'Fight Smart' Update - 10 July 2002

Don't Take the Bait - Fight Smart
ANIMATED PHOTO ESSAY - CLICK HERE
Who is the enemy?

Who's Really Running America?

Meet US (Vice) President Dick Cheney
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATCheney.htm

Cheney/Enron/National Security Council - click here
... And here

Cheney Energy Policy - 'Did Sept 11 victims die for Enron?' - click here

"US Vice-President Dick Cheney is to be sued by an anti-corruption pressure group for alleged fraudulent accounting practices. The group, Judicial Watch, claims Mr Cheney deceived investors while he was a director of the oil company Halliburton in the 1990s. In a case being filed in Dallas, Texas, Mr Cheney is alleged to have engaged in practices which led to the overvaluation of the company's shares. The move comes only a day after President Bush tried to distance himself from corporate fraud... Judicial Watch is also suing for access to records of Mr Cheney's energy task force that drew up the Bush administration's energy policy last year.... Judicial Watch said that Mr Bush's rush to crack down on corporate fraud seemed intended to deflect attention away from his and Mr Cheney's own business practices....The BBC's Washington correspondent Justin Webb says the business connections of the Bush administration are fast becoming a serious liability."
Anti-corruption group sues Cheney
BBC Online, 10 July 2002

Andersen video puts Cheney on spot - BBC Online, 10 July 2002

"Perhaps it is little wonder, too, that Vice President Cheney is refusing to hand over to Congress records of his Energy Task Force - records which may have contained important information related to foreign policy discussions on Afghanistan, as well as to any role played by Enron's interests in the events leading up to 11 September 2001. With his alleged previous record of controversial business dealings in sanctions-bound Iraq, the Vice President may have plenty of useful experience to draw from in attempting to cover his tracks. If so, may God bless America. And soon."
'Did Sept 11 victims die for Enron?', 8 March 2002
'Fight Smart', 8 March 2002

"Iraq is the Mideast's No. 2 supplier of oil, behind Saudi Arabia. The United States, swallowing a quarter of the world's production, is the world's No. 1 consumer. This country is led by a pair of oil-patch veterans who share a sense of entitlement about the world's oil reserves regardless of what flag flies above them. Bush and Cheney see Hussein's chief weapon of mass destruction as his threatened grip on the Persian Gulf oil tap. This confluence of interest between ideology and oil has put us on the road to Baghdad. It's time for us to realize that American principles have precious little to do with this costly prospective military campaign."
The road to Baghdad
San Francisco Chronicle, 24 March 2002

"By Gollies, Dick Cheney is nothing if not tough on terrorists..... But, wait a minute, is it possible that Dick is a Hussein hypocrite, that while he postures politically, he has previously profited from playing corporate footsie with the country that he now brands a terrorist state? Yes. In fact, did Cheney, the former oil equipment executive, help rebuild Saddam's economic machine that now stands accused of sponsoring terrorism? Yes.... He lied. Indeed, just before election day 2000, the estimable Financial Times of London discovered that two Halliburton-owned subsidiaries sold more oil field technologies and equipment to Ol' Mr. Evil Saddam than any other U.S. corporation, pocketing some $24 million in sales. These deals helped Hussein restore his oil-production capabilities, which are used to finance the militaristic adventures that Cheney now labels 'evil.'...."
The Axis of Money
Austin Chronicle, Texas, (Bush's home State), 22 March 2002

"Cheney had struggled, particularly early in the administration, not to appear to be overshadowing his boss. His true role -- the power behind the throne.... "
Washington Post, 28 Jan 2002

" [After the Pentagon was hit on Sept 11] .... orders were given [by Cheney] to remove Daschle, Lott, Gephardt and other members of the [Congressional] leadership to a secure location outside Washington. When they arrived for the trip at the West Front of the Capitol, Gephardt [leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives] recalls an 'unimaginable' scene: helicopters ringed by black-suited SWAT teams carrying automatic weapons, as other SWAT team members looked down from atop the Capitol. At the secure location outside Washington, there were too few phone lines for the congressional leaders. Communication with Cheney was frustrating. Coordinating with lawmakers left behind in Washington was difficult, sometimes contentious. Desperate for information, [other members of Congress] set up a conference call with their sequestered leaders. During one call, a small group of House members demanded that the speaker order everyone back for a late-day session in the Capitol as a show of defiance.... The leaders [of Congress] agitated to get out of their bunker and back to Washington, but Cheney resisted. .... We're a separate branch of government - why do we need the approval of the White House, he complained. 'Don,' the vice president replied, 'we control the helicopters.'..."
Washington Post, 27 Jan 2002

"Cheney plans to visit New York City, but he has told aides that he's not particularly comfortable with emotional stuff. He would rather influence policy from behind the scenes than try to share in the nation's grief..."
Time Magazine
(October 15, 2001, p15, European Print Edition: "Where's Dick?")

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry.  Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so.  How do I know?  For this is what I have done. And I am Julius Caesar"
Julius Caesar

Trading with Iraq can lead to Impeachment - Will Cheney Be Next?

"President Kuchma of Ukraine, is facing the prospect of impeachment proceedings on the eve of parliamentary elections after being accused of selling arms to Iraq in breach of United Nations sanctions."
Kuchma accused over arms to Iraq
London Times, 29 March 2002

"Dick Cheney was Bush's Defense Secretary while Bush Sr. covertly armed and funded Hussein's military right up to the Kuwaiti invasion in August 1990, eventually leaving the American taxpayers holding $2 Billion in defaulted Iraqi debt. Was Cheney simply 'out of the loop' or asleep at the wheel? Or something worse?..."
American Politics Journal, 21 February, 2001

Cheney, Bush Senior, and 'Iraqgate' - click here - Huge Scandal!

Implementing Dick's Foreign Policy for IRAQ - Don't do what we do, do what we say (oh yes, and hand over the oil)

US government working on genetically modified anthrax for weapons of mass destruction

"The Pentagon has secretly built a germ factory capable of producing enough deadly bacteria to kill millions of people, it was revealed yesterday. The project is one of a number of covert biological initiatives pursued by the United States over recent years. One proposal awaiting final approval is to manufacture a more potent version of anthrax using genetically engineered biological agents. Last night, Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, confirmed that the Administration planned to proceed with these tests...."
'Secret US germ tests threat to treaty'
London Times, September 5, 2001

How About Having Some Weapon Inspections In The US Then Mr Cheney?
I'll show you mine, if you'll show me yours....?

Cheney's 'Axis of Oilvil'

"Think the flap over the Bush administration and Enron is winding down? Think again. The release by the administration of thousands of pages of documents related to its energy task force last year has only heightened speculation that the Bush team is hiding something by refusing to provide logs of Vice President Dick Cheney's meetings with energy executives.While 11,000 pages of documents were released on court orders this week, most were heavily edited to blank out any useful information, particularly e-mails. The government continues to hold back an additional 15,000 documents, citing privacy and security concerns, as well as the mysterious Cheney logs........The practice, however, goes to the heart of what I said back in January when the whole Enron mess broke in Washington. That the fallout will include a series of disclosures that will reveal in stark detail just how the current administration prefers to do business, which is exclusively with its industry buddies and a sneering disregard for the public at large. So far, so true. But the question remains. What could they possibly be hiding?.....For an administration that has taken such a tough stand against Arthur Andersen in the Enron case, indicting the company and threatening the livelihood of 85,000 staff worldwide over documents shredded by a few dozen, the fact that it is trying itself to shield documents from the public is glaringly ironic. It's part of a pattern of holding back information that not only taints the administration with Enron, but leads to skepticism about any of its other motives, such as its messing with the Clean Air Act or its developing a shadow government in case of attacks on Washington.Now, three months after the whole thing erupted, we're still getting new bombshells on a weekly basis. The most recent one is that Secretary of the Army Thomas White, a former senior Enron executive, not only kept options on shares worth several millions of dollars when he left Enron last May - possibly violating terms of an ethics agreement - but that he was in touch with Enron on a frequent basis as it began to collapse in October. White made 13 calls to the company in October and sold about $3 million in stock during the month. That's pretty involved, especially at a time when he was supposedly coordinating the invasion of Afghanistan....From the very beginning, the Enron story has been much more than a business story about a failed company. It has been a story of greed and corruption on such a scale that both Washington and Wall Street have had to make changes to the way they operate that would have been unthinkable a year ago....No, this story has legs. And as long as any of the players in this drama refuse to come clean - including at the White House -- it will continue to astound us with fresh revelations, one at a time."
'Enron and Bush: the mystery deepens Commentary: Energy papers yield more questions'
CBS.MarketWatch.com 28 March 2002

"....two grand juries have been investigating allegations that ExxonMobil, the world’s largest corporation, and BP Amoco paid cash bribes to the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and his oil minister, Nurlan Balgymbayev, and that Mobil engaged in an illegal oil swap of Kazakh oil through Iran in 1997. Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force -- now the center of a constitutional battle over the release of its records -- was meeting representatives of both companies after the grand juries had been empanelled as a result of information received from a Middle Eastern source in 1997 and inquiries from Swiss banks in 1999. The fact that these known targets of criminal investigations had access to the vice president’s energy task force would be comparable to having allowed Manuel Noriega, while under indictment for drug smuggling, to consult in the war on drugs....
THE ELEPHANT IN THE LIVING ROOM
FTW, 30 March 2002
... COMING IN PART II [not yet released]
During the years when these alleged crimes took place, Vice President Dick Cheney, then the CEO of oil services giant Halliburton, was a sitting member of the Kazakh government’s oil advisory board. What did Cheney know? When did he know it?

The Power Behind The Throne

"The more invisible [Cheney] becomes, the more powerful he seems... He participates by videophone in the daily national security meeting held in the White House situation room with the president .... friends and advisers say the relationship between the two men is as crucial as ever, and still refer to Mr. Cheney as the president's consigliere...."
New York Times 26 Nov 2001

(con·sig·li·e·re COUNSELOR, ADVISER <consigliere of a Mafia family> Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary)

".....yesterday’s revelation [was] that the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, single-handedly decided that next week’s meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Qatar must go ahead and that top US officials would attend. In doing so, he reportedly overrode State Department objections about 'substantial security risks' and the personal fears of US delegates and their families."
London Times, 1 Nov 2001

"After leaving the Pentagon [under Bush's father's administration], Cheney ran Halliburton, the company that owns Brown and Root..... More than $2 billion of the $14 billion the Pentagon has spent in the Balkans since December 1995 has gone to private contractors led by Brown and Root...."
Time Magazine, Friday, Jan. 05, 2001
 
"Another example of the complex web connecting U.S. and Saudi powerbrokers is Dick Cheney, who moved from the Pentagon to the international oil business and back as vice president last year. After serving as the elder Bush's secretary of defense, Cheney was hired to run oil-services giant Halliburton Co., where he worked until he resigned last year to campaign with the younger Bush. In 2000, his last year with Halliburton, Cheney received $34 million when he cashed out from the company. Not surprisingly, Halliburton's links to Cheney and other Washington power brokers appear to have helped the company's business prospects in the Middle East. Just last month, Halliburton was awarded a $140 million contract to develop an oil field in Saudi Arabia by the kingdom's state-owned petroleum firm, Saudi Aramco, and a Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, along with two Japanese firms, was hired by the Saudis to build a $40 million ethylene plant."
Boston Herald, 11 Dec 2001

"....at this point, out of an Administration which used to pride itself on its corporate experience, it is perhaps still Dick Cheney, the Vice President, who looks the most vulnerable, from the current probe into the accounting practices of the energy company Halliburton, where he was chairman and chief executive from 1995 to 2000."
Foreign Editor's Briefing
London Times, 9 July 2002

MORE ON CHENEY'S OIL AND MILITARY INTERESTS
http://www.public-i.org/story_01_080200.htm

http://www.spotlight.org/08_06_00/Oil/oil.html
http://www.corpwatch.org/news/PND.jsp?articleid=713
http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=470

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/bush-cheney-drugs.html

'Government Ties Helped Cheney and Halliburton Make Millions'
http://www.corpwatch.org/news/PND.jsp?articleid=512

"The F-16s sale was criticized in the Arab world on Sept 8. In a November 9 interview with Pakistan's Ausaf newspaper, Bin Laden justified the Sept 11 attack by noting that the US government sells advanced weapons to Israel which Israel then uses to kill Muslim Palestinians. Wasn't the Sept 11 attack triggered by the sale of the F-16s? Vice President Dick Cheney's wife, Lynne Cheney, was on Lockheed's Board of Directors from 1994 until January of this year. Did she have any influence on White House approval of the F-16 sale? "
'Questions Barbara Walters Didn't Ask George W. Bush'
Counter Punch, 5 Dec 2001

(see also 'Lockheed Martin beats its rival Boeing to win the biggest military equipment contract in history' - BBC Online 27 Oct 2001)

Extract From 'Fight Smart' Update 9 May 2002
'Why Did Bush Not Act On Sept 11?'

"....To get a clearer insight into how the taxpayer-funded defence gravy train interfaces with the private sector it is instructive to take a closer look at Vice President Dick Cheney's own twin track career with defence contractors and government. An investigative report published 2 May 2002 by San Francisco based 'CorpWatch' is useful for this purpose. It and other sources confirm the following:

• Brown & Root is a subsidiary of the multi-billion dollar oil and defence industry contractor Halliburton which had been run by Dick Cheney up until his selection as Bush's vice presidential running mate in 2000.
• Running services at military camps is a relatively new task for Brown & Root that began in 1992 when the Pentagon, then under Cheney's direction in the previous Bush administration, paid the company $3.9 million to produce a classified report detailing how private companies could help provide logistics for American troops in potential war zones around the world. Later in 1992, the Pentagon awarded the company an additional $5 million to update its report.
• That same year, Brown & Root won its first five-year logistical support contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers relating to work in places like Somalia, Haiti, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Saudi Arabia.
• The Balkan contract has been the most profitable for Brown & Root. The General Accounting Office (GAO) has estimated that the company made $2.2 billion in revenue providing construction and support services to the 20,000 soldiers stationed there.
• A subsequent GAO report, issued in September 2000, noted that army commanders in the Balkans were unable to keep track of contracts as they were typically rotated out after six months, erasing institutional memory. For example the GAO pointed out that many of the Brown & Root contract employees were idle most of the time despite the fact that offices were being cleaned four times a day. Time Magazine 5 January 2001 quoted the GAO as follows: "DoD officials with whom we met in the Balkans told us that they could not explain the frequency of services being provided, such as cleaning some offices as many as four times a day, cleaning latrines three times a day, and conducting routine construction and maintenance activities 24 hours a day."
• When Cheney left the Pentagon in January 1993, he went to work as chief executive of Halliburton, bringing with him his deputy David Gribbin who then worked as Halliburton's Vice President for 'Government Relations'. The two substantially increased Halliburton's government business until they left in 2000 just prior to Cheney's return to Government as vice-president. He was accompanied once again by Gribbin to assist in the new administration's transition process masterminded by Cheney himself. According to the Washington Post Cheney received $13.6 million in stock options as part of his severance package on leaving Halliburton.
• With Cheney now back as vice-president Brown & Root won a new ten year contract from the Pentagon on December 14, 2001 entitled Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP). The contract is what the Pentagon calls a 'cost-plus-award-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity service'. This means that the federal government has an open-ended mandate and budget to send Brown & Root anywhere in the world to run humanitarian or military operations.
• Currently Brown & Root estimates that it has $740 million in existing United States government contracts, approximately 37% of their global business, most of which are in addition to the LOGCAP contract.
• Brown & Root 'war-againt-terrorism' contracts to date include the building of the 408 person prison for Taliban fighters in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and air base contracts in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Further contracts are rumoured to be in the offing including in Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan.
• In February this year Brown & Root paid out $2 million to settle a lawsuit with the Justice Department, which alleged that the company defrauded the government during the closure of the Fort Ord military base in Monterey, California in the mid-1990s. A former contracts manager for Brown & Root charged that between 1994 and 1998 the company fraudulently inflated project costs by misrepresenting the quantities, quality and types of materials required for 224 projects.

A further report by commentator Paul Stuart confirms that Houston (also the home of Enron) based Brown & Root's Balkan contract work includes the building of Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo. This is the biggest 'from scratch' foreign US military base built since the Vietnam War and is nearing completion....."

Who's Really Running the US ?
click here to see photo
(Clue - not the person on the left clinging terrified to the table; weekly lunch at the Whitehouse, Oct 2001)

"After Cheney's Meet the Press performance [on the first Sunday after Sept 11], word leaked that Bush advisers Karen Hughes and Karle Rove thought he had been too good - that he had seemed too fully in charge... Cheney is the heart of that [Bush's national-security] team - he's the swing vote on Bush's policy councils, the player whose nod often determines where the President will be.... The war effort has changed the way Bush and Cheney interact. In addition to frequent meetings, the two now seem to be carrying on a long, rolling conversation throughout the day. Their staffs have been merged; Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis (Scooter) Libby, has all but disappeared into Bush's National Security Council....More often than not, the last question Bush asks before making a decision is, 'What do you think, Dick?'.... Cheney plans to visit New York City, but he has told aides that he's not particularly comforatable with emotional stuff. He would rather influence policy from behind the scenes than try to share in the nation's grief..."
Time Magazine (October 15, 2001, p15, European Print Edition: "Where's Dick?")

Reasonable Doubts: The Truth About 9/11 - Watch the I hour Candian TV programme - Realplayer Format

Cheney Energy Policy - 'Did Sept 11 victims die for Enron?' - click here

Hot Cheney Panics Over Sept 11 Congressional Investigation Hot

Terrorist reprisals are all but certain now that the U.S. has launched its military campaign to 'eradicate' terrorism. For this reason, a proven solution to terrorism is especially urgent. Please follow the link below, read carefully, and act decisively. There is no other effective defense against terrorism.
Please click here

ABCNEWS.com - World Peace Is Just $1 Billion Away, Maharishi Says
CNN.com - Beatles guru $1 billion to save the world - July 4, 2002

Additional Press Reports of Interest - 2002

Saddam risk a lie, says UN expert
Schroeder Says US Corporate Scandals 'Iceberg Tip'
Balkans tribunal turns to Clinton -- The Washington Times
FBI uneasy about plan to deregulate fast Net
Enron's Board Members Knew
How Bush firm used accounting scam
SPET 11 VICTIMS BY COUNTRY AND CITIZENSHIP
Saddam's son forecasts attack and break up of Arab states
Telegraph - Bush shakes British bedrock of Atlantic Alliance
Drug giant Merck involved in $14-bn fraud
All the President's Enrons
British Intelligence 'sheltering al-Qaeda leader'
UK military aircraft components to be sold for US fighter planes destined for Israel
The Bankruptcy of the United States
Sharon to Peres: Don't worry about American pressure; we control America
Britain is bypassing its own arms embargo on Israel by selling military equipment via America
Fatal Innocence, Ours
First Direct Shipment Of Russian Crude Oil Arrives In Texas
The Crooks in the White House
Afghan minister dies in 'terrorist attack'
One Nation Plays the Great Game Alone
International Herald Tribune - Pakistan Turning Against General 'Busharraf'
PILGER 'THE ROGUE STATE. America's Bid To Control The World.' - 4 July 2002
WorldNetDaily Mossad chief WWIII started Sept. 11
Guardian Unlimited Special reports Vajpayee 'no possibility of war with Pakistan'
Bush Violated Security Laws Four Times, SEC Report Says
AMERICA - THE ROGUE STATE - John Pilger
Byrd challenges Bush’s ideas on war
Bush and Cheney face scrutiny in financial scandals
The real anti-Americans - anti-worlders, in fact - are those who don't want a serious discussion
Bush in insider-trading inquiry by the SEC
Bush Defends His Own Business Fraud Claims
Tracking the covert history of CIA drug smuggling from Nicaragua to Arkansas and South Central Los Angeles
US states face budget urgencies
The Case Against John Negroponte - US Ambassador to the UN
BBC News Corporate Scandals - Review
He's an all-American movie star, but Tom Cruise said his children will be making All the Right Moves — by moving out of America
I'm quitting, says America's only black Republican Congressman
Eight Cities in Patriot Act Revolt
Bush family’s dirty little secret - President’s oil companies funded by Bin Laden family and wealthy Saudis who financed Osama bin Laden
Britain planning first strike nukes
Yahoo! News - A TIME FOR DISSENT IN AMERICA
District of Columbia Air National Guard Mission Statement
Alleged al-Qaida members turn out to be missionaries

NLPWessex War on Terrorism Archives - click here

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