First weak spot in the armour? GHWB breaks ranks

[Anthony Thorne]

Interesting undertones to all these comments.

In James Mann's RISE OF THE VULCANS (about the NeoCon movement) Bush Sr. refers to Cheney and Rumsfeld and their cabal as the 'crazies in the basement'. In Greg Felton's ENEMIES BY DESIGN there's a good description of various pro-Israel/zionist events that Bush Sr. wasn't on board for, and in which he would have differed from Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and a few others you can probably name.

Bush Sr. was an enthusiastic attendant at the 1979 Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism (attended by a who's who of the pre-Reagan era rightwing intelligence and security agency elite) which was set up by Benjamin Netanyahu as a propaganda exercise to kickstart the war on terror. The slew of early 80's propaganda volumes from conference attendees arguing that all international terrorism was masterminded by the Soviets (the exponents of which would later come to make similar accusations in the 90s against Iraq) all come from attendees of (or folks linked to attendees of) that conference, so the War on Terror was unlikely to be a mystery to Bush Sr. But the details and extent of the event were probably open to negotiation. The Sept 11 morning Carlyle Group meeting with former CIA head and Rumsfeld roommate Frank Carlucci, Osama brother Shafig bin Laden, Bush Sr and others was timed when it was for a reason, (unless anyone wants to argue coincidence). I don't see the need for members of the group to publicly meet on the day to swap martinis. I suspect the meeting occurred so one group (possibly including Carlucci) could point to 'facts on the ground' and make clear offers and ultimatums. 'Now you can see what is happening, this is what we'll need' etc. George W. Bush was still in the air flying around from airport to airport to Offutt at this point, which might have helped focus Bush Sr's mind a little.

An amusing, on target review of Briody's IRON TRIANGLE from Amazon:

If a Ludlum novel had a CIA hitman, the father of the president and the world's biggest terrorist's brother sitting down together at a company meeting while the Trade Center was being bombed; and then went on to disclose that the company had invested in companies that specialize in anthrax clean-up, airport security devices, and defense equiptment - it would be considered far fetched. This brave book says it is real. It is Bush, Baker, Carlucci, Levitt and bin-Laden in the scariest book in print.

People discuss PNAC quite a bit, but perhaps go back over some of the earlier public groups and commissions less often. People who have read Graeme Macqueen's THE 2001 ANTHRAX DECEPTION: THE CASE FOR A DOMESTIC CONSPIRACY - and who have digested that book's linking of the post-9/11 anthrax intimidation with various arms treaty amendements from that year - should look more closely at the 1998 Rumsfeld Missile Commision, the 'Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States'. The members of that group are a mixture of politically neutral figures connected to the science and nuclear industries, and hardline rightwing PNAC figures who were agitating for Rumsfeld's plans to be made manifest. (One member from that group, Larry Welch, was later selected by Robert Gates to 'investigate' the August 2007 Minot Air Force base incident where a B-52H bomber 'accidentally' took off with ICBM's fully armed. Another member, General Lee Butler, would later turn leftward and now campaigns for nuclear disarmament. In his biography this year he complained of various folk politicising the Commission's conclusions towards war and against detente. For what it's worth, I believe Butler was also a participant in the COG exercises in the 90's that featured Rumsfeld as a key participant).

The Rumsfeld Missile Commission hardliners can be followed back to earlier attempts to link both the original WTC bombing, and the Oklahoma bombing, to Iraq. A select coterie of 'journalists' also attempted to blame Oklahoma on Middle Eastern terrorists within days of that bombing, and the official story (obviously false) was steered around to a 'domestic conspiracy' sometime afterwards. Those same 'journalists', inccluding Woolsey favourite Laurie Mylroie, would later try to spin 9/11 as an event involving Saddam Hussein. Go over all the participants and their agendas in each event and you can gradually get a feel as to who was pushing for what, and it's a slightly more focused group than the broad group of PNAC baddies who we're all familiar with - Rumsfeld, Stephen Cambone, Wolfowitz, Woolsey and William Schneider Jr, with one or two others left off some of the documentation but later linked through articles and interviews.

If Bush Sr. later had a frank conversation with his Iran-Contra helpers like Lee Hamilton - 'This needs to be done for the good of the country' - it could explain a few things. Either way I expect some core conspirators worked on the event for years, and others were brought in as late as possible. Bush Sr's current comments can be parsed a number of ways, but I'm sure there are more names he could point to if circumstances permitted.