AWOL-Gate
'Untorn' Document Scandal Exposes
Need for a Special Prosecutor
by Bob Fertik
February 10, 2004
http://democrats.com/display.cfm?id=328

Three weeks after Election 2000, Democrats.com received the first "untorn" version of the retirement points awarded to Lt. George W. Bush in his 5th year of service in the Texas Air National Guard. This new document exposes contradictions in Bush's account of his AWOL years (1972-73) and highlights the need for a Special Prosecutor to investigate criminal tampering with George W. Bush's military records. 

On May 23, 2000, Walter Robinson of the Boston Globe discovered a "One Year Gap in Bush's National Guard Duty."

In his final 18 months of military service in 1972 and 1973, Bush did not fly at all. And for much of that time, Bush was all but unaccounted for: For a full year, there is no record that he showed up for the periodic drills required of part-time guardsmen.

Ever since Robinson's article appeared, Internet researchers (including Democrats.com) have tried to discover the truth about George Bush's military service.

Bush's campaign offered an immediate rebuttal.

Bush, who declined to be interviewed on the issue, said through a spokesman that he has ''some recollection'' of attending drills that year, but maybe not consistently.

For nearly four years, the truth has eluded researchers. The overwhelming weight of the evidence - both in documents and in witnesses - suggests Bush never attended drills after April 1972, either at his home base in Texas or in Alabama, where he spent the fall of 1972.

But Bush's spokesmen have ferociously contested the AWOL charge by citing a single document, which first appeared mysteriously in George Magazine in October 2000.

Democrats.com immediately challenged the significance of the document, in part because it lacked George Bush's name, as well as any date or official signature. But our argument did not rest there.

Even if it is accepted at face value, it raises a whole new set of questions.

If Bush reported for duty in Alabama on November 29, 1972, then according to this "document" he also reported for duty on eight other occasions between December 14, 1972 and May 24, 1973. But where?

The Bush campaign has never claimed that Bush returned to Alabama after November 1972. Everyone agrees that Bush returned to Houston, where he worked in a community service project [Operation P.U.L.L.].

But Bush was last seen at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston in May 1972. As cited above, Bush's friend Maj. Gen. Hodges didn't even know he was in Houston. And in Bush's annual report, Lt. Col. William Harris and Lt. Col. William Killian affirmed that "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of report," which covered the period from May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973.

So if George Magazine wants to use this "document" as the conclusive proof that Bush was in Alabama, then it must explain the rest of the document as well, and disprove Bush's official military record and the testimony of witnesses in Houston.

On November 2, 2000, Senators Bob Kerrey (D-NE), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), and Max Cleland (D-GA) held a press conference to urge George Bush to release his full military records. Bush was then - and remains - the first President in history not to release his full records. In its immediate rebuttal to the NY Times, the Bush campaign once again cited the "torn document" as proof that Bush had indeed reported for duty in the 5th and 6th years of his National Guard duty.

In the following days, Democrats.com tried to determine the truth about this "torn document." If the document was authentic, then Bush received some kind of credit during his 5th year. But what kind of credit was it? Was it real National Guard duty - or was it "gratuitous" no-show credit awarded by friendly officers to keep Bush from being declared AWOL or worse?

On November 6 - the day before the election - Democrats.com filed a FOIA request for Bush's pay records and his retirement records, hoping against hope that we would receive an immediate response. That didn't happen; three weeks later, on December 1, we received a fax responding to our FOIA request.

By then the 2000 election was over, and Democrats.com was trying to get to the bottom of a far greater mystery: who actually received more votes in Florida. Amidst the recount frenzy, the FOIA documents were forgotten.

In January 2004, the AWOL issue was suddenly revived - not because of Bush's critics, but because ABC's Peter Jennings challenged Wesley Clark to denounce his supporter Michael Moore for calling Bush a "deserter." Jennings was quickly joined by other media heavyweights, including David Broder and Tim Russert.

Democrats.com began publishing follow-up stories, and in the course of our research we discovered the FOIA documents that were forgotten in 2000. As we tried to evalute the significance of these documents, we shared our documents with other Internet researchers.

Calpundit

On 2-8-04, Calpundit posted our "untorn" document along with a detailed analysis. Calpundit noted that the document was not an Air National Guard document, but rather "ARF" (Air Reserve Forces). Calpundit interviewed retired Air National Guard pilot Robert A. Rogers and concluded:

ARF is the reserves, and among other things it's where members of the guard are sent for disciplinary reasons. As we all know, Bush failed to show up for his annual physical in July 1972, he was suspended in August, and the suspension was recorded on September 29. He was apparently transferred to ARF at that time and began accumulating ARF points in October.

ARF is a "paper unit" based in Denver that requires no drills and no attendance. For active guard members it is disciplinary because ARF members can theoretically be called up for active duty in the regular military, although this obviously never happened to George Bush.

To make a long story short, Bush apparently blew off drills beginning in May 1972, failed to show up for his physical, and was then grounded and transferred to ARF as a disciplinary measure. He didn't return to his original Texas Guard unit and cram in 36 days of active duty in 1973 — as Time magazine and others continue to assert based on a mistaken interpretation of Bush's 1973-74 ARF record — but rather accumulated only ARF points during that period. In fact, it's unclear even what the points on the ARF record are for, but what is clear is that Bush's official records from Texas show no actual duty after May 1972, as his Form 712 Master Personnel Record from the Texas Air National Guard clearly indicates.

Many of the comments that followed this analysis were remarkable in their dogged pursuit of the truth. Many doubted the view that "ARF" credits were no-show disciplinary credits. So what were they? 
On the other hand, Bush's defenders insisted the documents proved Bush had performed his required duty in Alabama in 1972 and in Texas in 1973. So why does all of the other evidence point to the opposite conclusion?

• Bush's official service record shows no active duty after 5-26-1972. If he performed active duty after that, it would appear on this record:
  
• No Alabama Guardsmen - including his commanding officer, William Turnipseed - saw him in the fall of 1972
• No Texas Guardsmen - including his superior officers - saw him before April 30, 1973, even though he accumulated 16 points on January 4-6, January 8-10, and April 7-8. Annual Officer Effectiveness Report for May 1, 1972 through April 30, 1973 reads, "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit for the period of report."
  
• No Texas Guardsmen - including his superior officers, saw him after May 1, 1973. The commander, Major General Bobby W. Hodges (ret.), told Walter Robinson in 2000: ''If [Bush] had come back to Houston, I would have kept him flying the 102 until he got out,'' said Hodges, a Bush admirer. ''But I don't recall him coming back at all.''

The most likely explanation for the "untorn" document is that Bush was given "points" towards his retirement - without ever attending actual drills - from senior officers who committed fraud on Bush's behalf so he could qualify for an "honorable discharge."

If Bush actually attended his drills, there would be far more definitive records in his files - including sign-in sheets and pay records. These have all mysteriously disappeared - if they ever existed in the first place.

It's possible that Bush's superior officers decided to give him credits on his retirement record - rather than his service record - because they would have had to pay him for service time. If they forged pay records on Bush's behalf, it is much more likely that they would have been caught - and punished. As Lt. Col. Bill Burkett (ret.) told Bob Rogers:

(15) Those critical two documents which answer the questions and allegations of AWOL or satisfactory completion of the six year commitment are easily and OFFICIALLY answered by the pay records and the retirement points records.

(16)  But these documents also can indict any actions by senior leaders to attempt to cover such an action by the award of retirement points without pay, for example.

If Bush wasn't attending drills in 1972-73 either in Alabama or Texas, then where was he? The most likely explanation is that Bush was having problems with alcohol or drugs.

Why would Bush's superior officers treat Bush with such favoritism? The answer to that is simple. Bush's entire National Guard career was the product of favoritism:

• His admission to the Guard despite a national waiting list of 100,000, thanks to string-pulling by friends of his powerful father, then the Congressman from Houston
• His assignment as a pilot, despite the lowest possible grade (25%) on the pilot aptitude exam (yet another example of "affirmative action" for a rich white kid, but that's a different story)
• His commission as a Lieutenant, despite the lack of all qualifications such as prior military service, ROTC, or a medical degree

Thus, it would be completely consistent for Bush to be given an "honorable discharge" that he did not earn - or deserve.

In recent days, Senator John Kerry has drawn an important distinction between receiving an honorable discharge - and actually performing required duty.

"The issue here is, as I have heard it raised, is was he present and active in Alabama at the time he was supposed to be,'' said Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran. "I don't have the answer to that question and just because you get an honorable discharge does not in fact answer that question.''

Kerry is exactly right. The only way to determine the truth is for Bush to fulfill his promise to Tim Russert to release "everything" - including pay records, tax records, medical records, and disciplinary records.   

Bush's Tampered Files

Besides the data on the document, it is essential to analyze the paper it's printed on.

Democrats.com was the first FOIA researcher to receive this "untorn" version. Were Bush's records altered, either before our after our FOIA request?

There have been several serious accusations that Bush's military records have been tampered with - which is a federal crime. In a recent letter to Marty Heldt, the National Personnel Records Center declared there were "no changes or additions made to the military records of George W. Bush" after 11-21-1974. They also noted:

"It should be noted that tampering with or changing Federal records is a criminal offense under Title 18, Section 2071, and is punishable by fine or imprisonment."

There are at least two witnesses who say Bush's top aides removed documents from his military files after he became Texas Governor.

According to Lt. Col. Bill Burkett (ret.), the Bush campaign ordered the "scrubbing" of Bush's military records in preparation for Bush's Presidential campaign in 1997. The order was given over the phone by then-Gov. Bush's chief of staff, Joe Allbaugh, and his assistant, Dan Bartlett. The order was received by Gen. Daniel James. Burkett says he watched James throw crucial documents into the garbage. Here's one version:

"As the State Plans Officer for the Texas National Guard, I was on full-time duty at Camp Mabry when Dan Bartlett was cleansing the George W Bush file prior to GW's Presidential announcement. For most soldiers at Camp Mabry, this was a generally known event.

The archives were closely scrutinized to make sure that the Bush autobiography plans and the record did not directly contradict each other. In essence it was the script of the autobiography which Dan Bartlett and his small team used to scrub a file to be released. This effort was further involved by General Daniel James and Chief of Staff William W. Goodwin at Camp Mabry.

Warrant Officer Harvey Gough (ret.) says Dan Bartlett and Danny James scrubbed "quite a bit. I think all his time in Alabama."

In 1999, the Bush campaign gave Lt. Col. Albert Lloyd Jr. (ret.) special access to these files, in order to help explain them to journalists. Lloyd added several documents to Bush's file - which is also a crime - including the original "torn document."

Lloyd left one version of the "torn document" unaltered, and provided that version to Marty Heldt, Walter Robinson, and George Magazine.

Lloyd also added handwritten comments to the "torn document," and provided that version to George Magazine and (probably) Jo Thomas of the NY Times.

If Bush's files were tampered with in 1997 and 1999, it is entirely possible that they were tampered with again in 2000, either before or after the FOIA request from Democrats.com.

It is also possible that Bush's records were tampered with in 1972-73 - and that Bush was illegally given credit for duty he never performed.

The Need for a Special Prosecutor

It is a crime to tamper with government documents. And a crime involving planning by several individuals is a criminal conspiracy - an even more serious charge.

Moreover, the participants in this possible conspiracy are now extremely powerful individuals, with close ties to President George W. Bush.

In 2000, Joe Allbaugh served as Campaign Manager of the Bush-Cheney campaign. He was one of Bush's three most powerful aides, along with Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. After the election, he was appointed to head FEMA. After the Iraq War, Allbaugh created a consulting firm to help companies get lucrative reconstruction contracts.

Dan Bartlett is now the White House Communications Director - the very person who is coordinating the White House "spin" of the AWOL controversy, and the very person who will decide which documents are turned over to the press in the coming days.

And Gen. Daniel James is now head of the National Guard, which is currently assembling Bush's records to hand over to Dan Bartlett.

Given the power and influence of these individuals, it would be impossible for an ordinary District Attorney to conduct an adequate investigation.

We therefore call upon George W. Bush to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate tampering with his official military documents from 1972 until the present.