Commentary ~ April 18, 2004: Investigative
reporter Bob Woodward has revealed that Bush made a secret deal
with Saudi Arabia to lower oil prices before this November's election.
The manipulation has begun (or perhaps never stopped). Bush knows
he has no hope in hell of winning this election based on his own
merits.
 The
information surfaced in Woodward's new book, Plan
of Attack. He reports that the Saudi ambassador to the
United States agreed that his country would make sure that oil prices
did not get too out of hand and would lower them to boost the American
economy prior to the election.
Senator John Kerry called the deal "outrageous and unacceptable
to the American people."
Kerry also said Americans were now paying billions of dollars more
for gas due to a "secret White House" deal to manipulate
prices for political reasons.
The New York Times quoted chief White House propagandist Scott
McClellan as saying the administration, for its part, "has
made it clear" that "prices should be determined by market
forces, and that we are always in close contact with producers around
the world on these issues to make sure that actions aren't taken
that harm our consumers or harm our economy."
Reuters quoted the presidential candidate as saying, if elected,
he would end such "sweetheart relationships" with Arab
countries like Saudi Arabia that he said funded terror.
Perhaps just as outrageous, Woodward said in a CBS' "60 Minutes"
interview last Sunday that Bush gave national security adviser Condoleezza
Rice, Cheney and Rumsfeld permission to tell Saudi Ambassador Prince
Bandar bin Sultan of his decision to go to war in Iraq before even
informing Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The George W. Bush-Saudi connection is nothing new. It began in
the 1970's in Houston, Texas, when young Bush Jr. was just starting
out in his family's two businesses of politics and oil. It is well
known that the bin Laden family (yes, Osama's family) helped fund
Bush's first venture into oil. The cozy friendship continued for
decades. After a terrorist attack at a barracks in Saudi Arabia
which killed 19 Americans, the bin Laden family received a multi-billion
dollar contract to re-build. And incredibly, George Bush Sr. was
in a business meeting at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington on
the morning of September 11th 2001 with one of Osama bin Laden's
brothers.
 In
his book, House
of Bush, House of Saud, journalist Craig Unger lays out
a compelling case that the Bush family is so inextricably bound
up with the Saudi royal family that it could not hold them responsible
for the role that many Saudi Arabians played in the 9/11 day of
terror.
Bush and company diverted the American public's attention to Iraq,
which had no apparent role in 9/11. Although 15 of the 19 hijackers
were Saudi, bin Laden is a member of one of the wealthiest families
in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis financed bin Laden, Bush managed
to convince most Americans that the majority of 9/11 hijackers were
Iraqi and that Saddam Hussein played a key role in the attack.
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