THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
2001: January
Page Two
This page has been broken up into two parts because of file size considerations. You can go back to the first page of January 2001 via the button link below.
- January 21: In a speech at Iowa Western Community College,
George W. Bush
Bush makes the following perceptive statement on foreign policy: "When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us vs. them, and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they're there." (AllHatNoCattle) - January 21: Bush's 1,600 acre ranch in Crawford, Texas is more of a "movie set" than a real ranch.
George W. Bush
Previously a pig farm, it was purchased in 1999 for considerably less than its market price of $1.2 million. The "ranch house" is actually a single-level mansion that wasn't completed until November 7, 2000, just in time for the election results. Apparently the idea of Bush residing on a ranch in a similar fashion to the Reagan, Kennedy, or Roosevelt homesteads was the idea of Bush's election team. Before the ranch was created, Bush himself preferred to "hang out" at the Rainbo Club, an exclusive hunting club south of Dallas. The previous owner of the property actually owns and maintains the cattle housed at the Crawford ranch. The horses that photogenically roam the property are there strictly for show; Bush is afraid of horses and does not ride. (Democrats.com) - January 22: After witnessing the swearing-in of his White House staff, Bush says he expects them to avoid even the appearance of impropriety and to conduct themselves with humility and civility at all times.
George W. Bush
Dick Cheney administers the oath of office to several dozen White House staff members. The oath is not unlike the oaths Bush and Cheney took on January 20, committing the oath-taker to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic," and "bear true faith and allegiance to the same." After the oath was administered, Bush tells the staff, along with their family members in attendance, "You all are here because you have my full confidence. ...Today, everything is so promising and new. I'm hoping the day will never come when any of us take this place for granted." He says he expects his staff to meet the highest ethical standards, avoiding not only violations of law, but even the appearance of impropriety. "We must remember the high standards that come with high office," he says. "This begins careful adherence with the rules. I expect every member of this administration to stay well within the boundaries [that] define legal and ethical conduct. No one in the White House should be afraid to confront the people they work for over ethical concerns, and no one should hesitate to confront me as well." Bush told his staff that he sees civility as a central part of the required behavior of White House staff. "There is no excuse for arrogance and never a reason for disrespect toward others," he says. "I expect each of you...to be an example of humility and decency and fairness." Interesting admonishments considering what is to come. (UPI/NewsMax) - On his first workday as president, Bush revives the controversial 1984 Reagan executive order known as the Mexico City Policy, which had been rescinded by Clinton.
"Culture Wars"
The policy prohibits US government family-planning funds from going to overseas groups that provide abortion services, lobby for abortion rights, or counsel pregnant women that abortion is an option. Bush mendaciously pronounces that "It is my conviction that taxpayer funds should not be used to pay for abortions or advocate or actively promote abortion, either here or abroad." The $425 million in question was not going to pay for, or promote, abortions; a 1973 law made it illegal for any organization to use US funds to pay for abortions overseas. The money went to family-planning groups that did not involve abortion or abortion-rights advocacy. Bush and his press secretary Ari Fleischer insist on saying that they were stopping abortions from being carried out overseas with government money, a flat lie. Fleischer also says that Bush believes the order "will help make abortion more rare," and that Bush intends to send the money to other family-planning groups. David Corn writes, "The truth was that the Mexico City Policy was not about reducing abortions. It was about punishing international family-planning organizations -- some of which also provided gynecological services and engaged in AIDS prevention in poverty-wracked nations -- for promoting or discussing abortion, even though they relied on non-federal funds for that work. Coincidentally, the same day Bush revives the order, thousands of anti-abortion protesters appear in Washington for their annual protest against Roe v. Wade. The order does not go into effect until March 28, 2001; in 2003, Bush will revise the order to provide AIDS prevention money to groups that may perform or promote abortion as long as their anti-AIDS work does not mix with their abortion-related activities. (David Corn) - January 22: USA Today reports on Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's
Election fraud
astonishment and dismay at the outcry of anguish and rage from Americans over the Bush v. Gore vote, which halted the Florida election recounts and awarded the presidency to Bush. O'Connor, who voted with the 5-4 majority to give Bush the election, says that the Court has been bombarded with thousands of letters from angry citizens, some of whom have included their voter registration cards. "For shame," one letter opens. Others are sarcastic, angry, and even threatening. O'Connor says that in her two decades on the Court she has never seen such anger over a case. (USA Today/Vincent Bugliosi) - January 23: After weeks of rolling blackouts and enormous price increases in California's energy markets,
Oil profiteering and the "oiligarchy"
with even Republicans calling for price controls to get the situation under control, the Bush administration announces its response: it rescinds the Clinton emergency order issued in December 2000 to force electricity wholesalers like Enron to stop withholding power from California in order to artificially drive prices up. Enron's stock price, after reaching a high of $83 weeks before, was beginning to drop, as stockbuyers feared the return of Clinton-era energy regulation. The decision is a boon to Enron, but a stake through the heart of California energy consumers. In the following months, the White House will kill any attempts to place price caps on energy rates. Instead, Bush announces his opposition to price controls of any kind, and his support of the creation of a national energy grid, which will allow Enron and other companies of its kind to trade in a hugely expanded market and drive national energy prices skyward. Enron's profits soar, as do California's energy prices; only later is it proven that Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and other top-level Enron executives were cynically "gaming" the California energy market, forcing prices to quadruple or more and raking in vast profits, most directly from the pockets of California citizens forced to pay enormous electricity bills. (Joe Conason) - January 23: The new administration abruptly terminates the US's participation in the United Nations' population
"Culture Wars"
and women's reproductive health programs over their refusal to enact a gag rule on all non-governmental agencies (NGOs) that provide information about legal abortion services, counseling, or referrals, even if these NGOs receive no US funding and even though these same referrals are legal in the US. Predictions are that the administration's withdrawal will result in an increase of some 800,000 abortions worldwide as family planning and educational services around the world are deprived of critical funds. (Secretary of State Colin Powell admits he opposes the decision, but has no other choice than to carry it out.) (Eric Alterman and Mark Green)
False allegations of Clinton staff trashing White House leak from Bush officials
- January 23: A gossipy item in the Washington Post's Reliable Sources column detailing, accurately enough, the fact that some Bush staffers entered their new offices to find the "W" keys pried off their computer keyboards and, in some cases, taped to the tops of doorways.
Lies about "trashed White House"
The item is light-hearted, and former Gore spokesman Chris Lehane quips, "I think the missing W's can be explained by the vast left-wing conspiracy now at work." But within days the story will morph into completely false allegations of wholesale vandalism, theft, and destruction that are swallowed virtually whole by the mainstream media. - Reports, led by leaks from White House staffers to Internet poster Matt Drudge, allege expletive-ridden graffiti, sliced computer and telephone wires, file cabinets glued shut, presidential seals steamed off doors, stolen pictures, various thefts, and unexplained "porn bombs." Rich Galen, a columnist and former GOP strategist, reports falsely that Al Gore's wife Tipper personally calls Lynne Cheney to apologize for the vandalism (both Al Gore and Dick Cheney later debunk the claim). The Post story alleges, again falsely, that "[s]ome of the kitchen staff hugged members of the Bush family," according to a Bush official, who tells the paper, "You could sense an attitude, like, 'Thank God you're here.'" The New York Daily News reports that the technological problems wrought by the supposed vandalism were so severe that "a telecommunications staffer with more than a quarter-century of service was seen sobbing." NBC's Andrea Mitchell tells her viewers about "[p]hone lines cut, drawers filled with glue, door locks jimmied so that arriving Bush staff got locked inside their new offices." Conservative gadfly Grover Norquist tells CNN of "damage up to $200,000.... There have been obscenities scrawled. People have called in and gotten answering machines with obscenities attacked to them. There have been pornographic things in the computers, viruses in the computer. I got a call from somebody at the White House today who said, 'You can't call me back. Phone lines have been cut and damaged.' ...So there's evidently been extensive damage. But I think while Bush -- and he's instructed his people to be very, very low-key on this because it really reflects very poorly on the presidency and the White House and the previous occupants, that it is important to document what happened because if you don't take pictures of it, you don't document it, we know the Clintons will deny it ever happened."
- The story is given credence by press secretary Ari Fleischer, who archly tells reporters that White House officials are busily "cataloguing that which took place" and dodging specific questions while implying the worst: "I choose not to describe what acts were done that we found upon arrival because I think that's part of changing the tone in Washington," leaving the reporters to speculated with overactive imaginations as to exactly what heinous things have been perpetrated. Adding to the so-called "vandal scandal" are false allegations that Air Force One has been vandalized and stripped virtually to the walls; conservative pundit Kate O'Beirne tells viewers that the plane has been "stripped bare" and alleges, falsely, that White House paraphernelia was being auctioned online; and Fox News's Brit Hume says a "raid" on Air Force One took place. Talk show host Sean Hannity tells his viewers and listeners that the aircraft was stripped of its "china and everything else that wasn't bolted down."
- As it turns out, absolutely nothing is missing from the plane, a fact that Bush himself later grudgingly admits. As for the White House itself, the total repair bill from eight years of wear and tear in 395 offices is around $20,000 -- less than $50 per office. In fact, 14 months later, the GAO will report, "There is no record of damage that may have been deliberately caused by employees of the Clinton administration." (Sidebar stories, equally false, tell of the Clintons being showered with expensive gifts before leaving office, and Hillary Clinton setting up a bridal-like registry at a luxury store from which departing gifts would be selected.) "Certainly people inside the [Bush] administration fed this story," says an angry John Podesta, Clinton's former chief of staff. "At least they got what they wanted out of it." As the story falls to pieces, it becomes clear that the entire farrago of lies was fed by senior officials from the Bush White House, most notably Ari Fleischer, who privately fanned the flames and leaked further tales of destruction to eager media representatives while publicly distancing themselves from the entire sorry mess. A GAO investigation finds no truth to any of the tales except the missing "W's" a few disparaging signs taped to doors, and general wear and tear from eight years of use (see May 17, 2001 entry below). Ironically, of the numerous mainstream media outlets that push the story, only Fox News issues any sort of correction or apology, acknowledging the GAO report and featuring host Tony Snow apologizing to Clinton staffers for his error: "Okay, I'm sorry. The ex-president's pals have a legitimate beef." (Salon, Paul Waldman, Al Franken)
- Shortly after Bush takes office, the US escalates its importing of Iraqi oil until it becomes the fastest growing buyer of Iraqi oil (700,000 barrels a day).
Oil profiteering and the "oiligarchy"
US law forces the companies buying the Iraqi oil -- Chevron, Texaco, Exxon, and Valero, among others -- to buy through middlemen. Accusations are leveled at Bush administration that they are secretly encouraging these illegal oil purchases; many, many connections between these companies and high-ranking administration officials are pointed out. Also, the Bush administration begins attempts to revive discussions with the Taliban about building a pipeline across Afghanistan. The Washington Post's Susan Glasser says, "I reported on Central Asia and the new US military presence there. It presented a whole complicated new presence for US policy makers in an area where human rights are dismal, where economic reforms have not been successful, and where the US now has a huge incentive to woo dictators like Karimov in Uzbekistan. The US desperately needs his assistance. It went back to backing questionable leaders for strategic reasons. Human rights groups estimate there are as many as 7,000 political prisoners in Uzbekistan, many of them religion-oriented who were arrested for doing nothing more than wearing a beard in public or going to the mosque on Fridays for prayers." (US/Iraq Relations Timeline) - Bush pushes for tax cuts that are vastly skewed to the benefit of the most wealthy;
Bush's economic policies
almost 43% of his tax cuts would go to the top 1% of American earners, while less than 13% would go to the lowest 60% of wage earners. He tells the American people that his tax cuts are designed to provide relief to the low end of wage earners, but the math doesn't bear out his statements. Incidentally, Bush himself will reap nearly $267,000 in tax cuts from his own legislation between 2002 and 2006, with much larger governmental largesse coming in if he succeeds in repealing the estate tax. In contrast, many of Bush's strongest supporters, in the reddest of the so-called red states, will get little or no tax relief at all from Bush's proposals, because of their relatively low incomes. Democratic senator Kent Conrad tells Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan that the tax cuts "throw fiscal responsibility out the window," predicated as they are on highly unreliable, "fictional" ten-year economic forecasts of giant surpluses that don't bother to take into account the set-asides for Social Security. Greenspan tells Conrad that he is hedging his bets on the Bush tax cut plans, but is cautiously in favor of them. Conrad responds, "Look, I'm for tac cuts, but the tax cuts being proposed here are much too much over the ten-year period and they're too small on the front end to provide much stimulus. They're the worst of both worlds." Greenspan says that the tax cuts will be fiscally sound, as long as prudent economic spending follows the cuts. Conrad knows that both Bush and Greenspan are treading into the dangerous area of economic fantasy, but they won't listen to him nor to the man he calls immediately after his conversation with Greenspan, outgoing Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin. (The Nation, Joe Conason, Ron Suskind) - On January 22, incoming Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill tries to help Bush focus his tax cut proposals,
Bush's economic policies
writing in a memo to Bush, "I believe there is an opportunity to get quick action on your tax proposal if we move now. You have won the general argument on the desirability of a tax cut and the opposition has been cornered into arguing how large the tax cut should be, and their numbers are moving toward your numbers and scope...." O'Neill tries to weigh the political advantages of bundling a quick tax-cut package, with favors to an entire raft of special interests and campaign donors who feel Bush is beholden to them, with more overarching priorities such as a more broad-based tax rate reduction. Soon after, Bush meets with O'Neill, and, bestowing the impromptu nickname "Pablo" on the nonplussed O'Neill, lets O'Neill discuss the lengthy memo without interruption or input. From his previous experiences with presidents such as Nixon and Clinton, he had come to the meeting prepared for serious discussions, objections, whatever. Bush's stony silence confuses O'Neill. "I wondered from the first, if the president didn't know the questions to ask, or did he know and just not want to know the answers?" O'Neill asks in hindsight. "Or did his strategy somehow involve never showing what he thought? But you can ask questions, gather information, and not necessarily show your hand. It was strange." For an hour, O'Neill carries on what amounts to a monologue, with Bush making a single comment about educational budgets -- "I have that covered" -- and an occasional fractional head-nod. At the end of the session, Bush again catches O'Neill off-guard with a demand that O'Neill takes almost as a non sequiter: "Get me a plan on global warming," he says. "Get me a plan on it." O'Neill agrees, wondering to himself if he should call EPA chief Christie Whitman or not. (Ron Suskind)
Bush administration shelves Clinton plan to counter terrorism, and refuses to take all but the most cursory action against Islamic terror groups, instead favoring spending on outdated missile shield programs
- January 25: Richard Clarke submits a proposal to the new administration for an attack on al-Qaeda in retaliation for the USS Cole bombing.
Islamist terrorism
After that bombing, Bush stated on the campaign trail: "I hope that we can gather enough intelligence to figure out who did the act and take the necessary action.... [T]here must be a consequence." According to the Washington Post: "Clarke argued that the camps were can't-miss targets, and they mattered. The facilities amounted to conveyor belts for al-Qaeda's human capital, with raw recruits arriving and trained fighters departing -– either for front lines against the Northern Alliance, the Afghan rebel coalition, or against American interests somewhere else. The US government had whole libraries of images filmed over Tarnak Qila and its sister camp, Garmabat Ghar, 19 miles farther west. Why watch al-Qaeda train several thousand men a year and then chase them around the world when they left?" Clarke also warns that al-Qaeda sleeper cells in the US are a "major threat." Two days later, the US confirms the link between al-Qaeda and the USS Cole bombing. No retaliation is taken on these camps until after 9/11. (CCR) - January 25: Cuban dictator Fidel Castro delivers a verbal broadside against the new president.
US involvement in Latin America
"That gentleman has arrived there, and hopefully he is not as stupid as he seems, nor as mafia-like as his predecessors were," Castro says on state television. "[S]omeone very strange, with very little promise, has taken charge of the leadership of the great empire that we have as a neighbor." (CBS) - January 25: Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan testifies to the Senate Budget Committee that the economy, after eight years of "Clintonomics," is generating surpluses than can be estimated to rise to $800 billion by 2011.
Bush's economic policies
Greenspan says that the government has to be careful to avoid the problems that might be engendered by paying off the national debt too fast. In 2005, political satirist Al Franken writes, "since then, thanks to the leadership of George W. Bush, we have entirely avoided that problem," and notes that as of his writing, the Bush government will have borrowed over $2 trillion. The media is alight with speculation that Greenspan's backing of Bush's enormous tax cuts are apt to change the proposed use of the surpluses, initially designated for reducing the federal deficit, but now likely to be handed back to the American people -- mostly the wealthy -- in the form of tax cuts. Greenspan's call for fiscal restraint is lost in the tumult over the surplus spending; Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's call for regarding the surpluses as something of a "dividend" for America's "stockholders" is also ignored. As for Greenspan's ideas of economic "triggers" to regulate the cuts being implemented, press secretary Ari Fleischer says those triggers are all but irrelevant: "We need to make [the tax cuts] the permanent law of the land." O'Neill's caution about the tax cuts mark him as a maverick, and a potential problem for the administration; O'Neill begins receiving terse memos from Bush loyalists like Larry Lindsey and Karen Hughes about "message unity." O'Neill finds Lindsey's response to O'Neill, a response O'Neill sees as nothing more than a statement that Lindsey is loyal and O'Neill is not, an outrage, and fires off a memo to Lindsey saying, "This is bureaucratic chickensh*t. You must have something better to do with your time than send me memos such as this one." (Al Franken, Ron Suskind) - January 27: Bush sympathizes with the plight of America's poor:
Bush's economic policies
"I know how hard it is to put food on your family." (AllHatNoCattle)
Vice President Cheney chairs secret energy policy group; beginning of Bush administration efforts to wrest power away from Congress
- January 29: Bush establishes the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), later known as the "Energy Group" or "Energy Task Force," chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney.
Bush's energy policies
It consists of six cabinet officers (Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Transportation and Energy), plus other government officials he was authorized to include if desired, which includes Bush family fixer Joe Allbaugh of FEMA. The staff is made up of full time government employees. It is apparent that the group is constituted to avoid falling under the aegis of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), a 1972 law that applies if any group of two or more persons utilized by a president for advice includes a non-government employee or official. If this occurs, FACA requires that the group must make all of its proceedings open to the public, keep records of the proceedings, and accommodate a broad spectrum of views. By including only government employees, the group avoids being constrained by FACA. By April 19, it is known in political circles that the group is clandestinely meeting with high-level officials from a number of energy and oil corporations, including numerous meetings with Enron's Kenneth Lay. Requests from Democratic congressmen for information about the group's proceedings and decisions are met with a vague, unsatisfactory response from Cheney's confidante and spokesperson David Addington; Addington politely tells the General Accounting Office (the oversight arm of Congress) that what the group is doing is none of their business. Addington mischaracterizes the GAO's request for information as an attempt "to intrude into the heart of Executive deliberations, including deliberations among the President, the Vice President, members of the President's Cabinet, and the President's immediate assistants, which the law protects to ensure the candor in Executive deliberation necessary to effective government." The GAO insists that it merely wants the facts as to what the group is doing, who is involved, and what decisions are being made. Cheney, claiming that he merely wants to "protect the ability of the president and the vice president to get unvarnished advice from any source we want," flatly denies the GAO any access to any materials from the group. - The Energy Group is Cheney's idea, in part created to wrest the power to make decisions on national energy policy away from the Environmental Protection Agency. It is the first initiative taken by the Bush administration, and it is designed to directly benefit the oil and gas industries that have long been both Bush and Cheney's top priorities. Enron, headed by Kenneth Lay, is the biggest contributor by far to the Bush-Cheney campaign, having shoveled over $1.7 million into the campaign coffers in 2000. Enron provided the corporate jets used by the campaign team during the Florida recount. As a result, Lay and Enron vice president Robert Shapiro are able to get valuable "face time" with both Bush and Cheney within days of Bush taking up residence in the White House. Four other Enron officials will visit with Cheney in the first weeks of the administration, a "coincidence" explained by Cheney's political advisor, Mary Matalin, as simply asking energy experts for advice on energy matters. Authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein write that Cheney's guest list at the White House quickly begins looking "like the American Petroleum Institute['s] membership list." On January 10, before the inauguration, oil and gas lobbyist Steven Griles invited a group of industry executives to API's Washington headquarters to draft a "wish list" for the administration. By February, Griles is named Deputy Secretary of the Interior and becomes a member of Cheney's Energy Group. By March, the API's wish list is being presented as policy recommendations for the new administration.
- One of the group's first industry "visitors" is Archie Dunham, the CEO of Conoco and an old Cheney pal; they had served together on the board of Union Pacific, and Conoco and Cheney's old company, Halliburton, had worked extensively together. Dunham quickly pushes for accelerated oil and gas exploration and the rollback of environmental regulations that slow the building of refineries. Cheney is amenable. Dunham also wants the government to end unilateral US sanctions against Iran and Libya that keep American oil companies out of those countries. Cheney had made the same arguments as CEO of Halliburton. A delegation led by Andarko executive Robert Allison lobbies for the opening of federal lands for oil and gas explorations. BP's Lord John Browne wants more inroads into foreign markets. Electric utility giant Exelon sends executives to meet with Cheney, as do other utility companies; two of their representatives are RNC chairman Marc Racicot and former RNC chairman Haley Barbour, both of whom had been heavily involved in the Bush-Cheney campaign. Cheney receives them all with open arms.
- The Energy Group meets in almost-total secrecy. Members are warned to discuss nothing with the press, even to the names of those in attendance. Only a few trusted members of Congress receive any briefings on the group's deliberations, and they do not share their knowledge with Congress. There are no press releases. "It was like a black hole of information," one Capital Hill staffer recalls. "Information went in, but nothing escaped." The New Republic's Joshua Micah Marshall calls it "near-Nixonian secrecy." The reason is simple. Since only oil and gas executives are writing the administration's new energy policies, the public cannot know of their involvement. Dubose and Bernstein go Marshall one better, calling it "secrecy befitting the Kremlin, complete with reporters furtively watching cabs and limos, a reclusive and secretive executive, and a small cabal of corporate executives in control of public policy."
- The story is bigger than even the massive rewriting of America's energy policy for the explicit benefit of the oil and gas industries. By conducting his energy policy deliberations entirely out of the public eye, and without any Congressional oversight, as Dubose and Bernstein write, "the fight to keep secret the participants and deliberations of the National Energy Policy Development Group was the beginning of a power grab undertaken within days of the inauguration of a president and vice president who months earlier had lost the popular vote. In one bold stroke, Dick Cheney was rewriting the extraconstitutional rules that divide power between the presidency and the Congress." (FindLaw, FindLaw, Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein)
- It is worth noting that, during the clamor over the secrecy surrounding the 1993 health care task force chaired by First Lady Hillary Clinton,
Bush's energy policies
the conservative Wall Street Journal waxed apoplectic over the task force's secret meetings, and obtained the names of all 528 task force members and, labeling them "Kremlinologists," ran the names in an editorial. The Washington Times howled about the "cronyism and dishonesty" behind the secrecy of the task force and demanded that the public be informed about the task force's proceedings. In contrast, both the Journal and the Times supports the secrecy of the Cheney energy task force, with the Journal calling efforts to open the proceedings to the public "politically motivated" and an "end-run" around the Constitution's separation of powers; the Times defends its support of the Cheney task force's secrecy policy and its criticism of the Clinton task force's secrecy policy by saying "Perhaps the most important difference between the two task forces is no one on the Bush team is channeling policy from Eleanor Roosevelt." (The Times will become mildly critical of the secrecy of the Cheney task force as time goes on and more calls for openness flood the airwaves; the Journal, who chronically savaged the Clinton task force's desire for secrecy, now just as apoplectically defends the secrecy of the Cheney task force.) (Michael Tomasky) - As for the Bush assumption of power, predictions for the future of America's oil are grim.
Oil profiteering and the "oiligarchy"
New fuel sources aren't predicted to make a serious impact on US oil usage until 2020 or later. Between 2000 and 2020, oil consumption around the world is predicted to double, with China, India, and Middle Eastern countries doubling their demand. Cheney's energy task force predicts that US oil production will decline 12% by 2020, compelling the US to import fully 2/3 of its oil. Meanwhile, the Middle East will figure even more largely than before in the world's oil production, with half to two-thirds of the world's oil being produced in that region. Saudi Arabia has the biggest proven reserves, but Iraq's oil fields, already considered second only to Saudi Arabia's, are thought to have huge undiscovered reserves waiting to be tapped. The idea of securing Iraq's oil through military intervention is brought into office from day one. A 2000 report from the neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century, authored in part by Cheney and his chief of staff Lewis Libby, called for the military occupation of Iraq as part of a global "Pax Americana," largely predicated on securing enough oil for America through the rest of the century. The build-up of US military forces around Iraq predated 9/11; in fact, US military preparations to overthrow Iraq's government and secure that country's oil fields for its own use began in 1990, before the Gulf War. (Kevin Phillips) - Shortly after the Energy Group begins its meetings, House Democrat Henry Waxman sends a routine request for the names and minutes of the task force's meetings, a request turned over to the Government Accountability Office after Cheney refuses to comply.
Bush's energy policies
The GAO's David Walker will begin pressing Cheney for the information. Walker, the government's comptroller general, is a centrist Republican and a veteran of Reagan's Labor Department and a former executive of two accounting firms and a former partner at corporate accounting giant Arthur Andersen -- hardly a liberal partisan. He calls himself "the chief accountability officer of the United States government." Selected by Bill Clinton in 1998 after a bipartisan selection process approved him, Walker, like other comptroller generals, serves a 15-year term -- the longest fixed term of any federal appointee. The CG is supposed to be insulated from political pressures and should keep his or her mind on strategic, long-term approaches to the issues confronting his office. The GAO is widely considered the watchdog of the federal government, and Walker takes his position very seriously. - But Walker isn't ready for the savaging he will receive from Cheney's own attack dog, staffer David Addington. Addington is also a Republican, but of a far more authoritarian, neoconservative stripe. He has served in government with Cheney since the mid-eighties. Currently he is Cheney's chief legal counsel, and will remain in that post until becoming Cheney's chief of staff after the October 2005 resignation of the indicted Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Addington is a true believer in the "unitary executive," which, simply stated, holds that the president has the power to reinterpret or even ignore laws passed by Congress, particularly in times of war. Like Cheney, Addington sees the Energy Group as a perfect opportunity to expand the power of the executive branch. The Energy Group should be constrained by the Federal Advisory Committees Act, which requires transparency when the government allows private parties to shape policy. Instead, Addington, at Cheney's behest, devises a scheme to circumvent FACA and, in the words of authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein, "eliminate the transparency that Dick Cheney considers an intrusion into his business." Addington's scheme is simple: every time a group of industry lobbyists hold a meeting with Cheney's group, one loyal, midlevel government official will be present, therefore transforming the committee of outside advisors into a government meeting not subject to FACA scrutiny. Cheney chairs the meetings, giving them an aura of executive privilege and another layer of secrecy. "The whole thing was designed so that the presence of a government employee at a meeting could keep the Congress out," says a Congressional staff lawyer. It also keeps the press out.
- One Bush cabinet member who is alarmed by the entire affair is Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, the former Alcoa CEO who, while a reliable economic conservative, is a strong believer in public accountability. But Cheney is having none of it, and O'Neill doesn't have the influence to force the issue.
- Cheney is particularly annoyed by Waxman, who during his decades in Congress has won a reputation as a crusader against waste, fraud, and government secrecy. When Waxman gets wind of the secret Energy Group in the summer of 2001, he and his colleague John Dingell begin dunning Cheney for names and minutes of the group's meetings. Cheney's political advisor, Mary Matalin, treats Waxman's requests with contempt, accusing Waxman of engaging in the "politics of destruction" -- perhaps a bit extreme, considering Waxman is merely requesting information that Cheney is legally bound to provide.
- Waxman turns to Walker to force Cheney to comply; Walker runs into a brick wall in Addington, who turns him down flat. Walker scales down his request "out of respect to the vide president," asking just for the names of the private parties who met with the group. Cheney and Addington refuse. In July, Cheney tells ABC reporter Ted Koppel that he's perfectly willing to force Walker to go to court to get the information, and says haughtily that as a member of the Executive Branch, no member of Congress has the right to demand anything from him -- Waxman's request is "inappropriate and not in keeping with the Constitution." Cheney is turning Waxman's completely legal and appropriate request into a Constitutional standoff with Congress.
- Waxman is ready to take up the gauntlet, but after the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan, decides to hold off. Cheney continues to attack Waxman both privately and in the press, using the ever-cooperative Fox News as his base for launching one media attack after another on the congressman. He indignantly tells one Fox reporter that Waxman wants "a list of everybody I met with, of everything that was discussed, any advice that was revealed, notes and minutes of these meetings" -- a blatant lie, considering Waxman and Walker have scaled back their request to merely a list of names of participants. Cheney tells Fox anchor Tony Snow (who will later become Bush's press secretary) that what he and Bush object to, "and what we've told the GAO we won't do, is make it impossible for me or future vice presidents to ever have a conversation in confidence with anybody without having, ultimately, to tell a member of Congress what we talked about and what was said. You just cannot accept that proposition without putting a chill over the ability of the president and the vice president to receive unvarnished advice."
- Constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein calls that a "bogus, specious, absurd argument." Fein is a Reagan administration veteran who worked alongside Cheney during the Iran-Contra hearings, one of a growing number of conservative Republicans who are increasingly alarmed by the administration's evident contempt for the Constitution, particularly in the areas of domestic wiretapping, the suspension of habeas corpus, and the use of presidential signing statements to obviate Congressional directives. The idea of such privilege exists nowhere in the Constitution, Fein notes. Fein, a student of John Stuart Mill and the Federalist Papers, believes that Bush and Cheney have taken the concept of executive privilege and run with it much, much farther than the framers of the Constitution ever envisioned.
- Walker will sue Cheney in federal district court in February 2002. The GAO had never sued an elected official once in its 80-year history. Walker is astonished when Solicitor General Theodore Olson appears to argue the government's case. Olson is "their Supreme Court guy," Walker says later. "He doesn't get involved in the district court level." The judge, John Bates, who has been on the bench for less than a year, finds himself under tremendous political pressure. Bates is a Bush appointee who cut his teeth working on the Starr commission, which investigated Bill Clinton for Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky. Bates knows which side his bread is buttered on; he will rule against Walker and the GAO, finding that the GAO has no grounds for a case because no congressional committee had requested or subpoenaed the documents. (With Republicans in charge of the House since 1994, no committee was likely to ever make such a request, much less file a subpoena. In the six years of Republican House leadership during Bush's term, the House will issue a grand total of five subpoenas. During Clinton's eight years in office, the House issued at least 1,052 subpoenas.)
- Walker will choose not to appeal, citing the tremendous cost of the proceedings. Ultimately, the court decision is, in the opinion of congressional scholar Thomas Mann, a huge win for Bush-Cheney. They "have an extreme and relentless executive-centered conception of American government," says Mann, "and it plays out every day, and there are dozens of fronts in this effort to strengthen the presidency. Power naturally gravitates to the president in times of uncertainty. But people are going to question putting all of our trust in an unfettered presidency." Cheney himself is the big winner. He is never compelled to reveal the names of those who participated in the Energy Group, and his Constitutional power is expanded. "Now they have a precedent they can hold over Congress;s head," says Fein. "Like a loaded gun. Forever."
- But some of the Energy Group documents do eventually see the light of day. The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch manages to obtain some of those documents by sending Freedom of Information Act requests, not to the office of the vice president, but to the federal agencies that worked with Cheney's task force. Bush and Cheney are exempt from FOIA requests anyway, but the federal agencies are not. Attorney General John Ashcroft fought for the agencies' right to keep their information secret, but Judicial Watch will sue, and win. While the FOIA case drags on past the 2002 midterm elections, the documents will eventually be turned over to JW, but not any of the documents held by Cheney's office.
- However, the documents that JW does obtain are indicative of what went on behind Cheney's closed doors. Perhaps the most revealing are the documents that show the intensive discussion of Iraq's oilfields, with a list of corporate "suitors" for each one. The documents are from the summer of 2001. It is obvious that long before the Iraq invasion of March 2003, and while Iraq is still under US embargo, Cheney and his task force are discussing how to divide Iraq's oil industry among American oil and gas interests. This ties in with another group that Cheney is deeply involved in -- a group of foreign policy neoconservatives informally called the "Vulcans." The group includes Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Pentagon advisor Richard Perle, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, national security advisor (and future Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice, and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol. (Armitage and Powell are the "moderates" of the group.) The Vulcans first came to public awareness in 1998, when a small but influential think tank known as the Project for a New American Century urged Bill Clinton to invade Iraq. Cheney is not officially a member of the Vulcans, but he signed PNAC's letter, and his interests usually coincide with theirs.
- And the documents obtained by Judicial Watch show that the task force held numerous discussions with oil ministers from friendly Persian Gulf states surrounding Iraq. Even though the UN is in control of Iraq's oil reserves, and Saddam Hussein rules Iraq, the task force is discussing control of Iraq's oilfields with Arab oil interests. Fittingly, those documents will not be released to the public until well after the March 2003 invasion. Cheney feels that the State Department sanctions keeping American oil interests out of Iraq are unfair and too limiting. Too, Iran wants US oil development technology, and Cheney wants to sell it to them, but his own administration's increasingly hardline policies towards that "axis of evil" state keeps Cheney from getting that wish. Yet the Energy Group pored over maps of Iranian oilfields, too.
- It is blindingly obvious that, from the first months of the Bush administration, Iraq's oilfields are a matter of deep interest to Cheney and his energy task force; in fact, Wolfowitz had drawn up invasion plans for Iraq long before 9/11, plans that the energy task force were apparently aware of. Wolfowitz archly predicts that the US could invade Iraq and secure its oilfields essentially for free -- Iraqi oil revenues would pay for everything.
- Other documents were similarly telling. Task force executive director Joseph Kelliher e-mails natural gas lobbyist Dana Contratto asking what he would do about natural gas policy "if you were king, or Il Duce." The American Petroleum Institute drafts an executive order template, under the following heading:
- Executive Order _____
- Energy Policy
- March _____, 2001
- The template becomes Executive Order 13211, signed into law by Bush on May 11, 2001; that order includes, verbatim, the policy spelled out by API director Jim Ford, exempting many industry actions from judicial review.
- And some of the task force's actions were strictly mercenary. On March 1, the executives of Peabody Energy, Irl Engelhardt and Fred Palmer, meet with task force director Andrew Lundquist, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, and Bush's economic advisor Larry Lindsey. Peabody, the largest coal company in the world, is preparing a stock offering. Coal recommendations in the task force's report will strongly influence the market's response to Peabody's IPO. On March 16, the task force releases its report, hyping the use of coal. On March 21, Peabody goes public, raising $420 million -- $60 million more than anticipated. The task force used its position to flog a stock offering for its corporate cronies.
- When the EPA's representative on the task force blocks the recommendation of a procedure called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," an intensive method to force natural gas to a wellhead and a tremendous source of aquifer pollution, the final report includes a recommendation to allow "fracking." Halliburton is the nation's "fracking" leader.
- While the vast majority of the lobbyists and private representatives who meet with the task force are energy executives, the only names ever released to the press by Cheney are the representatives from environmental groups. Those worthies are all brought in to meet with the task force on one single day, paraded before the task force to blunt criticism that environmental concerns were being brushed off, and roundly ignored. They did, however, make a nice photo op. As for the oil and gas executives who do attend the meetings, those executives continue to lie about their involvement even as late as 2005, even to the Senate; only after a Secret Service visitors' log leaked to the press shows that those executives did indeed take part in the discussions, and Democratic senator Frank Lautenberg announces that he is referring their testimony to the Justice Department, will the executives trot back to the Senate and amend their testimony. (Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein)
- January 29: Bush says of his responsibilities as chief executive, "I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well." (AllHatNoCattle)
Bush discusses possible pre-emptive strike of Iraq with NSC
- January 31: The first National Security Council meeting of the new presidency, held under the bland rubric "Mideast Policy," has as its actual focus the possible pre-emptive attack on Iraq, which appears to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to be the overriding issue of Bush's Middle East policy.
Iraq war and occupation
O'Neill, believing the meeting will primarily focus on the festering Arab-Israeli conflict and Bush's possible attempt to complete the settlement brokered by Clinton in the final weeks of his term, is aghast. Bush is dismissive of any settlement, saying that the US needs to skew its support much more towards Israel than Clinton ever did (the Clinton settlement needed only a few overtures to balky Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat to become reality), and says he remembers flying in a helicopter once with Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. "We flew over the Palestinian camps. Looked real bad down there. I don't see much that we can do over there at this point. I think it's time to pull out of that situation." With those few words, Bush abandons the entire eight-year effort by Clinton to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, and allows the region to plunge into an escalation of violence that, among other things, helped trigger the 9/11 attacks. (Secretary of State Colin Powell tells Bush that his disengagement is "hasty," but Bush is almost contemptuous in his dismissal of Powell's concerns.) - The "real" meeting begins with Condoleezza Rice having a scripted exchange with Bush: "So, Condi, what are we going to talk about today? What's on the agenda?" Bush asks, and Rice responds, "How Iraq is destabilizing the region, Mr. President." CIA director George Tenet shows the assemblage a grainy photograph that he says is convincing evidence of either a biological or chemical weapons factory. The only person to do much more than "ooh" and "ahh" over the photo is O'Neill, who, after a couple of tart questions, brings Tenet to the admission that the CIA has no proof that the photo is of anything more than a conventional factory. The discussion quickly becomes technical, and it is a few moments before O'Neill realizes that the decision has already been made to use American military force against the Hussein regime in Iraq, with virtually no debate -- indeed, the decision seems to have already been made. The meeting ends with Bush asking Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to "examine our military options" and see "how it might look" to put US ground forces into northern and southern Iraq. Within weeks, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Dick Cheney are poring over maps of Iraq's oil fields and lists of foreign oil companies that might be interested in taking them over. Ron Suskind, the author of O'Neill's political biography, The Price of Loyalty, writes, "Already by February, the talk was mostly about logistics. Not the why, but the how and how quickly." O'Neill later recalls, "From the beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and he needed to go," a conclusion echoed by former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke. O'Neill, for himself, is left to speculate why the defanged and defeated Hussein is suddenly such a priority. (Ron Suskind, Al Franken, New York Times/Richard Clarke/Frances Fox Piven)
- After the meeting, O'Neill begins writing a lengthy memo to Rumsfeld about the economic ramifications of Rumsfeld's ideas for dramatically increasing military spending, part of the drive towards Iraq presented in the meeting.
Bush's economic policies
O'Neill discusses how the collapse of the Soviet Union has brought about a decentralization of the military threats faced by the US: instead of one large and formidable foe, the US now has a number of smaller, less technologically capable opponents who can be expected to fight for their interests using different, less conventional methodologies. O'Neill, who has known Rumsfeld for decades, is one of the few administration members who is willing to stand up to the blustering, bullying defense secretary. In this case, Rumsfeld is advocating an idea known colloquially as "transforming the US military," long advocated by defense analyst Andy Marshall, which in essence advocates using technological advances to transform the military into a smaller, more nimble fighting force much more reliant on long-range air and sea-based strikes before using land forces to "mop up" in battle. Like his boss, Rumsfeld sees Iraq as a major enemy of the US -- more so than even North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran -- and, like his neoconservative allies at the American Enterprise Institute, advocates swift pre-emptive action against Iraq and perhaps other countries as well, all of which, according to Rumsfeld, could develop weapons of mass destruction that could threaten the US within a year. Like Powell, O'Neill is skeptical of Rumsfeld's assertions. Cheney, however, is not. (Ron Suskind)
US intelligence agencies ordered to back off of investigations into bin Laden family connections to terror groups and Pakistan's provision of nuclear technology to rogue states
- Late January: The BBC later reports, "After the elections, [US intelligence] agencies [are] told to 'back off' investigating the bin Ladens and Saudi royals, and that anger[s] agents."
Anti-terrorism and homeland security
This follows previous orders to abandon an investigation of bin Laden relatives, and difficulties in investigating Saudi royalty. An unnamed high-level CIA operative says there is a "major policy shift" at the National Security Agency at this time; "there were particular investigations that had been killed," he says. Osama bin Laden could still be investigated, but agents could not look too closely at how he got his money. Presumably one such investigation canceled is an investigation by the Chicago FBI into ties between Saudi multimillionaire Yassin al-Qadi and the US embassy bombings and other terrorist acts, because during this month an FBI agent is told that the case is being closed and that "it's just better to let sleeping dogs lie." Another investigation closed by Bush officials is the CIA's probe into Pakistani nuclear physicist A.Q. Khan's provision of nuclear technology to rogue nations such as Libya and North Korea; those provisions would not be "officially" discovered until February 2004. Why? Because of Khan's close financial ties to the House of Saud. Reporter Greg Palast notes that the Clinton administration had already hindered investigations by protecting Saudi interests, but, as he puts it, "Where Clinton said, 'Go slow,' Bush policymakers said, 'No go.' The difference is between closing one eye and closing them both." The Bush administration discontinues the covert deployment of cruise missile submarines and gunships on six-hour alert that had begun under Clinton, even as conclusive evidence that al-Qaeda was behind the Cole reaches the White House. The discontinuation makes an assassination attempt against bin Laden much more difficult. It is later discovered that the intelligence block was instigated by Dick Cheney. (Greg Palast, Scoop) - Late January: After Bush takes office, he makes some interesting selections for his Cabinet.
Partisan Bush appointees
Former Green Beret Stan Goff writes: "The Vice President is an oil executive and the former Secretary of Defense. The National Security Advisor is a director on the board of a transnational oil corporation and a Russia scholar. The Secretary of State is a man with no diplomatic experience whatsoever, and the former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The other interesting appointment is Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. Rumsfeld is the former CEO of Searle Pharmaceuticals. He and Cheney were featured as speakers at the May, 2000, Russian-American Business Leaders Forum. So the consistent currents in this cabinet are petroleum, the former Soviet Union, and the military. Based on the record of [the previous Bush administration] and the general trajectory of US foreign policy as far back as the Carter Administration, I feel I can reasonably conclude that Middle Eastern and South Asian fossil fuels are one of their major preoccupations. ...I further conclude that the economic colonization of the former Soviet Union is probably high on that agenda, and in fact has a powerful synergy with the issue of petroleum. Russia not only holds vast untapped resources that beckon to imperialism in crisis, it remains a credible military and nuclear challenger in the region. We have not one, but three members of the Bush de facto cabinet with military credentials, which makes the cabinet look quite a lot like a military General Staff. All this way before September 11th." (Narco News/Pravda) - Late January: Within days of taking office,
Anti-terrorism and homeland security
the President's new security director, Condoleezza Rice, is approached by Richard Clarke, National Security Council Chief of Counterterrorism and holdover from the Clinton administration, and urged to continue Predator drone surveillance on Osama bin Laden. He cites the successes of the drone in late 2000 at finding bin Laden, and says that an attack by a Predator might well kill the terrorist leader. But the new administration soft-pedals Predator surveillance, and no new flights occur until after the 9/11 bombings. (AP/RedNova) - Late January: Pending regulations requiring the USDA to inspect ready-to-eat deli meats for contamination, inspired by a deadly outbreak of listeriosis in the Midwest, are put on hold by new Bush chief of staff Andrew Card.
Corporate - friendly deregulation
As Bush's second term begins in 2005, those regulations are still on hold, though thousands of Americans have died from Listeria monocynogenes infections since Bush took office. The administration has also supported the deli meat industry's refusal to place warning labels on its meats that state "ready-to-eat" deli meats are potentially unsafe because of listeria contamination. During Clinton's eight years in office, he refused to continue his formerly cozy relationship with Tyson Chicken and fought the corporation to implement new USDA safety restrictions; that fight has been abandoned by the Bush administration, to the delight of Bush supporters like Lonnie Pilgrim, head of Pilgrim's Pride Corporation, one of Texas's largest chicken producers. (Pilgrim is famous for walking onto the floor of the Texas Senate in the 1980s and handing out blank checks to legislators in return for their vote against a workers' compensation bill that would have cost Pilgrim's Pride millions in compensation for workers maimed and crippled while on the job.) (Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose)
Hart-Rudman report on terrorism issued; Bush administration ignores it
- January 31: The final report of the US Commission on National Security/21st Century, co-chaired by former Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, is issued.
Anti-terrorism and homeland security
The bipartisan commission was put together in 1998 by then-President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The report warns that "mass-casualty terrorism directed against the US homeland was of serius and growing concern," and that America is woefully unprepared for a "catastrophic" domestic terror attack. The report contains 50 recommendations on how to combat terrorism in the US, including the creation of a cabinet-level National Homeland Security Agency, but all of them are ignored by the Bush Administration. Instead, the White House announces on May 8 that it will have Vice President Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism, despite the fact that this commission had just studied the issue for 2 1/2 years. The Cheney task force never meets. According to Senator Hart, Congress was taking the commission's suggestions seriously, but then, "Frankly, the White House shut it down... The president said 'Please wait, we're going to turn this over to the vice president'... And so Congress moved on to other things, like tax cuts and the issue of the day." Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who helped create the Hart-Rudman panel, will later complain, "The [Bush] administration actually slowed down response to Hart-Rudman when momentum was building in the spring." Interestingly, both this commission and the Bush Administration were already assuming a new cabinet level National Homeland Security Agency would be enacted eventually even as the general public remained unaware of the term and the concept. (Buzzflash, Gary Hart News, Eric Alterman and Mark Green, Al Franken)
