Salon.com > Craig Unger

How Cheney took control of Bush’s foreign policy

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 11:48:00 +0000

Much as he loathed Colin Powell, Vice President-elect Dick Cheney realized that the immensely popular general -- the most trusted man in America -- was essential to the political perception of the incoming Bush administration's foreign policy decisions. As former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich put it, "If you're George Bush, and the biggest weakness you have is foreign policy, and you can have Cheney on one flank and Powell on the other, it virtually eliminated the competence issue."

As a result, on December 16, 2000, three days after Al Gore conceded defeat, Colin Powell was flown to Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, where the president-elect announced his first cabinet appointment: Colin Powell as secretary of state. "He is a tower of strength and common sense," said Bush. "You find somebody like that, you have to hang on to them. I have found such a man."

Tears filled Bush's eyes. "I so admire Colin Powell," he later explained. "I love his story."

How George Bush really found Jesus

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:46:00 +0000

Conventional wisdom has it that George W. Bush became a "born-again" Christian in the summer of 1985, after extended private talks with Reverend Billy Graham. As recounted by Bush himself in "A Charge to Keep: My Journey to the White House," a ghostwritten autobiography prepared for the 2000 presidential campaign, one evening at Walker's Point, the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, Graham, spiritual confidant to Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan and a close friend of the Bush family, sat down by the fireplace and gave a talk. "I don't remember the exact words," Bush wrote. "It was more the power of his example. The Lord was so clearly reflected in his gentle and loving demeanor."

The next morning, Bush and Graham went for a walk along the rugged Maine shore, past the Boony Wild Pool where Bush had skinny-dipped as a child. "I knew I was in the presence of a great man ..." Bush wrote. "He was like a magnet; I felt drawn to seek something different. He didn't lecture or admonish; he shared warmth and concern. Billy Graham didn't make you feel guilty; he made you feel loved."

Battle of the Bushes

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:00:00 +0000

It was a cool, crisp day in the spring of 2004 -- a rarity for Houston -- and George H.W. Bush chatted with a friend in his office suite on Memorial Drive. Tall and trim, his hair graying but by no means white, the former president was a few weeks shy of his eightieth birthday -- it would take place on June 12, to be exact -- and he was racing toward that milestone with the vigor of a man thirty years younger. In addition to golf, tennis, horseshoes, and his beloved Houston Astros, Bush's near-term calendar was filled with dates for fishing for Coho salmon in Newfoundland, crossing the Rockies by train, and trout fishing in the River Test in Hampshire, England. He still prowled the corridors of power from London to Beijing. He still lectured all over the world. And, as if that weren't enough, he was planning to commemorate his eightieth with a star-studded two-day extravaganza, culminating with him skydiving from thirteen thousand feet over his presidential library in College Station, Texas. All the celebratory fervor, however, could not mask one dark cloud on the horizon. The presidency of his son, George W. Bush, was imperiled.

The mouse that censored

Thu, 06 May 2004 20:37:00 +0000

On a gorgeous March day, Michael Moore and I strolled outside the fortresslike Saudi Arabian Embassy on New Hampshire Avenue in Washington. I had just finished writing my book, "House of Saud, House of Bush," and the Oscar-winning director was interviewing me for his new movie, "Fahrenheit 911," which explores the links between the Bush family and the Saudis. Before long, security officers began cruising warily through the area, taking note of Moore and his film crew. For a few minutes, the crew worried that Saudi security would not allow the shooting to continue. But then, in a breathtaking display of P.R. savvy, a young Arab woman in Western attire burst out of the embassy and ran toward Moore. "Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore!" she exclaimed. "We're such great fans of yours!"

Right. It is highly unlikely, of course, that Moore's new movie will ever be shown in the repressive Saudi kingdom that is the guardian of Wahhabi Islam, but Tuesday a serious question arose as to exactly when and if it will be shown in the United States after the Walt Disney Co. announced that it was blocking distribution of Moore's film.

Mystery man

Wed, 28 Apr 2004 01:54:00 +0000

Last month, before the 9/11 commission began its public hearings and Iraq exploded in renewed warfare, the White House tried to quell a gathering storm regarding President Bush's military service, releasing hundreds of documents about Bush's tenure in the Texas Air National Guard some 30 years ago. A close examination of the documents reveals that they not only fail to answer lingering questions about Bush's service but prompt a crucial new area of inquiry that could play a role in the presidential campaign -- a long and lucrative, but low-profile, relationship between Saudis and the Bush family that goes back 30 years.

The document that raises that question is dated Sept. 29, 1972, and notes that 1st Lt. George W. Bush was suspended from flying because of his "failure to accomplish [his] annual medical examination." Since he had just received hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of training as a jet fighter pilot, the fact that Bush let his medical certification lapse raises a troubling matter. Why did he allow himself to become ineligible to fly when he still had two years of service left? Given that random drug testing by the military had just started, some have suggested that Bush had not yet given up his partying ways and may have begged off because he had a substance abuse problem.

Lost in transition

Tue, 16 Mar 2004 21:00:00 +0000

Even before the Supreme Court decision awarded the presidency to the Republicans in December 2000, the Bush team began behaving as if it had won. The election took place exactly 10 years after the buildup of American troops in Saudi Arabia for the Gulf War, and to mark both that occasion and the impending Bush restoration, former president George H.W. Bush and former secretary of state James Baker had proposed a hunting trip in Spain and England. The original guest list included the usual suspects from the Gulf War -- the senior Bush; James Baker; Dick Cheney; General Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of U.S. forces during the war; former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft; and, of course, Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar, whose enormous estate in Wychwood, England, had been an ancient royal hunting ground used by Norman and Plantagenet kings.

The relationship between Baker and the elder Bush had been frayed as a result of the failed reelection campaign of 1992, but the two longtime friends had patched things up as the presidency of George W. Bush became increasingly probable. When he arrived in Austin, Texas, on Election Day, Baker went to Dick and Lynne Cheney's hotel suite to listen to the results. However, by the next morning, Wednesday, Nov. 8, Al Gore was contesting the Florida vote, so Baker was enlisted to lead the legal battle to win the presidency for Bush. As a result, both he and Cheney skipped the European hunting trip.

The Arabian candidate

Mon, 15 Mar 2004 21:00:00 +0000

On March 12, 2000, Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, met with Muslim leaders at a local mosque in Tampa, Fla. Among them was Sami Al-Arian, a Kuwaiti-born Palestinian who was an associate professor of engineering at the University of South Florida. George and Laura Bush had their photo taken with him at the Florida Strawberry Festival. Laura Bush made a point of complimenting Al-Arian's wife, Nahla, on her traditional head scarf and asked to meet the family. Nahla told the candidate, "The Muslim people support you." Bush met their lanky son, Abdullah Al-Arian, and, in a typically winning gesture, even nicknamed him "Big Dude." In return, Big Dude's father, Sami Al-Arian, vowed to campaign for Bush -- and he soon made good on his promise in mosques all over Florida.

But Al-Arian had unusual credentials for a Bush campaigner. Since 1995, as the founder and chairman of the board of World and Islam Enterprise (WISE), a Muslim think tank, Al-Arian had been under investigation by the FBI for his associations with Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian terrorist group. Al-Arian brought in Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, the No. 2 leader in Islamic Jihad, to be the director of WISE. A strong advocate of suicide bombings against Israel, Shallah was allegedly responsible for killing scores of Israelis in such attacks.

Did the Saudis buy a president?

Fri, 12 Mar 2004 21:00:00 +0000

Editor's note: Part 2 of Salon's exclusive excerpt from "House of Bush, House of Saud," to be published on March 16 by Scribner. Read Part 1.

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By Craig Unger

March 12, 2004 | If the Saudis had been happy with the presidency of George H.W. Bush -- and they were -- they must have been truly ecstatic, in the summer of 2000, that his son was the Republican candidate for president. Indeed, the relationship between the two dynasties had come a long way since the seventies when Saudi banking billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz and Salem bin Laden had flown halfway around the world to Texas to see James Bath, George W. Bush's old friend from decades before. Even bin Mahfouz's subsequent financing of the Houston skyscraper for James Baker's family bank or the Saudi bailout of Harken Energy that helped George W. Bush make his fortune were small potatoes compared with what had happened since.

The great escape

Thu, 11 Mar 2004 21:00:00 +0000

Editor's note: President Bush is campaigning for reelection as the Western world's leader in the war against terrorism. But the president's family has long been closely tied -- through a complex web of oil, money and power -- to the royal family of Saudi Arabia, which has maintained its despotic grip on the petroleum-rich kingdom through an alliance with the most militant strain of Islamic fundamentalism. Journalist Craig Unger has been covering the alliance between the Bush family and the House of Saud for years. His reporting raises crucial questions about the consequences of this personal, political and financial partnership for U.S. foreign policy, democracy and the future of the world. Salon is proud to present a series of excerpts from Unger's book "House of Bush, House of Saud," to be published on March 16 by Scribner.

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By Craig Unger