Official *Bush White House Scandal Thread #2

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I first visited Democratic Underground from a link at Bush Watch probably a little over two years ago. For months I lurked and read, always afraid to register and contribute. It was, at that time, inconceivable to me to amount of corruption present at the highest levels of our government. I was naive, just like I imagine alot of visitors to DU start out.

I wanted to start a thread that newcomers to DU could use to acquaint themselves with the times we live in. Times that I consider to be dangerous. We need to take our country back. Hopefully these threads will alert our visiting friends to get involved and inform others.

It has taken me two years to arrive at the level of awareness I am at today. It is my hope that you will join us.

I am searching archives to post information of the scandal after scandalous scandal I awake to every single day when I come to check in here.

I hope that other members will join me in contributing to these threads, as we have many brilliant, educated, and informed members. They have taught me so much, and opened my eyes.

Link to Official White House Scandal Thread #1 (You will be shocked and appalled) These are the first 100 posts.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1253139&mesg_id=1253139

[sadiesworld]

1. Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you.

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2. Terror futures market back in business

CNNMoney: Terror futures market back in business


http://money.cnn.com/2003/11/17/news/terror_futures/index.htm?cnn=yes

A U.S. government plan to create a market allowing traders to bet on the likelihood of terror attacks and other events in the Middle East has been revived by the private firm that helped develop it.

The market, called the Policy Analysis Market (PAM), will allow traders to buy and sell contracts on political and economic events in the Middle East, including assassinations, the overthrow of regimes and terrorist attacks. The market is scheduled to start trading next spring.

It originally was developed and funded with the assistance of the Defense Department, where officials cited the uncanny ability of other futures markets to predict election results, weather patterns and other complex events.

Heated public criticism forced the Pentagon to end its association with the project, but its Web site, which was idle for several months, now has an announcement saying it will be open for business in March 2004.

[molly]

3. You go girl! (whoops)

"We need to take our country back."

I'll go visit your other thread. :yourock:

Oh, and, thanks for your hard work!

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4. Poindexter to Quit Pentagon Post Amid Controversy

Poindexter to Quit Pentagon Post Amid Controversy


WASHINGTON (AP) - Retired Adm. John Poindexter will resign his position at the Pentagon after a research project he was overseeing was condemned by Congress as an "egregious error of judgment."

A senior defense official said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Poindexter realized that "it would be difficult" for him to continue in his job after the flap over a plan to establish a futures market that would have allowed traders to profit by correctly predicting assassinations and terrorist strikes in the Middle East. (Related story: Pentagon cancels threat-bet program.)

He said Rumsfeld did not ask for his resignation but that Poindexter was "working through the details" and "expects to offer" it within a few weeks.

MORE

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-07-31-poindexter_x.htm

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5. Local Peace Group Infiltrated By Government Agent

Local Peace Group Infiltrated By Government Agent


LOCAL PEACE GROUP INFILTRATED BY GOVERNMENT AGENT
By Mike Rhodes
October 4, 2003

Peace Fresno was infiltrated by an agent working for the Fresno Sheriff’s Department. Aaron Kilner, known by Peace Fresno activists as Aaron Stokes, attended several Peace Fresno meetings. Peace Fresno activist Nicholas DeGraff remembers him taking voluminous notes and several members say they saw him at peace vilgils held at Shaw and Blackstone. He was also on the bus local anti-globalization activists took to attend the WTO ministerial-level conference on Agricultural Science and Technology demonstration in Sacramento in June 2003.

Aaron Kilner died in a motorcycle accident on August 30, 2003. In his obituary in The Fresno Bee he was identified as a member of the Fresno County Sheriff’s department. The obituary went on to say that he was “assigned to the anti-terrorist team.” Local activists believe that this “anti-terrorist team” is, in fact, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) that has recently been formed in this area.. When members of Peace Fresno saw the picture and read of Kilner’s association with law enforcement they began piecing the story together.

<more>
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I realize this is a little more than 12 hours old, but I thought it was important, and still could be seen as "breaking" news. I haven't heard anything else about it on the board.

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/10/1650550.php

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6. How a Schizophrenic Foreign Policy Led to Deadly Domestic Terrorism

http://alexconstantine.50megs.com/home.html
Flashback: The CIA and the Sheikh

How a Schizophrenic Foreign Policy Led to Deadly Domestic Terrorism
(snip)
Bush II

Despite Sheehan's thorough condemnation, the Bush administration began to negotiate with the Taliban in February, 2001, according to Jean Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasque, authors of Bin Laden: La Vérité Interdite. Handling public relations for the Taliban in this phase was Laila Helms, niece of former CIA Director Richard Helms. The Taliban reportedly offered to extradite bin Laden in exchange for diplomatic recognition. In May Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that the U.S. would provide $43 million in drought relief aid Brisard and Dasque point to the preponderance of energy industry officials in the Bush administration and an "oil above all" philosophy in explaining why a U.S. government would resume negotiations with a regime such as that characterized in Michael Sheehan's testimony. They regard with special suspicion the continued refusal of Vice President Cheney to release information about the deliberations of the Energy Policy Task Force. At a minimum, the Bush administration apparently was seduced by the same arguments that influenced U.S. behavior in the Unocal pipeline episode: oil development in the region required a stable government in Afghanistan. Initially, the Taliban appeared to offer that possibility.

Several meetings with the Taliban took place under the auspices of the United Nations, the book asserts. Facilitated by Fransesc Vendrell, personal representative of UN Secretary General Kofi-Annan, the meetings were attended by representatives of the six countries bordering Afghanistan, plus Russian and the US. The assemblage was sometimes referred to as the group of 6+2. Taliban representatives reportedly sat in on some of the group's meetings. Former Pakistani Minister of Foreign Affairs, Naif Naik confirmed to French television that during a July 6+2 meeting in Berlin, the formation of a "government of national unity" in Afghanistan was discussed. "If the Taliban had accepted this coalition, they would have immediately received international economic aid. And the pipelines from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan would have come," he said.

According to Naik, Tom Simons, the US representative at these meetings, openly threatened the Taliban and Pakistan, saying "…either the Taliban behave as they ought to, or Pakistan convinces them to do so, or we will use another option'. Naik claimed Simons used the words 'a military operation'.

The last meeting between the Taliban and the U.S. government took place in August. Christina Rocca, director of the State Departments's bureau of Asian affairs who had reportedly worked on Central Asian matters for the CIA between 1982 and 1997, met with the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan in Islamabad.

Another assertion in Ben Laden: La Vérité Interdite -- "the main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it". John P. O'Neill, former director of counterterrorism for the FBI's New York had been leading the investigation of the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000, but had been barred by the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen from returning there in July of this year. The reasons given were that O'Neill had no cultural sensitivity and was harming U.S. relations.
(snip)

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7. Top-secret 9-11 conf. call may shed new light on Bush's shoot-

Top-secret 9-11 conf. call may shed new light on Bush's shoot-down order


http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/030908/usnews/8sept11.htm

Nation & World 9/8/03
Pieces of the Puzzle
A top-secret conference call on September 11 could shed new light on the terrorist attacks


...Shoot-down order. The transcript may also shed light on the military's response to Dictator Bush's unprecedented order to shoot down any hijacked civilian airplane. Pentagon sources say Bush communicated the order to Cheney almost immediately after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon and the FAA, for the first time ever, ordered all domestic flights grounded. "There are unanswered questions," says Richard Ben-Veniste, a commission member and former federal prosecutor, as to whether the shoot-down order "had been rehearsed for, whether it had been prepared for, and what measures were in place to protect the Capitol," believed to be the hijackers' original target for Flight 77.

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8. Families Demand Exec. Director of 9/11 Commission Resign.

Families Demand Exec. Director of 9/11 Commission Resign.


-- The Sept. 11 Family Steering Committee has reacted to the news that Philip Zelikow, executive director of the 9/11 Commission, attended a Clinton-Bush transition meeting for White House national security staff (on the Bush side with his co-author, Condoleeza Rice). Terrorism and the effort to capture Osama bin Laden were among the topics discussed at this meeting. Zelikow is thus hopelessly compromised as the head of an investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks.

Yet the executive director has controlled the entire flow of evidence presented to the members of the Kean Commission! Under the Commission's agreement with the White House Zelikow is one of only two allowed to read the presidential daily briefs predating Sept. 11 (the other is Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, a former Clinton administration member).

The FSC now demands Zelikow's immediate resignation. Next week should bring some very interesting developments. The Kean Commission is meeting, apparently with Rumsfeld and Tenet as witnesses. Clinton just made a big self-exonerating statement yesterday, claiming his administration told the incoming Bush people everything they needed to know in the effort to dismantle the Bin Laden terror network. Time magazine this week published a Joe Klein article on the ongoing controversies and the Family Steering Committee's list of 23 questions to Bush.

-------------

Statement of the Family Steering Committee for
The 9/11 Independent Commission
March 20, 2004

From http://www.911independentcommission.org

The Family Steering Committee is deeply disturbed to learn about Executive Staff Director Phillip Zelikow’s participation in urgent post election briefings, December 2000, and January 2001, with Sandy Berger and Condoleezza Rice. In this particular meeting the Senior Clinton Administration official clearly warned that Al Qaeda posed the worst Security threat facing the nation.

It is apparent that Dr. Zelikow should never have been appointed to be Executive Staff Director of the Commission. As Executive Staff Director his job has been to determine the focus and direction of the Commission’s investigation, an investigation whose mandate includes understanding why the Bush Administrations failed to prioritize the Al Qaeda threat. It is abundantly clear that Dr. Zelikow’s conflicts go beyond just the transition period.

It is extremely distressing to learn this information at this late date. This new information clearly calls into question the integrity of this Commission’s investigation. The Family Steering Committee repeatedly expressed concerns over all members’ conflicts requesting that the commission be forthcoming so as not to taint the validity of the report. The Family Steering Committee was unaware of Dr. Zelikow’s participation in this intelligence briefing until today.

As such, the Family Steering Committee is calling for:

1. Dr. Zelikow’s immediate resignation.

2. Dr. Zelikow’s testimony in public and under oath.

3. Subpoena of Dr. Zelikow's notes from the intelligence briefings he attended with Richard Clarke

4. The Commission to apologize to the 9/11 families and America for this massive appearance of impropriety.

The Family Steering Committee (FSC) is an independent, nonpartisan group of individuals who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. The FSC does not receive financial or other support from any outside organizations.


(Letter from the Family Steering Committee to the 9/11 Commission chairs)

March 20, 2004

Dear Chairman Kean, Vice-Chair Hamilton, and Commissioners:

Very disturbing information has surfaced regarding Philip Zelikow's participation in the failure to heed warnings about al Qaeda and imminent attacks on America in the months prior to September 11th.

It is clear that Dr. Zelikow should never have been permitted to be a member of the Commission, since it is the mandate of the Commission to identify the source of 9/11 failures. Dr. Zelikow has a conflict of interest that extends beyond just the transition. It is now apparent why there has been so little effort to assign individual culpability. We now can see that trail would lead directly to the staff director himself.

What little time the Commission has left must be spent without the taint of Dr. Zelikow's influence. We demand his immediate resignation.

Sincerely,

The Family Steering Committee


Sept

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9. Aide's Book Details Bush* 9/11 Response

WP: Aide's Book Details Bush* 9/11 Response

(snip)

Like former Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill, who spoke out in January, Clarke said some of Bush's leading advisers arrived in office determined to make war on Iraq. Nearly all of them, he said, believed Clinton had been "overly obsessed with al Qaeda."

(snip)

In his experience, Clarke writes, Bush's description by critics as "a dumb, lazy rich kid" is "somewhat off the mark." Bush has "a results-oriented mind, but he looked for the simple solution, the bumper sticker description of the problem."

"Any leader whom one can imagine as president on September 11 would have declared a 'war on terrorism' and would have ended the Afghan sanctuary by invading," Clarke writes. "What was unique about George Bush's reaction" was the additional choice to invade "not a country that had been engaging in anti-U.S. terrorism but one that had not been, Iraq." In so doing, he estranged allies, enraged potential friends in the Arab and Islamic worlds, and produced "more terrorists than we jail or shoot."

"It was as if Osama bin Laden, hidden in some high mountain redoubt, were engaging in long-range mind control of George Bush, chanting 'invade Iraq, you must invade Iraq,' " Clarke writes.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13607-2004Mar21_2.html

[opihimoimoi]

10. Bush displays signs of a Pyscho Prez.... World History is replete with

them. Looky here, we seem to have one of our own.

Madness reigns

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11. Bush-Saudi Ties: The Billion Dollar Question

Bush-Saudi Ties: The Billion Dollar Question

http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/affalert160.shtml

NEW YORK, March 22, 2004 -- With the media, timing is everything," says Craig Unger, whose book "House of Bush, House of Saud" is just out. "And now is the time to get to bottom of the events leading to 9-11." snip

"Without the Saudis, there is no 9-11," he says. "That's the ugly truth. When we delve into it, we begin unraveling a thread that is central to American political culture."

Questions raised in Unger's book have never been asked in a White House press conference -- but should be.

Questions like: Why did the Bush Administration authorize the airlift of 140 Saudis out of the United States immediately after 9-11, when airspace was so restricted that, as recounted in the book's dramatic opening, a plane carrying a heart transplant for a desperately ill man was forced from the air?

Those flown out included 24 members of Osama bin Laden's family -- and one Saudi prince with reported links to Al Qaeda.

more

The Sauds and the Bushes


http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/living/8235572.htm

Journalist explores whether ruling families are too close for comfort

By J.R. Labbe

Star-Telegram Staff Writer


With a spate of books critical of the current administration arriving in stores in the months leading up to the presidential election, Craig Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud runs the risk of being dismissed by George W. Bush supporters as one more example of ideological spleen-venting. snip

Much of the information Unger has amassed from a variety of sources and personal interviews is not new. Take, for example, information about 140 Saudis, including dozens of relatives of Osama bin Laden, being flown out of the United States in the days immediately following Sept. 11 -- a time when almost all other air traffic was grounded.

Astoundingly, at a time when "Arabs all over the country were being rounded up and interrogated," these Saudis were allowed to leave without being so much as interviewed by federal law-enforcement officials.

That nugget and others in Unger's investigation have been scattered among newspapers and magazines in unconnected bites for months -- and, in some cases, years. But Unger has skillfully packaged declassified government documents, reports from congressional investigations and media accounts to construct a jarring picture of money, power and privilege that raises as many questions as it answers.

more

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12. Panel calls for Condoleezza Rice to appear

Panel calls for Condoleezza Rice to appear


http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=1489

CAPITOL HILL - Members of the federal panel that's been looking into 9/11 say they're not hearing from everyone they want to hear from.

The panel has opened two days of hearings on the anti-terrorism efforts of the Bush and Clinton administrations before 9/11.

The ten-member panel had invited National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify. She declined, with the White House citing concerns about separation of powers.

One panel member says that's not a good enough excuse.