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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bald Eagle who wrote (452790)	9/4/2003 10:45:38 PM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

The terrorists are in the HOUSE...... White House Approved Departure of Saudis After Sept. 11, Ex-Aide Says By Eric Lichtblau New york Times Thursday 04 September 2003 WASHINGTON, Sept. 3 — Top White House officials personally approved the evacuation of dozens of influential Saudis, including relatives of Osama bin Laden, from the United States in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when most flights were still grounded, a former White House adviser said today. The adviser, Richard Clarke, who ran the White House crisis team after the attacks but has since left the Bush administration, said he agreed to the extraordinary plan because the Federal Bureau of Investigation assured him that the departing Saudis were not linked to terrorism. The White House feared that the Saudis could face "retribution" for the hijackings if they remained in the United States, Mr. Clarke said. The fact that relatives of Mr. bin Laden and other Saudis had been rushed out of the country became public soon after the Sept. 11 attacks. But questions have lingered about the circumstances of their departure, and Mr. Clarke's statements provided the first acknowledgment that the White House had any direct involvement in the plan and that senior administration officials personally signed off on it. Mr. Clarke first made his remarks about the plan in an article in Vanity Fair due out Thursday, and he expanded on those remarks today in an interview and in Congressional testimony. The White House said today that it had no comment on Mr. Clarke's statements. The disclosure came just weeks after the classified part of a Congressional report on the Sept. 11 attacks suggested that Saudi Arabia had financial links to the hijackers, and Mr. Clarke's comments are likely to fuel accusations that the United States has gone soft on the Saudis because of diplomatic concerns. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, seized on Mr. Clarke's comments to call on the White House to conduct an investigation into the hasty departures of about 140 Saudis from the United States in the days after the attacks. Mr. Schumer said in an interview that he suspected that some of the Saudis who were allowed to leave, particularly two relatives of Mr. bin Laden who he said had links to terrorist groups themselves, could have shed light on the events of Sept. 11. "This is just another example of our country coddling the Saudis and giving them special privileges that others would never get," Mr. Schumer said. "It's almost as if we didn't want to find out what links existed." Saudi officials could not be reached for comment today, but in the past they have denied accusations linking them to the 19 hijackers, 15 of them from Saudi Arabia. While F.B.I. officials would not discuss details of the case, they said that in the days immediately after Sept. 11 bureau agents interviewed the adult relatives of Mr. bin Laden, members of one of Saudi Arabia's richest families, before the White House cleared them to leave the country. Mr. bin Laden is said to be estranged from his family, and many of his relatives have renounced his campaign against the United States. "We did everything that needed to be done," said John Iannarelli, a bureau spokesman. "There's nothing to indicate that any of these people had any information that could have assisted us, and no one was accorded any additional courtesies that wouldn't have been accorded anyone else." But the Vanity Fair investigation quotes Dale Watson, the former head of counterterrorism at the F.B.I., as saying that the departing Saudis "were not subject to serious interviews or interrogations." Mr. Watson could not be reached for comment today. The article depicts an elaborate but hurried evacuation carried out within a week of the hijackings in which private planes picked up Saudis from 10 cities. Some aviation and bureau officials said they were upset by the operation because the government had not lifted flight restrictions for the general public, but those officials said they lacked the power to stop the evacuation, the article says. Mr. Clarke, who left the White House in February, said in an interview that he was driven by concern that the Saudis "would be targeted for retribution" by Americans after the hijackings. Mr. Clarke said he told the bureau to hold anyone it had suspicions about, and the F.B.I. said it did not hold anyone. Mr. Schumer said he doubted the thoroughness of a rushed review by the bureau, and in a letter to the White House today he said the Saudis appeared to have gotten "a free pass" despite their possible knowledge about the attacks. New Sentences Ordered for Somalis RICHMOND, Va., Sept. 3 (AP) — Jail terms for two Somali men linked to the Qaeda network were too light, an appeals court ruled today. The three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ordered new sentencing for the men, who were convicted of evading financial reporting laws while transferring more than $6 million to the United Arab Emirates. One of the men, Abdirahman Sheikh-ali Isse, was sentenced last year to 18 months in prison; the other, Abdillah S. Abdi, was sentenced to 10 months. Prosecutors have argued for sentences of three to five years. And the HOUSE OF BUSH is their friend CC

To: Bald Eagle who wrote (452790)	9/4/2003 10:46:22 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 769667

What Bush really thinks of New York..... Bush to New Yorkers: Drop Dead Harvey Wasserman Free Press.org Tuesday 02 September 2003 George W. Bush has officially told the people of New York City that as far as he's concerned, they can drop dead. And thanks to his lies, many of them will. With his latest attack on the Clean Air Act he's said the same to millions more. Bush has used the 9/11 "trifecta" to build his popularity, fund the military and tear up the Bill of Rights. But the GOP's cynical uses of the tragedy have gone to a new level. The White House directly interfered with planned Environmental Protection Agency warnings about the toxic fallout from the World Trade Center explosions. It had "competing considerations" that came before protecting the health of the people of New York. Among them were re-opening the stock exchange as quickly as possible, and limiting clean-up costs and liability claims. Because of Bush's lies, thousands of Americans will suffer cancers, emphysema, heart attack, stroke, birth defects, stillbirths, sterility, eye/ear/nose/throat disease and much more. There have been few toxic events to match the explosions that pulverized the two World Trade Center towers. The short-term deaths of three thousand people will be dwarfed over the long term by the lethal fallout. These were two of the last big buildings constructed with asbestos, whose health effects are infamous. Once ingested, the fibers can and do make cells cancerous. Thousands of miners and others exposed to asbestos have filed lawsuits against Johns-Manville and others. The EPA knew that spewing all that asbestos into New York's air was a horrific event, and that lives could be saved by taking certain public precautions. Bush stopped that from happening. The WTC also contained countless computer screens, light fixtures, calculators, telephones, network servers, paging systems, copy machines and much more high-tech office equipment laden with mercury and other toxic metals. The concrete, flooring, plastics, chemical cleaners, furniture, metal struts, window glass---all that was also pulverized into a horrific brew of murderous dioxins, furans and lethal powders with hideous killing power. Where did it all come down? Who has breathed it? How many were elderly? Who might be uniquely sensitive? How many were pregnant, with vulnerable embryos? How far did their lethal powder spread through the region? Where is it now? How long will those poisons kill again and again and yet again? What could be done to prevent further sickness and death? As the EPA knew, those living nearby were owed detailed information denied them by Bush. So were those working in the ruins for days, weeks and months. And those who have innocently proceeded with lives downwind. At very least, people working on or near the site should have been wearing respirators. All downwind buildings should have been intensely monitored. Many should have been fitted with advanced filtration units. All carpeting, furniture, walls and fixtures should have been repeatedly measured and cleaned. And then cleaned again. And then cleaned yet again. But such things cost money. And some buildings might never have reopened. And the stock market might have stayed shut longer. Lives would have been saved, but Bush decided they were less valuable than those competing considerations. Now he's decimated the Clean Air Act, allowing more power plant emissions in yet another give-away to the rich corporations that fund the GOP. So more Americans will die. But Bush will have more money to spend on his 2004 re-election campaign. This man has horribly wronged the people of New York, whose terrible tragedies he continues to exploit. He puts us all at risk in exchange for campaign contributions. New Yorkers---all Americans---suffer and die as a result. It's a debt that can never be repaid. CC