Why Are We In Iraq?

Evelyn Pringle November 2004

Bush Family $$$ Signs

After Dick Cheney's tenure at the Pentagon ended in 1993, he spent much of the next two years deciding whether to run for President. He formed a political-action committee, and crossed the country making speeches and raising money. (Contact Sport, The New Yorker, 2/16/04).

Records from the FEC show that Cheney's PAC contributors included executives of the companies that have since won the largest contracts in Iraq. Among them were Thomas Cruikshank, Halliburton's CEO at the time; Stephen Bechtel, whose family's firm now has a contract in Iraq worth as much as $2.8 billion; and Duane Andrews, then senior VP of Science Applications International Corporation, which has won seven contracts in Iraq.

However, while Cheney and his pals may well be the most blatant profiteers in Iraq, they are by no means the only ones involved in this grand war profiteering scheme commonly referred to as the "War on Terror." The #1 spot on the list belongs to the First Family.

War Is Family Business

Here's where the web of deceit really gets complicated. There are so many ties between the Bush family, the defense industry, and the global arms trade, that it’s almost impossible to keep track of them all. But yet the widespread ties are hardly ever even mentioned in the mainstream media. Or a revelation might show up for a day or two and then it's like oh well, what's new.

Lets Start At The Top - The First President Bush

When Jr. took office, Bush (Sr.) was a member of the Carlyle Group. The firm is almost entirely made up of ex-government officials and it is said to be the world's most politically connected private equity firm.

The complaints about the Bush family connections with the Carlyle Group began long before 9/11. As early as March 3, 2001, shortly after Bush Jr.’s inauguration, Judicial Watch issued a press release that said:

"Judicial Watch, the public interest law firm that investigates and prosecutes government abuse and corruption, called on former President George Herbert Walker Bush to resign immediately from the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm, while his son President George W. Bush is in office. Today's New York Times reported that the elder Bush is an "ambassador" for the $12 billion private investment firm and last year traveled to the Middle East on its behalf. The former president also helped the firm in South Korea.

The New York Times reported that as compensation, the elder Bush is allowed to buy a stake in the Carlyle Group's investments, which include ownership in at least 164 companies throughout the world (thereby by giving the current president an indirect benefit). James Baker, the former Secretary of State who served as President George W. Bush's point man in Florida's election dispute, is a partner in the firm. The firm also gave George W. Bush help in the early 1990's when it placed him on one of its subsidiary's board of directors.

This is simply inappropriate. Former President Bush should immediately resign from the Carlyle Group because it is an obvious conflict of interest. Any foreign government or foreign investor trying to curry favor with the current Bush Administration is sure to throw business to the Carlyle Group. And with the former President Bush promoting the firm's investments abroad, foreign nationals could understandably confuse the Carlyle Group's interests with the interests of the United States government," stated Larry Klayman, Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel.

"Questions are now bound to be raised if the recent Bush Administration change in policy towards Iraq has the fingerprints of the Carlyle Group, which is trying to gain investments from other Arab countries who [sic] would presumably benefit from the new policy," stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

As a rule, I'm not a major fan of Judicial Watch; however in this case their comments are almost prophetic.

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, it became known that Bush Sr. was financially linked to the bin Laden family. The September 28, 2001 Wall Street Journal reported that, "George H.W. Bush, the father of President Bush, works for the bin Laden family business in Saudi Arabia through the Carlyle Group, an international consulting firm."

When Sr. hooked up with the Carlyle Group, his special area of influence was the Middle East, and especially Saudi Arabia investors. One of the investors that he brought to Carlyle was the Bin Laden Group, a construction company owned by the family of none other than future US #1 enemy Osama bin Laden.

According to an investigation by the WSJ, Sr. convinced Osama's brother, Shafiq bin Laden, to invest $2 million of Bin Laden Group money with Carlyle.

"The senior Bush had met with the bin Laden family at least twice in the last three years -- 1998 and 2000 -- as a representative of Carlyle, seeking to expand business dealings with one of the wealthiest Saudi families which, some experts argue, has never fully severed its ties with black sheep Osama in spite of current reports in a mainstream press that is afraid of offending the current administration," the Journal reported.

I'm no expert, but I even knew that 6 months prior to 9/11, Osama appeared in a video taken at his son's wedding, along with his mother, his son, and his son's new wife. I guess the family must have got into a tiff after the wedding.

The WSJ went on to outline the details of the family's investment. The bin Laden firm invested $2 million in Carlyle Partners II Fund, which raised a total of $1.3 billion overall. The fund purchased several aerospace companies among 29 deals. "So far, the family has received $1.3 million back in completed investments and should ultimately realize a 40% annualized rate of return," a Carlyle executive told the WSJ.

On September 27, the WSJ said it confirmed that a meeting took place between Sr. and the bin Laden family through Sr's Chief of Staff Jean Becker, but only after the WSJ showed Becker a personal thank you note that Bush Sr. sent to the bin Ladens after the meeting.

Here's a little known fact that may bring goose bumps to some. On 9/11, Shafiq bin Laden was at a meeting in the office of the Carlyle Group, and stood watching TV as the WTC was destroyed under the instruction of his brother.

So in a nutshell, Osama's attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, which led to a massive increase in defense spending, most likely made the Bush family a great deal of money. And the real kicker is that the attack may have even enriched his own family.

How Does Carlyle Make Its Money?

It's been estimated that Carlyle has investments in over 300 companies, and the majority of them derive revenues from military and security contracts. In fact, Carlyle is the country’s 11th largest defense contractor. In 2002, it received $677 million in government contracts, and in 2003, it was awarded contracts worth another $2.1 billion.

Business has definitely improved for the firm since Jr. took office. For example, one of its subsidiaries, Vought Aircraft, now holds over $1 billion in defense contracts. Prior to 2001, the company's future was iffy at best. Right before 9/11, it had actually laid off 20% of its workforce. But low and behold, business picked right back up with the air strikes on Afghanistan and the war in Iraq.

Carlyle's ties go directly into the Oval Office. In fact, a list of past employees has Jr.'s name on it. He was actually employed by Carlyle at on point in his life. According to a story in Harper's Magazine, Jr. held a position as a corporate director on the board of the Carlyle subsidiary, Caterair. Until he was politely told to hit the road because he didn't have anything to offer the company.

In addition, in March 1995, while Jr. was governor of Texas governor and a senior Trustee of the University of Texas, the University of Texas Endowment placed $10 million in investments with the Carlyle Group. Who knows how much of that investment money benefited the bin Ladens.

Side-Kick James Baker

Sr.'s top sidekick, James Baker, is also a player with the Carlyle Group. He joined the firm immediately after his stint as Sr.'s Secretary of State ended, bringing a briefcase packed full of global connections to the firm. Carlyle's revenues tripled after Baker came on board

Much like Bush Sr., Baker's main duty was to manage the firm's relationships with Saudi clients. He not only handled investment deals, it was also his job to look after the key interests of Saudi investors. For instance, when the Justice Department began an investigation into the financial dealings of Saudi Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, guess who the prince turned to for help? You got it, Baker.

And get this, Baker is currently defending the prince in a trillion dollar lawsuit brought by the families of the victims of the 9/11. The suit accuses the prince of using Islamic charities to funnel millions of dollars to known terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda.

Carlyle is also cashing in on the Homeland Security front and the enactment of the Patriot Act. Two Carlyle companies, Federal Data Systems and US Investigations Services, hold multi-billion dollar contracts to provide background checks for airlines, the Pentagon, the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security. USIS used to be a federal agency, until it was privatized in 1996 and snatched up by Carlyle. Needless to say, it's now making money hand over fist.

Baker and Carlyle Hard At It

Baker and Carlyle have been hard at it behind the scenes, profiting in ways so blatant that a secret deal revealed by The Nation magazine (and since reported in most major newspapers) gives a whole new meaning to the term war profiteering.

As most people know, Bush Jr. appointed Baker to be his special envoy on Iraq's debt. His mission was to meet with presidents and prime ministers around the world and ask them to forgive Iraq's debt in the name of the reparation needs of the country.

When Baker was appointed, questions about conflict of interest were raised because of his ties to the Carlyle Group, which has extensive business interests in the Middle East. His law firm, Baker Botts, was also brought up because both firms have strong links to the Saudi Royal Family, which happens to hold a great deal of Iraq's debt.

In fact, the New York Times published an editorial upon the announcement of Baker being appointed special envoy that called for Baker to resign from both Carlyle because he was a partner, and Baker Botts.

In response to the editorial, Jr. said he doesn't read editorials, but assured the world that Baker was a man of high integrity. Carlyle submitted a signed statement that said: "Carlyle does not engage in lobbying or consulting," and "Carlyle does not have any investment in Iraqi public or private debt."

Well that was then and this now. According to confidential documents obtained by The Nation, including a 65-page proposal to the Kuwaiti government, Carlyle has sought to secure a $1 billion investment from Kuwait using Baker's influence as debt envoy. The secret deal involved a plan to transfer ownership of up to $57 billion in unpaid Iraqi debts owed to Kuwait. The debts would be assigned to a foundation created by a consortium in which the key players are the Carlyle Group and the Albright Group, headed by former secretary of state Madeline Albright, along with several other well-connected firms.

So it boils down to this, the Carlyle Group was engaged in lobbying to secure Iraq's debt at the same time that Baker was asking the world to forgive those debts. Under the deal, Kuwait would give the consortium $2 billion up front to invest in a private equity fund, with half of it going to Carlyle.

The Nation showed the documents to Jerome Levinson, an international lawyer and expert on political and corporate corruption at American University. He called it "one of the greatest cons of all time. The consortium is saying to the Kuwaiti government, 'Through us, you have the only chance to realize a substantial part of the debt. Why? Because of who we are and who we know.' It's influence peddling of the crassest kind."

Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University and a leading expert on government ethics and regulations, told The Nation that this means Baker is in a "classic conflict of interest. Baker is on two sides of this transaction: He is supposed to be representing the interests of the United States, but he is also a senior counselor at Carlyle, and Carlyle wants to get paid to help Kuwait recover its debts from Iraq," she said. "Carlyle and the other companies are exploiting Baker's current position to try to land a deal with Kuwait that would undermine the interests of the US government."

Just listen how they described The Carlyle Group, "a private equity team, has earned its reputation by successfully consummating deals at the intersection of politics and finance, with its roster of political stars, including, among others, former US Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, former British Prime Minister John Major, and until recently, former US President George Bush."

I like that "stars." Is that kind of like Hollywood stars except they are from Washington?

The document goes on to state: "The extent to which these individuals can plan an instrumental rule in fashioning strategies is now more limited ... due to the recent appointment of Secretary Baker as the President's envoy on international debt, and the need to avoid an apparent conflict of interest."

Yet it goes on to say that this will soon change: "We believe that with Secretary Baker's retirement from his temporary position, that Carlyle and those leading individuals associated with Carlyle will then once again be free to play a more decisive role..." according to The Nation.

I wonder if this means we're going to lose our special envoy. Retirement?

The proposal goes on to tell Kuwait that in the near future, 40 state-owned Iraqi enterprises will be available for leasing and management contracts. Is that kind of like privatizing public utilities? 40 of them, huh? You mean we are going to do all that for Iraq? Does that mean that the Iraqis might have clean water, and not have raw sewage in their streets anytime soon? I suppose that would be a good thing.

Now where in the world did the Iraqis ever get the idea that we wanted to take over their country? I've never been able to figure out why they would ever think that.

For those readers wondering about how much progress Baker has made in the 10 months in his position as special envoy, I'd have to say not much. The negotiations apparently are kind of stalled.

Senator Joe Biden recently asked Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq, about the status of the international negotiations to get other countries to forgive Iraq's debts. He asked, "Has a single nation in the G8 ... formally said or requested of their parliaments to forgive Iraqi debt?"

"Not yet. No sir," Schlicher answered.

According to The Nation: "Not only has Baker failed to deliver any firm commitments for debt forgiveness; at the annual meeting of the International Fund on October 2, it emerged that France had done an end run around Washington and was pushing a debt-relief deal of its own. ... a plan to cancel only 50% of Iraq's debts -- a far cry from the 90-95 % cancellation Washington had been demanding. Yet Baker was nowhere to be found."

Congress Must Cut Off Bush Family War Profits

April 13, 2007

Evelyn Pringle

Monday, the Boston Herald reported that the US military had announced the Easter weekend deaths of 10 more American soldiers, including six killed on Sunday. The Associated Press reported that since the war began in March 2003 over 3,000 members of the US military have been killed in Iraq.

The military reported the deaths of four more US soldiers on Tuesday.

Its nearly impossible to estimate the number of deaths of civilians in Iraq, but the Herald reports that at least 47 people were killed or found dead in violence on Easter Sunday, including 17 execution victims dumped in the capital.

News releases out of Iraq also report that a woman wearing a black veil and strapped with explosives blew herself up outside a police station in Iraq on Tuesday, killing 16 people.

According to the January 14 Los Angeles Times, Steven Kosiak, director of budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, says that, starting with the anti-terrorism appropriation a week after the 9/11 attacks, he estimates the US has spent $400 billion fighting terrorism through fiscal 2006, which ended on September 30, 2006.

In January, Marine Corps spokeswoman, Lt Col Roseann Lynch, told Reuters that the war in Iraq is costing about $4.5 billion a month for military “operating costs,” which did not include new weapons or equipment.

Since this “war on terror” was declared following 9/11, the pay levels for the CEOs of the top 34 defense contractors have doubled. From 1998-2001, the average compensation rose from $3.6 million to $7.2 million from 2002-2005, according to an August 2006, report, “Executive Excess 2006,” by the Washington-based, Institute for Policy Studies, and the Boston-based United for a Fair Economy.

This study found that since 9/11, the 34 defense CEOs have pocketed a combined total of $984 million, or enough, the report says, to cover the wages for more than a million Iraqis for a year. In 2005, the average total compensation for the CEOs of large US corporations was only 6 percent above 2001 figures, while defense CEOs pay was 108 percent higher.

But the last name of one family, which is literally amassing a fortune on the backs of our dead troops, matches that of the man holding the purse strings in the White House. On December 11, 2003, the Financial Times reported that three people had told the Times that they had seen letters written by Neil Bush that recommended business ventures in the Middle East, promoted by New Bridges Strategies, a firm set up by President Bush’s former campaign manager, Joe Allbaugh, who quit his Bush appointed government job as the head of FEMA, three weeks before the war in Iraq began.

Neil Bush was paid an annual fee to “help companies secure contracts in Iraq,” the Times said.

But Neil Bush is by no means the only Bush profiting from the “war on terror.” The first President Bush is so entangled with entities that have profited greatly that it’s difficult to even know where to begin. Bush joined the Carlyle Group in 1993 and became a member of the firm’s Asian Advisory Board.

The Carlyle Group was best known for buying defense companies and doubling or tripling their value and was already heavily supported by defense contracts. But, in 2002, the firm received $677 million in government contracts, and by 2003 its contracts were worth $2.1 billion.

Prior to 9/11, some Carlyle companies were not doing so well. For instance, the future of Vought Aircraft looked dismal when the company laid off 20 percent of its employees. But business was booming shortly after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, and the company received over $1 billion in defense contracts.

The Bush family’s connections to Osama bin Laden’s family seem almost surreal. On September 28, 2001, two weeks after 9/11, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that, “George H.W. Bush, the father of President Bush, works for the bin Laden family business in Saudi Arabia through the Carlyle Group, an international consulting firm.”

As a representative of Carlyle, one of the investors that Bush brought to Carlyle was the Bin Laden Group, a construction company owned by Osama’s family. The bin Ladens have been called the Rockefellers of the Middle East, and the father, Mohammed, has reportedly amassed a $5 billion empire. According the WSJ, Bush convinced Shafiq bin Laden to invest $2 million with Carlyle.

The WSJ found that Bush had met with the bin Ladens at least twice between 1998 and 2000. On September 27, 2001, the WSJ reported that it had confirmed that a meeting took place between Bush Senior and the bin Laden family through Senior’s chief of staff, Jean Becker, but only after the reporter showed her a thank you note that was written and sent by Bush to the bin Ladens after the meeting.

The current president’s little publicized affiliation with the bin Laden family goes back to his days with Arbusto Energy, when Salem bin Laden funneled money through James Bath to bail out that particular failed company.

Probably the most eerie report about this strange group of bedfellows is that on 9/11, the day that served as a kick-off for the highly profitable “war on terror,” Shafiq bin Laden attended a meeting in the office of the Carlyle Group, and stood watching TV with other members of the firm as the World Trade Center collapsed.

The fact that so many Saudis, including many bin Ladens, were allowed to fly out of the country right after 9/11, while Americans were still grounded, has always seemed a bit strange to most people, especially when nobody in the Bush administration was able to explain who gave permission for the flights.

About a month after 9/11, in October 2001, the Carlyle Group severed its ties with the Bin Laden Group, but the Bush family did not. In January 2002, Neil Bush took a trip to Saudi Arabia that was sponsored by the Bin Laden Construction Company and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the same prince who offered New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani $10 million to help the 9/11 victims, a gesture that Rudy refused.

In the fall of 2003, Bush Senior finally resigned from the Carlyle Group as the accusations of family war profiteering grew louder. However, according to the Washington Post, he still retained stock in the firm and gave speeches on its behalf for a fee of $500,000.

Carlyle companies have also scored big in the Homeland Security bonanza. Federal Data Systems and US Investigations Services hold multi-billion- dollar contracts to provide background checks for airlines, the Pentagon, the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security. US Investigations used to be a federal agency, until it was privatized in 1996 and taken over by Carlyle.

Marvin and Jeb Bush are also highly successful members of the family war profiteering team. Marvin is a co-founder and partner in Winston Partners, a private investment firm, and Jeb is an investor in the Winston Capital Fund, which is managed by Marvin.

Winston Partners is part of the Chatterjee Group, which owned 5.5 million shares in a company called Sybase in 2001, a firm that had contracts worth $2.9 million with the Navy, $1.8 million with the Army and $5.3 million with the Department of Defense. The federal procurement database listed the total of the firm’s contracts that year as $14,754,000.

And, Sybase was not the only company delivering war profits to Marvin and Jeb. The portfolio of Winston Partners also included the Amsec Corp, which, in 2001, was awarded $37,722,000 in Navy contracts.

Marvin’s business partner, Scott Andrews, sat on the board of directors at AMSEC, and the company’s CEO was Michael Braham, who formerly worked for L. Paul Bremer, the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, which was responsible for handing out contracts in Iraq.

This is the same L. Paul Bremer who used Iraqi money from the Development Fund for Iraq to award five no-bid contracts to Dick Cheney’s cash cow, Halliburton -- contracts worth $222 million, $325 million, $180 million, and $194 million combined for the last two, according to a July 28, 2004, report by the CPA Inspector General Stuart Bowen, entitled “Comptroller Cash Management Controls over the Development Fund for Iraq.”

As it turns out, Halliburton received 60 percent of all contracts paid for with Iraqi money. In a January 2005 report, Inspector Bowen concluded that occupation authorities accounted poorly for $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds, and said, “The CPA did not implement adequate financial controls.”

The president’s uncle, William (Bucky) Bush, is the most visible war profiteer on the team. He sat on the board of a major military contractor, Engineered Support Systems. Six months before the war in Iraq began, on September 16, 2002, CNN/Money Magazine called ESS one of “seven defense stocks that fund managers like,” and one fund manager said ESS was one of two companies that “would gain the most from a war from Iraq.”

As a director, Uncle William received a monthly fee and held stock options. In January 2003, before the Iraq war began, he owned 33,750 shares of stock, but a year later, in January 2004, he owned 56,251.

The fact that Uncle William had an inside line to the White House can hardly be disputed. On March 25, 2003, Bush asked Congress for funding, “to cover military operations, relief and reconstruction activities in Iraq, and ongoing operations in the global war on terrorism,” and the very next day, ESS announced a large order from the Army for its Chemical Biological Protected Shelter systems.

Uncle William has become a very rich man since his nephew took office. In January 2005, SEC filings show that he made about $450,000 by selling ESS stock. But he did even better the next year.

According to the Excess Report, through a series of defense contracts, ESS earnings reached record levels and set the stage for the sale of the firm to another defense contractor, DRS Technologies, in January 2006, and among the beneficiaries of the deal was Uncle William, who cleared $2.7 million in cash and stock from the sale.

It's time for Congress to stop the direct deposits of tax dollars into the Bush bank accounts. Lawmakers need to notify the White House that all funding for Iraq is done, other than what is needed for the immediate removal of our troops from this disgusting war profiteering scheme.