Tuesday 17 May 2005

Garlic Exclusive!
Rumsfeld Rolling On with Privatizing Forces
Base Closings Tied To New U-Haul Self Storage Contract

Deal With National Vendors To Save Billions; Commissoned Officers Can Take Home Vehicles

Critics are circling Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, after his defending of his sweeping recommendations on closing 33 major bases (as well as reducing forces at 62 major bases and 775 minor installations), in light of new information that Rumsfeld and the Pentagon have signed a multi-billion-contract with the national moving and self-storage company, U-Haul.

Rumsfeld, along with Vice President Dick Cheney, has long been an advocates of privatizing the U.S. Military in an effort to streamline operations and make forces more agile and prepared.

"My goodness", mocked Rumsfeld, "You'd think I was closing down the country … Some of these bases have been around since World War I … Most of them are Cold War relics …"

"Look at it … For heaven's sake, we have all our forces, our vehicles, our strategic weapons concentrated in so few places, making it as easy as baking an apple pie for some low-life terrorist creep, to pack his beat-up Toyota with explosives and drive right up the main road in one of these bases …"

Chairman of the Base-Closing Committee, Anthony Principi, a former Veterans Affairs secretary called Rumsfeld plans ''an arduous task and assessment.''

"It will have a profound effects on the communities and people who bring them to life".

Principi, as well as others, are questioning awarding such a contract to U-Haul without any public overview or hearings, which Rumsfeld scoffed at.

"We are in a time of war and I don't have time to write every liberal prissy a note"

Rumsfeld stated that such contracts are the purview of the Pentagon and, in wartime, do not need overview.

"This actually is going to be win-win for the country … More U-Haul storage units will be built and more people will be hired to manage them … And we get a fighting force that gets to eat their mother's cooking, sleep in their own beds …Studies show they make better soldiers".

"This plan would ''help move forces and resources to where they can best provide for our nation's defense".

U-Haul is celebrating its' 60th Anniversary this year, founded after World War II by L.S. "Sam" Shoen and his wife, Anna Mary Carty Shoen in the summer of 1945. U-Haul is the industry giant with over 13,700 independent dealers and over 1,300 company-owned U-Haul centers.

U-Haul's contract with the Pentagon calls for only company-owned U-Haul centers to hold and store U.S. Military equipment and property and industry experts say it will expand U-Haul centers by the tens-of-thousands.

U-Haul only released a brief statement, saying they were "happy" to be a U.S. Government vendor and "aiding the country in it's time of need".

Rumsfeld indicated that with so many U-Haul centers around the country, it would be hard for a terrorist to know where any of the strategic targets could be.

"Hey, they won't know whether to piss or wind their watches … We didn't do this deal with our eyes closed", offered the secretary.

Rumsfeld declined comment, citing it as classified, that, reportedly, Halliburton is a sub-vendor on the U-Haul contract and will be responsible for moving the property of the closed bases to their U-Haul locations.


Bush Furious Over Newsweek's Koran Misquote
"Madder than when he couldn't get intel the way he wanted" Say Staff

The White House yesterday, along with a band of other conservatives, angrily demanded that Newsweek retract its' story about American guards at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, abusing and desecrating the Koran only hours before Newsweek did extactly that.

Newsweek Editor, Mark Whitaker apologized for the short article in the May 9 issue of Newsweek. Whitaker expressed doubts about information a "senior Penatagon official" had provided. The magazine did not identify the government official and Whitaker also offered his regrets over the loss of life linked to the report.

Throughout the day, White House, State Department officials, as well as other critics assailed Newsweek and the report as "appalling" and "unfounded"

Such priority was given to this that the State Department called back to Washington, Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Karen Hughes, from her world-wide Tupperware campaign, her first assignment in lifting the image of the United States aboard (See The Garlic, Tuesday 29 March - Hughes Plans International Tupperware Party For First Image Effort)

Reports say, along with being a close, longtime aide to the President, Hughes was assigned to come up with a special Tupperware container for the Koran, one that would meet the appoval of Muslims.

There are some conflicting reports as to the President's and the White House's actions.

One person inside the White House indicated that, once again, President Bush was off, riding his bicycle and unaware of the furor building over the Newsweek article. It was said it was "hours" before the President was briefed.

Others are saying the President was "madder than not being able to get an intelligence report on Saddam Hussian and the WMD's to say what he wanted it to say".

"Man, on that day, he was off-the-walls … Screaming at everyone … Running down the halls in the West Wing, clutching reams of paper, demanding to know who wrote this, or who wrote that and why couldn't he get anyone to say, unequivocally, that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq", said one White House staffer.

"The Vice President was chasing him, panting for air …Telling the President not to worry about it .. That it would be fixed … We thought he was going to have another heart attack"

Reportedly, the President was livid when briefed on the Newsweek article and immediately called Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, ordering Gonzales to shut down Newsweek for violating the Patriot Act.

When advised that wasn't the best action to take, the President angrily ordered the reporters for Newsweek, Michael Isikoff, and John Barry, to be taken in custody and placed in Special Rendition before aides talked the President down.

For a few minutes, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan was confused and ready to go into the briefing room. McClellan had mixed up papers and was readying to condemn Mexican President Vincente Fox for '"flushing a Koran down the toilet".

Just moments before he took the podium, other staffers took him aside, and after a heated conversation, McClellan addressed the media and demanded that Newsweek retract the article.

Said one longtime watcher of Washington and White House politics;

"It remains to be seen if they were upset over offending the Muslims and that it was a heinous act, or, if the fuss is over they got caught again".