Factual Back-Up For Fahrenheit 9/11
Robert
THE FOLLOWING IS THE LINE BY LINE FACTUAL BACKUP FOR 'FAHRENHEIT 9/11'
Section One covers the facts in Fahrenheit 9/11 from the 2000 election
to George W. Bush's extended visit to Booker Elementary on the morning
of September 11th.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Fox was the first network to call Florida for Bush.
Before that, some other networks had called Florida for Gore, and they
changed after Fox called it for Bush.
* “With information provided from the Voter News Service, NBC was
the first network to project Gore the winner in Florida at 7:48 pm. At
7:50 pm ,CNN and CBS project Gore the winner in Florida as well.” By
8:02 pm , all five networks and the Associated Press had called Gore the
winner in Florida. Even the VNS called Gore the winner at 7:52 pm. At
2:16 am, Fox calls Florida for Bush, NBC follows at 2:16 am. ABC is the
last network to call the Florida for Bush, at 2:20 am, while AP and VNS
never call Florida for Bush. CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/stories/02/02/
cnn.report/cnn.pdf
* Ten minutes after the top of the hour, network excitement was
again beginning to build. At 2:16 a.m., the call was made: Fox News
Channel, with Bush's first cousin John Ellis running its election desk,
was the first to project Florida -- and the presidency -- for the Texas
governor. Within minutes, the other networks followed suit. "George
Bush, Governor of Texas will become the 43rd President of the United
States," CNN's Bernard Shaw announced atop a graphic montage of a
smiling Bush. "At 18 minutes past two o'clock Eastern time, CNN declares
that George Walker Bush has won Florida's 25 electoral votes and this
should put him over the top."PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/election2000/
election_night.html
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: The man who was in charge of the decision desk at FOX
on election night was Bush’s first cousin, John Ellis.
* “John Ellis, a first cousin of George W. Bush, ran the network's
‘decision desk’ during the 2000 election, and Fox was the first to name
Bush the winner. Earlier, Ellis had made six phone calls to Cousin Bush
during the vote-counting.” William O’Rourke, “Talk Radio Key to GOP
Victory,” Chicago Sun-Times, December 3, 2002.
* A Fox News consultant, John Ellis, who made judgments about
presidential ‘calls’ on Election Night admits he was in touch with
George W. Bush and FL Gov. Jeb Bush by telephone several times during
the night, but denies breaking any rules. CNN, November 14, 2000;
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/
11/14/politics/main249357.shtml.
* John Ellis, the Fox consultant who called Florida early for
George Bush, had to stop writing about the campaign for the Boston Globe
because of family ‘loyalty’ to Bush. CBS News,
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/
11/14/politics/main249357.shtml, November 14, 2000.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Make sure the chairman of your campaign is also the
vote countin’ woman and that her state has hired a company that’s gonna
knock voters off the rolls who aren’t likely to vote for you. You can
usually tell them by the color of their skin.”
* “The vote total was certified by Florida's secretary of state,
Katherine Harris, head of the Bush campaign in Florida, on behalf of
Gov. Jeb Bush, the candidate's brother.” Mark Zoller Seitz, “Bush Team
Conveyed an Air of Legitimacy,” San Diego Union-Tribune, December 16, 2000.
* The Florida Department of State awarded a $4 million contract to
the Boca Raton-based Database Technologies Inc. (subsidiary of
ChoicePoint). They were tasked with finding improperly registered
voters in the state’s database, but mistakes were rampant. “At one
point, the list included as felons 8,000 former Texas residents who had
been convicted of misdemeanors.” St. Petersburg Times (Florida),
December 21, 2003.
* Database Technologies, a subsidiary of ChoicePoint, “was
responsible for bungling an overhaul of Florida’s voter registration
records, with the result that thousands of people, disproportionately
black, were disenfranchised in the 2000 election. Had they been able to
vote, they might have swung the state, and thus the presidency, for Al
Gore, who lost in Florida. Oliver Burkeman, Jo Tuckman, “Firm in Florida
Election Fiasco Earns Millions from Files on Foreigners,” The Guardian,
May 5, 2003 http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,949709,00.html.
See also, Atlanta-Journal-Constitution, May 28, 2001.
* In 1997, Rick Rozar, the late head of the company bought by
ChoicePoint, donated $100,000 to the Republican National Committee.
Melanie Eversley, “Atlanta-Based Company Says Errors in Felon Purge Not
Its Fault,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 28, 2001. Frank Borman of
Database Technologies Inc. has donated extensively to New Mexico
Republicans, as well as to the Presidential campaign of George W. Bush.
Opensecrets.org, “Frank Borman.”
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Gore got the most votes in 2000.
* [A] consortium [Tribune Co., owner of the Times; Associated
Press; CNN; the New York Times; the Palm Beach Post; the St. Petersburg
Times; the Wall Street Journal; and the Washington Post] hired the NORC
[National Opinion Research Center, a nonpartisan research organization
affiliated with the University of Chicago] to view each untallied ballot
and gather information about how it was marked. The media organizations
then used computers to sort and tabulate votes, based on varying
scenarios that had been raised during the post-election scramble in
Florida. Under any standard that tabulated all disputed votes statewide,
Mr. Gore erased Mr. Bush's advantage and emerged with a tiny lead that
ranged from 42 to 171 votes. Donald Lambro, “Recount Provides No Firm
Answers,” Washington Times, November 12, 2001.
* “The review found that the result would have been different if
every canvassing board in every county had examined every undervote, a
situation that no election or court authority had ordered. Gore had
called for such a statewide manual recount if Bush would agree, but Bush
rejected the idea and there was no mechanism in place to conduct one.”
Martin Merzer, “Review of Ballots Finds Bush's Win Would Have Endured
Manual Recount,” Miami Herald, April 4, 2001.
* See also, the following article by one of the Washington Post
journalists who ran the consortium recount. The relevant point is made
in Table I of the article.
http://www.aei.org/docLib/20040526_KeatingPaper.pdf
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Congressional Black Caucus members tried to object to
the election outcome on the floor of the House; no Senator would sign
the objections.
* “While Vice President Al Gore appeared to have accepted his fate
contained in two wooden ballot boxes, Democratic members of the
Congressional Black Caucus tried repeatedly to challenge the assignment
of Florida's 25 electoral votes to Bush…. More than a dozen Democrats
followed suit, seeking to force a debate on the validity of Florida's
vote on the grounds that all votes may not have been counted and that
some voters were wrongly denied the right to vote.” Susan Milligan,
“It’s Really Over: Gore Bows Out Gracefully,” Boston Globe, January 7, 2001.
* The Congressional Black Caucus effort failed for “lack of the
necessary signature by any senator.” Sen. Minority Leader Tom Daschle
(D-SD) had previously advised Democratic senators not to cooperate.
‘They did not.’” Robert Novak, “Sweeney Link Won't Help Chao,” Chicago
Sun-Times, January 14, 2001.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “On the day George W. Bush was inaugurated, tens of
thousands of Americans poured into the streets of D.C. They pelted
Bush’s limo with eggs.”
* “Shouting slogans like ‘Hail to the Thief’ and ‘Selected, Not
Elected,’ tens of thousands of protesters descended on George W. Bush's
inaugural parade route yesterday to proclaim that he and Vice President
Dick Cheney had ‘stolen’ the election.” Michael Kranish and Sue
Kirchhoff, “Thousands Protest ‘Stolen’ Election,” Boston Globe, January
21, 2001.
* “Scuffles erupted between radicals and riot police while an egg
struck the bullet-proof presidential limousine as it carried Mr. Bush
and wife Laura to the White House.” Damon Johnston, “Bush Pledges
Justice as Critics Throw Eggs,” The Advertisers, January 22, 2001.
* See also film footage.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “The inauguration parade was brought to a halt and the
traditional walk to the White House was scrapped.”
* Bush made one concession to the weather -- or to security
concerns: He stayed in his limousine nearly the entire length of the
mile-long inaugural parade, waving through a slightly foggy window. He
got out to walk only for a brief distance when his motorcade reached the
VIP grandstands in front of the Treasury Department and the White House.
Doyle McManus, et al., “Bush Vows to Bring Nation Together,” Los
Angeles Times, January, 21, 2001.
* Bush's limo, which traveled most of the route at a slow walking
pace, stopped dead just before it reached the corner of 14th St. and
Pennsylvania Ave., where most of the protesters had congregated. Then it
sped up dramatically, and Secret Service agents protecting the car on
foot had to follow at a full run. When they reached a section of the
parade route where the sidewalks were restricted to official
ticketholders, Bush and his wife, Laura, who wore a flattering electric
turquoise suit, got out of the limo to walk and greet supporters. Helen
Kennedy, “Bush Pledges a United US,” New York Daily News, January 21, 2001.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “For the next eight months, it didn’t get any better
for George W. Bush.”
* In a poll conducted September 5 to September 9, 2001, Investor’s
Business Daily and the Christian Science Monitor showed President Bush’s
approval rating at 45%, down from 52% in May ( Investor’s Business
Daily/Christian Science Monitor Poll, conducted by TIPP, 9/5 to 9/9,
2001). Zogby’s polling had Bush at 47% in late July 2001, down from 57%
in February (Zogby, 7/26 to 7/29, 2001).
* In June 2001, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed
President Bush's approval rating at 50 percent, which was the lowest
presidential approval rating in five years. Richard L. Berke, “G.O.P.
Defends Bush in Face of Dip in Poll Ratings,” The New York Times, June
29 2001
* On July 26, 2001, in an article entitled “Bush Lacks the Ability
To Force Action on Hill,” Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote, “
It may be premature to conclude that Bush has lost control of his
agenda, but lawmakers and strategists in both parties said that Bush's
next year is much more likely to look like the fractious month of July
than like the orderly march toward Bush's tax cut this spring.… The
troubles began, of course, with Vermont Sen. James M. Jeffords'
departure from the GOP, giving control of the Senate to the Democrats.
But the problems are nearly as bad in the House, where moderates who
supported Bush's tax cut are proving recalcitrant on other issues. They
rebelled against GOP leaders on campaign finance reform and held up
Bush's "faith-based" legislation over concerns about discrimination.
Next week, they're likely to oppose Bush's proposal to drill in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.”
* California energy crisis also took a toll on Bush’s approval
ratings. Due to rolling blackouts and rising utility bills Bush’s
ratings took a toll among Californians. The poll showed that almost as
many Californians disapproved of the President’s job as approved of it
with an approve/disapprove of 42/40. “Calif. Governor Says He'll Sue to
Force Government Action,” The Houston Chronicle, May 30, 2001.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “In his first eight months in office before September
11, George W. Bush was on vacation, according to the Washington Post,
forty-two percent of the time.”
* “News coverage has pointedly stressed that W.'s month-long stay
at his ranch in Crawford is the longest presidential vacation in 32
years. Washington Post supercomputers calculated that if you add up all
his weekends at Camp David, layovers at Kennebunkport and assorted
to-ing and fro-ing, W. will have spent 42 percent of his presidency ‘at
vacation spots or en route.’” Charles Krauthammer, “A Vacation Bush
Deserves,” The Washington Post, August 10, 2001.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Bush relaxes at Camp David, Kennebunkport and his ranch
in Crawford Texas.
* As of April 2004, President Bush had made 33 trips to Crawford
during his presidency, bringing his total to more than 230 days at the
ranch in just over three years. “Add his 78 trips to Camp David and five
to his family’s compound at Kennebunkport, Maine, and Bush has spent all
or part of 500 days – or about 40 percent of his presidency – at one of
these his three retreats.” “Bush Retreats to a Favorite Getaway:
Crawford ranch,” Houston Chronicle, April 11, 2004.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: On Sept. 10, 2001 , Bush joined his brother in Florida
where he slept the night in “a bed made of fine French linens.”
* Bush has not been bashful about visiting Florida, ground zero in
the vote-recount battle that followed last year's election. On this
trip, he was spending a good deal of time with his brother, Gov. Jeb
Bush. " President to Push Congress on Education in Fourth Florida
Visit,” Associated Press, September 10, 2001; See also, CNN Inside
Politics, September 10, 2001.
* Two individuals prepared the president’s room “and made the bed
with some of the family's fine French linens.” Tom Bayles, “The Day
Before Everything Changed, President Bush Touched Locals' Lives,”
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, September 10, 2002.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “As the attack took place, Mr. Bush was on his way to
an elementary school in Florida . When informed of the first plane
hitting the World Trade Center, where terrorists had struck just eight
years prior, Bush just decided to go ahead with his photo opportunity.”
NOTE: It should be emphasized that at the time Bush was notified of the
first plane attack, he (unlike the rest of America) was already aware
that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack America by hijacking
airplanes, per the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief (PDB). He
was also aware, of course, that the World Trade Center had been
historically a target for terrorist attacks. He nonetheless went ahead
with this photo opportunity in a school full of children.
* “Mr. Bush arrived at the school, just before 9 am, expecting to
be met by its motherly principal, Gwen Rigell. Instead he was pulled
sharply aside by the familiar, bulky figure of 51-year-old Karl Rove, a
veteran political fixer and trusted aide of both Mr. Bush and his
father, George Sr. Mr. Rove, a fellow Texan with an expansive manner and
a colorful turn of phrase, told the President that a large commercial
airliner (American Flight 11) had crashed into the North Tower of the
World Trade Centre . Mr. Bush clenched his teeth, lowered his bottom lip
and said something inaudible. Then he went into the school.” William
Langley, “Revealed: What Really Went on During Bush’s ‘Missing Hours,’”
The Telegraph, December 16, 2001.
* “The airborne attack on the World Trade Center was at least the
second terrorist attempt to topple the landmarks. In 1993, terrorists
sought to bomb one building so that it would explode and fall into the
other. The plot did not succeed, but six people were killed and more
than 1,000 injured.” Cragg Hines, “Terrorists Strike from Air; Jetliners
Slam into Pentagon, Trade Center” The Houston Chronicle, September 11, 2001.
* August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief (PDB), “Bin Ladin
Determined to Strike Inside US”: “Al-Qa'ida members -- including some
who are US citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the US for years,
and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid
attacks… FBI information since that time indicates patterns of
suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for
hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of
federal buildings in New York.” August 6, 2001, Bin Ladin Determined to
Strike Inside US, http://www.cnn.com/2004/images/04/10/whitehouse.pdf
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “When the second plane hit the tower, his chief of
staff entered the classroom and told Mr. Bush the nation is under attack.”
* “At 9:05 a.m., the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card
Jr., stepped into the classroom and whispered into the president's right
ear, ‘A second plane hit the other tower, and America's under attack.’”
David E. Sanger and Don Van Natta Jr., “After The Attacks: The Events;
In Four Days, A National Crisis Changes Bush's Presidency,” The New York
Times, September 16, 2001.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Mr. Bush just sat there and continued to read My Pet
Goat.”
* “It was while attending a second-grade reading class at Emma E.
Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla., to promote his education
reforms that President Bush learned America was under attack. In the
presence of her VIP guest, teacher Sandra Kay Daniels, 45, conducted the
day's lesson, which centered on a story about a pet goat.” “9/11: A Year
After,” Los Angeles Times, September 11, 2002.
* President Bush listened to 18 Booker Elementary School
second-graders read a story about a girl's pet goat Tuesday before he
spoke briefly and somberly about the terrorist attacks. “Bush hears of
attack while visiting Booker,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, September 12, 2001.
* See also film footage.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Nearly seven minutes passed with nobody doing anything.”
* “[H]e lingered in the room for another six minutes [after being
informed of the second plane]… [At] 9:12, he abruptly retreated,
speaking to Mr. Cheney and New York officials.” David E. Sanger and Don
Van Natta Jr., “After The Attacks: The Events;In Four Days, A National
Crisis Changes Bush's Presidency,” The New York Times, September 16, 2001 .
* “Mr. Bush remained in the elementary school for nearly a half an
hour after Andy Card whispered in his ear.” Michael Kranish, “Bush: US
To Hunt Down Attackers,” Boston Globe, September 11, 2001.
GO TO SECTION TWO
Factual Back-Up for Fahrenheit 9/11: Section Two
THE FOLLOWING IS THE LINE BY LINE FACTUAL BACKUP FOR 'FAHRENHEIT 9/11'
Section Two covers the facts in Fahrenheit 9/11 from Bush's failure to
meet with Richard Clarke, to the August 6th memo, and ends with the
Saudi flights out of the US after 9/11.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Should he have held at least one meeting since taking
office to discuss the threat of terrorism with his head of
counterterrorism?”
* “[T]hey didn't allow me to brief him on terrorism. You know,
they're saying now that when I was afforded the opportunity to talk to
him about cybersecurity, it was my choice. I could have talked about
terrorism or cybersecurity. That's not true. I asked in January to brief
him, the president, on terrorism, to give him the same briefing I had
given Vice President Cheney, Colin Powell and Condi Rice. And I was
told, ‘You can't do that briefing, Dick, until after the policy
development process.’” Richard Clarke interview with Tim Russert on
NBC’s Meet the Press, March 28, 2004.
* "Clarke asked on several occasions for early Principals Committee
meetings on these issues [outlined in his January 25, 2001 memo] and was
frustrated that no early meeting was scheduled. He wanted principals to
accept that al Qaeda was a ‘first order threat’ and not a routine
problem being exaggerated by ‘chicken little’ alarmists. No Principals
Committee meetings on al Qaeda were held until September 4, 2001.”
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Threats
and Responses in 2001, Staff Statement No. 8, “National Policy
Coordination,” pp 9-10; http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/
hearing8/staff_statement_8.pdf
* See Testimony of Richard A. Clarke before the National Commission
on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, March 24, 2004:
MR. ROEMER: Okay. Let's move into, with my 15 minutes, let's
move into the Bush administration. On January the 25th, we've seen a
memo that you had written to Dr. Rice, urgently asking for a principals
review of al Qaeda. You include helping the Northern Alliance, covert
aid, significant new '02 budget authority to help fight al Qaeda --
MR. CLARKE: Uh-huh.
MR. ROEMER: -- and response to the U.S.S. Cole. You attached to
this document both the Delenda Plan of 1998 and a strategy paper from
December 2000. Did you get a response to this urgent request for a
principals meeting on these, and how does this affect your time frame
for dealing with these important issues?
MR. CLARKE: I did geta response. The response was that in the
Bush administration I should, and my committee, the counterterrorism
security group, should report to the deputies committee, which is a
sub-cabinet level committee, and not to the principals, and that
therefore it was inappropriate for me to be asking for a principals
meeting. Instead, there would be a deputies meeting.
MR. ROEMER: So, does this slow the process down to go to the
deputies rather than to the principals or a small group, as you had
previously done?
MR. CLARKE: It slowed it down enormously, by months. First of
all, the deputies committee didn't meet urgently in January or February.
Then, when the deputies committee did meet, it took the issue of al
Qaeda as part of a cluster of policy issues, including nuclear
proliferation in South Asia, democratization in Pakistan, how to treat
the problems, the various problems, including narcotics and other
problems in Afghanistan, and, launched on a series of deputies meetings
extending over several months to address al Qaeda in the context of all
of those interrelated issues. That process probably ended, I think, in
July of 2001, so we were readying for a principals meeting in July, but
the principals' calendar was full, and then they went on vacation, many
of them, in August, so we couldn't meet in August, and therefore the
principals met in September.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Maybe Mr. Bush was wondering why he had cut terrorism
funding from the FBI.”
* “This question of resources will also come up in the commission's
questioning of Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was brand-new on the
job in the fall of 2001 and on September 10th cut the FBI's request for
new counterterrorism money by 12 percent.” John Dimsdale, “Former FBI
Director Louis Freeh and Attorney General John Ashcroft to appear before
9/11 commission tomorrow,” NPR Radio: Marketplace, April 12, 2004. See
also, 2001 budget documents including Attorney General John Ashcroft FY
2003 budget request to Office of Management and Budget, September 10,
2001, showing $65 million offset in the FBI budget for counter-terrorism
equipment grants: http://www.americanprogress.org/atf/
cf/%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03%7D
/FY03ASHCROFT.PDF
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: The security briefing that was given to him on August
6, 2001, said that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack America by
hijacking airplanes.
* August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief (PDB): “Al-Qa'ida members
-- including some who are US citizens -- have resided in or traveled to
the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure
that could aid attacks. Two al-Qa'ida members found guilty in the
conspiracy to bomb our Embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a
senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s. A clandestine
source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting
Muslim-American youth for attacks. We have not been able to corroborate
some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ...
(redacted portion) ... service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to
hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of ‘Blind Shaykh’ 'Umar 'Abd
al-Rahman and other US-held extremists. Nevertheless, FBI information
since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this
country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of
attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New
York.” August 6, 2001, Bin Ladin Determined to Strike Inside US,
http://www.cnn.com/2004/images/
04/10/whitehouse.pdf
* “The Aug. 6, 2001, document, known as the President's Daily
Brief, has been the focus of intense scrutiny because it reported that
bin Laden advocated airplane hijackings, that al-Qaida supporters were
in the United States and that the group was planning attacks here.”
Clarke J. Scott, “Clarke Gave Warning on Sept. 4, 2001; Testimony
Includes Apology to Families of Sept. 11 Victims, Associated Press,
March 25, 2004.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: On August 6 th, 2001, George W. Bush went fishing.
* “President Bush swung into vacation mode Monday, fishing for bass
in his pond, strolling the canyons on his 1,600-acre ranch, taking an
early-morning run. Associated Press, “President Bush Vacationing in
Texas,” August 6, 2001.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Was it the guy my daddy’s friends delivered a lot of
weapons to?”
* In 1995, a member of Reagan's National Security Council and
co-author of his National Security Directives, Howard Teicher, signed a
sworn affidavit stating: “From early 1982 to 1987, I served as a Staff
Member to the United States National Security Council.… In June, 1982,
President Reagan decided that the United States could not afford to
allow Iraq to lose the war to Iran. President Reagan decided that the
United States would do whatever was necessary and legal to prevent Iraq
from losing the war with Iran. Pursuant to the secret NSDD, the United
States actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis
with billions of dollars of credits, by providing U.S. military
intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third
country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military
weaponry required. This message was delivered by Vice President Bush who
communicated it to Egyptian President Mubarak, who in turn passed the
message to Saddam Hussein. Under CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director
Gates, the CIA made sure that non-U.S. manufacturers manufactured and
sold to Iraq the weapons needed by Iraq. In certain instances where a
key component in a weapon was not readily available, the highest levels
of the United States government decided to make the component available,
directly or indirectly, to Iraq. I specifically recall that the
provision of anti-armor penetrators to Iraq was a case in point. The
United States made a policy decision to supply penetrators to Iraq."
Affidavit of former Howard Teicher, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. CARLOS
CARDOEN et al, January 31, 1995. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
article1413.htm
* “Questions have been raised about whether the United States not
only ignored foreign arms shipments to Iraq, but actually encouraged or
even arranged them. A former National Security Council official, Howard
Teicher, said in a 1995 court affidavit that the CIA made sure Iraq
received weapons from non-U.S. manufacturers.” Ken Guggenheim, “War
Crimes Trial for Saddam Could Reveal Details of Past U.S. Help,”
Associated Press, January 24, 2004.
* “There is ample documentation demonstrating that the Reagan and
Bush administrations supplied critical military technologies that were
put directly to use in the construction of the Iraqi war machine. There
is also strong evidence indicating that the executive branch's failure
to crack down on illegal weapons traffickers or keep track of third
party transfers of U.S. weaponry allowed a substantial flow of
U.S.-origin military equipment and military components to make their way
to Iraq.” William D. Hartung, Weapons at War; A World Policy Institute
Issue Brief, May 1995. See also, Alan Friedman, Spider's Web: The
Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq, (Bantam
Books, 1993); Kenneth R. Timmerman, The Death Lobby: How the West Armed
Iraq, (Houghton, Mifflin, 1991).
* “Rep. Dante Fascell, D-Fla., chairman of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, said … that the United States could not ‘make a claim
for purity’ on arms sales, since the U.S. government has sold weapons to
Iran, Iraq ‘and everybody else in the world.’” Robert Shepard, “Congress
Approves Aid for Former Soviet Republics,” United Press International,
October 3, 1992.
* “A covert American program during the Reagan administration
provided Iraq with critical battle planning assistance at a time when
American intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commanders would employ
chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war,
according to senior military officers with direct knowledge of the
program. Those officers, most of whom agreed to speak on the condition
that they not be identified, spoke in response to a reporter's questions
about the nature of gas warfare on both sides of the conflict between
Iran and Iraq from 1981 to 1988. Iraq's use of gas in that conflict is
repeatedly cited by President Bush and, this week, by his national
security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, as justification for "regime change"
in Iraq. The covert program was carried out at a time when President
Reagan's top aides, including Secretary of State George P. Shultz,
Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci and Gen. Colin L. Powell, then the
national security adviser, were publicly condemning Iraq for its use of
poison gas, especially after Iraq attacked Kurds in Halabja in March
1988.” Patrick E. Tyler, “Officers Say U.S. Aided Iraq in War Despite
Use of Gas,” The New York Times, August 18, 2002.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Was it that group of religious fundamentalists who
visited my state when I was governor?”
* “A senior delegation from the Taleban movement in Afghanistan is
in the United States for talks with an international energy company that
wants to construct a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan
to Pakistan. A spokesman for the company, Unocal, said the Taleban were
expected to spend several days at the company's headquarters in
Sugarland, Texas.” “Taleban in Texas for talks on Gas Pipeline,” BBC
News, December 4, 1997 (Sugarland is 22 miles outside Houston.)
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Or was it the Saudis? Damn, it was them.”
* “The 27 classified pages of a congressional report about Sept. 11
depict a Saudi government that not only provided significant money and
aid to the suicide hijackers but also allowed potentially hundreds of
millions of dollars to flow to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups
through suspect charities and other fronts, according to sources
familiar with the document. One U.S. official who has read the
classified section said it describes ‘very direct, very specific links’
between Saudi officials, two of the San Diego-based hijackers and other
potential co-conspirators ‘that cannot be passed off as rogue, isolated
or coincidental.’” Of all the hijackers, 15 of the 19 were Saudi. Josh
Meyer, “Report Links Saudi Government to 9/11 Hijackers, Sources Say,”
Los Angeles Times, August 2, 2003.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “In the days following September 11th , all commercial
and private airline traffic was grounded.”
* “On the morning of September 11th, there were 4,873 instrument
flight rule (IFR) flights operating in U.S. airspace. As soon as
Secretary Mineta was aware of the nature and scale of the terrorist
attack on New York and Washington -- that we were faced with, not one,
but four possible hijackings, and several other rumors of missing or
unidentified aircraft -- the Secretary ordered the air traffic system
shut down for all civil operations. Jane F. Garvey on Aviation Security
Following the Terrorist Attack on September 11th, September 21, 2001;
http://www.faa.gov/newsroom/testimony/
2001/testimony_010921.htm; see also, “Airports to Remain Closed,
Mineta Says,” Department of Transportation Press Release, September 12, 2001
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “The White House approved planes to pick up the bin
Ladens and numerous other Saudis.”
* Fearing reprisals against Saudi nationals, the Saudi government
asked for help in getting some of its citizens out of the country.
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Threats
and Responses in 2001, Staff Statement No. 10, The Saudi Flights, p. 12;
http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/
hearing10/staff_statement_10.pdf
* “Now, what I recall is that I asked for flight manifests of
everyone on board and all of those names need to be directly and
individually vetted by the FBI before they were allowed to leave the
country. And I also wanted the FBI to sign off even on the concept of
Saudis being allowed to leave the country. And as I recall, all of that
was done. It is true that members of the Bin Laden family were among
those who left. We knew that at the time. I can't say much more in open
session, but it was a conscious decision with complete review at the
highest levels of the State Department and the FBI and the White House.”
Testimony of Richard Clarke, Former Counterterrorism Chief, National
Security Council, before The Senate Judiciary Committee, September 3, 2003.
* “I was making or coordinating a lot of decisions on 9/11 and the
days immediately after. And I would love to be able to tell you who did
it, who brought this proposal to me, but I don't know. Since you
pressed me, the two possibilities that are most likely are either the
Department of State, or the White House Chief of Staff's Office. But I
don't know.” Testimony of Richard A. Clarke before the National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, March 24, 2004.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “At least six private jets and nearly two dozen
commercial planes carried the Saudis and the bin Ladens out of the U.S.
after September 13th. In all, 142 Saudis, including 24 members of the
bin Laden family, were allowed to leave the country.”
NOTE: It should be noted that even though the film does not make the
allegation, strong evidence has recently come to light that at least one
private plane flew to pick up Saudi nationals while private flights were
still grounded. Moreover, for nearly three years, the White House has
denied that this flight existed. This was reported in the June 9, 2004
St. Petersburg Times article cited below.
* After the airspace reopened, six chartered flights with 142
people,mostly Saudi Arabian nationals, departed from the United States
between September 14 and 24. One flight, the so-called Bin Ladin
flight, departed the United States on September 20 with 26 passengers,
most of them relatives of Usama Bin Ladin. National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Threats and Responses in 2001,
Staff Statement No. 10, The Saudi Flights, p. 12;
http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/
hearing10/staff_statement_10.pdf
* It should be noted that the US Customs and Border Protection
document released by the Department of Homeland Security under the FOIA,
Feb 24, 2004 lists 162 Saudi Nationals who flew out of the country
between 9/11/2001 and 9/15/2001, departing from New York’s Kennedy
airport, Washington’s Dulles, and Dallas Fort Worth.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/
2004/homelandsecurity.pdf.
* For an official list of Saudi Passport holders (names redacted)
who flew out of the country between 9.11.2001 – 9.15.2001, see US
Customs and Border Protection document released by the Department of
Homeland Security under the FOIA, Feb 24, 2004;
http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/
2004/homelandsecurity.pdf.
* TheSt. Petersburg Times reported on Jun 9, 2004:
o "Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with most of the
nation's air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa
International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left. The
men, one of them thought to be a member of the Saudi royal family, were
accompanied by a former FBI agent and a former Tampa police officer on
the flight to Lexington, Ky. The Saudis then took another flight out of
the country.”
o Moreover: “For nearly three years, White House, aviation and
law enforcement officials have insisted the flight never took place and
have denied published reports and widespread Internet speculation about
its purpose… The terrorism panel, better known as the 9/11 Commission,
said in April that it knew of six chartered flights with 142 people
aboard, mostly Saudis, that left the United States between Sept. 14 and
24, 2001. But it has said nothing about the Tampa flight… The 9/11
Commission, which has said the flights out of the United States were
handled appropriately by the FBI, appears concerned with the handling of
the Tampa flight.
o "Most of the aircraft allowed to fly in U.S. airspace on
Sept. 13 were empty airliners being ferried from the airports where they
made quick landings on Sept. 11. The reopening of the airspace included
paid charter flights, but not private, nonrevenue flights.” Jean
Heller, “TIA now verifies flight of Saudis; The government has long
denied that two days after the 9/11 attacks, the three were allowed to
fly.” St. Petersburg Times, June 9, 2004
GO TO SECTION THREE
Factual Back-Up for Fahrenheit 9/11: Section Three
THE FOLLOWING IS THE LINE BY LINE FACTUAL BACKUP FOR 'FAHRENHEIT 9/11'
Section Three covers the facts in Fahrenheit 9/11 from Osama's relations
with his family through Bush's military records and ends with Bush's
business history, including Arbusto, Harken and the Carlyle Group.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: In 2001, one of Osama’s sons got married in
Afghanistan; several family members attended the wedding.
* “Bin Laden as well as his mother, two brothers and a sister, who
flew from Saudi Arabia, attended the wedding of one of his sons,
Mohammad, in the Afghan city of Kandahar on Monday, the Arabic daily
Al-Hayat said.… Another of bin Laden's sons married one of al-Masri's
daughters in January. Al-Hayat said several members of the bin Laden
family, who run a major construction company in Saudi Arabia, also
traveled from the kingdom to attend the wedding. Agence France Presse,
“Bin Laden Full of Praise for Attack on USS Cole at Son's Wedding”,
Thursday, March 1, 2001.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “We held hundreds of people” immediately after 9/11.
* “More than 1,200 foreigners have been detained as part of the
government's investigation into the terror attacks, some spending months
in prison. Some civil liberties advocates have complained, but
government officials insist they are simply enforcing long-standing
immigration laws.” “A Nation Challenged,” New York Times, November 25,
2001.
* “The Department of Homeland Security announced new rules
yesterday designed to prevent a recurrence of the lengthy detention of
hundreds of foreign nationals, many of whom were prevented from making
telephone calls or contacting lawyers for months after they were jailed
in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The guidelines, made public
yesterday by Asa Hutchinson, the department's undersecretary for border
and transportation security, were welcomed by civil rights groups that
had bitterly denounced the detention of 762 immigration violators after
the attacks, based on sometimes ill-founded FBI suspicions that they had
links to terrorism. The new rules are a response to a highly critical
198-page report last June by Glenn A. Fine, the Justice Department's
inspector general. It concluded that in the chaotic aftermath of the
terrorist strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, hundreds
of Arab and South Asian men who had committed sometimes minor
immigration violations languished in jail without timely review by U.S.
officials. Guards mistreated some of them. The average detention lasted
three months, and the longest was 10 months before the immigrants were
cleared of terrorism ties and released from jail.” John Mintz, “New
Rules Shorten Holding Time for Detained Immigrants,” Washington Post,
April 14, 2004.
* “In the days, weeks and months following the tragic events of
September 11, 2001, hundreds of American immigrants were rounded up and
detained, often under harsh or abusive conditions, in the name of
keeping America safe. Not because of evidence (or even sound hunches)
that they were involved in the terrorist attacks that brutally ended the
lives of more than 3,100 people. Not because they were found to have
ties to – or even knowledge of – terrorist groups who might threaten
American security in the future. Instead, hundreds of immigrants were
arbitrarily snared in this dragnet, marked for arrest and thrown
(literally, at times) in jail. The exact number is unknown, because the
government refuses to release that information. They had one thing in
common: Almost all were Arab or South Asian men, and almost all were
Muslim... Once arrested, many immigrants were labeled "of interest" to
the September 11 investigation and thrown into legal limbo – detained
for weeks or months in connection with a criminal investigation, but
denied the due process rights that they would have been entitled to had
they actually been charged with crimes.” ACLU, "America’s Disappeared:
Seeking International Justice for Immigrants Detained after September
11," January 2004.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: The FBI conducted “a little interview, check[ed] the
passport.”
Last year, the National Review reported that the FBI conducted brief,
day-of-departure interviews with the Saudis -- in the words of an FBI
spokesman, "at the airport, as they were about to leave." Experts
interviewed by the National Review called the FBI's actions "highly
unusual" given the fact that those departing were actually members of
Osama bin Laden's family. "They [the FBI] could not have done a thorough
and complete interview," said John L.Martin, the former head of internal
security at the Justice Department. "The Great Escape : How did assorted
bin Ladens get out of America after September 11?" National Review,
September 29, 2003.
* “Thirty of the 142 people on these flights were interviewed by
the FBI, including 22 of the 26 people (23 passengers and 3 private
security guards) on the Bin Ladin flight. Many were asked detailed
questions. None of the passengers stated that they had any recent
contact with Usama Bin Ladin or knew anything about terrorist activity."
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Threats
and Responses in 2001, Staff Statement No. 10, The Saudi Flights, p. 12;
http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing10/staff_statement_10.pdf
* “I talked to several people who were with the FBI during the
actual repatriation. And they told me there was a lot of back-and-forth
between the FBI and the Saudi Embassy. And the Saudi Embassy tried to
get people to leave without even identifying them. The FBI succeeded in
identifying people and going through their passports. But, in many
cases, you had the FBI meeting people for the first time on the tarmac
or on the planes themselves as they were departing. That was not time
for a serious interview or a serious interrogation.” Interview with
Craig Unger, CNN, September 4, 2003.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: White House released records in response to Moore’s
charge of deserter.
* Left-leaning filmmaker Michael Moore got the discussion started
in January, when he endorsed Clark for president and called the
president a ‘deserter.’ The White House responded by releasing the
president's service records, including an honorable discharge. James
Rainey, “Who's the Man? They Are; George Bush and John Kerry Stand
Shoulder to Shoulder in One Respect: Macho is Good. Very Good. It's Been
That Way Since Jefferson's Day,” Los Angeles Times, March 18, 2004.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: There is one glaring difference between the records
released in 2000 and those he released in 2004. A name had been blacked
out. In 1972, two airmen were suspended for failing to take their
medical examination. One was George W. Bush and the other wasJames R.
Bath.
* See National Guard Bureau, Aeronautical Orders Number 87,
September 29, 1972, Attachment B, paragraph 7 (original document):
The Document as Released in 2000: Page 1 | Page 2
The Document as Released in 2004: Page 1 | Page 2
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: James R. Bath was the Texas money manager for the Bin
Laden family.
* See Notarized Trust Agreement, Harris County, Texas, signed by
Salem M. Binladen, July 8, 1976 (original document), Attachment C (“I,
Salem M. Binladen, do hereby vest unto James Reynolds Bath, 2330
Bellefontaine, Houston, Texas, full and absolute authority to act on my
behalf in all matters relating to the business and operation of
Binladen-Houston offices in Houston, Texas.” Notarized Trust Agreement,
Harris County, Texas, July 8, 1976.
* “According to a 1976 trust agreement, drawn shortly after [George
H. W.] Bush was appointed director of the Central Intelligence Agency,
Saudi Sheik Salem M. Binladen appointed Bath as his business
representative in Houston. Binladen, along with his brothers, owns
Binladen Brothers Construction, one of the largest construction
companies in the Middle East.” Jerry Urban, “Feds Investigate
Entrepreneur Allegedly Tied to Saudis,” Houston Chronicle, June 4, 1992.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: George W. Bush and James R. Bath had become good friends.
* “Bath, 55, acknowledges a friendship with George W. Bush that
stems from their service together in the Texas Air National Guard.”
Jonathan Beaty, “A Mysterious Mover of Money and Planes,” Time Magazine,
October 28, 1991.
* “In a copy of the record released by the National Guard in 2000,
the man in question, James R. Bath, was listed as being suspended from
flying for the National Guard in 1972 for failing to take a medical exam
next to a similar listing for Mr. Bush. It has been widely reported that
the two were friends and that Mr. Bath invested in Mr. Bush's first
major business venture, Arbusto Energy, in the late 1970's after Mr.
Bath began working for Salem bin Laden.” Jim Rutenberg, “A Film to
Polarize Along Party Lines,” New York Times, May 17, 2004.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “After they were discharged, when Bush’s dad was head
of the CIA, Bath opened up his own aviation business, after selling a
plane to a man by the name of Salem bin Laden, heir to the second
largest fortune in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi bin Laden Group.”
* “Bath opened his own aircraft brokerage firm in 1976.” Jonathan
Beaty, “A Mysterious Mover of Money and Planes,” Time Magazine, October
28, 1991. (Bush was CIA director, 1976-1977.)
* “Sometime around 1974… Bath was trying to sell a F-27 turboprop,
a sluggish medium-range plane that was not exactly a hot ticket in those
days, when he received a phone call that changed his life. The voice no
the other end belonged to Salem bin Laden… Bath not only had a buyer for
a plane no one else seemed to want, he had also stumbled upon a source
of wealth and power that was certain to pique the interest of even the
brashest Texas oil baron.” Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud,
pp,19-20 (Scribner: New York, 2004).
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “George W. Bush founded an oil company, a drilling
company, out in west Texas called Arbusto, which was very good at
drilling dry holes.”
* “After graduating from the Harvard Business School, Bush
organized his first company, Arbusto Energy (Arbusto is Spanish for
Bush) in 1977 on the eve of a run for Congress. According to records on
file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Arbusto didn’t start
active operations until March 1979.… According to 1984 securities
filings, Bush’s limited partners had invested $4.66 million in Bush’s
various drilling programs but they had received cash distributions of
only $1.54 million. However, Bush’s CFO stated, ‘We didn’t find much oil
and gas,’ adding ‘We weren’t raising any money.’ George Lardner Jr. and
Lois Romano, “Bush Name Helps Fuel Oil Dealings,” Washington Post, July
30, 1999.
* “Bush eventually renamed his company Bush Exploration and later
merged with a firm called Spectrum 7. Documents filed with the
Securities and Exchange Commission show that the firm lost money from
1979 to 1982 and that investors who put in nearly $4.7 million got back
just $1.5 million. Published reports contend that Bush Exploration was
salvaged by Cincinnati oilmen Bill DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds. Bush
today says otherwise, that his company was on firm financial footing and
that the merger was a strategic one. Either way, George W. drilled his
fair share of dry holes. As Conaway rues to this day, the company ‘never
hit . . . the Big Kahuna.’” Maria La Ganga, “Bush Finesses Texas 2-Step
Of Privilege, Personality,” Los Angeles Times, March 2, 2000.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “There is no indication that daddy wrote a check to
start Bush off in his company.”
* “Seed money, upward of $4 million, was largely raised between
1979 and 1982 with the help of [Bush’s] uncle, financier Jonathan Bush.
The Arbusto investor list is filled with family and famous friends. His
grandmother, Dorothy W. Bush, chipped in $25,000. Corporate luminaries
like George L. Ball, chief executive of Prudential-Bache Securities,
invested $100,000. Macomber and William H. Draper III, who invested
more than $125,000, were later named presidents of the U.S.
Export-Import Bank during the Reagan and Bush administrations.” Maria La
Ganga, “Bush Finesses Texas 2-Step Of Privilege, Personality,” Los
Angeles Times, March 2, 2000.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Bush’s good friend James Bath was hired by the bin
Laden family to manage their money in Texas and invest in businesses.
And James Bath himself, in turn, invested in George W. Bush.”
* See Notarized Trust Agreement, Harris County, Texas, signed by
Salem M. Binladen, July 8, 1976 (original document), Attachment C (“I,
Salem M. Binladen, do hereby vest unto James Reynolds Bath, 2330
Bellefontaine, Houston, Texas, full and absolute authority to act on my
behalf in all matters relating to the business and operation of
Binladen-Houston offices in Houston, Texas.” Notarized Trust Agreement,
Harris County, Texas, July 8, 1976.
* See 1981 Schedule 4 spreadsheet showing $50,000 investment by
James Bath in George W. Bush’s Arbusto Exploration, Attachment D
(original document).
* Bath’s business relationship with Salem bin Laden, and other
wealthy Saudi businessmen, has been well documented. See, e.g., Mike
Ward, “Bin Laden Relatives Have Ties to Texas,” Austin
American-Statesman, November 9, 2001; Jerry Urban, “Feds Investigate
Entrepreneur Allegedly Tied to Saudis,” Houston Chronicle, June 4, 1992;
Thomas Petzinger Jr., et al., “Family Ties: How Oil Firm Linked to a Son
of Bush Won Bahrain Drilling Pact,” The Wall Street Journal, December 6,
1991.
* “[E]arly 1980s tax records reviewed by TIME show that Bath
invested $50,000 in Bush's energy ventures and remained a stockholder
until Bush sold his company to Harken in 1986.” Jonathan Beaty, “A
Mysterious Mover of Money and Planes,” Time Magazine, October 28, 1991.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Bush ran Arbusto nearly into the ground, as he did
every other company he was involved in until finally one of his
companies was bought by Harken Energy and they gave him a seat on their
board.”
* “Bush's name …was to help rescue him, just as it had attracted
investors and helped revive his flagging fortunes throughout his years
in the dusty plains city of Midland. A big Dallas-based firm, Harken Oil
and Gas, was looking to buy up troubled oil companies. After finding
Spectrum, Harken's executives saw a bonus in their target's CEO, despite
his spotty track record. By the end of September 1986, the deal was
done. Harken assumed $ 3.1 million in debts and swapped $ 2.2 million of
its stock for a company that was hemorrhaging money, though it had oil
and gas reserves projected to produce $ 4 million in future net revenue.
Harken, a firm that liked to attach itself to stars, had also acquired
Bush, whom it used not as an operating manager but as a high-profile
board member.… It was one of the biggest breaks of Bush's life. Still,
the Harken deal completed a disappointing reprise of what was becoming a
familiar pattern. As an oilman, Bush always worked hard, winning a
reputation as a straight-shooter and a good boss who was witty, warm and
immensely likable. Even the investors who lost money in his ventures
remained admirers, and some of them are now raising money for his
presidential campaign. But the story of Bush's career in oil, which
began following his graduation from Harvard Business School in the
summer of 1975 and ended when he sold out to Harken and headed for
Washington, is mostly about his failure to succeed, despite the sterling
connections his lineage and Ivy League education brought him." George
Lardner Jr. and Lois Romano, “Bush Name Helps Fuel Oil Dealings,”
Washington Post, July 30, 1999.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Bush was investigated by the S.E.C. The James Baker
law partner who helped Bush beat the rap from the SEC was a man by the
name of Robert Jordon, who, when George W. became president was
appointed ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
* “A week before George W. Bush's 1990 sale of stock in Harken
Energy Co., the firm's outside lawyers cautioned Bush and other
directors against selling shares if they had significant negative
information about the company's prospects. The sale came a few months
before Harken reported significant losses, leading to an investigation
by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The June 15, 1990, letter
from the Haynes and Boone law firm wasn't sent to the SEC by Bush's
attorney Robert W. Jordan until Aug. 22, 1991, according to a letter by
Jordan. That was one day after SEC staff members investigating the
stock sale concluded there was insufficient evidence to recommend an
enforcement action against Bush for insider trading.” Peter Behr, “Bush
Sold Stock After Lawyers’ Warning,” Washington Post, November 1, 2002.
* “President Bush has chosen as ambassador to Saudi Arabia a Dallas
attorney who represented him against … allegations arising from his sale
of stock in Harken Energy Co. 11 years ago.” G. Robert Hillman, “Bush
Taps Dallas Attorney to be Ambassador to Saudi Arabia,” The Dallas
Morning News, July 21, 2001.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “After the Harken debacle, the friends of Bush’s dad
got him a seat on another board, of a company owned by the Carlyle Group.”
* "Fred Malek, a senior advisor to Carlyle, who also served as the
director of the 1988 Republican Convention, suggested to Carlyle that
the President’s eldest son, George W. Bush, would ‘be a positive
addition to Caterair’s board.’ Mr. Malek was also a Caterair director
and vice chairman of Northwest Airlines, a major Caterair customer. ‘I
thought George W. Bush could make a contribution to Caterair,’ stated
Malek. Malek further claimed, ‘He would be on the board even if his
father weren’t President.’" Kenneth N. Gilpin, “Little-Known Carlyle
Scores Big,” New York Times, March 26, 1991
* Co-Founder of Carlyle Group, David Rubenstein, talking about
setting up Cater Air after Carlyle acquired it: “When we’re putting
together the board,” Rubenstein said, ‘somebody came to me and said
‘Look, there is a guy who would like to be on the board. He's kind of
down on his luck a bit. Needs a job. Needs some board positions. Could
you put him on the board? Pay him a salary and he'll be a good board
member and be a loyal vote for the management and so forth.’ …We put him
on the board and (he) spent three years. Came to all the meetings. …
And after a while I kind of said to him, after about three years – ‘You
know, I'm not sure this is really for you. Maybe you should do something
else. Because I don't think you're adding much value to the board. You
don't know that much about the company.’ The board member told him,
Rubenstein said, ‘Well I think I'm getting out of this business anyway.
I don't really like it that much. So I'm probably going to resign from
the board.’ And I said, 'Thanks.' Didn't think I'd ever see him again.
His name is George W. Bush,’ Rubenstein said. ‘He became president of
the United States. So if you said to me, name 25 million people who
would be president of the United States, he wouldn't be in that
category. So you neverknow." Nicholas Horrock, “White House Watch: With
Friends Like These,” UPI, July 16, 2003 .
GO TO SECTION FOUR
Factual Back-Up for Fahrenheit 9/11: Section Four
THE FOLLOWING IS THE LINE BY LINE FACTUAL BACKUP FOR 'FAHRENHEIT 9/11'
Section Four covers the facts in Fahrenheit 9/11 covers the Carlyle
Group and Saudi money in the United States and its connection to the
Bush family, their friends and associates.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “The Carlyle group is a multinational conglomerate
that invests in heavily government-regulated industries like
telecommunications, healthcare and, particularly, defense.”
* “The Carlyle Group is one of the world’s largest private equity
firms, with more than $18.3 billion under management. With 23 funds
across five investment disciplines (management-led buyouts, real estate,
leveraged finance, venture capital and turnaround), Carlyle combines
global vision with local insight, relying on a top-flight team of nearly
300 investment professionals operating out of offices in 14 countries to
uncover superior opportunities in North America, Europe, and Asia.
Carlyle focuses on sectors in which it has demonstrated expertise:
aerospace & defense, automotive & transportation, consumer, energy &
power, healthcare, industrial, real estate, technology & business
services, and telecommunications & media.” Carlyle Group web site,
http://www.thecarlylegroup.com/eng/company/index.html
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: The Bin Laden and Bush families were both connected to
the Carlyle Group, as were many of the Bush family’s friends and associates.
* In the early 1990s, George W. Bush served on the board of
directors for CaterAir, an airline catering company. CaterAir was owned
by the Carlyle Group. Kenneth N. Gilpin, “Little-Known Carlyle Scores
Big,” The New York Times, March 26, 1991. “George W. Bush left the
company in 1994, a year after his father’s presidency ended.” Ross
Ramsey, et al., “Campaign ’94 Fisher’s Staff Slips Up On Spanish,” The
Houston Chronicle, September 17, 1994.
* In the mid-1990s, George H.W. Bush joined up with the Carlyle
Group. “Under the leadership of ex-officials like Baker and former
Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, Carlyle developed a specialty in
buying defense companies and doubling or quadrupling their value. The
ex-president not only became an investor in Carlyle, but a member of the
company's Asia Advisory Board and a rainmaker who drummed up investors.
Twelve rich Saudi families, including the Bin Ladens, were among them.
In 2002, the Washington Post reported, ‘Saudis close to Prince Sultan,
the Saudi defense minister ... were encouraged to put money into Carlyle
as a favor to the elder Bush.’ Bush retired from the company last
October, and Baker, who lobbied U.S. allies last month to forgive Iraq's
debt, remains a Carlyle senior counselor. Kevin Phillips, “The Barreling
Bushes; Four Generations of the Dynasty Have Chased Profits Through Cozy
Ties with Mideast Leaders, Spinning Webs of Conflicts of Interest,” Los
Angeles Times, January 11, 2004.
* The bin Laden family first invested in Carlyle in 1994.
Representing Carlyle’s Asia Board, George H.W. Bush visited the bin
laden family's headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Kurt Eichenwald,
“Bin Laden Family Liquidates Holdings With Carlyle Group,” The New York
Times, October 26, 2001.
* James Baker was a Carlyle Senior Counselor beginning in 1993.
Carlyle Group web site, http://www.thecarlylegroup.com/eng/team/
l5-team391.html.
* Bush's OMB chief, Richard Darman, was with Carlyle by 1994. Bob
Cook, Mergers & Acquisitions Report, December 12, 1994.
* George W. Bush was with Caterair -- owned by Carlyle -- until
1994, after Fred Malek, a senior advisor to Carlyle, who also served as
the director of the 1988 Republican Convention, suggested to Carlyle
that the President’s eldest son would “be a positive addition to
Caterair’s board.” Kenneth N. Gilpin, “Little-Known Carlyle Scores
Big,” New York Times, March 26, 1991.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Carlyle Group was holding its annual investor
conference on the morning of September 11th in the Ritz Carlton Hotel in
Washington, D.C. At that meeting were all of the Carlyle regulars, James
Baker, likely John Major, definitely George H. W. Bush, though he left
the morning of September 11th. Shafiq bin Ladin, who is Osama bin
Laden’s half-brother, and was in town to look after his family’s
investments in the Carlyle Group. All of them, together in one room,
watching as the uh the planes hit the towers.”
* On the morning of September 11, 2001, “in the plush setting of
the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Washington, DC, the Carlyle Group was holding
its annual international investor conference. Frank Carlucci, James
Baker III, David Rubenstein, William Conway, and Dan D’Aniellow were
together, along with a host of former world leaders, former defense
experts, wealthy Arabs from the Middle East, and major international
investors as they terror played out on television. There with them,
looking after the investments of his family was Shafiq bin Laden, Osama
bin Laden’s estranged half-brother. George Bush Sr. was also at the
conference, but Carlyle’s spokesperson says the former president left
before the terror attacks, and was on an airplane over the Midwest when
flights across the country were grounded on the morning of September 11.
In any circumstance, a confluence of such politically complex and
globally connected people would have been curious, even newsworthy. But
in the context of the terrorist attacks being waged against the United
States by a group of Saudi nationals led by Osama bin Laden, the group
assembled at the Ritz-Carlton that day was a disconcerting and freakish
coincidence.” Dan Briody, The Iron Triangle, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
2003, p. 139-140. See also, Melanie Warner, “What do George Bush,
Arthur Levitt, Jim Baker, Dick Darman, and John Major Have in Common?
(They All Work for the Carlyle Group),” Fortune, March 18, 2002,
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “With all the weapons companies it owned, The Carlyle
Group was in essence, the 11th largest defense contractor in the United
States.”
* “By virtue of its holdings in companies like U.S. Marine Repair
and United Defense Industries, Carlyle is the equivalent of the
eleventh-largest defense contractor in the nation. It has $16.2 billion
under management and claims an average annual return of 35%.” Phyllis
Berman, “Lucky Twice,” Forbes, December 8, 2003.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “It owned United Defense, makers of the Bradley armored
fighting vehicle. September 11th guaranteed that United Defense was
going to have a very good year. Just 6 weeks after 9-11 Carlyle filed
to take United Defense public and in December made a one day profit of
$237 million dollars.”
* “On a single day last month, Carlyle earned $237 million selling
shares in United Defense Industries, the Army's fifth-largest
contractor. The stock offering was well timed: Carlyle officials say
they decided to take the company public only after the Sept. 11 attacks.
… On Sept. 26, [2001], the Army signed a $665-million modified contract
with United Defense through April 2003 to complete the Crusader's
development phase. In October, the company listed the Crusader, and the
attacks themselves, as selling points for its stock offering. Mark
Fineman, “Arms Buildup is a Boon to Firm Run by Big Guns,” Los Angeles
Times, January 10, 2002.
* "Still, in its annual report for 2001, United announced that it
had been awarded a three-year, $697 million contract to complete full
upgrading of 389 Bradley units and had added a $ 655 million contract
modification to complete the Crusader's 'definition and risk-reduction
phase contract,' which would be worth $ 1.7 billion through 2003.
Together, the Crusader and Bradley programs contributed 41 percent of
United sales in 2001, the report said. With Crusader and the Bradley
upgrade in hand, a decision was made to sell United stock to the public
in late 2001." Walter Pincus, “Crusader a Boon to Carlyle Group Even if
Pentagon Scraps Project,” Washington Post, May 14, 2002.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “With so much attention focused on the bin Laden family
being important Carlyle investors, the bin Ladens eventually had to
withdraw.”
* "Following the attacks on September 11, the bin Laden family’s
investments in the Carlyle Group became an embarrassment to the Carlyle
Group and the family was forced to liquidate their assets with the
firm." Kurt Eichenwald, “Bin Laden Family Liquidates Holdings with
Carlyle Group,” The New York Times, October 26, 2001.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Bush’s dad stayed on as Senior Advisor to Carlyle’s
Asia Board for another 2 years.”
* “Former President Bush was at one time the Senior Advisor to the
Carlyle Asia Advisory Board but retired from that position in October
2003. He holds no other positions at Carlyle.”
http://www.thecarlylegroup.com/eng/news/
l4-presskit681.html#8
* “The former president is no longer a company adviser, but he
still has investments there, Mr. Ullman (vice president for corporate
communications) said.” Dallas Morning News, "Michael Moore keeps heat on
at premiere", May 18, 2004
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: George H. W. Bush receives daily CIA briefings.
* "One of the people who corresponded with [former ambassador
Joseph] Wilson is George H. W. Bush, the only president to have been
head of the C.I.A.-- he still receives regular briefings from Langley."
Vicky Ward, “Double Exposure,” Vanity Fair, January 2004.
* Former President Bush has made efforts to keep abreast of foreign
affairs, partly by exercising his right to be briefed by CIA personnel
about developments around the globe. Ha'aretz, “George Bush Sr. Vouches
for Son's Support of Israel to the Saudis”, July 16, 2001.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “They are benefiting from the confusion that arises
when George H. W. Bush visits Saudi Arabia, on behalf of Carlyle, and
meets with the royal family and meets with the bin Laden family. Is he
representing the United States of America, or is he representing an
investment firm in the United States of America or is he representing
both?”
* Few firms could have rivaled the Carlyle Group for its array of
high-powered friends. The Washington-based venture capital house had
been likened to a retirement home for Gulf War veterans, and the likes
of George Bush Sr, James Baker, and John Major ‘can take credit for its
rapid rise.’ The Observer noted in a profile, “It used to be fashionable
to deride Carlyle as a second-rate influence-peddler and dismiss its
stable of retired politicians as superannuated ‘access capitalists.’” …
Carlyle had sponsored visits by Bush Sr. to South Korea and China, and
his clout with the Saudi government – perhaps Carlyle’s most important
customer – is also likely to be valued. Conal Walsh, “The Carlyle
Controversy: With Friends in High Places: Former World Leaders Give
Carlyle Group Unrivalled Prowess in Lobbying for Business,” The
Observer, September 15, 2002.
* “’It should be a deep cause for concern that a closely held
company like Carlyle can simultaneously have directors and advisers that
are doing business and making money and also advising the president of
the United States,’ says Peter Eisner, managing director of the Center
for Public Integrity, a non-profit-making Washington think-tank. ‘The
problem comes when private business and public policy blend together.
What hat is former president Bush wearing when he tells Crown Prince
Abdullah not to worry about US policy in the Middle East? What hat does
he use when he deals with South Korea, and causes policy changes there?
Or when James Baker helps argue the presidential election in the younger
Bush's favour? It's a kitchen-cabinet situation, and the informality
involved is precisely a mark of Carlyle's success.’" Oliver Burkeman
Julian Borger, “The Winners: The Ex-Presidents' Club,” The Guardian,
October 31, 2001.
* “The Saudi family of Osama bin Laden is severing its financial
ties with the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm known for its
connections to influential Washington political figures… In recent
years, Frank C. Carlucci, the chairman of Carlyle and a former secretary
of defense, has visited the family's headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia, as have former President George Bush and James A. Baker III, the
former secretary of state. Mr. Bush works as an adviser to Carlyle, and
Mr. Baker is a partner in the firm.” Kurt Eichenwald, “Bin Laden Family
Liquidates Holdings With Carlyle Group,” New York Times, October 26, 2001.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Another group of people invest in you, your friends,
and their related businesses $1.4 billion over a number of years.”
* “In all, at least $1.46 billion had made its way from the Saudis
to the House of Bush and its allied companies and institutions.” Craig
Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, p. 200, (Scribner: New York, 2004).
For a complete breakdown of the investments, see Unger’s Appendix C, pp.
295-298.
* This number includes investments made and contracts awarded at
the time that Bush’s friends were involved in the Carlyle Group:
James Baker was a Carlyle Senior Counselor beginning in 1993.
Carlyle Group web site, http://www.thecarlylegroup.com/eng/team/
l5-team391.html.
Bush's OMB chief, Richard Darman, was with Carlyle by 1994. Bob
Cook, Mergers & Acquisitions Report, December 12, 1994.
George W. Bush was with Caterair -- owned by Carlyle -- until
1994, after Fred Malek, a senior advisor to Carlyle, who also served as
the director of the 1988 Republican Convention, suggested to Carlyle
that the President’s eldest son would “be a positive addition to
Caterair’s board.” Kenneth N. Gilpin, “Little-Known CarlyleScores Big,”
New York Times, March 26, 1991
Bush Sr. was first involved in Carlyle by the mid-1990s and no
later than 1997.Kevin Phillips, “The Barreling Bushes; Four Generations
of the Dynasty Have Chased Profits Through Cozy Ties with Mideast
Leaders, Spinning Webs of Conflicts of Interest,” Los Angeles Times,
January 11 , 2004; Dan Briody, The Iron Triangle, John Wiley & Sons,
Inc., 2003.
* Additional back up for these numbers is as follows:
Saudi investments in the Carlyle Group worth $80,000,000.
Craig Unger, “Saving the Saudis,” Vanity Fair, October 2003. The number
was reported to Unger by the head of Carlyle, David Rubenstein, in an
interview.
In 1994, Carlyle owned military contractor BDM was “awarded a
contract to provide technical assistance and logistics support to the
Royal Saudi Air Force.” Worth: $46,200,000. PR Newswire, “BDM Federal
Awarded $46 Million Contract To Support Royal Saudi Air Force,” October
27, 1994.
During the 1990s, the Vinnell Corporation (a BDM subsidiary)
held contracts to train the Saudi Arabian National Guard, worth
$819,000,000. Robert Burns, “US Advises Saudi Military On Range Of
Threats—Including Terrorism,” Associated Press, November 13, 1995.
In 1995, BDM collected a contract to “augment Royal Saudi Air
Force staff in developing, implementing, and maintaining logistics and
engineering plans and programs.” Worth: $32,500,000. Defense Daily,
“Defense Contracts,” June 23, 1995, as cited by Craig Unger.
In 1996, BDM was awarded a contract “to provide construction of
110 housing units at the MK-1 Compound, Khamis Mushayt, Saudi Arabia,
for Technical Support Program personnel assisting the Royal Saudi Air
Force…. This effort supports foreign military sales to Saudi Arabia.”
Worth: $44,397,800. Department of Defense News Release, “BDM Federal,
Incorporated,” April 1, 1996.
During the late 1990s, Vinnell was awarded a contract “for the
Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) Modernization Program. The
three-year contract, awarded competitively, calls on Vinnell to continue
to support SANG training operations and related activities.” Worth:
$163,300,000 . PR Newswire, “Vinnell Selected for Award of $163.3
Million Contract for Saudi Arabian National Guard Modernization
Program,” May 3, 1995. Kashim Al-An, “Saudi Guard Gets Quiet Help from
US Firm with Connections,” Associated Press, March 22, 1997.
In 1997, BDM was awarded a contract “to provide for 400
contractor personnel to support the Royal Saudi Air Force in developing,
implementing, and maintaining logistics, supply, computer,
reconnaissance, intelligence and engineering plans and programs.”
Worth: $18,728,682 (note: this is a “face value increase to a firm fixed
price contract”). Defense Daily, “Defense Contracts,” February 4, 1997.
Note: Carlyle purchased BDM and its subsidiary Vinnell in 1992
and sold it to TRW in Dec, 1997.
In November 2001, Dick Cheney’s former company Halliburton was
awarded “a contract to provide services for the Saudi Arabian Oil
Company’s (Saudi Aramco) Qatif Field development project in the eastern
province of Saudi Arabia.” Worth: $140 million. Halliburton press
release, “Halliburton Awarded $140 Million Contract by Saudi Aramco,”
November 14, 2001.
The same month, a consortium of three companies led by
Halliburton subsidiary KBR won a “contract for engineering, procurement,
and construction of an ethylene plant for Jubail United Petrochemcial
Company, a wholly owned company of Saudi Basic Industries Corporation.”
Worth: $40 million. MaggieMulvihill, et al., “Bush Advisers Cashed in
on Saudi Gravy Train,” Boston Herald, December 11, 2001 ; Halliburton
press release, “Halliburton KBR, Chiyoda, and Mitsubishi Win
SaudiArabian Ethylene Project,” November 19, 2001. (Note: The $40
million figure cited for this contractin all likelihood is much too low.
Three separate energy industry journals place the value of the
contract at $350 million. While there are two other companies involved,
all reports point out that Halliburton KBR led the consortium and thus,
if the contract were $350 million, it is likely that their cut would
be—as lead contractor—significantly more than $40 million. See,
Petroleum Economist, “News in Brief,” January 14, 2002; Chemical Week,
“KBR, Chiyoda, Mitsubishi Win Jubail Ethylene Contract,” December 5,
2001; Middle East Economic Digest, “Projects Update: Petrochemicals,”
March 7, 2000.
Soon after Harken bought out George W. Bush’s company Spectrum
7 in 1986 and placed Bush on their board of directors, a Saudi sheik
swooped in to save the troubled Harken. Abdullah Taha Bakhsh purchased a
17% stake in the company. Worth: $25,000,000. Thomas Petzinger Jr., et
al., “Family Ties: How Oil Firm Linked to a Son of Bush Won Bahrain
Drilling Pact; Harken Energy Had a Web of Mideast Connections; In the
Background: BCCI; Entrée at the White House,” Wall Street Journal,
December 6, 1991.
In 1989 Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd donated money to the Barbara
Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. At the time, Ms. Bush was the First
Lady of the United States. The King’s contribution represented almost
half the amount the organization was able to raise that year. Worth:
$1,000,000. Thomas Ferraro, “Saudi King also Contributed to Barbara
Bush’s Foundation,” United Press International, March 13, 1990.
Following George H. W. Bush’s departure from office, Saudi
Ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar, donated money to the
Bush Sr. Presidential Library fund. Worth: At least $1,000,000. Dave
Montgomery, “Hail to a Former Chief,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, November
7, 1997.
Both George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush attended the elite
Phillips Andover Academy in Massachusetts. In the summer of 2002 the
Academy announced it had established a scholarship in Bush Sr.’s name.
Saudi Prince Alwaleed binTalal bin Adul Aziz Alsaud -- the same Prince
who bailed out EuroDisney in the mid-Nineties -- was among the donors to
the scholarship. Worth $500,000. Phillips Academy-Andover press
release, “A Statement from Phillips Academy-Andover Regarding the Bush
Scholars Program,” December 31, 2002.
Among the many presents George W. Bush has received from
foreign leaders and dignitaries during his term as President, perhaps
none is grander than the one Prince Bandar bestowed upon him. Bandar
gave the current president a “C.M. Russell oil canvas painting of a
native American buffalo hunt….” Worth: $1,000,000. Siobhan McDonough,
“Gifts to President are Gratefully Received, Quickly Carted into
Storage,” Associated Press, July 14, 2003.
GO TO SECTION FIVE
Factual Back-Up for Fahrenheit 9/11: Section Five
THE FOLLOWING IS THE LINE BY LINE FACTUAL BACKUP FOR 'FAHRENHEIT 9/11'
Section Five covers the facts in Fahrenheit 9/11 from Saudi Arabia's
involvement in 9/11 through the natural gas pipeline in Afghanistan.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Amnesty International condemns Saudi Arabia as a human
rights violator.
* “Saudi Arabia systematically violates international human rights
standards even after agreeing to be bound by them. For example, in
September 1997 Saudi Arabia acceded to the Convention against Torture.
Yet, torture is widespread in Saudi Arabia's criminal justice system.
(Saudi Arabia acceded to the Convention against Torture and the
Convention against Discrimination on Sept 23, 1997).” Amnesty
International, "Saudi Arabia: Open for Business," February 8, 2000.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engMDE230822000?
OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES% 5CSAUDI+ARABIA
* “Sharon Burke, Amnesty International USA's advocacy director for
the Middle East and North Africa, said her organization confirmed with
the Saudi Ministry of the Interior that three men were beheaded for
sodomy.” Washington Blade, January 4, 2002,
http://www.sodomylaws.org/world/saudi_arabia/
saudinews15.htm
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Bush tried to stop Congress from setting up its own
9/11 investigation.… When he couldn’t stop Congress, he then tried to
stop an independent 9/11 commission from being formed.”
* The original effort by the White House was to limit the scope of
the 9/11 investigation to only two congressional committees. “President
Bush asked House and Senate leaders yesterday to allow only two
congressional committees to investigate the government's response to the
events of Sept. 11, officials said.” Mike Allen, “Bush Seeks To Restrict
Hill Probes Of Sept. 11; Intelligence Panels' Secrecy Is Favored,”
Washington Post, January 30, 2002.
* “I, of course, want the Congress to take a look at what took
place prior to Sept. 11. But since it deals with such sensitive
information, in my judgment, it’s best for the ongoing war against
terror that the investigation be done in the intelligence committees,”
President Bush said. David Rosenbaum, “Bush Bucks Tradition on
Investigation,” The New York Times, May 26, 2002.
* “Angry lawmakers [McCain, Pelosi, Lieberman] accused White House
Friday of secretly trying to derail creation of an independent
commission to investigate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks while
professing to support the idea.” Helen Dewar, “Lawmakers Accuse Bush of
9/11 Deceit,” Los Angeles Times, October 13, 2002.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: The White House censored 28 pages of the Congressional
9/11 report.
* “Top U.S. officials believe the Saudi Arabian government not only
thwarted their efforts to prevent the rise of al-Qaida and stop
terrorist attacks, but also may have given the Saudi-born Sept. 11
hijackers financial and logistical support, according to a congressional
report released Thursday. Those suspicions prompted several lawmakers
to demand that the Bush administration aggressively investigate Saudi
Arabia 's actions before and after Sept. 11, 2001 -- in part by making
public large sections of the report that pertain to Riyadh but remain
classified. The passages, including an entire 28-page section, discuss
in detail whether one of America's most reluctant allies in the war on
terrorism was somehow implicated in the attacks, according to U.S.
officials familiar with the full report.” Josh Meyer, “Saudi Ties to
Sept. 11 Hinted at in Report,” Houston Chronicle, July 25, 2003.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: More than 500 relatives of 9/11 victims filed suit
Saudi Royals and others. The lawyers the Saudi Defense Minister hired to
fight these 9/11 families was the law firm of Bush family confidant
James A. Baker.
* “James Baker, whom Bush recently sent abroad seeking help to
reduce Iraq's debt, is still a senior counselor for the Carlyle Group,
and Baker's Houston-based law firm, Baker Botts, is representing the
Saudi defense minister in Motley’s [plaintiff’s council in class-action
suit in connection with September 11th attacks] case.” New York Times,
“A Nation Unto Itself,” March 14, 2004
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Saudi’s have $860 billion dollars invested in America.
* “Over the next twenty-five years, roughly eighty-five thousand
‘high-net-worth’ Saudis invested a staggering $860 billion in American
companies – an average of more than $10 million a person and a sum that
is roughly equivalent to the gross domestic product of Spain.” Craig
Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, (Scribner: New York, 2004).
* “Allan Gerson, an attorney who represents about 3,600 family
members of victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks … said he is
not suing the Saudi government, but he is pursuing ‘Saudi interests’ in
the United States he estimated totaled about $860 billion.” “ $113
Million in Terrorism Funds Frozen,” CNN, November 20, 2002.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: In terms of investments on Wall Street, $860 billion is
“roughly six or seven percent of America.”
* “With a total market capitalization exceeding $12 trillion, the
NYSE Composite represents approximately 82 percent of the total U.S.
market cap.” New York Stock Exchange News Release, “NYSE to Reintroduce
Composite Index,” January 2, 2003. ($860 billion is about 7 percent of
$12 trillion.)
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Citigroup, AOL TimeWarner have big Saudi investors.
* “His name is Alwaleed bin Talal. His grandfather was Saudi
Arabia's founding monarch. With huge stakes in companies ranging from
Citigroup Inc. to the Four Seasons luxury hotel chain, he is one of the
richest men on the planet....Last year, Forbes magazine ranked Alwaleed
the fifth-richest man in the world, with a net worth of nearly $18
billion. His Kingdom Holding Co. spans four continents. Over the years,
he has acquired major stakes in companies such as Apple Computer Inc.,
AOL Time Warner Inc., News Corp. and Saks Inc., parent of retailer Saks
Fifth Avenue .” Richard Verrier, “Disney's Animated Investor; An
Ostentatious Saudi Billionaire Prince Who Helped Bail Out the Company's
Paris Resort in the Mid-'90s is Being Courted to Do So Again,” Los
Angeles Times, January 26, 2004.
* “Carlyle’s first major transaction with the Saudis took place in
1991 when Fred Malek steered Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, a flamboyant
35-year-old Saudi multibillionaire, to the firm for a deal that would
enable him to become the largest individual shareholder in Citicorp.”
Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, (Scribner: New York, 2004).
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “I read where the Saudis have a trillion dollars in our
banks, their money.”
* “Others have said the investment is even more, as much as a
trillion dollars on deposit in U.S. banks – an agreement worked out in
the early 1980s by the Reagan administration, in yet another effort to
get the Saudis to off-set the US budget deficit. The Saudis hold another
trillion dollars or so in the US stock market.” Robert Baer, Sleeping
with the Devil, p. 60, (Crown Publishers: New York, 2003).
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Bandar is one of the best protected ambassadors in the
world with a six-man security detail provided by the State Department.”
* “The dean of the diplomatic corps by virtue of his long
assignment in Washington, Bandar is the only ambassador who has his own
State Department security detail -- granted to him because of ‘threats’
and his status as a prince, according to a State Department spokesman.”
Robert G. Kaiser, et al., "Saudi Leader's Anger Revealed Shaky Ties,"
Washington Post, February 10, 2002.
* “Prince Bandar is often considered the most politically savvy of
all the foreign ambassadors living in Washington. That may or may not be
true -- but he certainly is the best-protected. According to a
Diplomatic Security official, Prince Bandar has a security detail that
includes full-time participation of six highly trained and skilled DS
officers. (DS officers are federal government employees charged with
securing American diplomatic missions.)” Joel Mowbray, Dangerous
Diplomacy: How the State Department Threatens American Security,
(Regnery, 2003).
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Bandar is so close to the Bushes they considered him
a member of the family. They even have a nickname for him, Bandar Bush.”
* “When President [George H.W.] Bush arrived in Riyadh, he took
Bandar aside and embraced him. ‘You are good people,’ the president
said. Bandar claims that Bush had tears in his eyes. Visiting the Bush
summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine, the Saudi ambassador was
affectionately dubbed ‘Bandar Bush.’ Bandar returned the favor, inviting
Bush to go pheasant hunting at his English estate. (Since leaving the
White House, Bush has also profited by acting as a kind of glorified
door-opener for the Carlyle Group, an investment company that handles
considerable Saudi wealth.)” Evan Thomas, et al., “The Saudi Game,”
Newsweek, November 19, 2001 .
* “The Saudi ambassador attended the unveiling of former President
George H.W. Bush's official portrait when he returned to the White House
in 1995. He was among the guests at a surprise 75th birthday party in
2000 for former first lady Barbara Bush, and the former president has
vacationed at Bandar's home in Aspen, Colo. Bandar has been a guest at
the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas. Just last year he presented the first
family with a C.M. Russell painting, a gift worth $1 million that will
be stored in the National Archives, along with other presents from
well-wishers destined for a [George W.] Bush presidential library.” Mike
Glover, “Kerry Criticizes Bush on Saudi Meeting”, Associated Press,
April 23, 2004.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Two nights after September 11th, George Bush invited
Bandar Bush over to the White House for a private dinner and a talk.”
* Two days after the attacks, the President asked Bandar to come to
the White House. Bush embraced him and escorted him to the Truman
balcony. Bandar had a drink and the two men smoked cigars. Elsa Walsh,
“The Prince,” The New Yorker, March 24, 2003.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Bandar’s government blocked American investigators from
talking to the relatives of the 15 hijackers.
* “The report strongly criticized top Saudi officials for their
‘lack of cooperation’ before and after the Sept. 11 attacks, even when
it became known that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis.…One top U.S.
official told the joint inquiry staff that the Saudis since 1996 would
not cooperate on matters relating to Osama bin Laden. Robert Baer, a
former CIA officer, said the Saudis blocked FBI agents from talking to
relatives of the 15 hijackers and following other leads in the kingdom.”
Frank Davies, et al., “Bush rejects call to give more 9/11 data,”
Philadelphia Inquirer, July 30, 2003.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Saudi Arabia was reluctant to freeze the hijackers assets.
* Riyadh has not yet fully joined the international effort to block
bank accounts thought to be financing terrorist operations, U.S.
officials say. But the Bush administration, fearful of offending the
Saudis, has not yet raised a public complaint. Elaine Sciolino, et al.,
“U.S. is Reluctant to Upset Flawed, Fragile Saudi Ties,” New York Times,
October 25, 2001.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “In 1997, while George W. Bush was governor of Texas, a
delegation of Taliban leaders from Afghanistan flew to Houston to meet
with Unocal executives to discuss the building of a pipeline through
Afghanistan.”
* “A senior delegation from the Taleban movement in Afghanistan is
in the United States for talks with an international energy company that
wants to construct a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan
to Pakistan. A spokesman for the company, Unocal, said the Taleban were
expected to spend several days at the company's headquarters in
Sugarland, Texas.” “Taleban in Texas for Talks on Gas Pipeline,” BBC
News, December 4, 1997 (Sugarland is 22 miles outside Houston.)
* “The Taliban ministers and their advisers stayed in a five-star
hotel and were chauffeured in a company minibus. Their only requests
were to visit Houston's zoo, the NASA space centre and Omaha's Super
Target discount store to buy stockings, toothpaste, combs and soap. The
Taliban, which controls two-thirds of Afghanistan and is still fighting
for the last third, was also given an insight into how the other half
lives. The men, who are accustomed to life without heating, electricity
or running water, were amazed by the luxurious homes of Texan oil
barons. Invited to dinner at the palatial home of Martin Miller, a
vice-president of Unocal, they marvelled at his swimming pool, views of
the golf course and six bathrooms. After a meal of specially prepared
halal meat, rice and Coca-Cola, the hardline fundamentalists - who have
banned women from working and girls from going to school - asked Mr.
Miller about his Christmas tree.” Caroline Lees, “Oil Barons Court
Taliban in Texas,” The Telegraph (London), December 14, 1997.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “And who got a Caspian Sea drilling contract the same
day Unocal signed the pipeline deal? A company headed by a man named
Dick Cheney, Halliburton.”
* On October 27, 1997, both Unocal and Halliburton issued press
releases about their energy work in Turkmenistan. “Halliburton Energy
Services has been providing a variety of services in Turkmenistan for
the past five years.” Press Release, “Halliburton Alliance Awarded
Integrated Service Contract Offshore Caspian Sea In Turkmenistan,”
October 27, 1997. http://www.halliburton.com/news/archive/
1997/hesnws_102797.jsp; “ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, Oct. 27, 1997 -
Six international companies and the Government of Turkmenistan formed
Central Asia Gas Pipeline, Ltd. (CentGas) in formal signing ceremonies
here Saturday.” Press Release, “Consortium Formed to Build Central Asia
Gas Pipeline,” October 27, 1997.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Enron stood to benefit from the pipeline.
* Dr. Zaher Wahab of Afghanistan, a professor in the US speaking at
International Human Rights Day event, “explained that Delta, Unocal as
well as Russian, Pakistani and Japanese oil and gas companies have
signed agreements with the Turkmenistan government, immediately north of
Afghanistan, which has the fourth largest gas reserve in the world.
Agreements also have been signed with the Taliban, allowing these oil
and gas giants to pump Turkmenistan gas and oil through western
Afghanistan to Pakistan, from which it then will be shipped all over the
world. The energy consortium Enron plans to be one of the builders of
the pipeline.” Elaine Kelly, “Northwest Groups Discuss Afghan, Iranian
and Turkish Rights Violations,” Washington Report on Middle East
Affairs, March 31, 1997.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Kenneth Lay of Enron was Bush’s number one campaign
contributor.
* Mr. Lay, also a friend to former President George Bush, was the
top campaign contributor to Mr. Bush’s 2000 presidential election.”
Jerry Seper, “Colossal Collapse: Enron Bankruptcy Scandal Carves a Wide
Swath,” The Washington Times, January 13, 2002; “Although Enron is
George W. Bush’s No. 1 career donor, the president also is heavily
indebted to the professional firms that aided and abetted the greatest
bankruptcy and shareholder meltdown in U.S. history.” Texans for Public
Justice, “Bush Is Indebted To Enron’s Professional Abettors, Too,”
January 17, 2002 http://www.tpj.org/
page_view.jsp?pageid=255
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: “Then in 2001, just five and a half months before 9/11,
the Bush administration welcomed a special Taliban envoy to tour the
United States to help improve the image of the Taliban government.”
* “A Taliban envoy appealed to the Bush administration Monday to
overlook his group's support of extremist Osama bin Laden and the
destruction of priceless centuries-old Buddhist sculptures and lift
sanctions on Afghanistan to help alleviate a humanitarian crisis
threatening the lives of a million people. Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi
delivered a letter from the Taliban for President Bush that called for
better U.S.-Afghan relations and negotiations to solve the dispute over
the Saudi-born Bin Laden. Robin Wright, “Taliban Asks US to Lift its
Economic Sanctions,” Los Angeles Times, March 20, 2001.
* “The Town Hall forum was Hashemi's final meeting in a weeklong
visit to California, where he spoke at several universities, including
USC, UCLA and UC Berkeley. Later Thursday, he left for New York for
another stop on his public relations tour before going to Washington,
where he is scheduled to deliver a letter from his party to the Bush
administration.” Teresa Watanabe, “Overture By Taliban Hits Resistance,"
Los Angeles Times, March 16, 2001.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: The Taliban were harboring the man who bombed the USS
Cole and our African embassies.
* “Osama bin Laden has claimed credit for the attack on U.S.
soldiers in Somalia in October 1993, which killed 18; for the attack on
the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, which killed
224 and injured nearly 5,000; and were linked to the attack on the
U.S.S. Cole on 12 October 2000, in which 17 crew members were killed and
40 others injured. They have sought to acquire nuclear and chemical
materials for use as terrorist weapons.” “Britain's Bill of Particulars”
New York Times, October 5, 2001.
* “Osama bin Laden, in recent years, has been America's most wanted
terrorism suspect, with a $5 million reward on his head for his alleged
role in the August 1998 truck bombings of two American embassies in East
Africa that killed more than 200 people, as well as a string of other
terrorist attacks… Most recently, the F.B.I. has named Mr. bin Laden as
a prime suspect in the suicide bombing of the American destroyer Cole,
which was attacked in Aden harbor, 350 miles by road southwest of here,
on Oct. 12, with the loss of 17 sailors' lives." John F. Burns, “Where
bin Laden Has Roots, His Mystique Grows,” New York Times, December 31,
2000.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Hamid Karzai was a former Unocal advisor.
* “Cool and worldly, Karzai is a former employee of US oil company
Unocal -- one of two main oil companies that was bidding for the
lucrative contract to build an oil pipeline from Uzbekistan through
Afghanistan to seaports in Pakistan -- and the son of a former Afghan
parliament speaker.” Ilene R. Prusher, Scott Baldauf, and Edward
Girardet, “Afghan power brokers,” Christian Science Monitor, June 10,
2002. http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0610/
p01s03e-wosc.html.
* Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a former Unocal adviser, signed a
treaty with Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf and the Turkmen dictator
Saparmurat Niyazov to authorize construction of a $3.2 billion gas
pipeline through the Heart-Kandahar corridor in Afghanistan.” Lutz
Kleveman, “Oil and the New ‘Great Game," The Nation, February 16, 2004.
* TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH: “He was a consultant for the American oil
company Unocal, while they studied the construction of a pipeline in
Afghanistan." Chipaux Francoise, “Hamid Karzaï, Une Large Connaissance
Du Monde Occidental,” Le Monde, December 6, 2001.en minutes
GO TO SECTION SIX
Factual Back-Up for Fahrenheit 9/11: Section Six
THE FOLLOWING IS THE LINE BY LINE FACTUAL BACKUP FOR 'FAHRENHEIT 9/11'
Section Six covers the facts in Fahrenheit 9/11 from the Patriot Act
through the war in Iraq.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: "Bush also appointed as our envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay
Khalilzad, who was also a former Unocal advisor."
* "Mr. Khalilzad himself knows how compasses change. In the
mid-1990's, he briefly defended the Taliban while working as a
consultant for Unocal, the oil company that was then trying to build a
pipeline through Afghanistan. He later became one of the Taliban's
fiercest critics." Amy Waldman, "Afghan Returns Home as American
Ambassador," New York Times, April 19, 2004.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: "Afghanistan signed the agreement to build a pipeline
through its country carrying natural gas from the Caspian Sea ."
* "The framework agreement defines legal mechanisms for setting up
a consortium to build and operate the long-delayed US$3.2-billion
natural gas pipeline, known as the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline, which
would carry gas from energy-rich Turkmenistan to Pakistan. It would be
one of the first major investment projects in Afghanistan in decades."
Baglia Bukharbayeva "Pakistani, Turkmen, Afghan Leaders Sign US$3.2
Billion Pipeline Deal," Associated Press, December 27, 2002.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: "In the year 2000, [John Ashcroft] was running for
re-election as Senator from Missouri against a man who died the month
before the election. The voters preferred the dead guy."
* "Sen. John Ashcroft on Wednesday graciously conceded defeat in
his re-election campaign against the late Gov. Mel Carnahan and urged
fellow Republicans to call off any legal challenges." Eric Stern,
"Ashcroft Rejects Challenge To Election; Senator Says He Hopes
Carnahan’s Victory Will Be ‘Of Comfort’ To Widow,"St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, November 9, 2000 .
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: "During the summer before 9/11, Ashcroft told acting
FBI director Thomas Pickard that he didn’t want to hear anything more
about terrorist threats."
* "Former interim FBI chief Thomas Pickard testified Tuesday that
Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft didn’t want to hear about terrorism when
Pickard tried to brief him during the summer of 2001, as intelligence
reports about terrorist threats were reaching a historic level." Cam
Simpson, "Ashcroft Ignored Terrorism, Panel Told; Attorney General
Denies Charges, Blames Clinton," Chicago Tribune, April 14, 2004.
* See also film footage.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: "His own FBI knew that summer that there were al Qaeda
members in the U.S. , and that bin Laden was sending his agents to
flight schools throughout the country."
* [T]he July 2001 ‘Phoenix’ memo, written by an FBI agent in
Arizona, warned about ‘an inordinate number of individuals of
investigative interest’ taking flight training. It urged the agency to
collect data on flight schools and foreign students, and to discuss the
potential threat with other intelligence agencies. ...[O]ne of the men
mentioned in the memo was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 with a senior al
Qaeda facilitator, Abu Zubayda. R. Jeffrey Smith, "A History of Missed
Connections; U.S. Analysts Warned of Potential Attacks but Lacked
Follow-Through," Washington Post, July 25, 2003.
* Excerpt from "Phoenix Memo": "The purpose of this communication
is to advise the Bureau and New York of the possibility of a coordinated
effort by USAMA BIN LADEN (UBL) to send students to the United States to
attend civil aviation universities and colleges. Phoenix has observed an
inordinate number of individuals of investigative interest who are
attending or who have attended civil aviation universities and colleges
in the State of Arizona." Read the entire Phoenix Memo at:
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/
creports/911.html
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: "[T]he photo of the man in the newspaper was not the
Aaron Stokes they had come to know, [a member of Peace Fresno]. He was
actually Deputy Aaron Kilner. And he had infiltrated their group."
* "Aaron Kilner, 27, who joined the force in June 1999 and had been
assigned the last 18 months to the anti-terrorist team under the
vice-intelligence unit, apparently was killed instantly when his blue
Yamaha motorcycle slammed into the right front side of a 1999 Buick,
Fresno police said." Louis Galvan, "Crash Kills Off-Duty Detective,
Victim Joined Fresno County Force in 1999," Fresno Bee, August 31, 2003.
* "It remains unclear why the Fresno County Sheriff's Department
infiltrated the peace group there, but Pierce said his department's
actions were legal. ‘We can be anywhere we want to that's open to the
public,’ Pierce said in a telephone interview from his Fresno office."
Sam Stanton and Emily Bazar, "More Scrutiny of Peace Groups, Public
Safety Justifies Surveillance Since 9/11, Authorities Say," Sacramento
Bee, November 9, 2003.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Barry Reingold’s story.
* "Then there's San Franciscan Barry Reingold, who was awakened
from his afternoon nap by a buzzing intercom on Oct. 23. He called down
to the street to find out who it was. ‘The FBI,’ was the response. He
buzzed the two men up, but decided to meet them in the hall. ‘I was a
little bit shaken up,’ says Mr. Reingold. ‘I mean, why would the FBI be
interested in me, a 60-year-old retired phone company worker?’ When they
asked if he worked out at a certain gym, he realized the reason behind
the visit. The gym is where he lifts weights -- and expounds on his
political views." Kris Axtman, "Political Dissent Can Bring Federal
Agents to Door," Christian Science Monitor, January 8, 2002. See also,
Sam Stanton, Emily Bazar, "Security Collides With Civil Rights, War On
Terrorism Has Unforeseen Results," Modesto Bee, September 28, 2003.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Congress did not read the Patriot Act before voting on it.
* "Later that morning [of October 12], the House voted 337-79 to
pass the bill. The outraged dissenters complained that no one could
possibly have had the time to read the enormously complex 342-page law
that amended fifteen different federal statutes and that had only been
printed out hours before." Steven Brill, After; How America Confronted
the September 12 Era, (Simon & Schuster, NY: 2003).
* "Many lawmakers were outraged that a bipartisan bill, which had
passed the Judiciary Committee by a unanimous vote, was set aside for
legislation negotiated at the last minute by a very small group. Members
rose to say that almost no one had read the new bill, and pleaded for
more time and more deliberation.... Asked about complaints that
lawmakers were being asked to vote on a bill that they had not read, the
chairman of the Rules Committee, Representative David Dreier, Republican
of California, replied, ‘It's not unprecedented.’" Robin Toner & Neil A.
Lewis, "House Passes Terrorism Bill Much Like Senate's, but With 5-Year
Limit," The New York Times, October 13, 2001.
* See also film footage of Congressmen Conyers and McDermott.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Transportation Security Agency says it’s okay to take
four books of matches and two butane lighters in your pockets as you
board an airplane.
* "Consistent with Department of Transportation regulations for
hazardous materials, passengers also are permitted to carry no more than
four books of matches (other than strike anywhere matches) and no more
than two lighters for individual use, if the lighters are fueled with
liquefied gas (BIC-or Colibri-type) or absorbed liquid (Zippo-type).’’
49 CFR 1540; http://www.tsa.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/
68_FR_9902.pdf
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: "Thanks to the budget cuts, Trooper Kenyon had to come
in on his day off to catch up on some paperwork."
* "Budget cuts that laid off 129 Oregon State Police officers
earlier this year have left a single trooper to cover the
1,400-square-mile territory and 100 miles of state roads around this
city on Oregon's central coast." "Layoffs Leave Oregon Trooper Alone in
Big Coastal Territory," Seattle Times, October 6, 2003.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: "On March 19th, 2003, George W. Bush and the United
States military invaded Iraq, which had never attacked or threatened to
attack the United States. A nation that had never murdered a single
American citizen."
* "Iraq has never threatened nor been implicated in any attack
against U.S. territory and the CIA has reported no Iraqi-sponsored
attacks against American interests since 1991." Stephen Zunes, "An
Annotated Overview of the Foreign Policy Segments of President George W.
Bush’s State of the Union Address," Foreign Policy In Focus, January 29,
2003. Segments of President George W. Bush’s State of the Union
Address," Foreign Policy In Focus, January 29, 2003
* "Iraq never threatened U.S.security. Bush officials cynically
attacked a villainous country because they knew it was easier than
finding the real 9/11 villain, who had no country. And now they're hoist
on their own canard." Maureen Dowd, "We’re Not Happy Campers," The New
York Times, September 11, 2003.
* "Iraq never threatened the US, let alone Australia. The basic
consideration was and remains the perception of America's wider
strategic interest in the Middle East." Richard Woolcott, "Thread bare
Basis To The Homespun Yarn That Led Us Into Iraq," Sydney Morning
Herald, November 26, 2003—(Woolcott was Australia’s Secretary of the
Department of Foreign Affairs And Trade during the first Gulf War.)
* For definition of murder of civilians (as opposed to combatants),
see Article 3 of the Geneva Convention . ("For persons taking no active
part in the hostilities, the following acts are and shall remain
prohibited at any time (a) Violence to life and person, in particular
murder of all kinds.")
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: The Coalition of the Willing included Palau, Costa
Rica, Iceland, Romania, The Netherlands, and Afghanistan.
* White House list of Coalition members, March 20th, 2003:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/
2003/03/print/20030320-11.html
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Morocco , according to one report, offered to send
2,000 monkeys to help detonate landmines.
* "The administration has even turned to the animal kingdom for
help in the war. First came the dolphins, those really smart mammals
recruited to help clear mines at the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr. Then came
word that Morocco was offering 2,000 monkeys to help detonate land
mines." Al Kamen, "They Got the ‘Slov’ Part Right," Washington Post,
March 28, 2003.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: "The government would not allow any cameras to show the
coffins coming home."
* "For the past 13 years, the Pentagon has barred reporters from
witnessing the transport of soldiers' flag-draped coffins to Dover Air
Force Base in Delaware." Amanda Ripley, "An Image of Grief Returns,"
Time, May 3, 2004.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: "At the end of January, of ’04, the unemployment rate
in Flint was actually 17 percent."
* Flint City, Jan 04, Unemployment Rate, 17.0%. Office of Labor
Market Information, Michigan State Government.
http://www.michlmi.org/LMI/lmadata/laus/
lausdocs/049lf04.htm
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Bush "proposed cutting the soldiers’ combat bonus pay
33 percent and assistance to their families by 60 percent."
* The Bush administration announced that it would roll-back
‘modest’ increases of benefits to troops. The Army Times noted, "the
administration announced that on Oct. 1 it wants to roll back recent
modest increases in monthly imminent-danger from $225 to $150 (a cut of
33%) and family-separation allowances from $250 to $100 (a cut of 60%)
for troops getting shot at in combat zones."
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php
?f=1-292259-1989240.php
* "Thanks to a law passed this year, troops in Iraq, Afghanistan
and other high-risk areas now receive $225 a month in supplemental pay.
That's an increase of $75 from the previous amount for combat pay. Under
that same law, soldiers who have been forced to leave behind spouses and
children receive $250 a month in additional separation pay to help cover
child care and other additional expenses caused by assignment overseas.
That's an increase of $150 over the previous supplement. ... In its 2004
budget request, the Pentagon asked Congress to cut both combat pay and
separation pay back to the previous levels." "Our Opinions: Proposal to
Reduce Pay No Way to Salute Military," Atlanta Journal Constitution,
August 15, 2003.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: "He proposed cutting $1.3 billion in veterans’ health
care and closing seven veteran’s hospitals. He tried to double the
prescription drug costs for veterans and opposed full benefits for part
time reservist."
* "On Nov. 12, the Office of Management & Budget opposed restoring
$1.3 billion in funding for Veterans Administration hospitals that the
House Appropriations Committee had cut. '’It's as if they're not even
aware [that] there's a war on terror going on,’ says Steve Thomas, an
American Legion spokesman and Navy vet who notes casualties in Iraq
could make demand for VA services soar." Stan Crock in Washington, with
William C. Symonds in Boston, "Will The Troops Salute Bush In '04?,"
Business Week, December 8, 2003.
* "The White House had expressed its ‘strong opposition’ to the
Senate’s effort to expand military health benefits to reservists and
National Guard members, and boost 'veterans’ health care spending by
$1.3 billion." Jonathan Weisman, "Bush Aides Threaten Veto of Iraqi Aid
Measure," Washington Post, October 22, 2003.
* In early 2003, the Bush administration announced that it was
closing "seven of its 163 veteran’s hospitals in an effort to
‘restructure’ the Department of Veterans Affairs." Suzanne Gamboa, "VA
Proposes Overhaul, 13 Facilities Would Close or See Major Changes,"
Associated Press, August 4, 2003.
* In 2003, the Bush administration proposed increasing prescription
drug costs for veterans, a proposal that would have doubled the cost of
prescription drugs. "The Bush plan would have included a new $250
enrollment fee and a co-pay increase from $7 to $15 for veterans earning
over $24,000." The House amended the proposal to reject the Bush
administration’s fee increases and to recoup the $264 million in costs
by reducing administrative funding for the VA. "Panel Rejects Extra
Funds for AmeriCorps," Washington Post, July 22, 2003.
* "The Bush administration is flatly opposed to giving the Guard
and Reserve access to the Pentagon's health system." Opinion, The Daily
News Leader (Staunton, VA), October 25, 2003.
* "U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has helped push a bill through
the Senate to improve the health care benefits of Guard and Reserve
members. This bill has had broad bipartisan support since it was
introduced in May. Last week Graham had his health care plan attached as
an amendment to the $87 billion supplemental appropriations bill that
President Bush is seeking to pay for ongoing operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan. The House should take up the amendment next week.
Strangely, the Bush administration has opposed this new benefit for
Guard and Reserve members, arguing that it would be too expensive."
Staff, "Helping our Guard and Reserve," The Greenville News, October 16,
2003.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Nearly 5,000 wounded in the war.
* "A year ago at this time, more than 160 American soldiers had
been killed in Iraq. The total since has risen to more than 800, and
last week the Pentagon reported that the number wounded in action is
approaching 4,700." Pete Yost, "Bush Hails U.S. War Dead and
Veterans," Associated Press, June 1, 2004.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11: "Out of the 535 members of Congress, only one had an
enlisted son in Iraq."
* “Only four of the 535 members of Congress have children in the
military; only one, Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., has a child who fought in
Iraq.” Kevin Horrigan, “Hired Guns,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 11, 2003.