https://sonar21.com/my-speech-to-the-unsc-regarding-nord-steam/
My Speech to the UNSC Regarding Nord Steam
26 April 2024 by Larry Johnson
I received an invitation earlier this week to address the United Nation’s Security Council at 10:00 am on Friday. I am posting this in advance of my appearance. Here is my presentation. You can watch it live on YouTube.
Thank you, Madam President. My compliments to the distinguished members of the Security Council. My name is Larry Johnson. I am here today to speak in support of Russia’s desire to have the United Nation’s Security Council conduct an open and comprehensive investigation of the sabotage of the Nord Stream Pipeline in September 2022.
I am here at my own expense, without compensation for my time. All material and comments are my own. My goal in addressing you today is simple – I want to propose steps that I believe can help resolve the mystery of the source of the attack on the Nord Steam pipeline, and thus help resolve the tensions that resulted from that unprecedented attack. Perhaps I bring a unique perspective to this issue because of my past experience with intelligence operations and analysis during my time with the Central Intelligence Agency, with counter terrorism policy and investigations while serving in the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism, with the scripting and execution of more than 200 counter terrorism training missions for U.S. military special operations forces as a contractor, and with successful international money laundering investigations carried out as the managing partner of BERG Associates. One of these investigations included a successful case conducted on behalf of the European Union and the Governors of Colombia.
Let me start with President Harry S Truman. I think I am the only one in this august hall who grew up in Independence, Missouri and attended middle school across the street from Mr. Truman’s home. I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Truman briefly one morning in September of 1970 as he strolled up North Delaware Street towards his Presidential Library, accompanied by a single bodyguard. What a difference 54 years makes.
It is true that Mr. Truman presided over the start of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. That is an unfortunate legacy. But I want to remind the Council of Mr. Truman’s words to the fledgling United Nations in October 1950. A 74-year-old message is still relevant and worth remembering:
“At the present time, the fear of another great international war overshadows all the hopes of mankind. This fear arises from the tensions between nations and from the recent outbreak of open aggression in Korea. We in the United States believe that such a war can be prevented. We do not believe that war is inevitable.
One of the strongest reasons for this belief is our faith in the United Nations.
The United Nations has three great roles to play in preventing wars.
First: it provides a way for negotiation and the settlement of disputes among nations by peaceful means.
Second: it provides a way of utilizing the collective strength of member nations, under the charter, to prevent aggression.
Third: it provides a way through which, once the danger of aggression is reduced, the nations can be relieved of the burden of armaments.”
I believe it is not only the responsibility, but the sacred duty of the Security Council, to take the lead in bringing about a settlement of the Nord Stream matter by peaceful means. I will not review the mountain of evidence that implicates my own country, the United States, in this act of war against the Russian Federation and the Federal Republic of Germany. There was no compelling national security interest to justify the destruction of the Nord Stream Pipeline, which has inflicted significant economic pain on the people of Germany. This attack accomplished nothing in terms of helping bring an end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and Ukraine’s NATO facilitators. It made matters worse.
During my time at the CIA, I acquired an understanding of how covert action was planned and executed in places as diverse as Afghanistan and Central America. Such operations are not conducted spur of the moment. They are funded, planned, and rehearsed before being executed. Seymour Hersh’s account of the U.S. covert action against the Nord Stream Pipeline is consistent with the knowledge I acquired during my time at the Agency in the late 1980s.
When I began working for Ambassador Morris Busby in the Office of the Coordinator for Counter Terrorism in the U.S. State Department in the fall of 1989, one of my first tasks was getting country clearances for the FBI as they investigated the bombing of Pan Am 103, which crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988. One of the most important lessons I drew from that experience was the difference between a criminal investigation and intelligence activities. Great care was exercised to ensure that the evidence gathered by the FBI was neither tainted nor spoiled by intelligence activities. It was a fine line, but Ambassador Busby made sure that the FBI and the CIA stayed in their own lanes.
Maybe that is the most important lesson of all. Professional, mature leadership is essential to the successful investigation of complex, international operations that result in attacks like Pan Am 103 and the Nord Stream Pipeline. Although the criminal indictments against the two men implicated in carrying out the bombing did not come until November 1991, the evidence that cracked the case was in hand by March of 1990 – 15 months after Pan Am 103 fell from the skies, and 20 months before the criminal indictments.
Compare that investigation with the indifference and lack of curiosity demonstrated by the NATO countries with respect to Nord Stream. It has been 19 months since the pipeline was destroyed and the NATO countries appear to have adopted the posture of the three wise monkeys – See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
I have some insight into the logistics and execution of the attack on Nord Stream thanks to work I did on behalf of the U.S. military’s special operations forces, which commenced in the spring of 1994 and ended in 2016. During those 22 years, I was part of a team that scripted multiple counter terrorist exercises. We would create scenarios, such as a group threatening to use a biological weapon in a North African country, and then replicate the diplomatic and intelligence traffic reporting the threat to stimulate a response by the particular military / diplomatic force tasked to analyze, contain and defeat that threat. In the course of this work, we also had to think like saboteurs or terrorists. Understand their motives. Understand the capabilities required to carry out such an attack and identify the kinds of resources and training that would underpin such a terrorist operation.
Four years after I started consulting with the U.S. military, I, along with four others, started BERG Associates. Two of my partners previously served with the Drug Enforcement Administration aka DEA – one ended his career as Chief of International Operations and the other ran store-front undercover money laundering operations in New York City. One of our first jobs was the investigation of what is commonly known as the Bank of New York Russian Money Laundering case.
We also organized the investigation and collection of evidence that was used to file a civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) case against major tobacco companies, which were laundering money for drug cartels. Two separate causes of action were filed on behalf of the plantiffs — the European Union and the Governors of Colombia.
My point in mentioning this history is to emphasize that even in complex international investigations, without access to classified material, we were able to gather massive quantities of evidence, which would have been admissible in a US criminal trial.
In doing these investigations, I learned that Disneyland has it right – It is a small world after all. The nexus between certain criminal organizations, major international corporations, financial institutions and intelligence organizations is not fantasy. It is real and involves hundreds of billions of dollars.
My experience convinces me that a properly funded investigation carried out by professionals will uncover documents, informants and eyewitnesses that can prove beyond a reasonable doubt who carried out the Nord Stream Pipeline bombing.
The nations assembled here have one advantage in an investigation that we, as private investigators did not have – you have signals intelligence and satellites. You have data stored, for example, that can provide intelligence ranging from the movement of ships to the movement of money. When you combine that data with conventional evidence you have a powerful means for identifying who ordered and executed the bombing of the Nord Stream Pipeline.
I can say this much with certainty about that operation. It was carried out with the financial and material support of at least one nation state. There are written records, almost certainly highly classified and stored with very limited access. But there may be available evidence outside such classified records that can illuminate the act significantly, if not solve the mystery.
My message to you today is simple – follow the money. Also ask, cui bono, who benefits. I believe the refusal to conduct a thorough investigation of this matter casts a cloud over the Security Council.
In closing, I reiterate President Truman’s vision enunciated 74 years ago – You have it in your power to provide a way for negotiation and the settlement of disputes among nations by peaceful means. But such negotiations must proceed from a solid, supportable understanding of who performed the act, and I believe you can reach that conclusion with a proper investigation that only you, the members of the Security Council, have the power to perform.