When Bush appointed James Baker as his 'special' envoy on Iraq's debt, "there was widespread concern about whether Baker's extensive business dealings in the Middle East would compromise that mission... Of particular concern was his relationship with merchant bank and defense contractor the Carlyle Group, where Baker is senior counselor and an equity partner with an estimated $180 million stake. Until now, there has been no concrete evidence that Baker's loyalties are split, or that his power... has been used to benefit any of his corporate clients or employers. But according to documents obtained by The Nation, that is precisely what has happened. Carlyle has sought to secure an extraordinary $1 billion investment from the Kuwaiti government, with Baker's influence as debt envoy being used as a crucial lever."

"How will George W. Bush personally make millions (if not billions) from the War on Terror and Iraq? The old fashioned way. He'll inherit it." Check out this complete guide to the Carlyle Group.

"I defy you to watch this 48 minute documentary and not be outraged about the depth of corruption and deceit within the highest ranks of our government and the first family."

Former CIA agent Robert Baer's new book is "Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude." "Call it poetic coincidence. But right as the Carlyle Group was getting into its annual investor conference at Washington's Ritz-Carlton Hotel on September 11, 2001, AA Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon, only two and a half miles to the south. If UAL Flight 93 had hit the White House, its presumed target, the Carlyle attendees would have felt the shock, and it was a group far hard to shock. At the meeting were the group's senior counsel James Baker, secretary of state in the Bush I administration; then Carlyle chairman Frank Carlucci, Ronald Reagan's last secretary of defense and national security adviser before that; and Shafiq bin Laden, representing the Bin Laden Group - one of the world's largest construction companies - but far more famous today as Osama bin Laden's brother. The gathering was the perfect metaphor for Washington's strange affair with Saudi Arabia."

James Baker III is Bush's big gun - the guy he calls in to finish his dirty work and clean up after him, all performed, of course, with a slick legal veneer. Just as Bush called Baker in to clean up after him in his illegal Florida election in 2000, he now wants Papa's pal to go to Iraq and clean up after him in his illegal war. We're sure that Baker has been assured a nice payoff - princely, in fact - that will enrich not just his own coffers, but those of his and Bush Sr.'s company: the Carlyle Group.

Suzan Mazur writes: "David Rubenstein, co-founder and Managing Director of The Carlyle Group, the 'world's largest private equity firm,' recently recounted... Bush's days on the Carlyle board in a speech to the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association." Said Rubenstein: "But when we were putting the board together, somebody [Fred Malek] came to me and said, look there is a guy who would like to be on the board. He's kind of down on his luck a bit. Needs a job. Needs a board position... Could you put him on the board?... Came to all the meetings. Told a lot of jokes. Not that many clean ones. And after a while I kind of said to him, after about three years - you know, I'm not sure this is really for you... Because I don't think you're adding that much value to the board. You don't know that much about the company. He said, well I think I'm getting out of this business anyway... So I'm probably going to resign from the board. And I said, thanks... His name is George W. Bush."

"When they bought the company, there was a gun program that was the future of United Defense. It was a gun called the Crusader. It was essentially a next-generation Paladin gun system -- a very large, mobile Howitzer... No one could believe that this gun had survived as long as it did. And then finally after Sept. 11, when all ships were sort of, you know, rising on the tide of defense spending, they were able to take United Defense public, make hundreds of millions of dollars off of that IPO, only to then finally have the Crusader program cancelled in a very public fashion by Donald Rumsfeld in an announcement. But of course, behind the scenes, what the public didn't see was that United Defense was awarded a brand-new contract for a brand-new gun that very same day that the Crusader program was cancelled... BUZZFLASH: So they were essentially held harmless. BRIODY: Yes, exactly."

The Age.com reports: "The bloody attacks in Riyadh are telling because of their targets, in particular the Vinnell Corporation [a suspected CIA front]. The residential compound and the offices used by Vinnell were hit, killing nine of the company's employees and injuring several others, two critically. Al-Qaeda has a particular hatred for the US Vinnell Corporation because it trains the Saudi Arabian National Guard, the country's internal security force and an integral part of the Saudi military forces. Vinnell, under contract to the US Army, employs about 800 people in Saudi Arabia including 300 Americans. Vinnell recently came under the financial control of giant US defence contractor Northrop. Vinnell's relationship with Saudi Arabia over nearly three decades has been intriguing and controversial. For five years until 1997 it was owned by the Carlyle group, a defence and investment house close to the Bush family. Several former Republican cabinet ministers sat on Carlyle's board."

"Carlyle founds its legs after former Reagan and Bush administration officials with close ties to the national security bureaucracies came aboard, among them longtime Republican apparatchik Fred Malek, Carlucci, and Bush I Secretary of State James Baker. (Amazingly, Richard Perle did not work for Carlyle.)" Why is that so amazing? James Baker is known for saying "F*ck the Jews, they don't vote for us anyway." And Fred Malek was Nixon's "Jew Counter" - who compiled lists of jewish employees at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "The past occasionally intrudes on Carlyle's present. After 9/11, it came out that the Bin Laden family had invested in Carlyle funds. And Carlyle certainly benefits from the fact that it keeps George H.W. Bush on its payroll and that many of its principals have close ties to the Bush administration." In diversifying, is Carlyle moving away from cronyism - or simply enlarging its power by buying up cable companies - and bidding for Vivendi Universal Entertainment?

Financial assets of the Saudi Binladen Corporation (SBC) are "managed by the Carlyle Group. The SBC is headed up by members of Osama bin Laden's family, who played a principal role in helping George W. Bush win petroleum concessions from Bahrain when he was head of the Texan oil company, Harken Energy Corporation - a deal that was to make the Bush family millions of dollars... The connection between the Bush and bin Laden families can also be traced to the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in the 1990s... Many US officials claim that the SBC continues to finance [Osama bin Laden's] political activities, and has done so for many years. If true, this would place George Bush senior and his colleagues at the Carlyle Group in an embarrassing position. As managers of SBC's financial investments they might well be accused of indirectly aiding and abetting the United States' number one enemy."

Portugal News reports, "Directors of one of the world's largest armament companies are planning on meeting in Lisbon in three weeks time. Carlyle Group is heavily involved in supplying arms to the Coalition forces fighting in the Iraqi war. It also holds a majority of shares in the Seven Up company and Federal Data Corporation, supplier of air traffic control surveillance systems to the US Federal Aviation Authority. The 12 billion dollar company has recently signed contracts with United Defence Industries to equip the Turkish and Saudi Arabian armies with aviation defence systems. Top of the meeting's agenda is expected to be the company's involvement in the rebuilding of Baghdad's infrastructure after the cessation of current hostilities. Along with several other US companies, the Carlyle Group is expected to be awarded a billion dollar contract by the US Government to help in the redevelopment of airfields and urban areas destroyed by Coalition aerial bombardments. "

Bush has yo-yoed on North Korea more than nearly any other foreign relations issue. First he cut off diplomatic relations, then did a 180-degree turn and cozied up to the North Koreans, then spun 180 degrees again. What gives? Well, seems the Carlyle Group's biggest acquisition ever - at $750 million - is its Korean office, obtained about the time G.W. launched his run for president. "We are clearly aware that former President Bush has weighed in on policy toward South Korea and we note that U.S. policy changed after those communications," says Peter Eisner, managing director at the Center for Public Integrity. What we now wonder is - who allowed the scud missile laden boat to sail off with impunity? And, more to the point....just who REALLY brokered that missile deal?

"When I talk about the War Machine, these folks are at the crux of it. They're the war profiteers that keep its wheels greased! Dan K. Thomasson, former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service, summed it up best in March, 2001. 'Nothing in recent history seems to approach the success this group has had in the wholesale conversion of former high government rank to gigantic profits.' Peter Eisner, Managing Director of the Center for Public Integrity, adds, 'It should be a deep cause for concern that a closely held company like Carlyle can simultaneously have directors and advisors that are doing business and making money and also advising the President of the United States.' The Washington Business Journal simply says, 'The Carlyle Group seems to play by a different set of rules.'" From Issue #1 of Babel Magazine, dedicated to exposing the Carlyle Group and the Bush family's tentacle-like business dealings.

Tony Poodle Blair's government "announced earlier this week that Carlyle was the preferred bidder to take over [Britain's] research and technology division, Qinetiq. The former defence research agency has developed missile-tracking software, radar technology and other defence systems. The announcement immediately raised concerns that national defence research may be subjected to increasing influence from overseas interests, notably the US arms lobby. Fiona Draper of the trade union Prospect, which represents scientists at Qinetiq, said: 'The fact that they are a foreign company will obviously exacerbate my members concerns, given Carlyle's fairly opaque structure, there must be concerns over whether undue influence may be brought to bear which may not be in Britain's interest.' She told BBC radio: 'I do understand that in the past at least they have had investors from 'interesting' areas of the world " - like the Bin Laden family. So Tony- when is your first day on the Carlyle payroll?

Since the first anthrax attack, one story has been notably absent from the mainstream press — a story that should be pushed front and center onto the public stage along with Enron, WorldCom and the rest of the "glowing examples" of corporate greed and extortion. It is the story of BioPort, a modest-sized maker of vaccines in Lansing, Michigan that is owned in large part by the Carlyle Group. As we all know, the Carlyle Group is a haven for ex-government powermongers like George H. W. Bush, James Baker III, and Frank Carlucci, who use their Bush family ties to channel billions of dollars into their own coffers in the name of "government contracts." What it really amounts to is a slick money laundering operation: the Group's contacts in the Pentagon (right now their best friend is Donald Rumsfeld) steal money from the tax paper and funnel it into Carlyle's various operations and call it a "contract." We demand a Special Prosecutor for Carlyle!

"The real questions about Enron's relationship with the administration involve what happened before the energy trader hit the skids. [CBS MarketWatch's executive editor] warned that 'a small group of business leaders exert enormous clout over Bush and his team in getting the rules changed to their benefit.' [The secretive Carlyle Group] specializes in buying down-and-out defense contractors, then reselling them when their fortunes miraculously improve after they receive new government business. Among the company's employees is... George H.W. Bush. Among the group's investors, until late October, was the bin Laden family of Saudi Arabia. Another administration would have regarded the elder Bush's role at Carlyle as unseemly; this administration apparently does not... Sad to say, none of this is clearly illegal -- it just stinks to high heaven."

Dan Briody writes: "The Bush administration isn't afraid to mix business and politics, and no other firm embodies that penchant better than the Carlyle Group. Walking that fine line is what Carlyle does best. We may not see Osama bin Laden's brothers at Carlyle's investor conferences any more, but business will go on as usual for the biggest old boys network around. As Mr. Snow puts it, 'Carlyle will always have to defend itself and will never be able to convince certain people that they aren't capable of forging murky backroom deals. George Bush's father does profit when the Carlyle Group profits, but to make the leap that the pResident would base decisions on that is to say that the pResident is corrupt.' " Well, Duh!! With the possible exception of his CIA Gangster Daddy, George W Bush is the most corrupt occupant of the White House -- Ever!!!

According to Francis Schor in Counterpunch -- Frank Carlucci, head of The Carlyle Group and Nixon-Reagan-Bush retread, "insists that he does not importune or lobby his old buddy Don Rumsfeld. [They were college wrestling buddies.] Nonetheless, the money trail from Carlyle's portfolio to Rumsfeld's office at the Pentagon is pretty evident. In one major decision by Rumsfeld, revealed by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, United Defense's 70-ton Crusader artillery system was saved from a potential budget cut [long enough for Carlyle to cash in with an IPO]... Similar to the Enron situation, the Bush family and others have enriched their careers and political fortunes with their ties to the Carlyle Group. However, this is a scandal that still hasn't gained the attention and measures necessary to prevent its scandalous continuance."

CNN reports that a spokeswoman for Dick Cheney characterized Andersen's identification of him as 'vice president' in its 4-minute promotional video as 'inappropriate.' We agree - it IS inappropriate to call the judically-selected, rather than constitutionally-elected, Cheney 'vice president'! Andersen was later convicted of obstruction of justice for shredding documents to shield its client, the now-bankrupt Enron. The article contains another interesting snippet: David Rubenstein of the Carlyle Group admitted that Andersen "carried" the fledgling business by not collecting its fees for "'quite a while."' The $16 billion private equity investment firm is exempt from SEC oversight. It lists George H.W. Bush and James Baker among its associates. It is heavily invested in defense industries, raising the question of a conflict of interest if the Commander in Thief stands to profit as a beneficiary of his father's estate by making war rather than peace.

Tim Shorrock writes that, "William Conway, managing director and co-founder of the Carlyle Group, was talking recently about the media coverage of his bank and the cast of ex-Presidents and former officials, including George H.W. Bush, James Baker III and Frank Carlucci, on its payroll. 'One of the words that has recently cropped up as an adjective around us--and I love this adjective--is the 'secretive' Carlyle Group,' he said in an interview in his offices overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington. 'What's the secret? I don't think we have many secrets. The reality is, we're a group of businessmen who have made an enormous amount of money for our investors [that included the bin Laden family until they had to divest right after 911, because 'it looked BAAAD' as BushDaddy would say] by making good investments over the past fifteen years.' " None better than the stolen election investment, eh William?

On April 30, United States Marine Repair, Inc. announced it will release 9.3 million shares of common stock at an estimated price of $14 to $16 for its initial public offering. In a report in the Virginia-Pilot, company officials said they "chose to offer its stock to the public now because of expectations that federal defense spending will grow in the next several years." Gee - that's awfully confident for a fledgling company right now, with a bearish stock market. Do they have a crystal ball? Nope - better than that! They have inside information - the company is owned by the Carlyle Group, which, of course employs George Bush, Sr. Nothing like a little inside trading, eh?

Geoffrey Gray writes: "Frank Carlucci...former CIA spook turned Reagan defense secretary...[chairs] the Carlyle Group, the nation's 11th largest military contractor [that employs Bush Sr], and for the last five years, he's been championing the production of 482 Crusader armored vehicles, over $11.2 billion dollars' worth of self-propelled Howitzer firepower...Nobody seemed to want the damn things. They were bulky, outdated, expensive. 'It looks like it's too heavy; it's not lethal enough,' Bush said during a 2000 campaign debate. 'There's going to be a lot of programs that aren't going to fit into the strategic plan for a long-term change of our military.' But what a difference a war can make! Late this March, as part of the post-9-11 military buildup, Donald Rumsfeld gave United Defense, Carlyle's subsidiary, the full monty: over $470 million to continue development on the problem-riddled Crusaders." Does Sonny Boy Bush stand to inherit more by making War not Peace?

Is there a conflict of interest when a presumed heir (Bu$h Jr.) to the proceeds of defense contracts from Bu$h Sr.'s business dealings with Carlyle Group make it more financially attractive to make W-ar rather than peace? "On a single day… Carlyle earned $237 million selling shares in United Defense Industries, the Army's fifth-largest contractor…Carlyle officials say they decided to take the company public only after the Sept. 11 attacks. …"It's the first time the president [sic] of the United States' father is on the payroll of one of the largest U.S. defense contractors," said Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Policy and one of Carlyle's most ardent critics… But even if Carlyle and Carlucci" (former Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, close friend Donald H. Rumsfeld ) "don't lobby, their subsidiaries and majority-owned companies do." Documents filed with the SEC, FEC, Defense Department and Congress show that they "do so heavily, strategically and persistently."

Fortune Mag. reports, "Are you the sort of person who believes in conspiracies--the Trilateral Commission secretly runs the world, that sort of thing? Well, then, here's a company for you. The Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C., buyout firm, is one of the nation's largest defense contractors. It has billions of dollars at its disposal and employs a few important people. Maybe you've heard of them: former Secretary of State Jim Baker, former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, and former White House budget director Dick Darman. Wait, we're just getting warmed up. William Kennard, who recently headed the FCC, and Arthur Levitt, who just left the SEC, also work for Carlyle. As do former British Prime Minister John Major and former Philippines President Fidel Ramos. Let's see, are we forgetting anyone? Oh, right, former President George Herbert Walker Bush is on the payroll too. The firm also has about a dozen investors from Saudi Arabia, including, until recently, the bin Laden family."

To find ulterior motives for Bu$h's never-ending war on terror, shift in nuclear policy, and insistence on spending billions of OUR money on a missile defense system that will never work, one need look no further than the Carlyle Group. CBS MarketWatch reports, with little trace of irony, that Bu$h's warmongering is reaping Carlyle Group principals like James "Suppress Every Vote" Baker a fortune with a series of recent successful IPOs. "Sure it's just good business to buy low and sell high, but the Carlyle Group makes it look especially easy with all the insiders they have on their team. Such coziness between government and the private sector is not terribly unusual in the defense sector. After all, President Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the 'military industrial complex' more than 40 years ago." War may be good business for Carlyle, but it's BAD business for the rest of us.

Do you think it's a scandal that former President Bu$h is now a corporate whore, peddling weapons sales around the world that will kill lots of people - possibly including US soldiers? Are you outraged that Bu$h Sr. will rake in millions from Bu$h Jr.'s massive and unaffordable expansion of weapons spending? Don't expect to read about these outrages in the pages of the NY Times - because board member William E. Kennard is a managing director of - you guessed it! - The Carlyle Group. (Thanks to Tennessee Gal.)

According to the LA Times, "When President Bush declared war on terrorism in September, few were better poised than Carlyle to know how and when to make money. On a single day last month, Carlyle earned $237 million selling shares in United Defense Industries, the Army's fifth-largest contractor. The stock offering was well timed:.. The stock sale cashed in on increased congressional support for hefty defense spending, including one of United Defense's cornerstone weapon programs. 'It's the first time the president of the United States' father is on the payroll of one of the largest U.S. defense contractors,' said Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Policy and one of Carlyle's most ardent critics. 'Between Baker and Carlucci, not to mention dear old dad, the relationship of the president with this particular company is as tight and close as, well, anyone can imagine.'" Where is the outrage???

"Last September, the Army signed a $665 million contract to develop the Crusader Advanced Field Artillery System, a $12 billion weapons programme being built by United Defense Industries (UDI)…Mr Bush signed a defence appropriation bill which included $487 million for the programme. This has helped Carlyle Group, the well-connected Washington-based investment group, which controls UDI, to float the defence contractor on the New York stock exchange. Last month Carlyle sold $225 million of shares in UDI in the flotation, retaining a 54 per cent stake worth $560 million. But questions are being asked on Capitol Hill because of close links between Carlyle and the Bush administration, and because a Pentagon advisory panel recommended canceling the Crusader…An adviser to Carlyle in Asia is George Bush Sr, the former president and father of the current president."

In an report on the Carlyle Group, Red Herring writes, "The federal government has already approved a $40 billion supplemental aid package to the current budget, $19 billion of which is headed straight to the Pentagon. Some ... is likely to find its way into Carlyle's coffers. The Bush administration isn't afraid to mix business and politics, and no other firm embodies that penchant better than the Carlyle Group. Walking that fine line is what Carlyle does best. We may not see Osama bin Laden's brothers at Carlyle's investor conferences any more, but business will go on as usual for the biggest old boys network around. As Mr. Snow puts it, 'Carlyle will always have to defend itself and will never be able to convince certain people that they aren't capable of forging murky backroom deals. George Bush's father does profit when the Carlyle Group profits, but to make the leap that the president would base decisions on that is to say that the president is corrupt.'" IS THERE ANY DOUBT?

"But I got particulars of a meeting in which Saudi billionaires up who would be responsible to paying what to Osama. And apparently around the time of the meeting is when Osama blew up the Kohbar Towers in Saudi Arabia killing 19 American servicemen. It was seen by the group as not so much a political or emotional point, but as a reminder 'to make your darn payment.' Osama is often compared to Hitler but he should be seen as John Gotti times one hundred. He is running a massive international protection racket: Pay me or I will blow you up. The fact these payments are made is one of the things the Bush administration is trying very hard to cover-up. Now whether these payments were paid because they want to or it is coercion the Bush administration does not want to make a point of it." Palast also discusses the Bushes' CIA-based ties to the bin Laden family, Carlyle, the Bush-Barrick Gold Mine scam, the corruption of the Media and the stolen election.

"Judicial Watch...announced that it would be filing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State and Defense Departments in order to obtain documents concerning the Carlyle Group, an international consulting and investment firm which retains former President George H.W. Bush. The Wall Street Journal reported in September that the former president...worked for the bin Laden family business in Saudi Arabia through the Carlyle Group. [He] met with the bin Laden family at least twice...Reports have questioned whether members of his Saudi family have truly cut off Osama bin Laden. Osama's sister-in-law, in a recent interview with ABC News, said that she believed that members of her family still supported bin Laden...And documents recently uncovered through Judicial Watch's FOIA to the Department of Defense show that the Carlyle Group has high-level access to the U.S. government." We hope this is more than the usual grandstanding by Judicial Watch.

"Frank Washington…heads a new company these days called Moon Shot Communications. And his new goal is to make a lot of money in the next several years by buying TV stations across the country, waiting for their value to increase, and then selling them to the highest bidders. Washington believes the stations will command higher prices if the Federal Communications Commission [under Colin Powell's son Michael] loosens rules limiting the number of broadcast TV stations a media company can own in the same market -- a change he expects to happen over the next few years. The change would uncork a consolidation-driven buying frenzy like the one that began in radio 10 years ago. By buying now and selling later, Moon Shot would try to pocket some fat capital gains. Washington and four partners are working with investors and the Carlyle Group of Washington, D.C., a major private-equity firm, to line up stations they might buy."

From the archives of the Nation: "Carlyle has extensive interests in Saudi Arabia, and it has been pursuing a deal in partnership with SBC, the telecommunications giant (which owns Southwestern Bell, Ameritech, Pacific Telesis and Cellular One), to acquire about 25 percent of the Saudi phone system. Accompanied by several Carlyle execs, Bush and Major--the leaders of the alliance that pushed Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in 1991--were out to win friends and influence Saudis on behalf of Carlyle. (Bush, Major and the Carlyle officers also made a stop in Kuwait.) A day or two after the short session with the Prince [Abdullah], Bush and Major were whisked by the Carlyle team, headed by Carlyle founder David Rubenstein, a former Carter White House aide, to the city of Jeddah. They spent four hours on a yacht cruising the Red Sea with Saudi business officials and then attended a swank party at a private residence, again hobnobbing with prominent Saudis."

"Even though I've spent some time with the rich and powerful, I'm still naive about how small their world is. It came as a shock to me that President Bush's family and Osama bin Laden's family have socialized with each other and been involved in business ventures together. It's like finding out that Lyndon Johnson's daddy and Ho Chi Minh's papa used to go fishing together in the Gulf of Tonkin…Since the attacks of Sept. 11, bin Laden's relatives withdrew their investments in the CARLYLE GROUP when 'the prospect of President Bush's father being in business with the half-brother of Osama bin Laden was politically untenable,' as reporter Jane Mayer put it in this week's issue of the New Yorker magazine. Mayer also reported that bin Laden's relatives in the United States were allowed to leave the country after Sept. 11 without being interrogated or detained." So writes Rob Morse in the SF Chronicle.

The Carlyle Group is one of the world's largest weapons makers, and it controls the largest franchiser of non-cola soft drinks in the world. According to Publishing Trends, "Carlyle joined the Tribune Company in plunking down a $30 million investment last August for VarsityBooks.com, giving it a minority stake in the online textbook discounter. According to company documents, the VarsityBooks hit was part of a broader effort at Carlyle to target Internet-related firms with a special $210 million venture capital fund, which has brought on such diverse companies as Blackboard, an online learning firm that sells course website packages to colleges and universities, LatinForce.Net, an e-commerce portal targeting Hispanics in the US and Latin America, and MuniAuction, a website that has auctioned some $6 billion in bonds, notes, and certificates of deposit."

George Bush Sr. has long enjoyed a business and personal relationship with Korea's Reverend Moon, who has reportedly paid Bush up to $10 million. Perhaps the Bush-Moon relationship has been key to the Carlyle Group's forays into the Korean market? A New York Times article (3/5/01) states that "Mr. Bush led Carlyle's successful entry into South Korea...[that included] control of KorAm, one of Korea's few healthy banks." Moreover, Carlyle chief Frank Carlucci, who was Bush's National Security Adviser, was seen with Rev. Moon at the Second World Peace Conference in Seoul -- that was sponsored by the Unification Church.