Bush advisers cashed in on Saudi gravy train - Part 2
Tempest
by Maggie Mulvihill, Jack Meyers and Jonathan Wells
Tuesday, December 11, 2001
Second of two parts.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/americas_new_war/saud12112001.htm
Many of the same American corporate executives who have reaped millions
of dollars from arms and oil deals with the Saudi monarchy have served
or currently serve at the highest levels of U.S. government, public
records show.
Those lucrative financial relationships call into question the ability
of America's political elite to make tough foreign policy decisions
about the kingdom that produced Osama bin Laden and is perhaps the
biggest incubator for anti-Western Islamic terrorists.
Nowhere is the revolving U.S.-Saudi money wheel more evident than within
President Bush's own coterie of foreign policy advisers, starting with
the president's father, George H.W. Bush.
At the same time that the elder Bush counsels his son on the ongoing war
on terrorism, the former president remains a senior adviser to the
Washington D.C.-based Carlyle Group. That influential investment bank
has deep
connections to the Saudi royal family as well as financial interests in
U.S. defense firms hired by the kingdom to equip and train the Saudi
military.
Last year, former President Bush visited Saudi Arabia's King Fahd bin
Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, but a Carlyle spokesman said the two did not discuss
Carlyle business as previously reported. The elder Bush is reportedly
paid between $80,000 and $100,000 for each Carlyle speech he makes. The
company declined comment on the former president's pay.
The Carlyle Group has also served as a paid adviser to the Saudi
monarchy on the so-called ``Economic Offset Program,'' an arrangement
that effectively requires U.S. arms manufacturers selling weapons to
Saudi Arabia to give back a portion of their revenues in the form of
contracts to Saudi businesses, most of whom are connected to the royal
family. A company spokesman said yesterday that arrangement was ended
``a few months ago,'' but said he did not know whether it was terminated
before or after the Sept. 11 attacks.
A spokesman for former President Bush, reached yesterday, had no
immediate comment on his work for the Carlyle Group.
These intricate personal and financial links have led to virtual silence
in the administration on Saudi Arabia's failings in dealing with
terrorists like bin Laden, said Charles Lewis, executive director of the
Center for Public Integrity, a Washington, D.C.-based government
watchdog group.
``It's good old fashioned `I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine.'
You have former U.S. officials, former presidents, aides to the current
president, a long line of people who are tight with the Saudis, people
who are the pillars of American society and officialdom,'' said Lewis.
``So for that and other reasons no one wants to alienate the Saudis, and
we are willing to basically ignore inconvenient truths that might
otherwise cause our blood to boil. We basically look away,'' he said.
``Folks don't like to stop the gravy train.''
Some foreign policy observers said as long as American power brokers in
lucrative business deals with the Saudis do not simultaneously craft
U.S. foreign policy, there is no conflict of interest.
``To have Bush Sr. on the board of Carlyle is not necessarily a
significant problem because Carlyle has interests all over the world,''
said Vincent Cannistraro, a former counter-intelligence chief for the
Central Intelligence Agency.
Companies regularly entice powerful political figures to work for them,
he said.
``It's kind of business as usual. Where it really affects things is when
someone with a financial interest in a company also has a policy
position in the administration,'' Cannistraro said.
Insiders trading
A significant portion of the millions of dollars U.S. companies and
their politically influential executives have earned in deals with the
Saudis has been through military contracts.
The Carlyle Group had a major stake in the large defense contractor
B.D.M., which has multimillion-dollar contracts through its subsidiaries
to train and manage the Saudi National Guard and the Saudi air force,
U.S. Department of Defense records show. In 1998, Carlyle sold its
controlling interest in B.D.M. to defense giant TRW International.
Meanwhile, the boards of directors of the Carlyle Group, B.D.M. and TRW
are all stocked with high-level Republican policy makers.
Frank C. Carlucci, a former secretary of defense under President Reagan,
was chairman of B.D.M. for most of the 1990s. Carlucci, who also served
as Reagan's national security adviser and a deputy director of the CIA,
now heads the Carlyle Group.
Along with former President Bush, other officials from past Republican
administrations now at the Carlyle Group include: former Secretary of
State James A. Baker III; ex-budget chief Richard Darman; and former
Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt.
President Bush is himself linked to the Carlyle group: He was a director
of one of its subsidiaries, an airline food services company called
Caterair, until 1994. Six years later, when Bush was governor of Texas,
the board of directors of the Texas teachers' pension fund - some of
whom were his appointees - voted to invest $100 million with the Carlyle
Group.
The president of B.D.M. is Philip A. Odeen, a former high-level Pentagon
official in the Nixon administration. During the Clinton administration,
Odeen chaired the Pentagon task force that planned the restructuring of
the U.S. military for the 21st century. Currently, he is the vice-chair
of the Defense Science Board, which advises the Pentagon on emerging
threats.
TRW, the new owner of B.D.M., has its own noteworthy board members,
including former CIA director Robert M. Gates and Michael H. Armacost,
who served as undersecretary of state under President Reagan and as
ambassador to Japan for former President Bush.
Big Saudi money also makes its way back to Texas and the Bush family.
The family of Saudi Arabia's longtime U.S. ambassador, Prince Bandar bin
Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, gave $1 million to the Bush Presidential Library
in College Station, Texas.
The revolving door
Another example of the complex web connecting U.S. and Saudi
powerbrokers is Dick Cheney, who moved from the Pentagon to the
international oil business and back as vice president last year.
After serving as the elder Bush's secretary of defense, Cheney was hired
to run oil-services giant Halliburton Co., where he worked until he
resigned last year to campaign with the younger Bush. In 2000, his last
year with Halliburton, Cheney received $34 million when he cashed out
from the company.
Not surprisingly, Halliburton's links to Cheney and other Washington
power brokers appear to have helped the company's business prospects in
the Middle East.
Just last month, Halliburton was awarded a $140 million contract to
develop an oil field in Saudi Arabia by the kingdom's state-owned
petroleum firm, Saudi Aramco, and a Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg
Brown & Root, along with two Japanese firms, was hired by the Saudis to
build a $40 million ethylene plant.
Cheney isn't the only member of President Bush's inner circle whose work
for firms connected to the Saudis has paid big dividends.
The current national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is a former
longtime member of the board of directors of another giant oil
conglomerate with business in the Saudi desert, Chevron, which merged
with Texaco this year. Rice even has a Chevron oil tanker named after
her.
Substantial profits received by U.S. leaders in private sector deals
with the Saudis have helped to squelch criticism of the royal family's
refusal to address the role its country has played in fueling Islamic
terrorism, Lewis said.
``There's a disconnect there,'' Lewis said. ``I'm fascinated that we
don't lay this at Saudi Arabia's doorstep. But the chances to cash in
and the amount you can cash in for are starting to become absolutely
astronomical. Who wants to look like the Boy Scout complaining about it
and potentially jeopardize their own post-employment prospects?''
Former advisers to the president's father also hold key positions with
U.S. firms which have teamed up with the Saudis on major oil deals.
Former Bush Secretary of the Treasury Nicholas Brady and a former Bush
assistant, Edith E. Holiday, are both on the board of directors of
Amerada Hess, an American petroleum firm currently teaming up with
several powerful Saudi families to develop oil fields in Azerbaijan.
Another company that has done business with wealthy Saudis is
international energy firm Frontera Resources Corp. based in Houston.
Until recently, Frontera was a 30 percent investor in a $900 million
project to develop oilfields in Azerbajian. Also investing in the
project were Azerbaijan's state-run oil company and Delta-Hess, a
joint-venture created by the Saudis' Delta Oil and Amerada Hess.
Randy Theilig, a Frontera spokesman, said the company relinquished its
interest in the project in July because it was no longer ``economically
viable,'' and has no current business dealings with the Saudis or in
Azerbajian.
Members of Frontera's board of advisers, which includes former CIA
director John Deutch and former Secretary of the Treasury and U.S. Sen.
Lloyd Bentsen, have been active financial supporters of the Democratic
Party.
Shining a bright light on the web of financial connections between the
power elite in the U.S. and Saudi Arabia is critical, Middle Eastern
foreign policy experts said.
``I think the fact that they have these connections makes it important
for this information to be made public,'' said Henry Siegman, a senior
fellow on the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics in
Washington, D.C., a non-partisan group that examines money and politics,
said the Bush-Carlyle connection is a concern.
``It is well known that the father is a close adviser to his son and
therefore it does raise concerns,'' Noble said ``It's not necessarily
that the father has been compromised, but the danger is that it leads
people to question George W. Bush. The public has a right to feel their
leaders are making independent judgments without the influence of
private interests.''
--
"It should not be lost to history that Bush is going after the Taliban
in the name of democracy when he worked so hard a year ago to ban the
tally."
- Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe
Steve Hiner
"Tempest" <tem...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3C194EF6...@hotmail.com...
It's no wonder America is so disliked across the planet. Our high priced
bellhops just can't seem to stop revealing their hypocrisy!
BTW, for those of whom who are keeping tract, I've read this post too!
prakash...@gmail.com
we provide best deals in Washington DC, best online deals. Our deals offer best discounts on beauty spa treatments Sign up now for a new deal every day. Looking for natural and beneficial technique for hair removal?? Here comes the band aid for your theme. New Look Day Spa and Laser are having expertise people dealing with this technique.
for more details:
https://www.newlookdeals.com/
Address: 201 Elden St, Suite #203, Herndon, VA 20170
Customer Enquire:
custome...@newlookdeals.com.
