Dogs, I am having pc problems and this is what I came up with to refute your refute.:SIB
July 3, 2004
How Many Mistakes Can Newsweek's Michael Isikoff Make?
by Craig Unger
How many mistakes can Michael Isikoff make? In his zealous campaign to
discredit Fahrenheit 9/11, Newsweek's star investigative reporter has
already made at least seven errors, distortions and selective
omissions of crucial information.
Let's take them one by one.
1) In his first Newsweek piece attacking the movie, "Under the Hot
Lights," which appeared in theJune 28 issue of the magazine, Isikoff
asserts that I claim "that bin Laden family members were never
interviewed by the FBI." Isikoff proceeds to attack me for that claim.
Unfortunately for him, I never made it. Isikoff's assertion is a
complete fabrication.
2) The same article also erroneously reports that the Saudi evacuation
"flights didn't begin untilSept. 14?after airspace reopened." As House
of Bush, House of Saud notes, however, the first flight actually took
place a day earlier, on September 13, when restrictions on private
planes were still in place. Isikoff knew this. I even gave him the
names of two men who were on that flight-- Dan Grossi and Manuel
Perez-- and told him how to get in touch with them. Earlier, Jean
Heller, a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times, took the time to
follow up on my reporting. She called Grossi, and in her subsequent
article wrote, "Grossi did say that Unger's account of his
participation in the flight is accurate."
Rather than try to refute or corroborate my reporting, however,
Isikoff omitted it entirely. The facts interfered with his argument.
It is worth noting that Jean Heller was also able to obtain
verification of the September 13 flight from other sources as well.
Heller reports that the flight from Tampa, Florida to Lexington,
Kentucky, has finally been corroborated by authorities at Tampa
International Airport--even though the White House, the FBI and the
FBI repeatedly denied that any such flights took place.
3) A week after "Under theHot Lights" appeared, Newsweek apologized
for fabrication number one in its print edition of the magazine. But
the error remains uncorrected online where it continues to be
desseminated by other media.
Worse, in its "apology," Newsweek amplified the distortion it made the
previous week. This time, the magazine admits that the September 13
flight did take place. But the editors again omit crucial information
in order to suggest that the flight is a red herring, asserting that
the flight "took off late on Sept. 13 after restrictions on flying had
already been lifted," Newsweek says.
In fact, some restrictions had been lifted--but not all. Commercial
aviation slowly resumed on September 13, but at 10:57 am that day, the
Federal Aviation Administration issued a Notice to Airmen stating that
private aviation was still banned. Three planes violated that order
and were forced down by American military aircraft that day. (See
House of Bush, House of Saud, p. 9) Yet the Saudis were allowed to fly
on the ten passenger Learjet. Far from being irrelevant, the Tampa to
Lexington flight is vital because it required permission from the
highest levels of our government. Once again, all this information is
in the book, and Isikoff told me he had read it. This relevant
information contradicted Isikoff's thesis.
If you think about it, Isikoff's argument defies logic. Hundreds of
thousands of planes fly each day. If the Tampa to Lexington flight was
just another normal flight, why would anyone go to a crisis-stricken
White House to get permission for the Saudis to fly? Yet thanks to
Richard Clarke's testimony before the 9/11 Commission, we know that
the White House did grant permission for the Saudis to fly.
4) On June 30, Isikoff was at it again, this time in an online story
co-written with Mark Hosenball, "More Distortions from Michael Moore."
(link).
If the basics of journalism are important to you, it is worth pointing
out that Isikoff's story confuses Carlyle founding partner David
Rubenstein with public relations legend Howard Rubenstein. This is
just one of three names (William Kennard and Caterair are the others)
Isikoff gets wrong in the story. (The article has since been corrected
online.)
5)More to the point, Isikoff's chief target is the movie's assertion
that $1.4 billion in Saudi funds went to businesses tied to the Bushes
and their friends. As Isikoff notes, House of Bush, House of Saud is
the chief source for this information.
Most of this figure comes from defense contracts to companies owned by
the Carlyle Group in the mid-nineties, and according to Isikoff,
therein lies the problem. "The movie clearly implies that the Saudis
gave $1.4 billion to the Bushes and their friends," Carlyle public
relations executive Chris Ullman tells Newsweek. " But most of it went
to a Carlyle Group company before [former president George H.W.] Bush
even joined the firm."
Isikoff accepts Ullman's explanation almost uncritically, leaving the
reader with the impression that the Bush family and its allies had
little or no relationship with the Carlyle Group until 1998. If that
were true, he might have a point.
But in fact, the Bush-Carlyle relationship began eight years earlier
when the Carlyle Group put George W.Bush on the board of one of its
subsidiaries, Caterair, in 1990. In 1993, after the Bush-Quayle
administration left office and George H. W. Bush and James Baker were
free to join the private sector, the Bush family's relationship with
the Carlyle Group began to become substantive.
By the end of that year, key figures at the Carlyle Group included
such powerful Bush colleagues as James Baker, Frank Carlucci, and
Richard Darman. Because George W. Bush's role at Carlyle had been
marginal, the $1.4 billion figure includes no contracts that predated
the arrival of Baker, Carlucci and Darman at Carlyle. (These figures
are itemized in the appendix of House of Bush.) With former Secretary
of Defense Carlucci guiding the acquisition of defense companies,
Carlyle finally began making real money from the Saudis, both through
investments from the royal family, the bin Ladens and other members of
the Saudi elite, and through lucrative defense investments.
6) In addition, Isikoff erroneously dismisses the relationship between
the Bushes and the House of Saud at the Carlyle Group as a distant
one. "Six degrees of separation" is the term he uses. Yet according to
a December 4, 2003 email from Carlyle's Chris Ullman, James Baker and
George H. W. Bush made four trips to Saudi Arabia on Carlyle's behalf,
and that does not include meetings they had with Saudis that took
place in the U.S. During the course of these trips, Ullman says,
former president Bush sometimes met privately with members of the
Saudi Binladen Group. At times, Carlyle officials have characterized
these meetings as "ceremonial." But in fact, at least $80 million in
investments came from the House of Saud and allies such as the bin
Laden family. It would be unseemly-- and unnecessary--for former
president Bush or James Baker to actually ask for money from the
Saudis at such meetings. Instead, David Rubenstein's team did that
after Bush and Baker spoke. For a more complete account of this, see
Chapter Ten in House of Bush, House of Saud.
7) In the same article, Isikoff tries to pit me against Michael Moore
by asserting that my book, unlike the movie, concludes that the role
of James Bath, a Texas businessman who represented Saudis and was
close to George W. Bush, was not terribly significant. Isikoff
writes,"The movie?which relied heavily on Unger's book?fails to note
the author's conclusion about what to make of the supposed Bin
Laden-Bath-Bush nexus: that it may not mean anything."
Isikoff is wrong again. It is true that no conclusive evidence has yet
answered the specific question of whether or not bin Laden money
actually went from the bin Ladens to Bath and then into George W.
Bush's first oil company, Arbusto. But beyond that unresolved issue,
the bin Laden-Bath-Bush nexus is crucial to the birth of the
Bush-Saudi relationship. ...
July 3, 2004
How Many Mistakes Can Newsweek's Michael Isikoff Make?
by Craig Unger
How many mistakes can Michael Isikoff make? In his zealous campaign to
discredit Fahrenheit 9/11, Newsweek's star investigative reporter has
already made at least seven errors, distortions and selective
omissions of crucial information.
Let's take them one by one.
1) In his first Newsweek piece attacking the movie, "Under the Hot
Lights," which appeared in theJune 28 issue of the magazine, Isikoff
asserts that I claim "that bin Laden family members were never
interviewed by the FBI." Isikoff proceeds to attack me for that claim.
Unfortunately for him, I never made it. Isikoff's assertion is a
complete fabrication.
2) The same article also erroneously reports that the Saudi evacuation
"flights didn't begin untilSept. 14?after airspace reopened." As House
of Bush, House of Saud notes, however, the first flight actually took
place a day earlier, on September 13, when restrictions on private
planes were still in place. Isikoff knew this. I even gave him the
names of two men who were on that flight-- Dan Grossi and Manuel
Perez-- and told him how to get in touch with them. Earlier, Jean
Heller, a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times, took the time to
follow up on my reporting. She called Grossi, and in her subsequent
article wrote, "Grossi did say that Unger's account of his
participation in the flight is accurate."
Rather than try to refute or corroborate my reporting, however,
Isikoff omitted it entirely. The facts interfered with his argument.
It is worth noting that Jean Heller was also able to obtain
verification of the September 13 flight from other sources as well.
Heller reports that the flight from Tampa, Florida to Lexington,
Kentucky, has finally been corroborated by authorities at Tampa
International Airport--even though the White House, the FBI and the
FBI repeatedly denied that any such flights took place.
3) A week after "Under theHot Lights" appeared, Newsweek apologized
for fabrication number one in its print edition of the magazine. But
the error remains uncorrected online where it continues to be
desseminated by other media.
Worse, in its "apology," Newsweek amplified the distortion it made the
previous week. This time, the magazine admits that the September 13
flight did take place. But the editors again omit crucial information
in order to suggest that the flight is a red herring, asserting that
the flight "took off late on Sept. 13 after restrictions on flying had
already been lifted," Newsweek says.
In fact, some restrictions had been lifted--but not all. Commercial
aviation slowly resumed on September 13, but at 10:57 am that day, the
Federal Aviation Administration issued a Notice to Airmen stating that
private aviation was still banned. Three planes violated that order
and were forced down by American military aircraft that day. (See
House of Bush, House of Saud, p. 9) Yet the Saudis were allowed to fly
on the ten passenger Learjet. Far from being irrelevant, the Tampa to
Lexington flight is vital because it required permission from the
highest levels of our government. Once again, all this information is
in the book, and Isikoff told me he had read it. This relevant
information contradicted Isikoff's thesis.
If you think about it, Isikoff's argument defies logic. Hundreds of
thousands of planes fly each day. If the Tampa to Lexington flight was
just another normal flight, why would anyone go to a crisis-stricken
White House to get permission for the Saudis to fly? Yet thanks to
Richard Clarke's testimony before the 9/11 Commission, we know that
the White House did grant permission for the Saudis to fly.
4) On June 30, Isikoff was at it again, this time in an online story
co-written with Mark Hosenball, "More Distortions from Michael Moore."
(link).
If the basics of journalism are important to you, it is worth pointing
out that Isikoff's story confuses Carlyle founding partner David
Rubenstein with public relations legend Howard Rubenstein. This is
just one of three names (William Kennard and Caterair are the others)
Isikoff gets wrong in the story. (The article has since been corrected
online.)
5)More to the point, Isikoff's chief target is the movie's assertion
that $1.4 billion in Saudi funds went to businesses tied to the Bushes
and their friends. As Isikoff notes, House of Bush, House of Saud is
the chief source for this information.
Most of this figure comes from defense contracts to companies owned by
the Carlyle Group in the mid-nineties, and according to Isikoff,
therein lies the problem. "The movie clearly implies that the Saudis
gave $1.4 billion to the Bushes and their friends," Carlyle public
relations executive Chris Ullman tells Newsweek. " But most of it went
to a Carlyle Group company before [former president George H.W.] Bush
even joined the firm."
Isikoff accepts Ullman's explanation almost uncritically, leaving the
reader with the impression that the Bush family and its allies had
little or no relationship with the Carlyle Group until 1998. If that
were true, he might have a point.
But in fact, the Bush-Carlyle relationship began eight years earlier
when the Carlyle Group put George W.Bush on the board of one of its
subsidiaries, Caterair, in 1990. In 1993, after the Bush-Quayle
administration left office and George H. W. Bush and James Baker were
free to join the private sector, the Bush family's relationship with
the Carlyle Group began to become substantive.
By the end of that year, key figures at the Carlyle Group included
such powerful Bush colleagues as James Baker, Frank Carlucci, and
Richard Darman. Because George W. Bush's role at Carlyle had been
marginal, the $1.4 billion figure includes no contracts that predated
the arrival of Baker, Carlucci and Darman at Carlyle. (These figures
are itemized in the appendix of House of Bush.) With former Secretary
of Defense Carlucci guiding the acquisition of defense companies,
Carlyle finally began making real money from the Saudis, both through
investments from the royal family, the bin Ladens and other members of
the Saudi elite, and through lucrative defense investments.
6) In addition, Isikoff erroneously dismisses the relationship between
the Bushes and the House of Saud at the Carlyle Group as a distant
one. "Six degrees of separation" is the term he uses. Yet according to
a December 4, 2003 email from Carlyle's Chris Ullman, James Baker and
George H. W. Bush made four trips to Saudi Arabia on Carlyle's behalf,
and that does not include meetings they had with Saudis that took
place in the U.S. During the course of these trips, Ullman says,
former president Bush sometimes met privately with members of the
Saudi Binladen Group. At times, Carlyle officials have characterized
these meetings as "ceremonial." But in fact, at least $80 million in
investments came from the House of Saud and allies such as the bin
Laden family. It would be unseemly-- and unnecessary--for former
president Bush or James Baker to actually ask for money from the
Saudis at such meetings. Instead, David Rubenstein's team did that
after Bush and Baker spoke. For a more complete account of this, see
Chapter Ten in House of Bush, House of Saud.
7) In the same article, Isikoff tries to pit me against Michael Moore
by asserting that my book, unlike the movie, concludes that the role
of James Bath, a Texas businessman who represented Saudis and was
close to George W. Bush, was not terribly significant. Isikoff
writes,"The movie?which relied heavily on Unger's book?fails to note
the author's conclusion about what to make of the supposed Bin
Laden-Bath-Bush nexus: that it may not mean anything."
Isikoff is wrong again. It is true that no conclusive evidence has yet
answered the specific question of whether or not bin Laden money
actually went from the bin Ladens to Bath and then into George W.
Bush's first oil company, Arbusto. But beyond that unresolved issue,
the bin Laden-Bath-Bush nexus is crucial to the birth of the
Bush-Saudi relationship. ...
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