PDA

View Full Version : Who Is George H. W. Bush?



Gold9472
10-17-2007, 07:29 PM
Who Is George H. W. Bush?

Thanks to www.cooperativeresearch.org (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org)

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/events-images/202_george_bush_sr.jpg

April, 1976: Church Committee Reports on Domestic Surveillance and Other Illegal Activities by US Intelligence Agencies
A Senate committee tasked to investigate the activities of US intelligence organizations finds a plethora of abuses and criminal behaviors, and recommends strict legal restraints and firm Congressional oversight. The “Church Committee,” chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-ID), a former Army intelligence officer with a strong understanding of the necessity for intelligence-gathering, notes in its final report that the CIA in particular had been overly cooperative with the Nixon administration in spying on US citizens for political purposes (see December 21, 1974); US intelligence agencies had also gone beyond the law in assassination attempts on foreign government officials in, among other places, Africa, Latin America, and Vietnam. Church himself accused the CIA of providing the White House with what, in essence, is a “private army,” outside of Congressional oversight and control, and called the CIA a “rogue elephant rampaging out of control.” The committee will reveal the existence of hitherto-unsuspected operations such as HT Lingual, which had CIA agents secretly opening and reading US citizens’ international mail, and other operations which included secret, unauthorized wiretaps, dossier compilations, and even medical experiments. For himself, Church, the former intelligence officer, concluded that the CIA should conduct covert operations only “in a national emergency or in cases where intervention is clearly in tune with our traditional principles,” and restrain the CIA from intervening in the affairs of third-world nations without oversight or consequence. CIA director William Colby is somewhat of an unlikely ally to Church; although he does not fully cooperate with either the Church or Pike commissions, he feels that the CIA’s image is badly in need of rehabilitation. Indeed, Colby later writes, “I believed that Congress was within its constitutional rights to undertake a long-overdue and thoroughgoing review of the agency and the intelligence community. I did not share the view that intelligence was solely a function of the Executive Branch and must be protected from Congressional prying. Quite the contrary.” Conservatives later blame the Church Commission for “betray[ing] CIA agents and operations,” in the words of American Spectator editor R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr, referencing the 1975 assassination of CIA station chief Richard Welch in Greece. The chief counsel of the Church Committee accuses CIA defenders and other conservatives of “danc[ing] on the grave of Richard Welch in the most cynical way.” It is documented fact that the Church Commission exposed no agents and no operations, and compromised no sources; even Colby’s successor, George H.W. Bush, later admits that Welch’s death had nothing to do with the Church Committee. (In 1980, Church will lose re-election to the Senate in part because of accusations of his committee’s responsibility for Welch’s death by his Republican opponent, Jim McClure.) [American Prospect, 11/5/2001; History Matters Archive, 3/27/2002; Assassination Archives and Research Center, 11/23/2002] The Committee’s final report concludes, “Domestic intelligence activity has threatened and undermined the Constitutional rights of Americans to free speech, association and privacy. It has done so primarily because the Constitutional system for checking abuse of power has not been applied.” The report is particularly critical of the CIA’s successful, and clandestine, manipulation of the US media. It observes: “The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda. These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets.” The report identifies over 50 US journalists directly employed by the CIA, along with many others who were affiliated and paid by the CIA, and reveals the CIA’s policy to have “their” journalists and authors publish CIA-approved information, and disinformation, overseas in order to get that material disseminated in the United States. The report quotes the CIA’s Chief of the Covert Action Staff as writing, “Get books published or distributed abroad without revealing any US influence, by covertly subsidizing foreign publicans or booksellers.…Get books published for operational reasons, regardless of commercial viability.…The advantage of our direct contact with the author is that we can acquaint him in great detail with our intentions; that we can provide him with whatever material we want him to include and that we can check the manuscript at every stage…. [The agency] must make sure the actual manuscript will correspond with our operational and propagandistic intention.” The report finds that over 1,000 books were either published, subsidized, or sponsored by the CIA by the end of 1967; all of these books were published in the US either in their original form or excerpted in US magazines and newspapers. “In examining the CIA’s past and present use of the US media,” the report observes, “the Committee finds two reasons for concern. The first is the potential, inherent in covert media operations, for manipulating or incidentally misleading the American public. The second is the damage to the credibility and independence of a free press which may be caused by covert relationships with the US journalists and media organizations.” The committee also finds that the CIA withheld critical information about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy from the Warren Commission, information about government assassination plots against Fidel Castro of Cuba (see, e.g., November 20, 1975, Early 1961-June 1965, March 1960-August 1960, and Early 1963); and that the FBI had conducted a counter-intelligence program (COINTELPRO) against Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Mafia boss Sam Giancana was slated to testify before the committee about his organization’s ties to the CIA, but before he could testify, he was murdered in his home—including having six bullet wounds in a circle around his mouth. Another committee witness, union leader Jimmy Hoffa, disappeared before he could testify. Hoffa’s body has never been found. Mafia hitman Johnny Roselli was murdered before he could testify before the committee: in September 1976, the Washington Post will print excerpts from Roselli’s last interview, with journalist Jack Anderson, before his death; Anderson will write, “When [Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey] Oswald was picked up, the underworld conspirators feared he would crack and disclose information that might lead to them. This almost certainly would have brought a massive US crackdown on the Mafia. So Jack Ruby was ordered to eliminate Oswald.” (Anderson’s contention has not been proven.) The murders of Giancana and Roselli, and the disappearance and apparent murder of Hoffa, will lead to an inconclusive investigation by the House of the assassinations of Kennedy and King. [Spartacus Educational, 12/18/2002] The findings of the Church Committee will inspire the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (see 1978), and the standing committees on intelligence in the House and Senate. [Assassination Archives and Research Center, 11/23/2002]


The Church Committee operates alongside another investigative body in the House of Representatives, the Pike Committee (see January 29, 1976).
After the 9/11 attacks, conservative critics will once again bash the Church Committee; former Secretary of State James Baker will say within hours of the attacks that the Church report had caused the US to “unilaterally disarm in terms of our intelligence capabilities,” a sentiment echoed by the editorial writers of the Wall Street Journal, who will observe that the opening of the Church hearings was “the moment that our nation moved from an intelligence to anti-intelligence footing.” Perhaps the harshest criticism will come from conservative novelist and military historian Tom Clancy, who will say, “The CIA was gutted by people on the political left who don’t like intelligence operations. And as a result of that, as an indirect result of that, we’ve lost 5,000 citizens last week.” [Gerald K. Haines, 1/20/2003]

1981-1992: Cheney and Rumsfeld Practice Secret Continuity of Government Plan, Later Activated on 9/11
Throughout the 1980s, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are key players in one of the most highly classified programs of the Reagan administration. Presently, Cheney is working as a Republican congressman, while Rumsfeld is head of the pharmaceutical company G. D. Searle. At least once per year, they both leave their day jobs for periods of three or four days. They head to Andrews Air Force Base, near Washington, DC, and along with 40 to 60 federal officials and one member of the Reagan Cabinet are taken to a remote location within the US, such as an underground bunker. While they are gone, none of their work colleagues, or even their wives, knows where they are. They are participating in detailed planning exercises for keeping government running during and after a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. This highly secret “continuity of government” (COG) program is known as Project 908. The idea is that if the US were under a nuclear attack, three teams would be sent from Washington to separate locations around the US to prepare to take leadership of the country. If somehow one team was located and hit with a nuclear weapon, the second or third team could take its place. Each of the three teams includes representatives from the State Department, Defense Department, CIA, and various domestic-policy agencies. The program is run by a new government agency called the National Program Office. Based in the Washington area, it has a budget of hundreds of million dollars a year, which grows to $1 billion per year by the end of Reagan’s first term in office. Within the National Security Council, the “action officer” involved in the COG program is Oliver North, who is a key figure in the mid-1980s Iran-Contra scandal. Reagan’s Vice President George H. W. Bush also supervises some of the program’s efforts. As well as Cheney and Rumsfeld, other known figures involved in the COG exercises include Kenneth Duberstein, who serves for a time as President Reagan’s chief of staff, and future CIA Director James Woolsey. The program, though, is extraconstitutional, as it establishes a process for designating a new US president that is nowhere authorized in the US Constitution or federal law. After George H. W. Bush is elected president in 1988 and the effective end of the Soviet Union in 1989, the exercises continue. They will go on after Bill Clinton is elected president, but will then be based around the threat posed by terrorists, rather than the Soviet Union (see (1992-2000)). According to journalist James Mann, the participation of Rumsfeld and Cheney in these exercises demonstrates a broader truth about them: “Over three decades, from the Ford administration onward, even when they were out of the executive branch of government, they were never too far away; they stayed in touch with its defense, military, and intelligence officials and were regularly called upon by those officials. Cheney and Rumsfeld were, in a sense, a part of the permanent, though hidden, national security apparatus of the United States.” [Mann, 2004, pp. 138-145; Atlantic Monthly, 3/2004; Cockburn, 2007, pp. 85] The plan they rehearse for in the COG exercises will be activated, supposedly for the first time, in the hours during and after the 9/11 attacks (see (Between 9:45-9:55 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Washington Post, 3/1/2002] Mann subsequently comments, “The program is of particular interest today because it helps to explain the thinking and behavior of the second Bush Administration in the hours, days, and months after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.” [Atlantic Monthly, 3/2004]

1986
US President Ronald Reagan sends a secret message to Saddam Hussein recommending that he order his military to intensify its air attacks against Iran. The message is delivered by Vice President Bush who conveys the message to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who in turn passes it on to Saddam Hussein. The talking points for Bush’s meeting with Mubarak are authored by national security aide Howard Teicher. [Affidavit. United States v. Carlos Cardoen, et al. [Charge that Teledyne Wah Chang Albany illegally provided a proscribed substance, zirconium, to Cardoen Industries and to Iraq], 1/31/1995 pdf file; MSNBC, 8/18/2002]

January 20, 1989: George H. W. Bush Is Inaugurated US President
George H. W. Bush replaces Ronald Reagan and remains president until January 1993. Many of the key members in his government will have important positions again when his son George W. Bush becomes president in 2001. For instance, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell later becomes Secretary of State, and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney later becomes vice president.

October 2, 1989
By this date, all international banks have cut off loans to Iraq. Notwithstanding, President Bush signs National Security Directive 26 establishing closer ties to the Baghdad regime and providing $1 billion in agricultural loan guarantees to that government. These funds allow Iraq to continue its development of weapons of mass destruction. [US President, 10/2/1989; Los Angeles Times, 2/23/1992; Wall Street Journal, 7/10/2002]

November 9, 1989: Cold War Ends; US Asserts World Dominance
The Berlin Wall begins to fall in East Germany, signifying the end of the Soviet Union as a superpower. Just six days later, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell presents a new strategy document to President George H. W. Bush, proposing that the US shift its strategic focus from countering Soviet attempts at world dominance to ensuring US world dominance. George H. W. Bush accepts this plan in a public speech, with slight modifications, on August 2, 1990, the same day Iraq invades Kuwait. In early 1992 (see March 8, 1992), Powell, counter to his usual public dove persona, tells congresspersons that the US requires “sufficient power” to “deter any challenger from ever dreaming of challenging us on the world stage.” He says, “I want to be the bully on the block.” Powell’s early ideas of global hegemony will be formalized by others in a 1992 policy document and finally realized as policy when George W. Bush becomes president in 2001. [Harper's, 10/2002]

July 25, 1990
US ambassador to Baghdad, April Glaspie, meets with Saddam Hussein and promises him that Bush wants “better and deeper relations.” She also claims that the president is an “intelligent man,” adding, “He is not going to declare an economic war against Iraq.” [Washington Post, 12/30/2002; London Times, 12/31/2002] She also informs him that the United States has “no opinion” on Arab-Arab conflicts, such as Baghdad’s border disagreement with its neighbor. [Los Angeles Times, 1/5/2003]

October 1990: US Imposes Sanctions on Pakistan
Since 1985, US Congress has required that sanctions be imposed on Pakistan if there is evidence that Pakistan is developing a nuclear weapons program (see 1985-1990). With the Soviet-Afghan war over, President Bush finally acknowledges widespread evidence of Pakistan’s nuclear program and cuts off all US military and economic aid to Pakistan. However, it appears some military aid will still get through. For instance, in 1992, Senator John Glenn will write, “Shockingly, testimony by Secretary of State James Baker this year revealed that the administration has continued to allow Pakistan to purchase munitions through commercial transactions, despite the explicit, unambiguous intent of Congress that ‘no military equipment or technology shall be sold or transferred to Pakistan.’” [International Herald Tribune, 6/26/1992] These sanctions will be officially lifted a short time after 9/11.

Late 1990
An unconfirmed report of Iraqi soldiers entering a Kuwaiti hospital and removing newborns from their incubators is distributed widely. The rumor, which later turns out to be false, is seized upon by senior executives of the PR firm Hill and Knowlton, which has a $10 million contract from the Kuwaiti royal family to win support for a US-led intervention against Iraq. The PR firm, which has very close ties to the Bush administration, helps a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only as “Nayirah,” prepare to speak before a congressional caucus. In her testimony, she describes in detail how she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers storm the hospital where she was an intern and steal the incubators, leaving 312 babies “on the cold floor to die.” President Bush refers to the incident numerous times as he lobbies Congress to authorize the use of military force against Iraq. But it is later discovered that Nayirah is actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington and that she was never an intern at the Kuwait hospital. The story was a complete fabrication. [Christian Science Monitor, 9/6/2002; Christian Science Monitor, 9/6/2002; Los Angeles Times, 1/5/2003]

March 1991: US Military Remains in Saudi Arabia
US troops in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s.US troops in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s. [Source: PBS]As the Gulf War against Iraq ends, the US stations some 15,000-20,000 soldiers in Saudi Arabia permanently. [Nation, 2/15/1999] President George H. W. Bush falsely claims that all US troops have withdrawn. [Guardian, 12/21/2001] The US troop’s presence is not admitted until 1995, and there has never been an official explanation as to why they remained. The Nation postulates that they are stationed there to prevent a coup. Saudi Arabia has an incredible array of high-tech weaponry, but lacks the expertise to use it and it is feared that Saudi soldiers may have conflicting loyalties. In 1998, bin Laden will say in a fatwa: “For more than seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples” (see February 22, 1998). [Nation, 2/15/1999] US troops will finally leave in 2003, shortly after the start of the Iraq war and the construction of new military bases in other Persian Gulf countries (see April 30-August 26, 2003).

End Part I

Gold9472
10-17-2007, 07:30 PM
May 1991: President Bush Authorizes CIA to Create Conditions for Removal of Saddam Hussein
President George H. W. Bush signs a covert “lethal finding” authorizing the CIA to spend a hundred million dollars to “create the conditions for removal of Saddam Hussein from power.” [New Yorker, 6/7/2004] The CIA forms the Iraqi Opposition Group within its Directorate of Operations to implement this policy. [Ritter, 2005, pp. 128] Awash in cash, the agency hires the Rendon Group to influence global political opinion on matters related to Iraq. According to Francis Brooke, an employee of the company who’s paid $22,000 per month, the Rendon Group’s contract with the CIA provides it with a ten percent “management fee” on top of whatever money it spends. “We tried to burn through $40 million a year,” Brooke will tell the New Yorker. “It was a very nice job.” The work involves planting false stories in the foreign press. The company begins supplying British journalists with misinformation which then shows up in the London press. In some cases, these stories are later picked up by the American press, in violation of laws prohibiting domestic propaganda. “It was amazing how well it worked. It was like magic,” Brooke later recalls. Another one of the company’s tasks is to help the CIA create a viable and unified opposition movement against Saddam Hussein (see June 1992). This brings the Rendon Group and Francis Brooke into contact with Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi (see After May 1991). [New Yorker, 6/7/2004]

January 20, 1993: Bill Clinton Inaugurated
Bill Clinton replaces George H. W. Bush as US president. He remains president until January 2001.

November 1998: Former President George H. W. Bush Meets with Bin Laden Family
Former President George H. W. Bush meets with the bin Laden family on behalf of the Carlyle Group. The meeting takes place in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. [Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 10/7/2001]

January 2000: Former President Bush Meets with bin Laden Family on Behalf of Carlyle Group
Ex-President Bush Sr. meeting with Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd on behalf of the Carlyle Group in 2000. Ex-President Bush Sr. meeting with Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd on behalf of the Carlyle Group in 2000. [Source: Saudi Embassy]Former President George H. W. Bush meets with the bin Laden family on behalf of the Carlyle Group. He had also met with them in November 1998 (see November 1998), but it is not known if he meets with them again after this. Bush denies this meeting took place until a thank you note is found confirming that it took place. [Wall Street Journal, 9/27/2001; Guardian, 10/31/2001]

February 14-April, 2001: Navy, National Transportation Safety Board Investigate Greeneville Collision; GOP Donors at Controls
The Navy and the National Transportation Safety Board open investigations of the February 9 collision between the USS Greeneville, a fast-attack submarine, and a Japanese fishing vessel, the Ehime Maru, in which nine Japanese crew members were killed. Three days later, the Navy reveals that two civilians were at the steering controls of the submarine when it surfaced and struck the vessel (see February 9, 2001). [Associated Press, 2/14/2001] The Navy continues to refuse to release the names of the civilians on board, saying that all 16 wished to remain anonymous to protect their privacy. A spokesman for the Pacific Fleet says that the civilians were “corporate leaders—business leaders invited aboard to observe some of the training going on, see the hard-charging men in the sub force working as a team, defending their country and making sacrifices.” Later, press sources reveal that the two civilians at the controls were each at the helm and at the ballast controls, the two positions directly involved in the submarine’s sudden ascent. The Navy says it cannot confirm that the two civilians may or may not have caused the submarine to strike the fishing vessel or interfered with the submarine’s normal ascent, but claim that the civilians were under “close supervision.” [Honolulu Advertiser, 2/14/2001; Honolulu Advertiser, 2/14/2005] Investigators are puzzled when the Navy tells them that no sonar or video recordings of the incident exist. [Associated Press, 2/14/2001] A spokesman for the Japanese Foreign Ministry informs the US Pacific Fleet that “[i]f this was true, then the Japanese government will have to take this very seriously.” A former nuclear sub commander says that the civilians could not have affected the submarine’s course: “They’re not really doing anything,” he says of civilians aboard the submarine. “It’s like sitting him on a desk with a cup of coffee. It’s like he’s a passenger on a Greyhound bus watching the scenery fly by.” The first mate of the Ehime Maru crew disagrees: “A civilian wouldn’t know what to do” at the controls, he says. “I don’t know if the emergency surfacing was a drill or what, but it’s absolutely unforgivable if a civilian was operating it.” [Honolulu Advertiser, 2/14/2001] Five days after the accident, it will be revealed that the 16 civilians aboard were there at the invitation of retired Admiral Richard Macke, a former commander of US forces in the Western Hemisphere who was forced to retire in 1998 for making inappropriate comments about the rape of a young Okinawan girl. [Honolulu Advertiser, 2/14/2001] As the days go by, the identities of the civilians on board begin to be known. Several are involved with the USS Missouri restoration fund, to which Macke is connected. Houston oil executives John Hall and Todd Thoman were also on board; Hall identifies himself as one of the two civilians at the controls. [Honolulu Advertiser, 2/14/2001] “I was to the left in the control room, and I was asked by the captain if I would like the opportunity to pull the levers that start the procedure that’s called the blowdown,” Hall will tell the press. “I said, ‘Sure, I’d love to do that.’” He says that a crew member was “right next to me, elbow to elbow. I mean, what’s important to know here is you don’t do anything on this vessel without someone either showing you how to do it, telling you how to do it, or escorting you around.” Thoman tells reporters that the crew executed two complete periscope sweeps of the ocean surface before surfacing. As the submarine surged upward, Hall remembers, “there was a very loud noise and the entire submarine shuddered.” The same day that Hall and Thoman speak, the Navy confirms that the Greenville was 3,000 miles out of the designated submarine test and trial area; previously it had maintained that the sub was well within the 56-mile area. [Associated Press, 2/15/2001] As the investigation progresses, it becomes clear that at least one sailor was distracted by the civilians aboard, to the point where he was unable to completely plot the locations of surface vessels. It is also discovered that the submarine detected the Ehime Maru by sonar an hour before the collision. A former sub commander says, “If the guy was distracted, he should have spoken up and said these guys are bothering me and I can’t do my work.” However, he says, the sailor could have been intimidated by the presence of so many powerful civilians as well as the chief of staff for the US Pacific Fleet’s submarine force, Captain Bob Brandhuber, who was escorting the civilians. Another formerl naval commander says, “He should have yelled at the top of his lungs: Stop, shut up.” Still, the fact that the sub lost track of the fishing vessel is “inexcusable,” the former commander says. “The sensitivity of the sonar once you have it, you don’t lose it.…It was making noise the entire time. They should never have lost it, no matter the target angle of the ship, they could still hear it.” [Honolulu Advertiser, 2/22/2001] Commander Scott Waddle, the captain of the Greeneville, initially defends the presence of the civilians on board his sub, but in April 2001 says he has changed his mind: “Having them in the control room at least interfered with our concentration.” He also confirms that the only reason the Greeneville put to sea on February 9 was that Macke intended to treat his distinguished visitors to a submarine ride. “The program was set up by the Navy to win favor for the submarine service from Congressmen and other opinion leaders,” Time magazine reports, “and the Greeneville had made several such trips for visitors under Waddle’s command. Not only did the visitors crowd the control room, but because Waddle spent so much time with them over lunch, the ship also fell behind schedule, giving Waddle added impetus to move quickly through the series of maneuvers he had designed to impress them.” [Time, 4/15/2001] A month later, a Greeneville sailor will testify that the sub had been violating standard procedures for nearly four years by routinely using unqualified sonar technicians to track surface vessels. [Honolulu Advertiser, 3/17/2001] In late March, the editor of a journal published by the US Naval Institute in Annapolis will accuse the Navy of “stonewalling” the investigation, and says that the entire incident is a “public relations fiasco.” [Gannett News Service, 3/27/2001] Waddle will be allowed to retire instead of facing court martial, though he will be found guilty of dereliction of duty and held responsible for the accident. [Stars and Stripes, 10/22/2005] “I didn’t cause the accident. I gave the orders that resulted in the accident,” he will say in April 2001. “And I take full responsibility. I would give my life if it meant one of those nine lives lost could be brought back.” [Time, 4/15/2001] Only well after the incident is under investigation does further investigation find that many of the 16 civilians on board the submarine are highly placed members of the oil and energy industries, and many well connected to the Republican Party and the Bush family.

One passenger, Helen Cullen, owns Houston’s Quintana Petroleum and is a heavy donor to the GOP and the Bush campaign; her family has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to the GOP. [Salon, 2/21/2001]
Three other passengers head the Houston-based Aquila Energy, which has financial ties to the GOP. [Washington Post, 3/26/2002]
Another passenger, Mike Mitchell, is the managing director of EnCap Energy Advisors, a Dallas firm with ties to the Bush business family. [Houston Chronicle, 9/16/2002]
John Hall is a well-known and well-connected Texas oilman who is a major player in a number of multimillion-dollar oil deals, many involving business cronies of the Bush family. And the honorary chairman of the USS Missouri Restoration Fund, the sponsor of the entire contingent of civilians, is former president and Texas oil billionaire George H.W. Bush. [Honolulu Advertiser, 2/18/2001; American Politics Journal, 2/19/2001]
It is also discovered during the investigation that the Greeneville would not have sailed that day if not for the contingent of what the Navy terms “distinguished visitors” who wanted to take a ride on a submarine. Vice-Admiral John Nathman, who will head the Navy’s board of inquiry, will say of the Greeneville’s voyage, “In my view this doesn’t fit the criteria. It doesn’t come close.…I would never get a carrier underway to support a DV (distinguished-visitor) embark. We’re going to disagree on that.” [CNN, 3/16/2001; Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 3/17/2001] An e-mail sent to the Navy’s public relations office says that the Greenville was slated to play host to “/10 or 12 high-rolling CEOs” finishing a golf tournament. Nathman will call it “Disneyland on a submarine.” [Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 3/17/2001; Associated Press, 3/22/2001] Reflecting on the accident two months later, Time Magazine will write, “The sinking of the Ehime Maru resonated around the world. It was the first major foreign policy challenge for the newly installed Bush Administration. In Japan it contributed to the fall from power of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who shocked public opinion by continuing a golf game even after he heard of the accident. The Pentagon fretted about damage to the already fragile military alliance with Japan. The Japanese families of the nine dead were left in shock and grief.” [Time, 4/15/2001]

July 2001: Bush Sr. Assures Crown Prince Abdullah that Bush Jr.‘s ‘Heart Is in Right Place’
President George H. W. Bush, with current President George W. Bush in the room with him, calls Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and assures him that his son’s “heart is in the right place” on the Palestinian question and other issues of concern to the Saudis. Bush Jr. had apparently upset the Arabs with his pro-Israeli stance towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When this phone call is first reported by the New York Times, it sets off alarms among the neoconservatives who quickly take to the opinion pages warning the administration against siding with the Arabs. [Wall Street Journal, 8/2/2001; Boston Globe, 1/13/2002]

(8:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Former President George H. W. Bush Heads off After Spending Night at the White House
Former President George H. W. Bush, along with former First Lady Barbara Bush, leaves Washington, DC, by private jet, bound for a speaking engagement in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Bushes spent the previous night at the White House. They had flown to Washington the previous day to attend several meetings and a dinner. One of the meetings attended by the former president was the annual investor conference of the Carlyle Group, which was also attended by Shafig bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden’s brothers (see (9:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). They are later informed of the WTC attacks while on their jet. Due to all planes being grounded, they have to land in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. [CBS News, 11/1/2002; CNN, 10/25/2003; Newsweek, 10/27/2003]

July 30, 2002
The White House formally announces plans to create a public diplomacy agency, to be called the Office of Global Communications, that will be charged with projecting a more positive image of the US abroad. [Washington Post, 7/30/2002; CBS News, 7/30/2002; Guardian, 7/31/2002; Los Angeles Times, 1/5/2003] It will help the world understand “what America is all about and why America does what it does,” says White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. The task formerly belonged to the State Department, but Bush’s advisors didn’t think it was “doing a good enough job, so they’re going to take it on,” a former Coalition Information Center (CIC) official tells the Guardian. “Nobody [was] that impressed with Charlotte Beers [of the State Department] and what she’s done. She listens to people. She’s done a lot of listening, but you need to go further than that.” [Guardian, 7/31/2002] This new public diplomacy office, said to the brainchild of Bush’s senior advisor, Karen Hughes, has actually “existed for months, quietly working with foreign news media outlets to get the American message out about the war on terrorism,” according to CBS News. [CBS News, 7/30/2002]

August 15, 2002
Brent Scowcroft is the source of major embarrassment for the administration when he authors an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal arguing against the need to remove Saddam Hussein from power. He says that the toppling of Saddam’s regime would destabilize the Middle East and thus “turn the whole region into a cauldron and destroy the War on Terror.” Noting that “there is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and even less to the Sept. 11 attacks,” he calls on Bush to abandon his designs on Saddam Hussein and instead refocus his foreign policy on the war on terrorism. [Wall Street Journal, 8/15/2002] It is suggested that Scowcroft’s criticisms probably reflect the feelings of the president’s father. The Los Angeles Times reports: “Several former officials close to Scowcroft said they doubted he would have gone public with that posture without clearing the move first with the senior Bush, heightening questions about the latter’s view on confronting Iraq. The former president has not commented publicly, which has only fed speculation.” [Los Angeles Times, 8/17/2002]

Commentaries
Lawrence Eagleburger
“I think Scowcroft has done us all a great favor by his article saying don’t do it. My own personal view is that basically Gen. Scowcroft is correct. Unless the president can make a very compelling case that Saddam Hussein has his finger on a weapon of mass destruction and is about ready to use it, I do not think that now is the time to go to war against Saddam Hussein.” — August 16, 2002 [Fox News, 8/16/2002]

Richard Perle
“I think Brent just got it wrong. The failure to take on Saddam after what the president said would produce such a collapse of confidence in the president that it would set back the war on terrorism. I think it is na? to believe that we can produce results in the 50-year-old dispute between the Israelis and the Arabs, and therefore this is an excuse for not taking action.” — August 15, 2002 [New York Times, 8/16/2002]

Unnamed administration official
Brent Scowcroft’s August 15 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal “came as no surprise to top officials in the administration, who have been well aware of his concerns. Scowcroft didn’t want to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the first Persian Gulf war. He felt from the beginning that a successor might be worse. His position just reflects the same view he had back then.” — August 15, 2002 [New York Times, 8/17/2002]

James A. Baker
“[T]here will be the cost to the American taxpayer of a military undertaking of this magnitude. The Persian Gulf war cost somewhere in the range of $60 billion, but we were able to convince our many allies in that effort to bear the brunt of the costs.” — August 15, 2002 [New York Times, 8/17/2002]

“While there may be little evidence that Iraq has ties to al-Qaeda or to the attacks of Sept. 11, there is no question that its present government, under Saddam Hussein, is an outlaw regime, is in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions, is embarked upon a program of developing weapons of mass destruction and is a threat to peace and stability” — August 15, 2002 [New York Times, 8/17/2002]

A unilateral preemptive strike would be a detriment to “other American foreign policy interests, including our relationships with practically all other Arab countries (and even many of our customary allies in Europe and elsewhere) and perhaps even to our top foreign policy priority, the war on terrorism.” — August 15, 2002 [New York Times, 8/17/2002]

“The United States should advocate the adoption by the United Nations Security Council of a simple and straightforward resolution requiring that Iraq submit to intrusive inspections anytime, anywhere, with no exceptions, and authorizing all necessary means to enforce it. Although it is technically true that the United Nations already has sufficient legal authority to deal with Iraq, the failure to act when Saddam Hussein ejected the inspectors has weakened that authority. Seeking new authorization now is necessary, politically and practically, and will help build international support.” — August 15, 2002 [New York Times, 8/17/2002]

“[W]e need to move affirmatively, aggressively, and in a fair and balanced way to implement the president’s vision for a settlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute, as laid out in his June speech. That means, of course, reform by Palestinians and an end to terror tactics. But it also means withdrawal by Israeli forces to positions occupied before September 2000 and an immediate end to settlement activity.” — August 15, 2002 [New York Times, 8/17/2002]

Excerpts
“An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken…. [T]he central point is that any campaign against Iraq, whatever the strategy, cost and risks, is certain to divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism. Worse, there is a virtual consensus in the world against an attack on Iraq at this time. So long as that sentiment persists, it would require the US to pursue a virtual go-it-alone strategy against Iraq, making any military operations correspondingly more difficult and expensive. The most serious cost, however, would be to the war on terrorism. Ignoring that clear sentiment would result in a serious degradation in international cooperation with us against terrorism. And make no mistake, we simply cannot win that war without enthusiastic international cooperation, especially on intelligence. At a minimum, it would stifle any cooperation on terrorism, and could even swell the ranks of the terrorists.” — August 15, 2002 [Wall Street Journal, 8/15/2002]

“Israel would have to expect to be the first casualty, as in 1991 when Saddam sought to bring Israel into the Gulf conflict. This time, using weapons of mass destruction, he might succeed, provoking Israel to respond, perhaps with nuclear weapons, unleashing an Armageddon in the Middle East.” — August 15, 2002 [Wall Street Journal, 8/15/2002]

“Saddam would be likely to conclude he had nothing left to lose, leading him to unleash whatever weapons of mass destruction he possesses.” — August 15, 2002 [Wall Street Journal, 8/15/2002]

The invasion of could result in “serious consequences for the US and global economy.” — August 15, 2002 [Wall Street Journal, 8/15/2002]

“Israel would have to expect to be the first casualty, as in 1991 when Saddam sought to bring Israel into the Gulf conflict. This time, using weapons of mass destruction, he might succeed, provoking Israel to respond, perhaps with nuclear weapons, unleashing an Armageddon in the Middle East.” — August 15, 2002 [Wall Street Journal, 8/15/2002]

“But there is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and even less to the Sept. 11 attacks. Indeed Saddam’s goals have little in common with the terrorists who threaten us, and there is little incentive for him to make common cause with them. He is unlikely to risk his investment in weapons of mass destruction, much less his country, by handing such weapons to terrorists who would use them for their own purposes and leave Baghdad as the return address.” — August 15, 2002 [Wall Street Journal, 8/15/2002]

October 2005: Former Powell Aide Calls for Legislation to Reform Inter-Agency and National Security Decision Making Processes; Strongly Criticizes Neocons in Bush Administration
What I saw was a cabal between the Vice President of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made. And then when the bureaucracy was presented with those decisions and carried them out, it was presented in such a disjointed incredible way that the bureaucracy often didn’t know what it was doing as it moved to carry them out.” Wilkerson contrasts the current president with his father, George H.W. Bush, “one of the finest presidents we have ever had,” who, in Wilkerson’s opinion, understood how to make foreign policy work. In contrast, George W. Bush is “not versed in international relations and not too much interested in them either. There’s a vast difference between the way George H. W. Bush dealt with major challenges, some of the greatest challenges at the end of the 20th century, and effected positive results in my view, and the way we conduct diplomacy today.” Wilkerson lays the blame for the Abu Ghraib detainee abuse directly at the feet of the younger Bush and his top officials, whom Wilkerson says gave tacit approval to soldiers to abuse detainees. As for Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser and now Powell’s successor at the State Department, she was and is “part of the problem.” Instead of ensuring that Bush received the best possible advice even if it was not what Bush wanted to hear, Rice “would side with the president to build her intimacy with the president.” Wilkerson also blames the fracturing and demoralization of the US military on Bush and his officials. Officers “start voting with their feet, as they did in Vietnam,” he says, “and all of a sudden your military begins to unravel.” [American Strategy Program, 10/19/2005; Financial Times, 10/20/2005] Wilkerson calls Bush’s brand of diplomacy “cowboyism,” and says that repairing the US’s tarnished image with the other world nations is an impossible task: “It’s hard to sell sh*t.” [Salon, 10/27/2005]

[B]End