SPOTLIGHT EMAIL NEWSLETTER #24 Blood Money Financing Bush Bid? The Bush for President campaign has $30 million in the bank already. Critics have some questions about where it came from. EXCLUSIVE TO THE SPOTLIGHT By Martin Mann Former President George Bush amassed a secret fortune in corrupt deals with some of the world�s most unsavory rulers after conducting a bloody war in 1991. Texas Gov. George W. Bush, has a record amount of cash on hand in his presidential bid. Some are asking if there is a connection between the president�s war and the governor wealth? Evidence suggests the affirmative. For instance, Wall Street insiders have told The SPOTLIGHT how the Bush family milked millions from foreign potentates seeking support or protection from the U.S. government. The revelations of these sources were confirmed by confidential documents accessed with the aid of UN delegates from the Gulf Cooperation Council, an alliance of oil-rich Arab nations including both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. �These weren�t just hit-and-run rip-offs,� says Rieter DeJongh, a veteran broker of energy securities who has spent years in the Gulf. President Bush, his sons and top aides developed a sophisticated strategy for shaking down their clients, whether they were corporations or crowned heads in urgent need of a favor, DeJongh asserted. For a case history of these systemic scams, sources pointed to a trip the ex- president took to Kuwait in March l992, soon after he lost the race for the White House to Bill Clinton. �It wasn�t just another junket, it was a triumphal tour� recalled Dr. Pierre Oweiss, a historian noted for his study of modern Arab statecraft. Bush flew to Kuwait in the luxurious private jet of Sheik Jaber Ahmad al-Sabah, the multi-billionaire ruler of that oil-rich emirate. Al-Sabah fled into exile in l990 when his country was occupied by Iraq, whose leaders have historically considered Kuwait as one of their lost provinces. In 1991, the Gulf war, set up and organized by Bush, drove out the Iraqi forces and �liberated� Kuwait by restoring the autocratic al-Sabah dynasty to its golden throne. In the years since then, the U.S. role in the Kuwait has emerged, not as a �liberation� campaign but as a calculated takeover by profit-hungry politicians and corporations clustered around the corrupt Bush clan. It was this populist newspaper which first brought to light the real facts and forces that drove the Gulf war. (See SPOTLIGHT Oct. 8, 1990.) The SPOTLIGHT broke the story of how Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein had been �tricked� into occupying Kuwait by the Bush White House and its ambassador in Baghdad, April Glaspie. Summoned by Saddam Hussein to a midsummer l990 meeting about Iraq�s numerous grievances against Kuwait and its determination to right these wrongs by any means necessary, Glaspie assured the Iraqi leader that America would not intervene in a dispute between two Arab nations. PAY DAY In the early spring of l992, Bush and his inner circle were ready to collect their payoff�hundreds of millions of dollars in blood money�for the war they had instigated, and its devastating aftermath. The former president�s entourage on the flight to Kuwait included three of his sons�George W., Neil and Marvin�as well as James Baker, his former secretary of state, and John Sununu, his former chief of staff. On arrival, Bush and his group were received with full honors and heaped with �presents� by the oil emirates� grateful rulers. Not just the members of the al-Sabah dynasty, but �wealthy Kuwaitis flocked to the ceremonial dinners and receptions given for the Bush group, and patiently stood in line for hours to shower the former president with expensive gifts�Cartier watches, diamond jewelry, strings of gold coins�aggregately worth millions of dollars,� says a former New York Times reporter who covered the visit. But that was just the beginning. �Each member of the Bush team had a proposition to sell to the Kuwaitis�deals on which they were to earn hundreds of millions of dollars in commissions and �bonuses�,�� DeJongh said. With the former president providing the supporting pitch, al-Sabah was pressured by Baker to grant his client, the giant Enron Corporation, a $4 billion contract to refurbish Kuwait�s power grid. The project began with the al-Shuaiba facility, a 1,000-megawatt power plant just south of Kuwait City that had been destroyed by U.S. bombing. Sununu came to promote another deal: billion-dollar contracts for a consortium of defense contractors headed by the Westinghouse Corporation who were anxious to sell the tiny emirate sophisticated weapons and security systems. Bush�s sons were seeking lucrative concessions for various Houston oil corporations, including the giant Ultraflote Corporation and the Link Group, in which the Bush family was reportedly a shareholder. Just how much blood money these powerful promoters took home from Kuwait may never be known. An ingenious cover-up scheme arranged by Neil Bush set up a chain of offshore corporations reaching all the way from the Gulf to the Caribbean. Commissions and kickbacks were laundered through these interlocking overseas fronts so that, in the end, �How the hell would you know that Bush was in it for the big payoff?� asked the Times reporter. SCHWARZKOPF SAYS �NO� But a measure of the vast rake-offs involved in these scams can be gauged from another source: retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who despite his controversial role as chief warlord of the Gulf campaign, refused to shake down the Kuwaitis afterward. One of the transnational corporations involved in seeking defense contracts from Kuwait approached Schwarzkopf for help. �They offered me $150 million as a down payment if I would participate in their efforts to lobby the Kuwaiti government,� the former Gulf war commander-in-chief recalled. Schwarzkopf decided, however, that his personal integrity was not for sale. �I told them I won�t do it,� he recalled. �American men and women were willing to die in Kuwait. Don�t ask me to profit from their sacrifice; I will not betray their trust.� But the general proved to be the exception. As it turned the Gulf war�s leading instigators and strategists, from President Bush on down, were willing to betray their trust and honor for blood money extorted from Arab oil magnates. STOP AID TO ISRAEL IMAGINE YOU ARE A POLITICIAN. A FOREIGN country accepts a man it knows is wanted for murder to hide in its country. What would you do? Some would suggest sending in spies to capture the suspect and return him for trial as the Mossad did to Mordechai Vanunu. Others could suggest ceasing diplomatic relations or even bombing the rouges, such as President Reagan did with Libya. But if you are Bill Clinton, and the rouge nation is question is Israel, you insist Congress send them $1.2 billion immediately. He also wants to increase the official amount America gives to the Mideast ministate for military purposed by $500 million to $2.4 billion. In return, Israel�s new prime minister, Ehud Barak, says he will attempt to �reinvigorate the [peace] process.� This news came less than a month after accused killer Samuel Sheinbein admitted to sawing off the arms and legs of a Maryland resident, Enrique Tello, Jr., then he and an accomplice burnt the corpse. Sheinbein�s attorney had allegedly struck a deal with prosecutors in which prosecutors would not seek the death penalty in exchange for Sheinbein agreeing not to fight extradition. Prosecutors kept their end of the deal, but Sheinbein reneged. Rather than breaking off diplomatic relations, the Clinton administration wants to reward Israel, a rich nation, with more cash. Last year, then House Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Livingston (R-La.) suggested it was inappropriate for the United States to provide aid to Israel under these conditions. Livingston resigned in disgrace shortly after pornographer Larry Flynt aired some of the congressman�s dirty laundry. In fiscal 2000, economic aid to Israel was supposed to fall slightly in the second year of an Israeli 10-year initiative to wean itself from the assistance. On average, Israel�s portion of the foreign operations measure hovers near 40 percent. Outside the Israel lobby, foreign aid has few forceful constituents. The first policy position the Liberty Lobby Board of Policy (BOP) voted on, some 43 years ago, was against foreign aid. The BOP remains true to that position today. Over the years, the rest of the country has caught on, but politicians have continued to give a fortune away. Israel has been the leading benefactor of U.S. gifts. In 1951, Congress sent $65 million to help Israel take in European Jews and Jews living in Arab countries. Since then, American assistance has seen Israel through the Yom Kippur War ($2.2 billion in emergency aid) and the Camp David accords ($4.9 billion in aid and loans). Since 1985, Congress has annually provided Israel with at least $3 billion per year in official grants. In the meantime: U.S. military personnel and their families live on food stamps; the Veterans Administration budget have been capped as part of the budget balanced agreement; American farmers are going bankrupt; Government schools across the land complain of being underfunded; etc. You have the opportunity now to contact your representatives is Congress and encourage them to freeze or eliminate foreign aid. Use the Samuel Sheinbein case as a blatant example of how Israel abuses America�s friendship. Another example is the Chinese missile crisis. According to an Israeli publication, The Jerusalem Report dated Aug. 3, 1998, Israeli scientists breached anti-missile agreements by selling arms with American-made parts to China. This is a SPOTLIGHT story, that the U.S. media continues to cover up. But The Jerusalem Report, the defense industry standard bearer, Britain-based Janes and many other international publications have printed the information. It is about time Israel and U.S. politicians were held accountable. FARMER WOES A group of 41 House members, led House Agricultural Committee Chairman Larry Combest (R-Tex.), has apparently fallen on deaf ears at the White House. The congressmen want President Clinton to submit an emergency funding request to Congress. They say this is the quickest way to alleviate the problem. It�s not surprising that Congress has taken the lead on finding solutions to the nation�s worsening farm crisis. The House Agricultural Committee is considering various proposed agricultural reforms. Among them are H.R. 2395, which would make $5.13 billion available to farmers, and H.R. 1592, the Regulatory Fairness and Openness Act of 1999. Introduced by Combest, H.R. 2395 would allow farmers to elect to receive all their Agricultural Marketing Transition payments on Oct. 1, the beginning of each federal fiscal year, rather than biannually�in December or January and again in September. This would enable farmers to cope with cash shortages they are likely to face after this crop season, Combest says. H.R. 1592, sponsored by Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.), would establish specific requirements for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA). The EPA would be required to publish data the agency uses to make tolerance decisions and to provide a proposal for revising the agency�s priorities and resources so all new registrations and petitions for tolerances and exemptions can be processed promptly. The USDA would establish and monitor a program to continuously monitor the competitive strength of U.S. agriculture sectors in the international marketplace. The House Agriculture Committee has already taken a series of actions to help U.S. farmers and ranchers. The committee: Pushed the release of $470 million so that these funds may be immediately available for the guaranteed farm loan program; Passed a supplemental budget that backs $1.1 million in loan funds and meets Clinton�s request for replenishing loan funds; and Questioned the USDA policymakers on the agency�s delay of disaster relief, which Congress approved last fall. Clinton signed into law H.R. 4328, an omnibus appropriations bill providing $5.9 billion in additional agricultural spending, including $2.5 billion in disaster assistance. The USDA did not begin sign-up for this program until Feb. 1 and soon after announced a four-week extension, delaying completion of sign-up until April 9. Congress also placed $6 billion funding behind a permanent improvement to the crop insurance program for coverage that begins this year with the winter wheat crop. Also at issue in Congress is Clinton�s lifting of agricultural sanctions against some countries in July. Opponents claim the sanctions could hurt American farmers without hurting the sanctioned nation. That�s because countries can easily find other trading partners for food products, opponents point out. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) has introduced S. 566, the Agriculture Trade Freedom Act, the first sanctions reform legislation to advance through Congress this year. S. 566 would exempt the commercial sales of agricultural commodities, livestock and value-added products from U.S. imposed unilateral sanctions. The president could override an exemption for foreign policy and national security reasons. Everything from farm relief assistance to sanctions is still up for grabs in Congress. The House has already passed its FY 2000 spending bill, which includes funds for USDA programs but no emergency funds for farmers, The SPOTLIGHT has learned. The Senate is expected to take action on its spending bill in September. Environmental Mystery Solved: U.S. Did It Who stood to profit by igniting Iraqi oil fields ablaze as the Republican Guard retreated during the Gulf War? EXCLUSIVE TO THE SPOTLIGHT By The SPOTLIGHT Staff Kuwait�s oil wells, torched during the final phase of the l991 Gulf war, were set ablaze by fast-moving strike teams of U.S. Special Forces, not by Iraqi troops, as reported at the time, according to a U.S. Army officer who was there. Smoke from the fires blocked sunlight for weeks, creating a near environmental disaster in the Mideast. After almost a decade, this observer has decided to break his silence and divulge what he has seen on condition that his identity remain protected for the time being. His description of how the small Gulf emirate�s oil wells went up in flame matches the statements of the Iraqi government, whose top officials have long disclaimed responsibility fore this incendiary sabotage operation. �We did not set the oil fields on fire,� said then-Iraqi Oil Minister Osama al-Hiti, to a SPOTLIGHT reporter in June of 1992.� Why would we? Where was the profit?� New evidence uncovered by this populist newspaper supports Hiti�s version of events. �Iraq had no reason to destroy those wells,� says a Washington petroleum analyst, who has spent years in the Gulf. Iraqi troops were already withdrawing from Kuwait when its oil fields were swept by fire. �The Iraqi leaders had already realized that they would have to submit to an imposed settlement of that conflict,� he explained. Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein and his top aides knew full well by then that they would be held economically and financially liable for any damages claimed by Kuwait in the aftermath of the Gulf war. Only President George Bush and his inner circle stood to profit from the ravages inflicted on Kuwait�s petroleum installations, these sources have confirmed. �Bush, his sons and his cronies began to scheme to make vast personal fortunes from rebuilding Kuwait�s infrastructure as soon as the Gulf war began�even before it began,� confirmed Rieter DeJongh, a Wall Street energy trader. First oil firefighters, based in Texas, the home of President Bush, were enriched by putting the fires out. Next construction firms had to rebuild the wells, then supply firms had to resupply the sights. Their corrupt scheme included driving from Kuwait competing energy companies such the giant Deutche Babcock conglomerate, which was bidding on a number of contracts coveted by the Bush consortium. In the consensus of these sources, the economic consequences of wreaking devastation on Kuwait were clear: Iraq would have to pay for the wreckage�it is doing so right now�while former President Bush and his people would profit from it. �I�d say that, all in all, the evidence tells us pretty convincingly the order to set Kuwait�s oil fields afire must have come, not from Saddam Hussein but from Bush,� concluded DeJongh. **************************************************************************** Subscribe to THE SPOTLIGHT! Only $59.00 for 1 year or $99.00 for 2 years. Every week, get the important stories that the popular media either miss... or ignore. For around $1.00 per issue, THE SPOTLIGHT is a steal! Don't wait any longer. Make sure that you never miss another issue. Subscribe now! To subscribe online, visit our SECURE server at www.spotlight.org. You can also mail your subscription to THE SPOTLIGHT, 300 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003. 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