USS Liberty Challenge/Reward

wrote:
(Issac Goldberg) wrote:
wrote:

[snip]

Do you think that Congress should double check every Navy inquiry,
or just the Liberty? If just the Liberty then please explain what
the Navy's court did wrong and how Congress may be able to fix.

IMO the Navy's court of inquiry has a better record of finding the
facts than Congress.

But in a high profile case, leaders of a Navy Court of
Inquiry are subject to pressure of the President if that
President wants it to reach a certain conclusion.

If you reject this claim then please give
examples of Navy courtof inquiry making mistake, and Congress fixing
them.

See the LA Times article below to see how the executive branch
may try to ‘manipulate' intelligence. .

Can Congress get more data?

A Congressional investigation can ask the CIA
to testify on all of the data that has been
collected.

A Navy court of inquiry can subpoena the CIA just like Congress can.
And since the Navy is better than Congress in keeping secrets, the
CIA will probably be more willing to coopertae.

There was a Navy employee a number of years back who
made copies of 500,000 classified government documents
and provided them to a foreign government. Your
assertion about the Navy being better at keeping secrets
is suspect.

Does Congress have deeper understanding of Israel?

A non sequitur with regard to the question of
whether the attack on the Liberty was intentional
or not.

You claim that Congress investigation will be "better."
I claim that for better investigation you should either have
the ability to collect more data, or the ability to understand
the data better. Do you reject my claim, yes or no?
And if yes then what is your counter-claim?

You, like Weeks, seek to muddy the waters. Congress
has been successfully investigating the executive
branch of government for 200 years. Your suggestion
that the executive branch investigate itself violates
the 'separation of powers' principle which has worked
so effectively since our Constitution was adopted.

Does Congress have better exprerts in
navies-at-war issues than the US Navy?

Congress can request the testimony of the US Navy's
finest experts, who are then obligated to give
truthful answers, or face jail terms.

You assume that in short time Congressmen can become better experts
than people who spent years in sea commanding ships. I don't know
what is the base of your assumption, but I can tell you that you
can force people to tell you what they know, but knoweldge and
understanding is very different thing. E.g. a clueless person
like you who has access to all the data and still has no clue.

One again, your arguments are so weak that you feel the need
to resort to name calling. Why has every previous Naval disaster
been investigated by Congress?

In other words, why should Congresss investigate the Liberty
incidence after the CIA concluded that the Israeli explanation
is reasonable.

Believe it or not, the CIA is not always right.

Believe it or not, Congress is not always right.

But they are independent and they do not serve
at the pleasure of the President.

Believe it or not, Joseph McCarthy "investigations" did not catch
a single Russian spy.

Maybe because he saw Communist spies under every bed?

Let's face it, when McCarthy accused President
Eisenhower's Secretary of the Army of supporting
Communism, it indicated a serious flaw in the
Senator's judgment. Not only did McCarthy fail
to prove the alleged leftist tendencies of the
Army Secretary, but McCarthy's bizarre behavior
was condemned by his Senate colleagues, after
which nobody took McCarthy seriously.

In fact, it was the Army-McCarthy investigation
itself which not only ended McCarthy's influence,
but it also ended the national witch hunt known
as McCarthyism.

Believe it or not, the Senate Watergate investigation
was partially responsible for the first Presidential
resignation in our country's history. If we had
adopted your suggestion of letting the executive
branch investigate itself, there is a good chance
Nixon would not have resigned.

Again, do you want to Congress to double-check everything that the
CIA say, or just the Liberty? And if just the Liberty then please
explain why the CIA can't be trusted in that case.

CIA Felt Pressure to Alter Iraq Data, Author Says

Agency analysts were repeatedly ordered to redo
their studies of Al Qaeda ties to Hussein regime,
a terrorism expert charges.

by Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, July 1, 2004

WASHINGTON — In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, CIA analysts were
ordered repeatedly to redo intelligence assessments concluded that Al
Qaeda had no operational ties to Iraq, according to a veteran CIA
counter-terrorism official who has written a book that is sharply
critical of the decision to go to war with Iraq.


Agency analysts never altered their conclusions, but saw the pressure
to revisit their work as a clear indication that Bush administration
officials were seeking a different answer regarding Iraq and Al Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden, the CIA officer said in an interview with The
Times.

"We on the Bin Laden side [of the agency's analytic ranks] were
required repeatedly to check, double-check and triple-check our files
about a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq," said the officer, who
spoke on condition that he be identified only by his first name, Mike.

Asked whether he attributed the demands to an eagerness among
officials at the White House or the Pentagon to find evidence of a
link, he said: "You could not help but assume that was the case. They
knew the answer [they wanted] before they asked the question."

The officer is the author of a forthcoming book titled, "Imperial
Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror," published by
Brassey's Inc. of Dulles, Va. He is listed as "Anonymous" on the book,
which describes him as a "senior U.S. intelligence official with
nearly two decades of experience in national security issues."

The author has held a number of high-ranking agency positions,
including serving from 1996 to 1999 as head of a special unit tracking
Bin Laden.

The book was approved for publication by the CIA after a four-month
review — creating an unusual situation in which one of the secretive
agency's senior officers was offering public criticism of
administration policies and the prosecution of the war on terrorism.

CIA spokesman Bill Harlow emphasized that the opinions in the book
were those of the author, not the agency. He acknowledged that the
book's publication was awkward for an agency that sought to be
apolitical, but that the CIA found no classified material in it, and
therefore allowed its release.

Some have questioned the author's motives, noting that he was removed
as head of the Bin Laden unit in 1999 over concerns about his
performance. An intelligence official who has worked with the author
at the CIA said that he might have been embittered by his removal, but
that "people tend to think of him as a straight shooter."

Mike said he was removed from the post because agency leaders "thought
I was too myopic, too intense, too aggressive." He declined to
elaborate. But he insisted that he did not write the book to settle
scores.

"The important thing to me is that we're missing the boat on this
issue," he said.

The book has created a stir in intelligence and policymaking circles
for its scathing critique of U.S. efforts after the Sept. 11 attacks.
In the book, Mike writes that the war in Afghanistan was in many
respects a failure because the United States waited nearly a month to
launch the invasion — allowing Al Qaeda operatives to flee — and
relied heavily on proxy Afghan forces that were not always loyal to
the U.S. cause.

The book asserts that invading Iraq has inflamed anti-American
sentiment to such a degree that it is minting a new generation of
terrorists.

"We have waged two failed half-wars and, in doing so, left Afghanistan
and Iraq seething with anti-U.S. sentiment, fertile grounds for the
expansion of Al Qaeda and kindred groups," he writes.

In an interview this week, Mike, who has close-cropped hair and a
beard, said Monday's transfer of authority to Iraq was likely to do
little to curtail insurgent attacks.

"Iraq, with or without a transfer of power, will be a mujahedin magnet
as long as whatever government is there is dependent on America's
sword," he said, adding that he thought his view was widely shared
among counter-terrorism officials at the CIA and other intelligence
agencies.

The stealth manner in which sovereignty was transferred this week in
Iraq — in a surprise ceremony two days ahead of schedule involving L.
Paul Bremer III, the U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, and the
country's interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi — also sent a weak
signal, he said.

"From Bin Laden's perspective, we were afraid they were going to
attack us and we left like a thief in the night, with Bremer throwing
the keys to Allawi," he said. "They can only see this as a victory."

Mike's criticism of the war in Iraq echoes that of other prominent
counter-terrorism officials, including former White House aide Richard
A. Clarke. But he is the first active CIA official to make the
criticism publicly, albeit anonymously. Mike, however, faulted Clarke
and others who served in the Clinton administration for failing to
mount operations to capture or kill Bin Laden when the CIA had
intelligence on his whereabouts.

He said he thought Bin Laden would have been extremely reluctant to
enter a collaborative relationship with Hussein, in part because he
saw Iraq's military and spying services as inferior, incapable of
protecting the security of Al Qaeda plans and operations.

Mike said that because he did not work in the agency's Iraq section,
he could not assess the accuracy of claims that analysts were
pressured by the White House to tailor their assessments of Iraq's
alleged illicit weapons programs to help make the case for war.
Despite being forced to redo their work several times, he said,
counter-terrorism analysts never altered their conclusion that Iraq
was not working with Al Qaeda.

"There was pressure to perform. But to its credit, the intelligence
community as a whole said there was nothing" to suggest a
collaborative relationship, he said. "The director on down insisted we
call it straight."

Mike still serves in the agency's counter-terrorism center, but
acknowledges that he has been marginalized. "I get invited to speak"
on counter-terrorism at the Defense Department, the FBI and the
National Security Agency, he said, "but not within my own building."

He wrote an earlier book, also anonymously, on Bin Laden and Islamic
terrorism that was titled, "Through Our Enemies' Eyes."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,4236086.story

(Issac Goldberg) wrote in message . com...
wrote:
(Issac Goldberg) wrote:
wrote:

[snip]

Do you think that Congress should double check every Navy inquiry,
or just the Liberty? If just the Liberty then please explain what
the Navy's court did wrong and how Congress may be able to fix.

IMO the Navy's court of inquiry has a better record of finding the
facts than Congress.

But in a high profile case, leaders of a Navy Court of
Inquiry are subject to pressure of the President if that
President wants it to reach a certain conclusion.

If you reject this claim then please give
examples of Navy courtof inquiry making mistake, and Congress fixing
them.

See the LA Times article below to see how the executive branch
may try to ?manipulate' intelligence. .

Can Congress get more data?

A Congressional investigation can ask the CIA
to testify on all of the data that has been
collected.

A Navy court of inquiry can subpoena the CIA just like Congress can.
And since the Navy is better than Congress in keeping secrets, the
CIA will probably be more willing to coopertae.

There was a Navy employee a number of years back who
made copies of 500,000 classified government documents
and provided them to a foreign government. Your
assertion about the Navy being better at keeping secrets
is suspect.

Does Congress have deeper understanding of Israel?

A non sequitur with regard to the question of
whether the attack on the Liberty was intentional
or not.

You claim that Congress investigation will be "better."
I claim that for better investigation you should either have
the ability to collect more data, or the ability to understand
the data better. Do you reject my claim, yes or no?
And if yes then what is your counter-claim?

You, like Weeks, seek to muddy the waters. Congress
has been successfully investigating the executive
branch of government for 200 years. Your suggestion
that the executive branch investigate itself violates
the 'separation of powers' principle which has worked
so effectively since our Constitution was adopted.

Does Congress have better exprerts in
navies-at-war issues than the US Navy?

Congress can request the testimony of the US Navy's
finest experts, who are then obligated to give
truthful answers, or face jail terms.

You assume that in short time Congressmen can become better experts
than people who spent years in sea commanding ships. I don't know
what is the base of your assumption, but I can tell you that you
can force people to tell you what they know, but knoweldge and
understanding is very different thing. E.g. a clueless person
like you who has access to all the data and still has no clue.

One again, your arguments are so weak that you feel the need
to resort to name calling. Why has every previous Naval disaster
been investigated by Congress?

In other words, why should Congresss investigate the Liberty
incidence after the CIA concluded that the Israeli explanation
is reasonable.

Believe it or not, the CIA is not always right.

Believe it or not, Congress is not always right.

But they are independent and they do not serve
at the pleasure of the President.

Believe it or not, Joseph McCarthy "investigations" did not catch
a single Russian spy.

Maybe because he saw Communist spies under every bed?

Let's face it, when McCarthy accused President
Eisenhower's Secretary of the Army of supporting
Communism, it indicated a serious flaw in the
Senator's judgment. Not only did McCarthy fail
to prove the alleged leftist tendencies of the
Army Secretary, but McCarthy's bizarre behavior
was condemned by his Senate colleagues, after
which nobody took McCarthy seriously.

In fact, it was the Army-McCarthy investigation
itself which not only ended McCarthy's influence,
but it also ended the national witch hunt known
as McCarthyism.




Believe it or not, the Senate Watergate investigation
was partially responsible for the first Presidential
resignation in our country's history. If we had
adopted your suggestion of letting the executive
branch investigate itself, there is a good chance
Nixon would not have resigned.

Since it was only the Washington Post that forced
the issue into the Senate, it's still generally thought
in many Political Science Circles that the
entire US Republican Party should have resigned
than Nixon. Being that New York, Chicago, Miami,
and their Political "Conventions" had already resigned
from Human Civilization in the *1920s*.

(Issac Goldberg) wrote in message . com...
wrote:
(Issac Goldberg) wrote:

Do you think that Congress should double check every Navy inquiry,
or just the Liberty? If just the Liberty then please explain what
the Navy's court did wrong and how Congress may be able to fix.

IMO the Navy's court of inquiry has a better record of finding the
facts than Congress.

But in a high profile case, leaders of a Navy Court of
Inquiry are subject to pressure of the President if that
President wants it to reach a certain conclusion.

Ha?
From http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dlj...dlj50p1835.htm
@The Supreme Court recognized potential problems with the independence
@of military judges in Weiss v. United States.139 The Court noted that
@military judges may be reassigned at any time because they have no
@fixed term of office. "Commissioned Officers are assigned or detailed
@to the position of military judge by a Judge Advocate General for a
@period of time he deems necessary or appropriate, and then they may be
@reassigned to perform other duties."140 Military judges also are
@accountable to their respective Judge Advocates General for their
@decisions. "By placing judges under the control of Judge Advocates
@General, who have no interest in the outcome of a particular [*pg 1858]
@court-martial, we believe Congress has achieved an acceptable balance
@between independence and accountability."141 What the Supreme Court
@failed to recognize is that Judge Advocates General may indeed have a
@significant interest in the outcome of cases when a large issue or
@principle is at stake.

In case you missed it, the president can not command military judges,
only the "Judge Advocates General" can do so. All the president
can, legally, do is to ask the court to take his testimony.
Pressuring judges is not effective because the president can't
fire them, and illegal pressure will cause a stink much larger
than the "The Saturday night massacre."

If you reject this claim then please give
examples of Navy courtof inquiry making mistake, and Congress fixing
them.

See the LA Times article below to see how the executive branch
may try to ?manipulate' intelligence. .

The CIA is under the president's control. He can fire the head of the
CIA whenever he wants. But the president can not fire military judges.
The Supreme Court believes that, with respect to the military court
system, "Congress has achieved an acceptable balance between
independence and accountability." Do you reject this claim,
and if yes on what grounds?

A Navy court of inquiry can subpoena the CIA just like Congress can.
And since the Navy is better than Congress in keeping secrets, the
CIA will probably be more willing to coopertae.

There was a Navy employee a number of years back who
made copies of 500,000 classified government documents
and provided them to a foreign government.

There is a difference between espionage and leaks. People who
commit espionage go to jail, Congressmen who leak win reelection.
Leaking of classified infromation is a big problem in Congress
because Congress is not willing to regulate itself. The
same can't be said about the Navy. The Navy makes a real effort
to throw everybody who passes classified information to jail.

Your assertion about the Navy being better at keeping
secrets is suspect.

Can you give example of Navy judges who leaked information
and got away with it? (And yes, I can give you examples
of Congressmen who leaked information and did not go to
jail; just ask.)

You claim that Congress investigation will be "better."
I claim that for better investigation you should either have
the ability to collect more data, or the ability to understand
the data better. Do you reject my claim, yes or no?
And if yes then what is your counter-claim?

You, like Weeks, seek to muddy the waters. Congress
has been successfully investigating the executive
branch of government for 200 years.

:-)

Your suggestion
that the executive branch investigate itself violates
the 'separation of powers' principle which has worked
so effectively since our Constitution was adopted.

The military court system has its own version of "Separation"
that works pretty well. Military courts are not kangeroo
courts; something that can't be said about
Senator Joseph McCarthy's committee.

You assume that in short time Congressmen can become better experts
than people who spent years in sea commanding ships. I don't know
what is the base of your assumption, but I can tell you that you
can force people to tell you what they know, but knoweldge and
understanding is very different thing. E.g. a clueless person
like you who has access to all the data and still has no clue.

One again, your arguments are so weak that you feel the need
to resort to name calling. Why has every previous Naval disaster
been investigated by Congress?

Because it was not.
E.g. the attack on USS Stark that killed 37 sailors.

Believe it or not, Congress is not always right.

But they are independent and they do not serve
at the pleasure of the President.

Congressmen need to get reelected. The officers of the
Navy's court of inquiry have no such concern.

Believe it or not, Joseph McCarthy "investigations"
did not catch a single Russian spy.

Maybe because he saw Communist spies under every bed?

And you see an anti-Liberty conspiracy under every bed,
table and chair.

Let's face it, when McCarthy accused President
Eisenhower's Secretary of the Army of supporting
Communism, it indicated a serious flaw in the
Senator's judgment.

McCarthy had a fun time taking the rich and famous
of Hollywood and grilling them in the Senate, and
leaking some "secret" testimonies in return to good press.
The Hollywood actors had no means to fight back, and
McCarthy felt pretty powerful.

Then he decided to pick on the army,
and the army fought back pretty well. The Army accused
Senator McCarthy and his assistant, Roy Cohn, of pressuring
the Army to give favourable treatment to a former aide.
Every Senator with half brain would realize a serious threat
and back down, but mcCarthy decided to fight, and lost.

In fact, it was the Army-McCarthy investigation
itself which not only ended McCarthy's influence,
but it also ended the national witch hunt known
as McCarthyism.

And your point is...?

Believe it or not, the Senate Watergate investigation
was partially responsible for the first Presidential
resignation in our country's history.

I'd give much more credit to Archibald Cox. After the
Saturday night massacre Nixon was *finished* in the
public's opinion.

If we had
adopted your suggestion of letting the executive
branch investigate itself, there is a good chance
Nixon would not have resigned.

What exactly did Archibald Cox do wrong?

Again, do you want to Congress to double-check everything that the
CIA say, or just the Liberty? And if just the Liberty then please
explain why the CIA can't be trusted in that case.

CIA Felt Pressure to Alter Iraq Data, Author Says

And it got caught in less than 37 years because the army
could not find those WMD.

It shows that the system works, if there is no data to support a claim.
(The failure of the LVA to make a case also shows that the system works
when there is no data to support a claim.)

Hillel

"I don't know a man, woman, or child who was not happy about what happened
in the U.S. [on 9/11/2001]" (Abdullah Al-Sabeh, a professor of psychology at
Riyadh's Imam Muhammed bin Saud Islamic University, Business Week, 11/26/2001)

wrote:
(Issac Goldberg) wrote:
wrote:
IMO the Navy's court of inquiry has a better record of finding the
facts than Congress.

But in a high profile case, leaders of a Navy Court of
Inquiry are subject to pressure of the President if that
President wants it to reach a certain conclusion.

Ha?
From http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dlj...dlj50p1835.htm
@The Supreme Court recognized potential problems with the independence
@of military judges in Weiss v. United States.139 The Court noted that
@military judges may be reassigned at any time because they have no
@fixed term of office. "Commissioned Officers are assigned or detailed
@to the position of military judge by a Judge Advocate General for a
@period of time he deems necessary or appropriate, and then they may be
@reassigned to perform other duties."140 Military judges also are
@accountable to their respective Judge Advocates General for their
@decisions. "By placing judges under the control of Judge Advocates
@General, who have no interest in the outcome of a particular [*pg 1858]
@court-martial, we believe Congress has achieved an acceptable balance
@between independence and accountability."141 What the Supreme Court
@failed to recognize is that Judge Advocates General may indeed have a
@significant interest in the outcome of cases when a large issue or
@principle is at stake.

In case you missed it, the president can not command military judges,
only the "Judge Advocates General" can do so. All the president
can, legally, do is to ask the court to take his testimony.

Your entire argument fails because you assume that all of
Johnson's actions were 'legal.'

One spectacular example of Lyndon Johnson violating the law
was his theft of the 1948 Senate election in Texas by means
of vote fraud.

Try reading the three volumes of Caro's LBJ biography,
since they will provide illuminating insight into what an
unethical fellow Johnson really was, and how he would
willingly break the law to further his political goals.

In case you missed it, the president can not command military judges,
only the "Judge Advocates General" can do so. All the president
can, legally, do is to ask the court to take his testimony.

(Issac Goldberg) wrote in message . com...
Your entire argument fails because you assume that all of
Johnson's actions were 'legal.'

One spectacular example of Lyndon Johnson violating the law
was his theft of the 1948 Senate election in Texas by means
of vote fraud.

Johnson was a pretty smart SOB. He knew that all his communication
with Kidd would be recorded. Had Johnson given Kidd a clear proof
that Johnson commited illegal acts, Kidd would have the power to
roast Johnson's ass either by the Senate or by the JAG.

Johnson just could not be that stupid.

wrote in message om...
In case you missed it, the president can not command military judges,
only the "Judge Advocates General" can do so. All the president
can, legally, do is to ask the court to take his testimony.

(Issac Goldberg) wrote in message . com...
Your entire argument fails because you assume that all of
Johnson's actions were 'legal.'

One spectacular example of Lyndon Johnson violating the law
was his theft of the 1948 Senate election in Texas by means
of vote fraud.

Johnson was a pretty smart SOB. He knew that all his communication
with Kidd would be recorded. Had Johnson given Kidd a clear proof
that Johnson commited illegal acts, Kidd would have the power to
roast Johnson's ass either by the Senate or by the JAG.

Johnson just could not be that stupid.

Johnson was certainly not stupid.

If he knew his conversations would be recorded, he was
powerful enough to have the recordings erased.

On 6 Jul 2004 09:00:29 -0700, (Issac
Goldberg) wrote:

wrote in message om...
In case you missed it, the president can not command military judges,
only the "Judge Advocates General" can do so. All the president
can, legally, do is to ask the court to take his testimony.

(Issac Goldberg) wrote in message . com...
Your entire argument fails because you assume that all of
Johnson's actions were 'legal.'

One spectacular example of Lyndon Johnson violating the law
was his theft of the 1948 Senate election in Texas by means
of vote fraud.

Johnson was a pretty smart SOB. He knew that all his communication
with Kidd would be recorded. Had Johnson given Kidd a clear proof
that Johnson commited illegal acts, Kidd would have the power to
roast Johnson's ass either by the Senate or by the JAG.

Johnson just could not be that stupid.

Johnson was certainly not stupid.

If he knew his conversations would be recorded, he was
powerful enough to have the recordings erased.

Magnetic personality ?
--
Jim Watt
http://www.gibnet.com

Johnson was a pretty smart SOB. He knew that all his communication
with Kidd would be recorded. Had Johnson given Kidd a clear proof
that Johnson commited illegal acts, Kidd would have the power to
roast Johnson's ass either by the Senate or by the JAG.

Johnson just could not be that stupid.

(Issac Goldberg) wrote in message . com...
Johnson was certainly not stupid.

If he knew his conversations would be recorded, he was
powerful enough to have the recordings erased.

How?
The command to destory the naval records would have to pass several
hands between the president and the corporal that would press the
"erase" botton. Every hand along the way would be a risk factor that
could take an interest in the records just because the president wanted
them erased.

wrote:

How?
The command to destory the naval records would have to pass several
hands between the president and the corporal that would press the
"erase" botton. Every hand along the way would be a risk factor that
could take an interest in the records just because the president wanted
them erased.

Well, here is one way to do it:

July 9, 2004
Pentagon Says Bush Records of Service Were Destroyed
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL, The New York Times

HOUSTON, July 8 - Military records that could help establish President
Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air
National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently
destroyed, according to the Pentagon.

It said the payroll records of "numerous service members," including
former First Lt. Bush, had been ruined in 1996 and 1997 by the Defense
Finance and Accounting Service during a project to salvage
deteriorating microfilm. No back-up paper copies could be found, it
added in notices dated June 25.

The destroyed records cover three months of a period in 1972 and 1973
when Mr. Bush's claims of service in Alabama are in question.

The disclosure appeared to catch some experts, both pro-Bush and con,
by surprise. Even the retired lieutenant colonel who studied Mr.
Bush's records for the White House, Albert C. Lloyd of Austin, said it
came as news to him.

The loss was announced by the Defense Department's Office of Freedom
of Information and Security Review in letters to The New York Times
and other news organizations that for nearly half a year have sought
Mr. Bush's complete service file under the open-records law.

There was no mention of the loss, for example, when White House
officials released hundreds of pages of the President's military
records last February in an effort to stem Democratic accusations that
he was "AWOL" for a time during his commitment to fly at home in the
Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director who has said
that the released records confirmed the president's fulfillment of his
National Guard commitment, did not return two calls for a response.

The disclosure that the payroll records had been destroyed came in a
letter signed by C. Y. Talbott, chief of the Pentagon's Freedom of
Information Office, who forwarded a CD-Rom of hundreds of records that
Mr. Bush has previously released, along with images of punch-card
records. Sixty pages of Mr. Bush's medical file and some other records
were excluded on privacy grounds, Mr. Talbott wrote.

He said in the letter that he could not provide complete payroll
records, explaining, "The Defense Finance and Accounting Service
(DFAS) has advised of the inadvertent destruction of microfilm
containing certain National Guard payroll records."

He went on: "In 1996 and 1997, DFAS engaged with limited success in a
project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. During this process the
microfilm payroll records of numerous service members were damaged,
including from the first quarter of 1969 (Jan. 1 to March 31) and the
third quarter of 1972 (July 1 to Sept. 30). President Bush's payroll
records for these two quarters were among the records destroyed.
Searches for backup paper copies of the missing records were
unsuccessful."

Mr. Talbott's office would not respond to questions, saying that
further information could be provided only through another Freedom of
Information application.

But Bryan Hubbard, a spokesman for Defense finance agency in Denver,
said the destruction occurred as the office was trying to unspool
2,000-foot rolls of fragile microfilm. Mr. Hubbard said he did not
know how many records were lost or why the loss had not been announced
before.

For Mr. Bush, the 1969 period when he was training to be a pilot, is
not in dispute. But in May 1972, he moved to Alabama to work on a
political campaign and, he has said, to perform his Guard service
there for a year. But other Guard officers have said they had no
recollection of ever seeing him there. The most evidence the White
House has been able to find are records showing Mr. Bush was paid for
six days in October and November 1972, without saying where, and the
record of a dental exam at a Montgomery, Ala., air base on Jan. 6,
1973.

On June 22, The Associated Press filed suit in federal court in New
York against the Pentagon and the Air Force to gain access to all the
president's military records.

The lost payroll records stored in Denver might have answered some
questions about whether he fulfilled his legal commitment, critics who
have written about the subject said in interviews.

"Those are records we've all been interested in," said James Moore,
author of a recent book, "Bush's War for Re-election," which takes a
critical view of Mr. Bush's service record. "I think it's curious that
the microfiche could resolve what days Mr. Bush worked and what days
he was paid, and suddenly that is gone."

But Mr. Moore said the president could still authorize the release of
other withheld records that would shed light on his service record.

Among the issues still disputed is why, according to released records,
Mr. Bush was suspended from flying on Aug. 1, 1972. The reason cited
in the records is "failure to accomplish annual medical examination."

Mr. Bartlett, the White House spokesman, said in February that Mr.
Bush felt he did not need to take the physical as he was no longer
flying planes in Alabama. Mr. Lloyd, the retired colonel who studied
the records, gave a similar explanation in an interview.

But Mr. Lloyd said he was surprised to be told of the destruction of
the pay records that might have resolved some questions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/09/po...09records.html