by Flemming Funch
President Bush first named Henry Kissinger to lead an independent commission to examine 9/11, but he shortly had to excuse himself because of conflict of interest. Now, in December Bush named Thomas Kean, former Republican governor of New Jersey, to be the chairman of that commission. But it seems to be very hard to find people who aren't in bed with the enemy already. Fortune reveals a few things about Mr.Kean:Kean is a director of petroleum giant Amerada Hess, which in 1998 formed a joint venture--known as Delta Hess--with Delta Oil, a Saudi Arabian company, to develop oil fields in Azerbaijan.
One of Delta's backers is Khalid bin Mahfouz, a shadowy Saudi patriarch married to one of Osama bin Laden's sisters. Mahfouz, who is suspected of funding charities linked to al Qaeda, is even named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by families of Sept. 11 victims.
True, Hess is hardly the only company to cross paths with Mahfouz: He has shown up in dealings with, among others, ultra-secretive investment firm Carlyle Group and BCCI, the lender toppled by fraud in 1992. It's all in the family, it seems.
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