Bush: I wasn't overjoyed by bin Laden's death

LAS VEGAS — President George W. Bush says he was "not overjoyed" when President Barack Obama told him Osama bin Laden was dead because the campaign to track down the al Qaeda leader was done not "out of hatred, but to exact judgment."

ABC News reports Mr. Bush made his first candid public comments on bin Laden's killing Wednesday at a hedge fund conference in Las Vegas.

Mr. Bush said he was eating souffle at a restaurant when he received the call from president Obama, according to an ABC News contributor at the conference. Bush said he went home to take the call and, "Obama simply said, 'Osama Bin Laden is dead.'"

Bush told the audience of about 1,800 people that President Obama described the secret U.S. mission to raid bin Laden's compound in detail, and Bush told the president that the decision to put the plan into motion was a "good call."

But he said he was "not overjoyed," explaining that the search for bin Laden was done not "out of hatred but to exact judgment."

"The intelligence services deserve a lot of credit. They built a mosaic of information, piece by piece," Bush said, claiming no credit for himself.

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Bush has kept a low profile since bin Laden's death May 1. He has declined interview requests and declined Mr. Obama's invitation to join him at a ceremony at the former World Trade Center.

[walstib77]

Bush got the call while eating a souffle at a hedge fund conference in Vegas.

Perfect.

[cbsnacilbuper]

I did it. Got under your skin and got you thinking. Have a nice night pheasant. I know you won't admit it, but it is plain to see as you have taken quite a bit of time to refute me.

How sad you still have to take jabs and digs and will blindly follow someone. Wake up pheasant, wake up.

[miami_don]

Just completed reading the dissertation between you and pheasant and frankly it is not pheasant that needs to wake up.

[cbsnacilbuper]

Coming from you Don, I will take that as a compliment.

[1pheasant1]

by cbsnacilbuper May 15, 2011 4:54 AM EDT
I guess Bush must be confused like the rest of us. The story keeps changing every day. I wonder what today's news will be?

*************************

Headline:

Buper Spins Bush Into Economic Genius - Ignores Las Vegas Hedge Fund Conference

[1pheasant1]

by cbsnacilbuper May 15, 2011 9:18 AM EDT

Then why did then not bring back UBL for a trial?


********************

Because he has been eliminated and is unable to stand trial. I guess you'll have to live with it.

[1pheasant1]

by cbsnacilbuper May 15, 2011 10:57 AM EDT
Do you remember in history when any other government told it's people something to allow them to feel good about a decision that the government was making. Do you?

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I feel good about the decision that President Obama made in eliminating Osama bin Laden. Like President Bush, I'm not overjoyed, but pleased!

[1pheasant1]

by cbsnacilbuper May 15, 2011 9:54 AM EDT It was the Bush admin that told all you liberals that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11.

How about that?

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Actually, he told the whole nation, yet you still feel we should have treated Osama bin Laden better. Why do you feel he was treated unfairly? To me, he got what he deserved!

[1pheasant1]

by cbsnacilbuper May 15, 2011 9:51 AM EDT

So pheasant, in your America if the government tells you someone is a terrorist we can kill them with out a trial right?


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Osama bin Laden was an enemy in the war on terrorism. As an enemy, he suffered the consequences. If you think that our military should risk their lives further, so that your man Osama could have a fair trial, you are wrong. Deal with your loss.

[1pheasant1]

by cbsnacilbuper May 15, 2011 10:55 AM EDT
What upsets me is that now that I know the story of how he was captured alive and then killed that does not sit well with me.

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You are spreading more lies, buper. He was not captured and then killed. He was just killed. I realize you have suffered a great loss, but don't blame that on the President or the Navy Seals. Osama bin Laden was an enemy in a war and suffered the consequences. Deal with it!

[cbsnacilbuper]

Give it up, buper. You'll never understand. A percentage of the workforce is unemployed. People who have re-entered the workforce by looking for jobs does not mean they have found them. You can't seem to grasp the concept that the unemployment rate can rise slightly when 200,000 jobs are added. You are clueless!

People who have re-entered the workforce by look for a job, too funny and too stupid! How do you re-enter a workforce and not have a job. You Obama idiots are perfect for the democratic party. You just do what they tell you to do and don't think too much. Useful idiots.

[1pheasant1]

The Labor Department reported that employers added 290,000 jobs in April, the biggest monthly gain since March 2006. While it remains to be seen what effect it will have on investors who are focused on the sovereign-debt crisis in Europe, this is good news for recession-weary job seekers. The unemployment rate jumped to 9.9 percent last month, from 9.7 percent in March, as hopeful workers flooded back into the job market to search for jobs.

http://money.usnews.com/money/careers/articles/2010/05/07/why-aprils-unemployment-rise-shows-workers-hopeful-again

buper, you are obviously wiser than usnews.com money.

[PragmaticOne]

A Second Bush Oil Deal To Come With Murky Ties To Saudi Financiers And Osama Bin Laden

"On September 24, President George W. Bush appeared at a press conference in the White House Rose Garden to announce a crackdown on the financial networks of terrorists and those who support them. "U.S. banks that have assets of these groups or individuals must freeze their accounts," Bush declared. "And U.S. citizens or businesses are prohibited from doing business with them."

"But the president, who is now enjoying an astounding 92 percent approval rating, hasn't always practiced what he is now preaching: Bush's own businesses were once tied to financial figures in Saudi Arabia who currently support bin Laden.

"In 1979, Bush's first business, Arbusto Energy, obtained financing from James Bath, a Houstonian and close family friend. One of many investors, Bath gave Bush $50,000 for a 5 percent stake in Arbusto. At the time, Bath was the sole U.S. business representative for Salem bin Laden, head of the wealthy Saudi Arabian family and a brother (one of 17) to Osama bin Laden. It has long been suspected, but never proven, that the Arbusto money came directly from Salem bin Laden. In a statement issued shortly after the September 11 attacks, the White House vehemently denied the connection, insisting that Bath invested his own money, not Salem bin Laden's, in Arbusto.

"In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests. In fact, Bath has extensive ties, both to the bin Laden family and major players in the scandal-ridden Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) who have gone on to fund Osama bin Laden. BCCI defrauded depositors of $10 billion in the '80s in what has been called the "largest bank fraud in world financial history" by former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. During the '80s, BCCI also acted as a main conduit for laundering money intended for clandestine CIA activities, ranging from financial support to the Afghan mujahedin to paying intermediaries in the Iran-Contra affair.

"When Salem bin Laden died in 1988, powerful Saudi Arabian banker and BCCI principal Khalid bin Mahfouz inherited his interests in Houston. Bath ran a business for bin Mahfouz in Houston and joined a partnership with bin Mahfouz and Gaith Pharaon, BCCI's frontman in Houston's Main Bank.

"The Arbusto deal wasn't the last time Bush looked to highly questionable sources to invest in his oil dealings. After several incarnations, Arbusto emerged in 1986 as Harken Energy Corporation. When Harken ran into trouble a year later, Saudi Sheik Abdullah Taha Bakhsh purchased a 17.6 percent stake in the company. Bakhsh was a business partner with Pharaon in Saudi Arabia; his banker there just happened to be bin Mahfouz.

"Though Bush told the Wall Street Journal he had "no idea" BCCI was involved in Harken's financial dealings, the network of connections between Bush and BCCI is so extensive that the Journal concluded their investigation of the matter in 1991 by stating: "The number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken-all since George W. Bush came on board-raises the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up to a presidential son." Or even the president: Bath finally came under investigation by the FBI in 1992 for his Saudi business relationships, accused of funneling Saudi money through Houston in order to influence the foreign policies of the Reagan and first Bush administrations.

"Worst of all, bin Mahfouz allegedly has been financing the bin Laden terrorist network-making Bush a U.S. citizen who has done business with those who finance and support terrorists. According to USA Today, bin Mahfouz and other Saudis attempted to transfer $3 million to various bin Laden front operations in Saudi Arabia in 1999. ABC News reported the same year that Saudi officials stopped bin Mahfouz from contributing money directly to bin Laden. (Bin Mahfouz's sister is also a wife of Osama bin Laden, a fact that former CIA Director James Woolsey revealed in 1998 Senate testimony.)

"When President Bush announced he is hot on the trail of the money used over the years to finance terrorism, he must realize that trail ultimately leads not only to Saudi Arabia, but to some of the same financiers who originally helped propel him into the oil business and later the White House. The ties between bin Laden and the White House may be much closer than he is willing to acknowledge." --Wayne Madsen, 10/22/01

Wayne Madsen, an investigative journalist based in Washington, is the author of Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999.