| http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/Chin072001/chin072001.html
George W.'s daddy's daily intelligence briefings: Who is really running things? By Larry Chin July 20, 2001—Senior White House and CIA officials have confirmed that former President George Herbert Walker "Poppy" Bush remains intimately involved with the American foreign policy agenda. Although he publicly maintains that his idiot son is in control and in charge, the elder Bush continues to be briefed by the CIA when he comes to Washington, as well as in his office in Houston. All former presidents are granted this "privilege." However, George H.W. Bush requests these briefings far more frequently than other ex-presidents. The elder Bush has also initiated foreign policy decisions, repeatedly intervening on his son's behalf. If there are any doubts that the current Bush administration is no more than an extension of the last Bush regime, one need only note the following news items (which are barely reported by the corporate media): 1. For the second time in two months, "Poppy" intervened on his son's behalf by contacting Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to clarify the administration's Middle East policies. The crown prince, an old Bush family friend and Gulf War crony with whom Bush has entertained regularly since the 1980s, was no doubt reassured that the global energy interests of the world's wealthy would be protected, and advanced. Just as it was during the elder Bush's administration. 2. Last month, as the administration struggled to formulate its policy towards North Korea, the elder Bush sent his son a memo penned by "Asia expert" Donald Gregg. Gregg's ideas were incorporated into a policy review. Gregg's CIA/NSC ties with the Bush family spans 25 years, and his CIA career spans 30 years. His "Asia expertise" includes four tours of Vietnam, the Operation Phoenix death squad campaign and the Air America heroin smuggling operation. During the Vietnam War, Gregg reported to Theodore Shackley, covert operations chief under then-CIA director George H.W. Bush, and supervised covert op and assassin Felix Rodriguez. CIA agents Bush, Rodriguez and Shackley were all participants in the Bay of Pigs operation in the early 1960s. Gregg's friendship with the Bushes continued into the following decade. In 1980, Gregg was on the plane that carried George H.W. Bush to his secret "October Surprise" meetings with Iranian officials. (Bush brokered a deal in which Iran would continue to hold American hostages until after the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, in exchange for $40 million in laundered funds.) In a later investigation, Gregg failed a polygraph test regarding his whereabouts. As national security adviser for George H.W. Bush in the 1980s, Gregg assisted Felix Rodriguez, Lt. Colonel Oliver North and others in the Contra "resupply" and cocaine smuggling operation. When arms dealer and CIA agent Richard Brenneke questioned Gregg about drug shipments into Texas, Gregg reportedly admonished him, "Do what you were assigned to do. Don't question your betters." Although pursued by Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh, Gregg, Bush and other Iran-Contra conspirators evaded jail time thanks to Bush administration stonewalling and George H.W. Bush's infamous Christmas Eve pardons. While the corporate media devotes 24-hour coverage to Gary Condit walking in and out of his office, it refuses to enlighten our uneducated and ignorant masses about the elder Bush's active role in his idiot son's puppet regime, the continuing involvement of former CIA operatives in American foreign policy, and the fact that Iran-Contra figures, such as Elliott Abrams. receive National Security Council jobs. The snakes that truly "run things" have been around for a long time. And they are poisonous. |
