Sunday, October 31, 2004

 

Exclusive: Bush Wanted To Invade Iraq If Elected in Ex2000

Reprinted without permission from www.russbaker.com




Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:59:47 -0700
By Russ Baker

Two years before 9/11, candidate Bush was already talking privately about attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer


Houston: Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.

“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”

Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father’s shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September 11 attacks. “Suddenly, he’s at 91 percent in the polls, and he’d barely crawled out of the bunker.”

That President Bush and his advisers had Iraq on their minds long before weapons inspectors had finished their work – and long before alleged Iraqi ties with terrorists became a central rationale for war – has been raised elsewhere, including in a book based on recollections of former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill. However, Herskowitz was in a unique position to hear Bush’s unguarded and unfiltered views on Iraq, war and other matters – well before he became president.

In 1999, Herskowitz struck a deal with the campaign of George W. Bush about a ghost-written autobiography, which was ultimately titled A Charge to Keep : My Journey to the White House, and he and Bush signed a contract in which the two would split the proceeds. The publisher was William Morrow. Herskowitz was given unimpeded access to Bush, and the two met approximately 20 times so Bush could share his thoughts. Herskowitz began working on the book in May, 1999, and says that within two months he had completed and submitted some 10 chapters, with a remaining 4-6 chapters still on his computer. Herskowitz was replaced as Bush’s ghostwriter after Bush’s handlers concluded that the candidate’s views and life experiences were not being cast in a sufficiently positive light.

According to Herskowitz, who has authored more than 30 books, many of them jointly written autobiographies of famous Americans in politics, sports and media (including that of Reagan adviser Michael Deaver), Bush and his advisers were sold on the idea that it was difficult for a president to accomplish an electoral agenda without the record-high approval numbers that accompany successful if modest wars.

The revelations on Bush’s attitude toward Iraq emerged recently during two taped interviews of Herskowitz, which included a discussion of a variety of matters, including his continued closeness with the Bush family, indicated by his subsequent selection to pen an authorized biography of Bush’s grandfather, written and published last year with the assistance and blessing of the Bush family

Herskowitz also revealed the following:

-In 2003, Bush’s father indicated to him that he disagreed with his son’s invasion of Iraq

-Bush admitted that he failed to fulfill his Vietnam-era domestic National Guard service obligation, but claimed that he had been “excused.”

-Bush revealed that after he left his Texas National Guard unit in 1972 under murky circumstances, he never piloted a plane again. That casts doubt on the carefully-choreographed moment of Bush emerging in pilot’s garb from a jet on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003 to celebrate “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq. The image, instantly telegraphed around the globe, and subsequent hazy White House statements about his capacity in the cockpit, created the impression that a heroic Bush had played a role in landing the craft.

-Bush described his own business ventures as “floundering” before campaign officials insisted on recasting them in a positive light.

Throughout the interviews for this article and in subsequent conversations, Herskowitz indicated he was conflicted over revealing information provided by a family with which he has longtime connections, and by how his candor could comport with the undefined operating principles of the as-told-to genre. Well after the interviews—in which he expressed consternation that Bush’s true views, experience and basic essence had eluded the American people —Herskowitz communicated growing concern about the consequences for himself of the publication of his remarks, and said that he had been under the impression he would not be quoted by name. However, when conversations began, it was made clear to him that the material was intended for publication and attribution. A tape recorder was present and visible at all times.

Several people who know Herskowitz well addressed his character and the veracity of his recollections. “I don’t know anybody that’s ever said a bad word about Mickey,” said Barry Silverman, a well-known Houston executive and civic figure who worked with him on another book project. An informal survey of Texas journalists turned up uniform confidence that Herskowitz’s account as contained in this article could be considered accurate.

One noted Texas journalist who spoke with Herskowitz about the book in 1999 recalls how the author mentioned to him at the time that Bush had revealed things the campaign found embarrassing and did not want in print. He requested anonymity because of the political climate in the state. “I can’t go near this,” he said.

According to Herskowitz, George W. Bush’s beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House – ascribed in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. “Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade.”

Bush’s circle of pre-election advisers had a fixation on the political capital that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher collected from the Falklands War. Said Herskowitz: “They were just absolutely blown away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the boats, people throwing flowers at [Thatcher] and her getting these standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent speeches.”

Republicans, Herskowitz said, felt that Jimmy Carter’s political downfall could be attributed largely to his failure to wage a war. He noted that President Reagan and President Bush’s father himself had (besides the narrowly-focused Gulf War I) successfully waged limited wars against tiny opponents – Grenada and Panama – and gained politically. But there were successful small wars, and then there were quagmires, and apparently George H.W. Bush and his son did not see eye to eye.

“I know [Bush senior] would not admit this now, but he was opposed to it. I asked him if he had talked to W about invading Iraq. “He said, ‘No I haven’t, and I won’t, but Brent [Scowcroft] has.’ Brent would not have talked to him without the old man’s okaying it.” Scowcroft, national security adviser in the elder Bush’s administration, penned a highly publicized warning to George W. Bush about the perils of an invasion.

Herskowitz’s revelations are not the sole indicator of Bush’s pre-election thinking on Iraq. In December 1999, some six months after his talks with Herskowitz, Bush surprised veteran political chroniclers, including the Boston Globe’s David Nyhan, with his blunt pronouncements about Saddam at a six-way New Hampshire primary event that got little notice: “It was a gaffe-free evening for the rookie front-runner, till he was asked about Saddam’s weapons stash,” wrote Nyhan. ‘I’d take ‘em out,’ [Bush] grinned cavalierly, ‘take out the weapons of mass destruction…I’m surprised he’s still there,” said Bush of the despot who remains in power after losing the Gulf War to Bush Jr.’s father…It remains to be seen if that offhand declaration of war was just Texas talk, a sort of locker room braggadocio, or whether it was Bush’s first big clinker. ”

The notion that President Bush held unrealistic or naïve views about the consequences of war was further advanced recently by a Bush supporter, the evangelist Pat Robertson, who revealed that Bush had told him the Iraq invasion would yield no casualties. In addition, in recent days, high-ranking US military officials have complained that the White House did not provide them with adequate resources for the task at hand.

Herskowitz considers himself a friend of the Bush family, and has been a guest at the family vacation home in Kennebunkport. In the late 1960s, Herskowitz, a longtime Houston Chronicle sports columnist designated President Bush’s father, then-Congressman George HW Bush, to replace him as a guest columnist, and the two have remained close since then. (Herskowitz was suspended briefly in April without pay for reusing material from one of his own columns, about legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.)

In 1999, when Herskowitz turned in his chapters for Charge to Keep, Bush’s staff expressed displeasure —often over Herskowitz’s use of language provided by Bush himself. In a chapter on the oil business, Herskowitz included Bush’s own words to describe the Texan’s unprofitable business ventures, writing: “the companies were floundering”. “I got a call from one of the campaign lawyers, he was kind of angry, and he said, ‘You’ve got some wrong information.’ I didn’t bother to say, ‘Well you know where it came from.’ [The lawyer] said, ‘We do not consider that the governor struggled or floundered in the oil business. We consider him a successful oilman who started up at least two new businesses.’ ”

In the end, campaign officials decided not to go with Herskowitz’s account, and, moreover, demanded everything back. “The lawyer called me and said, ‘Delete it. Shred it. Just do it.’ ”

“They took it and [communications director] Karen [Hughes] rewrote it,” he said. A campaign official arrived at his home at seven a.m. on a Monday morning and took his notes and computer files. However, Herskowitz, who is known for his memory of anecdotes from his long history in journalism and book publishing, says he is confident about his recollections.

According to Herskowitz, Bush was reluctant to discuss his time in the Texas Air National Guard – and inconsistent when he did so. Bush, he said, provided conflicting explanations of how he came to bypass a waiting list and obtain a coveted Guard slot as a domestic alternative to being sent to Vietnam. Herskowitz also said that Bush told him that after transferring from his Texas Guard unit two-thirds through his six-year military obligation to work on an Alabama political campaign, he did not attend any Alabama National Guard drills at all, because he was “excused.” This directly contradicts his public statements that he participated in obligatory training with the Alabama National Guard. Bush’s claim to have fulfilled his military duty has been subject to intense scrutiny; he has insisted in the past that he did show up for monthly drills in Alabama – though commanding officers say they never saw him, and no Guardsmen have come forward to accept substantial “rewards” for anyone who can claim to have seen Bush on base.

Herskowitz said he asked Bush if he ever flew a plane again after leaving the Texas Air National Guard in 1972 – which was two years prior to his contractual obligation to fly jets was due to expire. He said Bush told him he never flew any plane – military or civilian – again. That would contradict published accounts in which Bush talks about his days in 1973 working with inner-city children, when he claimed to have taken some of the children up in a plane.

In 2002, three years after he had been pulled off the George W. Bush biography, Herskowitz was asked by Bush’s father to write a book about the current president’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, after getting a message that the senior Bush wanted to see him. “Former President Bush just handed it to me. We were sitting there one day, and I was visiting him there in his office…He said, ‘I wish somebody would do a book about my dad.’ ”

“He said to me, ‘I know this has been a disappointing time for you, but it’s amazing how many times something good will come out of it.’ I passed it on to my agent, he jumped all over it. I asked [Bush senior], ‘Would you support it and would you give me access to the rest of family?’ He said yes.”

That book, Duty, Honor, Country: The Life and Legacy of Prescott Bush, was published in 2003 by Routledge. If anything, the book has been criticized for its over-reliance on the Bush family’s perspective and rosy interpretation of events. Herskowitz himself is considered the ultimate “as-told-to” author, lending credibility to his account of what George W. Bush told him. Herskowitz’s other books run the gamut of public figures, and include the memoirs of Reagan aide Deaver, former Texas Governor and Nixon Treasury Secretary John Connally, newsman Dan Rather, astronaut Walter Cunningham, and baseball greats Mickey Mantle and Nolan Ryan.

After Herskowitz was pulled from the Bush book project, the biographer learned that a scenario was being prepared to explain his departure. “I got a phone call from someone in the Bush campaign, confidentially, saying ‘Watch your back.’ ”

Reporters covering Bush say that when they inquired as to why Herskowitz was no longer on the project, Hughes intimated that Herskowitz had personal habits that interfered with his writing – a claim Herskowitz said is unfounded. Later, the campaign put out the word that Herskowitz had been removed for missing a deadline. Hughes subsequently finished the book herself – it received largely critical reviews for its self-serving qualities and lack of spontaneity or introspection.

So, said Herskowitz, the best material was left on the cutting room floor, including Bush’s true feelings.

“He told me that as a leader, you can never admit to a mistake,” Herskowitz said. “That was one of the keys to being a leader.”

Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute.

Russ Baker is an award-winning independent journalist who has been published in The New York Times, The Nation, Washington Post, The Telegraph (UK

posted by ~Brahma 10:15 AM

Sunday, October 03, 2004

 

Who Won the Debate?

Reprinted from the message board at http://groups.msn.com/BrahmasWorld/_whatsnew.msnw

From Leslie:

Happy Birthday Brahma -- many many more

just got back from chicago...in car service driver thought bush was kickin Kerrys ass. I'm predisposed to want to like Kerry more...but they both look weak to me.... Kerry odoes not come off well...bush is a liar and comes off arrogant ( but probably only those predisposed to hating him) ...don't know if either candidate will gain or loose from this


Is the blonde bush twin on steroids???

her head is huge like a caucasin Barry Bonds or Jason Giambi in a long hair wig. And the other one looks a bit like Julie Nixon.

Where were the Kerry girls -- Trigger and Seabisuit? Actaully in a beastiality sort of way they can be somewhat attactive -- if you like the horsey look -- wonder if they whiny in bed

( Oh No it's edwards on tv-- a -- Bert Convy , without the edge ( hahaha). Edwards -- what type of polymer is he composed of. At least so far we havent had to see Cheney ( at least not yet).

Guiliani has got his act together...even when he says things that I don't agree with, he makes his point well

Teresa Heiny Kerry's butt is starting to get to Hillary proportions


From the Brahma:
Thank you Leslie....and thanks for the "Joan Rivers-esque" review in your second message. And you're right about the Bush twin that looks like Julie Nixon. Perhaps Laura can have children from seperate fathers like a dog or cat and her father is actually Richard Nixon.

Those watching on C-span saw the other one strike a pose just before they cut away:

Let me say right at the top (or near enough) that I'm pleased and honored that this potentially important event has taken place on Brahmaday.....as well as of course proud to send my warmest congratulations to the New York Yankees for clinching the American League East pennant on this day as well. Babe Ruth hit his 60th HR on September 30th, 1927.

In my pre-debate message that disappeared, I covered a lot of different aspects, including this excerpt from Paul Krugman's recent column:

"Interviews with focus groups just after the first 2000 debate showed Al Gore with a slight edge. Post-debate analysis should have widened that edge. After all, during the debate, Mr. Bush told one whopper after another - about his budget plans, about his prescription drug proposal and more. The fact-checking in the next day's papers should have been devastating.

But as Adam Clymer pointed out yesterday on the Op-Ed page of The Times, front-page coverage of the 2000 debates emphasized not what the candidates said but their "body language." After the debate, the lead stories said a lot about Mr. Gore's sighs, but nothing about Mr. Bush's lies. And even the fact-checking pieces "buried inside the newspaper" were, as Mr. Clymer delicately puts it, "constrained by an effort to balance one candidate's big mistakes" - that is, Mr. Bush's lies - "against the other's minor errors."

The result of this emphasis on the candidates' acting skills rather than their substance was that after a few days, Mr. Bush's defeat in the debate had been spun into a victory."

~*~ We really shouldn't be surprised that the fate of the free world could be effected by a candidate's breaking wind at an unfortunate time....afterall Clinton received the B.J. heard 'round the world.....helping place Gore in an uphill battle that eventually elected Bush and created the mess we're witnessing now. It's absolutely amazing the effect one person's sexual indescretion has had upon the rest of the world! It's a good example of "The Butterfly Effect":

Lorenz publicized his discovery at a 1972 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The title of his talk? "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?" Thus was born the term "Butterfly Effect" -- the notion that a small action can produce big change over time.

~*~ Call this the political B.J. effect. Does the flap of an intern's lips set off a war in Iraq?

Anyway....the debate. Debates at the Presidential level are comparable to heavyweight championship fights. If the challenger doesn't give the sitting champ a sound beating, its usually scored a tie because the judges are reticent to surrender the belt with possible contrversy. Even if the champ looks bad, he needs to be knocked down to convince people the other guy is worthy. I don't think we saw Kerry win decicively enough to hand him the belt yet....but he definitely bloodied the champs nose.

I don't know how it played over the radio....a caller to Bob Fass tonight (www.wbai.org -Thur-midnighteastern time zone) who listened via radio claimed to have heard numerous speech gaffes by Bush that he could identify. On T.V., with the benefit of body language, I could only make out a few garbled-like gaffes. But Kerry after a brief warm-up, seemed to come out strong....and Bush seemed stunned by the early barrage. I think that threw him off his game plan for the first 40 minutes or so. He briefly recovered with the same old-school rhetoric about having to stay the course....and Kerry changes his mind too often. But his arguement had little substance. Kerry scored big when:

Kerry conceded a mistake on one point, but implied it paled next the one he accused Bush of making.

"You know, when I talked about the $87 billion, I made a mistake in how I talk about the war. But the president made a mistake in invading Iraq. Which is worse?

Kerry also said Bush erred when he defended the invasion of Iraq by saying "The enemy attacked us." "Saddam Hussein didn't attack us. Osama bin Laden attacked us. Al-Qaida attacked us," Kerry said. (From Yahoo)

~*~ And true to Paul Krugman's analysis.....

Three post-debate polls suggested that voters' first impressions were good for Kerry, with most of those surveyed saying he did better than Bush. Such instant polls reflect the views of debate watchers and not the public at large. Initial reactions to a debate can change after a few days have passed.

~*~ Surely, my assesment is as prejudiced as Leslie's cabdriver...but I thought Kerry did VERY well. He looked calm and in control while Bush had a few Nixonesque moments where he looked flustered and he kept repeating himself...."it's hard work!...it's hard work!...".....We can't send the wrong message....we must stay the course...". Some of the news people's analysis praise him for "sticking to his message"....but it just seemed desperate and simple-minded to me. Unfortunately, many, many people relate to such "heart-felt" logic and conduct their lives with the same attitude. They prefer to stay blind to actual, thought-process logic, considering such things to be easily manipulated. Rather....they must consider themselves to be easily manipulated.....they'd rather keep their logic plain and simple....operative word: simple. If you prefer simple....Bush is your man. Simple.

From the Yahoo article:

Bush appeared perturbed when Kerry leveled some of his charges, scowling at times and looking away in apparent disgust at others. Kerry often took notes when the president spoke. Some networks offered a split screen to viewers so they could see both men at the same time and watch their reactions.

...Kerry said he had a four-part plan to battle terrorists, and said Bush's could be summed up in four words — "More of the same."

"You cannot lead the war on terror if you keep changing positions on the war on terror," retorted the president.

Kerry appeared to taunt the commander in chief at one point during the debate when he said his father, former President George H.W. Bush, had stopped troops from advancing on Baghdad after they had liberated Kuwait during the 1991 Persian Gulf War (news - web sites).

Now, he said, the son ordered an invasion of Iraq anyway, without an exit strategy, and under conditions that mean the United States has incurred "90 percent of the casualties and 90 percent of the cost."

~*~ And Kerry scored points when he was able to link the Iraqi war effort to domestic problems that weren't scheduled for the first debate:

Unfortunately, he (Osama) escaped in the mountains of Tora Bora," he said. "We had him surrounded. But we didn't use American forces, the best trained in the world, to go kill him. The president relied on Afghan warlords and he outsourced that job too."

~*~ He also managed to mention stemcell research in an answer to a question from Jim Leher. All in all...I'd say any possible "fence-sitters" will have to take another look at Kerry now. He was confident, clear in his responses....very Presidential. Bush looked out of his league.

I suspect his problem was proper preperation. They had some Republican ex-Senator, or Governor come down to Crawford Texas to play the part of Kerry in mock debates. I highly doubt he was as aggresive as Kerry was.... Bush seemed taken aback and completely off-guard.....as if he never expected it. He surely wasn't prepared for it.

Afterwards, the Republican "fixers" were out in force....telling us what the President really meant

While Bush was insisting everything is going according to plan, these were the day's major headlines:

Bloody day in Gaza takes 29 lives

U.S. and Iraqi Forces Attack Insurgents
A boy picks up the damaged bicycle of his dead brother from the site after two car bombs and a roadside bomb went off in succession in the al-Amel neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Sept. 30, 2004. At least 41 were killed, most of them children and over 200 were wounded in the attack. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

U.S. Forces Storm Rebel Iraq Town, at Least 80 Dead


~*~ It doesn't seem like it's going all that well, does it?
Andie ran into a neighbor outside who said he will STILL vote for Bush....and he parroted the Republican company lines when asked why. "Kerry changes his mind too much. When he came back from Vietnam, he spoke out against the war..." but moments later he revealed that he did the exact same thing..."except he wasn't as vocal about it."

Oddly enough....he happens to have a kid serving over there. He's back for his 2nd tour. (BTW....Kerry scored big points by claiming Bush is employing a "back door draft" by forcing military personal to serve extra tours of active duty in Iraq)

Anyway....we met the kid this summer at a going away soiree. He's just a young guy...about 20 years old.....who didn't see that much action the first time round and talked like a seasoned vet. Now, his father says he just endured his first real fire-fight and he's pretty scared. His ears were ringing for two days afterwards. At night they sleep in pitch-black holes in the ground, with rodents and bugs scampering about. They don't have things they need. His father is going to send a package to him and his buddies containing some of those things.....magna-lite flashlights were mentioned....and we intend to add our assistance. Andie made it clear to him....we're against the war, but we're FOR the troops and would be glad to help. So....if anyone would like to help us with this endeavor, please make yourself known to us so we can work something out for them. I'm tellin' ya....they're a group of kids huddled in a dark hole in the dessert near the Syrian border.....and they really need our help.....despite Bush's insistance that he has supplied the troops with everything possible. I didn't really believe the stories about soldiers in need of flack-jackets over there.....but I do now.

~Brahma*

posted by ~Brahma 1:41 AM