vault backup: 2026-09-23 00:22:47

20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization.md

@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+---
+category: "Foreign Government"
+aliases:
+  - "MIMI"
+  - "Iraqi Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization"
+tags:
+  - Organization
+  - Iraq
+  - WeaponsProcurement
+  - BNL
+  - Iraqgate
+summary: "Iraqi ministry under Saddam Hussein's son-in-law Hussein Kamel, from 1988 in charge of weapons industrialization, which bought Western technology through the Al-Arabi front network with BNL-Atlanta loans."
+location: "Baghdad, Iraq"
+relations:
+  - type: head_of
+    with: "[[Hussein Kamel]]"
+    reverse: true
+    start: 1988
+    fn: 1
+  - type: owned
+    with: "[[Matrix Churchill]]"
+    start: 1987
+    role: "through the Al-Arabi and TDG front network"
+    fn: 1
+  - type: funded
+    with: "[[BNL Scandal|Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]]"
+    reverse: true
+    role: "2.155 billion dollars in loans"
+    fn: 2
+created: 2026-09-22
+updated: 2026-09-22
+---
+
+The Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization, "commonly referred to as MIMI," was the organization assigned primary responsibility for [[Iraq]]'s military industrialization. Representative [[Henry B. Gonzalez]], chairman of the [[House Banking Committee]], described it in 1992 as "a dual structure holding company divided between civilian and defense components": about 40 civilian agencies building projects such as the Badush Dam, petrochemical complex two and fertilizer and truck plants, and some 25 military organizations. [[Saddam Hussein]] "entrusted the achievement of Iraq's ambitious military industrialization program to his son-in-law, Hussein Kamil," who was "placed in charge of MIMI in 1988"; the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] believed Kamel "was probably the second most powerful man in Iraq." His roots lay in the Special Security Organization, responsible for protecting Saddam and keeping track of Iraq's other intelligence services, which he controlled from the 1980s and kept after moving to MIMI.[^1]
+
+### The Procurement Network
+
+Gonzalez described how factories under MIMI drew up lists of needed equipment, which passed by diplomatic pouch to Ali Mutalib Ali, commercial attaché at the Iraqi embassy in Germany, whom "German and [[United States]] intelligence agencies identify" as an Iraqi intelligence agent, and on to front companies. The Al-Arabi Trading Company network was controlled by a subordinate of MIMI, the Technical Corps for Special Projects, "in charge of Iraq's highest priority weapons projects like the Condor II ballistic missile, the Big Gun and Iraq's clandestine nuclear weapons program," and was run day to day by [[Safa al-Habobi]], who in 1988 and 1989 visited the United States on extended trips, bringing his family to Disneyland. Through the Technology Development Group in London the network bought the machine-tool maker [[Matrix Churchill]] in 1987. A Swiss firm at least 30 percent Iraqi-owned set up an affiliate in [[North Carolina]] that supplied the United States military with components for 155mm artillery shells: "Iraq is helping to supply the United States military with artillery shell components."[^1] Much of the 2.155 billion dollars in loans that the Atlanta branch of [[BNL Scandal|Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]] provided to MIMI went to buy militarily useful technology in the United States and Europe.[^2] In 1992 three directors of Matrix Churchill were tried at the [[Old Bailey]]; the trial collapsed and produced the [[Scott Inquiry]].[^3]
+
+### Kamel's Defection
+
+Kamel defected to Jordan in August 1995. Interviewed in Amman on August 22, 1995, by the UN Special Commission's chairman, Rolf Ekéus, with officials of the [[International Atomic Energy Agency]], he said: "I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons, biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed," and that no missiles were left, though blueprints and molds remained. He returned to Baghdad in February 1996 and was killed on February 23.[^4]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Details on Iraq's Procurement Network." *Congressional Record,* House, August 10, 1992. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920810g.htm
+[^2]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Oil Sales to Iraq and More Details on Matrix-Churchill Corp." *Congressional Record,* House, September 25, 1992. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920925g.htm
+[^3]: "Britain's 'Iraqgate': Major Woes." *The Christian Science Monitor,* November 12, 1992.
+[^4]: United Nations Special Commission and International Atomic Energy Agency, note for the file on the interview of General Hussein Kamel, Amman, August 22, 1995, https://www.casi.org.uk/info/unscom950822.pdf (scanned image; quotations as transcribed in Rangwala, Glen, "The interview with Hussein Kamel," February 2003); Barry, John. "Exclusive: The Defector's Secrets." *Newsweek,* March 3, 2003.

20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.md

@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+---
+category: "Government Agency"
+aliases:
+  - "CTC West Point"
+  - "Combating Terrorism Center"
+  - "CTC Sentinel"
+tags:
+  - Organization
+  - WestPoint
+  - Counterterrorism
+  - ThinkTank
+  - Military
+summary: "Privately funded counterterrorism research center at the U.S. Military Academy, founded in February 2003 with backing from Vincent Viola, which publishes the CTC Sentinel and releases captured al-Qaida documents."
+start: 2003-02
+location: "West Point, New York"
+relations:
+  - type: founded
+    with: "[[Vincent Viola]]"
+    reverse: true
+    start: 2003-02
+    fn: 1
+  - type: funded
+    with: "[[Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation]]"
+    reverse: true
+    fn: 1
+  - type: funded
+    with: "[[Morgan Stanley]]"
+    reverse: true
+    fn: 1
+created: 2026-09-22
+updated: 2026-09-23
+---
+
+The Combating Terrorism Center was created at the [[West Point|United States Military Academy]] in February 2003 "thanks to the vision and generous support of Mr. [[Vincent Viola]], former Chairman of the [[New York Mercantile Exchange]] and a 1977 graduate of West Point," with General (ret.) [[Wayne Downing]] and Brigadier Generals [[Russ Howard]] and [[Cindy Jebb]]. It is housed in the academy's Department of Social Sciences and describes itself as "privately funded," supported by named endowments from [[George Gilmore]] and several graduating classes and by the [[Audia Group]], [[Morgan Stanley]] and the [[Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation]]. It has provided counterterrorism education to the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]], the [[Department of Homeland Security]], the [[New York City]] fire department, the [[Army War College]] and "specialized [[Department of Defense]] units."[^1]
+
+### Harmony Program
+
+The center launched the [[Harmony Program]] in 2005 to release and analyze documents from the Defense Department's Harmony database, captured "in the course of operations in Iraq, Afghanistan" and elsewhere, among them letters from [[Ayman al-Zawahiri]] and `Atiyah `Abd al-Rahman to [[Abu Musab al-Zarqawi]] and a letter by [[Osama bin Laden]]. The center cautions that the documents "were collected on the battlefield unscientifically."[^2]
+
+### CTC Sentinel
+
+The center's monthly *CTC Sentinel* published [[H.E. Upchurch]]'s "The Iron March Forum and the Evolution of the 'Skull Mask' Neo-Fascist Network" in December 2021, on the history of [[Iron March]] and the groups that formed around it, including [[National Action]] and [[Atomwaffen Division]].[^3]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, "History." https://ctc.westpoint.edu/history/
+[^2]: Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, "Harmony Program." https://ctc.westpoint.edu/harmony-program/
+[^3]: Upchurch, H.E. "The Iron March Forum and the Evolution of the 'Skull Mask' Neo-Fascist Network." *CTC Sentinel* 14, no. 10, December 22, 2021. https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-iron-march-forum-and-the-evolution-of-the-skull-mask-neo-fascist-network/