What George W Bush Doesn't Want the World To Know

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http://www.sundayherald.com/44773

 

What George W Bush Doesn't

Want the World To Know

By Neil Mackay

 

Investigations Editor

The Sunday Herald - UK

9-12-4

 

 

Is President George W Bush, who weaves a narrative

about himself as a man of God, actually a charlatan?

Is he really a wolf in sheep's clothing? Is his faith

a sham? Is he more bad boy than born again? More

playboy than penitent?

 

This past month has seen John Kerry, Bush's Democratic

rival for the White House, take one almighty pasting

from the Republican right wing over accusations that

he exaggerated his military record in Vietnam. Kerry,

a many times decorated navy Vietnam veteran, said the

smear campaign was orchestrated by a Bush team

desperate to divert attention from the woeful state of

the US economy and the running sore of Iraq.

 

But this week it's Bush's turn to line up for a

beating. But where Kerry has a single questionable

question mark hanging over his past, Bush's charge

sheet for alleged wrongdoing has got it all ñ sex,

drugs, cowardice, cruelty; his alleged failings and

foibles are imperial in stature.

 

These are the issues being debated as a result of

further revelations into the shrouded past of the

President.

 

His Military Record

 

President Bush has wrapped himself in the Stars and

Stripes since the horror of September 11. His

presidency has pushed a simple message: America is in

danger and he's the man to keep the people safe; he'll

take the fight against the terrorists abroad and he's

proud of the USA's troops.

 

If that is the case, why is Bush mired in a scandal

about his Vietnam-era service, or lack of, with fresh

allegations that he was able to sneak out of serving

his country overseas because his daddy was famous,

powerful and rolling in cash?

 

Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard during the

Vietnam war as a pilot and never left the country. He

even cut short his military commitment in 1973. In

1989, he told a local newspaper in Texas: " I regret

not having gone to Vietnam. " He went on to say that " I

did my time " and " I did my duty " .

 

Despite Bush's claims, his service in the home-based

National Guard is highly questionable. CBS

Television's acclaimed 60 Minutes programme

interviewed Ben Barnes, a former speaker of the Texas

House of Representatives, who said that he pulled

strings for a Bush family friend to get George Jr into

the National Guard so he could avoid service in

Vietnam.

 

" I was a young, ambitious politician, " Barnes said,

" doing what I thought was acceptable, that was

important to make friends " I would describe it as

preferential treatment.

 

" I was maybe determining life or death and that's not

a power that I want to have. I've thought about it an

awful lot. You walk through the Vietnam memorial and,

I tell you, you'll think about it a long time. "

 

CBS also produced documents which allegedly showed

that in 1973, Bush's superior officer complained of

being pressurised to " sugar-coat " an annual officer

evaluation for Bush even though the future President

had not been at the base for the year in question. His

opponents accuse him of going awol ñ absent without

leave.

 

According to airforce records, Bush did not meet his

military commitments. On July 30, 1973, shortly before

he moved from Houston, Texas, to Harvard to take an

MBA course, he signed a document that declared: " It is

my responsibility to locate and be assigned to another

reserve forces unit or mobilisation augmentation

position. If I fail to do so, I am subject to

involuntary order to active duty for up to 24 months. "

 

Bush didn't sign up with a National Guard unit when he

moved to New England ñ but nor did he get drafted as a

punishment. In May 1968, Bush signed a " statement of

understanding " that he would " achieve satisfactory

participation " , including attendance at 24 days of

annual weekend duty and 15 days of annual active duty

at home. The document also said that Bush would face

two years in Vietnam for " unsatisfactory

participation " .

 

Bush performed no service for an entire six-month

period in 1972 and for a period lasting almost three

months in 1973, yet Bush's unit certified in late 1973

that his service had been " satisfactory " . His

opponents say this was favouritism shown to a wilful

rich boy.

 

Retired army colonel Gerald A Lechliter, who has

studied Bush's military records, says: " He broke his

contract with the United States government - without

any adverse consequences. And the Texas Air National

Guard was complicit in allowing this to happen. He was

a pilot. It cost the government a million dollars to

train him to fly. So he should have been held to an

even higher standard. "

 

The unit that Bush was assigned to was known as the

Champagne Squadron because of the number of sons of

American millionaires who served in it. The unit

included the sons of former Texas governor John

Connally and former senator Lloyd Bensten, as well as

several members of the Dallas Cowboys American

football team.

 

Retired Lt Col Albert C Lloyd Jr said that by not

joining a unit in Massachusetts, Bush " took a chance

that he could be called up for active duty, but the

war was winding down and he probably knew that the

airforce was not enforcing the penalty " .

 

Lawrence J Korb, an assistant secretary of defence in

the Reagan White House, said Bush " gamed the system " ,

adding: " If I cheat on my income tax and don't get

caught, I'm still cheating on my income tax. "

 

When Bush enlisted in the US equivalent of the

Territorial Army, he was given an automatic commission

as a second lieutenant and underwent flight training

for 13 months. In June 1970, he began what should have

been a four-year posting with the 111th Fighter

Interceptor Squadron. However, in May 1972 he moved to

Alabama to work on a US senate campaign on the

condition that he trained with the National Guard in

that state.

 

Nobody has come forward with any memory of Bush

serving in the National Guard while in Alabama or when

he returned to Texas in 1973. In Alabama, Bush was

removed from flight status as he failed to take an

annual physical test in July 1972.

 

His last physical test had been in May 1971. Major

General Paul A Weaver Jr, who retired in 2002 as head

of the Pentagon's Air National Guard, said: " There is

no excuse for that. Aviators just don't miss their

flight physicals. "

 

After inspecting Bush's brief record of flying, Weaver

said: " I would not have let him near the airplane. "

Weaver added: " It appears that nobody wanted to hold

him accountable. " Former friends of the Bush family

have said that Bush was sent to Alabama as he kept

" getting in trouble and embarrassing the family " .

 

In May 1973, Bush's superior officers said they could

not complete his annual performance review as he had

not been seen at the base in Houston for 12 months.

Terry McAuliffe, chair of the Democratic National

Committee, said that " the President did not serve

honourably " .

 

Memos uncovered by CBS purport to show that Bush's

superior officer, Lt Col Jerry B Killian, felt he was

being forced by his own commander, Brigadier General

Walter B Staudt, to go soft on Bush for his

underperformance.

 

The memo, dated August 1973, shows the political clout

that Bush had and an attempt, opponents say, to

embellish his service record. Bush's father was a

Houston congressman at the time of the Vietnam war.

 

Another Killian memo, headed " CYA " - a

military acronym for " cover your ass " ñ reads that

Staudt " has obviously pressured [Major-General Bobby

W] Hodges more about Bush. I'm having trouble running

interference and doing my job " .

 

The memo adds that Killian received " a message today

regarding Bush's [annual officer efficiency report]

and Staudt is pushing to sugar-coat it " . Killian also

felt that Bush was " talking to someone upstairs " to

engineer a move to Alabama.

 

Robert Strong, a friend of the late Killian who ran

the Texas Air National Guard offices, said that

because of Bush Killian had " found himself between a

rock and a hard place " .

 

CBS reported that the White House did not dispute the

authenticity of these documents. However, some

questions have been raised about their provenance,

with typographical experts saying the documents were

produced by computers, not 1970s typewriters.

 

CBS, however, said it had the documents authenticated

by its own experts. CBS also spoke to Killian's

superior, Major-General Hodges, who said the

sentiments in the memos were the same as Killian

expressed to him. However, Marjorie Connell, Killian's

widow, said she didn't believe her husband would have

used the words in the memos.

 

In a reversal of the sniper attacks launched on John

Kerry and his military record by the Swiftboat

Veterans for Truth organisation's adverts on TV, an

outfit calling itself Texans for Truth is going to

start running television ads asking if Bush ever

served with a unit in Alabama. The Republicans have

already rubbished the planned ads as unfair and

playing dirty.

 

Cocaine, Booze And Abortions

 

Being proved to be a little yellow- bellied about

fighting in Vietnam would be mere collateral damage to

the Bush campaign compared to the all-out nuclear

holocaust which would ensue if the allegations made

about Dubya's cocaine use and abortion-fixing, in

biographer and muck-raker Kitty Kelly's forthcoming

book on the Bush family, stand up to scrutiny.

 

Bush's stance as a strongly moral Christian who prizes

family values and Biblical ethics is just as powerful

a pull on his supporters as his patriotism and

militarism. Bush has come out as bitterly opposed to

abortion. His acceptance speech for the presidential

nomination at last month's Republican Party Convention

in New York City was peppered with sentiments about

the rights of the unborn child and the wrongs of gay

marriage.

 

The Republican party faithful see the President as a

man of moral rectitude who will keep the liberal

barbarians from the gates. But if, as alleged by

Kelly, Bush used class A drugs and arranged for

doctors to " kill " his own baby ñ as many in the party

would regard an abortion ñ that would hole Bush below

the waterline and scupper his chances of re-election.

 

Kelly - the bitch of biographers who has already

assassinated the characters of such luminaries as the

Reagans, Frank Sinatra, Jackie Onassis and the

Windsors - says she spoke to the President's

sister-in-law Sharon Bush, who divorced the

President's brother, Neil.

 

Sharon Bush apparently told Kelly: " The President did

coke at Camp David when his father was President

[1989-93] and not just once either. " Camp David is the

US presidential retreat. Sharon Bush, however, is now

denying that she made the cocaine claim to Kelly.

 

Proof of coke use in the late 1980s and early 1990s

would mean that Bush used the drug after his reported

conversion to Christianity. If that was proved to be

the case then the one thing that protects Bush from

his hard- partying past ñ his born-again status and

his repentance for past sins ñ would fall to bits. The

cocaine claim is therefore political dynamite. Bush

has pursued America's so-called war on drugs with a

vengeance. US jails, which now have the highest

population figure ever, are filled with drug users.

 

Even more damaging is the allegation aired by Kelly in

her book, The Family: The Real Story of the Bush

Dynasty, that she has gathered " a great deal of

circumstantial evidence " that the President helped

arrange for a girlfriend to have an abortion in the

1970s.

 

Kelly says four friends of the woman who had the

abortion provided affidavits to the authoritative US

current affairs magazines Time and Newsweek about the

abortion but the magazines did not run with the story.

 

Kelly also brings up allegations of George Bush Sr's

affair with his English secretary Jennifer Fitzgerald,

which apparently devastated Barbara Bush, his wife.

The book further delves into the sexually transmitted

diseases which have afflicted one of Bush's brothers

following his habitual use of Asian prostitutes.

 

Sharon Bush told Kelly: " The Bushes don't practise

what they preach. " Bush has always been evasive about

drugs. During his first presidential campaign, he

said: " The current FBI form asks the question, ëDid

somebody use drugs within the last seven years?' I

will be glad to answer that question and the answer is

no. "

 

Kelly quotes a former lieutenant, who refers to Bush

not taking his medical during his Air National Guard

days, saying: " There is circumstantial evidence

pointing to substance abuse by Bush during this

period. "

 

The book claims that Bush first used coke at

university in the mid-1960s. Kelly quotes two sources,

one of whom says Bush sold him the class A drug.

Another acquaintance of Bush says that after work,

Bush, in his mid-20s, " liked to sneak out back for a

joint of marijuana or into the bathroom for a line of

cocaine " .

 

There are even claims that First Lady Laura Bush was a

drug dealer in her youth. She is the darling of the US

right, adored for her schoolmarm demeanour and

whiter-than-white aura, and one of the biggest assets

in Bush's attempt to appeal to middle America. But

Kelly says she was the " go-to-girl for dime bags " of

grass at the Southern Methodist University. Kelly

quotes a PR executive, Robert Nash, who says: " She not

only smoked dope but she sold dope. "

 

Laura was also involved in a car smash that killed a

friend when she was 17. The accident happened when she

ran through a stop sign in her Chevrolet sedan on a

clear night in November 1963, drove into an

intersection and struck the Corvair sedan of

17-year-old Michael Douglas. No charges were ever

filed.

 

Laura is also supposed to have had to flee her marital

home on a number of occasions because of Bush's

apparently abusive behaviour. However, the police were

said to have never been involved.

 

A friend of Bush, Tobery Macdonald, says: " Poor

Georgie. He couldn't relate to women unless he was

loaded. " Another " friend " added: " He went out of his

way to act crude. It's quite amazing that someone you

held in such low esteem became President. " A third

says Bush wasn't interested in anything except " booze

and sports " .

 

In 1976, Bush was found drunk driving down his

parents' street in Washington. When his father

challenged him, Bush apparently offered to fight his

dad, saying: " You wanna go mano a mano right here? "

 

His consumption of alcohol ñ primarily beer and whisky

ñ turned him into a belligerent boor. At one society

party in Houston, he asked an older woman: " So, what's

sex like after 50, anyway? "

 

Bush allegedly confronted his alcoholism in 1986 ñ a

decision he says set him off on the road to being born

again. He dried out, joined an evangelical group and

found the Lord.

 

Kelly's book quotes a family friend saying of Bush:

" George has no humility whatsover about being

President. He really thinks he deserves the office;

that it's his by merit, not default. With each

political job he's had, he's gotten worse, more

arrogant. Now he's unbearable. " Kelly's book concludes

that Bush's faith makes him invulnerable to self-doubt

ñ just like his political friend and fellow Christian

Tony Blair.

 

A Caring Christian, A Compassionate Conservative?

 

America may not have the same sensibilities about the

death penalty as " old " Europe, but there can't be many

US citizens who embrace the killing of their fellow

man as gleefully as the President.

 

Perhaps the most disturbing example of Bush's zeal for

the Death House was shown in 1998 when he was governor

of the state of Texas. Karla Faye Tucker was then

facing execution by lethal injection. The former teen

prostitute had committed murder after a three-day drug

binge and later underwent a religious conversion in

jail. As a born-again Christian ñ just like Bush ñ

many religious leaders wanted her life spared. Tucker

even appeared on Larry King's TV show to discuss her

case. Bush was caught out by a reporter mocking the

condemned woman. Sneering at her, he put on a whiney

voice, pouted his lips and whimpered: " Please, don't

kill me. " Significantly, Tucker had never even asked

for mercy while on King's show.

 

Bush later claimed in his biography, A Charge To Keep,

that he had a " restless night " before Tucker's

execution and " felt like a huge piece of concrete was

crushing me " as he waited for her to die. Bush said

reading her postmortem was " one of the hardest things

I have ever done " , adding that the whole experience

left him " heavy of heart " .

 

Bush said he denied her a clemency appeal - which was

based on the fact that her conversion had

rehabilitated her ñ saying: " I have concluded

judgments about the heart and soul of an individual on

death row are best left to a higher authority. "

 

When governor of Texas between 1995 and 2000, Bush

presided over more than 120 executions - that accounts

for about a third of the executions in the entire USA

during the same period.

 

Bush objected to a bill to stop the state executing

people with mental problems. He also vetoed a

unanimous bill by the Texas legislature requiring the

appointment of a lawyer to an accused within 20 days.

Most states require a lawyer be appointed within 72

hours.

 

In Texas, judges appoint lawyers for defendants. The

bill which Bush vetoed would have allowed an

independent body to appoint lawyers. There were

concerns that the appointment of lawyers was being

influenced by the fact that lawyers were making

campaign contributions to judges. A survey by the

State Bar of Texas found that half of all judges

believed campaign contributions from attorneys were a

factor in judges considering which lawyer to assign to

which case.

 

Dodgy Deals And Insider Trading Allegations

 

Since his days in Yale, Bush has been strongly

anti-intellectual and rampantly pro-business. Until

the age of 30, he didn't really do very much of

anything, but by 1977 he started to use his family's

powerful connections to raise money for an oil

business.

 

He describes his attitude to business as a " bulldog on

the pantleg of opportunity " . However, in all Bush lost

some $2 million of other people's money in failed

business ventures while still managing to walk away in

1990 with $840,000. One of his ventures was called

Arbusto, which the President thought meant " bush " in

Spanish - it actually translates as " shrub " . Shrub has

now stuck as the nickname for him by his Texan

detractors.

 

The most questionable business venture of Bush's oil

career came while he was with the Harken Energy

Corporation. Harken made investments in the Middle

East in the run-up to the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam

.. At the time, Bush Sr was the 41st President of the

USA and Bush Jr was on the board of Harken. Harken

took a pasting on the stockmarket. In June 1990,

Harken consultants said only " drastic action " could

save the company. Bush sold his entire stock in Harken

before information about the dire state of the company

was known publicly ñ despite a legal requirement on

him to notify the Securities Exchange Commission

immediately. Bush didn't report his sale for eight

months.

 

Bush ñ who now stakes his fiscal reputation on the

fact that he loves to slash taxes and not spend public

money unwisely ñ took a hefty slice of taxpayers' cash

when he later bought the Texas Rangers baseball team.

He persuaded the city of Arlington to finance a new

stadium for his team using public taxes. Arlington

contributed $191m in public subsidies. Bush's stake in

the Rangers was later valued at rising from $640,000

to $15.4m.

 

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