George W. Bush Military Tribunal: Day 4, Part I

This is from Wednesday. There was no court on Tuesday for reasons not provided to me.

At the start of Wednesday’s proceedings Rear Adm. Darse E. Crandall produced a second audio cassette that held yet another Oval Office conversation Donald Rumsfeld had secretly recorded. He told the 3-officer panel that the tape, featuring the voices of Rumsfeld, Bush, and Cheney, was made approximately five days after the Towers crumbled to dust. On it, the defendant asked Cheney for an approximate fatality count.

Cheney: “Looks like it’s a few more than we anticipated.”

Bush: “How many more is a few?”

Cheney: “So, we don’t know exactly, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say somewhere between 6,500-7,000 in New York.”

Bush: “What the fuck, Dick, you said it would be a few thousand. That’s like two, not six or seven. Fuck.”

Cheney: “We didn’t expect that many people would be in the towers on an early Tuesday morning, George, and it’s not like I could phone the planes and say ‘hey, we need you to cancel for today.’”

Bush: “I can’t tell the fucking country that 7,000 people died in New York. I’ll never get reelected.”

Cheney: “We’ll soften the blow by saying it’s, like, 2,000-3000. The nation can handle that.”

Bush: “I wish we could say a few hundred.”

Rumsfeld: “That’s pushing suspension of disbelief pretty far.”

Bush: “If we say 3000, how are we going to account for another 4000 people. That’ll be 4000 fucking families screaming to the media an anyone who’ll fucking listen that their people died and weren’t reported.”

Cheney: “We’ll have to throw some people a bone.”

Bush:” That’ll have to be one pretty big fucking bone, Dick, and I don’t want it chipping into my share.”

Cheney: “Trust me. I’ll take care of it.”

Rumsfeld: “It’ll be good for the economy. Thousands of new millionaires overnight.”

Rear Adm. Crandall stopped the tape. He asserted to the panel that the tyrannical trio not only planned 9/11 but also conspired to conceal an unbearable death toll for fear of losing political prestige. Cheney’s Saudi and Israeli contacts, he said, stood to profit massively from the arrangement, and blaming the tragedy on first Osama Bin Laden and then Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was a pretense for using the military of that era to both bomb the shit out of Afghanistan and seize 200,000 hectares of valuable opium fields.

Bush’s lawyer, David Aufhauser got to his feet. “What is this? You sound like you’re endorsing the Taliban, admiral.”

“No one’s endorsing the Taliban, Mr. Aufhauser. And they’re not on trial here today, but your client, George W. Bush, is. The commission would appreciate it if you can refrain from more outbursts,” Rear Adm. Crandall said.

“Never in my legal career have I seen such malicious prosecution,” Aufhauser muttered. “I won’t be silent. To stay quiet is a disservice to my client. This trial must be adjourned and moved to a different venue not run by the U.S. military.”

His impassioned soliloquy prompted Rear Adm. Crandall to have him removed from the courtroom. The tribunal, he declared, would resume after a lunch recess.

( I will try to publish the rest of Day 4 later today. I apologize for the slow delivery. Unfortunately, sourced at GITMO are sometimes tardy in sending information to me. Thank you for your patience.)