George Walker Bush. 43rd president of the United States. first ever with a criminal record. our third story tonight, his presidency: eight years in eight minutes.
early in 2001 the U.S. fingered Al Qaeda for the bombing of the USS Cole Bush counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke had a plan to take down Al Qaeda. instead by February the NSC had already discussed invading Iraq, and had a plan for post-Saddam Iraq.
by March 5 Bush had a map ready for Iraqi oil exploration and a list of companies. Al Qaeda? Rice told Clarke not to give Bush a lot of long memos.
not a big reader.
August 6, 2001 a CIA analyst briefs Bush on vacation: "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S." Bush takes no action tells the briefer—quote all right, you've covered your ass now.
next month Clarke requests using new predator drones to kill Bin Laden the Pentagon and CIA say no.
September 11th Bush remains seated for several minutes to avoid scaring school children by getting up and leaving. he then flies around the country and promises quote a full scale investigation to find those folks who did it
Rumsfeld says Afghanistan does not have enough targets we've got to do Iraq. when the CIA traps Bin Laden at Tora Bora it asks for 800 rangers to cut off his escape Bush outsources the job to Pakistanis sympathetic to the Taliban Bin Laden gets away
in February General Tommy Franks tells a visiting Senator Bush is moving equipment out of Afghanistan so he can invade Iraq. one of the men who prepped Rice for her testimony that Bush did not ignore pre 9-11 warnings
later explains quote we cherry picked things to make it look like the president had been actually concerned about Al Qaeda they didn't give a bleep about Al Qaeda
July and Britain's intel chief says Bush is fixing intelligence and facts around the policy to take out Saddam January 03 Bush and Blair agree to invade in March Mr. Bush still telling us he has not decided telling Blair they should paint an airplane in UN colors fly it over Iraq and provoke a response a pretext for invasion
the man who said it would take several hundred thousand troops fired the man who said it would cost more than a hundred billion fired the man who revealed Bush's yellowcake lie smeared his wife's covert status exposed the White House liars who did it and covered it up not fired one convicted Bush commutes his sentence
then in Iraq, stuff happens: Iraq's army, disbanded the government de-Baathified 200,000 weapons, billions of dollars just lost foreign mercenaries immunized from justice political hacks run the Green Zone religious cleansing forcing one out of six Iraqis from their homes Abu Ghraib the insurgency Al Qaeda in Iraq
other stuff does not happen: WMD post-war planning body armor vehicular armor
the payoff? oil and billions for Halliburton, Blackwater and other companies while Mr. Bush denies VA healthcare to 450,000 veterans tries to raise their healthcare fees blocks the new G.I. Bill and increases his own power with the USA PATRIOT Act with the Military Commissions Act public orders exempting himself from a thousand laws and secretly from the Presidential Records Act
The Geneva Conventions FISA sparking a mass rebellion at the Justice Department
secret star chambers for terrorism suspects, overturned by Hamdan v Rumsfeld. denying habeas corpus, overturned by Boumediene v Bush. 200 renditionings sleep deprivation abuse
Rumsfeld warned in 2002 that he was torturing that it would jeopardize convictions out of 550 at Gitmo hundreds ultimately go free with no charges dozens are tortured eight fatally three are convicted
on U.S. soil twelve hundred immigrants rounded up without due process
without bail
without court dates
without a single charge of terrorism
it wasn't just Mr. Bush no longer subject to the rule of law he slashed regulations on everyone from banks to mining companies appointed 98 lobbyists to oversee their own industries weakening emission standards for mercury and 650 different toxic chemicals regulators shared drugs and their beds with industry reps the Crandall Canyon mine owner told inspectors to back up because his buddy, Republican Mitch McConnell was sleeping with their boss McConnell's wife is Bush Labor Secretary Elaine Chao her agency overruled engineer concerns about Crandall Canyon and was found negligent
after nine miners died in the collapse there
Mr. Bush's hands off as Enron blacks out California doubling electric bills after months of rejecting price caps Mr. Bush bows to pressure
the blackouts end
Mr. Bush further deregulates commodity futures midwifing the birth of unregulated oil markets which just like Enron jack up prices to an all time high until Congress and both presidential candidates call for regulations
and the prices fall
deregulating financial services and lax enforcement of remaining rules
created a housing bubble
creating the mortgage crisis
creating then a credit crisis
devastating industries that rely on credit
from student loans to car dealers
firms that had survived the Great Depression could not survive Bush
those that did got
seven hundred billion dollars
no strings, no transparency
no idea whether it worked
unlike the auto bailout
which cut workers' salaries.
a GOP memo called it
a chance to punish unions
but Bush failed even when his party and his patrons did not stand to profit
investigators blamed management cost cutting communication for missed warnings about Columbia Bush administration convicts include sex offenders at Homeland Security convicted liars every kind of thief in the calendar and if you count things that were not prosecuted the vice president of the United States actually shot a man in the face
the man apologized.
Mr. Bush faked the truth with paid propaganda in Iraq on his education policy
tried to silence the truth about global warming rocket fuel in our water
industry influence on energy policy
politicized the truth of science at NASA, the EPA, the National Cancer Institute, Fish and Wildlife and the FDA
his lies exposed by whistleblowers from the cabinet down "complete BS" the treasury secretary said of Mr. Bush on his tax cuts.
Rice's mushroom cloud
Powell's mobile labs
Iraq and 9-11
Jack Abramoff
Jessica Lynch
Keith Olbermann-Bush Years: 8 in 8 minutes
