The Bush Family fixit Man Ole Jim Baker

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  • Greg H
    Senior Member
    • May 1999
    • 1684

    The Bush Family fixit Man Ole Jim Baker

         



    Baker Takes The Whole Loaf 

    Greg Palast

    Well, ho ho ho! It's an early Christmas for James Baker III.

    All year the elves at his law firm, Baker Botts of Texas, have been working day and night to prevent the families of the victims of the 9/11 attack from seeking information from Saudi Arabia on the Kingdom's funding of Al Qaeda fronts.

    It's tough work, but this week came the payoff when President Bush appointed Baker, the firm's senior partner, to restructure the debts of the nation of Iraq.

    And who will net the big bucks under Jim Baker's plan? Answer: his client, Saudi Arabia, which claims $30.7 billion due from Iraq plus $12 billion in reparations from the First Gulf war.

    Puppet Strings

    Let's ponder what's going on here.

    We are talking about something called "sovereign debt." And unless George Bush has finally 'fessed up and named himself Pasha of Iraq, he is not their sovereign. Mr. Bush has no authority to seize control of that nation's assets nor its debts.

    But our President is not going to let something as trivial as international law stand in the way of a quick buck for Mr. Baker. To get around the wee issue that Bush has no legal authority to mess with Iraq's debt, the White House has crafted a neat little subterfuge. The official press release says the President has not appointed Mr. Baker. Rather Mr. Bush is "responding to a request from the Iraqi Governing Council." That is, Bush is acting on the authority of the puppet government he imposed on Iraqis at gunpoint.

    I will grant the Iraqi "government" has some knowledge of international finance; its key member, Ahmed Chalabi, is a convicted bank swindler.

    The Bush team must see the other advantage in having the rump rulers of Iraq pretend to choose Mr. Baker; the U.S. Senate will not have to review or confirm the appointment. If you remember, Henry Kissinger ran away from the 9/11 commission with his consulting firm tucked between his legs after the Senate demanded he reveal his client list. In the case of Jim Baker, who will be acting as a de facto U.S. Treasury Secretary for international affairs, our elected Congress will have no chance to ask him who is paying his firm, nor even require him to get off conflicting payrolls.

    This takes the Bush administration' Conflicts-R-Us appointments process to a new low.

    Or maybe there's no conflict at all. If you see Jim Baker's new job as working not to protect a new Iraqi democracy but to protect the loot of the old theocracy of Saudi Arabia, the conflict disappears.

    Iraq's debt totals something on the order of $120 billion to $150 billion, depending on who's counting. And who's counting is very important.

    Much of the so-called debt to Saudi Arabia was given to Saddam Hussein to fight a proxy war for the Saudis against their hated foe, the Shi'ia of Iran. And as disclosed by a former Saudi diplomat, the kingdom's sheiks handed about $7 billion to Saddam under the table in the 1980's to build an "Islamic bomb."

    Should Iraqis today and those not yet born have to be put in a debtor's prison to pay off the secret payouts to Saddam? James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, says 'No!' Wolfensohn has never been on my Christmas card list, but in this case he's got it right: Iraq should simply cancel $120 billion in debt.

    Normally, the World Bank is in charge of post-war debt restructuring. That's why the official name of the World Bank is "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development." This is the Bank's expertise. Bush has rushed Baker in to pre-empt the debt write-off the World Bank would certainly promote.

    "I Fixed Florida"

    Why is our President so concerned with the wishes of Mr. Baker's clientele? What does Bush owe Baker? Let me count the ways, beginning with the 2000 election.

    Just last week Baker said, I fixed the election in Florida for George Bush. That was the substance of his remarks last week to an audience of Russian big wigs as reported to me by my somewhat astonished colleagues at BBC television.

    It was Baker, as consiglieri to the Bush family, who came up with the strategy of maneuvering the 2000 Florida vote count into a Supreme Court packed with politicos.

    Baker's claim to have fixed the election was not a confession; it was a boast. He meant to dazzle current and potential clients about his Big In with the Big Boy in the White House. Baker's firm is already a top player in the Great Game of seizing Caspian Sea oil. (An executive of Exxon-Mobil, one of Baker Botts's clients, has been charged with evading taxes on bribes paid in Kazakhstan.)

    All In The Family

    Over the years, Jim Baker has taken responsibility for putting bread on the Bush family table. As Senior Counsel to Carlyle, the arms-dealing investment group, Baker arranged for the firm to hire both President Bush 41 after he was booted from the White House and President Bush 43 while his daddy was still in office.

    Come to think of it, maybe I'm being a bit too dismissive of the Iraqi make-believe government. After all, it's not as if George Bush were elected by voters either. It would be more accurate to say that TWO puppet governments have agreed to let the man who has always pulled the strings come out from behind the curtain, take a bow, take charge—then take the money and run.

    Greg Palast is an award-winning investigative reporter for BBC Television’s Newsnight andThe Observer of London. His most recent book is The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: An Investigative Reporter Exposes The Truth About Globalization, Corporate Cons and High-Finance Fraudsters, published by Plume, an imprint of The Penguin Group.
  • LeeG
    Senior Member
    • May 2002
    • 72769

    #2
    I don't get from the article whether that debt is expected to be repaid or where other countries sit with respect to Iraq. That Jim Baker was instrumental in soliciting cooperation from the rest of the world is reasonable given the cost of the reconstruction.

    Comment

    • ljb5
      Senior Member
      • Jan 2004
      • 18136

      #3
      This is an outrage! But not for the reasons explained in this article.

      A couple of weeks ago, I started a thread called Bush Sues POWs!

      During the first Gulf war, 17 Americans were held as POWs. After they were released, the sued Iraq in an American court, under American law and won a $1 Billion settlement. This money was to be paid from Iraqi assets seized in American banks.

      Before they were paid, Bush delcared that the regime change in Iraq wiped the books clean and cleared all obligation incurred before last summer. He said all seized Iraqi assests were needed for rebuilding the country. To some extent, this makes sense. If I move into a house, I don't want to be responsible for the debts of the previous occupant.

      Bush sued the American POWs for $1 Billion. I'm not sure what the final outcome was, but I know that most observers expected Bush to prevail.

      Now we learn that Iraq is going to pay off its old Gulf war debts to Saudi Arabia! That's an outrage. American claims should come first. Bush should support our troops.
      ”If you look at it from a contextual standpoint, I think it's accurate. If you contextualize in concrete numbers fashion, it's not accurate."

      Comment

      • BruceG
        Senior Member
        • Apr 2003
        • 1018

        #4
        Just last week Baker said, I fixed the election in Florida for George Bush. That was the substance of his remarks last week

        If that is what he said then quote him on it! Don't just spin what he said to fit your own agenda. What if he said "I helped fix the mess in Florida for George Bush" That is what a law firm does! So now this neolib spins it for his own purpose. FOTFLMAO

        Comment

        • ljb5
          Senior Member
          • Jan 2004
          • 18136

          #5
          Originally posted by Bruce G:
          If that is what he said then quote him on it! Don't just spin what he said to fit your own agenda. What if he said "I helped fix the mess in Florida for George Bush" That is what a law firm does! So now this neolib spins it for his own purpose. FOTFLMAO
          So now the conservatives want to get all technical about quoting people. This is the party that changed, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet" to "I invented the internet."

          Important question, who created that mess in Florida? According to Florida law, who was responsible for organizing a proper election?
          ”If you look at it from a contextual standpoint, I think it's accurate. If you contextualize in concrete numbers fashion, it's not accurate."

          Comment

          • Greg H.
            Senior Member
            • May 1999
            • 1684

            #6
            It's such a big interwoven "family" (think mafia family) with stinky fingers everywhere it's hard to tell what is what. Where does one outrage end and the other begin? One enfolds in another. We'll be better of when they are gone.
            Conservatism has good points and much to offer, but apotis and his controlling friends aren't it.

            Comment

            • NormMessinger
              Senior Member
              • Feb 2000
              • 6308

              #7
              Geeze, you guy just don't get it do you. He is our President and we love him. What else is relevant. Anyway, all's fair in love and war.

              Comment

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