First weak spot in the armour? GHWB breaks ranks

[Drew Phipps]

Former President George H.W. Bush raps Cheney, Rumsfeld in biography

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/11/05/fo...-463462268

WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Former President George H.W. Bush takes some unexpected swipes at Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, key members of his son's administration, over their reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks, in a new biography of the 41st president, Fox News reported on Wednesday.In "Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey Of George Herbert Walker Bush," author Jon Meacham quotes Bush as saying that Cheney and Rumsfeld were too hawkish and that their harsh stance damaged the reputation of the United States, the cable news network said.

Speaking of Cheney, who was vice president under President George W. Bush, the senior Bush said: "I don't know, he just became very hard-line and very different from the Dick Cheney I knew and worked with," according to the report.

The reaction (to Sept. 11), what to do about the Middle East. Just iron-ass. His seeming knuckling under to the real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything, use force to get our way in the Middle East," Bush told Meacham in the book to be published next Tuesday.

Bush believes Cheney acted too independently of his son by creating a national security team in his own office, and may have been influenced to become more conservative by his wife and daughter, Lynne and Liz Cheney, the report cites the biography as saying.

On Rumsfeld, secretary of defense for most of the two terms served by his son, Bush is even more critical. He is quoted as saying: "I don't like what he did, and I think it hurt the President," referring to his son.

"I've never been that close to him anyway. There's a lack of humility, a lack of seeing what the other guy thinks." he was quoted as saying in the biography.

Fox News quoted Cheney as denying his family had influenced his views, saying: "It's his view, perhaps, of what happened, but my family was not conspiring to somehow turn me into a tougher, more hardnosed individual. I got there all by myself."

Bush's spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

Rumsfeld declined to comment on the book, Fox News said. (Reporting by Eric Walsh; Editing by Peter Cooney)

[Ty Carpenter]

What are everyone's prevailing thoughts on Bush, Cheney and Rummy's involvement in the events of 9/11?

[Anthony Thorne]

What are everyone's prevailing thoughts on Bush, Cheney and Rummy's involvement in the events of 9/11?

Rumsfeld and Cheney were among the top conspirators, with Rumsfeld being the senior of that pair.

For Bush Sr I've literally formed a new opinion in recent weeks. I think he was out of the loop until that morning, and suspect the heralded meeting he had with Saudi and Carlyle Group folk as the towers were burning gave him a demand/ultimatum that his longterm Iran-Contra coverup team be drafted into manning the official story.

[Ty Carpenter]

I agree and think a similar offer or demand was made of W after he left Florida. Cheney and Rumsfeld were involved, only I see Dick having a larger hand in the operation. He was 2nd in command and the whole do the orders still stand episode strikes me as odd.

[Drew Phipps]

For what its worth, here's Jeb's response:

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/11/05/fo...-463462268

Jeb Bush told NBC News on Thursday that his father, former President George H.W. Bush, was attempting to "create a different narrative" by heaping criticism on former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for their outsized influence in the White House. "My brother is a big boy, his administration was shaped by his thinking, his reaction to the attack on 9/11. I think my dad, like a lot of people that love George [W. Bush], want to try to create a different narrative, perhaps, just because that's natural to do," Jeb Bush told NBC's Kasie Hunt. "But George would say, 'This was under my watch, I was commander in chief, I was the leader. And I accept personal responsibility for what happened, both the good and the bad,'" Jeb Bush added.

[R.K. Locke]

Interesting undertones to all these comments.

[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.