Arbusto

From 9/11 Encyclopedia:

According to a 1976 trust agreement, the history behind George W. Bush's first company Arbusto, started with Salem bin Laden, 
who appointed James Bath (->) as his business representative in Houston. Later Bath helped to fund Arbusto. 
In the same year former US president George Herbert Walker Bush served as director of the CIA. Revelation about Bath,
his relationship with the bin Laden financial empire and the CIA was made public in 1992 by Bill White,
a former real estate business partner with Bath. James R. Bath guided money to Houston from Saudi investors,
i.e. Sheik Khalid bin Mahfouz (->) and other wealthy Saudis, who wanted to influence US policy under the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Among the investments made by Bath with Mahfouz's money was the Houston Gulf Airport. 
Mahfouz was one of the largest stockholders in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI ->). 
BCCI was actually an international crime syndicate providing banking services to the Medellin drug cartel
, Pamama dictator Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, terrorist mastermind Abu Nidal, and Khun Sa,
the heroin kingpin in Asia's Golden Triangle. Tax documents and personal financial records show that James Bath invested $ 50,000
in the limited partnerships and had a 5 percent interest in Arbusto '79 Ltd., 
and Arbusto '80 Ltd., limited partnerships controlled by George W. Bush. 

The word Arbusto means 'bush' in Spanish. George W. Bush later changed the name of Arbusto into Bush Exploration Co., 
general partner in the limited partnerships, went through several mergers i.e. with Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation in 1984,
eventually evolving into Harken Energy Corp. (->), a suburban Dallas-based company. Bush said that to his knowledge, 
Bath's investment came from personal funds, and no Saudi money was invested in Arbusto.
Bath, 55, a former U.S. Air Force pilot, always declined to comment for the record. Spokesmen for FinCEN (->)
and the FBI declined to comment. 
Bath was sole director of Skyway Airlines Leasing Ltd., a Houston company owned by Khaled bin Mahfouz (->).

Bin Mahfouz had been a major shareholder in BCCI, which had been accused of using Mideast oil money to seek ties to political leaders in other countries throughout the 1970's and 1980s When BCCI and Mahfouz was investigated, the chief of the Justice Department's criminal division under former President Bush was Robert Mueller. Many critics accused Mueller that time of "botching the investigation". 

On June 20, 1990, George W. Bush sold his Harken stock for $848,000. 
Shortly after Bush sold his stock, Harken's fortunes nose-dived when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

Stephens Inc., the well connected brokerage firm owned by Jack Stephens, donated $100,000 to a Bush campaign fundraising dinner in 1991.
Stephens and Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, a wealthy and well-connected Saudi real estate investor, once signed another financial transaction for Bush Jr.
In September 2001, a few days before September 11th, Robert Mueller was appointed by President George W. Bush 
as the new Director of the FBI, replacing Louis Freeh (->).