The Carlyle White House
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist
Tuesday 14 November 2006
It was bad enough when the Carlyle Group bought Dunkin'
Donuts last year, forcing millions of conscientious caffeine
addicts to look elsewhere for their daily fix. Now, it
appears Carlyle has added 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to its
formidable portfolio of acquisitions.
The Carlyle Group achieved national attention in the
early days of the Iraq occupation, especially after Michael
Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" exposed the firm's umbilical ties
to the Bush family and the House of Saud. For the
uninitiated, Carlyle is a privately-owned equity firm
organized and run by former members of the Reagan and Bush
Sr. administrations.
Currently, Carlyle manages more than $44 billion in 42
different investment funds, which is an interesting fact in
and of itself: Carlyle could lay claim to only a meager $12
billion in funds in December of 2001. Thanks to their
ownership of United Defense Industries, a major military
contractor that sells a whole galaxy of weapons systems to
the Pentagon, Carlyle's profits skyrocketed after the
invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Some notable present and former employees of Carlyle
include former president George H.W. Bush, who resigned in
2003; James Baker III, Bush Sr.'s secretary of state and
king fixer; and George W. Bush, who served on Carlyle's
board of directors until his run for the Texas governorship.
One notable former client of Carlyle was the Saudi BinLaden
Group, which sold its investment back to the firm a month
after the September 11 attacks. Until the October 2001
sellout, Osama bin Laden himself had a financial interest in
the same firm that employed the two presidents Bush.
How has Carlyle managed to acquire the White House? The
newest edition of Newsweek begins to tell the tale in a
story titled "The Rescue Squad": "Bush Senior has been
relegated to watching all those political talk shows his son
refuses to watch, wincing each time he hears his son's name
being mocked or criticized. George H.W. Bush has been, in
effect, sidelined by nepotism. He has repeatedly told close
friends that he does not believe it is appropriate or wise
to second-guess his son, or even offer advice beyond loving
support. This time, however, was different. A source who
declined to be identified discussing presidential
confidences told NEWSWEEK that Bush 41 left 'fingerprints'
on the Rumsfeld-Gates decision, though the father's exact
role remains shrouded in speculation."
There is much more to this than Big George simply trying
to shove Little George in a different direction, because Big
George never travels alone. All of a sudden, two of the
elder's main men - James Baker III and Robert Gates - are
back in the saddle. Baker has spent the last weeks riding
herd over the Iraq Survey Group, a collection of old foreign
policy hands tasked to come up with a solution to the Iraq
debacle. Gates was a member of this group until he was
tapped to replace Don Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. The
Iraq Survey Group is slated to produce some tablets of
wisdom come December.
A third member of the Iraq Survey Group, former
congressman Lee Hamilton, is the rope that ties this curious
historical package together. During the Reagan days,
Hamilton was chairman of the committee investigating the
Iran/Contra scandal that nearly submarined Reagan's
presidency and haunted Bush Sr. until his defeat in 1992. In
essence, Hamilton took Reagan's people at their word when
they assured the chairman that neither Reagan nor Bush were
"in the loop" regarding the arms-for-hostages deal.
History and investigation have proven this to be quite
separate from the truth, and Hamilton later admitted he
should not have bought what Reagan's people were selling.
The fact remains, however, that Hamilton let these guys slip
the noose during what was, at the time, an investigation
into one of the most serious abrogations of Constitutional
law in our history. It is worthwhile to note that the man
who brought the most pressure upon Hamilton within Congress
to be "bipartisan" and avoid a protracted investigation was
then-Wyoming representative Dick Cheney.
One of the men spared prosecution in the Iran/Contra
scandal, thanks in no small part to the gentility of Mr.
Hamilton, was Robert Gates. Gates, then a senior official
within the CIA, was widely believed to have been neck-deep
in the plot. During the investigation into the scandal,
Gates parroted Reagan and claimed not to remember when he
knew what he knew about everything that was happening down
in Ollie North's office. In 1991, he was nominated and
eventually appointed to be the head of CIA by Bush Sr.
During his confirmation hearings, according to the New York
Times, it was revealed that "Mr. Gates [had] distorted
intelligence reports so they would conform to the political
beliefs of his superiors."
That sounds familiar.
Gates's nomination to the post of secretary of defense
was field-generaled behind the scenes by James Baker III,
who has suddenly taken on a muscular role within the Bush
White House since the spectacular Republican wipeout during
the midterm elections last Tuesday. Baker's return, along
with the new prominence of Bush Sr., has been hailed in the
mainstream press as a healthy step toward stability and
sanity.
One is forced to wonder, however, which masters Mr.
Baker is actually serving. Baker's Carlyle Group has
profited wildly from the conflict in Iraq, which begs the
question: will the bottom line, augmented by Carlyle's
defense contracts, trump any attempts to establish a just
and lasting peace? It must also be noted that Baker's law
firm, Baker Botts, is currently serving as defense counsel
for Saudi Arabia against a suit brought by the families of
9/11 victims. The connections between the Bush family and
the Saudi royals has been discussed ad nauseam, and Mr.
Baker is so closely entwined with the Bush clan that he
might as well be a blood relative.
The weakening of George W. Bush, in short, has opened
the door for an alumnus of the Iran/Contra scandal, Robert
Gates, to gain control of the Pentagon - his nomination, as
yet, has met with little Congressional resistance. This
process was managed by James Baker, whose Carlyle Group made
billions off the Iraq occupation and whose fealty to the
American people has all too often taken a back seat to the
needs and desires of the royal family of Saudi Arabia. These
two, along with Hamilton, have been instrumental in
crafting, by way of the Iraq Survey Group, what by all
accounts will soon be America's foreign policy lynchpin in
Iraq and the Middle East as a whole.
Behind it all is George H.W. Bush, former employee of
Carlyle, who has somehow managed to refashion his reputation
into that of a grandfatherly, level-headed, steady hand, a
foreign policy "realist" whose mere presence will soothe and
calm the troubled waters we sail in. Unfortunately, his
"realism" is a significant reason the United States finds
itself in its current mess - until the Gulf War, Saddam
Hussein was a boon confederate of both the Reagan and Bush
administrations in their fight against Iran - and the team
of experts he has brought with him have done more to
undermine the national security of the country than any
other three people one could name.
The winner in all this, of course, is the Carlyle Group.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and
internationally bestselling author of two books: War on
Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The
Greatest Sedition Is Silence. His newest book, House of Ill
Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged
Reputation, will be available this winter from
PoliPointPress
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist
Tuesday 14 November 2006
It was bad enough when the Carlyle Group bought Dunkin'
Donuts last year, forcing millions of conscientious caffeine
addicts to look elsewhere for their daily fix. Now, it
appears Carlyle has added 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to its
formidable portfolio of acquisitions.
The Carlyle Group achieved national attention in the
early days of the Iraq occupation, especially after Michael
Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" exposed the firm's umbilical ties
to the Bush family and the House of Saud. For the
uninitiated, Carlyle is a privately-owned equity firm
organized and run by former members of the Reagan and Bush
Sr. administrations.
Currently, Carlyle manages more than $44 billion in 42
different investment funds, which is an interesting fact in
and of itself: Carlyle could lay claim to only a meager $12
billion in funds in December of 2001. Thanks to their
ownership of United Defense Industries, a major military
contractor that sells a whole galaxy of weapons systems to
the Pentagon, Carlyle's profits skyrocketed after the
invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Some notable present and former employees of Carlyle
include former president George H.W. Bush, who resigned in
2003; James Baker III, Bush Sr.'s secretary of state and
king fixer; and George W. Bush, who served on Carlyle's
board of directors until his run for the Texas governorship.
One notable former client of Carlyle was the Saudi BinLaden
Group, which sold its investment back to the firm a month
after the September 11 attacks. Until the October 2001
sellout, Osama bin Laden himself had a financial interest in
the same firm that employed the two presidents Bush.
How has Carlyle managed to acquire the White House? The
newest edition of Newsweek begins to tell the tale in a
story titled "The Rescue Squad": "Bush Senior has been
relegated to watching all those political talk shows his son
refuses to watch, wincing each time he hears his son's name
being mocked or criticized. George H.W. Bush has been, in
effect, sidelined by nepotism. He has repeatedly told close
friends that he does not believe it is appropriate or wise
to second-guess his son, or even offer advice beyond loving
support. This time, however, was different. A source who
declined to be identified discussing presidential
confidences told NEWSWEEK that Bush 41 left 'fingerprints'
on the Rumsfeld-Gates decision, though the father's exact
role remains shrouded in speculation."
There is much more to this than Big George simply trying
to shove Little George in a different direction, because Big
George never travels alone. All of a sudden, two of the
elder's main men - James Baker III and Robert Gates - are
back in the saddle. Baker has spent the last weeks riding
herd over the Iraq Survey Group, a collection of old foreign
policy hands tasked to come up with a solution to the Iraq
debacle. Gates was a member of this group until he was
tapped to replace Don Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. The
Iraq Survey Group is slated to produce some tablets of
wisdom come December.
A third member of the Iraq Survey Group, former
congressman Lee Hamilton, is the rope that ties this curious
historical package together. During the Reagan days,
Hamilton was chairman of the committee investigating the
Iran/Contra scandal that nearly submarined Reagan's
presidency and haunted Bush Sr. until his defeat in 1992. In
essence, Hamilton took Reagan's people at their word when
they assured the chairman that neither Reagan nor Bush were
"in the loop" regarding the arms-for-hostages deal.
History and investigation have proven this to be quite
separate from the truth, and Hamilton later admitted he
should not have bought what Reagan's people were selling.
The fact remains, however, that Hamilton let these guys slip
the noose during what was, at the time, an investigation
into one of the most serious abrogations of Constitutional
law in our history. It is worthwhile to note that the man
who brought the most pressure upon Hamilton within Congress
to be "bipartisan" and avoid a protracted investigation was
then-Wyoming representative Dick Cheney.
One of the men spared prosecution in the Iran/Contra
scandal, thanks in no small part to the gentility of Mr.
Hamilton, was Robert Gates. Gates, then a senior official
within the CIA, was widely believed to have been neck-deep
in the plot. During the investigation into the scandal,
Gates parroted Reagan and claimed not to remember when he
knew what he knew about everything that was happening down
in Ollie North's office. In 1991, he was nominated and
eventually appointed to be the head of CIA by Bush Sr.
During his confirmation hearings, according to the New York
Times, it was revealed that "Mr. Gates [had] distorted
intelligence reports so they would conform to the political
beliefs of his superiors."
That sounds familiar.
Gates's nomination to the post of secretary of defense
was field-generaled behind the scenes by James Baker III,
who has suddenly taken on a muscular role within the Bush
White House since the spectacular Republican wipeout during
the midterm elections last Tuesday. Baker's return, along
with the new prominence of Bush Sr., has been hailed in the
mainstream press as a healthy step toward stability and
sanity.
One is forced to wonder, however, which masters Mr.
Baker is actually serving. Baker's Carlyle Group has
profited wildly from the conflict in Iraq, which begs the
question: will the bottom line, augmented by Carlyle's
defense contracts, trump any attempts to establish a just
and lasting peace? It must also be noted that Baker's law
firm, Baker Botts, is currently serving as defense counsel
for Saudi Arabia against a suit brought by the families of
9/11 victims. The connections between the Bush family and
the Saudi royals has been discussed ad nauseam, and Mr.
Baker is so closely entwined with the Bush clan that he
might as well be a blood relative.
The weakening of George W. Bush, in short, has opened
the door for an alumnus of the Iran/Contra scandal, Robert
Gates, to gain control of the Pentagon - his nomination, as
yet, has met with little Congressional resistance. This
process was managed by James Baker, whose Carlyle Group made
billions off the Iraq occupation and whose fealty to the
American people has all too often taken a back seat to the
needs and desires of the royal family of Saudi Arabia. These
two, along with Hamilton, have been instrumental in
crafting, by way of the Iraq Survey Group, what by all
accounts will soon be America's foreign policy lynchpin in
Iraq and the Middle East as a whole.
Behind it all is George H.W. Bush, former employee of
Carlyle, who has somehow managed to refashion his reputation
into that of a grandfatherly, level-headed, steady hand, a
foreign policy "realist" whose mere presence will soothe and
calm the troubled waters we sail in. Unfortunately, his
"realism" is a significant reason the United States finds
itself in its current mess - until the Gulf War, Saddam
Hussein was a boon confederate of both the Reagan and Bush
administrations in their fight against Iran - and the team
of experts he has brought with him have done more to
undermine the national security of the country than any
other three people one could name.
The winner in all this, of course, is the Carlyle Group.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and
internationally bestselling author of two books: War on
Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The
Greatest Sedition Is Silence. His newest book, House of Ill
Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged
Reputation, will be available this winter from
PoliPointPress
