Bush Air Guard Buddy Exposes Drugs-Bin Lauden-Bush Connection:
* From an article on a guy named Bath whom the White House censored from Bush's military records, but was a training buddy of GW's.
"Bath asserted that allegations that Bush had been using drugs are a "bogus issue," but declined to answer precisely why he and Bush failed to undergo their physicals. "I'm telling you that it [drug use] did not happen. It is beyond laughable. I wasn't with him 24/7, but Geo did not use drugs. Geo did not use drugs, and I really know the facts."
In addition to those still unanswered questions, there is now the issue of why the White House redacted Bath's name, an issue that has been absent from the mainstream media but that has been debated on weblogs such as Calpundit and Code Name: Monkey.
As it happens, when I interviewed Bath for my recently published book, "House of Bush, House of Saud," I discovered that the White House may not want to reveal his name because Bath, a Houston businessman who became friends with George W. Bush in the '70s, is the middleman in a story Bush doesn't particularly want told -- the saga of how the richest family in the world, the House of Saud, and its surrogates courted the Bush family. Bath was present at the birth of a relationship that would bring more than $1.4 billion in investments and contracts from the House of Saud to the House of Bush over more than 20 years. The blotting out of Bath's name indicates President Bush's extreme sensitivity about his family's extensive connections with the Saudis.
About 6 feet tall, trim and balding, Bath mingles a wry, folksy Texas charm with the machismo of a veteran jet fighter pilot. It is a combination that has served him well in cultivating relationships with the greatest Texas power brokers of the last generation -- from former Gov. John Connally to the Bush family.
A native of Natchitoches, La., Bath moved to Houston in 1965 at age 29 to join the Texas Air National Guard. In 1968, he was hired by Atlantic Aviation, a Delaware company that sells business aircraft, to open an office in Houston. He went on to become an airplane broker on his own. Sometime around 1974 -- Bath doesn't recall the exact date -- he was trying to sell an F-27 turboprop when he received a phone call that changed his life.
The man on the phone was Salem bin Laden, heir to the great Saudi Binladin Group fortune. Then only about 25, Salem was also the older brother of Osama bin Laden, then 17.
Bath not only had a buyer for a plane no one else wanted but also had stumbled upon an extraordinary source of wealth and power. Bath ended up befriending both Salem bin Laden and his close associate, Khalid bin Mahfouz, then also about 25 and heir to the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia, the biggest banking empire in the kingdom. Bath immediately took to the two men. "I like the Saudi mentality. They like guns, horses, aviation, the outdoors," he told me. "We had a lot in common."
In many ways, bin Mahfouz and bin Laden were Saudi versions of the well-heeled good old boys Bath knew so well. "In Texas, you'll find the rich carrying on about being just being poor country boys," he says. "Well, these guys were masters of playing the poor, simple Bedouin kid."
In fact, they were anything but poor. The Saudi Binladin Group was on its way to becoming the Saudi equivalent of Bechtel, the huge California construction and engineering firm. Likewise, bin Mahfouz had begun to build the National Commercial Bank into the Saudi version of Citibank, paving the way for it to enter the era of globalization.
Already close to the royal family in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden and bin Mahfouz sought to develop similar relationships in the United States. With Bath tutoring them in the ways of the West, they started coming to Houston regularly in the mid-'70s. Salem came first, buying planes and construction equipment for his family's company. He bought houses in Marble Falls on Lake Travis in central Texas' hill country and near Orlando, Fla. He started an aircraft services company in San Antonio, Binladen Aviation, largely to manage his small fleet of planes. He converted a BAC-111 for his personal use. For fun, he flew Lear jets, ultralights and other planes around central Texas. "He loved to fly, and spent more time trying to entertain himself than anyone I know," says Dee Howard, a San Antonio engineer who converted several aircraft for bin Laden.
Westerners who knew the family found them irresistible. "Salem was a crazy bastard -- and a delightful guy," says Terry Bennett, a doctor who attended the bin Ladens in Saudi Arabia. "All the bin Ladens filled the room. It was like being in the room with Bill Clinton or someone -- you were aware that they were there."
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