Whoops! Bush's military records "accidentally" destroyed

[Boris Godunov]

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
It's the CIA, for ****'s sake. Do you think they don't know how to infiltrate secure locations?

*mission impossible music plays*

[Boris Godunov]

I'm picturing Dick Cheney in all-black with a knit cap, descending from a ceiling on a cable...

[Drake Tungsten]

It's the CIA, for ****'s sake. Do you think they don't know how to infiltrate secure locations?

If the latest Senate intelligence report is any indication, they don't...

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
I'm picturing Dick Cheney in all-black with a knit cap, descending from a ceiling on a cable...

I was thinking more along the lines of John Belushi in Animal House.

[Straybow]

It's the CIA, for ****'s sake. Do you think they don't know how to infiltrate secure locations?

No, I don't think the CIA maintains data about largely irrelevent military pay records such that they would know where to find those of GWB.

[Dis]

well this is interesting.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&u=/ap/20040723/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_military_records_2&printer=1

[DRoseDARs]

I was just about to post this too. Here's the article for the lazy among us...

*********

Pentagon Finds Bush's Guard Records

4 minutes ago Add Top Stories - AP to My Yahoo!


By MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon (news - web sites) on Friday released newly discovered payroll records from President Bush (news - web sites)'s 1972 service in the Alabama National Guard, though the records shed no new light on the future president's activities during that summer.

A Pentagon official said the earlier contention that the records were destroyed was an "inadvertent oversight."


Like records released earlier by the White House, the newly released computerized payroll records show no indication Bush drilled with the Alabama unit during July, August and September of 1972. Pay records covering all of 1972, released previously, also indicated no guard service for Bush during those three months.


The records do not give any new information toward determining whether Bush kept his National Guard commitments during 1972, when he transferred to the Alabama National Guard unit so he could work on the U.S. Senate campaign of a family friend.


White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Bush kept his service commitments, pointing to the fact that Bush was honorably discharged in 1973.


The release came days before Democrats began their national convention in Boston to officially nominate Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) as their presidential candidate. Military veterans are being tapped at the convention to help tell Kerry's story as he prepares to accept the party's nomination next week.


Democrats have sought to contrast Bush's National Guard service with Kerry's Vietnam War record. Kerry enlisted in the Navy, volunteered for combat in Vietnam and earned several medals including a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. After returning from Vietnam, Kerry became a prominent anti-war activist.


The Associated Press had asked a federal judge on July 16 to order the Pentagon to quickly turn over a copy of the pay records. The AP had sued under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the records from a state library records center in Texas.


Records of Bush's National Guard service released previously did not conclusively show whether Bush fulfilled his service requirements in 1972 and 1973, during the Vietnam War.


Bush had transferred to an Alabama National Guard unit while he worked on the U.S. Senate campaign of Republican Winton Blount.


The Pentagon had said that the payroll records for that time period had been inadvertently destroyed.


"Previous attempts to locate the missing records at the Federal Records Center had been unsuccessful due to the incorrect records accession numbers provided," the Pentagon's Office of Freedom of Information chief C.Y. Talbott said in a letter Friday to The Associated Press.


"The correct numbers were obtained ... and the records were found."


Talbott wrote that the Defense Department "regrets this inadvertent oversight during the initial search and the delay it caused in your receipt of these materials."


(UPDATES throughout with records shedding no new light on Guard service question; corrects name of Pentagon official to Talbott, sted Talbot; DELETES outdated final graf. No pickup.)

[Lefty Scaevola]

The smear was irrelevant anyway, they went duplicate by patstub records that that Bush had keep a supplied to the press over a year ago.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by JohnT

Finally, if you are truly interested in tracking this down for yourself Boris (rather than rely on positing hypothetical situations based upon incorrect assumptions), why not contact them yourself?

DFAS Dayton
1050 Forrer Boulevard
Dayton OH 45420-1472

Vendor Pay Customer Service Email Address: cco-dy-vpis@dfas.mil

Accounting Records Customer Service Email Address: ddy-a@dfas.mil

We eagerly await your results.

While your at it Boris ask why my ****ing travel pay hasn't been deposited

[chequita guevara]

I assume the keep paper records and microfische records in seperate places?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Oh yes, they're just going to walk in and take it, are they?

You mean like the way 'they' just misled Congress about the CI.A.'s involvement in destabilizing Angola BEFORE the arrival of Cuban troops there?


Or the way that the Arbenz government was portrayed to the American public by Eisenhower and the C.I.A. as being pro-Communist when it was anything but, because it had had the temerity to ask for some taxes from United Fruit and have a look at land redistribution- that just didn't sit so well with certain members of the C.I.A. who just happened to be friends of people in United Fruit or on the board themelves. Allen Foster Dulles, head of the C.I.A. at the time, had been President of..... United Fruit; John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, had been legal adviser to........


United Fruit. Henry Cabot Lodge, Ambassador to the United Nations, was on the board of Directors of ....United Fruit.

John Moors Cabot, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs had a large share-holding in......

United Fruit.


And finally, Walter Bedell Smith, Director of the C.I.A. prior to Dulles, became the President of the....


United Fruit Company, after the overthrow of the Arbenz government.


Frankly, I doubt the Mafia looks after their own better.


Richard Russell, the Democratic Senator from Georgia, once gave the following explanation of why he led the fight against a resolution to provide for better Congressional scrutiny of the CIA:


(Russell noted that the statement had been made on the floor, that the Armed Services subcommittee of which he was a member, had not revealed to the country what it had learned about CIA operations)


"No, Mr. President," Russell said, "we have not told the country, and I do not propose to tell the country in the future, because if there is anything in the United States which should be held sacred behind the curtain of classified matter, it is information regarding the activities of this agency...It would be better to abolish it out of hand than it would be to adopt a theory that such information should be spread and made available to every member of Congress and to the members of the staff of any committee. "

Former CIA director Allen Foster Dulles (remember? the United Fruit guy?), speaking before a Congressional committee:


'Any investigation, whether by a congressional committee or any other body, which results in disclosure of our secret activities and operations or uncovers our personnel, will help a potential enemy just as if the enemy had been able to infiltrate his own agents right into our shop.'

Or the American public might find out you overthrew a government in Central America so that you could make more money.

[chequita guevara]

Frankly, I don't see why the CIA needs to be involved. You think the military isn't going to do favors for an ex-President's son?