details, he said "most" of the 105,000 weapons were meant for police in Iraq's western province of Anbar. That statement raised questions, however, since Pentagon reports list only 161,000 trained police across all 18 of Iraq's provinces, and say the ministry has been issued 169,280 AK-47s, 167,789 pistols and 16,398 machine guns for them and 28,000 border police.

A July 26 Pentagon report said 20,847 other AK-47s purchased for the Interior Ministry have not yet been delivered. Iraqi officials complain that the U.S. supply of equipment, from bullets to uniforms, has been slow.

A Pentagon report in June may have touched on another possible destination for weapons obtained via secretive channels, noting that "militia infiltration of local police remains a significant problem." Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq's civil war have long been known to find cover and weapons within the Interior Ministry.

In fact, in a further sign of poor controls on the flow of arms into Iraq, a July 31 audit report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office said the U.S. command's books don't contain records on 190,000 AK-47s and other weapons, more than half those issued in 2004-2005 to Iraqi forces. This makes it difficult to trace weapons that may be passed on to militias or insurgents.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, has described the Interior Ministry's accounting of police equipment as unreliable.

Here in Italy, Razzi expressed puzzlement at the Iraqi officials' circumvention of U.S. supply routes.

"It seems strange that a pro-Western government, supported by the U.S. Army and other NATO countries on its own territory, would seek Russian or Chinese weapons through questionable channels," the anti-Mafia prosecutor wrote in seeking the arrest warrant that short-circuited the complex deal.

 

********

Russia's Putin: More military, more spies...

Newsmax reported on July 25, 2007:

President Vladimir Putin vowed Wednesday to strengthen Russia's military capability and step up spying abroad in response to U.S. plans to build missile defense sites and deploy troops in Eastern Europe.

"The situation in the world and internal political interests require the Foreign Intelligence Service to permanently increase its capabilities, primarily in the field of information and analytical support for the country's leadership," Putin said at a meeting with senior military and security officers in remarks that were posted on the Kremlin's Web site.

The Foreign Intelligence Service is a successor agency to the KGB.

Putin did not identify specific nations as targets, but officials in the United States and Britain have said recently that Moscow has intensified its spying in those countries.

Putin said U.S. plans to station troops in Eastern Europe and Washington's intention to base missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic pose security challenges for Russia. Washington says the facilities are necessary to protect the U.S. and Europe from missiles launched by Iran or other rogue states.

Putin has proposed that the U.S. use a Soviet-built radar base in Azerbaijan for missile defense. U.S. officials have questioned whether the facility is technically compatible with American systems.

On Wednesday, Putin said Washington was stonewalling. "Alternative ways of protection from hypothetical missile threats which we proposed have been left unanswered," he said.

"All-round strengthening of our military forces is one of our indisputable priorities," Putin said, promising to continue equipping the military with new weapons.

Putin also criticized the United States and other NATO members for failing to ratify an amended version of the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, which limits the deployment of tanks, aircraft and other heavy non-nuclear weapons around the continent.

Earlier this month, Putin suspended Russia's participation in the treaty and threatened to withdraw from it completely if NATO nations do not ratify its amended version, which was signed in 1999, to reflect changes since the 1991 Soviet collapse.

NATO members have refused to do that until Russia withdraws its troops from the former Soviet republics of Moldova and Georgia.

Putin said the old version of the CFE treaty counted arsenals of former Soviet satellites and republics which are now NATO members as part of the Soviet bloc. In particular, it counted weapons in the ex-Soviet Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as part of what was the Soviet Baltic Military District.

"Maybe I should appoint one of you as its commander?" Putin said wryly.

Russia's relations with the United States and other Western nations have grown increasingly acrimonious amid Western concerns that Russia is edging away from democracy and Kremlin suspicions about the West's intentions.

 

"There are evil powers, My child, being set up to enslave your world! I have begged you, I have asked you through countless years to pray much for the conversion of Our adversaries. One nation, Russia, My children, shall be your scourge. As they shall go across the world, ravenous in appetite, destruction as their means for enslaving the world!" - Our Lady of the Roses, September 13, 1975

RUSE
Shortly after Veronica finished reading the articles in the daily newspaper pertaining to the "demise" of communism in the Soviet Union, and the subsequent birth of the new Commonwealth of Independent States, Our Lady appeared in what Veronica perceived as a message expressed in desperation:
     "Do not be deceived. Their father is the father of all liars: satan. Their master plan is in motion. Pray for the light. Minds are clouded. I repeat: it is a ruse. Wake up America or you will suffer much." - Our Lady, December 18, 1991

"FOR IT IS THEIR PLAN TO SUBDUE YOU, ONCE THEY GET THE BILLIONS THAT THEY NEED IN AID"
"As I counseled you all in the past, I said to you as quote: 'This is a ruse,' I repeat again. This is the visit to your country, the once great and Illustrious United States of the world, the nation, the United States of America, the illustrious country that now is leading into a path of darkness. This has been allowed because of the dire straits of your nation. The morality has now been cast aside. Darkness has fallen upon mankind....
     "I tell you now, and I will not tell you again. This is the last time you will receive this counsel.
     "As in the past Lenin, as in the past Stalin, and Khrushchev; and many others had tried to deceive the United States. They all felt that by trying to ensnare you with delusions of casting aside their communistic aspirations, that they had become as you, a free nation for all.
     "I assure you, My children, there is no freedom in Russia. It is all a delusion.
     "They seek the monies of the world from the nations of the world. And why do you not learn a lesson? It happened in the time of Lenin; it happened in the time of Stalin. And there you are all on the same road, ready to give billions of monies that should be given to those of your nation and the free nations of the world.
     "Do not be deceived, My children, Russia is not free. It is a cosmetic act to delude you. Lenin and Stalin used the same tactics, My children. Why do you not learn from your errors?"
Veronica - Our Lady now, Our Lady is crying. Now She is looking up and She says:
Our Lady - "My tears fall on you, My children. And I must give you also the conclusion to what I have spoken to you of. Lenin and Stalin are not with Us. They were cast off to meet with their god, the prince of darkness, satan.
     "It behooves Me to say, and it tears My heart in anguish, that they did not seek to be saved. For those who approach them, as they will approach you in your nation and try to convince you that their way of life without the Eternal Father was a way that should be adopted by all - no, My children!
"I repeat again, because this will be my last discourse to the world on this subject: This man, these two men are of the same creed, color, spirituality - or should I say, My children, lack of spirituality. They have a father who is the father of all liars, so what does it make them, My children - Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Yeltsin, Gorbachev?
     "That is the same old plan, My children, and those leaders of your nation are as blind as they were in the past. I tell you for your own good, My children of the United States of America, that once was a nation under God and indivisible, that you will fall! If you do not come out of your slumber now, you will fall!
     "For it is their plan to subdue you, once they get the billions that they need in aid, to bring up the economy and buy more armaments. They have not disposed of their armaments, My child and My children. They store them in other nations. They have the same goals as their forefathers." - Our Lady, June 18, 1992

BESIEGE THE POPE
"Every single soul upon earth that hears My voice this evening has an obligation, for the sanctification of their own souls and the souls of those they love, to listen to Me and follow the direction. I wish that all who hear My words this evening will go forward and besiege, if necessary, the Holy Father and the bishops with a request for this consecration of Russia. We do not mean the world, My children, We mean Russia!" - Jesus, June 17, 1989

CONSECRATE RUSSIA, NOT THE WORLD
"When I came to Fatima many years ago, I knew that communism would go throughout the world destroying many nations and attacking My Son's Church. Therefore, I made a promise that if the Pope, the Pope of those days and the Pope today, would unite with all the bishops of the world, all together on one day--not the world--but the bishops and the Pope will unite and pray for the consecration of Russia. I do not mean the world, My children; I mean Russia--Russia, the scourge of mankind. You will pray for Russia. One day must be allotted in which Pope John Paul II and, also, all the bishops of the world must unite on one day, I repeat, and pray for Russia; or Russia will continue to be the scourge from God. Russia will continue to go throughout the world annihilating people and places and countries." - Our Lady, October 2, 1987

IN UNISON WITH ALL THE BISHOPS
"I repeat from My Mother Her words to the world some time ago--and I believe, My child, you have been a voice-box before and a means for Heaven to transport this message to the world--that is, that the Holy Father in Rome, in unison with all of the bishops of the world, must consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of My Mother." - Jesus, March 18, 1989

RED HORSE
"The red horse is war! And war is in the balance next, My child. And what can you do about this? This is My direction from Heaven—and We hope, My children, that you will get this out to the world—unless the bishops and the Holy Father in unity with all the bishops of the world—unless they consecrate Russia to My Mother's Immaculate Heart, the world will be doomed! Because Russia will continue to spread her errors throughout the world, rising up wars and carnage and pestilence and famine." - Jesus, June 17, 1989

WORLD  WAR  III  
Veronica -  . . . Our Lady now is looking down sadly. And I see She's pointing now to what looks like a map. Oh, my!
     Now as I am watching—it's a map of... oh, I can see Jerusalem, and Egypt, Arabia, French Morocco, Africa. Oh, my goodness! There seems to be a very dense darkness now settling upon those countries. Oh, my!
     And Our Lady is saying:
Our Lady - "The start of the Third World War, My child." -- March 29, 1975  

Heaven’s Personal Protection Packet . . .
Our Lady tells us to be protected from all evil, we must wear the following sacramentals around our necks: a Rosary, a crucifix, the St. Benedict medal, Our Lady of the Roses medal, the Miraculous Medal, and the scapular. We have all of these sacramentals in a packet we call "Heaven's Personal Protection Packet." This packet is available for a donation of $5.00 plus $3.00 shipping and handling. Send $8.00 to TLD Ministries, P.O. Box 40, Lowell, MI 49331. Item # P5  (Order Form)

    Our Lady of the Roses, Mary Help of Mothers promises to help protect our children. On September 13, 1977, She said, "He has an army of ogres wandering now throughout your country and all of the countries of the world. They are in possession of great power; so wear your sacramentals, and protect your children and your households. Learn the use every day of holy water throughout your household. Insist even with obstructions, insist that your children always wear a sacramental. One day they will understand that they will repel the demons."
    On February 1, 1974, Our Lady said, "My children, know the value of these sacramentals. Guard your children well. You must awaken to the knowledge that you will not be protected without the sacramentals. Guard your children's souls. They must be surrounded with an aura of purity. Remove them if necessary from the sources of contamination, be it your schools or even false pastors."
    This Heaven’s Personal Protection Packet is available for a donation of $5.00 plus $3.00 shipping and handling. Send $8.00 to TLD Ministries, P.O. Box 40, Lowell, MI 49331. You may use your MasterCard, VISA, or American Express and call 1-616-698-6448.  Item # P5 (Order Form)