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Recent
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May
10 / 11, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Rosenthal Faces the Music in Key
Med Marijuana Case
JoAnn
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Annie
C. Higgins
The Last Time I Saw Mus'ab
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The Devil in New England
William
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May
9, 2003
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May
8, 2003
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When It's a Crime to Visit Your Son
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Partisan Protests?
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The Detention of Dr. Huda Ammash
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Tripp
The Other "F" Word
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Pushovers
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May
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May
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May
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May
12, 2003
The Secretary from Enron
The
Decline and Fall of Thomas White
By JASON LEOPOLD
Bear with me while I beat this dead horse.
Two weeks ago, Secretary of Defense fired
Thomas White, who was tapped by President Bush two years ago
as Secretary of the Army. Today, White, the former vice chairman
of Enron Corp., the disgraced energy company that imploded in
a wave of accounting scandals two years ago, leaves the Pentagon
for good. In the two years White spent at the Pentagon he is
credited with nothing other than taking up space. White's dismissal
barely made a sound in the media. Newspapers ran wire copy of
his departure and chalked it up to his frequent run-ins with
Rummy over disagreements in transforming the army. But that's
not an accurate portrayal nor is it the true reason White was
canned, according to a half-dozen senior Pentagon officials
interviewed between April 26 and May 7. Simply put, the Enron
scandal tainted White as soon as it became common knowledge
that he contacted dozens of his former colleagues after the
company collapsed and failed to unload the bulk of his stock
after he became Secretary of the Army. His job security became
further strained when the FBI launched an investigation of White
last year into allegations of insider trading. White's phone
conversations with his Enron buddies took place shortly after
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.
and while military personnel were being sent to break up the
Taliban government in Afghanistan. Pentagon officials said White
never disclosed to Rumsfeld that he phoned his former colleagues
and that the Bush administration only learned of it when it
was reported by the media.
Neither White nor his spokesman returned
calls for comment.
Moreover, internal Enron memos surfaced
in 2001 that described in detail how Enron Energy Services,
the division White ran, manipulated the electricity market in
California over a two-year period.
White maintained his innocence in testimony
last year before a Senate committee investigating Enron's collapse
and its role in California's electricity crisis that he was
unaware of the financial shenanigans that took place at Enron.
It has since been well documented, however, that EES, under
the leadership of White, contributed heavily to Enron's collapse
and that so-called profits at the unit were illusory.
White has not yet responded to a written
inquiry from Congressman Henry Waxman, D-California, how EES
booked a $1.3 billion profit from a contract the unit signed
with Eli Lilly even though Enron paid the pharmaceutical company
$50 million in cash as an incentive to sign the contract and
hid this fact from investors and the public.
White's signature is on the approval
sheets and he earned a hefty bonus from the Eli Lilly deal despite
the fact Enron Energy Services never performed any of the services
described in the contract.
Internal documents related to White's role in
approving EES' byzantine contracts and partnerships can be viewed
here. One senior Pentagon official
said White was close to being fired by Rummy soon after the
Enron scandal broke in late 2001, but advisers to Bush cautioned
Rummy that doing so could tarnish "the office of the president."
"Instead of asking Secretary White
to resign, Secretary Rumsfeld just made his life miserable,"
the Pentagon defense official, who requested anonymity, said.
"He didn't allow Secretary White to make any decisions
on his own on matters relating to the army."
A spokesman for Rumsfeld would not comment
on private conversations that "may or may not have"
taken place between the two.
White complained to Rumsfeld several
times, another defense official said, about being kept out of
the loop on matters related to transforming the army but Rummy
rebuffed White and frequently took it upon himself to make decisions
to reshape the army. White only made things worse for himself
when he used a military aircraft for personal use and went behind
Rummy's back by telling members of Congress that the army supported
the now cancelled $11 billion Crusader artillery program, a
weapons system that Rummy said publicly last year needed to
be cancelled so the military could invest in other futuristic
weapons systems
"Once he did that it was only a
matter of time before Secretary Rumsfeld fired him," a
senior Pentagon official, who worked closely with White said.
"Secretary White knew it and so did everyone who worked
with him."
Jason Leopold
can be reached at: jasonleopold@hotmail.com
Yesterday's
Features
Alexander
Cockburn
Rosenthal Faces the Music in Key
Med Marijuana Case
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Labor in the Dawn of Empire
Annie
C. Higgins
The Last Time I Saw Mus'ab
Ron Jacobs
The Devil in New England
William
Mandel
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Jason Leopold
Halliburton Still Flouts the Law as It Profits from Terror
Patrick
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Larry Magnuson
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Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The Good Terrorists?
Anthony
Gancarski
Chalabi: Drowning in Ba'ath-water?
Steven
Sherman
A Letter to My European Friends
Khaled
El-Bizri
Mr. Bush Comes to Santa Clara
Bruce
Jackson
How Fear Curdles the Soul
Adam Engel
Flag in the Rain
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Reiss, Guthrie, Hamod & Albert
Steve
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Website
of the Weekend
Killing Again
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