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
September 2004, Week One
Page Two
British analysts predict civil war in Iraq
- September 2: Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs issues a report stating that the most likely outcome of the Iraqi occupation will be a full-blown civil war.
Iraq war and occupation
The report says that the best outcome Iraq can hope for is "to muddle through an 18-month political transition that began when Washington formally handed over sovereignty on June 28." The report is titled "Iraq in Transition: Vortex or Catalyst?" The institute, informally known as Chatham House, says in the report, "'Kurdish separatism and Shia assertiveness work against a smooth transition to elections, while the Sunni Arab minority remains on the offensive and engaged in resistance. Antipathy to the US presence grows, not so much in a unified Iraqi nationalist backlash, but rather in a fragmented manner that could presage civil war if the US cuts and runs. Even if the US forces try to hold out and prop up the central authority, it may still lose control." The report also predicts that a three-way fragmentation, with autonomous enclaves of Kurds, Shi'a, and Sunnis each controlling their area of Iraq, is also possible. In an article in the New York Review of Books, former US ambassador to Croatia, UN official in East Timor, and current senior diplomatic fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Peter Galbraith writes that "It is a measure of how far America's once grand ambitions for Iraq have diminished that security has become more important than democracy for a mission intended not only to transform Iraq but with it the entire Middle East." Galbraith says the report's worst-case scenario is the most likely outcome. (Christian Science Monitor/Truthout) - September 2: Retired general Tommy Franks, who is primarily responsible for the battle plan used by the US in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in March 2003, endorses Bush for president.
2004 presidential elections
Franks, who says he would prefer to remain publicly neutral, is widely believed to have made his public endorsement, and his agreement to speak at the Republican national convention, in response to the prominent endorsement of John Kerry by 12 retired generals and admirals at the Democratic convention in July. Franks also challenges Kerry's activism against the Vietnam War in 1971. The Kerry campaign provides a conflicting quote from Franks on the August 3 Hannity and Colmes Fox News program: "I would say that the things that Senator Kerry said are undeniable about activities in Vietnam." And on ABC's This Week on August 8, asked if Kerry was qualified to be commander in chief, Franks responded, "Absolutely." Kerry campaign spokesman David Wade says, "General Franks has defended John Kerry's military service. Rather than join in the Madison Square Garden makeover, General Franks should admit that George Bush's miscalculations have hurt our troops, the mission isn't accomplished, and we can't afford what this Orwellian administration calls 'catastrophic success.'" Franks says that the charges and countercharges will become relevant for voters. "There are going to be dots about George W. Bush's decisions and weapons of mass destruction and the decision to go into Iraq -- good? Bad? There are going to be dots on there about the Swift Boat guys, too. And Americans are going to connect the dots." (Washington Post) - September 2: New York governor George Pataki introduces the Republican nominee for president, George W. Bush, in a speech centered on the events of 9/11 and their aftermath.
2004 presidential elections
"On that terrible day, a nation became a neighborhood. All Americans became New Yorkers," he says. "so what I've wanted to do for a long time was say thank you -- in front of our country, and with our children watching. Thank you America, from the bottom of New York's heart." From that gracious and moving opening, he turns quickly into a slam of opponent John Kerry. "This is a candidate who has to Google his own name to find out where he stands" on issues, he says. Of Kerry's campaign slogan, "Hope is on the way," Pataki says it should be "Hype is on the way." He also blames Bill Clinton for creating the conditions that led to 9/11: "Osama bin Laden declared war on America -- and then came the attacks. The first World Trade Center, the embassies, the USS Cole -- hundreds dead, thousands injured. How I wish the administration at that time, in those years had done something." Pataki's grasp of recent history is tenuous at best, but the delegates lap it up, cheering and screaming and waving their purple-heart bandages, worn in mockery of John Kerry's Purple Hearts. "On September 11th, al-Qaeda attacked again," Pataki says. "But this time they made a terrible mistake. There's one thing they didn't bank on. They didn't bank on George W. Bush. He didn't run from history. He faced it." - Bush takes the theater-in-the-round stage to tumultuous applause. His speech is a patchwork of promises for improvements in the economy, health care, taxes, Social Security, and other domestic issues, but focuses primarily on foreign policy, particularly Iraq and the war on terror, opening and closing with references to 9/11. The speech is long on promises on rhetoric and short on explanations of how he will accomplish these goals. Twice his speech is interrupted by hecklers, who are hustled out of the convention by armed security guards. Political analysts agree that, while the speech is well-delivered, there is little new material in its content, mostly consisting of the same tag lines, sound bites, and rhetoric from the campaign trail. Bush's speech is carefully crafted to continue playing the same theme of portraying America in mortal danger, and presenting Bush as the only person capable of saving the country from its shadowy enemies. "For terror management purposes, people need a supremely confident leader who has a grand vision and can provide self-worth through identification with the leader and the leader's vision," write a group of psychologists explaining the Terror Management Theory; Bush provides all of that in his speech. "Since [9/11]," he tells the audience in establishing his relentlessness of purpose, "I wake up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country. I will never relent in defending America, whatever it takes." He establishes his personal confidence: "some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called 'walking.'" And relentless purpose again: "If America shows uncertainty or weakness in this decade, the world will drift towards tragedy. This will not happen on my watch." And the uplifiting finale, hope against fear: "Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom. This is the everlasting dream of America and tonight, in this place, that dream is renewed. Now we go forward, grateful for our freedom, faithful to our cause, and confident in the future of the greatest nation on earth."
- Naturally, Bush focuses on the 9/11 attacks in his speech. The attacks require "our country to think differently" and confront threats "before it is too late," he thunders. As the crowd chants "USA! USA!" Bush reminds the audience that his opponents, John Kerry and John Edwards, had both voted to authorize the October 2002 war resolution. "Members of both political parties, including my opponent and his running mate, saw the threat and voted to authorize the use of force," he says. The UN had passed a resolution requiring Saddam Hussein to disarm, but, Bush says falsely, Hussein had defied the resolution. (In fact, the Iraqis were cooperating with the UN inspectors up until Bush forced the inspectors to leave the country in the weeks before the invasion.) "And I faced the kind of decision that comes only to the Oval Office, a decision no president would ask for but must be prepared to make. Do I forget the lessons of September 11 and take the word of a madman?" he says. "No!" roar the delegates. "Or do I take action to defend our country? Faced with that choice, I will defend America every time!"
- An angry Al Franken bursts the Bush bubble, by writing, "The man who had shrunk from duty in Vietnam, who had been asleep at the wheel from January 20 through 9:12 am on September 11, 2001, who had lied us into a disastrous, unnecessary war and simultaneously failed to create jobs despite a series of unprecedented wartime tax cuts for the rich that were driving us deeper and deeper into debt -- this man had become Resolute Man, a superhero whose one defining characteristic was his unyielding commitment to appearing resolute." Franken notes that redefining Bush as this steely-eyed warrior was only half the battle; the rest has to be done by packaging his opponent, John Kerry, as something entirely different: " a weakling, a coward...a spineless wimp who would get us all killed. They would have to turn a war hero into a flip-flopper."
- Gymnasts Mary Lou Retton and Kerry Strug are featured in the opening of the night's ceremonies, leading the crowd in reciting the Pledge of Alliegiance. Retired general Tommy Franks, one of the architects of the 2003 Iraq invasion, is one of the speakers preceding Bush; African-American Michael Williams, a former Texas railroad commissioner, is one of the black Americans featured in the convention, as is former HUD secretary Mel Martinez, a Hispanic. (CNN, CNN [includes links to transcripts and videos of Bush's speech], Al Franken, Michael Isikoff and David Corn)
- September 2: The liberal Center for American Progress details numerous examples of Bush's own "flip-flopping" on key issues, in an attempt to refute charges from the Bush campaign that John Kerry's Senate career is marred by bouncing back and forth on the issues of the day.
2004 presidential elections
Among the examples:- While Bush pledged never to touch the Social Security surplus, in fact, he did just that. On March 3, 2001, he said, "We're going to keep the promise of Social Security and keep the government from raiding the Social Security surplus." But in February 2002, the New York Times reported that "the president's new budget uses Social Security surpluses to pay for other programs every year through 2013, ultimately diverting more than $1.4 trillion in Social Security funds to other purposes."
- As governor of Texas, and on the campaign trail in 2000, Bush supported the right of medical patients to sue their doctors, saying in a debate against Al Gore: "We're one of the first states that said you can sue an HMO for denying you proper coverage.... It's time for our nation to come together and do what's right for the people. And I think this is right for the people. You know, I support a national patients' bill of rights, Mr. Vice President. And I want all people covered. I don't want the law to supersede good law like we've got in Texas." But in February 2001, just days after his inauguration, Salon reported, "Despite his campaign rhetoric in favor of a patients' bill of rights, Bush fought such a bill tooth and nail as Texas governor, vetoing a bill coauthored by Republican state Rep. John Smithee in 1995. He...constantly opposed a patient's right to sue an HMO over coverage denied that resulted in adverse health effects."
- On November 15, 2002, Bush declared that North Korea would not be offered incentives by the US government to disarm themselves of nuclear weapons: "We developed a bold approach under which, if the North addressed our long-standing concerns, the United States was prepared to take important steps that would have significantly improved the lives of the North Korean people. Now that North Korea's covert nuclear weapons program has come to light, we are unable to pursue this approach." But on June 23, 2004, press secretary Scott McClellan told the press, "Well, we will work to take steps to ease their political and economic isolation. So there would be -- what you would see would be some provisional or temporary proposals that would only lead to lasting benefit after North Korea dismantles its nuclear programs. So there would be some provisional or temporary efforts of that nature."
- In 1978, as a candidate for office, Bush avowed that he favored choice in abortion: "Bush said he...favors leaving up to a woman and her doctor the abortion question," the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reported in May 1978. But in a 2000 debate with Al Gore, and in his actions as president, Bush has consistently repudiated such a right, saying of himself, "I am pro-life."
- On January 26, 2000, Bush promised that, as president, he would forcefully lobby OPEC to increase oil production and lower gasoline prices: "What I think the president ought to do [when gas prices spike] is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots.... And the president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price." But in April 2004, with gas prices in America soaring, the Miami Herald reported that he refused to "personally lobby oil cartel leaders to change their minds."
- On February 2, 2004, budget director Joshua Bolton said that Bush had no intention of asking for more money to fund the Iraqi occupation: "We do not anticipate requesting supplemental funding for '04." But on May 5, 2004, Bush said, "I am requesting that Congress establish a $25 billion contingency reserve fund for the coming fiscal year to meet all commitments to our troops."
- Bush and his White House officials claimed that they were refusing to let Condoleezza Rice testify before the 9/11 commission on principle, according to McClellan on May 9, 2004: "Again, this is not her personal preference; this goes back to a matter of principle. There is a separation of powers issue involved here. Historically, White House staffers do not testify before legislative bodies. So it's a matter of principle, not a matter of preference." Three weeks later, Bush said, "Today I have informed the Commission on Terrorist Attacks Against the United States that my National Security Advisor, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, will provide public testimony."
- While campaigning in 2000, Bush came out for regulations based on strong, rational science, saying on January 15, "I think we ought to have high standards set by agencies that rely upon science, not by what may feel good or what sounds good." But on February 18, 2004, 60 leading scientists, including Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, former federal agency directors and university chairs and presidents, issued a statement calling for regulatory and legislative action to restore scientific integrity to federal policymaking. The scientists wrote that the Bush administration has, among other abuses, suppressed and distorted scientific analysis from federal agencies, and taken actions that have undermined the quality of scientific advisory panels."
- On February 19, 2002, press secretary Ari Fleischer said that Bush opposed the creation of a Department of Homeland Security: "so, creating a Cabinet office doesn't solve the problem. You still will have agencies within the federal government that have to be coordinated. So the answer is that creating a Cabinet post doesn't solve anything." On June 6, 2002, Bush made the following announcement: "so tonight, I ask the Congress to join me in creating a single, permanent department with an overriding and urgent mission: securing the homeland of America and protecting the American people."
- Bush insisted on May 29, 2003, that American forces had found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories...for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." On February 7, 2004, he admitted that WMDs have not been found:"David Kay has found the capacity to produce weapons. And when David Kay goes in and says we haven't found stockpiles yet, and there's theories as to where the weapons went. They could have been destroyed during the war. Saddam and his henchmen could have destroyed them as we entered into Iraq. They could be hidden. They could have been transported to another country, and we'll find out."
- On February 23, 2002, Bush came out for free trade: "I believe strongly that if we promote trade, and when we promote trade, it will help workers on both sides of this issue." But the Washington Post reported on September 19, 2003, "In a decision largely driven by his political advisers, President Bush set aside his free-trade principles last year and imposed heavy tariffs on imported steel to help out struggling mills in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, two states crucial for his reelection."
- On September 17, 2001, Bush declared that he wants Osama bin Laden one way or the other: "I want justice. And there's an old poster out West, I recall, that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'" But on March 13, 2002, scarcely six months later, Bush's feeling had changed: "I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him.... I truly am not that concerned about him."
- As a candidate in 2000, Bush supported mandatory limits on carbon dioxide, with his campaign Web site stating, "[If elected], Governor Bush will work to...establish mandatory reduction targets for emissions of four main pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide." But in a March 13, 2003 letter to senator Chuck Hagel, Bush wrote, "I do not believe, however, that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide, which is not a 'pollutant' under the Clean Air Act."
- On January 29, 2004, the New York Times reported that Bush opposed the creation of an outside commission to investigate the failure to find the fabled Iraqi WMDs: "The White House immediately turned aside the calls from [David] Kay and many Democrats for an immediate outside investigation, seeking to head off any new wide-ranging election-year inquiry that might go beyond reports already being assembled by congressional committees and the Central Intelligence Agency." Yet a week later, on February 6, he said, "Today, by executive order, I am creating an independent commission, chaired by Governor and former Senator Chuck Robb, Judge Laurence Silberman, to look at American intelligence capabilities, especially our intelligence about weapons of mass destruction."
- CBS reported on May 23, 2002, that Bush was against the formation of an independent commission to investigate the 9/11 attacks: "President Bush took a few minutes during his trip to Europe Thursday to voice his opposition to establishing a special commission to probe how the government dealt with terror warnings before Sept. 11." But on September 20, 2002, ABC reported, "President Bush said today he now supports establishing an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks."
- The Washington Post reported on January 19, 2004, that Bush would not grant more time to the 9/11 commission for their investigation: "President Bush and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) have decided to oppose granting more time to an independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks." But two weeks later, on February 4, 2004, CNN reported, "The White House announced Wednesday its support for a request from the commission investigating the September 11, 2001 attacks for more time to complete its work."
- On February 26, 2004, the New York Times reported that "President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have placed strict limits on the private interviews they will grant to the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, saying that they will meet only with the panel's top two officials and that Mr. Bush will submit to only a single hour of questioning, commission members said Wednesday." Two weeks later, on March 10, McClellan told reporters, "The president's going to answer all of the questions they want to raise. Nobody's watching the clock."
- Candidate Bush, on February 15, 2000, told CNN's Larry King that he thought the federal government had no role in banning or ratifying gay marriage: "The state can do what they want to do. Don't try to trap me in this state's issue like you're trying to get me into." But on February 24, 2004, he came out for a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage: "Today I call upon the Congress to promptly pass, and to send to the states for ratification, an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of man and woman as husband and wife."
- On October 3, 2000, candidate Bush opposed nation building: "If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road." But on March 6, 2003, he announced, "We will be changing the regime of Iraq, for the good of the Iraqi people."
- On September 25, 2002, Bush told America that there is no difference between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein: "You can't distinguish between al-Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." A year later, on September 17, 2003, he admitted, "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept. 11."
- On March 6, 2003, Bush vowed that the UN would hold a vote on Iraq no matter what: "No matter what the whip count is, we're calling for the vote. We want to see people stand up and say what their opinion is about Saddam Hussein and the utility of the United Nations Security Council. And so, you bet. It's time for people to show their cards, to let the world know where they stand when it comes to Saddam." Two weeks later, on March 18, the Washington Post reported, "At a National Security Council meeting convened at the White House at 8:55 a.m., Bush finalized the decision to withdraw the resolution from consideration and prepared to deliver an address to the nation that had already been written."
- On April 5, 2002, Bush said he saw no need for summits between world leaders concerning the Israel-Palestine problem: "Well, we've tried summits in the past, as you may remember. It wasn't all that long ago where a summit was called and nothing happened, and as a result we had significant intifada in the area." But on May 23, 2003, he said, "If a meeting advances progress toward two states living side by side in peace, I will strongly consider such a meeting. I'm committed to working toward peace in the Middle East."
- Bush opposed the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law, with the Washington Post reporting on March 28, 2000, "George W. Bush opposes McCain-Feingold...as an infringement on free expression." He signed the law into effect on March 27, 2002, saying, "[T]his bill improves the current system of financing for Federal campaigns, and therefore I have signed it into law."
- On March 27, 2002, Bush came out in support of so-called 527s, organizations that can contribute "soft money" to political candidates: "I also have reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue advertising [in McCain Feingold], which restrains the speech of a wide variety of groups on issues of public import." After Democrats showed their expertise in raising money from 527s, he said on August 23, 2004, "I don't think we ought to have 527s. I can't be more plain about it.... I think they're bad for the system. That's why I signed the bill, McCain-Feingold."
- On April 12, 2001, Bush came out in favor of keeping medical records private: "I believe that we must protect...the right of every American to have confidence that his or her personal medical records will remain private." But on April 30, 2004, Business Week reported that Bush's Justice Deparrtment proclaimed that patients "no longer possess a reasonable expectation that their histories will remain completely confidential."
- On October 3, 2002, Bush believed in timelines for dictators to accept terms or face the consequences: "If Iraq does not accept the terms within a week of passage or fails to disclose required information within 30 days, the resolution authorizes 'all necessary means' to force compliance--in other words, a military attack." But he said on August 27, 2004, "I don't think you give timelines to dictators."
- On July 19, 2001, Bush said he was considering diverting water from the Great Lakes, with the AP reporting, "Even though experts say 'diverting any water from the Great Lakes region sets a bad precedent' Bush 'said he wants to talk to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien about piping water to parched states in the west and southwest.'" On August 16, 2004, he thought such diversion was a bad idea: "We've got to use our resources wisely, like water. It starts with keeping the Great Lakes water in the Great Lakes Basin.... My position is clear: We're never going to allow diversion of Great Lakes water.
- And the flip-flop to end all flip-flops: On April 16, 2004, Bush told the American people that the US could win the war on terror: "One of the interesting things people ask me, now that we're asking questions, is, can you ever win the war on terror? Of course, you can." He didn't feel that way on August 30: "I don't think you can win [the war on terror]." One day later: "Make no mistake about it, we are winning and we will win [the war on terror]."
- September 2: The widow of longtime Bush family confidant Jimmy Allison sheds new light on what is sometimes called George W. Bush's "missing year" of so-called military service.
"Swift Boat Veterans" and campaign smears
Linda Allison recalls that her husband, a newspaper owner and campaign consultant from Midland, Texas, received a phone call in the spring of 1972 from George H.W. Bush phoned his friend. The elder Bush wanted a favor: Could Allison find a place on the Senate campaign he was managing in Alabama for his troublesome eldest son, the 25-year-old George W. Bush? "The impression I had was that Georgie was raising a lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and embarrassing the family, and they just really wanted to get him out of Houston and under Jimmy's wing," Linda Allison recalls. "And Jimmy said, 'Sure.' He was so loyal." The official Bush campaign story is that Bush was given an "irresistable" offer to join the Senate campaign of Winton Blount to help him gain high-level political experience. Linda Allison recalls the situation quite differently. According to her, the younger Bush had become a political liability for his father, who was then the United States ambassador to the United Nations, and the family wanted him out of Texas. "I think they wanted someone they trusted to keep an eye on him," she says. Her husband fell out of favor with the Bush family for reasons Allison is not sure about, though she believes it was because Jimmy Allison opposed the elder Bush becoming chairman of the Republican National Committee under Richard Nixon. "something happened that I don't know about," she says. "But I do know that Jimmy didn't expect it, and it broke his heart." Allison tried to warn Bush from associating himself with Nixon, whom he did not trust. Instead, the Bushes shut the Allisons out. - Allison's account corroborates a Washington Post investigation in February that found no credible witnesses to the service in the Alabama National Guard that Bush maintains he performed, despite a lack of documentary evidence. Asked if she'd ever seen Bush in a uniform, Allison says, "Good lord, no. I had no idea that the National Guard was involved in his life in any way." Allison also confirmed previously published accounts that Bush often showed up in the Blount campaign offices around noon, boasting about how much alcohol he had consumed the night before. "After about a month I asked Jimmy what was Georgie's job, because I couldn't figure it out. I never saw him do anything. He told me it basically consisted of him contacting people who were impressed by his name and asking for contributions and support," she says. C. Murphy Archibald, a nephew of Red Blount by marriage and a Vietnam veteran who volunteered on the campaign from September 1972 until election night, corroborates Allison's recollections, though he doesn't recall that the Bush name carried much cachet in Alabama at the time. "I say that because the scuttlebutt on the campaign was that Allison was very sharp and might actually be able to pull off this difficult race" against the incumbent Democrat, Sen. John Sparkman, Archibald says. "But then no one understood why he brought this young guy from Texas along. It was like, 'Who was this guy who comes in late and leaves early? And why would Jimmy Allison, who was so impressive, bring him on?'" Archibald recalls that when Bush actually bothered to show up to work, he did make some phone calls to county chairmen, but he consistently failed to perform his other task, mailing out campaign materials to the county campaign chairs. Archibald took up the slack, at Allison's request. "Jimmy didn't say anything about George," Archibald recalls. "He just said, 'These materials are not getting out. It's causing the candidate problems. Will you take it over?'"
- The Senate campaign was marked by the used of a nasty political trick that backfired badly on Blount, helping to cost him the election. Blount's campaign edited an audiotape of Sparkman to make it seem as if the Democrat has spoken out in favor of busing, a highly controversial position for any politician to take at the time in Alabama. Sparkman released the unedited version of the tape, and Blount's campaign never recovered from the backlash. It is not known if the younger Bush had anything to do with this maneuver, but it is the kind of political ploy that has been the hallmark of Bush campaigns since then.
- During a booze-soaked "wake" for the Blount campaign, Allison remembers running into George W. Bush in the parking lot. The drunken Bush was urinating on a parked car. She found out later that he had screamed obscenities at police officers that same night. Shortly thereafter, Bush left Montgomery, Alabama, leaving behind his rental house in a state of destruction -- furniture broken, walls damaged, and a chandelier smashed. A member of the family who rented the house to Bush, Mary Smith, says, "He was just a rich kid who had no respect for other people's possessions." She notes that a bill sent to Bush for repairs was never paid. Shortly thereafter, during the 1972 Christmas holidays, the Allisons met up with the Bushes on vacation in Hobe Sound, Florida. Tension was evident between Bush and his parents (weeks before, a drunken Bush had challenged his father to a fistfight). Linda Allison was a passenger in a car driven by Barbara Bush as they headed to lunch at the local beach club. Bush, who was then 26 years old, got on a bicycle and rode in front of the car in a slow, serpentine manner, forcing his mother to crawl along. "He rode so slowly that he kept having to put his foot down to get his balance, and he kept in a weaving pattern so we couldn't get past," Allison recalls. "He was obviously furious with his mother about something, and she was furious at him, too." (Salon)
- September 2: US Senate candidate Alan Keyes insults the daughter of Dick and Lynne Cheney,
"Culture Wars"
Mary, who is an avowed lesbian, saying that homosexuality is "selfish hedonism" and that Mary Cheney is a sinner. When asked if that makes Mary Cheney "a selfish hedonist," Keyes responds, "Of course she is. That goes by definition." The Log Cabin Republicans, a gay and lesbian organization, denounces Keyes' remark. "In a political career defined by failures, this is a new low for Alan Keyes," says executive director Patrick Guerriero. "Attacking [a] politician's children is beyond the pale, even for an extremist like Alan Keyes." Keyes has attacked homosexuality for years, but consistently refuses to discuss his daughter Maya, who herself is a lesbian. (MSNBC, Diggers Realm) - September 2: An unprecedented level of cooperation and sycophancy exists between the Republican National Convention and the array of right-wing talk radio hosts covering the event.
2004 presidential elections
Over 100 radio hosts, including a paltry six leftist and liberal hosts, mostly from fledgling liberal talk radio network Air America, are broadcasting their shows from Madison Square Garden, making the venue into what CBS's David Paul Kuhn calls "an echo chamber of conservative ideology." Conservative talkers receive briefings and talking points from RNC and Bush-Cheney campaign staffers, and elaborate on these points for their listeners. When the hosts aren't talking about Zell Miller's "dream" speech or slamming John Kerry's military record, they're discussing why they believe liberal talk show radio "doesn't work." Nashville radio host and conservative activist Steve Gill says, "Liberals have failed in talk radio because a crucible of ideas is what talk radio is all about. Liberals have depended on emotion." Scott Hogenson, the RNC's radio director, adds, "Liberals are simply not wired intellectually and emotionally to be receptive to talk radio. It doesn't mean they are not smart. It means talk radio is not the sort of medium that is going to trigger their judgment and perception motivator." (CBS News) - September 2: Slate's William Saletan writes that, judging from the speeches by Zell Miller and Dick Cheney, the Republicans have resorted to little more than effusive lies about the state of the country twinned with attacks on their opponent's patriotism.
2004 presidential elections
"[T]he important thing isn't the falsity of the charges [of Democratic treason and lack of patriotism], which Republicans continue to repeat despite press reports debunking them. The important thing is that the GOP is trying to quash criticism of the president simply because it's criticism of the president. The election is becoming a referendum on democracy. ...In some countries, the commander in chief builds a propaganda apparatus that equates him with the military and the nation. If you object that he's making bad decisions and disserving the national interest, you're accused of weakening the nation, undermining its security, sabotaging the commander in chief, and serving a foreign power -- the very charges Miller leveled tonight against Bush's critics. Are you prepared to become one of those countries? When patriotism is impugned, the facts go out the window. You're not allowed to point out that Bush shifted the rationale for the Iraq war further and further from U.S. national security -- from complicity in 9/11 to weapons of mass destruction to building democracy to relieving Iraqis of their dictator -- without explaining why American troops and taxpayers should bear the burden. You're not allowed to point out that the longer a liberator stays, the more he looks like an occupier. You're not allowed to propose that the enormous postwar expenses Bush failed to budget for be covered by repealing his tax cuts for the wealthy instead of further indebting every American child. If you dare to say these things, you're accused -- as Kerry now stands accused by Cheney and Miller -- of defaming America and refusing 'to support American troops in combat.' You're contrasted to a president who 'is unashamed of his belief that God is not indifferent to America.' You're derided, in Cheney's words, for trying to show al-Qaeda 'our softer side.' Your Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts are no match for the vice president's five draft deferments."(Slate)
- September 3: The FBI informed the White House of their investigation into whether Bush administration officials were involved in passing classified information to Israel through Israel's lobbying organization, AIPAC, over two years ago.
Republican corruption
The probe was disclosed to the public just last week. National security advisor Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, were the officials informed of the probe. The probe is investigating several Defense Department officials for passing information to AIPAC as well as to the Iraqi dissident group led by Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi National Congress (INC). Since then, both Bush and Rice have effusively praised AIPAC, with the president addressing the group in May and saying it was "serving the cause of America" by, among other things, highlighting "the threat posed by Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons." In March 2003, Rice called AIPAC "a great asset to our country." AIPAC is using these and other statements as part of its attempt to vindicate itself. AIPAC says it has always enjoyed access to high-level Bush officials, and continues to do so. - Israel, despite its denials, has long maintained a large and sophisticated spy network in the US, according to US intelligence officials. "There is a huge, aggressive, ongoing set of Israeli activities directed against the United States," says one former intelligence official familiar with the latest FBI probe. "Anybody who worked in counterintelligence in a professional capacity will tell you the Israelis are among the most aggressive and active countries targeting the United States. ...They undertake a wide range of technical operations and human operations. People here as liaison...aggressively pursue classified intelligence from people. The denials are laughable." (Reuters/CommonDreams, Los Angeles Times/Truthout)
- September 3: Corporate watchdog organization CorpWatch reveals that California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger lifted key restrictions on oil refineries after receiving hefty donations from oil giant Chevron.
Oil profiteering and the "oiligarchy"
Schwarzenegger, whose ambitious reorganization of California's state government was heavily influenced by Chevron's army of lobbyists and attorneys, received $200,000 in donations to his own committees from Chevron; the firm also donated $500,000 to the California Republican Party, and helped finance Schwarzenegger's visit to the Republican National Convention. The easing of restrictions makes it easier for Chevron and other oil firms to gain permits for new construction and avoid worries about environmental damage caused by their operations. Mark Petracca, a University of California, Irvine political scientist, says Chevron's considerable influence on the CPR report may taint the whole review because the study was presented to the public as an objective and authoritative analysis of how to fix state government. "This is good old fashioned interest-group politics," he says. "Powerful people who have money can hire powerful people and use occasions like this report to set the agenda for policy beneficial to those interests." Chevron denies having any undue influence over the governor. (CorpWatch)
- September 4: According to Democratic political operative Susan Estrich, the media is refusing to report the story of Bush's return to heavy drinking.
Conservative media slant
Bush has garnered political capital from his stories of his alcoholic "youth" (which lasted into his 40s), before, as he claims, he found Christ and stopped drinking. Actually, Estrich is not saying that she knows if the story is true or not, though she says it is widely reported in Washington, but she is angered that the story is getting no response from the media, while stories about Democratic candidates with much less strength of testimony received tremendous media play. (Estrich is not involved with the Kerry campaign.) She reminds readers of the 1988 allegations against Michael Dukakis: "Remember the one about Dukakis suffering from depression after he lost the governorship? We lost six points over that lie, planted by George W.'s close friend and colleague in the 1988 campaign, Lee Atwater. Or how about the one about Kitty Dukakis burning a flag at an anti-war demonstration, another out-and-out lie, which the Bush campaign denied having anything to do with, except that it turned out to have come from a United States senator via the Republican National Committee? Atwater later apologized to me for that, too, on his deathbed. Did I mention that Lee's wife is connected to the woman running the Swift Boat campaign?" She does not need to go into detail about the blizzard of insane allegations against the Clintons. Estrich writes that the problem with Democrats is that they are "not mean enough." To win this election, she says that Democrats have to take the gloves off and use the dirt they have on Bush instead of playing by Marquis of Queensbury rules. She suggests they start with the fact that Dick Cheney is, indeed, a heavy drinker, perhaps an alcoholic, a fact that is roundly ignored by the media. And attacks on Bush's possible drinking are also fair game, Estrich suggests: "What if Bush were to fall off the wagon? Then what? Has America really faced the fact that we have an alcoholic as our president?" - She also says that the Democrats could profit by attacking Bush on his "war" record, forcing Bush to explain "exactly what [he] was doing while John Kerry was putting his life on the line. Perhaps with money on the table, or investigators on their trail, we will learn just what kind of wild and crazy things the president was doing while Kerry was saving a man's life, facing enemy fire and serving his country." The story about Bush forcing a young Latina girl to abort his child is also worth investigating, especially since a new Bush biography from Kitty Kelley raises the question again. Estrich concludes, "Are you shocked? Remember Dukakis? Now he teaches at Northeastern University. John Kerry has been very fair in dealing with the Swift Boat charges. That's why so many of my Democrat friends have decided to stop talking to the campaign, and start putting money together independently. The arrogant little Republican boys who strutted around New York this week, claiming that they have this one won, would do well to take a step back. It could be a long and ugly road to November." (It is worth noting that the Kerry campaign takes none of Estrich's advice.) (Same Facts)
Bush administration lies about Iraqi drone program exposed
- September 5: The United Nations' chief weapons inspector reports that there was never any danger from the unmanned drones operated by Saddam Hussein's regime before the invasion.
Iraq war and occupation
Before the invasion, Bush and others inflamed public opinion that the drones could be used to carry chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons into the US, but that assertion was challenged shortly after the war by the weapons inspections carried out by the David Kay investigation. Kay's successor, Charles Duelfer, attempted to revive the issue in April 2004 by telling Congress that his teams had found evidence of advances in the development of Iraqi drones that were not reported to the United Nations. Unfortunately for Duelfer, his claims have now been proven to be lies. Dimitri Perricos, acting chief of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), reports that while Iraq admitted pursuing a 1990 effort to convert a MiG-21 fighter jet into a remotely piloted vehicle capable of spraying biological warfare agents at a target, and that the the covert program "showed some progress," it was permanently halted by the beginning of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Although Iraq developed several other drones, including a converted short-range L-29, a Czech training aircraft, UN inspectors have "found no technical evidence" that Iraq built such aircraft "for the delivery" of chemical or biological weapons, according to Perricos. He also writes there was no proof that Iraqi drones were capable of traveling beyond the 150-kilometer (93-mile) range allowed by the United Nations. "UN inspection teams found no clear indication to show that Iraq had planned to develop the L-29 RPV [remotely piloted vehicle] to deliver a CBW [chemical and biological weapons] agent," the report states. Perricos writes that the information collected by his team suggests the drone was used "for conventional military purposes such as air defense training, data collection and surveillance." - The report also shows that the discovery of chemical weapons caches by US inspectors is far less important than reported by Bush officials. Perricos notes that before the Gulf War, over 25,000 chemical munitions had been dispersed throughout Iraq before UN weapons inspectors arrived in country. "It was not surprising that in the course of its inspections in Iraq in 2003, UNMOVIC found 18 unfilled chemical rockets at ammunition depots," Perricos writes. "These were designated for destruction by UNMOVIC. However, the destruction did not take place due to the withdrawal" of UN inspectors on the eve of the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Perricos also notes the age and deterioration of the chemical weapons caches. The report gives new information about several of Iraq's former weapons facilities, reporting that two chemical weapons facilities and a key missile factory that produced components for Al Samoud-2 missiles had been looted and "totally razed," helping to fuel a burgeoning international industry that is converting Iraq's weapons into scrap metal. Perricos says that 44 surface-to-air missile engines had appeared in scrap yards in Jordan and the Netherlands. The United Nations has arranged to destroy them. The UN agency has found no evidence that the exported materials are being sold to arms dealers or to countries suspected of developing nuclear weapons. But UN officials have voiced concern that the loss of the materials could pose a proliferation threat and complicate efforts to reach a conclusive assessment of the history of Iraq's nuclear program. (Washington Post)
Former senator accuses Bush of blocking Senate investigation into Saudi connections to 9/11
- September 5: Former senator Bob Graham alleges in his new book, Intelligence Matters, that the Bush administration, through the FBI, blocked his Senate committee's attempt to interview two Saudis who have ties to the 9/11 hijackers.
9/11 attacks
The discovery of the financial backing of the two hijackers "would draw a direct line between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia, and trigger an attempted coverup by the Bush administration," wrote Graham, who formerly chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee. Graham is a Democrat and former presidential candidate. Graham also says that details of the relationship between the Saudi government, the 9/11 hijackers, and the Bush administration were covered in the 27 (other sources say 28) pages redacted from his committee's final report, issued earlier in the year. Graham writes that the staff of the congressional inquiry concluded that two Saudis in the San Diego area, Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassan, who gave significant financial support to two hijackers, were working for the Saudi government. Al-Bayoumi received a monthly allowance from a contractor for Saudi Civil Aviation that jumped from $465 to $3,700 in March 2000, after he helped Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhdar -- two of the hijackers -- find apartments and make contacts in San Diego, just before they began pilot training. When the staff tried to conduct interviews in that investigation, and with an FBI informant, Abdussattar Shaikh, who also helped the eventual hijackers, they were blocked by the FBI and the administration. The administration and CIA also insisted that the details about the Saudi support network that benefited two hijackers be left out of the final congressional report. Bush had concluded that "a nation-state that had aided the terrorists should not be held publicly to account," Graham writes. "It was as if the president's loyalty lay more with Saudi Arabia than with America's safety." - Graham also writes that he learned from General Tommy Franks, the chief planner of the invasion of Iraq, on February 19, 2002 that the Bush administration was shifting crucial resources, including Predator drone aircraft used to track and possibly kill Osama bin Laden, from Afghanistan to Iraq. Graham says his conversation with Franks took place at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, and that Franks seemed "troubled" by the move. "senator, we are not engaged in a war in Afghanistan," Franks told Graham. "Military and intelligence personnel are being redeployed to prepare for an action in Iraq." Graham writes, "Gen. Franks' mission -- which, as a good soldier, he was loyally carrying out -- was being downgraded from a war to a manhunt." Graham opposed the October 2002 resolution to allow military force to be used in Iraq because he saw the entire Iraqi invasion as a diversion that would hinder the fight against Islamist terrorism. Graham says that the administration and CIA consistently overplayed its estimates of Saddam Hussein's threat in its public statements and declassified reports, while its secret reports contained warnings that the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was not conclusive. In October 2002, CIA director George Tenet told Graham that "there were 550 sites where weapons of mass destruction were either produced or stored" in Iraq, a claim that was later proven entirely false. "It was, in short, a vivid and terrifying case for war," Graham writes. "The problem was it did not accurately represent the classified estimate we had received just days earlier. It was two different messages, directed at two different audiences. I was outraged."
- Graham finds that Bush has "an unforgivable level of intellectual -- and even common sense -- indifference" toward analyzing the comparative threats posed by Iraq and al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. When the weapons were not found, one year after the invasion of Iraq, Bush attended a black-tie dinner in Washington, Graham recalls. Bush gave a humorous speech with slides, showing him looking under White House furniture and joking, "Nope, no WMDs there." Graham writes, "It was one of the most offensive things I have witnessed. Having recently attended the funeral of an American soldier killed in Iraq, who left behind a young wife and two preschool-age children, I found nothing funny about a deceitful justification for war." (Miami Herald/Truthout)
- September 5: While Bush is trumpeting his "rescue" of Medicare on the campaign trail, his administration has quietly engineered the largest premium increase in Medicare's 40-year history, a cost which will directly impact low- and moderate-income seniors who are forced to rely on the program for their medical care.
Medicare and Medicaid cuts
Bush doesn't mention the 17% premium increase as he touts his administration's Medicare fix. "We have done the job when it comes to improving healthcare for our seniors," he recently told one audience. John Kerry is providing more facts and his own take on the matter. "On the day after saying, 'We're going to strengthen Medicare,' Medicare premiums go up for senior citizens 17% -- the largest increase in Medicare premiums in 40 years. Let me ask you something: Who are they going to send the bill to? Are they going to send the bill to Halliburton? Are they going to send the bill to Ken Lay at Enron? You bet they're not. They're going to send the bill to our senior citizens." Even some Republicans are frowning at the sharp premium increases. Senator John McCain says that Medicare premiums are "just too high for low-income families to deal with. ...The Medicare increases are going to have to be discussed," McCain says to reporters as he appears with Cheney at a campaign event in Roswell, New Mexico. "We can't have continued increases along that level." Kerry says, "Whenever this president is given an opportunity to make a choice...that's a choice for the broad interest of the American people, he's chosen the narrower interest." (Los Angeles Times/Truthout) - September 5: The trial of Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity will begin in a matter of weeks -- just in time for the November presidential elections.
Iraq war and occupation
"Saddam Hussein will be tried by the Iraqi judiciary and it will issue its just sentence against him," says Iraqi Minister of State Kasim Daoud. Daoud refuses to answer questions about who will head the Saddam trial tribunal, whose former US-appointed administrator Salem Chalabi, the brother of INC chief Ahmad Chalabi, has been charged with murder. "There are many names being discussed and the head of the tribunal will be announced soon," he says. (Reuters/Truthout) - September 5: The Pentagon announces that the Navy will investigate the SBVT allegations into falsifications of John Kerry's war record, a patently political move that has drawn cheers from Bush supporters and angry recriminations from the Kerry campaign.
"Swift Boat Veterans" and campaign smears
The highly unusual inquiry is to be carried out by the inspector-general's office of the United States Navy, for which Kerry served as a Swift Boat captain for four months in 1968, making two tours of duty, and won a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts in the line of duty. Though the organization officially requesting the investigation, conservative watchdog organization Judicial Watch, is asking that the Navy announce the results of its investigation before the election, the Navy has refused to provide any sort of timetable. Former Navy Secretary John Lehman's claim that he never signed off on the orders approving the award of the Silver Star to Kerry will be among the claims investigated; Lehman has publicly stated his approval of both the investigation and the SBVT slander campaign against Kerry. The Kerry campaign calls the investigation "a waste of taxpayer dollars." (Daily Telegraph)
"Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." -- George W. Bush, September 6, 2004
- September 6: John Kerry is calling for an investigation into former Democratic senator Bob Graham's claim that the Bush administration blocked an inquiry into allegations that Saudi Arabian government agents aided two of the hijackers involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
9/11 attacks
Graham, the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, raised the allegations in his new book Intelligence Matters. Kerry says, "These are serious allegations being made by a well-respected and informed leader. If the White House and the FBI did in fact block an investigation into the ties between the Saudi government and the 9/11 hijackers, then this would be a massive abuse of power." In his book, Graham wrote that the FBI would not let his congressional investigators interview two alleged Saudi agents. The 9/11 commission has said it was able to interview one of the agents, and that it had not found any connection between the Saudi government and the hijackers. The connection "would draw a direct line between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia," Graham writes. The Bush campaign's response is predictable. "John Kerry is flailing about, making baseless attacks grounded on the discredited assertions of a former presidential candidate," says campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel. "The Kerry campaign has added a lot of new people lately. I wonder if Michael Moore is their new foreign policy adviser." "Once again, the Bush campaign's approach is playing attack-dog politics," Kerry aide Phil Singer responds, "when it should be concerned about getting to the bottom of whether the Saudi government played a role in helping the 9/11 hijackers." (Chicago Tribune)
US military death toll reaches 1,000
- September 7: With the death of four US soldiers in Iraq, the official tally of US war dead in Iraq reaches 1,000.
Iraq war and occupation
A CNN tally reports that 1,129 coalition deaths have been reported. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledges the death toll, but tells reporters that going on the offensive against terrorism "has its cost." He adds, "It should be noted that the civilized world passed the thousandth casualty mark a long time ago. Hundreds were killed in Russia last week. And this week, of course, on September 11, 2004, we remember the 3,000 citizens of dozens of countries who were killed on September 11 in 2001." (CNN) - September 7: Dick Cheney tells an audience in Des Moines,
Islamist terrorism
"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mindset, if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts and that we are not really at war." This is part of the Bush-Cheney campaign's naked attempt to spread fear among the American electorate, and convince voters that they have two stark choices: either vote for Bush, or vote for terrorist attacks. The strategy is simple, effective, and entirely specious. (Al Franken) - September 7: The New York Times warns that problems with last week's Florida primary elections are harbingers of bigger problems in November.
Election fraud
The biggest problem in the primary was with Florida's new, possibly unconstitutional voter identification law. The law says that while photo IDs are required to vote, voters without IDs can vote after signing an affidavit swearing to their identity. Such was not the case last week, when thousands of primary voters were challenged after failing to produce IDs. In Broward and Miami-Dade Counties, poll watchers saw voters being turned away after being told about half the law -- the photo-identification requirement -- but not the other half, the affidavit option. In some cases, poll workers insisted on identification even when they were shown voting-rights leaflets citing the state election law. Some people may never have cast ballots because they were not informed that they had the option to file affidavits. Osceola County's ballots had the phrase "Photo and Signature ID Required at Polls" printed on them, a blatant misrepresentation of the law. Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood, a Republican, has supported the misreading of the law. The Times editorializes, "This fall, flaws in the enforcement of voter-identification requirements could disenfranchise a large number of voters. Many people do not have photo identification, particularly the elderly, poor people and nondrivers. Others may not have such identification with them when they vote. Someone who has waited in line for an hour or two, as could be the case in this fall's election, may not have the time or inclination to go home to get identification. In the weeks leading up to Nov. 2, we will hear many times that all Americans should exercise their right to vote. Election officials have an obligation to do everything they can to ensure that when citizens show up, misapplied voter-identification rules do not prevent them from casting a ballot." (New York Times/Truthout) - September 7: California Attorney General Bill Lockyer says the state will sue Diebold over the voting manufacturer's false claims about its products.
Election fraud
Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has said Diebold deceived California with aggressive marketing that led to the installation of touch-screen voting systems that were not tested or approved nationally or in California. "Lockyer determined sufficient evidence existed to go forward with a false claims lawsuit against Diebold," says a statement from Lockyer's office. In April, California's Secretary of State, Kevin Shelley, called for a criminal probe into Diebold, the state's largest e-voting machine supplier. (Reuters/Verified Voter Foundation) - September 7: The US Army announces that it will terminate its contract with Halliburton to provide its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan with logistical support.
Halliburton
The contract is worth approximately $13 billion. Halliburton and its subsidiary, KBR, have both been accused of massive overcharging since it won the no-bid contract in 2003. KBR may be allowed to bid on sections of the new contract. (BBC) - September 7: The investigation of Washington's Riggs Bank has spread to cover the actions of a number of US oil companies in Equatorial Guinea, a tiny West African nation with a desperately poor populace and a despotic ruling regime.
Oil profiteering and the "oiligarchy"
Piggybacking on the cozy relationship between Riggs officials and President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasago, the oil companies paid for Obiang's son to attend Pepperdine University in southern California, formed business ventures with Obiang's partners and fellow government officials, and other sweetheart deals that has led Senate investigators to inquire about "concerns related to corruption and profiteering." The three oil companies most heavily involved are Exxon, Amerada Hess, and Marathon Oil, though others such as ChevronTecaco, Devon Energy, CMS Energy, and the Vanco Corporation, are also involved in possible illegal deals with the Obiang regime. Since 1997, the amount of oil produced in Equatorial Guinea has increased seven times, to about 360,000 barrels a day, making the country the third-largest producer in sub-Saharan Africa. Human rights activists say that the oil companies' payouts have helped prop up Obiang, a vicious despot who took power in a military coup in 1979 and who has maintained power by torturing and slaughtering his opponents. A 2004 State Department report concluded that most of the huge oil profits have not gone to the population itself, who survive on an average of $1 a day and of whom 75% suffers from malnutrition, but instead goes to fund the lavish lifestyles of Obiang and his family and colleagues. Obiang owns two houses in Potomac, valued at $1.3 million and $2.5 million; one of his sons, Teodoro Nguema Obiang, owns a $6.9 million house in Los Angeles. The oil companies have issued blanket denials of any wrongdoing in their dealings with Obiang, and have refused to comment on any specifics. "We take pride in the way we do business," says Jay Wilson, a spokesman for Hess. "We think we do business very ethically." Marathon's Stephen Guidry says, "[W]e think we have a positive affect on the conditions that exist in Equatorial Guinea." - Most of the oil money pouring into Equatorial Guinea has been facilitated by Riggs Bank. From 1995 until 2004, Riggs administered more than 60 accounts for the government of Equatorial Guinea, top officials and their family members. The aggregate deposits -- which ranged from $400 million to $700 million at a time -- collectively made the country the bank's biggest customer, prompting jubilation among Riggs officials, with executive vice president Raymond Lund gushing in a 2001 e-mail, "Where is this money coming from? Oil -- black gold -- Texas tea!" The first oil company to operate in Equatorial Guinea was Walter Incorporated; the then-US ambassador to that country, John Bennett, who served from 1991 to 1994 was upbraided by a Walter executive after he reported to Congress about the systematic abuses, torturing, and corruption rampant in the country's government. Bennett recalls that the Walter executive was angry that Bennett's report might interfere with his company's ability to do business in the country. (Washington Post)
- September 7: New documents uncovered by a lawsuit prove that, contrary to previous assertions, George W. Bush's last flight with the Texas Air National Guard was in April 1972 and there is a large, unexplained gap in Bush's Guard records between April and October of that year.
George W. Bush
Bush has repeatedly insisted that he served the entirety of his term in the Guard without a lapse, and that all the records of his service had previously been made available. The documents uncovered during the discovery phase of the lawsuit, filed by the Associated Press to force all the records to be made public, prove that both of Bush's contentions are lies. The Pentagon, which was forced to disgorge the documents, says that their previous failure to disclose the documents was an "oversight," and the documents were found "[o]ut of an abundance of caution." The spin from the Bush campaign is quick, with spokeswoman Claire Buchan telling the press that the documents "confirm that the president served honorably in the National Guard." Democratic National Committee communications director Jano Cabrera disagrees: "For months George Bush told the nation that all his military records were public. Now we know why Bush was trying so hard to withhold these records. When his nation asked him to be on call against possible surprise attacks, Bush wasn't there." Cabrera is referring to an alert answered by Bush's TANG unit, a "24-hour active alert mission to safeguard against surprise attack" in the southern United State beginning on October 6, 1972, an alert that Bush missed. The newly released records do not include any from five categories of documents Bush's commanders had been required to keep in response to the gaps in Bush's training in 1972 and 1973. For example, National Guard commanders were required to perform an investigation whenever any pilot skipped a medical exam and forward the results up the Air Force chain of command. No such documents have surfaced. - Additional documents unearthed by CBS as part of its 60 Minutes documentary on Bush's Guard service prove that Bush failed to carry out a direct order from his superior in the Texas Air National Guard in May 1972 to undertake a medical examination that was necessary for him to remain a qualified pilot. The Bush administration, which has repeatedly asserted that it has released all the documents pertaining to his service, released a new batch of flight logs that have been the focus of several archival searches and FOIA requests since the 2000 presidential campaign. The logs show that Bush stopped flying in April 1972 after accumulating more than 570 hours of flight time between 1969 and 1972, much of it on an obsolete F-102 interceptor jet. White House officials have said there was no reason for Bush to take the annual physical required of fighter pilots because there were no suitable planes for him to fly in Alabama, where he applied for "substitute training" to replace his required service with the Texas National Guard. But the new documents suggest that Bush's transfer to non-flight duties in Alabama was the subject of arguments among his National Guard superiors. Though the Bush campaign does not dispute the accuracy of the documents, it terms the Democrats' commentary on Bush's failure to serve his term as "dirty politics," while refusing to condemn the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks on John Kerry's military service.
- Bush's immediate supervisor, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Killian, from whose personal files the documents are sourced, ordered Bush "suspended from flight status" on August 1, 1972. National Guard documents already released by the White House and the Pentagon show that Bush was suspended from flight status on that day for "failure to accomplish annual medical examination" but do not mention his failure to comply with National Guard and Air Force standards. In another "memo to file," dated August 18, 1973, Killian complained that he was under pressure from his superior, Colonel Walter Staudt, to "sugar coat" Bush's officer evaluations. "I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job," he wrote in a memo titled "CYA." "I will not rate." Staudt has insisted that he was not influenced by Bush's status as the son of George H.W. Bush. He has also rejected the assertion by former Texas lieutenant governor Ben Barnes that Barnes intervened with the head of the Texas Air National Guard to secure a position for Bush there at the request of a Bush family friend. Killian died in 1984 and never spoke publicly about Bush during his lifetime. Bush's campaign insists that it has made all attempts to find and release all of Bush's Guard documents, blaming the Defense Department for not finding and releasing the documents sooner, but the Pentagon confirms that the documents just now being released have been at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, the central repository for veterans' records, all along. The Bush administration has issued government-wide instructions centralizing the release of information relating to the president's service with the Texas Air National Guard between 1968 and 1973, requiring any military member to go through the White House before speaking in public about any aspect of Bush's Guard career. (AP/Truthout, Washington Post)
- September 7: Celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley says in her new book, The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, that George W. Bush snorted cocaine at Camp David during his father's presidency.
George W. Bush
She also says that Laura Bush used marijuana in her youth. Kelley quotes Bush's former sister-in-law Sharon Bush, Neil Bush's embittered ex-wife, who claims, "Bush did coke at Camp David when his father was president, and not just once either." Other sources told Kelley that as a 26-year-old member of the National Guard, Bush "liked to sneak out back for a joint or into the bathroom for a line of cocaine." Kelley claims Bush started drinking before college and continued at Yale to overcome shyness. Former student Torbery George says in the book: "Poor Georgie. He couldn't relate to women unless he was loaded." Another says: "It's amazing someone you held in such low esteem later became president." The White House responds, "This book appears to be filled with the same trash discredited years ago." And Sharon Bush claims she never told Kelley any such thing: "I categorically deny that I ever told Kitty Kelley that George W. Bush used cocaine at Camp David or that I ever saw him use cocaine at Camp David," she says in a prepared statement. "When Kitty Kelley raised drug use at Camp David, I responded by saying something along the lines of, 'Who would say such a thing?' ...Although there have been tensions between me and various members of the Bush family, I cannot allow this falsehood to go unchallenged." - Kelley's publisher, Doubleday, says that Kelley's assertions are accurate. "Doubleday stands fully behind the accuracy of Ms. Kelley's reporting and believes that everything she attributes to Sharon Bush in her book is an accurate account of their discussions," says associate publisher Suzanne Herz. "Ms. Kelley met with Sharon Bush over the course of a four-hour lunch on April 1, 2003, at the Chelsea Bistro in Manhattan." The next day, Herz says, Kelley had a 90-minute phone conversation with Bush in the presence of Peter Gethers, her Doubleday editor. Gethers confirms the accuracy of the statement yesterday. Kelley "has notes to corroborate both these conversations," Herz says, and Sharon Bush "understood that anything she said could be used for publication." Sharon Bush's attorney, David Berg, says that she believed she was speaking to Kelley off the record. "she did tell Kitty Kelley that she felt the Bush family was being hypocritical about the so-called family values issue" in light of the way she was treated in the divorce, he says. "she regrets ever having spoken to her. This is really below the belt." Lou Colasuonno, a former tabloid editor who was then providing public relations advice to Sharon Bush and arranged last year's lunch with Kelley, is asked about the dispute, and says, "From what I've seen reported in the media, and having not seen the book, I would not describe it as inaccurate." Colasuonno says he did not recall Bush saying anything about the meeting being off the record. Doubleday's statement also challenges Matt Lauer's insinuation on the Today show that Kelley and Colasuonno have "a relationship:" the publisher's statement says, "Kitty Kelley had never met or spoken with Mr. Colasuonno prior to April 1, 2003. Kitty Kelley has never had and does not have any personal, social or financial relationship with Mr. Colasuonno." (Kitty Kelley is the subject of three very harsh interviews on the Today show in regards to her allegations on September 13, 14, and 15. See my letter to Matt Lauer calling him to task on his interview tactics.) (Chicago Sun-Times, Washington Post, Doubleday)
Coffins with US war dead are airlifted home for burial
