Friday, December 29, 2006

Bush-41 officials in Chinese cargo-monitor deal

Firm connected to communist regime setting up high-tech sensors in U.S.
Posted: December 8, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
GlobeSecNine – a private equity firm composed largely of top-ranking government and military officials from President George H. W. Bush's administration – has investment ties with the communist Chinese firm Hutchinson Ports Holdings that is joint-venturing to place cargo reading sensors on the planned North American superhighway.
The Interstate-35 Super-Corridor is to run from the Mexican port of Lázaro Cárdenas on the Pacific, cross the border at Laredo, Texas, and continue on through Dallas, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, and north into Canada.
On April 21, 2005, Savi Technology, Inc., then a private company, created Savi Networks LLC, a new joint venture company, with Hutchinson Ports Holdings to install active RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) equipment and software in participating ports around the world and to provide users with the information, identity location and status of their ocean cargo containers as they pass through such ports.
(Story continues below)
Tom Ridge, the first secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, joined the Savi Technology board April 5, 2005, just prior to the deal.
Savi Networks was capitalized at $50 million from the joint venture partners. Savi Technology holds a 51 percent interest in Savi Networks while HPH holds the remaining 49 percent.
On the same day, April 21, 2005, HPH made a concurrent $50 million investment in Infolink Systems, Inc., the parent company of Savi Technology, which provided HPH with 10 percent of Infolink on a fully diluted basis.
On May 4, 2005, GlobeSecNine, made a $2 million strategic investment in Infolink Systems, Inc., the parent company of Savi Technology.
On June 8 of this year, Lockheed Martin acquired Infolink Systems, Inc., thereby acquiring Savi Technology, Inc.
A spokesperson for Lockheed Martin confirmed to WND that the HPH interest in the joint venture subsidiary, Savi Networks, survived the acquisition of Infolink by Lockheed.
As WND previously reported, Savi Networks is currently negotiating a contract with North America's SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc., NASCO, the Dallas-based trade organization that advocates developing continental trade corridors along Interstates 35, 29 and 94. The contract will allow Savi Networks to establish sensors along the super-corridor that would read RFID tags placed on containers transported by truck and train, including containers from China and the Far East which enter the North American continent at Mexican ports, including Lazaro Cárdenas on the Pacific.
GlobeSecNine's chairman of the board is Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser to Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He also was chairman of President George W. Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 2001 to 2005. From 1982 to 1989, Scowcroft also served as vice chairman of Kissinger Associates.
Other GlobeSecNine principals include David D. Miller Jr., former ambassador and special assistant to the president and senior director on the National Security Council for counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics; Gen.Al Gray, former commandant of the Marine Corps and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; John Lawn, former administrator for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
A Feb. 16, 2005, announcement on the website of the Scowcroft Group advised that the Scowcroft Group and GlobeSecNine had formed a strategic alliance to pursue private equity investment opportunities in the homeland defense and security sectors. The investments were expected to be funded by GlobeSecNine through its alliance with the $1.5 billion Bear Stearns Merchant Banking fund.
Attorney Anthony D. Padgett is listed as GlobeSecNine's CEO. Also listed as managing directors are Gregory S. Newbold, a retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Marine Corps, and William R. Sullivan, who previously held senior strategy and management positions at American Express Company and Shearson Lehman Brothers. Newbold, who retired from the Marine Corps in 2002, later emerged as a vocal critic of Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and the decision to invade Iraq.
The website of GlobeSecNine has been closed to public access. The company is listed as operating from offices in Arlington, Va.

No comments: