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host · 07-30-2007, 10:57 PM

Greg700, irateplatypus, reconmike.... Where DO YOU, come by the opinions that you've posted? Why are you against the troops, "wetting their beaks", with a little more generous compensation, during a "time of war"? The Bush admin. has borrowed all the money to wage their war, anyway...what is the harm in sending a little more the troops' way?...

I vehemently disagree with all three of you on the issue of compensation of the troops for their service..... when everybody...and I mean EVERYBODY....connected with Bush have gorged themselves at the trough of his war spending "opportunity"... his buddy, from Texas, Joe Allbaugh, his CNP benefactors who signed off on his candidacy in 1999..most visible is Erik Prince of Blackwater....his daddy, George HW, his uncle William. brother Neil, his family's consigliere, James Baker, and his VP, Dick... fucking blood money for all of 'em...so..why not "for the troops", too?

Quote:

http://baltimorechronicle.com/media3_oct01.shtml
Republican-controlled Carlyle Group poses serious Ethical Questions for Bush Presidents, but Baltimore Sun ignores it
by Alice Cherbonnier

AN IMPORTANT TENET of journalism is that you should always ask, “Who benefits?”

In the case of a war, the answers to this question become of paramount importance. Suppose, for example, that profits from military contracting were to go in the pockets of a former U.S. President whose son (and a presumed future heir) is now President? Suppose further that such profits escalate in times of conflict. Wouldn’t this be of concern to the public? Wouldn’t you expect the media to be all over such an important ethical (not to mention moral, and maybe legal) angle?

Though described by the Industry Standard as “the world’s largest private equity firm,” with over $12 billion under management, chances are readers haven’t ever heard of The Carlyle Group. Isn’t that a little odd, considering it is run by a veritable who's who of former Republican political leaders. Former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci is Carlyle’s chairman and managing director (who, by the way, was college roommate of the current Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld). And that partners in this mammoth venture include former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III, George Soros, Fred Malek (George H.W. Bush’s campaign manager, forced to resign when it was revealed he was Nixon’s “Jew counter”), and—presumably—George H.W. Bush?......

.........Not only have some newspapers and magazines brought The Carlyle Group out of the shadows it prefers, but this enterprise has attracted the attention of The Center for Public Integrity and Judicial Watch, both of which have concerns about the ethical propriety of having high-placed former government officials—trained at taxpayer expense, too—out there reaping over 20% to 40% a year by working their connections. You have to wonder if these former public servants are just simply greedy, or if they’re telling themselves they’re true patriots by doing behind-the-scenes cloak-and-dagger stuff.

This is a big story. We were wondering if, in the wake of current events, we were the only newspaper that was asking that question, “Who benefits?” And then we found that the Wall Street Journal was asking the right questions, too, and we were vastly relieved not to be left hanging out to dry. On Sept. 27, the WSJ published a “Special Report: Aftermath of Terror” with the headline “Bin Laden Family Could Profit From a Jump In Defense Spending Due to Ties to U.S. Bank.” The “bank” is actually The Carlyle Group (and by the way, we peons can’t invest in it, and it sure isn’t taking deposits from the general public). The lead sentence reads: “If the U.S. boosts defense spending in its quest to stop Osama bin Laden’s alleged terrorist activities, there may be one unexpected beneficiary: Mr. bin Laden’s family.” And, though the WSJ curiously did not mention this, another beneficiary may be George H.W. Bush’s family.

Quote:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstra...AA0894D9404482
<b>Elder Bush in Big G.O.P. Cast Toiling for Top Equity Firm</b>
March 5, 2001, Monday
By LESLIE WAYNE (NYT); National Desk

During the presidential campaign last year, former President George Bush took time off from his son's race to call on Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at a luxurious desert compound outside Riyadh to talk about American-Saudi business affairs.

Mr. Bush went as an ambassador of sorts, but not for his government. In the same way, Mr. Bush's secretary of state, James A. Baker III, recently met with a group of wealthy people at the elegant Lanesborough Hotel in London to explain the Florida vote count.

Traveling with the fanfare of dignitaries, Mr. Bush and Mr. Baker were using their extensive government contacts to further their business interests as representatives of the Carlyle Group, a $12 billion private equity firm based in Washington that has parlayed a roster of former top-level government officials, largely from the Bush and Reagan administrations, into a moneymaking machine.

In a new spin on Washington's revolving door between business and government, where lobbying by former officials is restricted but soliciting investments is not, Carlyle has upped the ante and taken the practice global. Mr. Bush and Mr. Baker were accompanied on their trips by former Prime Minister John Major of Britain, another of Carlyle's political stars. ....Private equity, which involves buying up companies in private deals and reselling them, is a high-end business open only to the very rich.

Over the last decade, the Carlyle empire has grown to span three continents and include investments in most corners of the world. It owns so many companies that it is now in effect one of the nation's biggest defense contractors and a force in global telecommunications. Its blue-chip investors include major banks and insurance companies, billion-dollar pension funds and wealthy investors from Abu Dhabi to Singapore.

In getting business for Carlyle, Mr. Bush has been impressive. His meeting with the crown prince was followed by a yacht cruise and private dinners with Saudi officials, including King Fahd, all on behalf of Carlyle, which has extensive interests in the Middle East.

And Mr. Bush led Carlyle's successful entry into South Korea, the fastest-growing economy in Asia. After his meetings with the prime minister and other government and business leaders, Carlyle won a tough competition for control of KorAm, one of Korea's few healthy banks.

The steady flow of politicians to lucrative private-sector jobs based on their government contacts is a familiar Washington tale. But in this case, it is being played out for more dollars, on a global stage, and in the world of private finance, where the minimal government rules prohibiting lobbying by former officials for a given period are not a factor. These rules say nothing about potential conflicts when former government officials use their connections and insights for financial gain, and they may attract more notice now that George W. Bush is president. Many of those involved with Carlyle, which invests largely in companies that do business with the government or are affected by government regulations, have ties to the Oval Office.

For instance, Frank C. Carlucci, a Reagan secretary of defense who as much as anyone is responsible for Carlyle's success, said he met in February with his old college classmate Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense, and Vice President Dick Cheney, himself a defense secretary under former President Bush, to talk about military matters -- at a time when Carlyle has several billion-dollar defense projects under consideration.

Carlyle officials contend that the firm's activities do not present any potential conflicts since Mr. Bush, Mr. Baker and other former Republican officials now at Carlyle -- including Mr. Carlucci, who is Carlyle's chairman, and Richard G. Darman, Mr. Bush's former budget director -- do not lobby the federal government. Carlyle executives point out that many corporations have former government officials as board members.

''Mr. Bush gives us no advice on what do with with the federal government,'' said David Rubenstein, the firm's founder and a former aide in the Carter White House. ''We've gone over backwards to make sure that we do no lobbying.''

Others, however, see little difference between potential conflicts involving lobbying and those involving investments.

''Carlyle is as deeply wired into the current administration as they can possibly be,'' said Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit public interest group based in Washington. ''George Bush is getting money from private interests that have business before the government, while his son is president. And, in a really peculiar way, George W. Bush could, some day, benefit financially from his own administration's decisions, through his father's investments. The average American doesn't know that and, to me, that's a jaw-dropper.''

It is difficult to determine exactly how much money the senior Mr. Bush and Mr. Baker have made. Mr. Baker is a Carlyle partner, and Mr. Bush has the title senior adviser to its Asian activities. With a current market value of about $3.5 billion on Carlyle's equity and with the firm owned by 18 partners and one outside investor, Mr. Baker's Carlyle stake would be worth about $180 million if each partner held an equal stake. It is not known whether he has more or less than the other partners.

Unlike Mr. Baker, Mr. Bush has no ownership stake in Carlyle; he is an adviser and an investor and is compensated by obtaining stakes in Carlyle investments. Carlyle executives cited, for example, Mr. Bush's being allowed to put money he earns giving speeches for Carlyle into its investment funds. Mr. Bush generally receives $80,000 to $100,000 for a speech. He sits on no corporate boards other than Carlyle's.

Carlyle also gave the Bush family a hand in 1990 by putting George W. Bush, who was then struggling to find a career, on the board of a Carlyle subsidiary, Caterair, an airline-catering company.

From Carlyle's point of view, the involvement of Mr. Baker and the former president is invaluable.

''It punches up the brand awareness for us globally,'' said Daniel A. D'Aniello, a Carlyle managing director. ''We are greatly assisted by Baker and Bush. It shows that we are associated with people of the highest ethical standards.''

With $12 billion from investors, Carlyle claims to be the nation's largest private equity fund and makes money by investing in undervalued companies and reselling at a profit. These numbers put Carlyle in the same league as better-known private equity firms like Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company and Forstmann-Little & Company.

Two hundred forty Carlyle employees are stationed throughout the world either raising money or finding ways to spend it. Carlyle has ownership stakes in 164 companies, which last year employed more than 70,000 people and generated $16 billion in revenues. About 450 institutions -- mainly large pension funds and banks -- are Carlyle investors.

The California state pension fund invested $305 million with Carlyle, and the Texas teachers pension fund -- whose board was appointed when George W. Bush was governor -- gave Carlyle $100 million to invest in November. Carlyle also works as a financial adviser to the Saudi government.

''Let's say Carlyle is going fund-raising in the Middle East and they bring Bush along,'' said David Snow, editor of Private Equity Central, a trade publication. ''He led the U.S. Army into that region. That will catch the attention of very wealthy investors in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The fact that Bush is involved doesn't mean that Carlyle will make great investment decisions. But it will get them access to certain deals and certain countries that they might otherwise not have.''

One former Carlyle employee said, ''The firm understands that having Bush and Major around is like having movie stars around.''

Yet Carlyle's success is not just because of its high-powered connections. Carlyle has done well for its investors, returning an average of 34 percent a year over the last decade, in line with other private equity funds. It has done this by buying what it knows best -- companies that are regulated by the government. Nearly two-thirds of its investments are in defense and telecommunications companies, which are affected by shifts in government spending and policy.

Carlyle has become the nation's 11th largest defense contractor, owning companies that make tanks, aircraft wings and a broad array of other military equipment. It also owns health care companies, real estate, Internet companies, a bottling company and even Le Figaro, the French newspaper...

Quote:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...50C0A9679C8B63
<h3> Eisenhower, Ignored</h3>

Published: March 8, 2001

To the Editor:

Re ''Elder Bush in Big G.O.P. Cast Toiling for Top Equity Firm'' (front page, March 5):

Eisenhower's warning to resist the influence of the military-industrial complex on our government was obviously in vain. The military-industrial complex as represented by the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, involves not only a former secretary of state, James A. Baker III, and a former secretary of defense, Frank C. Carlucci, but even a former president, George Bush, and through him, our current president, George W. Bush. This is now our government.

PHILIP WALKER
Santa Barbara, Calif., March 5, 2001

Quote:

Bin Laden Family Is Tied To U.S. Group
By Wall Street Journal staff reporters Daniel Golden and James Bandler in Boston, and Marcus Walker in Hamburg, Germany. Wall Street Journal

Sep 27, 2001

If the U.S. boosts defense spending in its quest to stop Osama bin Laden's alleged terrorist activities, there may be one unexpected beneficiary: Mr. bin Laden's family.

Among its far-flung business interests, the well-heeled Saudi Arabian clan -- which says it is estranged from Osama -- is an investor in a fund established by Carlyle Group, a well-connected Washington merchant bank specializing in buyouts of defense and aerospace companies.

Through this investment and its ties to Saudi royalty, the bin Laden family has become acquainted with some of the biggest names in the Republican Party. In recent years, former President Bush, ex-Secretary of State James Baker and ex-Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci have made the pilgrimage to the bin Laden family's headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Mr. Bush makes speeches on behalf of Carlyle Group and is senior adviser to its Asian Partners fund, while Mr. Baker is its senior counselor. Mr. Carlucci is the group's chairman...

...But the Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued subpoenas to banks used by the bin Laden family seeking records of family dealings, a person familiar with the matter said. This person said the subpoenas weren't an indication the FBI had found any suspicious behavior by the family. A family spokesman said he had no knowledge of the subpoenas but that the family welcomes them and has nothing to hide.......

...."If there were ever any company closely connected to the U.S. and its presence in Saudi Arabia, it's the Saudi Binladin Group," says Charles Freeman, president of the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington nonprofit concern that receives tens of thousands of dollars a year from the bin Laden family. "They're the establishment that Osama's trying to overthrow."

Mr. Freeman, who served as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, says he has spoken to two of Osama's brothers since hijacked airplanes rammed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11. They told him, he says, that the FBI has been "remarkably sensitive, tactful and protective" of the family during the current crisis, recognizing its longstanding friendship with the U.S.

A Carlyle executive said the bin Laden family committed $2 million through a London investment arm in 1995 in Carlyle Partners II Fund, which raised $1.3 billion overall. The fund has purchased several aerospace companies among 29 deals. So far, the family has received $1.3 million back in completed investments and should ultimately realize a 40% annualized rate of return, the Carlyle executive said.

But a foreign financier with ties to the bin Laden family says the family's overall investment with Carlyle is considerably larger. He called the $2 million merely an initial contribution. "It's like plowing a field," this person said. "You seed it once. You plow it, and then you reseed it again."

The Carlyle executive added that he would think twice before accepting any future investments by the bin Ladens. "The situation's changed now," he said. "I don't want to spend my life talking to reporters."

A U.S. inquiry into bin Laden family business dealings could brush against some big names associated with the U.S. government. Former President Bush said through his chief of staff, Jean Becker, that he recalled only one meeting with the bin Laden family, which took place in November 1998. Ms. Becker confirmed that there was a second meeting in January 2000, after being read the ex-president's subsequent thank-you note. "President Bush does not have a relationship with the bin Laden family," says Ms. Becker. "He's met them twice."

Mr. Baker visited the bin Laden family in both 1998 and 1999, according to people close to the family. In the second trip, he traveled on a family plane. Mr. Baker declined comment, as did Mr. Carlucci, a past chairman of Nortel Networks Corp., which has partnered with Saudi Binladin Group on telecommunications ventures.

Former President Carter met with 10 of Osama's brothers early in 2000 on a fund-raising trip for the Carter Center in Atlanta. According to John Hardman, executive director of the center, the brothers told Mr. Carter that Osama was completely removed from the family. After Mr. Carter and his wife followed up with breakfast with Bakr bin Laden in New York in September 2000, the bin Laden family gave $200,000 to the center. "We don't have any reason to think there's a connection" between Osama and the rest of the family, Mr. Hardman says.

During the past several years, the family's close ties to the Saudi royal family prompted executives and staff from closely held New York publisher Forbes Inc. to make two trips to the family headquarters, according to Forbes Chairman Caspar Weinberger, a former U.S. secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. "We would call on them to get their view of the country and what would be of interest to investors."

Mr. Weinberger said no trips to Saudi Arabia were planned. "If we went," he said, "we may or may not call upon them. I don't think the sins of the son should be visited on the father or the brother and the cousins and the aunts."

There is no indication President George W. Bush has met any of the bin Ladens, but he was indirectly linked to one of them two decades ago. His longtime friend James W. Bath, who met Mr. Bush when they were both pilots in the Air National Guard, acted as a Texas business representative for Osama's older brother, Salem bin Laden, from 1976 to 1988, when Salem died in a plane crash. Mr. Bath brought real-estate acquisitions and other deals to Salem bin Laden, an ebullient man who headed the family construction business. Mr. Bath generally received a 5% interest as his fee, and was sometimes listed as a trustee in related corporate documents. Mr. Bath acknowledged that during the same period he invested $50,000 in two funds controlled by Mr. Bush but said that stake was unrelated to his dealings with Mr. bin Laden.

Among the properties that Salem bin Laden bought on Mr. Bath's recommendation was the Houston Gulf Airport, a lightly used airfield in League City, Texas, 25 miles east of Houston. But Mr. bin Laden's hope that it would develop a major overflow airport for Houston never materialized, in part due to concern over wetlands. Ever since his death, his estate has sought to sell the airfield -- without success. Today, it is still on the market.

Quote:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...n13963936/pg_8
Family ties; The Bin Ladens
Sunday Herald, The, Oct 7, 2001 by Home Affairs Editor Neil MacKay
<< Page 1 Continued from page 7.

...... The board of directors included members of the Shakarshi family, linked to a money-laundering scandal and drug-trafficking in Zurich. A member of the Shakarshi family was also a director of the SICO office in London. There have been allegations that the Zurich company was a CIA front used to finance Afghan resistance - in which bin Laden was a prime mover - during the Soviet occupation of the country. Yeslam bin Laden continues to maintain relations with the Shakarshis.

The bin Laden family - and Yeslam in particular - have long- standing links to Al Bilad, a London-Geneva company used as part of the negotiations over the Anglo-Saudi Al Yamama arms-for-oil agreement, which was worth (pounds) 21.5 billion. Present at the negotiations was the now disgraced former Tory minister Jonathan Aitken, sent by John Major to represent the UK. Major claims he has no connection to the bin Laden family, despite his links to them through his job as European chairman of the Carlyle Group. Mark Thatcher was also involved in the Al Yamama deal.

Major is not the only significant world leader to be dragged into this mess. The Carlyle Group also counts former US President George Bush senior among its team. The former president even met the bin Laden family in Jidda in November 1998.

Current President George W Bush is also tangentially linked to Osama. Bush's lifelong friend James Bath acted as a representative in Texas for Osama's older brother, Salem, between 1976 and 1988. Bath bought real estate for the family, including Houston Gulf Airport.

Other companies and organisations connected to the Binladin Group family business include General Electric - the most valuable US company - and Citigroup, the biggest US bank, as well as Motorola, Quaker, Nortel, Unilever, Cadbury Schweppes and the investment bank ABN Amro.....

Quote:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0218,gray,34384,6.html
The Carlyle Connection
How the Pentagon Learned to Love the Weapon No One Wanted
by Geoffrey Gray
May 1 - 7, 2002

by Rob Nelson
Frank Carlucci never trained much as a salesman. The former CIA spook turned Reagan defense secretary has been working as chairman for the Carlyle Group, the nation's 11th largest military contractor, and for the last five years, he's been championing the the production of 482 Crusader armored vehicles, over $11.2 billion dollars' worth of self-propelled Howitzer firepower.

He might as well have been going door-to-door with vacuum cleaners. Nobody seemed to want the damn things. They were bulky, outdated, expensive. "It looks like it's too heavy; it's not lethal enough," Bush said during a 2000 campaign debate. "There's going to be a lot of programs that aren't going to fit into the strategic plan for a long-term change of our military."

What a difference a war can make.

Late this March, as part of the post-9-11 military buildup, Donald Rumsfeld gave United Defense, Carlyle's subsidiary, the full monty: over $470 million to continue development on the problem-riddled Crusaders, puzzling some military analysts.

.. "Influence is tough to measure, but it's certainly had a friend somewhere."..

Make that a very close friend. Two internal Defense Department documents—letters between Carlyle and Rumsfeld—recently made available to the Voice show the intimate relationship between the Bush administration and the Carlyle Group.

"Dear Don," reads the first note, dated February 15, 2001..

Quote:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/002009.php

09.25.03 -- 10:58PM
By Josh Marshall

...Let me introduce you to New Bridge Strategies, LLC. New Bridge is 'Helping to Rebuild a New Iraq' as their liner note says.

Here's the company's new blurb from their <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20030810105715/http://newbridgestrategies.com/index.asp">website ...</a>

New Bridge Strategies, LLC is a unique company that was created specifically with the aim of assisting clients to evaluate and take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Its activities will seek to expedite the creation of free and fair markets and new economic growth in Iraq, consistent with the policies of the Bush Administration. The opportunities evolving in Iraq today are of such an unprecedented nature and scope that no other existing firm has the necessary skills and experience to be effective both in Washington, D.C. and on the ground in Iraq.

A 'unique company'? You could say that. Who's the Chairman and Director of New Bridge? That would be Joe M. Allbaugh, President Bush's longtime right-hand-man and until about six months ago his head of FEMA. Before that of course he was the president's chief of staff when he was governor of Texas and campaign manager for Bush-Cheney 2000.

Allbaugh was part of the president's so-called <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/teambush072399.htm">'Iron Triangle'</a> -- the other two being Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. And now Allbaugh's running an outfit that helps your company get the sweetest contracts in Iraq? That sound right to you? Think he'll have any special pull?....

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=9433
US: Neil Bush's Business Dealings
by Thomas Catan and Stephen Fidler, Financial Times
December 12th, 2003

....Today, Neil Bush's business partners have a new venture, in keeping with the times. <h3>New Bridge Strategies was set up this year to help companies secure contracts in Iraq following the war</h3>. Mr Howland is chairman and chief executive of the company, while <h3>Mr Daniel</h3> is a member of the advisory board.

The company briefly hit the headlines this autumn because of the impressive roster of Republican heavyweights on its board, most of whom are linked to one or other of the Bush administrations or to the family itself. The company's website has not been shy about advertising its contacts in both the Middle East and Washington.

"The opportunities evolving in Iraq today are of such an unprecedented nature and scope that no other existing firm has the necessary skills and experience to be effective both in Washington DC., and on the ground in Iraq," it said. That phrasing has since been changed.

The list of directors and advisory board members is indeed impressive. Joe Allbaugh, the chairman of the company, was head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) until March 2003 and before that, chief of staff for George W. Bush while he was Texas governor. As national manager for the Bush-Cheney election campaign in 2000, he was one side of the "Iron Triangle" of aides credited with propelling him into the presidency.

Ed Rogers, the company's vice-chairman and director, was a top aide to George H. W. Bush while he was in the White House. Lanny Griffith, another director, also worked in Mr Bush senior's government and on his election campaigns. Haley Barbour, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee who was elected last month as governor of Mississippi, was on the board of Milestone Merchant Partners, a Washington-based private equity fund affiliated with New Bridge, according to the New Bridge website.

A spokesman for Mr Barbour, who is also close to the Bush family, said he resigned from that position in February.

All three are partners at Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, a Republican lobbying firm in Washington, DC. The firm shares an office with New Bridge at 1275 Pennsylvannia Avenue, on the 10th floor.....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer
The Relatively Charmed Life Of Neil Bush
Despite Silverado and Voodoo, Fortune Still Smiles on the President's Brother

By Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 28, 2003; Page D01

Ah, it's nice to be Neil Bush...

... Meanwhile, back home in Texas, Bush serves as co-chairman of a company called Crest Investment. Crest, he revealed in the deposition, pays him $60,000 a year to provide "miscellaneous consulting services."

"Such as?" Brown asked.

"Such as answering phone calls when <h3>Jamal Daniel</h3>, the other co-chairman, called and asked for advice," Bush replied.

Ah, it's nice to be Neil Bush, who seems to be living the lifestyle immortalized in those famous Dire Straits lyrics: "Money for nothin' and chicks for free." ......

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/print...503/S00019.htm
Neil Bush & Crest - Another Profiteering Scheme

By Evelyn Pringle

Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for Independent Media TV and an investigative journalist focused on exposing government corruption.

----

Neil Bush, has a $60,000-a-year employment contract with a top adviser to a Washington-based consulting firm set up to help companies secure contracts in Iraq, according to the Nov 11, 2004 Financial Times.

Neil disclosed this employment during a divorce deposition on March 3, 2003. He testified that he was co-chairman of the Houston-based, Crest Investment Corporation, which invests in energy and other ventures, and said he received $15,000 every three months for a average 3 or 4 hours of work a week doing "miscellaneous consulting services." "Such as?" his ex-wife's Attorney asked, "Such as answering phone calls when Jamal Daniel, the other co-chairman, called and asked for advice," Neil answered.

<h3>Crest's co-chairman, Daniel, sits on the advisory board of New Bridge Strategies, a firm set up in March 2003, just in time to cash in on the Iraq reconstruction contracts, by a group of businessmen with close ties to the Bush family, </h3> and both Bush administrations. The firm's chairman is Joe Allbaugh, who was W's campaign director in the 2000, and who was appointed Director of FEMA once Bush took office.

In addition to paying him for "consulting" work, Crest has provided funding for Neil's educational software company Ignite! In fact, Daniel sometimes introduces himself as a founding backer of the company, and has persuaded the families of prominent leaders in the Middle East to invest in Ignite, according to the Dec 11, 2003 Financial Times.

Overall, Crest goes to great lengths to show Neil how much it values his membership on the team. For instance, when Neil got remarried in 2004, Daniel held a wedding reception at his home, and Crest arranged a 5-year rent-free cottage for Neil and his new bride in Kennebunkport, Maine, so they could spend time near Mom & Pop Bush whenever they wanted to.

Another Jackpot - Thanks To Brother W

As usual, during his deposition, Neil forgot to mention a few facts about his earnings potential with Crest. First of all, he didn't mention that he attached his signature to letters soliciting business for New Bridge in obtaining contracts in Iraq, and two, that he attached his name as a reference for an extremely lucrative proposal submitted by Crest to obtain a lease on a parcel of property located on the island of Quintana, Texas, that will result in payments of at least $2 million a year to Crest.

When W took office in 2001, he vowed to make it easier for companies to build coastline facilities to store liquefied natural gas (LNG), a cooled and condensed form of natural gas, shipped in from countries around the world.

That promise sent US companies scrambling to secure coastline property on which to build the LNG processing facilities. One company looking to enter the market was Crest. Although the firm had no experience whatsoever in LNG processing, it had a very influential asset, a co-chairman by the name of

Neil Bush. click to show

Quote:

Los Angeles Times
Sep 17, 2003.

THE NATION; Payments to Cheney Questioned; Deferred compensation to vice president from his former employer, Halliburton Co., stirs complaints from Senate Democrats.

Vice President Dick Cheney, a former CEO of Halliburton Co., has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the company since taking office while asserting he has no financial interest in the company, Senate Democrats said Tuesday.

The Democrats demanded to know why Cheney claimed to have cut ties with the oil services company, involved in a large no-bid contract for oil reconstruction work in Iraq, when he was still receiving large deferred salary payments.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said the revelations reinforced the need for hearings about the no-bid contracts Halliburton received from the Bush administration.

"The vice president needs to explain how he reconciles the claim that he has 'no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind,' with the hundreds of thousands of dollars in deferred salary payments he receives from Halliburton," Daschle said in a statement.

On NBC's "Meet the Press" program on Sunday, Cheney, who was Halliburton's chief executive from 1995 to 2000, said he had severed all ties with the Houston-based company.

"I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had now for over three years," he said.

Cathie Martin, a Cheney spokeswoman, confirmed that the vice president has been receiving the deferred compensation payments from Halliburton, but she disputed that his statements on "Meet the Press" had been misleading.

Cheney had already earned the salary that was now being paid, Martin said, adding that once he became a nominee for vice president, he purchased an insurance policy to guarantee that the deferred salary would be paid to him whether or not Halliburton survived as a company.

"So he has no financial interest in the company," she said.

But Lautenberg said that Cheney's financial disclosure filings with the Office of Government Ethics listed $205,298 in deferred salary payments made to him by Halliburton in 2001, and another $162,393 in 2002. The filings indicated that he was scheduled to receive more payments in 2003, 2004 and 2005.

"In 2001 and 2002, Vice President Cheney was paid almost as much in salary from Halliburton as he made as vice president," Lautenberg said.

The U.S. vice president's salary is $198,600 a year.

The financial disclosure forms also said Cheney continued to hold 433,333 unexercised Halliburton stock options, with exercise prices below the company's current stock market price.

Cheney's spokeswoman said he had placed these options in a charitable trust, and no longer had control over them.

On "Meet the Press," Cheney also said he had no involvement in the awarding of government contracts to Halliburton.

"As vice president, I have absolutely no influence of, involvement of, knowledge of in any way, shape or form of contracts let by the Corps of Engineers or anybody else in the federal government," he said.

In March, Halliburton was granted, without competition, a contract by the Army Corps of Engineers to repair and restore Iraq's oil fields. The corps says the cost of this contract to taxpayers is about $1 billion.

Under a second military support contract, Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root unit has racked up over $1 billion in expenses in Iraq, according to the U.S. Army Field Support Command.

*******
E-Mail Links Cheney's Office, Contract Officials Say Only Involvement in Halliburton Deal Was Announcing It. By Robert O'Harrow Jr. ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Jun1.html

<b>Halliburton Stock Chart....the Invasion of Iraq Began in March, 2003:</b>
<center><img src="http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/c/5y/h/hal"></center>

Quote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/internatio...325971,00.html

Bush special envoy embroiled in controversy over Iraq debt

Consortium plans to cash in as Baker asks countries to end £200bn burden

Read the documents

Naomi Klein
Wednesday October 13, 2004
The Guardian

President Bush's special envoy, James Baker, who has been trying to persuade the world to forgive Iraq's crushing debts, is simultaneously working for a commercial concern that is trying to recover money from Iraq, according to confidential documents.

Mr Baker's Carlyle Group is in a consortium secretly proposing to try to collect $27bn (£15bn) on behalf of Kuwait, one of Iraq's biggest creditors, by using high-level political influence. It claims Mr Baker will not benefit personally, but the consortium could make millions in fees, retainers and commission as a result.....

.....Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University and a leading expert on government ethics and regulations, said this meant that Mr Baker was in a "classic conflict of interest".

"Baker is on two sides of this transaction: he is supposed to be representing the interests of the US, but he is also a senior counsellor at Carlyle, and Carlyle wants to get paid to help Kuwait recover its debts from Iraq."

She added: "Carlyle and the other companies are exploiting Baker's current position to try to land a deal with Kuwait that would undermine the interests of the US government.".....

Daddy Bush claimed in 2003 that he had severed his ties with Carlyle, but here is, still shilling for them, just last year:

Quote:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worl.../21/2003298492
Former US president lobbies China over Citigroup bid: report

AFP, SHANGHAI
Tuesday, Mar 21, 2006, Page 10

<b>Former US president George Bush has personally lobbied the Chinese government to back a Citigroup-led consortium's bid</b> to buy into Guangdong Development Bank (廣東發展銀行), state press reported yesterday.

"On my personal behalf, I vigorously ask the Chinese government to support the US companies' efforts to buy into Guangdong Development Bank," Bush said in a letter to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"I sincerely believe that the deal would be conducive to the overall development of the Sino-US relationship," the official 21st Century Business Herald quoted the letter as saying.

<b>The consortium led by US banking giant Citigroup has reportedly bid 24.1 billion yuan (US$3 billion) for an 85 percent stake in Guangdong Development Bank.

The Carlyle Group, a US venture capital firm with close links to Washington, is also part of the consortium</b>.

The Citigroup consortium's main rival is a French-led consortium headed by Societe Generale, which has reportedly offered 23.5 billion yuan for more than 80 percent of the troubled southern Chinese bank.

Societe Generale appears to have its own powerful supporters, with its head of international retail banking, Jean-Louis Mattei, saying last month that an unnamed French government-owned agency intended to become a minor shareholder.

Bush's letter was sent to the foreign affairs ministry at the end of January and passed on to the China Banking Regulatory Commission, a government agency with an important say in the deal.

It appeared to back speculation that state-to-state relations, as well as the merits of the individual bidders, could prove important in determining the winner.

Diplomacy and business strongly overlap in China, where the state owns most of the country's assets, including the nation's banks.

Quote:

http://archive.southcoasttoday.com/d...rld-nation.htm
Bush uncle benefits from war spending
By WALTER F. ROCHE JR. , Los Angeles Times

Date of Publication: March 22, 2006

WASHINGTON — As President Bush embarks on a new effort to shore up public support for the war in Iraq, an uncle of the chief executive is collecting $2.7 million in cash and stock from the recent sale of a company that profited from the war.
A report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows that William H.T. Bush collected a little less than $1.9 million in cash plus stock valued at more than $800,000 as a result of the sale of Engineered Support Systems Inc. to DRS Technologies of New Jersey.
The $1.7 billion deal closed Jan. 31. Both businesses have extensive military contracts.
The elder Bush was a director of Engineered Support Systems. Recent SEC filings show he was paid cash and DRS stock in exchange for shares and options he obtained as a director.
Missouri-based ESSI experienced record growth prior to its purchase by DRS through expanded U.S. military contracts — many to supply current U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan — and an aggressive buyout strategy targeted at other defense contractors. The military contracts, some awarded on a sole-source basis, include a $77 million pact to refit military vehicles used in Iraq with armor.
Other ESSI products used in the war include radar and detection services, field medical stations and field electrical generator units.
SEC filings show there are two ongoing federal investigations of ESSI — one involving a stop order issued by the federal government on the ESSI contract to supply field generators. The order was issued because of operational problems with the units.
The field-generator contract was a major source of revenue, but SEC files show ESSI did not inform stockholders of the stop order until last June, about seven months after it was issued.
During the interim, several ESSI executives, including Bush's uncle, cashed in stock and stock options worth millions of dollars, SEC filings show.
According to one recent filing, both the SEC and the U.S. attorney in St. Louis are investigating the delayed disclosure and other matters. Unnamed members of the ESSI board and corporate officers have been subpoenaed, according to documents filed with the SEC.
William Bush, 67, SEC filings show, exercised options on 8,348 shares of ESSI stock Jan. 18, 2005, about two months after the stop order was issued. He collected about $450,000 in cash.
Bush, known in the president's family as "Uncle Bucky," joined ESSI's board in 2000, several months before his nephew became president.
The Bush uncle heads a St. Louis investment firm and is a younger brother of former President Bush.
William Bush declined to comment yesterday. However, in an interview last year, he said he played no role in ESSI getting federal contracts.
"I don't make any calls to the 202 (Washington, D.C.) area code," he said.
Patricia Williamson, a spokeswoman for DRS, would not comment on the status of the federal investigations. The company has disclosed that it is cooperating in the investigations, which also involve an inquiry into an ESSI insurance contract.

Quote:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...9682-3,00.html
Victims of an Outsourced War
Thursday, Mar. 15, 2007 By BRIAN BENNETT

( <h2>Post #234... Erik Prince = Council for National Policy, aka CNP !:</h2>
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...ce#post2246346 )

.....Blackwater Becomes a Player

Erik Prince, 37, Blackwater's ambitious founder and sole owner, could have taken over his father's billion-dollar auto-parts empire. But he was attracted to the battlefield from a young age. He enrolled in the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., and although he finished college at a school closer to home, he eventually became a naval officer and was attached to the élite Navy seal Team 8 based in Norfolk, Va. He served in Haiti, Bosnia and the Middle East. In 1995, when his father died, Prince left the Navy and returned to Michigan. He and his sisters sold the company, and Prince took his share and founded Blackwater USA.

Before 9/11, Blackwater mostly trained swat teams and other specialized law-enforcement officers at its 6,000-acre campus on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in North Carolina. With the war on terrorism, however, a new niche business developed. The State Department did not have the internal resources or Marines to protect all of its diplomats and overseas embassies, but Blackwater had access to a deep roster of former special-forces soldiers who, it argued, could do the job. It wasn't long before Prince was offering a broad range of services, from protection by bodyguards to aerial surveillance, for the State Department, the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies. In 2003, Blackwater landed its first truly high-profile contract: guarding Ambassador L. Paul Bremer in Iraq, at the cost of $21 million in 11 months. Since June 2004, Blackwater has been paid more than $320 million out of a $1 billion, five-year State Department budget for the Worldwide Personal Protective Service, which protects U.S. officials and some foreign officials in conflict zones.

Prince's political connections may well have helped his company win these crucial contracts from the Bush Administration. He was a White House intern under George W. Bush's father. His family have long been G.O.P donors; his sister Betsy Prince DeVos chaired the Michigan Republican Party from 1996 to 2000 and from 2003 to 2005. And Blackwater has hired U.S. national-security vets onto its executive staff. Among them: Cofer Black, the onetime head of counterterrorism at the cia, and Joseph Schmitz, a former Pentagon inspector general whose duties included investigating contractual agreements with firms like Blackwater.

The Pentagon didn't plan for the contractors going so heavily into the war theater, says Lawrence Korb, Department of Defense manpower chief under President Ronald Reagan. "When they went into Iraq, the assumption was they had won," he says. "They did know there was going to be continuing fighting. This thing grew far beyond where anybody thought it would."....

.......The highest-paid independent contractors are known as tier-1 personnel. These are the former U.S. special-forces soldiers. On Helvenston's tour in Iraq, he was making about $600 a day. He was on a 60-day rotation and stood to make some $36,000 in two months.

What Went Wrong in Fallujah

When Helvenston was killed, Blackwater was expanding its business in Iraq from being just bodyguards. The company wanted to make a bid to take over security for convoys delivering kitchen supplies to U.S. military bases in Iraq...

.....The Pentagon seems likely to keep creating opportunities for private contractors. The agency's 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, a strategic assessment of the future for the U.S. war machine, envisions their expanded use. The report describes contractors as an integral part of the "total force" and describes ways to further integrate contractors into war-fighting capability. The previous strategic report, published before 9/11, doesn't even contain the word contractors.

Despite the Pentagon's support, U.S. lawmakers are calling for a dramatic reappraisal of how the military uses these men. There is certain to be greater demands for transparency. Since private contractors now are not required to open their books, no one can be certain how many are in Iraq; even the Pentagon doesn't keep track. Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, who has taken a personal interest in Katy Helvenston's story, introduced a bill in the House that would, for the first time, require the creation of databases to monitor the deployment and cost of contractors. Only last fall did the Department of Defense conduct a poll of some contracting companies, which came back with the suspiciously round number of 100,000 contractors operating in Iraq. "An owner of a circus," says Peter Singer, author of Corporate Warriors, "faces more regulation and inspection than a private military company."....