Alleged 9/11 Inside Trader Advising Blackwater

James Corbett
Corbett Report

November 19, 2007

Krongard

Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard—a former CIA Executive Director whom researchers have implicated in the 9/11 insider trading scandal—is making news once again, this time for joining embattled security contractor Blackwater's advisory board.

The controlled corporate media is picking up on the conflict of interest angle in the story, as Krongard's brother just happens to be the Inspector General for the State Department, a man with the power to stifle inquiries into Blackwater's disgraceful conduct in Iraq. The link is indeed tantalizing, but likely inconsequential; the brothers are said to have been estranged for some time and barely on speaking terms.

What the corporate media do not bother to bring up is a much more interesting conflict of interest in Krongard's past. As researcher Michael Ruppert puts it in a in a December 2001 report on the 9/11 insider trading:

"There is abundant and clear evidence that a number of transactions in financial markets indicated specific [criminal] foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks...and the firm which was used to place put options on UAL stock was, until 1998, managed by the man who is now in the number three position at the CIA."

Until 1998, Krongard was the CEO of investment giant A.B. Brown, the firm which was used to place the infamous put options on United Airlines stock pre-9/11. In effect, Krongard was the number three man in one of the key agencies investigating his old company. Perhaps unsurprisingly, no official conclusion was ever reached regarding the 9/11 insider trading and no one has been brought to justice for attempting to profit from advance knowledge of the attacks.

Also worrying is Krongard's affiliation with Blackwater, however brief. This is part of a worrying trend of privatization of state security and intelligence services that further rends control of these vital and sensitive government functions from the people and places them in private and unaccountable hands.

The process of privatizing the military of the United States was started in earnest by then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney in 1992, who awarded a $9 million contract to a Halliburton subsidiary to study whether contracts should be given to private companies like Hallibruton. Three years later, Cheney was appointed CEO of Halliburton. Krongard himself has seemingly been a long-time supporter of such dealings. According to Tom Flocco's report (cited above) Krongard had praised In-Q-Tel as a "wonderful model...in accessing the private sector." As The Corbett Report has previously reported, In-Q-Tel is a CIA venture capital firm that helped out fledgling companies like Google and Facebook.

It is likely that the mainstream media will not cover these parts of "Buzzy" Krongard's past, so The Corbett Report urges readers to ponder for themselves how the privatization of the nation's security and the 9/11 insider trades might be related.