Bush profits from the War that Never Ends: LA Times article excerpt

[Doug Millison]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-011002carlyle.story

"Even by Washington standards, the Carlyle Group has some serious clout.

President George W. Bush's father works for Carlyle; so does former Defense
Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, whose close friend Donald H. Rumsfeld now runs
the Pentagon; and so does a stellar cast of retired generals and Cabinet
secretaries, including former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. [...]
So 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: Carlyle officials say they decided to take the
company public only after the Sept. 11 attacks. The stock sale cashed in on
increased congressional support for hefty defense spending, including one
of United Defense's cornerstone weapon programs.

Carlyle's windfall is a result of astute business decisions, excellent
connections, strategic lobbying, good timing and a bit of luck. It is also
a prime example of how defense contractors got well in a hurry after the
Sept. 11 attacks, in a year when the Bush administration already was
planning steep hikes in defense spending.

For several years in the late 1990s, United Defense's Crusader Advanced
Field Artillery System--a massive high-tech cannon that could fire faster
and with more impact than any before it--was in trouble at the Pentagon.
The system clashed with the vision many military planners and analysts have
for a lighter, more mobile Army. And its high price tag--originally $20
billion--endangered it in times of tight defense budgets.

But the suicide attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center freed up
tens of billions of dollars in new defense spending. United Defense already
had modified the Crusader, making it 20 tons lighter. And the Army had cut
its order by more than half to make it more palatable to budget cutters.

On Sept. 26, the Army signed a $665-million modified contract with United
Defense through April 2003 to complete the Crusader's development phase. In
October, the company listed the Crusader, and the attacks themselves, as
selling points for its stock offering.

Then Congress fully funded the system in the defense authorization bill
that passed the House and Senate on Dec. 13, the day before Carlyle's stock
sale. And President Bush is scheduled to open the funding spigot today,
when he signs a defense appropriation bill that includes $487.3 million for
the Crusader in 2002. [...]"



....it gets better, I suggest you read the whole thing.

Brent, if you wonder about this being on topic or not, check out GR, a
novel by Thomas Pynchon that discusses, among other things, the way huge
companies profit from war.

In this case it would appear that the Bush family (Pynchon mentions Bush by
name in Vineland, Brent) will profit from President Bush's war and all the
suffering and death that war entails.  Pretty sickening, in my opinion.
Feel free to disagree.