They sure cover for their own, don't they? Even if it involves treason. Again, Americans need to question the 9.11 Commission Report. It may give some sound suggestions on how to keep the country safer in the future (barring totally eroding our civil liberties), but otherwise, it is a whitewash. I still say this govt. knew and they did NOTHING.
Jan


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...6-2004Aug4.html

Investigators Concluded Shelby Leaked Message

Justice Dept. Declined To Prosecute Case
By Allan Lengel and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 5, 2004; Page A17

Federal investigators concluded that Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) divulged classified intercepted messages to the media when he was on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, according to sources familiar with the probe. Specifically, Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron confirmed to FBI investigators that Shelby verbally divulged the information to him during a June 19, 2002, interview, minutes after Shelby's committee had been given the information in a classified briefing, according to the sources, who declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the case. Cameron did not air the material. Moments after Shelby spoke with Cameron, he met with CNN reporter Dana Bash, and about half an hour after that, CNN broadcast the material, the sources said. CNN cited "two congressional sources" in its report.

The FBI and the U.S. attorney's office pursued the case, and a grand jury was empaneled, but nobody has been charged with any crime. Last month it was revealed that the Justice Department had decided to forgo a criminal prosecution, at least for now, and turned the matter over to the Senate Ethics Committee.
The Justice Department declined to comment on why it was no longer pursuing the matter criminally. The Senate ethics panel also declined to comment on its investigation.

Yesterday, Shelby's press secretary, Virginia Davis, issued this statement: "Senator Shelby served as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee for eight years and as Chairman for five and a half years. He has a full understanding of the importance of protecting our nation's secrets, and he has never knowingly compromised classified information. He is unaware of any evidence to the contrary. (note...popping out at me here is the word "knowingly," giving Shelby a lot of wiggle room --he knows danged well what he did and he knows the seriousness of it too). "This matter has been under investigation for two years. The Justice Department has not taken any action other than, only recently, to refer the matter to the Senate Ethics Committee. Other than the letter from the Ethics Committee describing the subject of the reference in general terms, Senator Shelby has not been informed of any specific allegations. He looks forward to the opportunity to respond to the Committee's concerns at the appropriate time." (under investigation for 2 years and I never heard of it till now...amazing how secretive this bush regime is...secrets imbedded with collusion, corruption, lies and, in this case, treason)

[B]The disclosure involved two messages that were intercepted by the National Security Agency on the eve of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but were not translated until Sept. 12. The Arabic-language messages said "The match is about to begin" and "Tomorrow is zero hour." The Washington Post, citing senior U.S. intelligence officials, reported the same messages in its June 20, 2002, editions. National security officials were outraged by the leak, and moments after the CNN broadcast a CIA official chastised committee members who had by then reconvened to continue the closed-door hearing. Intelligence officials, who consider intercepted communications among the most closely guarded secrets, said the breach proved that Congress could not be trusted with classified information. But experts in electronic surveillance said the information about the NSA's intercepts contained nothing harmful because it did not reveal the source of the information or the methods used to gather it. Vice President Cheney upbraided the Senate and House committee chairmen in separate phone calls the next day, and White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said President Bush had deep concerns about "anything that could harm our ability to maintain sources and methods, and anything that could interfere with America's ability to fight the war on terrorism."[B]

Interjection: Yeah, that 's why they leaked the name of a mole working in Pakistan, to have an excuse for this latest "terror alert." (That article to follow this one.)

The panels' chairmen, Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), responded immediately by requesting a Justice Department investigation into the disclosure, an unusual move that brought criticism from other members of Congress. The FBI asked 17 senators to turn over phone records, appointment calendars and schedules. The FBI probe included an interview with a staff member on the intelligence committee who said that Shelby was trying to leak the information to show the shortcomings of the intelligence community, the sources said. Shelby had called repeatedly for the resignation of then-CIA Director George J. Tenet, whom he said was not up to the job. Cameron confirmed this week that FBI agents interviewed him on several occasions and asked whether Shelby leaked the information to him. He said they also asked if he saw the senator walk off with CNN's Bash after talking to him.
"Yes, the FBI and the Justice Department came to me to ask me all that information," he said. "I will confirm to you that I was asked all those questions." But he said he told investigators, "What doesn't go on the air I don't discuss, and we don't disclose our sources." He said, "When they continued to press me, that's when I got it kicked up to the lawyers." Cameron, in an interview yesterday, said FBI agents told him they had asked the Justice Department to subpoena him before the grand jury. There was "a lot of talk about getting" a grand jury subpoena, he said, but one was never issued. Bash, who declined to be interviewed by the FBI, said yesterday: "I cannot comment on it." FBI spokesman Ed Cogswell also declined to comment.
The Shelby probe was one of several ongoing leak investigations, including one trying to determine who leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer, Valerie Plame, to columnist Robert D. Novak.

Why isn't this on FOX NEWS? It seems that Bush syncophants will even stoop to aiding and abetting such treasonous activity to cover their own butts. It is clear that this administration are then traitors, and are covering for Bin Laden. They do everything in their power to thwart real progress in this war on terror, using only their inane color wheel and bogus alerts as political tools in an election year. Why is there then even a campaign going on including Bush? These people deserve to be on trial! They are putting all of us in danger with their election year tactics that show they really don't care about REALLY keeping us safe!

Jan
~~~
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/10/149253

Tuesday, August 10th, 2004

Did the White House Sabotage the War on Terror by Leaking the Name of an al Qaeda Double Agent?

Pakistan and Britain are accusing the Bush administration of undermining its fight against al Qaeda by revealing the name of computer expert Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan while he was still working as an undercover double agent. We speak with Middle East expert and online blogger Juan Cole. [includes rush transcript]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New York senator Chuck Schumer is asking the White House to explain how and why the name of an al-Qaeda informant arrested in Pakistan last month was leaked to the press. The name of computer expert Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan first appeared in The New York Times last week. Pakistani intelligence sources are accusing the Bush administration of undermining its fight against al Qaeda by revealing Khan's name while he was still working as an undercover double agent.

Unnamed U.S. officials leaked his name to the press in an attempt of the Bush administration to defend last week's heightened terror threat level. In a letter to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice Schumer said that the disclosure of Khan's capture may have complicated efforts to combat terror.

Meanwhile, The New York Times is reporting that a new portrait of al Qaeda's inner workings is emerging from information seized after Khan's arrest. The Times says intelligence analysts find that a new generation of al Qaeda operatives appears to be filling a vacuum created when leaders were killed or captured. The information reveals a far more complex picture of al Qaeda than President Bush has presented on his campaign trail, where he has claimed that much of al Qaeda"s leadership has been killed or captured.

Juan Cole, Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History at the History Department of the University of Michigan runs an analytical website called "Informed Comment" in which he provides a daily round-up of news and events in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world. Cole speaks fluent Arabic and Farsi and has lived all over the Muslim world for extended periods of time.

AMY GOODMAN: To talk about the story of the exposing of Mohammad Khan, we caught up with Middle East analyst, Juan Cole, professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History at the University of Michigan; he runs an analytical website called Informed Comment, in which he provides a daily roundup of news and events in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab World. He speaks fluent Arabic and Persian and has lived around the Muslim world for extended periods of time. We asked him about the exposing of Mohammad Khan.

JUAN COLE: This seems to me to be a really big story. It's amazing to me how little play it has gotten in the American print press, as well as the cable television news. It appears to be the case that a big break came in the al Qaeda investigation in Pakistan in June. They arrested a man named Arrocci, a cousin of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, one of the key Lieutenants. Arrocci in turn gave up a younger man, 25 years old, named Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was living in Lahore and was a computer whiz; a hacker, he had been providing electronic communication services to al Qaeda. Some of the leadership, which is in the wilds of the no-man's land between Afghanistan and Pakistan, had been getting him messages by courier, and he would encrypt them and put them up on the web or send them by email. And he was arrested July 13. It was possible for the Pakistani military intelligence to turn him. So, he was willing to flip, and begin informing on al Qaeda and to keep his correspondence on line; so they continued to correspond with him as though he were still working for bin Laden. It was from his computer files that the U.S. learned that there had been a plot against U.S. financial institutions and other plots, some of them somewhat old. So, a decision was made by the Bush White House to release this information. Tom Ridge came out on Sunday, August 1, and announced that there was such a plot, and there would be extra security for those institutions. In the course of the off the record briefing that the Homeland Security did for the press, a Bush administration official mentioned that the information had come from Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan. Now, he was still a double agent and was undercover, and was sending email messages, according to Pakistani sources, on Sunday and the following Monday, to his al Qaeda contacts in London, who still thought he was on the inside. So, the next day, "The New York Times" printed the name on the principle that you don't tell the press something you don't want to see in the newspaper, and that in turn caused a big furor in Pakistan and the United Kingdom where there were ongoing sting operations being run through Khan. The British had to swoop in and arrest 13 of Khan's correspondents, lest they scatter once they heard he had been arrested. In fact, they lost five of them. Many of them they're going to have to release for lack of evidence. The cases have not been made. Hayat, the Pakistani Interior Minister, is furious. He said Khan is the kind of asset that could have led to bin Laden himself, had he not been outed.
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to professor Juan Cole. His blog, juancole.com. How do you know that he was a double agent? What is this based on?

JUAN COLE: Well, there are two indications of this. First of all, this is what Pakistani intelligence sources told Reuters last Friday in Karachi. So, the Pakistanis maintain it. Hayat has implicitly endorsed this information, and other Pakistani Ministers, Rasheed Ahmed, for instance, have admitted it. So, the other thing is that it's very clear from the reaction in Britain, where people have been unwilling to come out and say this, that they are very upset. Mi-5 has actually given an interview to "The New York Times" in which they have complained about the damage that was done to the ongoing cases. So, both sources that have are talked to journalists in Pakistan and in the United Kingdom have confirmed this story. The Bush administration officials' line on it, and Condaleeza Rice was on CNN Sunday, was to admit that a Bush administration official did in fact provide Khan's name to the press on background, but then to say that they don't know if he was a double agent. This just seems to be disingenuous.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what happened with Condoleezza Rice in her interview with Wolf Blitzer, CNN, and then on "background" with Wolf Blitzer.

JUAN COLE: That was actually a mistake on my part. In the course of his interview with her -- I have to say, Wolf was on top of the story in a way that most television journalists have not been-- he asked her about the incident, and she admitted that the name had been in fact provided to the press on background when the Ridge briefing was done the previous Sunday. Then she also admitted -- then she said she didn't know if he was a double agent. And later in the broadcast, Wolf had two senators on, Charles Schumer and George Allen, and he said to them that Condoleeza had admitted this to him, and I misheard him. I thought he said she told him something more on background, but he was referring to the fact that the reporters have been told this on background. I'm sorry, I got that mixed up. But in any case, that the Bush administration released his name has been confirmed by the National Security Adviser, and it seems to me it's just unbelievable that this could happen. It's an incredible screw-up and it endangers us all.
You can read the rest of the interview at the link in the first post.

USAF officer disciplined for saying
that Bush allowed 9-11 to happen
(It's all unraveling......)
============================================
A US Air Force officer in California recently accused
President Bush of deliberately allowing the September 11
terror attacks to take place. The officer has been relieved
of his command and faces further discipline.

The controversy surrounding Lt. Col. Steve Butler's
letter to the editor, in which he affirmed that Bush did
nothing to warn the American people because he
"needed this war on terrorism," received scant coverage
in the media.

Universally ignored by the press, however, was that
the officer was not merely expressing a personal
opinion.

He was in a position to have direct knowledge of
contacts between the US military and some of the
hijackers in the period before the terrorist attacks that
destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the
Pentagon.

Lieutenant Colonel Butler, who wrote in a letter to the
editor of the Monterey County Herald charging that "Bush
knew about the impending attacks," was vice chancellor
for student affairs at the Defense Language Institute in
Monterey, California" a US military facility that one or
more of the hijackers reportedly attended during the 1990s.

In his May 26 letter to the newspaper, Butler responded
to Bush supporters, who had written the paper opposing
the congressional investigation into the September 11
events. He wrote:

"Of course President Bush knew about the impending
attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American
people because he needed this war on terrorism.

"His daddy needed Saddam (for Gulf War 1) and he
needed Osama. His presidency was going nowhere. He
wasn't elected by the American people, but placed in the
Oval Office by a conservative supreme court.
The economy was sliding into the usual Republican pits
and he needed something on which to hang his
presidency.

"This guy is a joke. What is sleazy and contemptible is the
President of the United States not telling the American
people what he knows for political gain."

The letter provoked immediate retaliation against the
24-year Air Force veteran. Butler was transferred from
the Monterey installation and threatened with court
martial under Article 88 of the military code, which
prohibits officers from publicly using "contemptuous
words" against the president and other officials.

Last week, the Air Force announced it had concluded
its investigation of the case and suggested Butler would
likely face "nonjudicial punishment," such as a fine or
a letter of reprimand, rather than a stiffer sentence.

If he refuses this punishment, however, Butler, who is
ready to retire, could still face a court martial. The issue
is a particularly sensitive one for the Pentagon and the
Bush administration.

While many people believe that the Bush administration
viewed September 11 as a priceless opportunity to
implement an ultra-reactionary program of militarism and
repression, Butler is different. His military assignment
brought him into contact with at least one of the alleged
hijackers.

Shortly after September 11, several US news outlets
reported that Saeed Alghamdi, named as taking part
in the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93, which
crashed in western Pennsylvania, had taken courses
at the Defense Language Institute, the US military's
primary foreign language facility, where Butler was
a leading officer overseeing students (essentially,
dean of students).

Alghamdi, a 41-year-old Saudi national, was one of
several alleged hijackers, including accused
ringleader Mohamed Atta, who reportedly trained
at US military facilities, according to a series of
articles published between September 15 and 17
in the Washington Post, Newsweek magazine, the
New York Times and several other newspapers.

On September 15, Newsweek reported: "U.S. military
sources have given the FBI information that suggests
five of the alleged hijackers of the planes used in
Tuesday's terror attacks received training at secure
U.S. military installations in the 1990s."

The magazine said that Saeed Alghamdi was among
three who had taken flight training at the Navy Air
Station in Pensacola, Florida, known as the "cradle
of US Navy aviation" which also administers training
of foreign aviation students for the Navy.

The magazine, citing "a high-ranking Pentagon official"
as its source, reported that two others, both former Saudi
air force pilots who had come to the US, also attended
such facilities.

One received tactical training at the Air War College in
Montgomery, Alabama and the other language training
at the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

Over the next few days, more detailed information
appeared in several other newspapers.

A September 16 article in the New York Times reported:

"Three of the men identified as the hijackers in the attacks
on Tuesday have the same names as alumni of American
military schools, the authorities said today. The men were
identified as Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz al-Omari and
Saeed al-Ghamdi. "

"The Defense Department said Mr. Atta had gone to the
International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base
in Alabama; Mr. al-Omari to the Aerospace Medical
School at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas; and Mr.
al-Ghamdi to the Defense Language Institute at the
Presidio in Monterey, Calif."

The Knight Ridder news service also reported that
Saeed Alghamdi had been to the Defense Language
Institute in Monterey and the Associated Press cited
Air Force sources indicating that more than one of
the hijackers may have received language training
at the installation.

The media dropped the story after the Air Force
officials issued a cursory statement aimed at preventing
any further inquiry into links between the US military
and the terrorists. !!!!!!! (Which means the media was
complicit.)

While acknowledging that some of the suspected
terrorists "had similar names to foreign alumni of U.S.
military courses," the statement said discrepancies
in biographical information, such as birth dates and
name spellings, "indicate we are probably not talking
about the same people." (They were)

Without providing any substantiation, the statement
suggested the hijackers may have stolen the identities
of foreign military personnel who received training
at the bases.

Following this less than convincing explanation, the
Air Force refused to release the ages, countries of
origin or any other information about the individuals
whose names matched those of the alleged hijackers,
making it virtually impossible to verify the claim that
these were not the same individuals.

Attorney General John Ashcroft and the FBI also refused
to make public any information. (Off with his ASH!!)

Asked by Florida Senator Bill Nelson whether any of
the hijackers were trained at the Pensacola base, the
Justice Department refused to give a definitive
answer, and the FBI said it could not respond until it
could "sort through something complicated and
difficult," according to the senator's representative.

To receive such training, the hijackers would have
had connections to Arab governments that enjoyed
close relations with the US government. A former
Navy pilot at the Pensacola air station told Newsweek
that during his years on the base:

"We always, always, always trained other countries'
pilots. When I was there two decades ago, it was
Iranians. The Shah was in power. Whoever the country
du jour is, that's whose pilots we train."

Military officials acknowledged that the US has a
longstanding agreement with Saudi Arabia to train
pilots for the kingdom's national guard. Candidates
receive air combat training and other courses on
several Army and Navy bases, in a program paid for
by Saudi Arabia. Significantly 15 of the 19 hijackers
were believed to be Saudi nationals.

According to its web site, the Defense Language
Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey,
founded in 1946 as the Military Intelligence Service
Language School: "provides foreign language services
to Department of Defense, government agencies and
foreign governments" to support "national security
interests and global operational needs."

As vice chancellor for student affairs, Butler had
extensive contact with students, according to Pete
Randazzo, a close associate of the officer and
president of the National Association of Government
Employees Local 1690, which represents civilian
employees at the language school.

"He would go and have lunch with the students, sit
in their classrooms. He was a very caring officer
over there," Randazzo told the Herald.

Butler was also navigator of a B-52 bomber during
the Persian Gulf War, which made it likely he was
familiar with Saudi military operations, given the
close relations between the US and Saudi Arabia
during the 1990-91 war against Iraq.

In the 1990s, several officers were disciplined under
Article 88 of the military code for publicly denouncing
Clinton, including an Air Force general who went so
far as to ridicule the president as a "gay-loving,
pot-smoking, draft-dodging womanizer" in front of
250 people at an awards banquet.

With Butler's comments, however, the Pentagon
faces a more delicate problem.

The Lieutenant Colonel may well know considerably
more than he is saying about US military-intelligence
apparatus involvement in the September 11 events,
and, on the eve of his retirement, took the opportunity
to set the record straight. (This guy needs protection.)

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mcherald/3406502.htm

Jonathan Bush, uncle of warmonger Bush, is in charge of the investment area of this bank. It was reported that he had direct knowledge of the Saudis involvement in laundering money for terrorists there, and may have been mentioned in the pages of the 9.11 report which Bush had scrubbed of 28 pages. This is one reason why Bush should have been subpoenaed to testity about 9.11.
~~~~

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/b...iggs-fine_x.htm
Posted 5/14/2004 12:28 AM

Riggs Bank fined $25M for Saudi transactions

WASHINGTON (APOnline) — Federal regulators fined Riggs Bank a record $25 million on Thursday for allegedly violating anti-money laundering laws in its handling of tens of millions in cash transactions in Saudi-controlled accounts under investigation for possible links to terrorism financing.

The civil fine against the midsize Washington bank with a near-exclusive franchise on business with the capital's diplomatic community is the largest ever imposed on a financial institution for such violations, experts said. It had been expected.

The action by the Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency came in an order made public late Thursday. It followed weeks of negotiations between Riggs officials and the banking regulators.

The order said the bank's internal controls "were, and continue to be, seriously deficient."

"Riggs failed to properly monitor, and report as suspicious, transactions involving tens of millions of dollars in cash withdrawals, international drafts that were returned to the bank, and numerous sequentially numbered cashiers' checks," it said.

In addition to the now-closed accounts that Saudi diplomats controlled, the order mentioned accounts held by officials of Equatorial Guinea.

The order requires Riggs to make special reviews of its operations and account transactions and give regulators advance notice of any dividend payments to shareholders.

Riggs did not admit to or deny wrongdoing in agreeing to the fine.

Riggs said in a statement it also expected to reach agreement soon with the Federal Reserve on taking corrective actions, including hiring an independent consultant to conduct a review. Its operation in Miami — which Riggs plans to close — will be required by a Fed order to retain an outside consultant to check previous account transactions for possible suspicious activity. The Fed has jurisdiction over bank holding companies.

"The post-9/11 banking and security environment calls for a significant change in the way banks and all financial institutions must operate," the statement said. "Riggs is 100-percent committed to fulfilling all of our regulatory responsibilities and to doing our part to protect the financial system, and we will hasten our efforts toward these goals."

The FBI and regulators have investigated, for possible connections to terrorism financing, large cash transactions in Riggs accounts controlled by Saudi diplomats.

The Senate Finance Committee chairman, Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa, recently asked the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks to examine Saudi transactions totaling tens of millions at Riggs and FleetBoston Financial Corp.

"Riggs Bank deserves every penny of this huge fine," Grassley said in a statement Thursday. "Banks have a patriotic duty, not to mention legal requirement, to report suspicious activity. When banks look the other way, they put our national security at risk. Whether it's through incompetence, negligence or greed, they are allowing terrorists to funnel their blood money through the system."

Grassley said members of the bank's board of directors should be held to account for failing to exercise their watchdog role over Riggs's operations.

Riggs had been accused by Treasury regulators of failing to comply with a law requiring banks to notify the government of suspicious transactions.

It was classifed by the comptroller's office as a "troubled institution" for not complying fully with a July 2003 consent order under which it agreed to strengthen its anti-money laundering controls.

That designation means the bank must get regulators' approval for changes in top management and for severance payments to executives who leave.

The bank, with some $7 billion in assets, earned $3.9 million in the first quarter, compared with $5.9 million a year earlier. Annual earnings have not exceeded $25 million since 1999.

Riggs said last month it is pulling back from its foreign operations and that the head of the family that controls the bank was resigning from the board of its parent company. Investors viewed the moves as steps toward recovery or a possible sale.

Besides shuttering the Miami operation, Riggs has said it is selling or leaving most of its operations in Britain and closing any embassy business that does not meet guidelines for weeding out suspicious account transactions. Applying the guidelines could bring the loss of about two-thirds of its embassy accounts.

The bank also indicated that family patriarch Joe Allbritton, Riggs's former chief executive, is resigning as vice chairman of the parent company's board of directors. Timothy Coughlin, president of parent Riggs National Corp., also is resigning.

Allbritton transferred control to his son Robert several years ago. The elder Allbritton will remain the company's largest shareholder. His son will continue as chairman and chief executive officer of the parent.

Puerto Rico's largest bank, Banco Popular, was fined $21.6 million in 2003 for allegedly allowing millions in drug money to be laundered by failing to report suspicious activity to the government.

http://cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/index.html

Bush's story of where he was, and what he did that day does not jive with other official reports. How could he sit and read a book about a goat when he already knew planes had been hijacked? How could he sit there while people were jumping out of windows as bystanders watched in horror? How could he sit there as our supposed Commander In Chief as our country was being attacked with his FULL KNOWLEDGE OF IT? Bush has also stood in the way of the 9.11 commission, and has fought tooth and nail regarding answering questions, even setting the standards himself. He should have been questioned under oath as well, and so should all in this administration who were given warnings but did nothing in anticipation of the poll numbers letting this happen would bring. Not ONE person has lost their job as a result of this gross failure of intelligence and leadership. It is time for justice for those victims, and it is time for him to talk. We should expect no less from anyone occupying the White House.

http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a876.htm

Controlling the News
Part 38

Note: The following material is from a reporter with access to the White House and Presidential press briefings. Some of this material has surfaced before but only in small segments. If any of this is true and not the product of an unhappy person, we are all in serious trouble. Ed.

"In the current White House, attendance at daily Christian Evangelical prayer meetings is mandatory."

"Vice President Cheney is the de facto President of the United States. When he arrives at the White House for one of his "briefings" of the President, all employees are cleared from the West Wing and especially from the Presidential office suites. Cheney arrives in an escorted armored limousine surrounded by his own personal, heavily armed bodyguard and is always shown directly into the President's office. It is reliably reported by [redacted] that Bush has a thick pad of lined, yellow note paper on his desk, placed there by [redacted] just before the Vice President arrives."

"After Cheney's departure, the notes taken by the President are transcribed by [redacted] and prepared as talking points for the President..."

"At some time in the past, according to both [redacted] and [redacted] the President suffered what one of his aides called "a very minor seizure" and as a result of this, the President has a very difficult time following any unscripted conversations. For this reason, his staff carefully and aggressively protect the President from "unexpected" questions that he is not capable of answering."

"The President takes oral medication at least twice a day according to [redacted] because of an unspecified "indisposition' and this subject is strictly off limits for any casual staff conversation."

"At one point during a staff conference, the President stood up and began to speak in an unknown language. Mr. Rove was able to stop the President and get him to resume his seat. It was reported by [redacted] that for a period of time (about fifteen minutes) after this incident, the President appeared to be 'somewhat confused and very inarticulate.'"

"White House staff members report that they rarely see the President during work hours and that when they do, he is generally accompanied by Mr. Rove and almost never either looks at or speaks to members of the staff. He does not appear to recognize many of the staff members and almost all contact with these individuals are carried out by his close aides, especially by Mr. Rove."

“Bush hold as few meetings with the public, including the press, as possible. We get reams of official papers informing us of this or that new directive. Those of us who have an inside track with the staff are taken to dinner and given the questions to ask Bush. These are questions he has been thoroughly briefed on and has memorized the answers for. Anyone who persists in pushing the envelope gets a rocket from the Rove people and does not get invited back.”

“Most of the staff are young, dedicated, almost fanatical, and very, very Christian. The Ten Commandments are in each and every office with nice pictures of Jesus accompanying them. I have chatted up a few of these bright-faced kids and find out that they Love Jesus, Hate Gays, Abortionists, Moslems, Blacks, Catholics, some Jews, all Democrats, Liberals, Hindus, Chinese, Frenchmen, Germans, and now, Spaniards.”

“There are daily parades of born-agains into the White House, all chanting the praises of the Lord and Bush, in that order of course. Most of them want all abortionists hung along with gays (the Beltway and the Pentagon would be empty) and godless Muslims and Buddhists. Orwell would have loved this place! Yesterday [redacted] told me in strict confidence of course, that if Diebold didn’t reelect George, the Lord would. They all wear miniature US flags on their clothes but under the lapels they have “hidden tokens of the True Faith” and they flip their lapels with knowing smiles when they meet another True Believer.”