There are 50 days left until America goes to the Ballot Box. Either there is an Electoral Uprising or we will lose this Republic in all but name and pretense. Sen. John F. Kerry, over the weekend, made it clear that he is going to fight the triad of the Bush cabal, its wholly-owned-subsidiary-formerly-known-as-the-Republican-Party and their sponsors in the US regimestream news media on the central issues of this campaign even if the US regimestream news media, and its propapunditgandists including their craven, token “democrats” like Dee Dee Meyer (check out www.dailyhowler.com) choose to belittle, ignore, distort and trivialize. Yes, this weekend, JFK was on the stump speaking truth to power about the suppression of the African American vote both in 2000 and in 2004, and the Bush cabal’s post-9/11 cover-up and incompetence. It will not be too long before their pre-9/11 negligence becomes a campaign issue as well….Here are some *very* important stories (including the truth from US Marine commander in Falluja and the motive for the US regimestream news media complicity) that should dominate the air waves and capture headlines above the fold. But they probably won’t. Please read them and share them with others. Please vote and encourage all those you know to vote. And remember that the US regimestream news media does not intend to inform you about this presidential election campaign, they intend to DISinform you about this presidential election campaign…
1. Sen. John F. Kerry attacks the Bush cabal on 9/11
CNN: In his statement Sunday, Kerry complained that Cheney "continues to intentionally mislead the American public by drawing a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 in an attempt to make the invasion of Iraq part of the global war on terror.
"The president needs to answer the question: Who do you think is right? Vice President Cheney or Secretary Powell? And if it's Secretary Powell, will you direct your vice president to stop misleading the American people?"
The Kerry statement continued: "On an issue of such importance, where U.S. troops are bearing nearly 90 percent of the burden, and American taxpayers are paying $200 billion and counting, the administration has an especially solemn obligation to conduct itself in an honest and straightforward way.
"Unfortunately, in its desperate attempts to reinvent a rationale for the Iraq war, this White House has repeatedly chosen to mislead the American people."
Craig Gordon, Newsday: Sen. John Kerry used the anniversary of the nation's worst terrorist attack yesterday to call on President George W. Bush to declassify a secret post-9/11 report that recommends an overhaul of the nation's intelligence agencies.
After laying flowers at a Boston memorial garden and speaking at an event for Massachusetts victims' families, Kerry in a written statement called on Bush to release the report by a presidential intelligence commission that looked at how to restructure the nation's spy agencies to better confront terrorism.
Some of the report's recommendations are believed to be in line with those of the recent 9/11 Commission report, including the creation of a new national intelligence czar, which Bush has endorsed.
"The White House has held this important report under wraps for nearly three years while resisting efforts to strengthen our intelligence services that are essential to preventing terrorist attacks and protecting our nation," Kerry said in a written statement. "What is the White House hiding?"
Kerry has accused Bush of foot-dragging on efforts to restructure the nation's intelligence community in light of broad-based failures that prevented the United States from heading off the 9/11 attacks.2.
2. US Marine commander in Iraq speaks out on Fallujah
Anne Barnard, Boston Globe: The outgoing commander of US Marines in Iraq said yesterday that he disagreed with the order that sent his troops to invade the restive city of Fallujah in early April and with the decision to halt the attack days later, when he believed they were within days of victory.
Lieutenant General James T. Conway said the abortive assault, launched in response to the brutal killing of four US civilian contractors by a mob in Fallujah on March 31, spiked tensions in the area and helped make the region more hostile to US forces today than when his forces took charge of the area six months ago…
"I wonder how this might have developed if we had been able to continue the way we were," Conway said. "We follow our orders. We had our say, and we understood the rationale. We saluted smartly and went about the attack." Asked for his personal feelings about the order to stop the attack midway, Conway said, "I would simply say that when you order elements of a Marine division to attack a city, you really need to understand the consequences of that, and not, perhaps, vacillate in the middle of that. Once you commit to do that, you have to stay committed." He added that at the time the Marines were ordered to halt their offensive, "We thought we were going to be done in a few days." Conway's remarks were the strongest yet from Marines who have said privately for months that they were frustrated at the stop-and-go assault, which they believe shattered their rapport with Iraqis, yet brought no resolution and left the Marines appearing indecisive. Conway gave his assessment as his successor, Lieutenant General John F. Sattler, and the interim Iraqi government face much the same dilemma in Fallujah that Conway's Marines faced six months ago: leave the city in the hands of insurgents or face a bloody showdown that could incense Iraqis and international opinion.
3. A glimpse into the motive of the US regimestream news media
Harry Berkowitz, Newsday: On Friday, a federal appeals court rejected Tribune Co.'s attempt to lift a ban on owning a TV station and newspaper in the same big-city market. Chicago-based Tribune, whose properties include Newsday and WPIX/11 in New York, says it plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
But analysts say the high court probably will not even take the case, especially if the federal government does not back a court fight to retain Federal Communications Commissions rules loosening limits on media ownership. The FCC is not expected to decide whether to appeal until after the election.
The eventual outcome may depend on what the FCC does to revise its rules. And what it does may depend on whether George Bush or John Kerry is the next president, since the panel's makeup could change drastically.
"Of all the issues affecting the telecom-media sector, the one issue on which Bush and Kerry have the most predictable differences is media ownership," said Blair Levin, media regulatory analyst at investment firm Legg Mason.
In its Friday ruling on cross-ownership, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia refused to reverse part of its June decision that the FCC had improperly loosened a wide array of media ownership limits in 2003.
Tribune "has so much bet on this thing and they're really starting to sweat," said Andrew Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project, which represents a group seeking strict limits on media ownership. "There's billions of dollars sitting on the sidelines - transactions that are being held up."
Kerry, who opposes media consolidation, has called for a reversal of the FCC's relaxation of ownership limits. His election would mean a shake-up of the five-member panel, putting Democrats in the majority and possibly elevating commissioner Michael Copps to chairman.
4. Bush is SOFT on, and in bed with, on terrorist sponsors
Craig Unger, Guardian: Now, thanks to Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia and the Failure of America's War on Terror, a new book by Senator Bob Graham, we know that the Saudis may have played an even bigger role in 9/11 than previously reported. As a member of the Senate intelligence committee, Graham said he learned that "evidence of official Saudi support" for at least two of the 19 hijackers was "incontrovertible".
As co-chairman of the joint House-Senate panel investigating 9/11, Graham found his efforts to get to the bottom of the Saudi role in 9/11 again and again were quashed by the Bush administration. When his committee tried to subpoena a key witness who happened to be an FBI informant, the FBI refused to cooperate. "It was the only time in my senatorial experience that the FBI has refused to deliver a congressional subpoena," Graham told Salon.com in a recent interview. "The FBI wasn't acting on its own," he added, "but had been directed by the White House not to cooperate."
In the end, 27 pages of the report on the role of the Saudis in 9/11 were classified by the White House and not released to the public. According to Graham, the Bush administration may have censored the material because it did not want the public to be aware of Saudi support for the 9/11 terrorists. "There has been a long-term special relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia," he said, "and that relationship has probably reached a new high under the George W Bush administration, in part because of the long and close family relationship that the Bushes have had with the Saudi royal family."
Graham writes: "It was as if the president's loyalty lay more with Saudi Arabia than with America's safety."
5. Voice in the Wilderness heralds redemption
Nancy Benac, Associated Press: Gore, private citizen — unleashed.
Speaking with a freedom and passion less frequently seen in his own political campaigns, Gore is happily making speeches, raking in money and generally raising hell for John Kerry (news - web sites) and the Democratic Party these days. In his spare time, he's also teaching at three universities and raising money for himself through various business ventures.
In recent weeks and months, as an uncensored voice for the Democratic cause, Gore has skewered President Bush (news - web sites)'s team for moral cowardice, the "lowest sort of politics imaginable," aligning itself with "digital brownshirts" who intimidate the press, and political tactics as craven as those of Richard Nixon. Just to cite a few examples.
It's red meat for loyal Democrats, to whom Gore is the embodiment of what is at stake on Nov. 2.
"There's a lot of emotion that's wrapped up in the outcome of 2000, which I think he can use constructively in 2004," says Democratic consultant Michael Feldman, a former Gore adviser.
Just ask 76-year-old Jim McNeil, a retired steelworker who turned out to hear Gore speak at the United Steelworkers of America headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh last week.
"There stands the real president," said McNeil, who then made just the sought-after segue into support for Kerry on Election Day.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies, Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat the Triad, Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/12/kerry.powell.iraq/index.html
Kerry challenges Bush on Iraq-9/11 connection
Says administration is implying link that has been disproved
(CNN) -- Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry accused the Bush administration Sunday of falsely linking Iraq to the attacks of September 11, 2001, "in its desperate attempts to reinvent a rationale for the Iraq war."
Kerry made his charge in a statement released after Secretary of State Colin Powell said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he has seen nothing to link Saddam Hussein's regime with the 9/11 attacks.
"We know that there had been connections and there had been exchanges between al Qaeda and the Saddam Hussein regime. And those have been pursued and looked at," Powell said on the program.
"But I have seen nothing that makes a direct connection between Saddam Hussein and that awful regime, and what happened on 9/11."
Kerry said Powell "came clean with the American people about the lack of a connection between Iraq, Saddam Hussein and the September 11 attacks."
Not only that, Kerry said, Powell also contradicted comments Vice President Dick Cheney has made as recently as Friday.
At campaign stops Thursday and Friday, Cheney mentioned al Qaeda in discussing the Iraq war, but he did not link Iraq under Saddam to September 11. (Special report: America Votes 2004)
On Thursday in Cincinnati, Ohio, Cheney described Saddam as a "man who provided safe harbor and sanctuary to terrorists for years" and who "provided safe harbor and sanctuary as well for al Qaeda."
In Wisconsin on Friday, he said the "al Qaeda organization had a relationship with the Iraqis."
"The bottom line is that we're [in Iraq] for the safety and security of the nation, and our friends and allies around the world," Cheney said.
"We didn't do anything to provoke the attack of 9/11. We were attacked by the terrorists, and we've responded forcefully and aggressively."
In June, Cheney said "we don't know" whether Iraq was involved in 9/11.
In September 2003, Cheney said Iraq under Saddam had been "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."
But at the time President Bush said, "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11 [attacks]. What the vice president said was that he has been involved with al Qaeda."
The independent, bipartisan panel that investigated the attacks released its final report July 22. The 9/11 commission found there were numerous contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda in the 1990s, but it said those contacts did not result in a "collaborative relationship."
In his statement Sunday, Kerry complained that Cheney "continues to intentionally mislead the American public by drawing a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 in an attempt to make the invasion of Iraq part of the global war on terror.
"The president needs to answer the question: Who do you think is right? Vice President Cheney or Secretary Powell? And if it's Secretary Powell, will you direct your vice president to stop misleading the American people?"
The Kerry statement continued: "On an issue of such importance, where U.S. troops are bearing nearly 90 percent of the burden, and American taxpayers are paying $200 billion and counting, the administration has an especially solemn obligation to conduct itself in an honest and straightforward way.
"Unfortunately, in its desperate attempts to reinvent a rationale for the Iraq war, this White House has repeatedly chosen to mislead the American people."
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-uspols123964681sep12,0,6938923.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines
Kerry calls on Bush to release secret 9/11 report
BY CRAIG GORDON
WASHINGTON BUREAU
September 12, 2004
Boston - Sen. John Kerry used the anniversary of the nation's worst terrorist attack yesterday to call on President George W. Bush to declassify a secret post-9/11 report that recommends an overhaul of the nation's intelligence agencies.
It was a day in which both presidential candidates shelved campaign speeches in favor of public words of remembrance and comfort. But Kerry, who is trailing in the polls with less than two months to Election Day, also took a political tack.
After laying flowers at a Boston memorial garden and speaking at an event for Massachusetts victims' families, Kerry in a written statement called on Bush to release the report by a presidential intelligence commission that looked at how to restructure the nation's spy agencies to better confront terrorism.
Some of the report's recommendations are believed to be in line with those of the recent 9/11 Commission report, including the creation of a new national intelligence czar, which Bush has endorsed.
"The White House has held this important report under wraps for nearly three years while resisting efforts to strengthen our intelligence services that are essential to preventing terrorist attacks and protecting our nation," Kerry said in a written statement. "What is the White House hiding?"
Kerry has accused Bush of foot-dragging on efforts to restructure the nation's intelligence community in light of broad-based failures that prevented the United States from heading off the 9/11 attacks.
At the same time, Bush has made the Sept. 11 attacks and his response the central theme of his campaign, as he tries to convince voters that he, not Kerry, is the leader who can keep them safe in a dangerous world and that Kerry is unfit for the job.
Bush did not mention Kerry in his weekly radio address live from the Oval Office as he pledged that the nation "will not relent" until the terrorists are defeated.
His campaign, meanwhile, said it was Kerry's right to talk political issues yesterday - but that they would not follow suit in deference to the day.
"September 11 is a day of remembrance, and the Bush campaign will respond to these attacks on September 12," said Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel.
Kerry campaign spokeswoman Allison Dobson denied that Kerry was trying to use the national attention on the attacks to score political points. She said that with Congress preparing to consider a new central intelligence chief and weighing Bush's recommendations for intelligence reform, the report could add a valuable perspective. "We want time to get it out there," Dobson said.
The panel was chaired by retired Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who chaired the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and served as national security adviser when Bush's father was president.
The report could fuel Kerry's campaign criticism if it shows that Scowcroft recommended a similar intelligence shake-up to the one the 9/11 Commission recommended recently, but did it almost three years ago, with no White House action. Republican lawmakers recently pressed Scowcroft to release the report, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said he doesn't know why it remains classified.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc. | Article licensing and reprint options
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/09/13/commander_disagreed_with_invasion/
Commander disagreed with invasion
By Anne Barnard, Globe Staff | September 13, 2004
FALLUJAH, Iraq -- The outgoing commander of US Marines in Iraq said yesterday that he disagreed with the order that sent his troops to invade the restive city of Fallujah in early April and with the decision to halt the attack days later, when he believed they were within days of victory.
Lieutenant General James T. Conway said the abortive assault, launched in response to the brutal killing of four US civilian contractors by a mob in Fallujah on March 31, spiked tensions in the area and helped make the region more hostile to US forces today than when his forces took charge of the area six months ago.
The attack on the contractors came just four days after the First Marine Expeditionary Force took over the sprawling area that includes Fallujah from the Army's 82d Airborne Division. The ensuing assault scuttled Marine plans to focus on winning hearts and minds by cooperating closely with locals on reconstruction, and it kicked off a new round of destabilizing violence that is still plaguing the country.
"We felt like we had a method that we wanted to apply to Fallujah, that we ought to probably let the situation settle before we appeared to be attacking out of revenge," Conway told reporters yesterday at Camp Fallujah, the Marine base on the city's outskirts.
Instead, under orders from superiors, Marines launched a major offensive into the city, only to receive new orders to pause after three days of intense fighting and cordon off the city in what became a three-week standoff. Television images of destruction, civilian casualties, and refugees fleeing the city sparked outrage among Iraqis. The crisis ended only when Marines left the city and handed control to the Fallujah Brigades, a group of former Iraqi army officers from the area, some with ties to insurgents. That experiment failed, Conway said. The Fallujah Brigade never took effective action -- some of its members cooperated with insurgent attacks, Iraqi and US officials say -- and was dismantled this month. Fallujah remains in chaos, with rival insurgent groups using the city as a base.
"I wonder how this might have developed if we had been able to continue the way we were," Conway said. "We follow our orders. We had our say, and we understood the rationale. We saluted smartly and went about the attack." Asked for his personal feelings about the order to stop the attack midway, Conway said, "I would simply say that when you order elements of a Marine division to attack a city, you really need to understand the consequences of that, and not, perhaps, vacillate in the middle of that. Once you commit to do that, you have to stay committed." He added that at the time the Marines were ordered to halt their offensive, "We thought we were going to be done in a few days." Conway's remarks were the strongest yet from Marines who have said privately for months that they were frustrated at the stop-and-go assault, which they believe shattered their rapport with Iraqis, yet brought no resolution and left the Marines appearing indecisive. Conway gave his assessment as his successor, Lieutenant General John F. Sattler, and the interim Iraqi government face much the same dilemma in Fallujah that Conway's Marines faced six months ago: leave the city in the hands of insurgents or face a bloody showdown that could incense Iraqis and international opinion.
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has vowed in recent days to relaunch an attack on Fallujah if its people cannot oust the insurgents and rejoin Iraq's political process. But the timing of an assault must strike a delicate balance, Marine commanders said. It should not happen until an Iraqi security force is ready to lead the attack and then maintain control inside the city. But that could take months, and every day the assault is delayed insurgents have more time to dig in.
Conway has led the First Marine Expeditionary Force for two years and until yesterday commanded 42,000 troops in Iraq who patrolled some of Iraq's most dangerous areas: Al Anbar province, which includes Fallujah, Ramadi, and much of the restive Sunni Triangle; Najaf, where they fought a three week battle with Moqtada al-Sadr's militia; and the towns of Mahmoudiya and Latifiya, insurgent strongholds south of Baghdad. Conway's criticisms hold weight because of his track record; he was decorated yesterday for leading Marines in the invasion of Iraq last year, the longest and fastest Marine advance in history. He is moving on to the Pentagon post of deputy director of operations at the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
He stopped short of criticizing political leadership, saying of the disputed orders, "I don't know how high it went." He said he received the orders from Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, then commander of US forces in Iraq.
Marines, too, have faced criticism for how they handled the region; whether their stated policy of increased activity to win over Iraqis combined with more aggressive raids helped spark April's violence has been hotly debated.
Before they arrived, Army troops faced strong resistance in Fallujah. But they could visit the town hall and police station, and the Iraqi police at least nominally functioned inside the city. On March 24, as Marines visited the town hall along with the outgoing Army commanders, they were attacked from three sides and had to fight their way out of the city. Soon after Marines took control on March 27, they launched an aggressive raid inside the city, sparking skirmishes with several casualties. The contractors were killed the next week. During the fighting in April, insurgents routed Iraqi National Guard and police forces. After the Fallujah Brigade took over, armed groups have run rampant in the city, including some trying to impose Islamic law and others profiting from crime. Marines argue the pullout had one benefit: removing the rallying cry that united those disparate groups.
Now, troops may face one more armed foe: Many of the Fallujah Brigades are expected to support the insurgency rather than join Iraqi police and army units as Allawi has urged them to do. The Marines gave the brigade's 2,000 soldiers 800 rifles, 27 trucks, and 50 radios, Conway said, adding that they have been asked to turn them in within the week.
Sattler, the director of operations for US Central Command, which oversees Iraqi operations, assumed command of Conway's troops in a formal ceremony yesterday morning at Camp Fallujah.
Three mortar barrages struck the camp before the ceremony, the fiercest attack in weeks, Marines said. One round struck within 100 yards of the building where the ceremony was held.
© Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bztrb083959362sep08,0,7838860.story?coll=ny-business-headlines
Media ownership limits may depend on election
BY HARRY BERKOWITZ
STAFF WRITER
September 8, 2004
Big media companies are striking out in efforts to bat away some of the uncertainty over how much they will be allowed to own - and the final answers may hinge on who is elected president.
On Friday, a federal appeals court rejected Tribune Co.'s attempt to lift a ban on owning a TV station and newspaper in the same big-city market. Chicago-based Tribune, whose properties include Newsday and WPIX/11 in New York, says it plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
But analysts say the high court probably will not even take the case, especially if the federal government does not back a court fight to retain Federal Communications Commissions rules loosening limits on media ownership. The FCC is not expected to decide whether to appeal until after the election.
The eventual outcome may depend on what the FCC does to revise its rules. And what it does may depend on whether George Bush or John Kerry is the next president, since the panel's makeup could change drastically.
"Of all the issues affecting the telecom-media sector, the one issue on which Bush and Kerry have the most predictable differences is media ownership," said Blair Levin, media regulatory analyst at investment firm Legg Mason.
In its Friday ruling on cross-ownership, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia refused to reverse part of its June decision that the FCC had improperly loosened a wide array of media ownership limits in 2003.
Tribune "has so much bet on this thing and they're really starting to sweat," said Andrew Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project, which represents a group seeking strict limits on media ownership. "There's billions of dollars sitting on the sidelines - transactions that are being held up."
Shaun Sheehan, the lobbyist for Tribune in Washington, D.C., acknowledged that the company's appeal was an "outside shot," but said resolution of the cross-ownership issue should not be held up along with the other FCC media rules because diversity of news sources is inherent in the big-city markets where Tribune seeks to own papers and TV stations.
"At the end of the day we may be vindicated - we rather think we will be, except the day's getting awfully long," Sheehan said.
In addition to Tribune, the extent of ownership limits could affect possible plans by companies including CBS parent Viacom, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., Gannett and Media General.
Analysts say the case does not appear to raise issues that would tempt the high court. Even if the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, it might not rule until June.
Kerry, who opposes media consolidation, has called for a reversal of the FCC's relaxation of ownership limits. His election would mean a shake-up of the five-member panel, putting Democrats in the majority and possibly elevating commissioner Michael Copps to chairman.
Even if Bush remains president, it is uncertain whether Republican Michael Powell will remain chairman of the FCC.
Either way, a new FCC may take a year to draft new ownership rules - and there is no guarantee those will meet court objections.
Instead, the FCC may end up reviewing media acquisitions on a case-by-case basis instead of seeking to impose far-reaching rules, some analysts say.
The first crunch for Tribune could come Aug. 1, 2006, when its license for TV station KTLA in Los Angeles expires, after which it has one year to decide whether to drop the station or its newspaper there, the Los Angeles Times. The license for WPIX, which is in the same market as Newsday, expires Feb. 1, 2007. If the rules don't change Tribune could seek a waiver or be forced to sell one of the properties in each city.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/comment/story/0,14259,1302339,00.html
Comment
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'War president' Bush has always been soft on terror
His campaign says vote Republican or die - but he lets al-Qaida off the hook
Craig Unger
Saturday September 11, 2004
The Guardian
Where's George Orwell when we need him? Because we Americans need him. We desperately need him. Consider: in August 2001, immediately after reading a memo entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike in US", President George Bush went bass fishing - and never called a meeting to discuss the issue.
A month later, on September 11, when he was told that the terrorists had attacked, Bush spent the next seven minutes reading a children's book, The Pet Goat, with a group of schoolchildren.
And when it comes to his own military service, recent revelations show that Bush got out of fighting in Vietnam thanks to his dad's political clout. Even then, Bush didn't fulfil his obligations to the National Guard.
Yet somehow the Bush-Cheney ticket is convincing Americans that only a Republican administration can handle national security. If John Kerry wins, Dick Cheney warned: "The danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating." The choice is simple: Vote Republican, or die. And voters are buying it.
A poll just after the Republican convention showed that 27% of the voters preferred Bush to Kerry when it came to national security. Increasingly, it is becoming clear that if Bush wins in November it will be because of the fear factor.
Yet the truth is that Bush is actually soft on terror. When it comes to going after the men who were behind 9/11 and who continue to wage a jihad against the US, Bush has repeatedly turned a blind eye to the forces behind terrorism, shielded the people who funded al-Qaida, obstructed investigations and diverted resources from the battle against it.
One key reason is the Bush-Saudi relationship, the like of which is unprecedented in US politics. Even after the success of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, the subject is largely taboo in the American media. Never before has a president of the US - much less two from the same family - had such close ties with another foreign power.
Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the US and a powerful member of the royal family, has been a close friend of George Bush Snr for more than 20 years. Nicknamed Bandar Bush, he drops by the Bush residences in Kennebunkport, Maine, and Crawford, Texas, not to mention the White House. He and Bush senior go on hunting trips together.
Then there's the money. More than $1.4bn of financial transactions have gone from the House of Saud to corporations and institutions tied to the Bushes and their allies - largely to companies such as the Carlyle Group, Halliburton, and HarkenEnergy. So what does all that influence buy the Saudis?
Let's go to the White House on September 13 2001. Just 48 hours after 9/11, the toxic rubble at the World Trade Centre site was still ablaze. The estimated death count, later lowered significantly, was thought to be as high as 40,000.
On that afternoon, Bandar met on the Truman balcony with President Bush and the two men lit up Cohiba cigars. At the time, the White House knew that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. It knew that Osama bin Laden was Saudi. And, as the 9/11 commission concluded, it knew that Saudi Arabia was "the primary source of money for al-Qaida", which was largely funded by wealthy Saudis via Islamist charities.
President Bush was in the presence of the ambassador from the country that is the guardian of Wahhabi Islam, the fundamentalist sect which helped produce al-Qaida. This is where the war on terror and a massive investigation into the greatest crime in US history should have begun.
But, given the intimate relationship between the two families - and, of course, the fact that the Saudis help fuel America's 165m automobiles - this was not just a meeting between the president of the US and the ambassador of a country that harboured and financed terrorists. The Saudis were special.
Because Bush and Bandar were the only two people present, we do not know exactly what was said. But we do know that the president failed to join the issue of the Saudi role in terror or how to stop the funding of terrorism through Islamist charities and financial institutions.
That same afternoon, the first of 11 chartered planes began to pick up more than 140 Saudis scattered throughout the US. Saudi Arabia and the president's defenders have mounted a massive PR campaign to minimise the damage of the Saudi evacuation. But the facts in the 9/11 commission report remain unchanged. The Saudi evacuation flights were not the fantasies of conspiratorialists. They actually took place. The departures were approved by the White House and the vast majority of Saudi passengers were not interviewed by the FBI.
This was the biggest crime in US history. But, in the midst of a grave national security crisis, rather than investigating it the White House and the FBI spent their limited resources helping evacuate the Saudis.
Over the next two years, the 9/11 commission found, the Bush administration failed "to develop a strategy to counter Saudi terrorist financing". As a result, our Saudi allies were half-hearted in cooperating on terrorist financing and, the commission concluded: "the US government still has not determined with any precision how much al-Qaida raises or from whom, or how it spends its money."
Now, thanks to Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia and the Failure of America's War on Terror, a new book by Senator Bob Graham, we know that the Saudis may have played an even bigger role in 9/11 than previously reported. As a member of the Senate intelligence committee, Graham said he learned that "evidence of official Saudi support" for at least two of the 19 hijackers was "incontrovertible".
As co-chairman of the joint House-Senate panel investigating 9/11, Graham found his efforts to get to the bottom of the Saudi role in 9/11 again and again were quashed by the Bush administration. When his committee tried to subpoena a key witness who happened to be an FBI informant, the FBI refused to cooperate. "It was the only time in my senatorial experience that the FBI has refused to deliver a congressional subpoena," Graham told Salon.com in a recent interview. "The FBI wasn't acting on its own," he added, "but had been directed by the White House not to cooperate."
In the end, 27 pages of the report on the role of the Saudis in 9/11 were classified by the White House and not released to the public. According to Graham, the Bush administration may have censored the material because it did not want the public to be aware of Saudi support for the 9/11 terrorists. "There has been a long-term special relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia," he said, "and that relationship has probably reached a new high under the George W Bush administration, in part because of the long and close family relationship that the Bushes have had with the Saudi royal family."
Graham writes: "It was as if the president's loyalty lay more with Saudi Arabia than with America's safety."
If that is the case, no wonder the Bush-Cheney ticket is counting on fear.
• Craig Unger is the author of House of Bush, House of Saud
craigunger@houseofbush.com
Gore Unleashes Fury on Democrats' Behalf
Sun Sep 12, 2:50 PM ET
By NANCY BENAC, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Al Gore (news - web sites)'s stiff jokes are gone now, replaced by recount jokes. The cautious campaigner of 2000 is gone, too, replaced by a fire-breathing Bush basher.
When Gore delivered his latest-in-a-series slam at the Republicans last week, faulting Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) for "sleazy and despicable" criticism of the Democrats, a White House spokesman dismissively responded: "Consider the source."
Well, Gore used to be the vice president. And, as he likes to say, he used to be the next president of the United States.
Now, he is Al Gore, private citizen — unleashed.
Speaking with a freedom and passion less frequently seen in his own political campaigns, Gore is happily making speeches, raking in money and generally raising hell for John Kerry (news - web sites) and the Democratic Party these days. In his spare time, he's also teaching at three universities and raising money for himself through various business ventures.
In recent weeks and months, as an uncensored voice for the Democratic cause, Gore has skewered President Bush (news - web sites)'s team for moral cowardice, the "lowest sort of politics imaginable," aligning itself with "digital brownshirts" who intimidate the press, and political tactics as craven as those of Richard Nixon. Just to cite a few examples.
It's red meat for loyal Democrats, to whom Gore is the embodiment of what is at stake on Nov. 2.
"There's a lot of emotion that's wrapped up in the outcome of 2000, which I think he can use constructively in 2004," says Democratic consultant Michael Feldman, a former Gore adviser.
Just ask 76-year-old Jim McNeil, a retired steelworker who turned out to hear Gore speak at the United Steelworkers of America headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh last week.
"There stands the real president," said McNeil, who then made just the sought-after segue into support for Kerry on Election Day.
Republicans, however, say Gore's passion on the campaign path has reached an unhealthy fever pitch that could do Democrats more harm than good.
GOP strategist Keith Appell likens him to "some kind of cheerleader on acid."
"Some of the things he has said have been outrageous and he says them in this high-pitched scream," Appell said. "I really don't know what to call that."
When Gore, in an interview with The New Yorker, compared Bush's faith to "the same fundamentalist impulse that we see in Saudi Arabia" and elsewhere, the Bush campaign distributed a statement from GOP consultant Ralph Reed, a former leader of the Christian Coalition, calling the comments "reckless and irresponsible."
If Kerry's advisers have any nervousness about Gore's high-octane attacks, they're not showing it in public.
"Gore will be a tremendous asset to us in a number of targeted battleground states and we're happy to have his help," said David Morehouse, a senior Kerry adviser. As for Gore's more outspoken criticisms, Morehouse adds, "He's a former vice president who's entitled to say what he believes."
Gore isn't just stumping for Kerry. He's also campaigning for other Democratic candidates for whom the former vice president can be a huge draw.
Last Wednesday, for example, Gore and wife Tipper hosted a house party for Tennessee legislative candidates that raised a record quarter-million dollars. On Thursday, he made two stops in Pennsylvania for Kerry. On Friday, he was in Illinois, raising money for Democratic House candidate Melissa Bean.
Pollster Andy Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, said Gore is "emblematic of happier days" to many Democrats.
But Kohut cautioned that "swing voters tend to be moderate, and if he comes across as too over the top, there's a risk." The pollster added, though, "Certainly he's not any more over-the-top than Dick Cheney."
Gore, who talks with Kerry frequently, had a first-day speaking role at the Democratic convention in Boston, where he toned down his rhetoric in keeping with the party's goal of projecting a positive tone from the podium.
But party activists are happy to see Gore take a harder line on the hustings. And some wonder how the 2000 election might have ended if only Gore had been similarly passionate in his denunciations of Bush then.
"He was shackled with the trappings of the office of vice president in 2000 and it's a shame, because I think it certainly held him back," says Warren Gooch, a lawyer and party fund-raiser in Gore's home state of Tennessee. "If he had been a little more forceful, a little more open and perhaps a little less cautious in 2000, it could possibly have made a difference."
Gore was warmly cheered as he took center stage in Boston. Before speaking, he paused to acknowledge the ovation, patting his hand on his heart in a reprise of the same gesture he made four years earlier, when he was accepting his party's nomination rather than merely endorsing its choice of another man.
This time, the gesture had an almost wistful element to it. And then Gore heaved a sigh and went on with his speech.