According to a report by the Daily News, security issues and making sure that all of the victims’ families will be able to participate in the 10th anniversary of 9/11, contributed to first responders not being invited to the ceremony.

Phil, a construction worker at Ground Zero, says the city needs to figure out a way to have first responders at this anniversary.

“I think that they should be allowed to go because too many of their brothers and sisters lost their lives and they should be the first ones that are included,” he said. “They should make it happen. I’m sure there are going to be a lot of people here who shouldn’t be here.”

First responders will be given a separate ceremony at a later date.

Both President Barack Obama and former president George W. Bush will be at this year’s ceremony as well as former mayor Rudy Giuliani and other dignitaries, meaning extra security will be on hand.

In addition, only a limited number of lawmakers from the Tri-state area will be allowed to attend.

On Friday, House Speaker Rep. John Boehner said the government would be paying for representatives from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to attend the ceremony.

An estimated 91,000 police, firefighters and other first responders helped with the search and rescue efforts in the wake of the September 11th attacks.

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But meanwhile, links between the group behind the controversial mosque, the CIA and U.S. military establishment have gone unacknowledged.

For instance, one of the earliest backers of the nonprofit group, the Cordoba Initiative, that is spearheading the Ground Zero mosque, is a 52-year-old Scarsdale, New York, native named R. Leslie Deak. In addition to serving on the group’s board of advisors since its founding in 2004 by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, Deak was its principal funder, donating $98,000 to the nonprofit between 2006 and 2008. This figure appears to represent organization’s total operating budget–though, oddly, the group reported receipts of just a third of that total during the same time period.

Deak describes himself^[3] as a “Practicing Muslim with background in Christianity and Judaism, [with] in-depth personal and business experiences in the Middle East, living and working six months per year in Egypt.” Born into a Christian home, Deak became an Orthodox Jew and married a Jewish woman before converting to Islam when he married his current wife, Moshira Soliman, with whom he now lives in Rye.

Leslie Deak’s resume^[4] also notes his role as “business consultant” for Patriot Defense Group, LLC, a private defense contractor with offices in Winter Park, Florida, and in Tucson. The only names listed on the firm’s website are those of its three “strategic advisers.” These include retired four-star General Bryan “Doug” Brown^[5], commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command until 2007, where he headed “all special operations forces, both active duty and reserve, leading the Global War On Terrorism,” and James Pavitt^[6], former deputy director for operations at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he “managed the CIA’s globally deployed personnel and nearly half of its multi-billion dollar budget” and “served as head of America’s Clandestine Service, the CIA’s operational response to the attacks of September 11, 2001.”

Besides Pavitt, Brown and a third advisor, banker Alexander Cappello, the Patriot Defense Group is so secretive it doesn’t even name its management team^[7], instead describing its anonymous CEO as a former Special Forces and State Department veteran, the group’s managing director as a former CIA officer experienced in counter-terrorism in hostile environments and the group’s corporate intelligence head as a “23-year veteran of the U.S. Secret Service who worked on the personal security details of former Presidents Bush and Clinton.”

Patriot Defense Group’s primary business involves leveraging its government connections and know-how. The firm is divided into two divisions: one that “focuses exclusively on the needs of the U.S. military and law enforcement communities as well as the requirements of friendly foreign governments,” and a corporate division, which “provides business intelligence and specialized security services to corporate clients and high net-worth family enterprises.”

So, to recap: From 2006 to 2008, R. Leslie Deak worked as a “business consultant” to this super-secretive security contractor with ties to the CIA and counterterrorism forces, and in those same three years he also donated nearly $100,000 in seed money to the foundation now advocating the construction of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque.

Interestingly, during the same three-year period during which the Deak Family Foundation was financing the Cordoba Initiative, Deak also donated a total of $101,247 to something called the National Defense University Foundation. The National Defense University is a network of war and strategy colleges and research centers (including the National War College) funded by the Pentagon, designed to train specialists in military strategy. The organization recently announced a November 5 dinner gala^[8] in honor of Defense Secretary and former CIA chief Robert Gates. Sponsors include Northrup Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and…the Patriot Defense Group.

Deak also sits on the NDUF’s board of directors, the chairman of which is Mark Treanor, the former general counsel for Wachovia bank from 1998 through its collapse in 2008 and a major bundler of campaign donations for the McCain-Palin ticket in 2008. Wachovia, now owned by Wells Fargo, was recently fined $160 million for laundering “at least $110 million” in Mexican drug money^[9] between 2003 and 2008, while Treanor was Wachovia’s general counsel, though the figure is likely higher since Wachovia admitted it didn’t put any controls on at least $420 billion–that’s billion–in cash moved through its network of Mexico currency exchanges.

Which leads to another odd coincidence: Laundering money for drug lords is what brought down Deak & Co., the company run by Leslie Deak’s father, Nicholas Deak, years ago. The elder Deak, a former top intelligence commander during World War II for the OSS (the forerunner of the CIA), was the founder of Deak-Perera, which became for a time one of the world’s biggest foreign currency and gold dealers. But in 1984, a Presidential Commission on Organized Crime accused the firm of acting as a money laundering operation for Columbia drug cartels, who reportedly brought sacks of cash containing tens of millions of dollars into Deak’s Manhattan offices. By the end of 1984, Deak & Co. had declared bankruptcy, and a year later, Nicholas Deak was murdered^[10] in the company’s headquarters at 29 Broadway by a deranged homeless woman.

After the firm went bankrupt and Leslie Deak was left on his own, the corporation was broken up and sold off in pieces. One company that traces its beginnings^[11] to the defunct Deak empire is Goldline International, a business concern well known to fans of Glenn Beck as well as California investigators. Goldline is to Glenn Beck what General Electric was to Ronald Reagan: The company sponsors Beck’s TV and radio shows as well as his touring act, and Beck is its public face. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, along with the Santa Monica City Attorney’s office, are currently investigating Goldline for defrauding customers by railroading gullible customers into buying their most debased products.

Speaking of Glenn Beck, it has been reported that Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the second-largest shareholder in News Corp., the parent company Fox News, which airs Beck’s program, is also a major funder of Imam Rauf’s projects, as Jon Stewart viewers heard all about last week.^[12]

Coincidences happen, of course. (For instance, Pamela Geller, the blogger who’s become the leading voice denouncing the mosque project was once, bizarrely enough, associate publisher of The New York Observer.)

But add to this array of unexpected connections the work of Imam Rauf on behalf of the U.S. governmentówhich includes serving as an FBI “consultant”^[13] and being recruited^[14] as a spokesperson by longtime George W. Bush confidante Karen Hughes, who headed up the administration’s propaganda efforts^[15] in the Muslim worldóand a compelling picture begins to emerge. Bush’s favorite Imam, with backing from a funder with connections to the CIA, the Pentagon and the currency trading company that now sponsors rightwing firebrand Glenn Beck, proposes to build a mosque around the corner from the site of the most devastating terrorist attack ever visited on America. In the name of “[cultivating] understanding among all religions and cultures,”^[16] he puts forth a project that offends a majority of Americans and deals a significant setback to the broader acceptance of Muslim-Americans. It’s a little like Billy “White Shoes” Johnson claiming the only reason he moonwalks after scoring a touchdown is to lower tensions on the football field and raise the other team’s spirits.

Whether the Cordoba Initiative ever gets its way with the Ground Zero Mosque, it may well have a lasting legacy at odds with its stated intention: By damaging the very moderates and progressives who actually view New York, and the nation as a whole, as a tolerant melting pot, and strengthening the position demagogues on both sides, it will almost certainly deal a setback to interfaith relations. It will also help to hobble the Democratic party. Which just might have been the point all along.

Either that, or it’s merely a coincidence that this controversy has erupted now, during crucial mid-term elections. In which case we can all go back to what we were doing beforeóeither denouncing the Park51 Mosque as an affront to Americans, or championing it as a symbol of our fundamental rights-playing our accustomed roles in a drama that seems too perfect, somehow, to believe.

[1] ‘Hamas’ mosque funder — http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/hamas_mosque_funder_20SK5PAdX8QluWLGYG6BKK
Cache: http://www.webcitation.org/5seaRRDTS
[2] The Ground Zero Mosque Developer: Muslim Brotherhood Roots, Radical Dreams — http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-ground-zero-mosque-developer-muslim-brotherhood-roots-radical-dreams/?singlepage=true
Cache: http://www.webcitation.org/5seZcEkdI
[3] Robert Leslie Deak, Professional Profile — http://www.google.com/profiles/robert.leslie.deak
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[4] R. Leslie Deakís Summary — http://www.linkedin.com/pub/r-leslie-deak/17/6a9/b12
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[5] General Doug Brown, (US Army, Ret.) Patriot Defense Group profile — http://www.patriotdefensegroup.com/brown.php
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[6] James L. Pavitt Patriot Defense Group profile — http://www.patriotdefensegroup.com/pavitt.php
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[7] Patriot Defense Group, Management Team — http://www.patriotdefensegroup.com/management.php
Cache: http://www.webcitation.org/5seZcEkdu
[8] National Defense University Foundation’s AMERICAN PATRIOT AWARD GALA Honoring Robert M. Gates — http://www.ndufoundation.org/Page.aspx?pid=355
Cache: http://www.webcitation.org/5seZcEke1
[9] Wachovia to Pay $160 Million to End Money Laundering Probe — http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-18/wachovia-to-pay-160-million-to-end-money-laundering-probe.html
Cache: http://www.webcitation.org/5seZcEke9
[10] Fatal Delusions: A shooting on Wall Street — http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1074802,00.html
Cache: http://www.webcitation.org/5seaFZF0g
[11] Goldline International Company History — http://www.goldline.com/aboutgoldline-companyhistory
Cache: http://www.webcitation.org/5seZcEkeG
[12] Fox News shareholder funded ëGround Zero mosqueí imam: report — http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/08/fox-shareholder-funded-mosque-imam/
Cache: http://www.webcitation.org/5seZcEkeO
[13] ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ Imam Helped FBI With Counterterrorism Efforts — http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20100817/cm_huffpost/685071
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[14] Karen Hughes Opposes Cordoba House, Neglects To Mention Her Relationship With Its Imam — http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/karen-hughes-neglects-to-mention-her-relationship-with-cordoba-house-imam.php
Cache: http://www.webcitation.org/5seZcEkef
[15] ‘Ground Zero’ Imam Starts US-Paid Middle East Tour — http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/ground-zero-mosque-imam-feisal-abdul-rauf-starts-us-paid-middle-east-tour/19601656
Cache: http://www.webcitation.org/5seZcEken
[16] Building on Faith, by Feisal Abdul Rauf — http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/opinion/08mosque.html
Cache: http://www.webcitation.org/5seb81pSC

Thanks to Michiel de Boer for the footnotes and cached links.

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Here are some words from those most affected.

The Telegraph:

“This is like a metastasized anti-Semitism,” said Daisy Khan, wife of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. “That’s what we feel right now. It’s not even Islamophobia, it’s beyond Islamophobia – it’s hate of Muslims. And we are deeply concerned.”

Philadelphia Inquirer:

“It’s a sin what [the fearmongers] are doing, making this about politics at the families’ expense,” said Robert McIlvaine, who lost his son when the planes hit the World Trade Center. “It’s producing hate, and it’s the last thing this country needs right now. People who have absolutely no connection to 9/11 are using it for their own political agendas. Fear and hatred help those agendas.”

Talking Points Memo:

“There is no simple, singular 9/11 group who really should or could speak for all 9/11 family members,” said Donna Marsh O’Connor of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a coalition of more than 250 families which recently endorsed the mosque. Since the endorsement, the membership numbers have grown, she said.

O’Connor said it’s unfair for groups like Debra Burlingame’s 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America to act as if they are representing everyone who lost loved ones in the attacks. O’Connor’s 29-year-old daughter Vanessa, pregnant at the time, was killed working on the 93rd floor of one of the twin towers.

The Star-Ledger:

Lorie Van Auken of East Brunswick, widowed by the attacks on the World Trade Center, says she feels chilled by efforts to prevent a Sufi Muslim community to expand their facilities in an old warehouse two blocks from Ground Zero. “It’s only because of religious tolerance in this country that my family is here,” says Van Auken, one of the so-called “Jersey Widows” who led the fight to create the 9/11 Commission. “They escaped intolerance in Europe — now we see it here.”

Mindy Kleinberg, of East Brunswick, another “Jersey widow,” says she was stunned by the force of the anti-Muslim rhetoric, but says she has other fights. “We still don’t have all the truth of what happened that day. We still have Guantanamo. This should not be the most important issue.”

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Located beneath a maze of construction at Ground Zero, the National September 11 Memorial Museum is taking shape and has made significant progress. Members of the media took a tour of the cavernous, 120,000-square-foot museum site on Tuesday.

The museum opening is slated for Sept. 11, 2012. Museum officials expect it to become one of the city’s most popular tourist destinations, drawing as many as seven million visitors a year.

The museum will be located beneath an eight-acre memorial plaza, which will open next Sept 11. The entire project will cost about $610 million.

. . .

“Every artifact is evidence of the destruction,” Ms. Greenwald said.

. . .

She also said that the contents of the museum could change over the years.

“We have to be somewhat nimble to remain relevant,” Ms. Greenwald said. “The museum will evolve—9/11 isn’t over.”

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