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."
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
No Bush Left Behind Act - Uncle Bucky Bush
Evelyn Pringle January 26, 2005
Wherever there’s a buck to be made by scamming tax payers, a member of the Bush family is sure be close at hand. Many Bush relatives are benefiting financially from the war in Iraq, and according to regulatory filings, Uncle William (Bucky) Bush has not been left behind.
In 2000, while nephew George W Bush was running for president, Bucky fell into good fortune and joined the board of directors of Engineered Support Systems (ESS), which just happened to be a major military contractor.
Uncle Bucky is also a Bush "Pioneer" in good standing, which means he raised over $100,000 for Jr's campaigns in the year 2000 and 2004 elections, according to Margie Burns on Information ClearingHouse (2/22/04).
Bucky came on board at ESS at exactly the right time. Since the 2000 election and September 11, 2001, ESS's revenues have greatly increased and its stock prices have soared, according an article by Burns, in the Jan 13, 2003 Prince William George's Journal.
As luck would have it, as a director of the company, Bucky not only receives a monthly consulting fee, he also holds stock options. And he has exercised those options. In January 2003, prior to the Iraq war, Bucky only owned 33,750 shares of stock, but as of January 2004, he owned 56, 251 shares, according to ICH. Not a bad haul for one year.
By 2003, ESS held contracts with every branch of the military. In fact, according George's Journal, the company did so well that it made it onto the Department of Defense's list of the top 100 contractors. In 2001, it held $330 million in government contracts. And it just kept getting better and better. In 2002 ESS held $380 million in contracts, and in 2003 it was awarded close to $400 million.
In another stroke of luck (the Bush's are the luckiest family to ever hit Washington), ESS just happened to manufacture Field Deployable Environmental Control Units (Says Russ Mitchell, in Smart Money), and on January 17, 2003, the company announced that it had a large order for these units, complete with Nuclear Biological Chemical Kits, to be used in the hunt for (as we know now) the non-existent WMDs.
On January 28, 2003, Jr gave his State of the Union address, including his now famous bogus allegation that Saddam was actively seeking nuclear weapon materials from Africa. In hindsight, maybe that was an advertisement for Bucky's products.
Come to think about it, how many tax dollars did we waste on that wild goose chase?
On March 25, 2003, Bush asked Congress for supplemental funding "to cover military operations, relief and reconstruction activities in Iraq, and ongoing operations in the global war on terrorism."
And low and behold in another coincidence, the very next day ESS announced that it had received a very large order of its Chemical Biological Protected Shelter systems from the Army.
And the good luck didn't end there. ICH says that on May 1, 2003, ESS announced that it had acquired the subsidiary, TAMSCO, coincidentally again I'm sure, on the exact same day that Jr made his TV flight-suit appearance on the aircraft carrier and declared "mission accomplished."
The very next week, TAMSCO revealed that it had begun technology support for US Army logistics operations in the Middle East, noted Burns.
I'll tell you right now, if I was as lucky as Bucky I'd spend every day at a bingo hall.
More than ever, it looks like Bush planned to invade Iraq before he won the White House, and one thing is indisputable, the war is filling the family coffers and will continue to do so for many years to come.
The documented track record of ESS and Uncle Bucky is only a symbol of the larger pattern in which Bush family members and close associates are sharing the financial benefits generated by Jr's grand war profiteering scheme.
What I find amazing, is that after droning on endlessly about Whitewater (a failed land deal involving $150,000), for 8 years during the Clinton years, now that Jr and his gang are ripping tax payers off for $100s of billions at a crack, the average person doesn't even realize it because the media isn't doing it's job of educating Americans about what is going on in our government.
I think the citizens deserve know which politicians in the Republican controlled Congress participated in passing the "Leave No Bush Behind Act of 2001," by turning a blind eye and playing deaf and dumb for the last 4 years.
Wherever there’s a buck to be made by scamming tax payers, a member of the Bush family is sure be close at hand. Many Bush relatives are benefiting financially from the war in Iraq, and according to regulatory filings, Uncle William (Bucky) Bush has not been left behind.
In 2000, while nephew George W Bush was running for president, Bucky fell into good fortune and joined the board of directors of Engineered Support Systems (ESS), which just happened to be a major military contractor.
Uncle Bucky is also a Bush "Pioneer" in good standing, which means he raised over $100,000 for Jr's campaigns in the year 2000 and 2004 elections, according to Margie Burns on Information ClearingHouse (2/22/04).
Bucky came on board at ESS at exactly the right time. Since the 2000 election and September 11, 2001, ESS's revenues have greatly increased and its stock prices have soared, according an article by Burns, in the Jan 13, 2003 Prince William George's Journal.
As luck would have it, as a director of the company, Bucky not only receives a monthly consulting fee, he also holds stock options. And he has exercised those options. In January 2003, prior to the Iraq war, Bucky only owned 33,750 shares of stock, but as of January 2004, he owned 56, 251 shares, according to ICH. Not a bad haul for one year.
By 2003, ESS held contracts with every branch of the military. In fact, according George's Journal, the company did so well that it made it onto the Department of Defense's list of the top 100 contractors. In 2001, it held $330 million in government contracts. And it just kept getting better and better. In 2002 ESS held $380 million in contracts, and in 2003 it was awarded close to $400 million.
In another stroke of luck (the Bush's are the luckiest family to ever hit Washington), ESS just happened to manufacture Field Deployable Environmental Control Units (Says Russ Mitchell, in Smart Money), and on January 17, 2003, the company announced that it had a large order for these units, complete with Nuclear Biological Chemical Kits, to be used in the hunt for (as we know now) the non-existent WMDs.
On January 28, 2003, Jr gave his State of the Union address, including his now famous bogus allegation that Saddam was actively seeking nuclear weapon materials from Africa. In hindsight, maybe that was an advertisement for Bucky's products.
Come to think about it, how many tax dollars did we waste on that wild goose chase?
On March 25, 2003, Bush asked Congress for supplemental funding "to cover military operations, relief and reconstruction activities in Iraq, and ongoing operations in the global war on terrorism."
And low and behold in another coincidence, the very next day ESS announced that it had received a very large order of its Chemical Biological Protected Shelter systems from the Army.
And the good luck didn't end there. ICH says that on May 1, 2003, ESS announced that it had acquired the subsidiary, TAMSCO, coincidentally again I'm sure, on the exact same day that Jr made his TV flight-suit appearance on the aircraft carrier and declared "mission accomplished."
The very next week, TAMSCO revealed that it had begun technology support for US Army logistics operations in the Middle East, noted Burns.
I'll tell you right now, if I was as lucky as Bucky I'd spend every day at a bingo hall.
More than ever, it looks like Bush planned to invade Iraq before he won the White House, and one thing is indisputable, the war is filling the family coffers and will continue to do so for many years to come.
The documented track record of ESS and Uncle Bucky is only a symbol of the larger pattern in which Bush family members and close associates are sharing the financial benefits generated by Jr's grand war profiteering scheme.
What I find amazing, is that after droning on endlessly about Whitewater (a failed land deal involving $150,000), for 8 years during the Clinton years, now that Jr and his gang are ripping tax payers off for $100s of billions at a crack, the average person doesn't even realize it because the media isn't doing it's job of educating Americans about what is going on in our government.
I think the citizens deserve know which politicians in the Republican controlled Congress participated in passing the "Leave No Bush Behind Act of 2001," by turning a blind eye and playing deaf and dumb for the last 4 years.
Bush Crony Full-Employment Act of 2003
Evelyn Pringle January 25, 2005
Josh Marshall writes a column for The Hill, a Congressional newspaper. Josh says that every big new piece of legislation needs a catchy title to set it apart, and he came up with a good title for the $87 billion allocated for rebuilding Iraq. ''The Bush Crony Full-Employment Act of 2003.'' I like that, its very fitting.
Who is Joe Allbaugh?
Anybody remember Joe Allbaugh? He was part of the inner circle in Bush's 2000 presidential campaign, along with Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. In January 2001, when Bush took over the White House, he put Allbaugh in charge of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which dispenses disaster money and loans after hurricanes, floods and fires.
I think Joe missed his calling. He should be a fortune teller, because somehow he knew a couple of weeks before Bush declared war on Iraq, that he should quit his government job and go into the business of helping wealthy clients secure Iraqi reconstruction contracts.
Of course Joe didn't say that at the time. When he announced his resignation from FEMA on March 1, 2003 he said, "Now I am going to take the opportunity to spend some time with my wife and children." Well his family could not have enjoyed too much quality with Joe because in a matter of weeks he opened a new firm called New Bridge Strategies.
True to form, with the press seemingly unwilling to publicize the war profiteering aspects of the war in Iraq, the formation of New Bridge basically went unnoticed by the American public and only briefly showed up in the headlines.
It deserved public attention because of the Republican heavyweights on its board that were linked to one or the other Bush administrations or to the family itself. The members not only included Allbaugh, but also Ed Rogers and Lanny Griffith, former George H W Bush aids.
The president of the company is John Howland, and Jamal Daniel, (business partners of first brother Neil Bush), is a principal.
Josh Marshall says New Bridge is actually an outgrowth of Haley Barbour’s lobbying firm, Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR). Josh says he came to this conclusion after he learned that both firms were located in the same office space. And also because Griffith is the CEO of New Bridge and Rogers is the vice president. Sounds to me like he reached the right conclusion.
Others agree. "The bottom line on New Bridge is that it appears to be very closely linked to BGR, which has many overlapping ties to the highest levels of the Republican Party," said Thomas Ferguson, a campaign finance expert at the University of Massachusetts, the Oct 15, 2004 Village Voice reports.
So here's the setup. Bush’s main man Joe, quits FEMA to spend time with his family, right before the bombs start falling in Iraq. He then moves into the offices of one of the biggest and most politically connected GOP lobbying firms in Washington and starts advertising services to clients who want to win reconstruction contracts in Iraq. How could it possibly get any sweeter than this?
Allbaugh Has A Big Heart
According to the Oct 6, 2003 New York Times, Allbaugh "is here to tell you that his new company, which advises clients on how to get business in Iraq, is not trading on his White House connections. The Iraqis need assistance ... and he can help."
Although its connections to the administration may not have received much attention in the media, the company itself was not shy about advertising its contacts. Its web site as much as brags about the company's links to Bush, by specifically pointing out that Allbaugh was "chief of staff to then-Gov. Bush of Texas and was the national campaign manager for the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign."
It says New Bridge is "a unique company that was created specifically with the aim of assisting clients to evaluate and take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the U.S.-led war in Iraq." I'm surprised that the site doesn't have a blinking neon sign saying AKA war profiteering.
Initially, it said, "the opportunities evolving in Iraq today are of such an unprecedented nature and scope that no other existing firm has the necessary skills and experience to be effective both in Washington, D.C., and on the ground in Iraq." But someone must have warned Allbaugh that that particular sentence was a little over the top because that particular phrasing has since been changed on the web site.
Allbaugh himself, didn't seem to give his ties to the administration a second thought. According to a Sept 30, 2003 article in Mother Jones, he claimed, "It's beneficial to clients that I know who the players are and I know who the decision makers are." Apparently he forgot to mention that because of all these friends in high places, he has insider knowledge of how much money the government will spend and when it will become available.
Middle East specialist, Richard Murphy, claims Iraqis will view the situation differently, and was quick to point out that the Bush ties to New Bridge would only validate what was already suspected. "In the Middle East, it will be received as confirming the weary cynicism prevailing in the area about US intentions in launching the attack on Iraq in the first place," said Murphy.
Allbaugh denied having any improper motives. "The stories I've seen have been couched as if people are trying to game the system, and that's not what we're about," he said. "We are trying to help Iraq become a capitalist country, and a leader throughout the Middle East. Iraqis themselves are asking for help," wrote the New York Times.
That's funny, I thought the Iraqis said they wanted us to get the hell out of their country and leave them alone. I wonder why I never knew that they had asked Joe to help.
Joe seems baffled that anyone would question his assertion about wanting to help the poor Iraqis. "We fought a war, we displaced a horrible, horrible regime, and as a part of that we have an obligation to help Iraqis," he said. "We can't just leave in the middle of the night."
He gets downright defensive if you question his business practices. On Oct 6, 2003, he told a New York Times reporter, "Because my friend is president of the United States, I'm supposed to check out of life?"
To that I would say no, of course you don't have to check out of life Joe. But you also don't quit your government job before the president even admits he's taking the country to war, set up shop and start advertising to get contracts for work in a country that you somehow know we're about to destroy.
Another Funnel - Diligence Security Company
It's clear that BGR was instrumental in bringing other companies into New Bridge's fold, including Diligence, a security firm set up by former US and British intelligence officers.
On Oct 6, 2003, Allbaugh told the NYTs, that "As part of his package for clients ... he offered security in the form of yet another new company, Diligence Iraq, which worked hand-in-hand with New Bridge. New Bridge is a minority partner in Diligence Iraq, which is just opening up in Baghdad. Mike Baker, the head of Diligence Iraq, serves as an advisory board member of New Bridge."
In other words, explained the Times, "if your company wants to send over three people from New York to investigate business opportunities in Baghdad, Mr. Baker will secure the way in: a three-car convoy of armed S.U.V.'s driving 90 miles an hour, to avoid bandits, in an eight-hour-plus streak across the desert from the border of Jordan or Kuwait," it said.
BGR provided the initial funding for Diligence, according to Nick Day, a co-founder of the firm. Like New Bridge, it was given office space at BGR's Washington office. BGR also provided the firm's advisory board. Many of the names on the Diligence board, including the Carlyle Group's Ed Mathias, match the names on the board of New Bridge.
And with a closer look, the web of this grand war profiteering scheme just keeps getting more and more entwined. In return for finding an investor for Diligence in Iraq, New Bridge got a minority shareholding in the firm.
According to a June 22, 2004 article on Corporate Watch, Diligence, is now headed by Richard Burt, former US Ambassador to Germany and a consultant in the Carlyle Group (which also has George Bush Sr, John Major and James Baker on its payroll). Whitley Bruner, formerly head of the CIA Baghdad station, is now director of the Iraq branch of Diligence.
And guess what? The deputy chairman of Diligence is none other than Joe Allbaugh.
Objections to Cronyism and Privatization
Is it any wonder that critics are questioning the propriety of the reconstruction effort? "I'm appalled that the war is being used by people close to the Bush Administration to make money for themselves," Democratic Rep Henry Waxman said. "At a time when we're asking young men and women to make perhaps the ultimate sacrifice, it's just unseemly."
On Sept 30, 2003, while the reconstruction bill was being debated in the Senate, Sen John Edwards explained why he was against giving Bush the $87 billion. "This is an administration of the insiders, for the insiders, and by the insiders. Learning that George Bush's campaign manager, Joe Allbaugh, has started his own consulting firm to profit from the war in Iraq proves this point,” Edwards said. “First, Vice President Cheney's Halliburton receives more than $2 billion in Iraq reconstruction contracts and now this.”
Edwards said, “It is an outrage and disrespectful to the young men and women who are serving in Iraq today. President Bush should start addressing this credibility gap by calling on Joe Allbaugh and his friends to stop using their influence to secure government contracts in Iraq, and by agreeing to an independent oversight panel to ensure that contracts in Iraq are administered fairly.”
"In this enormously expensive mission, the American people ought to be assured that any dollar we spend there is for the rebuilding of Iraq, and not just the building of profit for the president's friends and political supporters," he said.
On Oct 14, 2003, Edwards said he would vote against $87 billion because Bush had failed to outline a credible long-term plan for rebuilding the country, failed to persuade allies to help shoulder the costs, and failed to stop sweetheart deals for politically-connected companies.
"We used to talk about this money as a blank check. Well, now we know it's not really a blank check. We know the president is writing it out to Joe Allbaugh and Halliburton, and it's all endorsed by Vice President Cheney," Edwards said.
Always Close By - Bush Family Funnel
True to form, if there's a tax dollar to be skimmed off a business deal a Bush family funnel will be there to grab it. This time its First Brother Neil Bush. On Dec 11, 2003, The Financial Times of London reported that, "Two businessmen instrumental in setting up New Bridge Strategies, a well-connected Washington firm designed to help clients win contracts in Iraq, have previously used an association with Neil, the younger brother of President Bush, to seek business in the Middle East."
That would be New Bridge president John Howland and Jamal Daniel, a principal. As it turns out, Neil landed a $60,000 a year consultant contract, for which according to his testimony in a divorce deposition, he is required to take phone messages for about 3 hours a week.
However, Neil is being far too modest about his consultant work. According to the Times, he is doing much more than answering phones. Three people contacted by the Financial Times said they have seen letters written by Neil that recommend business ventures promoted by New Bridges in the Middle East. So in a nutshell, Neil is being paid an annual fee to "help companies secure contracts in Iraq," the Times reports.
Bush Sends Bremer To Privatize Iraq
According to a Sept 2004 article in Harper's Magazine by Naomi Klein, "before the fires from the “shock and awe” military onslaught were even extinguished, Bremer unleashed his shock therapy, pushing through more wrenching changes in one sweltering summer than the International Monetary Fund has managed to enact over three decades in Latin America.”
In his first major act on the job, Bremer "fired 500,000 state workers, most of them soldiers, but also doctors, nurses, teachers, publishers, and printers. Next, he flung open the country’s borders to absolutely unrestricted imports: no tariffs, no duties, no inspections, no taxes. Iraq, Bremer declared was “open for business,” says Harper.
Before the war, Iraq’s non-oil-related economy consisted of 200 state-owned companies, that produced everything from cement to paper to washing machines. In June, Bremer attended an economic summit in Jordan and announced that the firms would be privatized immediately. “Getting inefficient state enterprises into private hands,” he said, “is essential for Iraq’s economic recovery," according to Harpers.
In September, to entice investors to buy the state-owned companies, Bremer enacted a new set of laws. For example, Order 37 lowered Iraq’s corporate tax rate from roughly 40% to a flat 15%. Order 39 allowed foreign companies to own 100% of Iraqi assets outside of the natural-resource sector.
Investors could take 100% of the profits they made in Iraq out of the country. They would not be required to reinvest and would not be taxed. Under Order 39, they could sign leases and contracts that would last for forty years. Order 40 welcomed foreign banks to Iraq under the same favorable terms, said Harpers.
At first, privatization seemed likely. For as Harper's notes, "Iraqis, reeling from violence both military and economic, were far too busy staying alive to mount a political response to Bremer’s campaign. Worrying about the privatization of the sewage system was an unimaginable luxury with half the population lacking access to clean drinking water; the debate over the flat tax would have to wait until the lights were back on," it said.
By fall, rebuilding trade shows were being held all over the place. The Economist described Iraq under Bremer as “a capitalist dream,” and a flurry of new consulting firms were launched promising to help companies get access to the Iraqi market, their boards of directors stacked with well-connected Republicans, Harper's said.
The most prominent was New Bridge and it was absolutely jubilant over the potential opportunities in Iraq. “Getting the rights to distribute Procter & Gamble products can be a gold mine,” one of the company’s partners enthused. “One well-stocked 7-Eleven could knock out thirty Iraqi stores; a Wal-Mart could take over the country,” Harper quoted.
Iraq seemed like a gold mine. There were rumors that a McDonald’s would be opening, funding was almost in place for a Starwood luxury hotel, and General Motors was planning to build a factory. On the financial side, HSBC would have branches all over the country, Citigroup was preparing to offer loans guaranteed against future sales of Iraqi oil, and the bell was going to ring on a New York style stock exchange in Baghdad any day, said Harpers.
However none of that came to pass. For good reason. Klein explained that Bremer's illegal changes to Iraqi law may have made the country the most friendly in the world to corporations, but they were the least useful to Iraqi workers suffering an unemployment rate over 60%.
During the past year and a half, the whole world has watched as the Iraqis refused to hand over their country to Bremer and the plan for privatization went right down the tubes.
Bush cronies who drooled at the prospect of making mega-bucks in Iraq are no longer drooling. According to Harper's, "New Bridge Strategies, the company that had gushed about how “a Wal-Mart could take over the country,” is sounding distinctly humbled. “McDonald’s is not opening anytime soon,” company partner Ed Rogers told the Washington Post. Neither is Wal-Mart."
What Happens To Iraq Now?
God only knows what will happen to Iraq now. The Financial Times has called it “the most dangerous place in the world in which to do business.” Harper's described the mess created by the Bush gang: "It’s quite an accomplishment: in trying to design the best place in the world to do business, the neocons have managed to create the worst, the most eloquent indictment yet of the guiding logic behind deregulated free markets."
But don't worry about old Joe. Things may not have went as planned in Iraq, but he's branching out and finding other ways to cash in on the war. According to the Sept 30, 2004 Fairfield County Weekly, Allbaugh started yet another consulting company with Andrew Lundquist, the former director of Dick Cheney's secretive energy policy task force. The firm's first client? Lockheed Martin, one of the country's largest defense contractors.
Never fear, if there's an opportunity for profiteering, a Bush funnel will be there.
Josh Marshall writes a column for The Hill, a Congressional newspaper. Josh says that every big new piece of legislation needs a catchy title to set it apart, and he came up with a good title for the $87 billion allocated for rebuilding Iraq. ''The Bush Crony Full-Employment Act of 2003.'' I like that, its very fitting.
Who is Joe Allbaugh?
Anybody remember Joe Allbaugh? He was part of the inner circle in Bush's 2000 presidential campaign, along with Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. In January 2001, when Bush took over the White House, he put Allbaugh in charge of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which dispenses disaster money and loans after hurricanes, floods and fires.
I think Joe missed his calling. He should be a fortune teller, because somehow he knew a couple of weeks before Bush declared war on Iraq, that he should quit his government job and go into the business of helping wealthy clients secure Iraqi reconstruction contracts.
Of course Joe didn't say that at the time. When he announced his resignation from FEMA on March 1, 2003 he said, "Now I am going to take the opportunity to spend some time with my wife and children." Well his family could not have enjoyed too much quality with Joe because in a matter of weeks he opened a new firm called New Bridge Strategies.
True to form, with the press seemingly unwilling to publicize the war profiteering aspects of the war in Iraq, the formation of New Bridge basically went unnoticed by the American public and only briefly showed up in the headlines.
It deserved public attention because of the Republican heavyweights on its board that were linked to one or the other Bush administrations or to the family itself. The members not only included Allbaugh, but also Ed Rogers and Lanny Griffith, former George H W Bush aids.
The president of the company is John Howland, and Jamal Daniel, (business partners of first brother Neil Bush), is a principal.
Josh Marshall says New Bridge is actually an outgrowth of Haley Barbour’s lobbying firm, Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR). Josh says he came to this conclusion after he learned that both firms were located in the same office space. And also because Griffith is the CEO of New Bridge and Rogers is the vice president. Sounds to me like he reached the right conclusion.
Others agree. "The bottom line on New Bridge is that it appears to be very closely linked to BGR, which has many overlapping ties to the highest levels of the Republican Party," said Thomas Ferguson, a campaign finance expert at the University of Massachusetts, the Oct 15, 2004 Village Voice reports.
So here's the setup. Bush’s main man Joe, quits FEMA to spend time with his family, right before the bombs start falling in Iraq. He then moves into the offices of one of the biggest and most politically connected GOP lobbying firms in Washington and starts advertising services to clients who want to win reconstruction contracts in Iraq. How could it possibly get any sweeter than this?
Allbaugh Has A Big Heart
According to the Oct 6, 2003 New York Times, Allbaugh "is here to tell you that his new company, which advises clients on how to get business in Iraq, is not trading on his White House connections. The Iraqis need assistance ... and he can help."
Although its connections to the administration may not have received much attention in the media, the company itself was not shy about advertising its contacts. Its web site as much as brags about the company's links to Bush, by specifically pointing out that Allbaugh was "chief of staff to then-Gov. Bush of Texas and was the national campaign manager for the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign."
It says New Bridge is "a unique company that was created specifically with the aim of assisting clients to evaluate and take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the U.S.-led war in Iraq." I'm surprised that the site doesn't have a blinking neon sign saying AKA war profiteering.
Initially, it said, "the opportunities evolving in Iraq today are of such an unprecedented nature and scope that no other existing firm has the necessary skills and experience to be effective both in Washington, D.C., and on the ground in Iraq." But someone must have warned Allbaugh that that particular sentence was a little over the top because that particular phrasing has since been changed on the web site.
Allbaugh himself, didn't seem to give his ties to the administration a second thought. According to a Sept 30, 2003 article in Mother Jones, he claimed, "It's beneficial to clients that I know who the players are and I know who the decision makers are." Apparently he forgot to mention that because of all these friends in high places, he has insider knowledge of how much money the government will spend and when it will become available.
Middle East specialist, Richard Murphy, claims Iraqis will view the situation differently, and was quick to point out that the Bush ties to New Bridge would only validate what was already suspected. "In the Middle East, it will be received as confirming the weary cynicism prevailing in the area about US intentions in launching the attack on Iraq in the first place," said Murphy.
Allbaugh denied having any improper motives. "The stories I've seen have been couched as if people are trying to game the system, and that's not what we're about," he said. "We are trying to help Iraq become a capitalist country, and a leader throughout the Middle East. Iraqis themselves are asking for help," wrote the New York Times.
That's funny, I thought the Iraqis said they wanted us to get the hell out of their country and leave them alone. I wonder why I never knew that they had asked Joe to help.
Joe seems baffled that anyone would question his assertion about wanting to help the poor Iraqis. "We fought a war, we displaced a horrible, horrible regime, and as a part of that we have an obligation to help Iraqis," he said. "We can't just leave in the middle of the night."
He gets downright defensive if you question his business practices. On Oct 6, 2003, he told a New York Times reporter, "Because my friend is president of the United States, I'm supposed to check out of life?"
To that I would say no, of course you don't have to check out of life Joe. But you also don't quit your government job before the president even admits he's taking the country to war, set up shop and start advertising to get contracts for work in a country that you somehow know we're about to destroy.
Another Funnel - Diligence Security Company
It's clear that BGR was instrumental in bringing other companies into New Bridge's fold, including Diligence, a security firm set up by former US and British intelligence officers.
On Oct 6, 2003, Allbaugh told the NYTs, that "As part of his package for clients ... he offered security in the form of yet another new company, Diligence Iraq, which worked hand-in-hand with New Bridge. New Bridge is a minority partner in Diligence Iraq, which is just opening up in Baghdad. Mike Baker, the head of Diligence Iraq, serves as an advisory board member of New Bridge."
In other words, explained the Times, "if your company wants to send over three people from New York to investigate business opportunities in Baghdad, Mr. Baker will secure the way in: a three-car convoy of armed S.U.V.'s driving 90 miles an hour, to avoid bandits, in an eight-hour-plus streak across the desert from the border of Jordan or Kuwait," it said.
BGR provided the initial funding for Diligence, according to Nick Day, a co-founder of the firm. Like New Bridge, it was given office space at BGR's Washington office. BGR also provided the firm's advisory board. Many of the names on the Diligence board, including the Carlyle Group's Ed Mathias, match the names on the board of New Bridge.
And with a closer look, the web of this grand war profiteering scheme just keeps getting more and more entwined. In return for finding an investor for Diligence in Iraq, New Bridge got a minority shareholding in the firm.
According to a June 22, 2004 article on Corporate Watch, Diligence, is now headed by Richard Burt, former US Ambassador to Germany and a consultant in the Carlyle Group (which also has George Bush Sr, John Major and James Baker on its payroll). Whitley Bruner, formerly head of the CIA Baghdad station, is now director of the Iraq branch of Diligence.
And guess what? The deputy chairman of Diligence is none other than Joe Allbaugh.
Objections to Cronyism and Privatization
Is it any wonder that critics are questioning the propriety of the reconstruction effort? "I'm appalled that the war is being used by people close to the Bush Administration to make money for themselves," Democratic Rep Henry Waxman said. "At a time when we're asking young men and women to make perhaps the ultimate sacrifice, it's just unseemly."
On Sept 30, 2003, while the reconstruction bill was being debated in the Senate, Sen John Edwards explained why he was against giving Bush the $87 billion. "This is an administration of the insiders, for the insiders, and by the insiders. Learning that George Bush's campaign manager, Joe Allbaugh, has started his own consulting firm to profit from the war in Iraq proves this point,” Edwards said. “First, Vice President Cheney's Halliburton receives more than $2 billion in Iraq reconstruction contracts and now this.”
Edwards said, “It is an outrage and disrespectful to the young men and women who are serving in Iraq today. President Bush should start addressing this credibility gap by calling on Joe Allbaugh and his friends to stop using their influence to secure government contracts in Iraq, and by agreeing to an independent oversight panel to ensure that contracts in Iraq are administered fairly.”
"In this enormously expensive mission, the American people ought to be assured that any dollar we spend there is for the rebuilding of Iraq, and not just the building of profit for the president's friends and political supporters," he said.
On Oct 14, 2003, Edwards said he would vote against $87 billion because Bush had failed to outline a credible long-term plan for rebuilding the country, failed to persuade allies to help shoulder the costs, and failed to stop sweetheart deals for politically-connected companies.
"We used to talk about this money as a blank check. Well, now we know it's not really a blank check. We know the president is writing it out to Joe Allbaugh and Halliburton, and it's all endorsed by Vice President Cheney," Edwards said.
Always Close By - Bush Family Funnel
True to form, if there's a tax dollar to be skimmed off a business deal a Bush family funnel will be there to grab it. This time its First Brother Neil Bush. On Dec 11, 2003, The Financial Times of London reported that, "Two businessmen instrumental in setting up New Bridge Strategies, a well-connected Washington firm designed to help clients win contracts in Iraq, have previously used an association with Neil, the younger brother of President Bush, to seek business in the Middle East."
That would be New Bridge president John Howland and Jamal Daniel, a principal. As it turns out, Neil landed a $60,000 a year consultant contract, for which according to his testimony in a divorce deposition, he is required to take phone messages for about 3 hours a week.
However, Neil is being far too modest about his consultant work. According to the Times, he is doing much more than answering phones. Three people contacted by the Financial Times said they have seen letters written by Neil that recommend business ventures promoted by New Bridges in the Middle East. So in a nutshell, Neil is being paid an annual fee to "help companies secure contracts in Iraq," the Times reports.
Bush Sends Bremer To Privatize Iraq
According to a Sept 2004 article in Harper's Magazine by Naomi Klein, "before the fires from the “shock and awe” military onslaught were even extinguished, Bremer unleashed his shock therapy, pushing through more wrenching changes in one sweltering summer than the International Monetary Fund has managed to enact over three decades in Latin America.”
In his first major act on the job, Bremer "fired 500,000 state workers, most of them soldiers, but also doctors, nurses, teachers, publishers, and printers. Next, he flung open the country’s borders to absolutely unrestricted imports: no tariffs, no duties, no inspections, no taxes. Iraq, Bremer declared was “open for business,” says Harper.
Before the war, Iraq’s non-oil-related economy consisted of 200 state-owned companies, that produced everything from cement to paper to washing machines. In June, Bremer attended an economic summit in Jordan and announced that the firms would be privatized immediately. “Getting inefficient state enterprises into private hands,” he said, “is essential for Iraq’s economic recovery," according to Harpers.
In September, to entice investors to buy the state-owned companies, Bremer enacted a new set of laws. For example, Order 37 lowered Iraq’s corporate tax rate from roughly 40% to a flat 15%. Order 39 allowed foreign companies to own 100% of Iraqi assets outside of the natural-resource sector.
Investors could take 100% of the profits they made in Iraq out of the country. They would not be required to reinvest and would not be taxed. Under Order 39, they could sign leases and contracts that would last for forty years. Order 40 welcomed foreign banks to Iraq under the same favorable terms, said Harpers.
At first, privatization seemed likely. For as Harper's notes, "Iraqis, reeling from violence both military and economic, were far too busy staying alive to mount a political response to Bremer’s campaign. Worrying about the privatization of the sewage system was an unimaginable luxury with half the population lacking access to clean drinking water; the debate over the flat tax would have to wait until the lights were back on," it said.
By fall, rebuilding trade shows were being held all over the place. The Economist described Iraq under Bremer as “a capitalist dream,” and a flurry of new consulting firms were launched promising to help companies get access to the Iraqi market, their boards of directors stacked with well-connected Republicans, Harper's said.
The most prominent was New Bridge and it was absolutely jubilant over the potential opportunities in Iraq. “Getting the rights to distribute Procter & Gamble products can be a gold mine,” one of the company’s partners enthused. “One well-stocked 7-Eleven could knock out thirty Iraqi stores; a Wal-Mart could take over the country,” Harper quoted.
Iraq seemed like a gold mine. There were rumors that a McDonald’s would be opening, funding was almost in place for a Starwood luxury hotel, and General Motors was planning to build a factory. On the financial side, HSBC would have branches all over the country, Citigroup was preparing to offer loans guaranteed against future sales of Iraqi oil, and the bell was going to ring on a New York style stock exchange in Baghdad any day, said Harpers.
However none of that came to pass. For good reason. Klein explained that Bremer's illegal changes to Iraqi law may have made the country the most friendly in the world to corporations, but they were the least useful to Iraqi workers suffering an unemployment rate over 60%.
During the past year and a half, the whole world has watched as the Iraqis refused to hand over their country to Bremer and the plan for privatization went right down the tubes.
Bush cronies who drooled at the prospect of making mega-bucks in Iraq are no longer drooling. According to Harper's, "New Bridge Strategies, the company that had gushed about how “a Wal-Mart could take over the country,” is sounding distinctly humbled. “McDonald’s is not opening anytime soon,” company partner Ed Rogers told the Washington Post. Neither is Wal-Mart."
What Happens To Iraq Now?
God only knows what will happen to Iraq now. The Financial Times has called it “the most dangerous place in the world in which to do business.” Harper's described the mess created by the Bush gang: "It’s quite an accomplishment: in trying to design the best place in the world to do business, the neocons have managed to create the worst, the most eloquent indictment yet of the guiding logic behind deregulated free markets."
But don't worry about old Joe. Things may not have went as planned in Iraq, but he's branching out and finding other ways to cash in on the war. According to the Sept 30, 2004 Fairfield County Weekly, Allbaugh started yet another consulting company with Andrew Lundquist, the former director of Dick Cheney's secretive energy policy task force. The firm's first client? Lockheed Martin, one of the country's largest defense contractors.
Never fear, if there's an opportunity for profiteering, a Bush funnel will be there.
Mission Accomplished in Iraq by Bremer and CPA
Evelyn Pringle April 25, 2007
When President Bush announced "Mission Accomplished," and the end of the war in May 2003, he also said we would help the citizens of Iraq rebuild their country. "Now that the dictator's gone," he stated, "we and our coalition partners are helping Iraqis to lay the foundations of a free economy."
Apparently he was referring to the Coalition Provisional Authority that took up residence in Saddam's luxurious palace in May 2003, with the newly appointed King, Paul Bremer. The CPA was granted the authority to award reconstruction contracts in Iraq and it used that authority to implement what will go down in the history books as the most blatant war profiteering scheme of all time.
In large part, the masterminds of the reconstruction disaster that would occur after the CPA took over Iraq were Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and Undersecretary of Defense, Douglas Feith.
But to ensure control of the contracting process on the ground in Iraq, Bush filled the top slots of the CPA with the administration cronies. For instance, a friend of Cheney's, Peter McPherson, took a leave of absence as president of Michigan State University to serve as Bremer's economic deputy.
The leader of the CPA's private development sector was Thomas Foley, an old college classmate of Bush, who served as finance chairman for his Presidential campaign in Connecticut and also raised more than $100,000 for Bush.
Relatives of the administration were also given jobs, such as Ari Fleischer's brother Michael, and Simone Ledeen, the daughter of Michael Ledeen. Cheney's daughter Liz, also did a short stint. However, it should be noted that none of them lounged around for too long in what soon became a hellhole in Iraq.
On May 16, 2003, the CPA issued its first regulation and described its authority in no uncertain terms stating:
"The CPA is vested with all executive, legislative, and judicial authority necessary to achieve its objectives, to be exercised under relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions, including resolution 1483 (2003), and the laws and usages of war. This authority shall be exercised by the CPA Administrator."
With one swipe of the pen, Bremer granted himself the authority to run the government ministries, appoint Iraqi officials and award contracts for reconstruction. Next he fired 500,000 Iraqis, most of them soldiers, but pink slips also went out to many doctors, nurses, teachers and other public employees as well.
For the most part, the CPA financed its activities with billions of dollars that belonged to the Iraqis. On May 22, 2003, a UN Security Council passed a resolution that directed the proceeds from Iraqi oil to be placed in a Development Fund for Iraq, and the CPA was granted authority to control the fund and decide which profiteers would get contracts.
During the year that Bremer controlled the purse strings, the Iraqi Development Fund received $20.2 billion, including $8.1 billion from the UN's oil-for-food program, $10.8 billion from Iraqi oil, and the rest from repatriated funds, vested assets and donations.
The CPA accounting system was cash and carry and a steady stream of cash was flown into Bagdad from the US. Inspector General, Stuart Bowen later said that he knew of one $2 billion flight.
A report released by the House Government Reform Committee in February 2007, shows that in the 13 months that Bremer ruled, from May 2003 to June 2004, the Federal Reserve Bank in New York shipped nearly $12 billion in a cash to Iraq.
One can only imagine the Bank service charges associated with these shipments because to accomplish this feat, according to the Democratic chairman of the Reform Committee, Henry Waxman, the cash weighed 363 tons and the Bank had to count and pack 281 million individual bills, including more than 107 million $100 bills, and then load them onto wooden pallets to be shipped to Bagdad on C-130 cargo planes.
Inspector Bowen later said that he determined that some of this cash went to pay salaries for thousands of "ghost employees" and Iraqi civil servants who did not exist.
Within a few months of the CPA's arrival in Iraq reports of corruption in the contracting process began appearing in the media. A British adviser to the Iraqi Governing Council told the BBC that officials in the CPA were demanding bribes of up to $300,000 in return for contracts.
Reports of flat out-fraud remained steady throughout Bremer's reign in Iraq. One audit showed that the CPA Ministry of Finance could not provide documentation for about $17 million spent on employee salaries in February 2004, and a CPA Advisor to the Ministry of the Interior said the Ministry was paid for 8,602 guards but only 602 could be verified.
A CPA advisor to the Ministry of Finance was so concerned about payroll corruption that he submitted a formal complaint that stated in part: "Of the 1.6 million government employees currently on payroll, credible estimates put the number of ghost workers at somewhere between 250,000-300,000 employees."
An October 2004, audit performed for the International Advisory and Monitoring Board, created by the UN to monitor the spending of Iraqi money, found one case where a payment of $2.6 million was authorized by a CPA senior adviser to the Ministry of Oil, and auditors were unable to obtain an underlying contract or any evidence that the services had been rendered.
The auditors in this group found 37 cases where files could not be located for contracts worth $185 million all total. In another 52 cases, there was no record that goods had been received for a total of $87.9 million.
People on the ground in Iraq said that doing business with the CPA was reminiscent of the Wild West. Former CPA employees told a congressional committee that sackfuls of cash were tossed around like footballs. Franklin Willis, showed pictures of himself and others holding up bundles of $100 notes totaling $2 million, which he said was used to pay the contractor Custer Battles. "We told them to come in and bring a bag," Willis said.
He also testified that millions of dollars in $100 bills were stored in the basement of the CPA offices and distributed to favored contractors with little accounting discipline. For instance, in the year that the CPA ruled, Custer was awarded contracts worth more than $100 million.
Two former Custer employees ended up filing a lawsuit under the Federal False Claims Act, saying Custer had swindled $50 million from the CPA with scams like double-billing for salaries and repainting the forklifts found at the Baghdad airport and then leasing them back to the US government.
The employees said the CPA paid the Custer $15 million to provide security for Iraq's civilian airline, when no services were needed because the airline was grounded during the time covered by the contract.
These employees said they kept informing the CPA about Custer's fraudulent conduct for more than a year and when they asked why the firm continued to get contracts, they were told: "Battles is very active in the Republican party, and speaks to individuals he knows in the Whitehouse almost daily."
In June 2004, the Government Accounting Office estimated that more than $1 billion in had been wasted due to illegal overcharges by contractors since the war began. A later audit by the Iraqi government found that as much as $1.27 billion was lost to accounting irregularities between June 2004 and February 2005.
Inspector Bowen cited two examples of poor oversight in a November 3, 2005 interview on National Public Radio where $28 million was paid to build 5 power plants and $1.8 million was paid to rebuild a library, but the work was never performed and the money
"simply disappeared," he said.
A recent report by Bowen says DynCorp was paid $43.8 million for a residential camp for police training personnel and has been empty for months and that the company may also have billed $18 million in other unjustified costs.
About $4.2 million, he says, was improperly spent on 20 VIP trailers and an Olympic-size pool and an additional $36.4 million in spending for weapons such as armored vehicles, body armor and communications equipment that cannot be accounted for.
Not surprisingly, Cheney's Halliburton remained the top profiteer under Bremer's rule. A July 23, 2004, audit conducted by Bowen, showed the company had received 60% of all contracts paid for with Iraq money, including 5 no-bid contracts worth $222 million, $325 million, $180 million, and the last 2 together totaled $194 million for the last two. In comparison, the audit showed that the CPA awarded only 2% of the reconstruction contracts to Iraqi companies.
In one example of blatant fraud, an audit found that Halliburton was charging for more than 41,000 meals a day for soldiers when only about 14,000 were served.
By the fall of 2003, the country was realizing that the rational for war was based on lies and that the only ones drawing any benefits were the profiteers. So when Bush asked Congress for another $20 billion for the CPA, Bremer was summoned to Washington to explain where all the money was going and of course he testified in full stonewall mode.
Before the Appropriations Committee on September 22, 2003, Bremer said the CPA had detailed records of all its receipts and outlays that could be audited by Congress. But when he testified before the Armed Services Committee 3 days later he said the Office of Management and Budget was responsible for maintaining the CPA records and that Congress would have to go to the White House to access the records.
That arrogant assertion went over like a lead balloon with many members of Congress. Senator Robert Byrd said he was outraged over the inability to monitor CPA spending. "There is no reason why any arm of the executive branch charged with making such significant spending decisions," he said, "should not be working directly with Congress."
"When we're talking about handing over another $20 billion to the CPA," he said, "there is a real need for Congress to confirm that the CPA has its finances in order and that it is managing the taxpayer's money responsibly."
"We don't even know how much of the $20 billion," Byrd said, "will flow to government contractors in Iraq."
"Whatever the amount is," he noted, "we know that the size and scope of the profits being made will be enormous."
"Former Bush Administration officials," he warned fellow Senators, "are even setting up consulting firms to act as middlemen for contractors hoping to take part in the bonanza."
"Are we turning the U.S. Treasury into a grab bag for favorite campaign contributors to be financed at taxpayer expense?" he asked.
The answer was yes, and what a grab bag it was. Media reports revealed that Bush's ex-campaign manager and Feith's former law partner had set up consulting firms to profit off the war by lining up contracts for clients through their partners in crime within the CPA.
Other reports revealed that contracts worth $407 were awarded to a firm called Nour that was formed less than 2 months after the war began. The names linked to the profits from Nour, among many others, included former Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, Ahmad Chalabi via a $2 million kickback, his nephew Salam Chalabi as the attorney handling the deal, and the money trail even led to the First Brothers, Marvin and Jeb Bush.
But come to find out, Doug Feith the ringleader on the ground in Washington, had awarded a batch of no-bid contracts to a favored company the month before the war began for the purpose of controlling the media in post-war Iraq.
In October 2003, the Center for Public Integrity obtained copies of 7 contracts awarded to the San Diego-based Science Applications. The total value of the contracts was redacted but the Center was able to determine that they were all awarded in February 2003, and called for the work to be directed by Feith.
However, the Center's most stunning discovery was that when the contracts were awarded, Feith's top deputy at the time, Christopher "Ryan" Henry, had been a senior vice president at SAIC until October 2002.
In addition, one of SAIC's board members was Army General, Wayne Downing, who ran counterterrorism in the Bush administration for almost a year after 9/11, and had even went to the CIA with Cheney to discuss intelligence on Iraq. Downing had also served as an advisor to Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress, and was well-known advocate for a war against Saddam.
Some of the SAIC contracts required that specific persons referred to as "executive management consultants" be hired and the pay range listed went as high as $209 and $273 per hour. The Center said congressional sources estimated the value of the media contract as $38 million for the first year and as high $90 million in 2004.
The SAIC had no special expertise to justify the award of these contracts. One company executive, quoted in the media, said the firm's only credential for setting up an independent media, supposedly modeled after the BBC, was military work in "informational warfare"-signal jamming, "perception management," and the like.
Under these contracts, the Iraq Media Network (IMN) was established and journalist, Mark North, who covered the Iraq invasion for National Public Radio, was hired to train Iraqi journalists to report for the IMN.
In one of the many Congressional hearings, North testified about the control of the IMN by the CPA and said CPA officials regularly directed and censored the activities of the news station and provided "a laundry list of CPA activities" to cover in the news reports instead of stories about security or the lack of electricity and jobs
While testifying, he also described the CPA's shabby treatment of Iraqi employees and its refusal to pay their wages. "For the first two months," North said, "the local staff of about 200 journalists and technicians were not paid their salaries."
When the staffers went on strike in attempt to get paid, he said, the CPA told the Iraqis to get back to work or the US Army would remove them from the studios.
All total, the CPA had control of Iraqi money for one year between June 2003 and June 2004, but unfortunately no auditors arrived to take a look at the agency's spending until April 2004, two months before the CPA's rule was scheduled to end.
And as so often happens when it comes to giving solid advice or warnings, the senior Senator from Virginia was absolutely right. It was far too late for audits, because the CPA and its gang of profiteers had already robbed the Iraqis blind.
The favored companies enjoyed a fraud-free-all. For instance, Halliburton said it had lost over $60 million worth of government property including trucks, office furniture and computers. Inspector Bowen reported that 6,975 items valued at $61.1 million were lost, and in June 2005, the Defense Contract Audit Agency reported that the Halliburton had overcharged or presented questionable bills for close to $1.5 billion.
In the end, Bowen's audit concluded that "the CPA's internal controls for approximately $8.8 billion in DFI funds disbursed to Iraqi ministries through the national budget process failed to provide sufficient accountability for the use of those funds."
As of February 2007, according to Bowen, audits of the CPA have resulted in 300 criminal and civil investigations, 5 arrests and convictions, and another 23 cases are currently under prosecution at the DOJ, and he is working on 76 on-going investigations.
One of the convictions involved Robert Stein, a former CPA comptroller and funding officer, who recently pleaded guilty to 5 felony counts including conspiracy, money laundering, and bribery in stealing more than $2 million of reconstruction funds and taking more than $1 million in kickbacks to rig the bids on contracts that exceeded $8 million.
The whistleblower case against Custer Battle went to trial and a jury found that Custer had committed 37 acts of fraud and filed $3 million in false claims, and rendered a verdict with a $10 million penalty. However, the verdict was overturned by Republican appointed US District Court Judge TS Ellis III, who ruled that the CPA was not a US entity and therefore the false claims act does not apply to it.
In the ruling, the judge said Custer's accusers "failed to prove that the U.S. government was ever defrauded. Any fraud that occurred was perpetrated instead against the Coalition Provisional Authority, formed to run Iraq until a government was established."
Legal experts say this ruling is great news for the CPA and contractors because from now on anyone charged with any act of fraud related to the Iraqi money doled out by the CPA in Bagdad will use it in attempt to avoid civil or criminal prosecution.
When President Bush announced "Mission Accomplished," and the end of the war in May 2003, he also said we would help the citizens of Iraq rebuild their country. "Now that the dictator's gone," he stated, "we and our coalition partners are helping Iraqis to lay the foundations of a free economy."
Apparently he was referring to the Coalition Provisional Authority that took up residence in Saddam's luxurious palace in May 2003, with the newly appointed King, Paul Bremer. The CPA was granted the authority to award reconstruction contracts in Iraq and it used that authority to implement what will go down in the history books as the most blatant war profiteering scheme of all time.
In large part, the masterminds of the reconstruction disaster that would occur after the CPA took over Iraq were Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and Undersecretary of Defense, Douglas Feith.
But to ensure control of the contracting process on the ground in Iraq, Bush filled the top slots of the CPA with the administration cronies. For instance, a friend of Cheney's, Peter McPherson, took a leave of absence as president of Michigan State University to serve as Bremer's economic deputy.
The leader of the CPA's private development sector was Thomas Foley, an old college classmate of Bush, who served as finance chairman for his Presidential campaign in Connecticut and also raised more than $100,000 for Bush.
Relatives of the administration were also given jobs, such as Ari Fleischer's brother Michael, and Simone Ledeen, the daughter of Michael Ledeen. Cheney's daughter Liz, also did a short stint. However, it should be noted that none of them lounged around for too long in what soon became a hellhole in Iraq.
On May 16, 2003, the CPA issued its first regulation and described its authority in no uncertain terms stating:
"The CPA is vested with all executive, legislative, and judicial authority necessary to achieve its objectives, to be exercised under relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions, including resolution 1483 (2003), and the laws and usages of war. This authority shall be exercised by the CPA Administrator."
With one swipe of the pen, Bremer granted himself the authority to run the government ministries, appoint Iraqi officials and award contracts for reconstruction. Next he fired 500,000 Iraqis, most of them soldiers, but pink slips also went out to many doctors, nurses, teachers and other public employees as well.
For the most part, the CPA financed its activities with billions of dollars that belonged to the Iraqis. On May 22, 2003, a UN Security Council passed a resolution that directed the proceeds from Iraqi oil to be placed in a Development Fund for Iraq, and the CPA was granted authority to control the fund and decide which profiteers would get contracts.
During the year that Bremer controlled the purse strings, the Iraqi Development Fund received $20.2 billion, including $8.1 billion from the UN's oil-for-food program, $10.8 billion from Iraqi oil, and the rest from repatriated funds, vested assets and donations.
The CPA accounting system was cash and carry and a steady stream of cash was flown into Bagdad from the US. Inspector General, Stuart Bowen later said that he knew of one $2 billion flight.
A report released by the House Government Reform Committee in February 2007, shows that in the 13 months that Bremer ruled, from May 2003 to June 2004, the Federal Reserve Bank in New York shipped nearly $12 billion in a cash to Iraq.
One can only imagine the Bank service charges associated with these shipments because to accomplish this feat, according to the Democratic chairman of the Reform Committee, Henry Waxman, the cash weighed 363 tons and the Bank had to count and pack 281 million individual bills, including more than 107 million $100 bills, and then load them onto wooden pallets to be shipped to Bagdad on C-130 cargo planes.
Inspector Bowen later said that he determined that some of this cash went to pay salaries for thousands of "ghost employees" and Iraqi civil servants who did not exist.
Within a few months of the CPA's arrival in Iraq reports of corruption in the contracting process began appearing in the media. A British adviser to the Iraqi Governing Council told the BBC that officials in the CPA were demanding bribes of up to $300,000 in return for contracts.
Reports of flat out-fraud remained steady throughout Bremer's reign in Iraq. One audit showed that the CPA Ministry of Finance could not provide documentation for about $17 million spent on employee salaries in February 2004, and a CPA Advisor to the Ministry of the Interior said the Ministry was paid for 8,602 guards but only 602 could be verified.
A CPA advisor to the Ministry of Finance was so concerned about payroll corruption that he submitted a formal complaint that stated in part: "Of the 1.6 million government employees currently on payroll, credible estimates put the number of ghost workers at somewhere between 250,000-300,000 employees."
An October 2004, audit performed for the International Advisory and Monitoring Board, created by the UN to monitor the spending of Iraqi money, found one case where a payment of $2.6 million was authorized by a CPA senior adviser to the Ministry of Oil, and auditors were unable to obtain an underlying contract or any evidence that the services had been rendered.
The auditors in this group found 37 cases where files could not be located for contracts worth $185 million all total. In another 52 cases, there was no record that goods had been received for a total of $87.9 million.
People on the ground in Iraq said that doing business with the CPA was reminiscent of the Wild West. Former CPA employees told a congressional committee that sackfuls of cash were tossed around like footballs. Franklin Willis, showed pictures of himself and others holding up bundles of $100 notes totaling $2 million, which he said was used to pay the contractor Custer Battles. "We told them to come in and bring a bag," Willis said.
He also testified that millions of dollars in $100 bills were stored in the basement of the CPA offices and distributed to favored contractors with little accounting discipline. For instance, in the year that the CPA ruled, Custer was awarded contracts worth more than $100 million.
Two former Custer employees ended up filing a lawsuit under the Federal False Claims Act, saying Custer had swindled $50 million from the CPA with scams like double-billing for salaries and repainting the forklifts found at the Baghdad airport and then leasing them back to the US government.
The employees said the CPA paid the Custer $15 million to provide security for Iraq's civilian airline, when no services were needed because the airline was grounded during the time covered by the contract.
These employees said they kept informing the CPA about Custer's fraudulent conduct for more than a year and when they asked why the firm continued to get contracts, they were told: "Battles is very active in the Republican party, and speaks to individuals he knows in the Whitehouse almost daily."
In June 2004, the Government Accounting Office estimated that more than $1 billion in had been wasted due to illegal overcharges by contractors since the war began. A later audit by the Iraqi government found that as much as $1.27 billion was lost to accounting irregularities between June 2004 and February 2005.
Inspector Bowen cited two examples of poor oversight in a November 3, 2005 interview on National Public Radio where $28 million was paid to build 5 power plants and $1.8 million was paid to rebuild a library, but the work was never performed and the money
"simply disappeared," he said.
A recent report by Bowen says DynCorp was paid $43.8 million for a residential camp for police training personnel and has been empty for months and that the company may also have billed $18 million in other unjustified costs.
About $4.2 million, he says, was improperly spent on 20 VIP trailers and an Olympic-size pool and an additional $36.4 million in spending for weapons such as armored vehicles, body armor and communications equipment that cannot be accounted for.
Not surprisingly, Cheney's Halliburton remained the top profiteer under Bremer's rule. A July 23, 2004, audit conducted by Bowen, showed the company had received 60% of all contracts paid for with Iraq money, including 5 no-bid contracts worth $222 million, $325 million, $180 million, and the last 2 together totaled $194 million for the last two. In comparison, the audit showed that the CPA awarded only 2% of the reconstruction contracts to Iraqi companies.
In one example of blatant fraud, an audit found that Halliburton was charging for more than 41,000 meals a day for soldiers when only about 14,000 were served.
By the fall of 2003, the country was realizing that the rational for war was based on lies and that the only ones drawing any benefits were the profiteers. So when Bush asked Congress for another $20 billion for the CPA, Bremer was summoned to Washington to explain where all the money was going and of course he testified in full stonewall mode.
Before the Appropriations Committee on September 22, 2003, Bremer said the CPA had detailed records of all its receipts and outlays that could be audited by Congress. But when he testified before the Armed Services Committee 3 days later he said the Office of Management and Budget was responsible for maintaining the CPA records and that Congress would have to go to the White House to access the records.
That arrogant assertion went over like a lead balloon with many members of Congress. Senator Robert Byrd said he was outraged over the inability to monitor CPA spending. "There is no reason why any arm of the executive branch charged with making such significant spending decisions," he said, "should not be working directly with Congress."
"When we're talking about handing over another $20 billion to the CPA," he said, "there is a real need for Congress to confirm that the CPA has its finances in order and that it is managing the taxpayer's money responsibly."
"We don't even know how much of the $20 billion," Byrd said, "will flow to government contractors in Iraq."
"Whatever the amount is," he noted, "we know that the size and scope of the profits being made will be enormous."
"Former Bush Administration officials," he warned fellow Senators, "are even setting up consulting firms to act as middlemen for contractors hoping to take part in the bonanza."
"Are we turning the U.S. Treasury into a grab bag for favorite campaign contributors to be financed at taxpayer expense?" he asked.
The answer was yes, and what a grab bag it was. Media reports revealed that Bush's ex-campaign manager and Feith's former law partner had set up consulting firms to profit off the war by lining up contracts for clients through their partners in crime within the CPA.
Other reports revealed that contracts worth $407 were awarded to a firm called Nour that was formed less than 2 months after the war began. The names linked to the profits from Nour, among many others, included former Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, Ahmad Chalabi via a $2 million kickback, his nephew Salam Chalabi as the attorney handling the deal, and the money trail even led to the First Brothers, Marvin and Jeb Bush.
But come to find out, Doug Feith the ringleader on the ground in Washington, had awarded a batch of no-bid contracts to a favored company the month before the war began for the purpose of controlling the media in post-war Iraq.
In October 2003, the Center for Public Integrity obtained copies of 7 contracts awarded to the San Diego-based Science Applications. The total value of the contracts was redacted but the Center was able to determine that they were all awarded in February 2003, and called for the work to be directed by Feith.
However, the Center's most stunning discovery was that when the contracts were awarded, Feith's top deputy at the time, Christopher "Ryan" Henry, had been a senior vice president at SAIC until October 2002.
In addition, one of SAIC's board members was Army General, Wayne Downing, who ran counterterrorism in the Bush administration for almost a year after 9/11, and had even went to the CIA with Cheney to discuss intelligence on Iraq. Downing had also served as an advisor to Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress, and was well-known advocate for a war against Saddam.
Some of the SAIC contracts required that specific persons referred to as "executive management consultants" be hired and the pay range listed went as high as $209 and $273 per hour. The Center said congressional sources estimated the value of the media contract as $38 million for the first year and as high $90 million in 2004.
The SAIC had no special expertise to justify the award of these contracts. One company executive, quoted in the media, said the firm's only credential for setting up an independent media, supposedly modeled after the BBC, was military work in "informational warfare"-signal jamming, "perception management," and the like.
Under these contracts, the Iraq Media Network (IMN) was established and journalist, Mark North, who covered the Iraq invasion for National Public Radio, was hired to train Iraqi journalists to report for the IMN.
In one of the many Congressional hearings, North testified about the control of the IMN by the CPA and said CPA officials regularly directed and censored the activities of the news station and provided "a laundry list of CPA activities" to cover in the news reports instead of stories about security or the lack of electricity and jobs
While testifying, he also described the CPA's shabby treatment of Iraqi employees and its refusal to pay their wages. "For the first two months," North said, "the local staff of about 200 journalists and technicians were not paid their salaries."
When the staffers went on strike in attempt to get paid, he said, the CPA told the Iraqis to get back to work or the US Army would remove them from the studios.
All total, the CPA had control of Iraqi money for one year between June 2003 and June 2004, but unfortunately no auditors arrived to take a look at the agency's spending until April 2004, two months before the CPA's rule was scheduled to end.
And as so often happens when it comes to giving solid advice or warnings, the senior Senator from Virginia was absolutely right. It was far too late for audits, because the CPA and its gang of profiteers had already robbed the Iraqis blind.
The favored companies enjoyed a fraud-free-all. For instance, Halliburton said it had lost over $60 million worth of government property including trucks, office furniture and computers. Inspector Bowen reported that 6,975 items valued at $61.1 million were lost, and in June 2005, the Defense Contract Audit Agency reported that the Halliburton had overcharged or presented questionable bills for close to $1.5 billion.
In the end, Bowen's audit concluded that "the CPA's internal controls for approximately $8.8 billion in DFI funds disbursed to Iraqi ministries through the national budget process failed to provide sufficient accountability for the use of those funds."
As of February 2007, according to Bowen, audits of the CPA have resulted in 300 criminal and civil investigations, 5 arrests and convictions, and another 23 cases are currently under prosecution at the DOJ, and he is working on 76 on-going investigations.
One of the convictions involved Robert Stein, a former CPA comptroller and funding officer, who recently pleaded guilty to 5 felony counts including conspiracy, money laundering, and bribery in stealing more than $2 million of reconstruction funds and taking more than $1 million in kickbacks to rig the bids on contracts that exceeded $8 million.
The whistleblower case against Custer Battle went to trial and a jury found that Custer had committed 37 acts of fraud and filed $3 million in false claims, and rendered a verdict with a $10 million penalty. However, the verdict was overturned by Republican appointed US District Court Judge TS Ellis III, who ruled that the CPA was not a US entity and therefore the false claims act does not apply to it.
In the ruling, the judge said Custer's accusers "failed to prove that the U.S. government was ever defrauded. Any fraud that occurred was perpetrated instead against the Coalition Provisional Authority, formed to run Iraq until a government was established."
Legal experts say this ruling is great news for the CPA and contractors because from now on anyone charged with any act of fraud related to the Iraqi money doled out by the CPA in Bagdad will use it in attempt to avoid civil or criminal prosecution.
Congress Gives Iraq War Profiteers Another Hundred Billion
Evelyn Pringle May 31, 2007
Congress has demonstrated its unconditional love for the Bush administration by handing the war profiteers another $100 billion worth of good reasons to keep the war in Iraq rolling along at full-throttle.
And today there was the President, whose only military experience consists of draft-dodging, going AWOL from a cushy stint in the National Guard set up by daddy, and finishing his term of duty as grounded fighter pilot, calling a press conference to inform Americans for the umpteenth time that the only way to the keep the terrorist at bay is by allowing the slaughtering in Iraq to continue; forever apparently.
Over the past month, the majority of political discussions on cable news talk shows related to Iraq funding bill were focused on how members of Congress and especially those who are presidential candidates are consumed with worry over how their votes on funding will affect the results of the next elections.
Once elected, it would be interesting to find out exactly how long it takes for politicians to lose the ability to feel and vote with their hearts when they know that a policy such as the Iraq war is terribly wrong, without thinking about how the decision will effect the vote tally in the next election.
As citizens, we have no control over our own government. Never in my 57 years on this earth have I been so ashamed to be an American knowing that every day that the war continues we are knowingly allowing our soldiers and innocent Iraqis to be killed or injured with absolutely no justification, other than because politicians believe it will be beneficial to their careers to allow Bush's failed war policies to continue.
While political commentators discuss voter odds, myself and probably most Americans are sitting at home unable to watch the news without breaking down crying as the latest pictures flash on the screen showing the happy faces of the young soldiers who are now dead, knowing full well that the next night there will be more pictures of dead soldiers because the politicians have made it clear that the citizens paying their salaries have no right to demand that their elected officials put an end to the killing in Iraq.
It would be interesting to take a poll to see how often each politician even looks at the smiling faces of the dead soldiers and the second question in the poll should be, for those who claim that they do look at these faces every day and still vote to give Bush more funding, how many had to use drugs or alcohol to get to sleep during the 7 days following the vote.
For this poll, a high number of drugs and alcohol users would be viewed as positive because the reason for the question is to determine how many politicians still have the capacity to feel guilt.
Congress needs to get one thing straight, the war funding is not about politics, it is about more deaths and injuries every single day that ticks off the calendar all because Bush took this country into a senseless war based on lies. Every single day matters to the soldiers and their families, and to those of us who feel extremely guilty about not being able to find a away to get them out of Bush's war.
Why is there no in-depth discussion by any members of Congress on political talk shows about where these tax dollars are actually ending up, aside from an occasional flare-up of indignation about Halliburton?
There is nothing positive in Iraq to hold up to show Americans how Iraqis have benefited from all the tax dollars already poured into a bottomless pit.
The issue of war profiteering is like the elephant in the middle of the living room, every member of Congress knows where the funding is going but Americans don't hear them on talk shows letting people know that these kids are being killed in the name of war profits.
And the statements in speeches made by members of Congress while debating the bills don't mean anything because 95% of Americans never hear those speeches. Honest politicians should be out screaming to any reporter who will listen to educate Americans about where the hundreds of billions of tax dollars have ended up.
This war is 100 times worse than Viet Nam. A least with Viet Nam, the war profits were not being funneled over the backs of our dead soldiers in plain sight directly into the bank accounts of current and former members of the administrations in power at the time.
Nor were they being funneled to the family bank accounts of the Presidents who were in office during the Viet Nam war.
Former Nixon administration official, John Dean, has said that the Bush administration is worse than the Nixon's. He’s right; the Bush gang makes the Nixon administration look saintly and gives a whole new meaning to Nixon's famous line of "I am not a crook." In comparison to the actions of the current regime, it could indeed be said that Mr Nixon was not a crook.
It's easy to understand why most Republicans are not about to tell the world that the leader of their party is a war profiteering crook but the question remains, when are Democrats going to start addressing the issue of who is benefiting from all this war funding and start publicly naming names along with the companies they are connected with.
They have the ability to draw press coverage and give the specific names of current and former administration officials and Bush family members who have set up companies to profit off the war or steered contracts to companies they now work.
Last year, most clearly in the fall elections, Americans told Bush and Congress to get our troops out of Iraq. Democrats took control of Congress at the new year, and there was Bush in a televised address on January 10, 2007, announcing that he had ordered the deployment of five more combat brigades to serve as sitting ducks in Iraq, in addition to the 15 brigades that were already there. Since then, he has extended combat tours from 12 months to 15 months and announced the deployment of still more troops.
According to an analysis by Hearst Newspapers, when support troops are added in, the total number of soldiers in Iraq is about 162,000, and could be 200,000 by Christmas.
In the years to come, the history books will describe the Bush Presidency and the details of a grand war profiteering scheme nicknamed the "war on terror," and with that in mind, members of Congress would be wise to start speaking out against the war profiteers to make damn sure that the historians will be able to report that that they were out there calling a spade a spade and trying to put an end to the death for profit disaster in Iraq.
One commentator on a recent cable talk show made the statement that when voting on the Iraq funding; politicians are not in lock step with how strongly Americans feel about ending this war. That comment was an understatement, because Americans are as fed up with politicians debating over the money as much as they are with the war itself.
Members of Congress and the Presidential candidates should quit trying to second guess how American will vote in the next election and think about how much longer they are going to be willing to sit at home in front of their television sets depressed and driven to tears by looking at flashes of the happy faces of soldiers who were killed that day.
As for presidential candidates, the name John Murtha should be added to the ballot, as he seems to be about the only member of Congress willing to go public and speak from the heart when trying to get the rest of Congress to recognize the need for an immediate plan to rescue our young men and women stranded in Iraq.
The candidates that are working hard to try to end the war get little credit or media coverage. Dennis Kucinich is rarely mentioned and he is working tirelessly to come up with ways to get our soldiers out of Iraq.
By the time the 2008 election rolls around, who knows, after weighing the few options available maybe Americans will decide that no candidate who is a current member of Congress and refused to listen to the people on such an important issue as the Iraq war can be trusted to serve as President.
Congress has demonstrated its unconditional love for the Bush administration by handing the war profiteers another $100 billion worth of good reasons to keep the war in Iraq rolling along at full-throttle.
And today there was the President, whose only military experience consists of draft-dodging, going AWOL from a cushy stint in the National Guard set up by daddy, and finishing his term of duty as grounded fighter pilot, calling a press conference to inform Americans for the umpteenth time that the only way to the keep the terrorist at bay is by allowing the slaughtering in Iraq to continue; forever apparently.
Over the past month, the majority of political discussions on cable news talk shows related to Iraq funding bill were focused on how members of Congress and especially those who are presidential candidates are consumed with worry over how their votes on funding will affect the results of the next elections.
Once elected, it would be interesting to find out exactly how long it takes for politicians to lose the ability to feel and vote with their hearts when they know that a policy such as the Iraq war is terribly wrong, without thinking about how the decision will effect the vote tally in the next election.
As citizens, we have no control over our own government. Never in my 57 years on this earth have I been so ashamed to be an American knowing that every day that the war continues we are knowingly allowing our soldiers and innocent Iraqis to be killed or injured with absolutely no justification, other than because politicians believe it will be beneficial to their careers to allow Bush's failed war policies to continue.
While political commentators discuss voter odds, myself and probably most Americans are sitting at home unable to watch the news without breaking down crying as the latest pictures flash on the screen showing the happy faces of the young soldiers who are now dead, knowing full well that the next night there will be more pictures of dead soldiers because the politicians have made it clear that the citizens paying their salaries have no right to demand that their elected officials put an end to the killing in Iraq.
It would be interesting to take a poll to see how often each politician even looks at the smiling faces of the dead soldiers and the second question in the poll should be, for those who claim that they do look at these faces every day and still vote to give Bush more funding, how many had to use drugs or alcohol to get to sleep during the 7 days following the vote.
For this poll, a high number of drugs and alcohol users would be viewed as positive because the reason for the question is to determine how many politicians still have the capacity to feel guilt.
Congress needs to get one thing straight, the war funding is not about politics, it is about more deaths and injuries every single day that ticks off the calendar all because Bush took this country into a senseless war based on lies. Every single day matters to the soldiers and their families, and to those of us who feel extremely guilty about not being able to find a away to get them out of Bush's war.
Why is there no in-depth discussion by any members of Congress on political talk shows about where these tax dollars are actually ending up, aside from an occasional flare-up of indignation about Halliburton?
There is nothing positive in Iraq to hold up to show Americans how Iraqis have benefited from all the tax dollars already poured into a bottomless pit.
The issue of war profiteering is like the elephant in the middle of the living room, every member of Congress knows where the funding is going but Americans don't hear them on talk shows letting people know that these kids are being killed in the name of war profits.
And the statements in speeches made by members of Congress while debating the bills don't mean anything because 95% of Americans never hear those speeches. Honest politicians should be out screaming to any reporter who will listen to educate Americans about where the hundreds of billions of tax dollars have ended up.
This war is 100 times worse than Viet Nam. A least with Viet Nam, the war profits were not being funneled over the backs of our dead soldiers in plain sight directly into the bank accounts of current and former members of the administrations in power at the time.
Nor were they being funneled to the family bank accounts of the Presidents who were in office during the Viet Nam war.
Former Nixon administration official, John Dean, has said that the Bush administration is worse than the Nixon's. He’s right; the Bush gang makes the Nixon administration look saintly and gives a whole new meaning to Nixon's famous line of "I am not a crook." In comparison to the actions of the current regime, it could indeed be said that Mr Nixon was not a crook.
It's easy to understand why most Republicans are not about to tell the world that the leader of their party is a war profiteering crook but the question remains, when are Democrats going to start addressing the issue of who is benefiting from all this war funding and start publicly naming names along with the companies they are connected with.
They have the ability to draw press coverage and give the specific names of current and former administration officials and Bush family members who have set up companies to profit off the war or steered contracts to companies they now work.
Last year, most clearly in the fall elections, Americans told Bush and Congress to get our troops out of Iraq. Democrats took control of Congress at the new year, and there was Bush in a televised address on January 10, 2007, announcing that he had ordered the deployment of five more combat brigades to serve as sitting ducks in Iraq, in addition to the 15 brigades that were already there. Since then, he has extended combat tours from 12 months to 15 months and announced the deployment of still more troops.
According to an analysis by Hearst Newspapers, when support troops are added in, the total number of soldiers in Iraq is about 162,000, and could be 200,000 by Christmas.
In the years to come, the history books will describe the Bush Presidency and the details of a grand war profiteering scheme nicknamed the "war on terror," and with that in mind, members of Congress would be wise to start speaking out against the war profiteers to make damn sure that the historians will be able to report that that they were out there calling a spade a spade and trying to put an end to the death for profit disaster in Iraq.
One commentator on a recent cable talk show made the statement that when voting on the Iraq funding; politicians are not in lock step with how strongly Americans feel about ending this war. That comment was an understatement, because Americans are as fed up with politicians debating over the money as much as they are with the war itself.
Members of Congress and the Presidential candidates should quit trying to second guess how American will vote in the next election and think about how much longer they are going to be willing to sit at home in front of their television sets depressed and driven to tears by looking at flashes of the happy faces of soldiers who were killed that day.
As for presidential candidates, the name John Murtha should be added to the ballot, as he seems to be about the only member of Congress willing to go public and speak from the heart when trying to get the rest of Congress to recognize the need for an immediate plan to rescue our young men and women stranded in Iraq.
The candidates that are working hard to try to end the war get little credit or media coverage. Dennis Kucinich is rarely mentioned and he is working tirelessly to come up with ways to get our soldiers out of Iraq.
By the time the 2008 election rolls around, who knows, after weighing the few options available maybe Americans will decide that no candidate who is a current member of Congress and refused to listen to the people on such an important issue as the Iraq war can be trusted to serve as President.
Make Bush Quit Lying - Kerry Did Not Vote for the War in Iraq
Evelyn Pringle July 16, 2004
Bin Laden must be laughing his you know what off. By calling off the hunt in Afghanistan, to launch a preemptive war against a country that posed no threat to the US, Bush not only sabotaged the capture of bin Laden; he destroyed our credibility, and undermined American security at home and abroad.
By grossly overextending our troops, he has lessened our military readiness to respond to a real threat of terror should one arise. Osama bin Laden himself could not have created the disaster in Iraq any better if he had tried.
Here's a political riddle to solve. Who made the following comments and whom did the comments refer to?
* "Sending our military on vague, aimless, and endless missions rapidly saps morale. Even the highest morale is eventually undermined by back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages of spare parts and equipment, inadequate training, and rapidly declining readiness."
* "A comprehensive strategy for combating the new dangers posed by weapons of mass destruction must include a variety of other measures to contain and prevent the spread of such weapons. We need the cooperation of friends and allies."
* "Nor should the intelligence community be made the scapegoat for political misjudgments."
Source: The year 2000 Republican Party Platform.
So just look at what has happened between then and now. The Republican prophets who posted those comments were absolutely correct. Endless missions, back-to-back deployments, inadequate training, no cooperation of friends and allies, blaming the CIA for political misjudgments, and on and on. It all came true all right, but democrats caused none of it.
Bush's so-called war on terror is a miserable failure, any way you look at it. Retired General Anthony Zinni, former commander of the US Central Command, got it right when he said that by manufacturing a false rationale for war, abandoning traditional allies, propping up and trusting Iraqi exiles, and failing to plan for post-war Iraq, Bush has made the US less secure, instead of safer.
Bush thinks that Iraqi citizens should have welcomed us into the country and thanked us for getting rid of Saddam. Right before the war started, in a March 16, 2003 interview, Cheney said, "I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators."
As we now know, he was dead wrong, that did not happen.
But then why would Iraqis thank us? For what? Saddam may be gone, but innocent Iraqis have suffered the same human rights violations at the hands of the occupying forces that they did while Saddam was in power. In addition to the degradation and inexcusable abuse of prisoners, the deaths of at least 34 Iraqi detainees are currently being investigated.
Iraqis still live in fear of torture every day; in fact probably more so. Incidents of murder, rape, and kidnapping have skyrocketed since the war began. Violent deaths rose from an average of 14 per month in 2002 to 357 a month in 2003.
Come to think about it, I don't hear about any good news coming out of Iraq. Its about 120 degrees over there and they don't even have the basic necessities that they had under Saddam. According to a recent report by the GAO, basic services like water and electricity are still operating at lower levels than they were before the war.
Over the past year, joblessness has doubled. According to the Boston Globe, using recent US data, more than half the workers in the country are either without job or making less than a living wage. Only 1% of Iraq's workforce (7 million people) is involved in reconstruction projects.
Bush and his gang of war profiteers made sure the reconstruction contracts went to US companies, rather than experienced Iraqi firms. Democratic Rep Martin Meehan, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, sees what is going on and explains, how "the American taxpayer is spending billions of dollars on no-bid contracts to companies like Halliburton. Not only has this money often been poorly spent or outright wasted, but in many cases it is paying the salaries of foreign workers to do jobs in Iraq that are well within the skill sets of Iraqis," said Meehan.
Again, why in the world would Iraqis thank us?
BIG LIES
In the months leading up to the war, Bush told American citizens and Congress, that the US had to wage a preemptive war against Iraq, not only to get rid of Saddam's WMDs, but also because there were links between Saddam and Osama Bin Laden, who is believed to be the mastermind behind 911.
However, the Bush Administration now claims that it never said that Saddam and his WMDs posed an "imminent" threat, and so therefore, Bush cannot be accused of exaggerating the case for war or misleading Congress and the American people.
How soon they forget. Some officials did too use the word "imminent" and others used phrases and words that had the exact same meaning. Yet, during a press conference shortly after the war began, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "Some in the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent'. Those were not words we used."
Oh really? Is that so? Well, Scott must have a pretty bad memory, because on 2/10/03, he himself used the "I" word when he specifically said, "This is about imminent threat."
He must have also forgotten the statement made by Bush Communications Director Dan Bartlett, on 1/26/03, when he answered, "Well, of course he is," in response to a reporter's direct question, "is Saddam an imminent threat to US interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?"
And how could Scott forget the comment made by his predecessor, White House Press Secretary, Ari Fliescher, on 5/7/03? Ari was asked whether or not Iraq was an "imminent threat," and his answer was, "Absolutely."
And how about Bush, himself. Lets do a little review statements made by the star of the war profiteering scheme:
"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. ... Iraq is a threat, a real threat." Bush 1/3/03
"Saddam Hussein is a threat to America." Bush 11/3/02
"I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq." Bush 11/1/02
"There is real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to America in Iraq in the form of Saddam Hussein." Bush 10/28/02
"There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists." Bush 10/7/02
"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency." Bush 10/2/02
"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is." Bush 10/2/02
"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined." Bush 9/26/02
And lets review a few of the lines uttered by Chief Cheney over a period of 2 days:
Iraq is "a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies." 1/31/03.
Iraq poses "terrible threats to the civilized world." 1/30/03.
Iraq "threatens the United States of America." 1/30/03
Rumsfeld is really a trip. Here's where he uses statements about 9/11 (peppered with the "I" word), as part of the ploy to scare us into war:
"I would look you in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month...So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?" 11/14/03
Here's where Rumsfeld used the ultimate threat of nuclear weapons (and the "I" word again), to scare us some more, complete with the bogus, and now infamous, line about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa:
"Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa." 1/30/03.
"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons." 9/18/02.
Here's where Rummy warns us about Saddam being an "immediate threat:"
"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq." 9/19/02
While we're at it, lets take a look back at what Colin Powell said to the world about the threat posed by Saddam and WMDs in his speech before the UN. Colin even brought photos of the evidence to back up his statements.
"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources."
"We also have satellite photos that indicate that banned materials have recently been moved from a number of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction facilities."
"Let's look at one. This one is about a weapons munition facility, a facility that holds ammunition at a place called Taji (ph). This is one of about 65 such facilities in Iraq. We know that this one has housed chemical munitions. In fact, this is where the Iraqis recently came up with the additional four chemical weapon shells."
"Here, you see 15 munitions bunkers in yellow and red outlines. The four that are in red squares represent active chemical munitions bunkers."
"Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries."
I would say this to Colin Powell, OK Colin, fair enough. Here's your chance to redeem yourself. For starters, lets see those photos again, and then explain to the world, exactly what happened to those yellow and red bunkers in the photos. And after that, give us the names of all those solid human sources.
Here's where Powell tells the UN all about the ties and meetings between Al Qaida, Osama and Saddam, that according to Colin, had been going on for years.
"Going back to the early and mid-1990s, when bin Laden was based in Sudan, an Al Qaida source tells us that Saddam and bin Laden reached an understanding that Al Qaida would no longer support activities against Baghdad. Early Al Qaida ties were forged by secret, high-level intelligence service contacts with Al Qaida, secret Iraqi intelligence high-level contacts with Al Qaida."
"We know members of both organizations met repeatedly (oh yea? How about dates and locations), and have met at least eight times at very senior levels since the early 1990s. In 1996, a foreign security service tells us, that bin Laden met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Khartoum, and later met the director of the Iraqi intelligence service."
"Saddam became more interested as he saw Al Qaida's appalling attacks. A detained Al Qaida member tells us that Saddam was more willing to assist Al Qaida after the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Saddam was also impressed by Al Qaida's attacks on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000."
OK Colin, how about introducing us to this "detained" Al Qaida member that gave you all this info. That should be easy enough.
Here's where he makes it sound like the Iraqis, Al Qaida, Saddam and Osama were best buddies, even houseguests of one another, supposedly backed by yet another "human source." Who by the way, I am eager to meet.
"Iraqis continued to visit bin Laden in his new home in Afghanistan. A senior defector, one of Saddam's former intelligence chiefs in Europe, says Saddam sent his agents to Afghanistan sometime in the mid-1990s to provide training to Al Qaida members on document forgery."
Gosh, do you think that they had tea together in Osama's new cave?
Funny thing, the only forgeries I've ever heard about are the ones used by Bush and his gang of thugs in their reports to Congress and the UN. What were they again? A student's term paper and some documents purporting to show that Saddam was seeking uranium from Africa? I think that's right. As I recall, they were easily identified as fakes. Maybe the Bush gang should enroll in the forgery training camp in Afghanistan.
Get this, here's Colin with another photo. This one shows a poison and explosive training camp, specifically located in northeastern Iraq.
"You see a picture of this camp. The network is teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons. Let me remind you how ricin works. Less than a pinch--image a pinch of salt--less than a pinch of ricin, eating just this amount in your food, would cause shock followed by circulatory failure. Death comes within 72 hours and there is no antidote, there is no cure. It is fatal."
OK Colin, lets see that photo again, and then tell us what happened to this dangerous chemical training camp, with its pinches of deadly ricin, after it apparently disappeared off the face of the earth.
As long as we're parsing words, lets take a closer look at a few of the other words they used to convince us that we needed to go to war. As noted above, they did use the "I" word, but beyond that, they claim the other words used did not mean "imminent."
Well I beg to differ. They described the threat of Saddam's and his WMDs as: "mortal," "urgent," "immediate", "serious and mounting", "unique," and they even claimed that Iraq was actively seeking to "strike the United States with weapons of mass destruction."
Now I know that the Bush gang is convinced that we lowly citizens are all really stupid, but can't they give us just a little more credit? I think there are at least a few Americans out here who might know the meaning of some of those words.
While we're on the subject of lies, how about the one where they said the war would be a cakewalk. In February 2003, Rumsfeld predicted that the war "could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." That was either a pipe dream or pure BS. I say BS.
And what about the costs? Every last one of them lied to Congress and taxpayers about what the war would cost. On April 23, 2003, Andrew Natsios, head of the US Agency for International Development, gave a televised interview and outlined the costs to the taxpayers of rebuilding Iraq, "the American part of this will be $1.7 billion," he said. "We have no plans for any further-on funding for this."
That estimate turned out to be a little bit off -- by about $149 billion --- so far.
A March 2003 report by the White House Office of Management and Budget said: "Iraq will not require sustained aid." In testimony to Congress on March 27, 2003, Wolfowitz said Iraq "can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." I wonder when will relatively soon is going to get here.
And remember when they all said that Iraqi oil would pay for its reconstruction? What a joke. In 2003 oil production dropped to 1.33 million barrels a day, from 2.04 million in 2002.
The fact is, Bush and his gang of chickenhawks lied to Congress, to taxpayers, and to the world, in order to wage an illegal war. The whole damn bunch should be tried as war criminals.
John Kerry Did Not Vote to Go to War
Bush is always saying Kerry voted for the war. Let's get one thing straight once and for all. He did not vote to go to war. He voted for a resolution that gave Bush the authority to use force as a last resort, if it became absolutely necessary to protect us from an imminent threat from WMDs (and yes he used the "I" word many times).
If Kerry is guilty of anything, its of being gullible enough to believe the lies told by the President of the United State, and his gang of fellow liars, on the world stage.
In a speech on the Senate Floor on the day of the vote, Kerry made it clear that he was not voting to go to war when he said, "approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable." It means "America speaks with one voice."
Kerry had no reason to think Bush was set to go to war. As he pointed out, any threat posed by Saddam and his WMDs, was "not imminent, and no one in the CIA, no intelligence briefing ... suggests it is imminent. None of our intelligence reports suggest that he is about to launch an attack," Kerry said. "Every nation has the right to act preemptively, if it faces an imminent and grave threat, for its self-defense ... The threat we face today with Iraq does not meet that test yet."
Kerry said that he would only agree to go to war for one reason, to rid Saddam of WMDs. He emphatically warned Bush that if he did take the country to war for any other reason than an imminent threat to the US by Saddam and his WMDs, that he would be the first to speak out and demand that Bush be held accountable.
As we know now, there never were any WMDs and so therefore, as Kerry made clear, he would have never voted to go to war.
He clarified what his vote meant when he said, "let me be clear, the vote I will give ... is for one reason and one reason only: To disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint concert with our allies," he said.
"In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments ... to work with the United Nations ... to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out."
"If we do wind up going to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so with others in the international community, unless there is a showing of a grave, imminent--and I emphasize "imminent"--threat to this country which requires the President to respond in a way that protects our immediate national security needs."
In my opinion, the day for demanding accountability from Bush has long passed. It should have happened the day he took the country to war in Iraq. That said, I look forward to watching the first Bush-Kerry debate when Kerry will have the opportunity to demand accountability from that greedy thug living in the WH illegally.
Kerry warned us about what would happen if Bush took us to war without just cause, and without our allies. He speech on the Senate floor on the day of the vote almost seems prophetic in hindsight. Here are a few excerpts from his October 9, 2002 Senate speech:
"The President needs to give the American people a fairer and fuller, clearer understanding of the magnitude and long-term financial cost of that effort."
"The international community's support will be critical because we will not be able to rebuild Iraq single-handedly. We will lack the credibility and the expertise and the capacity."
"The administration may not be in the habit of building coalitions, but that is what they need to do. ... If we go it alone without reason, we risk inflaming an entire region, breeding a new generation of terrorists, a new cadre of anti-American zealots, and we will be less secure, not more secure, at the end of the day, even with Saddam Hussein disarmed."
Everything Kerry said would happen, happened. The skyrocketing costs of the war, both in lives lost, and tax dollars spent blow Americans away. The country was not prepared to sustain such a drastic drain on its resources. Nor were we prepared for the hatred that has been directed at Americans, not only in Iraq, but also throughout the Middle East.
Just like Kerry predicted, the region has become a magnet for terrorists that hate Americans. And he's right; Saddam's capture provides no consolation when weighed against the mess Bush got us into.
A scheme that turned Iraq into a boomtown for Bush and his fellow war profiteers, has turned into a never-ending nightmare for the rest of the country. First thing we see each morning, when we turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper, is the number of soldiers killed or injured the day before. And there is no end in sight.
John Kerry bears no responsibility whatsoever for the war in Iraq. If he had been president we never would have ended up there to begin with. But as it stands now, Kerry will be the one stuck with cleaning up the mess when he inherits it come November.
Bin Laden must be laughing his you know what off. By calling off the hunt in Afghanistan, to launch a preemptive war against a country that posed no threat to the US, Bush not only sabotaged the capture of bin Laden; he destroyed our credibility, and undermined American security at home and abroad.
By grossly overextending our troops, he has lessened our military readiness to respond to a real threat of terror should one arise. Osama bin Laden himself could not have created the disaster in Iraq any better if he had tried.
Here's a political riddle to solve. Who made the following comments and whom did the comments refer to?
* "Sending our military on vague, aimless, and endless missions rapidly saps morale. Even the highest morale is eventually undermined by back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages of spare parts and equipment, inadequate training, and rapidly declining readiness."
* "A comprehensive strategy for combating the new dangers posed by weapons of mass destruction must include a variety of other measures to contain and prevent the spread of such weapons. We need the cooperation of friends and allies."
* "Nor should the intelligence community be made the scapegoat for political misjudgments."
Source: The year 2000 Republican Party Platform.
So just look at what has happened between then and now. The Republican prophets who posted those comments were absolutely correct. Endless missions, back-to-back deployments, inadequate training, no cooperation of friends and allies, blaming the CIA for political misjudgments, and on and on. It all came true all right, but democrats caused none of it.
Bush's so-called war on terror is a miserable failure, any way you look at it. Retired General Anthony Zinni, former commander of the US Central Command, got it right when he said that by manufacturing a false rationale for war, abandoning traditional allies, propping up and trusting Iraqi exiles, and failing to plan for post-war Iraq, Bush has made the US less secure, instead of safer.
Bush thinks that Iraqi citizens should have welcomed us into the country and thanked us for getting rid of Saddam. Right before the war started, in a March 16, 2003 interview, Cheney said, "I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators."
As we now know, he was dead wrong, that did not happen.
But then why would Iraqis thank us? For what? Saddam may be gone, but innocent Iraqis have suffered the same human rights violations at the hands of the occupying forces that they did while Saddam was in power. In addition to the degradation and inexcusable abuse of prisoners, the deaths of at least 34 Iraqi detainees are currently being investigated.
Iraqis still live in fear of torture every day; in fact probably more so. Incidents of murder, rape, and kidnapping have skyrocketed since the war began. Violent deaths rose from an average of 14 per month in 2002 to 357 a month in 2003.
Come to think about it, I don't hear about any good news coming out of Iraq. Its about 120 degrees over there and they don't even have the basic necessities that they had under Saddam. According to a recent report by the GAO, basic services like water and electricity are still operating at lower levels than they were before the war.
Over the past year, joblessness has doubled. According to the Boston Globe, using recent US data, more than half the workers in the country are either without job or making less than a living wage. Only 1% of Iraq's workforce (7 million people) is involved in reconstruction projects.
Bush and his gang of war profiteers made sure the reconstruction contracts went to US companies, rather than experienced Iraqi firms. Democratic Rep Martin Meehan, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, sees what is going on and explains, how "the American taxpayer is spending billions of dollars on no-bid contracts to companies like Halliburton. Not only has this money often been poorly spent or outright wasted, but in many cases it is paying the salaries of foreign workers to do jobs in Iraq that are well within the skill sets of Iraqis," said Meehan.
Again, why in the world would Iraqis thank us?
BIG LIES
In the months leading up to the war, Bush told American citizens and Congress, that the US had to wage a preemptive war against Iraq, not only to get rid of Saddam's WMDs, but also because there were links between Saddam and Osama Bin Laden, who is believed to be the mastermind behind 911.
However, the Bush Administration now claims that it never said that Saddam and his WMDs posed an "imminent" threat, and so therefore, Bush cannot be accused of exaggerating the case for war or misleading Congress and the American people.
How soon they forget. Some officials did too use the word "imminent" and others used phrases and words that had the exact same meaning. Yet, during a press conference shortly after the war began, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "Some in the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent'. Those were not words we used."
Oh really? Is that so? Well, Scott must have a pretty bad memory, because on 2/10/03, he himself used the "I" word when he specifically said, "This is about imminent threat."
He must have also forgotten the statement made by Bush Communications Director Dan Bartlett, on 1/26/03, when he answered, "Well, of course he is," in response to a reporter's direct question, "is Saddam an imminent threat to US interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?"
And how could Scott forget the comment made by his predecessor, White House Press Secretary, Ari Fliescher, on 5/7/03? Ari was asked whether or not Iraq was an "imminent threat," and his answer was, "Absolutely."
And how about Bush, himself. Lets do a little review statements made by the star of the war profiteering scheme:
"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. ... Iraq is a threat, a real threat." Bush 1/3/03
"Saddam Hussein is a threat to America." Bush 11/3/02
"I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq." Bush 11/1/02
"There is real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to America in Iraq in the form of Saddam Hussein." Bush 10/28/02
"There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists." Bush 10/7/02
"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency." Bush 10/2/02
"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is." Bush 10/2/02
"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined." Bush 9/26/02
And lets review a few of the lines uttered by Chief Cheney over a period of 2 days:
Iraq is "a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies." 1/31/03.
Iraq poses "terrible threats to the civilized world." 1/30/03.
Iraq "threatens the United States of America." 1/30/03
Rumsfeld is really a trip. Here's where he uses statements about 9/11 (peppered with the "I" word), as part of the ploy to scare us into war:
"I would look you in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month...So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?" 11/14/03
Here's where Rumsfeld used the ultimate threat of nuclear weapons (and the "I" word again), to scare us some more, complete with the bogus, and now infamous, line about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa:
"Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa." 1/30/03.
"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons." 9/18/02.
Here's where Rummy warns us about Saddam being an "immediate threat:"
"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq." 9/19/02
While we're at it, lets take a look back at what Colin Powell said to the world about the threat posed by Saddam and WMDs in his speech before the UN. Colin even brought photos of the evidence to back up his statements.
"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources."
"We also have satellite photos that indicate that banned materials have recently been moved from a number of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction facilities."
"Let's look at one. This one is about a weapons munition facility, a facility that holds ammunition at a place called Taji (ph). This is one of about 65 such facilities in Iraq. We know that this one has housed chemical munitions. In fact, this is where the Iraqis recently came up with the additional four chemical weapon shells."
"Here, you see 15 munitions bunkers in yellow and red outlines. The four that are in red squares represent active chemical munitions bunkers."
"Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries."
I would say this to Colin Powell, OK Colin, fair enough. Here's your chance to redeem yourself. For starters, lets see those photos again, and then explain to the world, exactly what happened to those yellow and red bunkers in the photos. And after that, give us the names of all those solid human sources.
Here's where Powell tells the UN all about the ties and meetings between Al Qaida, Osama and Saddam, that according to Colin, had been going on for years.
"Going back to the early and mid-1990s, when bin Laden was based in Sudan, an Al Qaida source tells us that Saddam and bin Laden reached an understanding that Al Qaida would no longer support activities against Baghdad. Early Al Qaida ties were forged by secret, high-level intelligence service contacts with Al Qaida, secret Iraqi intelligence high-level contacts with Al Qaida."
"We know members of both organizations met repeatedly (oh yea? How about dates and locations), and have met at least eight times at very senior levels since the early 1990s. In 1996, a foreign security service tells us, that bin Laden met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Khartoum, and later met the director of the Iraqi intelligence service."
"Saddam became more interested as he saw Al Qaida's appalling attacks. A detained Al Qaida member tells us that Saddam was more willing to assist Al Qaida after the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Saddam was also impressed by Al Qaida's attacks on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000."
OK Colin, how about introducing us to this "detained" Al Qaida member that gave you all this info. That should be easy enough.
Here's where he makes it sound like the Iraqis, Al Qaida, Saddam and Osama were best buddies, even houseguests of one another, supposedly backed by yet another "human source." Who by the way, I am eager to meet.
"Iraqis continued to visit bin Laden in his new home in Afghanistan. A senior defector, one of Saddam's former intelligence chiefs in Europe, says Saddam sent his agents to Afghanistan sometime in the mid-1990s to provide training to Al Qaida members on document forgery."
Gosh, do you think that they had tea together in Osama's new cave?
Funny thing, the only forgeries I've ever heard about are the ones used by Bush and his gang of thugs in their reports to Congress and the UN. What were they again? A student's term paper and some documents purporting to show that Saddam was seeking uranium from Africa? I think that's right. As I recall, they were easily identified as fakes. Maybe the Bush gang should enroll in the forgery training camp in Afghanistan.
Get this, here's Colin with another photo. This one shows a poison and explosive training camp, specifically located in northeastern Iraq.
"You see a picture of this camp. The network is teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons. Let me remind you how ricin works. Less than a pinch--image a pinch of salt--less than a pinch of ricin, eating just this amount in your food, would cause shock followed by circulatory failure. Death comes within 72 hours and there is no antidote, there is no cure. It is fatal."
OK Colin, lets see that photo again, and then tell us what happened to this dangerous chemical training camp, with its pinches of deadly ricin, after it apparently disappeared off the face of the earth.
As long as we're parsing words, lets take a closer look at a few of the other words they used to convince us that we needed to go to war. As noted above, they did use the "I" word, but beyond that, they claim the other words used did not mean "imminent."
Well I beg to differ. They described the threat of Saddam's and his WMDs as: "mortal," "urgent," "immediate", "serious and mounting", "unique," and they even claimed that Iraq was actively seeking to "strike the United States with weapons of mass destruction."
Now I know that the Bush gang is convinced that we lowly citizens are all really stupid, but can't they give us just a little more credit? I think there are at least a few Americans out here who might know the meaning of some of those words.
While we're on the subject of lies, how about the one where they said the war would be a cakewalk. In February 2003, Rumsfeld predicted that the war "could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." That was either a pipe dream or pure BS. I say BS.
And what about the costs? Every last one of them lied to Congress and taxpayers about what the war would cost. On April 23, 2003, Andrew Natsios, head of the US Agency for International Development, gave a televised interview and outlined the costs to the taxpayers of rebuilding Iraq, "the American part of this will be $1.7 billion," he said. "We have no plans for any further-on funding for this."
That estimate turned out to be a little bit off -- by about $149 billion --- so far.
A March 2003 report by the White House Office of Management and Budget said: "Iraq will not require sustained aid." In testimony to Congress on March 27, 2003, Wolfowitz said Iraq "can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." I wonder when will relatively soon is going to get here.
And remember when they all said that Iraqi oil would pay for its reconstruction? What a joke. In 2003 oil production dropped to 1.33 million barrels a day, from 2.04 million in 2002.
The fact is, Bush and his gang of chickenhawks lied to Congress, to taxpayers, and to the world, in order to wage an illegal war. The whole damn bunch should be tried as war criminals.
John Kerry Did Not Vote to Go to War
Bush is always saying Kerry voted for the war. Let's get one thing straight once and for all. He did not vote to go to war. He voted for a resolution that gave Bush the authority to use force as a last resort, if it became absolutely necessary to protect us from an imminent threat from WMDs (and yes he used the "I" word many times).
If Kerry is guilty of anything, its of being gullible enough to believe the lies told by the President of the United State, and his gang of fellow liars, on the world stage.
In a speech on the Senate Floor on the day of the vote, Kerry made it clear that he was not voting to go to war when he said, "approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable." It means "America speaks with one voice."
Kerry had no reason to think Bush was set to go to war. As he pointed out, any threat posed by Saddam and his WMDs, was "not imminent, and no one in the CIA, no intelligence briefing ... suggests it is imminent. None of our intelligence reports suggest that he is about to launch an attack," Kerry said. "Every nation has the right to act preemptively, if it faces an imminent and grave threat, for its self-defense ... The threat we face today with Iraq does not meet that test yet."
Kerry said that he would only agree to go to war for one reason, to rid Saddam of WMDs. He emphatically warned Bush that if he did take the country to war for any other reason than an imminent threat to the US by Saddam and his WMDs, that he would be the first to speak out and demand that Bush be held accountable.
As we know now, there never were any WMDs and so therefore, as Kerry made clear, he would have never voted to go to war.
He clarified what his vote meant when he said, "let me be clear, the vote I will give ... is for one reason and one reason only: To disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint concert with our allies," he said.
"In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments ... to work with the United Nations ... to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out."
"If we do wind up going to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so with others in the international community, unless there is a showing of a grave, imminent--and I emphasize "imminent"--threat to this country which requires the President to respond in a way that protects our immediate national security needs."
In my opinion, the day for demanding accountability from Bush has long passed. It should have happened the day he took the country to war in Iraq. That said, I look forward to watching the first Bush-Kerry debate when Kerry will have the opportunity to demand accountability from that greedy thug living in the WH illegally.
Kerry warned us about what would happen if Bush took us to war without just cause, and without our allies. He speech on the Senate floor on the day of the vote almost seems prophetic in hindsight. Here are a few excerpts from his October 9, 2002 Senate speech:
"The President needs to give the American people a fairer and fuller, clearer understanding of the magnitude and long-term financial cost of that effort."
"The international community's support will be critical because we will not be able to rebuild Iraq single-handedly. We will lack the credibility and the expertise and the capacity."
"The administration may not be in the habit of building coalitions, but that is what they need to do. ... If we go it alone without reason, we risk inflaming an entire region, breeding a new generation of terrorists, a new cadre of anti-American zealots, and we will be less secure, not more secure, at the end of the day, even with Saddam Hussein disarmed."
Everything Kerry said would happen, happened. The skyrocketing costs of the war, both in lives lost, and tax dollars spent blow Americans away. The country was not prepared to sustain such a drastic drain on its resources. Nor were we prepared for the hatred that has been directed at Americans, not only in Iraq, but also throughout the Middle East.
Just like Kerry predicted, the region has become a magnet for terrorists that hate Americans. And he's right; Saddam's capture provides no consolation when weighed against the mess Bush got us into.
A scheme that turned Iraq into a boomtown for Bush and his fellow war profiteers, has turned into a never-ending nightmare for the rest of the country. First thing we see each morning, when we turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper, is the number of soldiers killed or injured the day before. And there is no end in sight.
John Kerry bears no responsibility whatsoever for the war in Iraq. If he had been president we never would have ended up there to begin with. But as it stands now, Kerry will be the one stuck with cleaning up the mess when he inherits it come November.
Citizens For Honest Fighter Pilots Call On Bush to Explain His Military Record
Evelyn Pringle August 11, 2004
Questions about Bush's military service would likely be history if not for the new attacks on Kerry's war record by the latest Republican hit squad of "Truthful Vets." But, by the way it looks now, we will be comparing the military records of the candidates right up to election day.
Therefore, my newly formed group, "Citizens For Honest Fighter Pilots," hereby calls on Bush to explain his whereabouts and activities for the period of time he was AWOL, and for him to repay the quarter of a million tax dollars wasted on his fighter pilot training.
As a member of "Citizens for Honest Fighter Pilots," I want to remind voters that while Kerry was in Vietnam, doing whatever it was that the "Truthful Vets" imply he was doing over there, Bush was an AWOL, suspended fighter pilot, roaming around somewhere in between Alabama and Texas.
Nobody seems to know which State of the Union Bush was in or what shape he was in. Also, not one of the 700 members at the Alabama unit where he claims he served, remembers serving with him.
As for Kerry's whereabouts, we at least have him pinned down to a certain river in a jungle in Vietnam, and according to "Truthful Vets," he was in pretty good shape. Everyone remembers seeing him there, too.
Bush's records on the other hand, contain no explanation for his bizarre behavior during the last 18 months he was in the Guard, when he failed to show up for a yearly physical, got suspended from flying, and went for five months without attending a single drill.
While Bush swears he attended drills in Alabama, nobody has produced a single record to document his attendance.
Kerry is definitely the smartest of the two candidates, because, according to the "Truthful Vets," he somehow conned the military into awarding him five medals for bravery. And despite being in the swamps of Vietnam, Kerry's records show exactly where he was on any given date.
Somehow I don't think Kerry volunteered to go to Vietnam because he heard it was a fun place to party. He went and served in that hell-hole at a time when other young men looked for every way on earth not to. That fact alone makes John Kerry a war hero.
Evelyn Pringle
Miamisburg, OH
Questions about Bush's military service would likely be history if not for the new attacks on Kerry's war record by the latest Republican hit squad of "Truthful Vets." But, by the way it looks now, we will be comparing the military records of the candidates right up to election day.
Therefore, my newly formed group, "Citizens For Honest Fighter Pilots," hereby calls on Bush to explain his whereabouts and activities for the period of time he was AWOL, and for him to repay the quarter of a million tax dollars wasted on his fighter pilot training.
As a member of "Citizens for Honest Fighter Pilots," I want to remind voters that while Kerry was in Vietnam, doing whatever it was that the "Truthful Vets" imply he was doing over there, Bush was an AWOL, suspended fighter pilot, roaming around somewhere in between Alabama and Texas.
Nobody seems to know which State of the Union Bush was in or what shape he was in. Also, not one of the 700 members at the Alabama unit where he claims he served, remembers serving with him.
As for Kerry's whereabouts, we at least have him pinned down to a certain river in a jungle in Vietnam, and according to "Truthful Vets," he was in pretty good shape. Everyone remembers seeing him there, too.
Bush's records on the other hand, contain no explanation for his bizarre behavior during the last 18 months he was in the Guard, when he failed to show up for a yearly physical, got suspended from flying, and went for five months without attending a single drill.
While Bush swears he attended drills in Alabama, nobody has produced a single record to document his attendance.
Kerry is definitely the smartest of the two candidates, because, according to the "Truthful Vets," he somehow conned the military into awarding him five medals for bravery. And despite being in the swamps of Vietnam, Kerry's records show exactly where he was on any given date.
Somehow I don't think Kerry volunteered to go to Vietnam because he heard it was a fun place to party. He went and served in that hell-hole at a time when other young men looked for every way on earth not to. That fact alone makes John Kerry a war hero.
Evelyn Pringle
Miamisburg, OH
CFHFP: Quotes and Opinions From Vets Who Served With Bush
Evelyn Pringle August 12, 2004
The latest smear on Kerry's war record comes from a group who call themselves, "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." In response to their attacks my new group, Citizens For Honest Fighter Pilots, comes forth to tell voters what vets who served with Bush have to say about him.
Bush claims he attended drills at the Dannelly Base in Alabama. During the 2000 campaign he said, "I was there on a temporary assignment and fulfilled my weekends at one period of time," he said. "I made up some missed weekends." "I can't remember what I did, but I wasn't flying because they didn't have the same airplanes. I fulfilled my obligations."
The official records don't support his claims, they show a Sep 15, 1972, direct order for Bush to report for duty at Dannelly, "Lt Bush should report to Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, DCO, to perform equivalent training," on "7-8 October, and 4-5 November. He never showed up.
Retired General William Turnipseed, and his administrative officer, say Bush was not there. ''Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not,'' Turnipseed said, "I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we had a 1st Lt from Texas, I would have remembered."
But Bush keeps on saying he was there. When asked about Turnipseed's statements, he said, "I read the comments from the guy who said he doesn't remember me being there, but I remember being there."
If his memory is so good, then why can't he recall a single name out of the 700 men he served with? And why hasn't a single guy come forward to say he served with Bush?
Bush's superiors in Texas thought he was in Alabama. His yearly evaluation says, "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of report," and a "civilian occupation made it necessary for him to move to Montgomery, Alabama. He cleared this base on 15 May 1972 and has been performing equivalent training in a non flying status with the 187 Tac Recon Gp, Dannelly ANG Base, Alabama."
He wasn't in Texas and he wasn't in Alabama. So where was he?
We've heard from the Honest Vets, so Citizens For Honest Fighter Pilots thinks voters should hear what Bush's fellow fighter pilots had to say about serving with him.
On Feb 13, 2004, the Memphis Flyer published interviews with 2 guardsmen from the Alabama unit where Bush says he served in 1972. Bob Mintz and Paul Bishop attended regular drills and are both absolutely certain that Bush never showed up for duty.
Mintz told the reporter, "I remember that I heard someone was coming to drill with us from Texas. And it was implied that it was somebody with political influence. I was a young bachelor then. I was looking for somebody to prowl around with."
When he didn't show, Mintz thought Bush had "changed his mind and went somewhere else" to do his duty. No so, in campaign 2000, Bush was referring to Mintz's unit, and he's sticking to the same story in 2004.
Mintz spoke of his "negative reaction" to Bush's dishonesty. "You don't do that as an officer, you don't do that as a pilot, you don't do it as an important person, and you don't do it as a citizen. This guy's got a lot of nerve," he said.
Mintz says there were only 25 or 30 pilots on base, "There's no doubt. I would have heard of him, seen him, whatever," he said. "And if he did any flying at all, on whatever kind of craft, that would have involved a great number of supportive personnel. It takes a lot of people to get a plane into the air. But nobody I can think of remembers him."
Mintz said, "(I) talked to one of my buddies the other day and asked him if he could remember Bush at drill at any time, and he said, 'Naw, ol' George wasn't there.'"
His buddy is Paul Bishop. Bishop voted for Bush in 2000, but says he is now upset about Bush lying about serving in Alabama. "I never saw hide nor hair of Mr. Bush," he said.
Bishop claims he didn't pay attention to the lies during campaign 2000, but does since Bush went to war in Iraq. "It bothered me that he wouldn't 'fess up and say, Okay, guys, I cut out when the rest of you did your time. He shouldn't have tried to dance around the subject. I take great exception to that. I spent 39 years defending my country," he said.
Bush better not count on getting votes from these 2 vets. When Bishop was asked if plans to vote for Bush, he said, "Naw, this goes to an integrity issue." And who will Bob Mintz be voting for? "Not for any Texas politicians," he says.
Evelyn Pringle
Miamisburg, OH
The latest smear on Kerry's war record comes from a group who call themselves, "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." In response to their attacks my new group, Citizens For Honest Fighter Pilots, comes forth to tell voters what vets who served with Bush have to say about him.
Bush claims he attended drills at the Dannelly Base in Alabama. During the 2000 campaign he said, "I was there on a temporary assignment and fulfilled my weekends at one period of time," he said. "I made up some missed weekends." "I can't remember what I did, but I wasn't flying because they didn't have the same airplanes. I fulfilled my obligations."
The official records don't support his claims, they show a Sep 15, 1972, direct order for Bush to report for duty at Dannelly, "Lt Bush should report to Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, DCO, to perform equivalent training," on "7-8 October, and 4-5 November. He never showed up.
Retired General William Turnipseed, and his administrative officer, say Bush was not there. ''Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not,'' Turnipseed said, "I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we had a 1st Lt from Texas, I would have remembered."
But Bush keeps on saying he was there. When asked about Turnipseed's statements, he said, "I read the comments from the guy who said he doesn't remember me being there, but I remember being there."
If his memory is so good, then why can't he recall a single name out of the 700 men he served with? And why hasn't a single guy come forward to say he served with Bush?
Bush's superiors in Texas thought he was in Alabama. His yearly evaluation says, "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of report," and a "civilian occupation made it necessary for him to move to Montgomery, Alabama. He cleared this base on 15 May 1972 and has been performing equivalent training in a non flying status with the 187 Tac Recon Gp, Dannelly ANG Base, Alabama."
He wasn't in Texas and he wasn't in Alabama. So where was he?
We've heard from the Honest Vets, so Citizens For Honest Fighter Pilots thinks voters should hear what Bush's fellow fighter pilots had to say about serving with him.
On Feb 13, 2004, the Memphis Flyer published interviews with 2 guardsmen from the Alabama unit where Bush says he served in 1972. Bob Mintz and Paul Bishop attended regular drills and are both absolutely certain that Bush never showed up for duty.
Mintz told the reporter, "I remember that I heard someone was coming to drill with us from Texas. And it was implied that it was somebody with political influence. I was a young bachelor then. I was looking for somebody to prowl around with."
When he didn't show, Mintz thought Bush had "changed his mind and went somewhere else" to do his duty. No so, in campaign 2000, Bush was referring to Mintz's unit, and he's sticking to the same story in 2004.
Mintz spoke of his "negative reaction" to Bush's dishonesty. "You don't do that as an officer, you don't do that as a pilot, you don't do it as an important person, and you don't do it as a citizen. This guy's got a lot of nerve," he said.
Mintz says there were only 25 or 30 pilots on base, "There's no doubt. I would have heard of him, seen him, whatever," he said. "And if he did any flying at all, on whatever kind of craft, that would have involved a great number of supportive personnel. It takes a lot of people to get a plane into the air. But nobody I can think of remembers him."
Mintz said, "(I) talked to one of my buddies the other day and asked him if he could remember Bush at drill at any time, and he said, 'Naw, ol' George wasn't there.'"
His buddy is Paul Bishop. Bishop voted for Bush in 2000, but says he is now upset about Bush lying about serving in Alabama. "I never saw hide nor hair of Mr. Bush," he said.
Bishop claims he didn't pay attention to the lies during campaign 2000, but does since Bush went to war in Iraq. "It bothered me that he wouldn't 'fess up and say, Okay, guys, I cut out when the rest of you did your time. He shouldn't have tried to dance around the subject. I take great exception to that. I spent 39 years defending my country," he said.
Bush better not count on getting votes from these 2 vets. When Bishop was asked if plans to vote for Bush, he said, "Naw, this goes to an integrity issue." And who will Bob Mintz be voting for? "Not for any Texas politicians," he says.
Evelyn Pringle
Miamisburg, OH
Citizens for Honest Fighter Pilots Ask Bush to Get Honest
Evelyn Pringle August 13, 2004
Citizens for Honest Fighter Pilots call on Bush to explain how he could fail to show up for his annual physical, get suspended as a fighter pilot, and escape any discipline whatsoever.
First of all, let's put one theory to rest, any suggestion that he could simply decide to quit flying, with two years left on his commitment, after a quarter of a million dollars was invested in his training, is absurd. He needs to clear up this issue once and for all.
When Bush joined the guard, he said he had a goal of "making flying a lifetime pursuit," and signed a document stating, "I understand that I may be ordered to active duty for a period not to exceed 24 months for unsatisfactory participation."
Yet, even under the threat of being placed on active duty, he failed to show up. His 1972 suspension order states: "Verbal orders of the Comdr on 1 Aug 72 suspending 1STLT George W. Bush ... from flying status are confirmed ... Reason for Suspension: Failure to accomplish annual medical examination. Off will comply with para 2-10, AFM 35-13.
AFM 35-13 specifies that "When a Rated Officer Fails To Accomplish a Medical Examination Prescribed by AFM ... (1) The local commander ... will direct an investigation ... (2) will forward the report along with the command recommendation to USAFMPC/DPMAJD, Randolph AFB TX 78148 for final determination."
There is no record of the an investigation or a follow-up report. Two retired generals say it is unheard of for a pilot to miss a flight physical and not be investigated. "There is no excuse for that. Aviators just don't miss their flight physicals," said Major General Paul Weaver, retired director of the Air National Guard.
Brigadier General David McGinnis said that "Failure to take your flight physical is like a failure to show up for duty. It is an obligation you can't blow off," and that regulations would have required an investigation of the matter.
McGinnis says that Bush's superiors may have decided "to get him off the books, make his father happy, and hope no one would notice." But there still should have been a report. "If it didn't happen, that shows how far they were willing to stretch the rules to accommodate" then Lt Bush.
Over time, the Bush camp has given 3 different equally dishonest stories, about why he was suspended. First it was that he did not take the physical because his personal physician was in Houston. The Boston Globe put that lie to rest when it reported that "flight physicals can be administered only by certified Air Force flight surgeons, and some were assigned at the time to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, where Bush was living."
On another date, his people told the London Times that he didn't have to take an exam, "As he was not flying, there was no reason for him to take the flight physical exam."
Then spokesman, Dan Bartlett, told reporters that Bush knew that he would be suspended because his paperwork hadn't caught up with him. "It was just a question of following the bureaucratic procedure of the time," Bartlett said. "He knew the suspension would have to take place."
So which is it, (a) his family physician wasn't in Alabama, (b) he didn't have to take it because he wasn't flying; or (3) the suspension was caused by a bureaucratic mix-up of paperwork?
At a later date, Bush said he quit flying because the plane he trained on was no longer in use. That was also a lie. His Unit flew the F-102 until 1974. His Texas commander, Retired Major Bobby Hodges said, "If he had come back to Houston, I would have kept him flying the 102 until he got out, but I don't remember him coming back at all."
To get into pilot training, Bush signed a pledge to fly for 5 years after he completed his training to ensure that tax dollars would be well-spent. He grossly violated that pledge and he should be required to repay taxpayers for the cost of his training.
Evelyn Pringle
Miamisburg, OH
Citizens for Honest Fighter Pilots call on Bush to explain how he could fail to show up for his annual physical, get suspended as a fighter pilot, and escape any discipline whatsoever.
First of all, let's put one theory to rest, any suggestion that he could simply decide to quit flying, with two years left on his commitment, after a quarter of a million dollars was invested in his training, is absurd. He needs to clear up this issue once and for all.
When Bush joined the guard, he said he had a goal of "making flying a lifetime pursuit," and signed a document stating, "I understand that I may be ordered to active duty for a period not to exceed 24 months for unsatisfactory participation."
Yet, even under the threat of being placed on active duty, he failed to show up. His 1972 suspension order states: "Verbal orders of the Comdr on 1 Aug 72 suspending 1STLT George W. Bush ... from flying status are confirmed ... Reason for Suspension: Failure to accomplish annual medical examination. Off will comply with para 2-10, AFM 35-13.
AFM 35-13 specifies that "When a Rated Officer Fails To Accomplish a Medical Examination Prescribed by AFM ... (1) The local commander ... will direct an investigation ... (2) will forward the report along with the command recommendation to USAFMPC/DPMAJD, Randolph AFB TX 78148 for final determination."
There is no record of the an investigation or a follow-up report. Two retired generals say it is unheard of for a pilot to miss a flight physical and not be investigated. "There is no excuse for that. Aviators just don't miss their flight physicals," said Major General Paul Weaver, retired director of the Air National Guard.
Brigadier General David McGinnis said that "Failure to take your flight physical is like a failure to show up for duty. It is an obligation you can't blow off," and that regulations would have required an investigation of the matter.
McGinnis says that Bush's superiors may have decided "to get him off the books, make his father happy, and hope no one would notice." But there still should have been a report. "If it didn't happen, that shows how far they were willing to stretch the rules to accommodate" then Lt Bush.
Over time, the Bush camp has given 3 different equally dishonest stories, about why he was suspended. First it was that he did not take the physical because his personal physician was in Houston. The Boston Globe put that lie to rest when it reported that "flight physicals can be administered only by certified Air Force flight surgeons, and some were assigned at the time to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, where Bush was living."
On another date, his people told the London Times that he didn't have to take an exam, "As he was not flying, there was no reason for him to take the flight physical exam."
Then spokesman, Dan Bartlett, told reporters that Bush knew that he would be suspended because his paperwork hadn't caught up with him. "It was just a question of following the bureaucratic procedure of the time," Bartlett said. "He knew the suspension would have to take place."
So which is it, (a) his family physician wasn't in Alabama, (b) he didn't have to take it because he wasn't flying; or (3) the suspension was caused by a bureaucratic mix-up of paperwork?
At a later date, Bush said he quit flying because the plane he trained on was no longer in use. That was also a lie. His Unit flew the F-102 until 1974. His Texas commander, Retired Major Bobby Hodges said, "If he had come back to Houston, I would have kept him flying the 102 until he got out, but I don't remember him coming back at all."
To get into pilot training, Bush signed a pledge to fly for 5 years after he completed his training to ensure that tax dollars would be well-spent. He grossly violated that pledge and he should be required to repay taxpayers for the cost of his training.
Evelyn Pringle
Miamisburg, OH
Citizens For Honest Fighter Pilots May Have Answer to Bush AWOL Questions
Evelyn Pringle August 16, 2004
Citizens for Honest Fighter Pilots has been monitoring the truth or falsity of statements made by John O'Neill, and members of his group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (AKA Lying Idiots), as they swooped across the airwaves on countless cable news programs this past week.
After reviewing the comments made by these liars, and in view of the compulsive, pathological lying that Bush engages in on a daily basis, I can't help but wonder if it comes natural for Texans to lie about whatever, whenever. They seem to have no shame.
It's easy to see why that sweet little Dixie Chick is so embarrassed that Bush comes from her home state. Bush and his gang do give Texas a bad name.
After listening to those guys ramble off lie after lie about John Kerry on the "reputable" cable news channels (giving steady publicity to the lies) for a solid week, Citizens has decided to go pubic with a story about Bush from a source that we deem every bit as credible as John O'Neill, and his band of Truthful Vets. In fact, our source is more credible because at least our source heard the story first-hand with his/her own ears.
Of course we fully realize that a story released by Citizens could never reach the millions upon millions of voters that watch CNN, MSNBC, and Fox. But just the same, we will attempt to get the story out to as many people as possible before the election.
The source provides an answer to our questions put forth to Bush, that have so far gone unanswered, which are: (1) where was Bush while he was AWOL for 5 months? (2) why did he fail to show up for his annual flight physical? and (3) why don't any of his fellow guardsmen remember him at the Alabama base.
To make sure that Citizens is not accused of putting its own spin on the revelations, the story is printed verbatim below:
"Ms. Pringle,
When the Bush-AWOL/deserter scandal first erupted months ago, I overheard [well, the person was talking loudly, so how could I help but hear?] an aide to a radical conservative congressperson run down exactly what happened to create this situation:
Bush was 'acting inappropriately' on the base in Texas, then was picked up on a DUI for alcohol and marijuana. In order to 'create a break in the record,' he was shipped off to Alabama for rehab. That is why he never showed up for his Guard duty - he was in reahb. That also refutes the spin that he had gone there to work on a congressional campaign [note: the campaign workers have said he only appeared at headquarters a few times, and they called him the 'souffle' because of the 'hot air' he spewed when he did show up].
The aide said Bush's advisors told him to keep this a secret. The aide did not agree with this advice. 'If he would reveal the truth now, it would be front page for a few weeks, back page for a few weeks, then disappear. But if it comes out closer to elections, there will be no time to spin it or overcome its damage. This, combined with Cheney's support for the Kurds would damage the campaign. Bush's AWOL and Cheney's support of Kurds may seem a non sequitur, but the aide apparently did not think so.
I have heard this aide discuss various issues - he is a wonk, a nerd who researches ad boredom, and does not seem to say something unless he knows it to factual and true from what he has learned from his studies.
Various journalists and groups have discussed Bush's alcohol and drug usage, and have discussed his AWOL - but they have not put the two together to create a thread to follow. They have asked 'where was he?' but have not investigated rehab in Alabama."
After receiving this information, I interviewed the source by phone. The story that he/she told sounded believable to me. Or, at least as believable as any of the statements made by the Honest Swift Boat Vets to the entire world over the past week.
Who knows, after reading this tip, maybe someone with investigative tools at their disposal will follow up and check out a few southern rehab centers. Which is the reason our source gave for sending the information to Citizens in the first place.
While on the phone with the source, I garnered more details about the story, that if made public, would definitely lead to the outing of the source. Therefore, being my last name is not Novak, that information is not included in this article.
He/She is reluctant to be identified, and for good reason, considering the fact that James Hatfield -- the last person to go public about Bush's drug use -- was found alone and dead in a motel room allegedly due to a drug overdose.
Hey what can I say? A suspicious suicide of a Bush-bashing guy named Hatfield is obviously not as important as a suicide by a guy named Foster. To my knowledge, there was no official investigation into Hatfield's death. But one thing is for sure, his book writing days about Bush came to an abrupt halt.
Having said all that, maybe I should start thanking my lucky stars that I'm not 6 feet under yet, or in the alternative, that Citizen's For Honest Fighter Pilots doesn't have a forwarding address in Cuba by now.
Evelyn Pringle
Miamisburg, OH
Citizens for Honest Fighter Pilots has been monitoring the truth or falsity of statements made by John O'Neill, and members of his group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (AKA Lying Idiots), as they swooped across the airwaves on countless cable news programs this past week.
After reviewing the comments made by these liars, and in view of the compulsive, pathological lying that Bush engages in on a daily basis, I can't help but wonder if it comes natural for Texans to lie about whatever, whenever. They seem to have no shame.
It's easy to see why that sweet little Dixie Chick is so embarrassed that Bush comes from her home state. Bush and his gang do give Texas a bad name.
After listening to those guys ramble off lie after lie about John Kerry on the "reputable" cable news channels (giving steady publicity to the lies) for a solid week, Citizens has decided to go pubic with a story about Bush from a source that we deem every bit as credible as John O'Neill, and his band of Truthful Vets. In fact, our source is more credible because at least our source heard the story first-hand with his/her own ears.
Of course we fully realize that a story released by Citizens could never reach the millions upon millions of voters that watch CNN, MSNBC, and Fox. But just the same, we will attempt to get the story out to as many people as possible before the election.
The source provides an answer to our questions put forth to Bush, that have so far gone unanswered, which are: (1) where was Bush while he was AWOL for 5 months? (2) why did he fail to show up for his annual flight physical? and (3) why don't any of his fellow guardsmen remember him at the Alabama base.
To make sure that Citizens is not accused of putting its own spin on the revelations, the story is printed verbatim below:
"Ms. Pringle,
When the Bush-AWOL/deserter scandal first erupted months ago, I overheard [well, the person was talking loudly, so how could I help but hear?] an aide to a radical conservative congressperson run down exactly what happened to create this situation:
Bush was 'acting inappropriately' on the base in Texas, then was picked up on a DUI for alcohol and marijuana. In order to 'create a break in the record,' he was shipped off to Alabama for rehab. That is why he never showed up for his Guard duty - he was in reahb. That also refutes the spin that he had gone there to work on a congressional campaign [note: the campaign workers have said he only appeared at headquarters a few times, and they called him the 'souffle' because of the 'hot air' he spewed when he did show up].
The aide said Bush's advisors told him to keep this a secret. The aide did not agree with this advice. 'If he would reveal the truth now, it would be front page for a few weeks, back page for a few weeks, then disappear. But if it comes out closer to elections, there will be no time to spin it or overcome its damage. This, combined with Cheney's support for the Kurds would damage the campaign. Bush's AWOL and Cheney's support of Kurds may seem a non sequitur, but the aide apparently did not think so.
I have heard this aide discuss various issues - he is a wonk, a nerd who researches ad boredom, and does not seem to say something unless he knows it to factual and true from what he has learned from his studies.
Various journalists and groups have discussed Bush's alcohol and drug usage, and have discussed his AWOL - but they have not put the two together to create a thread to follow. They have asked 'where was he?' but have not investigated rehab in Alabama."
After receiving this information, I interviewed the source by phone. The story that he/she told sounded believable to me. Or, at least as believable as any of the statements made by the Honest Swift Boat Vets to the entire world over the past week.
Who knows, after reading this tip, maybe someone with investigative tools at their disposal will follow up and check out a few southern rehab centers. Which is the reason our source gave for sending the information to Citizens in the first place.
While on the phone with the source, I garnered more details about the story, that if made public, would definitely lead to the outing of the source. Therefore, being my last name is not Novak, that information is not included in this article.
He/She is reluctant to be identified, and for good reason, considering the fact that James Hatfield -- the last person to go public about Bush's drug use -- was found alone and dead in a motel room allegedly due to a drug overdose.
Hey what can I say? A suspicious suicide of a Bush-bashing guy named Hatfield is obviously not as important as a suicide by a guy named Foster. To my knowledge, there was no official investigation into Hatfield's death. But one thing is for sure, his book writing days about Bush came to an abrupt halt.
Having said all that, maybe I should start thanking my lucky stars that I'm not 6 feet under yet, or in the alternative, that Citizen's For Honest Fighter Pilots doesn't have a forwarding address in Cuba by now.
Evelyn Pringle
Miamisburg, OH
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