United Defence owned by Carlyle Group
by and thats only the begining Friday May 02, 2003 at 01:50 AM


Can you believe no one has yet mentioned this regarding his visit? The list goes on and on

From a February 2003 Guardian:
"The majority stake in United Defence is owned by the Carlyle Group, an investment company which employs George Bush, the president's father, and the former British prime minister John Major as lobbyists to open doors in the US and abroad. The elder Mr Bush has converted speaking fees into Carlyle stock, and stands to benefit considerably from the crusader's reprieve."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,645491,00.html

From an April 2003 report by the Centre for Research on Globalization:
"[Carlyle] has recently signed contracts with United Defence Industries to equip the Turkish and Saudi Arabian armies with aviation defence systems.
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/NEW304A.html

From a November 2002 Assault and Pepper:
"Carlyle sold United Defence stocks on the stockmarket only one day after Congress ratified Bush'snew Defence Budget for the War Against Terror-ism (a wee $11 billion more than the previousdefence budget). Carlyle cleaned up $237 millionin one day and spokesmen for the company ad-mitted that the timing was fully intentional. Not to mention the renewed contracts that UnitedDefence received to the tune of $2 billion."
http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/pdf/news380.pdf:


Corporate Watch Newsletter Issue 11 January 2003:
"Last year, George W’s administration faced questioning over its support for the Crusader Advanced Field Artillery System, a $12 billion weapons program being built by United Defence Industries (UDI), owned by Carlyle. In September 2001, the US Army signed a $665 million contract to develop the system and in January 2002 George W signed a defence appropriation bill which included $487 million for the program. This was despite the Pentagon National Defence Panel rejecting the program as inappropriate for modern warfare as far back as 1997. The deal allowed Carlyle to float UDI on the stock exchange. The timing of the float – a couple of months after September 11th – drew criticism that the group was cashing in on terrorism."
http://www.corporatewatch.org/newsletter/issue11/isue11_part1.htm

From a June 2002 Observer:
"The group's most spectacular recent coup was to reap $400m in a stock sale of its subsidiary United Defence Industries, maker of the Crusader artillery system which most military experts argued was redundant, but which won $470m in development money from the Pentagon and whose future in the US arsenal still hangs in the balance after a series of recent meetings between the heads of Carlyle: former CIA director and defense secretary Frank Carlucci and current Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Within a month of 11 September last year, Carlucci was meeting with Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, and 10 days later offered an assessment which exactly predicted the endless-war scenario: 'We as Americans,' he said, 'have to recognise that terrorism is more or less a permanent situation.' "
http://www.observer.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,738196,00.html