THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
2001
February 2001
- February:
Iraq war and occupation
The US and Britain launch bombing raids on Iraq to try to disable Iraq's air defense network. The raids gain little international support. (BBC) - February: Bush commits his administration to placing "a high priority on detecting and responding to terrorism on our soil."
Anti-terrorism and homeland security
This is virtually the last time terrorism is mentioned by any administration official until September 11. Bush will abandon almost every aggressive anti-terrorism initiative left to him by the Clinton administration. On May 8, with great fanfare, Bush will announce the creation of a new Office of National Preparedness for terrorism at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and almost immediately slash its budget by $200 million. On January 26, Bush received a document from the FBI proving that the attack on the USS Cole was the work of al-Qaeda terrorists; Bush chose to do nothing in response. As detailed above, the Hart-Rudman report on terrorism urged the administration to begin taking steps to protect the nation from a terrorist attack; the administration adopted none of the suggestions in the report until after the 9/11 attacks. Bush did promise to create a government-wide review of anti-terrorism policies, to be chaired by Vice President Cheney; the review panel never meets. Bush also promises to periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to discuss the threat of terrorism; such a meeting never takes place. US military commanders repeatedly request funding to meet the domestic terror threat, and try to redirect $600 million from Bush's pet missile defense project. Bush responded by promising a presidential veto of any such funding -- on September 9. (New York Times/Eric Alterman and Mark Green) - February:
Islamist terrorism
A former CIA anti-terror expert later claims that an allied intelligence agency sees "two of Osama's sisters apparently taking cash to an airport in Abu Dhabi [United Arab Emirates], where they are suspected of handing it to a member of bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization." This is cited as one of many incidents showing the connections between Osama bin Laden and the rest of his family. (CCR) - February: A collection of representatives from the nation's leading environmentalist groups, collectively nicknamed the "Green Group," attempts to meet with Bush officials to discuss the administration's secret energy policy, currently under development.
Bush's energy policies
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham claims that he is "too busy" to schedule a single meeting with the representatives; Energy Department documents later show that Abraham had the time to meet with 109 energy industry executives, trade association leaders, and industry lobbyists while the plan was being drafted. He had the time to meet with executives from, among others, the American Coal Company, ExxonMobil, BP/Amoco, Shell, ChevronTexaco, and half a dozen nuclear power companies. Dick Cheney, the head of the energy task force, passes the environmental group representatives off to task force director Andrew Lundquist. The single meeting lasts less than an hour and was mostly made up of introductions. No policy specifics are mentioned. Cheney will refuse to meet with representatives of any environmental concern until June 5, six weeks after the task force issues its final report. Though Cheney will claim that his task force has met with a wide range of environmental as well as energy industry and corporate representatives, he refuses to release the names of the people or the firms he has met with, turning down requests from congressional Democrats and even the General Accounting Office. - One of the few contentious moments between the press and the administration takes place over questioning of press secretary Ari Fleischer over Cheney's secretiveness: a reporter asks Fleischer, "You know what the perception is, don't you, that only Big Oil has contributed [ideas for the energy plan] and wouldn't you want to wipe that out" by saying who has met with Cheney's task force? Fleischer replies, "I don't think that's the perception." The reporter shoots back, "Yes, it is," and Fleischer retorts, "Among some people." The GAO will eventually sue the White House for information about the Cheney task force, an unprecedented move in the annals of US government. After a conservative judge rules in 2002 that the GAO does not have the legal right to know who met with Cheney's task force, David Walker, the GAO's comptroller general, will decide against an appeal, citing congressional Republicans' threats to slash the GAO's funding if he pursues the case. The task force's recommendations are indeed heavily favorable to the energy industry, and a calamity for environmental concerns. Democratic representative Richard Gephardt snorts, "It looks like the ExxonMobil annual report and maybe that's what it really is." The Cato Institute, a conservative/libertarian think tank, says the country should "just say no to the energy plan." Time magazine reveals that Republican pollsters have conducted focus groups on exactly what words and phrases Cheney, Bush, and other officials should use in describing the government's energy plan. Cheney goes on Meet the Press and, with a straight face, tells the viewers that his plan incorporates 11 of the 12 energy-usage recommendations recently issued by the Sierra Club, and repeats his astonishing statement on Face the Nation and in speeches before corporate audiences. The Sierra Club (belatedly) refutes Cheney's lies, showing that his energy plan actually adopts none of their recommendations. (David Corn)
- By poring through the relatively few e-mails and documents released by the Cheney energy task force, it can be seen who had the most contact with the task force.
Bush's energy policies
The list looks like a roster of contributors to the Bush campaign; during the 2000 campaign, energy industries gave nine times the amount of contributions to Bush than to Gore, and the oil and gas industries gave 14 times the amount to Bush than they contributed to Gore. The roster includes the Nuclear Energy Institute (19 visits, $437,404 in Bush campaign contributions), the Edison Electric Institute (14 visits, $598,169), the National Mining Association (9 visits, $575,496), the American Gas Association (8 visits, $480,478), the Southern Company (7 visits, $1,626,507), and the Exelon Corporation (6 visits, $910,886). But the biggest industry representation is secured by Enron, who visited the task force six times and met with Cheney privately five times, and donated $1.1 million to the campaign and another $300,000 to the inauguration festivities. At least 17 of the policy recommendations from the task force will directly benefit Enron. (Eric Alterman and Mark Green) - The Sierra Club only met with Cheney after he asserted publicly that he had incorporated almost all of the 12 planks of the organization's own energy recommendations;
Bush's energy policies
the Sierra Club sent Cheney a letter saying that if they thought they had incorporated 11 of the 12 planks, then they must have had Arthur Andersen (Enron's accounting firm) doing their math. Carl Pope, director of the Sierra Club, describes the meeting as "bizarre." "We sat there," Pope recalls, "and said, 'We don't think that your plan does anything that our plan does. You have the same subject areas. You have a section called "renewables," but there's nothing in it.' And they said, 'Well, this isn't really our plan, this is a work in progress. We're going to change it.' Which they never did of course." (The Sierra Club's 12 environmental planks are available in .PDF format here.) (Salon, Eric Alterman and Mark Green) - February:
Oil profiteering and the "oiligarchy"
The new administration withdraws its support for efforts by the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to crack down on offshore tax havens such as those used by Enron, Halliburton, Harken Oil, and other US corporations. (Eric Alterman and Mark Green) - February: Presidential brother Neil Bush quietly begins collecting startup capital for a new educational software firm, Ignite! Inc.
Bush family
To fund Ignite!, Bush raises $23 million from US investors, including his parents, as well as businessmen from Taiwan, Japan, Kuwait, the British Virgin Islands and the United Arab Emirates, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In 2003, Ignite! will enter into a partnership with a Mexican company, Grupo Carso Telecom. The partnership enables Ignite! to lay off half of its 70 employees and outsource their jobs to Mexico. "That's turned out to be great," says Ignite! president Ken Leonard. Bush pays himself a salary of $180,000 a year plus bonuses. Kevin Phillips, historian and author of the book American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, sees Neil Bush as a man who has made a career of cashing in on his famous name. "He's incorrigible," Phillips says. "He seems to be crawling through the underbelly of crony capitalism." Bush denies that contention. "I have never used my family name to 'cash-in,'" Bush will write. "Unfortunately, such ridiculous charges come with the territory of coming from a famous and public family." As for Ignite!'s effect on students, the results are not promising. Bush insists that Ignite!'s learning software is working well: "Teachers and students have given anecdotal feedback that confirms the powerful impact our program is having on student achievement, student focus and attitudes, and teacher success in reaching all of their students," he writes. But at one pilot school, reviews were less laudatory. "The kids felt pretty strongly that what this was about was lowering the bar," says a writer who participated in the program. "There was a lot of rhyming and games," he says. "It reminded me of what my son uses -- but he's in kindergarten." When Bush spoke at the school, several students began arguing with him. "He was very surprised," the writer recalls. "You had to see the look on his face when one young woman got up and said she liked calculus. He said it was useless. This is the branch of mathematics that makes space travel possible, and he said it was useless." (Austin Chronicle, Washington Post) - February - July: Four defendants charged with involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings are tried in New York City.
Islamist terrorism
All are ultimately convicted. Testimony reveals that two al-Qaeda operatives had received pilot training in Texas and Oklahoma and another had been asked to take lessons. One bin Laden aide becomes a government witness and gives the FBI detailed information about a pilot training scheme. This new information does not lead to any new FBI investigations into the matter. (CCR) - February 1: In a second National Security Council meeting, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld interrupts Secretary of State Colin Powell's discussion of UN-based sanctions against Iraq,
Bush's foreign policies
saying, "Sanctions are fine. But what we really want to discuss is going after Saddam." He continues, "Imagine what the region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that's aligned with US interests. It would change everything in the region and beyond it. It would demonstrate what US policy is all about." The discussion turns to speculations about a post-Hussein Iraq, and touches briefly on exactly how to get rid of the Iraqi dictator -- a military invasion is never specifically mentioned, though the council members do discuss how to rebuild the 1991 Persian Gulf War coalition. The assumption, made most strongly by Rumsfeld, that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction is presented as a given, with no discussion or questioning. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill realizes even more clearly, as he did during the January 31 NSC meeting, that toppling Hussein as a first step towards "dissuading" other countries from opposing the US is already a matter of policy. "There was never any rigorous talk about this sweeping idea that seemed to be driving all the specific actions," he later says, echoing the recollections of several other participants in the meetings. "From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out and change Iraq into a new country. And if we did that, it would solve everything. It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The President saying, 'Fine. Go find me a way to do this.'" (Ron Suskind) - February 3: A top-secret memo is issued by the National Security Council regarding Vice President Cheney's secret energy task force.
Bush's energy policies
The memo directs the NSC staff to cooperate fully with Cheney's task force as it considered the "melding" of two seemingly unrelated areas of policy: "the review of operational policies towards rogue states," such as Iraq, and "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields." The memo makes it obvious that Cheney's task force intends on using the Bush administration's intended policy of regime change to facilitate the capture and incorporation of Iraq's oil fields into US oil-corporation structures. Mark Medish, who served as senior director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs at the NSC during the Clinton Administration, says that while "[p]eople think Cheney's Energy Task Force has been secretive about domestic issues...if this little group was discussing geostrategic plans for oil, it puts the issue of war in the context of the captains of the oil industry sitting down with Cheney and laying grand, global plans." (The New Yorker)
Tax cuts for wealthy; repeal of estate tax
- February 3: Bush tells a radio audience that his tax plan "reduces taxes for everyone who pays taxes," a blatant lie.
Bush's economic policies
At a February 5 White House PR event featuring taxpayers from different tax brackets, Bush asserts again that "the bottom end of the economic ladder receives the biggest percentage cut," another lie. An earlier analysis by the nonpartisan Citizens for Tax Justice showed that 43% of Bush's tax cuts go directly to the wealthiest 1% of Americans; a new study shows that Bush's tax cuts are even more heavily skewed in favor of the wealthy, with the top 1% receiving 45% of the tax cuts; the top 5% would receive 53%; the top 20% (those with incomes of $72,000 and above) would receive almost 72% of his tax cuts. On the other hand, the bottom 20% (with incomes below $15,000) would receive a princely 0.8%, and the bottom 40% (those earning $27,000 and under) would share 4.3% among themselves. (Bush himself will receive almost $100,000 a year in tax relief under his plan, double that of the average 1% taxpayer.) The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities uses a different model and comes up with similar numbers. To answer the criticism of these numbers, showing that the Bush model funnels billions of dollars straight to the wealthiest of Americans while shifting the bulk of the tax burden downwards, the Bush administration comes up with two counterattacks, both riddled with falsehoods. One is based on the fact that low wage-earners usually pay little in income taxes anyway -- these struggling taxpayers pay the bulk of their taxes in payroll taxes, something entirely different. The family earning $26,000 touted by Bush as receiving "100% tax relief," in other words paying no income taxes whatsoever, only paid an average of $20 in income tax anyway. The second counterattack was heralded by a Washington Post headline, "Richest 1% Will Get 22% of Cut, Bush Says." That figure of 22% was produced by using projected figures for taxes from 2005, not 2001-2004, and worse, excludes the entirety of Bush's repeal of the estate tax, which benefits the wealthiest in its entirety. The figure also excludes 2006 projections, which include more tax cuts for the wealthy. In sum, the Bush defense of his tax proposals are blatant and transparent lies. (David Corn)
Bush administration advocates "regime change" in Iraq
- February 6:
Iraq war and occupation
Secretary of State Colin Powell tells the US House of Representatives that no matter what Saddam Hussein does, the administration will follow a "regime change" policy against the Iraqi government. It is worth noting that George Bush came out strongly against any "regime change" policies during the 2000 presidential campaign. (CCR) - February 6: At a panel discussion sponsored by the United Auto Workers,
Conservative media slant
questioners challenge the media's "free ride" policy towards George W. Bush's military record as opposed to its intensive scrutiny of former president Bill Clinton's own attempts to avoid military service. "Let me give you some statistics," says Paul Begala. "I worked for Bill Clinton in 1992 and...in anticipation of this very question, I looked this up on Nexis. There were 13,641 stories about Bill Clinton 'dodging the draft'...and there were 49 stories about Bush and the National Guard." Journalist Howard Fineman admits that Bush received a "gentle ride" during the campaign from the press, and drew loud protests from the crowd when he suggested that the press wasn't as aggressive with regard to Bush because the scandals of the Clinton years had "exhausted" the press and the public. "I didn't realize how angry people still are," comments one of the panelists afterwards. (UAW) - February 7: CIA director George Tenet testifies to Congress that Iraq possesses no WMDs and poses no threat to the United States; instead, al-Qaeda remains "the most immediate and serious threat" to US interests.
Islamist terrorism
"since 1998 bin Laden has declared that all US citizens are legitimate targets," he says, adding that bin Laden "is capable of planning multiple attacks with little or no warning." - After 9/11, the CIA radically shifts its stance on Iraq, suddenly crediting the Hussein regime with possession of a large stockpile of biological and chemical weapons, and posing on the brink of developing nuclear weapons. In a February 12, 2001 interview, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said: "Iraq is probably not a nuclear threat at the present time." Rumsfeld will testify before the House Armed Services Committee on September 18, 2002 that Iraq is close to acquiring the materials needed to build a nuclear bomb. "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," Rumsfeld tells the committee. "I would not be so certain.... He has, at this moment, stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and is pursuing nuclear weapons."
- Intelligence reports later released by the CIA and more than 100 interviews of top officials in the Bush administration, such as Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, given to various Senate and Congressional committees and media outlets prior to 9-11, show that the US never believed Saddam Hussein to be an imminent threat other than to his own people. Moreover, the CIA reported in February 2001 that Iraq was "probably" pursuing chemical and biological weapons programs but that it had no direct evidence that Iraq actually had actually obtained such weapons: "We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its WMD programs, although given its past behavior, this type of activity must be regarded as likely."
- On February 22, Powell tells Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister, that the UN, the US and its allies "have succeeded in containing Saddam Hussein and his ambitions." Hussein's "forces are about one-third their original size. They don't really possess the capability to attack their neighbors the way they did ten years ago," Powell affirms. "Containment has been a successful policy, and I think we should make sure that we continue it until such time as Saddam Hussein comes into compliance with the agreements he made at the end of the [Gulf] war." On February 24, Powell will say of his visit with the Egyptian government, "We had a good discussion...about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq...."
- On May 15, Powell will tell the Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee that "The sanctions, as they are called, have succeeded over the last 10 years, not in deterring [Hussein] from moving in that direction, but from actually being able to move in that direction. The Iraqi regime militarily remains fairly weak. It doesn't have the capacity it had 10 or 12 years ago. It has been contained. And even though we have no doubt in our mind that the Iraqi regime is pursuing programs to develop weapons of mass destruction -- chemical, biological and nuclear -- I think the best intelligence estimates suggest that they have not been terribly successful. There's no question that they have some stockpiles of some of these sorts of weapons still under their control, but they have not been able to break out, they have not been able to come out with the capacity to deliver these kinds of systems or to actually have these kinds of systems that is much beyond where they were 10 years ago. So containment, using this arms control sanctions regime, I think has been reasonably successful."
- On July 29, Condoleezza Rice will tell a television interviewer, "[L]et's remember that [Hussein's] country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt." (Scoop, Memory Hole)
- February 7: Bush tells CNN's Larry King, "I want to escalate the war on drugs. ...I want to renew it. I want to refresh it -- relaunch it, if you will. We'll enforce the law with vigor and with intensity. We've got to stop the upswing in drug use."
"Culture Wars"
Bush will name John Walters as his new "drug czar." Walters, a product of the rightist Heritage Foundation and protege of former Education Secretary (and closet gambling addict) William Bennett, is notorious for his unforgiving take on drug addiction, characterizing drug use as a sin before God, supporting the huge disparity in the penalties for crack and powdered cocaine (most Americans charged for crack are black, where most charged with powdered cocaine are white), and slashing billions from rehabilitation programs. Even his predecessor, General Barry McCaffrey, considers Walters an ideological extremist, and says that Walters's belief that "there is too much treatment capacity in the United States" is "shocking." Walters will play a major role in enfolding the "war on drugs" into the "war on terror," a process that has meant huge increases in expenditures for hardware and surveillance, but drastic decreases in spending for education, prevention, and treatment. In light of his handling of the "war on drugs," it is interesting to note that Walters is a former president of the New Citizenship Project, a Scaife-funded entity that begat the Project for the New American Century, the neoconservative think tank whose ideological fanaticism drives the Bush foreign policy towards war with Iraq. (Mark Crispin Miller) - February 8:
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
The CIA reports that it has no evidence of any Iraqi terrorist operations against the US in at least 10 years. (CCR) - February 8: Stanley Lucas, the federally funded International Republican Institute's (IRI) senior program officer for Haiti,
US involvement in Latin America
tells an audience on Radio Tropicale that there are three ways to get rid of democratically elected Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide: call early elections and vote him out, charge him with corruption and let the courts imprison him, or assassinate him. With the blessing and assistance of the Bush administration, IRI will step up its campaign to get rid of Aristide. IRI will train and fund anti-Aristide candidates, help unite them into a single anti-Aristide bloc, and, according to a former US ambassador to Haiti, work to block all internationally-proposed power-sharing agreements in order to heighten Haiti's political crisis and encourage a coup against Aristide. The IRI also will help in the Bush administration's failed attempt to precipitate a coup against Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Lucas himself is Haiti's equivalent of Iraq's Ahmad Chalabi -- a charismatic, wealthy exile with deep and murky ties to right-wing organizations in America. Lucas (Salon) - February 8: Conservative Hugh Sidey tells CNN's Larry King,
Conservative smear campaigns
"[Clinton] has done it in his personal ways. He has this elegant facility to talk about major social issues. And it is good. Let me tell you, he is right. And then in his personal life, he violates all the rules. Now, you -- as somebody said, we need a psychiatrist for this." (CNN/Mark Crispin Miller) - February 9: Vice President Cheney is briefed that it has been conclusively proven Osama bin Laden was behind the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole.
Islamist terrorism
Bush has been in office a matter of days, when secret pipeline negotiations with the Taliban have reopened. The new administration has already twice threatened the Taliban that the US would hold the Taliban responsible for any al-Qaeda attack. But, fearful of ending those negotiations, the US does not retaliate against either the Taliban or known bin Laden bases in Afghanistan in the manner Clinton did in 1998. (CCR)
Japanese fishing boat sunk by US submarine
- February 9: The USS Greeneville, a fast-attack submarine, collides with the Japanese fishing training boat Ehime Maru, in the Pacific Ocean south of O'ahu, Hawai'i, sinking the vessel.
US military
Nine are killed in the collision, including four high school students. The next day Admiral Thomas Fargo, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, formally apologizes to the Japanese government and to the families of those killed in the collision. Fargo admits that the fault lay completely with the submarine, and says that the sub was surfacing after what is called an "emergency main ballast blow" when its stern collided with the fishing vessel. 16 civilians were on board, but initially the Navy fails to identify them, saying only that business leaders, lawmakers, and other notable civilians are routinely allowed on board naval vessels as part of the Navy's community relations program. - The National Transportation Safety Board quickly mounts an investigation. Secretary of State Colin Powell apologizes to the Japanese foreign minister the day afterwards; it is revealed that national security advisor Condoleezza Rice informed President Bush about the incident shortly after it happened, but Bush chose to let the State and Defense Departments handle the apologies and other official responses. Three days later, the Navy reveals that two civilians were at the steering controls of the submarine when it surfaced and struck the vessel. 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."
- Investigators are puzzled when the Navy tells them that no sonar or video recordings of the incident exist. 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 said 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."
- Five days after the accident, it is 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. As the days go by, the identities of the civilians on board begin to be known. First identified is Michael Nolan and his wife Susan, who are involved in setting up a celebrity golf tournament to benefit the USS Missouri restoration fund and became known to Macke through those efforts. Houston, Texas oil executives John Hall and Todd Thoman were also on board; Hall identifies himself as one of the two civilians at the controls. Hall and Thoman have no connection to the USS Missouri restoration fund. "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 says on the Today show. "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, also a guest on the Today show, claims 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 ship's captain, Commander Scott Waddle, exclaimed, "Jesus, what the hell was that?" and looked out the periscope and saw the Ehime Maru. "Everybody at that point was in shock," Hall says. 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.
- Eight days after the accident, the Navy releases the names of all 16 civilians on board the submarine. Three of the civilians -- Anthony Schnur, Graham Wyatt, and Jay Brehmer, all accompanied by their wives -- are the heads of Aquila Energy Capital Corporation, an oil and gas company operating out of Houston and Golden, Colorado and one of the biggest energy wholesalers in the country. Jack Clary, who was accompanied by his wife, is a sports journalist. 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 U.S. Pacific Fleet's submarine force, Capt. Bob Brandhuber, who was escorting the civilians. Another formal 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 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."
- A month later, a Greeneville sailor testifies that the sub had been violating standard procedures for nearly four years by routinely using unqualified sonar technicians to track surface vessels. In late March, the editor of a journal published by the US Naval Institute in Annapolis accuses the Navy of "stonewalling" the investigation, and says that the entire incident is a "public relations fiasco." The sub commander, Scott Waddle, will be allowed to retire instead of facing court martial, though he was found guilty of dereliction of duty. 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. 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 in soft money" to the GOP. Schnur, Wyatt, and Brehmer, the heads of Aquila Energy, also have deep ties to the GOP. Mike Mitchell, of Irving, Texas, is the managing director of EnCap Energy Advisors, a Dallas firm with ties to the Bush business family. 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. 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 headed the Navy's board of inquiry, says of the Greeneville's voyage, "In my view this doesn't fit the criteria [for a legitimate submarine mission]. 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." 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 calls it "Disneyland on a submarine." (Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Advertiser, AP/Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Advertiser, Gannett/Honolulu Advertiser, Catbird Seat)
- February 13: Bush's first national security directive dramatically reorganizes the National Security Council.
Bush's economic policies
It redefines "security" as not only the defense of the US and its borders, but "the advancement of United States interests around the globe. National security also depends on America's opportunity to prosper in the world economy." The directive removes many senior advisors and staff from the flow of information, and centralizes almost all security information directly to Bush through national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, a former Chevron executive whose only experience in national security is a brief stint as a Russian affairs advisor under the elder Bush. (OpEd News, National Security Presidential Directive 1) - February 13:
Islamist terrorism
The National Security Agency breaks al-Qaeda's encrypted communications. Now the agency has access to a wealth of information about the terrorist organization -- if it will bother to translate the intercepts. (From the Wilderness) - February 15: The National Review's John Derbyshire advocates the murder of Chelsea Clinton, the 20-year old daughter of President Clinton, because of her "genetic heritage."
Conservative hate speech and intolerance
Derbyshire, who claims to be writing tongue in cheek, writes, "I hate Chelsea because she is a Clinton. Not just genetically a Clinton, but in spirit and habit and manner. ...Chelsea is a Clinton. She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of the past -- I'm not arguing for despotism as a principle, but they sure knew how to deal with potential trouble -- recognized that the families of objectionable citizens were a continuing threat. In Stalin's penal code it was a crime to be the wife or child of an 'enemy of the people.' The Nazis used the same principle, which they called Sippenhaft, 'clan liability.' In Imperial China, enemies of the state were punished 'to the ninth degree:' that is, everyone in the offender's own generation would be killed, and everyone related via four generations up, to the great-great-grandparents, and four generations down, to the great-great-grandchildren, would also be killed. (This sounds complicated, but in practice what usually happened was that a battalion of soldiers was sent to the offender's home town, where they killed everyone they could find, on the principle neca eos omnes, deus suos agnoscet — 'let God sort 'em out.') We don't, of course, institutionalize such principles in our society, and a good thing too. Our humanity and forbearance, however, has a cost. The cost is, that the vile genetic inheritance of Bill and Hillary Clinton may live on to plague us in the future. It isn't over, folks." I myself excoriated Derbyshire for his column with a long, harsh e-mail; Derbyshire responded by defending the entire column as a "joke" and counter-attacked by accusing me of being unable to read. To use Rush Limbaugh's own words, it is obvious that fanatical right-wingers like Derbyshire (and Limbaugh) cannot tell the "huge difference between dissent and hate." (National Review)
Secret plans to overthrow Hussein are made by Bush officials
- Mid-February: In a secret gathering of Bush officials in Walnut Creek, California, plans for the toppling of Saddam Hussein are made.
Iraq war and occupation
One plan is advanced by Secretary of State Colin Powell, described by one participant, Falah Aljibury, as "an invasion disguised as a coup." The plan was for a quick and lethal invasion, and the subsequent insertion of an Iraqi war hero to be selected later as the new leader of the Iraqi government. Within 90 days of the invasion and coup d'etat, the US-chosen successor would be confirmed by "democratic" elections. Investigative journalist Greg Palast writes, "After the [invasion and occupation of Iraq] turned ugly, the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, fed with strategic leaks, told us the Secretary of State secretly opposed the invasion. That was Powell's self-serving fairy tale. Powell didn't oppose the invasion, he opposed occupation." The Walnut Creek meeting takes place in the home of Iraqi exile Aljibury, who served as the back-channel contact between the US and Hussein during the Reagan and Bush administrations. Aljibury is currently employed to provide information about Hussein's oil industry, working for Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Hess Energy Trading. Aljibury actually interviews several former Iraqi generals for what becomes known as the "Three-Day Plan" to oust Hussein and replace him with a puppet; one of their favorite candidates is General Nizar Khazraji, Hussein's former army chief, who had been exiled and currently is under arrest in Denmark for war crimes. (Khazraji disappears two days before the US invasion of March 2003, and his current whereabouts are unknown.) Aljibury says that the petrochemical industry is behind the plans for a coup, as long as oil supplies remained uninterrupted. "Bring him in right away and say that Iraq is being liberated -- and everybody stay in office...everything as is," Aljibury describes the idea. His reason for confirming and detailing the plan is simple: he believes that, if adopted, the plan would have worked far better than the one later implemented. - The neoconservatives in the Pentagon, led by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, and in the administration, led by Dick Cheney and Elliot Abrams, have other plans. They intend on implementing the designs for conquest they concocted as members of the Project for the New American Century years before. Neocon Michael Ledeen rallies his "troops" with the statement, "Wage a total war...and our children will sing great songs about us years from now." Interestingly, the 101-page document for the conquest of Iraq is more interested in corporate benefits than war plans. The document includes, among other components: huge tax breaks for the wealthiest Iraqis and complete elimination of taxes on business revenues; the quick sale of Iraqi banks, bridges, and water companies to US companies; the application for Iraq's membership in the World Trade Organization, underwritten by US government contractors; "market-friendly" customs laws designed to wipe out tariffs that protect Iraq's industries from cheap foreign imports; the complete privatization of Iraqi state-owned industry; and new copyright laws to protect American software, music, and drug companies. Palast writes, "It was more like a corporate takeover, except with Abrams tanks instead of junk bonds." Little is written about actually securing the country after the invasion, but plenty of ink is expended on securing a "market-friendly regulatory environment" and "strengthening property rights-related legislation, corporate and contract law." The title of the document: "Moving the Iraqi Economy from Recovery to Sustainable Growth." Everything in Iraq would be up for sale to British and American companies, with Iraqis themselves cut out of any bidding. The plan speculated that economic conquest of Iraq would take from 270 to 360 days, a year of American troops occupying the country before Iraq could be sold off and the country returned, ostensibly, to its citizens. Of course, the big prize was the "privatization, asset sales, concessions, leases and management contracts, especially those in the oil and supporting industries."
- Palast suspected the involvement of free-market guru Grover Norquist. Norquist, a former lobbyist for Microsoft and for American Express, holds a weekly meeting under the auspices of his organization, Americans for Tax Reform, which features corporate executives, government officials, conservative media moguls, rightist Christian organizations, and the NRA and other right-wing pressure groups. His cause is the "flat tax," which would provide an unprecedented windfall for the wealthy at the expense of the working poor and middle class. Norquist readily confirms his involvement with the economics of the Iraqi occupation plan, and tells Palast that his model is Chile under the regime of dictator Augusto Pinochet. "Chile's low-tax free-trade property-rights model led to its growth...even though at the time it was not fully democratic," Norquist says. "Not fully democratic" is a gentle way of saying that Pinochet repressed his people to the extreme, murdering thousands of dissidents and political opponents. Norquist also ignores the fact that Pinochet's economic policies and plundering of government assets drove Chile into a horrific depression. Norquist likes Chile's approach to "deregulation," and says that, with a bit of fine-tuning, the approach could work perfectly well in Iraq, or just about anywhere else. Another proponent for Pinochet-style democracy is the New York Times's Thomas Friedman, who writes shortly after the seizure of Baghdad that US occupiers "should not focus on holding national elections -- the hardware of democracy. Elections should come last. Instead, it must start with the software." Friedman echoes Norquist in saying that economic "reform" should come first, even before the implementation of a free press and a democratic government.
- With some modifications, the neocons' plan is, indeed, what is carried out in March 2003 and beyond, with Wolfowitz telling America that not only would the invasion and occupation be virtually bloodless, with Iraqi citizens dancing in the streets to welcome their American and British liberators, but almost free of charge, with Iraqi assets paying for almost all of the invasion and occupation costs. "We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon," Wolfowitz testifies before Congress on March 27, 2003. Notably, when Bush's economic advisor, Lawrence Lindsey, insists that Wolfowitz is wrong, that the war costs for the US could exceed $100 billion, Lindsey is fired. Meanwhile, Wolfowitz tells Congress, "The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the next two or three years." Congress and the US media were suitably impressed, and the war costs to America, as of my writing of this item (July 2006), are at $296 billion and counting, with $3000 added every second. (See the "Cost of the War in Iraq" counter on the home page. The Wall Street Journal even predicts that the conquest of Iraq will make oil prices drop worldwide, as Iraqi oil, pumping in record amounts, floods the world markets. In other words, the US would make a tidy profit on the entire invasion and takeover of Iraq. But Wolfowitz and the neocons have no information on exactly how that much oil will be able to be taken out of Iraq's oil fields. "Nobody ever said that," Aljibury insists. And Guy Caruso, head of the Energy Information Administration, the government's source for real working numbers for Iraq's oil production, is stunned at the neocons' assessments. "What are they getting this from?" he asks. "You gotta be joking, right?" Caruso, a former CIA agent, knows enough not to tell the public of his reservations, and, when interviewed by Palast, passes him off to Robert Ebel, of the rightist Center for Strategic and International Studies. Ebel, formerly the CIA's top oil expert and a 14-year veteran of international energy giant Enserch, says that in 2002 and 2003 the administration sent him to meet with Hussein's former Minister of Oil, and that worthy's "Future of Iraq" group, sponsored by the US. The former oil minister, Fadhil Chalabi, then in exile in London, had expansive plans written up for Iraq's oil, which he sold for $52,000 a copy to oil industry executives. Ebel told Chalabi that his plans for pumping three to three-and-a-half million barrels a day from Iraq were "ridiculous." Chalabi didn't think so, and neither did Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, son of an Iraqi sheik, who planned to sell Iraq's oil fields to the Americans as soon as Saddam was gone. This phantasmagorical oil field selloff, from someone who didn't even own the fields or control their access, was a linchpin of Wolfowitz's extravagant projections. So what does Ebel say about Wolfowitz's numbers? "It was just part of the sales pitch, wasn't it?" Some might say Wolfowitz's testimony to Congress amounts to perjury, and they would be right -- if Wolfowitz and others didn't follow Bush administration practice and refuse to testify under oath. Since he didn't swear to "tell the truth and nothing but the truth," he was free to lie as he saw fit. (Greg Palast)
- February 16:
Iraq war and occupation
Conservative talk show host Bill O'Reilly dismisses Saddam Hussein as a threat to the United States: "You know, I don't take Saddam Hussein all that seriously anymore as far as a world threat. Maybe I'm wrong and naive here. Should we be very frightened of this guy?" (FAIR) - February 21: A joint US-British air force strike team bombs 20 radar and command centers inside Iraq,
Iraq war and occupation
enforcing the UN no-fly zones in the largest air strikes within Iraq in two years. While the White House is informed of the strikes by a general from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld feels he hasn't been given enough information about the strikes quickly enough, and Rumsfeld is livid. Rumsfeld's information comes to him, by established law and protocol, through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Hugh Shelton. It could be hours before Rumsfeld learns of such events. Snarling, "I'm the secretary of defense. I'm in the chain of command," Rumsfeld decides to upend the entire system and ensure that he, not Shelton, will have the president's ear on such matters. Rumsfeld hounds Shelton for information about the reporting of the air strikes: who had selected those targets and why, who had briefed, who knew, and most importantly, why wasn't Rumsfeld consulted? CNN had reported air strikes in Baghdad, though the actual bases struck were not in the city itself; it looked for a moment if the US had just declared unilateral war on Iraq. Rumsfeld feels misled and ignored, and refuses to stand for it. The air strikes spur Rumsfeld to re-institute his system of sending short notes directly to people throughout the Pentagon, almost all marked for immediate reply. He calls the notes "snowflakes." One of their attractions for Rumsfeld is that, while everyone knows who they are from, none are signed, and therefore are deniable if any are leaked to the press. Rumsfeld's senior administrative assistant, Rear Admiral J.J. Quinn, later says of the snowflakes, "It was a simple, efficient way for him to keep track of what he had asked for and what he wanted to get done. It was a way for him to get his arms around this big behemoth called the United States military." The snowflakes are a mixed blessing; as Shelton's right-hand man, Vice Admiral Scott Fry, observes, the military establishment needs a good shaking-up, others find the snowflakes irritating, obtrusive, and impossible to keep up with. The snowflakes are a prime example of Rumsfeld's micromanagement style -- and his insistence on being viewed as the top dog at Defense. - Standard procedure at the Pentagon for anything like the air strikes, or another like incident, requires the duty general or admiral in the National Military Command Center, which is a part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to call the chairman of the JCS, Shelton. Rumsfeld thinks he, not Shelton, should get the first call. He is the one in the chain of command, he is the one reporting to the president. Shelton replies that he has to know what's going on, to know what details to press for and what questions to ask, in order to properly inform the Secretary of Defense, who can then properly inform the president. Rumsfeld insists on being informed before Shelton, and demands a top-to-bottom review of the procedures involving the NMCC and detailed timelines of each incident where Shelton was informed before Rumsfeld. (Bob Woodward)
- February 21:
George W. Bush
George W. Bush tells a Tennessee audience, "You teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test." (Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose) - February 22: The first of three secret meetings between Cheney and Enron's Kenneth Lay is held (the others will occur on March 7 and April 17).
Bush's energy policies
Although the administration has succeeded in keeping the details of these meetings away from the public, it is known that Cheney's energy task force made special concessions to help Enron's Dabhol plant in India, that Cheney attempted to help Enron collect a $64 million debt from India, that the National Security Council ran a "Dabhol Working Group" that acted as a intermediary between Enron and the Indian government, and that both Enron and Halliburton Oil, Cheney's former company, stands to gain tremendous profits from the proposed Caspian Sea pipeline. It is widely speculated that these three meetings between Cheney and Lay covered some or all of these areas. (Albion Monitor/AlterNet, From the Wilderness) - Historian Kevin Phillips writes,
Bush's energy policies
"For some eight months after the 2001 inauguration, two major Texas companies -- Halliburton, run by Cheney since 1995, and Enron, closely linked to the latest two generations of Bushes -- loomed especially large in capital calculations. Lobbyists expected the two firms' interests to both influence and signal administration policy. Focal points included fuller of US energy markets, repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act, commodization of both natural gas and electricity marketing, closer US-Russian oil collaboration, intensified commitment to US control of Iraqi and Caspian oil supplies, and large-scale privatization of support functions hitherto performed by the US military (ranging from energy procurement to war-zone logistics). There was an ambitious, even imperial, trade agenda aimed at empowering the World Trade Organization to regulate the global trade in energy and utility services. Within the Washington-based Coalition of Service Industries, Enron and Halliburton had been the driving US proponents, anxious to pry open foreign markets for US utility, pipeline, construction, and oil-field-service providers. ...At no time in recent memory had Washington faced an ethical conundrum over the influence generated by the recent corporate alliances and connections of both a president and a vice president." (Kevin Phillips) - February 23: Zacarias Moussaoui flies to the US and starts flight training in Norman, Oklahoma three days later.
9/11 attacks
He trains there until May, but doesn't do well and drops out before getting a pilot's license. His visa expires on May 22, but he doesn't attempt to renew it or get another by briefly leaving the country. He stays in Norman, making arrangements to change flight schools and frequently exercising in a gym. According to US investigators, would-be hijacker Ramzi bin al-Shibh said he met Moussaoui in Karachi, Pakistan in June 2001. Moussaoui moves to a flight school in Minnesota in August and is arrested by the FBI a short time later. (CCR) - February 23-24: According to new Secretary of State Colin Powell, Iraq's military is contained and poses no threat to the US or Iraq's neighbors.
Iraq war and occupation
"I think we ought to declare [the containment policy] a success. We have kept him contained, kept him in his box." Powell adds that Hussein "is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors" and that "he threatens not the United States." Powell continues, in regard to his visit to Cairo and the Egyptian government, "We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq...." (Center for American Progress, State Department/Memory Hole)
"My plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we're going to run out of debt to retire." -- George W. Bush, February 24, 2001
- February 26:
Conservative hate speech and intolerance
Conservative commentator Ann Coulter insults women on Politically Correct: "I think [women] should be armed but should not [be allowed to] vote...women have no capacity to understand how money is earned. They have a lot of ideas on how to spend it....it's always more money on education, more money on child care, more money on day care." (Intervention Magazine) - February 27: EPA director Christie Todd Whitman tells a press gathering,
Global warming and the environment
"There's no question but that global warming is a real phenomenon that is occurring. And while scientists can't predict where the droughts will occur, where the flooding will occur precisely, or when, we know those things will occur." Whitman is obviously out of the loop, even though, as she tells a CNN audience, "George Bush was very clear during the course of the campaign that he believed in a multipollutant strategy, and that includes CO2," and in 1999, Karl Rove confirmed that Bush was committed to reducing carbon dioxide emissions. But, after his election, Bush has been backing sharply away from his modest pro-environmental positions during the campaign, cozying back up to oil and gas interests angered by his campaign promises to set mandatory reduction levels for four major pollutants -- sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury, and carbon dioxide. Whitman will become increasingly estranged from the White House, and her ideas for reducing pollutants in the environment will be not only ignored by White House officials, but mocked. - Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, already uncomfortable with the lockstep positions of most White House officials, believes Whitman, like Secretary of State Colin Powell and himself, is trying to "formulate policy in a high-stakes game of blindman's bluff, calling out ideas and recommendations in an effort to locate the mindset of the president, or create a mindset...or simply proceed, even if blindfolded, without Bush's guidance." Instead of asking Whitman to create an administration policy for global warming, Bush has asked O'Neill to create a policy, a request O'Neill finds unusual. Whitman's EPA report on global warming will be shelved and ignored, as will O'Neill's; Bush later tells Whitman that he has no intention of fulfilling his campaign promise to sign the 1997 Kyoto accords governing global warming. In fact, he won't even use the term "global warming," but, following the lead of a group of Republican senators, is now calling the phenomenon "climate change." "We just gave away the environment," O'Neill tells an irate Whitman days later, "for no good reason." It doesn't take O'Neill long to realize that there is a very good reason for Bush's decision -- political pandering to the base, and carrying water for the corporate polluters. Both Whitman and O'Neill quickly realize that the decision must have come directly from Cheney, a longtime friend of O'Neill's who, until now, O'Neill believed to be a pragmatic voice for sensible thinking and clear analysis. Instead, O'Neill realizes, Cheney has become an ideologue.
- Worse, when O'Neill reads the news of Bush's refusal to cut emissions or follow through on his promise to sign off on Kyoto, he reads that Bush says the decision was made "after Cabinet-level review." If the Cabinet had reviewed the policy decision, neither Treasury nor the EPA -- the two agencies charged with writing proposals on global warming -- were involved. Pro-business Republican senators like Chuck Hagel joined in celebrating the decision with energy industry lobbyists; Democrats and environmental groups talked of being betrayed and lied to. Publicly, Whitman says she will "follow the president's lead" on environmental policy; privately, both she and O'Neill know that neither one of them will have -- or have ever had -- any influence on the issue, regardless of Bush's private assertions to the contrary. "Was it possible, O'Neill wondered, that the country thought it had elected a centrist when in fact it had empowered an ideologue?" writes O'Neill biographer Ron Suskind. "The incident with Whitman was the start of what O'Neill later called 'a rolling revelation of the way this administration was operating. ...What became clear to me at that point [O'Neill recalls after his resignation in December 2002] is that the presence of me and Colin and Christie helped convince people that this would be, actually, an administration that would look hard for best solutions, without regard for which party had claimed an idea first or some passing political calculation. That's what the three of us were kind of known for, for being non-ideological, for walking across political borders and looking for common ground. Thinking back about how all of us started to be banged up so early on, from the inside, it now seems like we inadvertently may have been there, in large part, as cover."
- What Whitman does not know, and O'Neill is uncertain about, is that Cheney is directly behind Bush's retreat on the entire issue of global warming and the regulation of pollutants. On March 1, Cheney receives a personal note (released years later through an FOIA request) from energy lobbyist and former RNC chairman Haley Barbour. Barbour asks, "Demurring on the issue of whether the CO2 idea is eco-extremism, we must ask, do environmental initiatives, which would greatly exacerbate the energy problems, trump good energy policy, which the country has lacked for eight years?" Cheney responds promptly. A week later, an enraged Whitman shows O'Neill a letter from four Republican senators -- Chuck Hagel, Larry Craig, Jesse Helms, and Pat Roberts -- that makes it clear the Kyoto accords are dead and that carbon dioxide caps are in serious jeopardy. Reading the letter, O'Neill says the letter sounds like words "right out of Dick Cheney's mouth." They are. Hagel had written the letter with Cheney's input. When Whitman approaches Bush on the issue, he cuts her off: "Christie, I've already made my decision." Bush has already written back to Hagel agreeing to drop the CO2 caps and back off from signing the Kyoto accords. Whitman learns that the letter to Hagel had gone through Cheney. Hours later, Cheney tells the Senate that Bush is reversing his promises for CO2 caps.
- O'Neill later calls it a "clean kill" from Cheney, with no fingerprints and no accountability. The mid-March report from Cheney's energy task force codifies the administration's position -- all business, all exploration, all drilling, and far fewer environmental restrictions. (Ron Suskind, Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein)
