Saudis Assure Bush on Stable Oil Price- Bush spokesman declines to comment

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4867352

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Saudi envoy has assured the Bush administration that it will keep oil prices in a range of $22 to $28 per barrel and will not take actions that would harm the U.S. economy, the White House said on Monday.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan declined to comment directly on remarks by journalist Bob Woodward saying that Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, had promised President Bush the Saudis would cut oil prices before November to ensure the U.S. economy was strong on election day.

But McClellan said Bandar, in recent talks at the White House, "committed to making sure prices remained in a range of, I believe, $22 to $28 per barrel of oil, and that they don't want to do anything that would harm our consumers or harm our economy."

"Prices should be determined by market forces, and we are always in close contact with producers around the world on these issues," McClellan told reporters.

more

[Sliverofhope]

1. Which, once again

means it's true.

[maddezmom]

2. guess Bandar is keeping his promise

<Woodward, author of the new book "Plan of Attack" on Bush's preparations for the Iraq war, said Prince Bandar pledged the Saudis would try to fine-tune oil prices to prime the U.S. economy for the election, a move they understood would favor Bush.

Bush has been under attack from Democrats in recent weeks for failing to stem rising domestic gasoline prices which have hit a record of $1.80 per gallon, according to the U.S. motorists group AAA.

Prince Bandar has been the Saudi envoy to the United States for 20 years and is part of the Saudi royal family, which has had a close relationship with the Bush family for years.>

question is: what did he get in return?

[NNN0LHI]

3. Maybe Bush told them he would not invade them if they played ball?

After all fifteen of the hijackers on 9/11 and the funding came from the Saudi Arabia. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Don

[maddezmom]

5. maybe bush promised not to release the redacted info on 9/11?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=495508&mesg_id=496797&page=

[maggrwaggr]

9. what did he get? Not one Saudi Arabian soldier is in Iraq

a dream come true for those guys.

Didn't cost them a dime.

Bushco works for the Saudis. They're not an "ally". They're the boss.

[Carni]

16. If you ask me they are getting Iraq in return

It just hasn't happened yet but it will.

[DU9598]

4. Email Congress and Senate members

Here is what I just sent off to Senator Grassley. I am going to send a similar message to other senators and members of congress today:

I am writing to you to urge you to immediately demand an investigation into the President's actions leading up to the war against Iraq, possibly including grounds for articles of impeachment. As I am sure you are aware, Robert Woodward has documented very disturbing findings regarding the actions of President Bush in the year leading up to the war.

As your constituent, I remember that you were seriously concerned about President Clinton's receipt of oral sex while in office. I hope that you are as seriously concerned about the lies and deceit of the Bush Administration who has entered into a quid pro quo for lower gas prices in the fall, leading up to election, with the House of Saud in return for their support of an unjust war.

The following has been documented:
Two days before the president told Powell of war planning, Cheney and Rumsfeld had already briefed Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador. "Saturday, Jan. 11, with the president's permission, Cheney and Rumsfeld called Bandar to Cheney's West Wing office, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Myers, was there with a top-secret map of the war plan." And it said, "Top secret. No foreign." No foreign means no foreigners are supposed to see this,” said Mr. Woodward in his new book. Please let me know whether you consider the Vice President and Secretary Rumsfeld to have broken the law by their actions.

I am very concerned about the following report from 60 Minutes:

"Prince Bandar enjoys easy access to the Oval Office. His family and the Bush family are close. And Woodward told 60 Minutes that Bandar has promised the president that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election - to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day. Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: "They’re high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly."

I cannot see how these serious charges cannot result in Congressional oversite of this administration via investigation. If these allegations are true, how can you not start impeachment proceedings immediately?

I look forward to hearing from you in a prompt manner.

Thank you

[NMDemDist2]

18. i sent it off to my <gag> Rep John Shadegg

he is on several committees that can look at the allegations

Energy and Commerce | Financial Services | Homeland Security

but he is a RW Repub big time, and I have yet to get a response from him on anything I've written him about.

oh well

[calimary]

27. Here's some GREAT contact info for ya...

Please note, here, The World's Greatest Lists of Media Contacts – updated April 14, 2004 – in the following thread:

LINK:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1413842#

IF THEY THINK WE DON’T CARE, THEY WON’T, EITHER!

Also - note my sig line - TOLL FREE to Capitol Hill!

Excellent job, by the way. Maybe they will try to keep ignoring you. But they won't be able to ignore several hundred of you. Or more. That's how we got Watergate, after all. The republi-CONS climbed onboard, after they realized it was no longer avoidable.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. So much doublethink here I'm dizzy

"Prices should be determined by market forces, and we are always in close contact with producers around the world on these issues," McClellan told reporters.

Wow, he can contradict himself in the same sentence!


committed to making sure prices remained in a range of, I believe, $22 to $28 per barrel of oil

It's now at $32-$35, depending on the type (Texas, Dubai, Brent etc.). How can it 'remain' at $22-$28? If Saudi Arabia aims to get the price back down to that range, it is clearly "cutting oil prices before November".

[UpInArms]

10. here's the current price of oil per barrel

CLM4 Light Sweet Crude Oil Jun (NYMEX)
37.23
+0.24

http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?s=NYMEX_CLM4

[rfkrocks]

7. Prince Babar and crew should keep their frigging hands off the election

Great-these guys love American-first they support groups which fly planes into our buildings killing almost 3,000 OF US! Then they spread hate throughout Pakistan (remember Osama-he has a base there)-talk about GOP Hypocrisy-they attacked John Kerry for having foreign leaders say they hope he wins-here Bush and his minions actually screw with the price of oil for election benefits with a corrupt foreign government-please someone I need a shot of alcohol-this is just so frigging aggravating!!!!!!!:argh:

[Just Me]

15. Especially since SA = nation supporting & funding terrorism!!!

What a circle: Bushies sleep with SA,...SA is major financial source of terrorism,...Bushies use taxpayer blood and treasure to fight a "war on terrorism".

[htuttle]

8. Of course it was true then, but will it still happen?

The pledge was made last year, before the war in Iraq (although the Saudis were well aware that Bush was going to invade Iraq at the time).

However, that was before Israel assassinated two Hamas leaders in as many months, and the Iraq invasion went haywire.

The Saudi royal family is very, very large, and somewhat diverse. They range from Bush-buddies to Osama-buddies (if that's diverse...I'm not so sure it is). In any case, Prince Bandar has to calculate not only what the Bush campaign needs to juice the economy, but also how far he can be seen to be propping up Bush without becoming entirely discredited with more militant family members at home.

In the past, the Saudi royals generally just went with whatever made them the most money, but I wonder if events of the previous year have changed that calculation -- not out of any altruistic motive, but out of fear of an uprising/power shakeup in Saudi Arabia (especially if led/cooperated with by other members of the royal family)?

Added to that is the very real need the Saudis have to make up what they have lost due to the dropping dollar. Given the amount it has dropped since this 'pledge' was made, I'd be suprised if the new 'window' for oil was 22-28 Euros, not dollars (which is about what it is right now).

And finally, I'm somewhat doubtful the Saudis can significantly increase production over what it is now. The Chinese and Indian economies have grown a lot since last year, and demand is much higher.

[fryguy]

11. I'm sick

And each new revelation about this corrupt administration just makes me sicker and sicker.....if these anti-christs get reAppointed in November, I might be forced to spend the next 4 years drunk and with my head in the toilet.....

[Dhalgren]

12. Wouldn't it be considered treason

for a government official to conspire with foreign powers to manipulate the US economy for personal gain? Isn't this impeachable?

[RoyGBiv]

17. The problem

As much as I'd like to see Bush taken to task for this, the problem with it is that he can always claim that whatever "deal" may have been discussed, it was merely in the line of his duties as President to acquire the best terms for the country. It's not unusual for heads of state to attempt to get other heads of state to use their influence to affect the market prices of goods, and it's not a treasonous action. We've been doing it as long as the country has existed.

Of course what BushCo have done here is dirty, unethical, infuriating, <insert your own term>, but it isn't actually illegal.

That said, the diversion of funds from the Afghan war could be found to be an illegal offense on the order of a high crime. That, imo, is where anyone in Congress who has any courage left should point their focus.

[Dhalgren]

22. But it seems to me that this is a completely

different animal than the one you descibed. Bush wasn't just working with foreign governments to make the best deal on trade - he was making deals to affect the presidential elections; the expressed purpose of the price fixing was to influence an election. Now that, to me, is a crime.

[RoyGBiv]

26. Yeah

I'm certainly no lawyer and can't really answer the larger question of whether anything at all illegal was done here. I just know from some research projects I've been involved with that the base act in itself is not illegal and has in fact been a part of many political resumes as a positive thing.

I think the problem would be a matter of providing direct proof of a collaboration to illegally influence market prices. Really what we have right now is essentially hearsay and deduction, which does not necessarily meet a courtroom definition of positive evidence. I know it's possible to illegally influence the market, but I'm not quite sure how that works since it seems to me a lot of what big corporations do is geared toward affecting the market.

In any case, I guess part of what I'm saying is that we should be going after the more blatant and provable misuses of Presidential power, and I think the diversion of $700,000 in funds fits that well. The manipulation of oil prices to affect the election is a good bit of information to be used in an attack ad for Kerry's campaign, especially in the hands of a good PR person, but I'm not sure it would yield results to take it anywhere else.

I want BushCo taken down, and I want him taken down hard. I would just hate to see the effort to do so get bogged down in circumstances that are subject to such widely varying interpretations.

[Ganja Ninja]

13. Dick Cheney on foreign involvement in elections...

“It is our business when a candidate for president claims the political endorsement of foreign leaders, At the very least, we have a right to know what he is saying to them that makes them so supportive of his candidacy."

[bluedog]

20. do you have

at hand the source of that quote.........need it for another board.thanks

[Ganja Ninja]

23. Here's a link:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040317-3.html

"A few days ago in Pennsylvania, a voter asked Senator Kerry directly who these foreign leaders are. Senator Kerry said, "That's none of your business." (Laughter.) But it is our business when a candidate for President claims the political endorsement of foreign leaders. At the very least, we have a right to know what he is saying to foreign leaders that makes them so supportive of his candidacy. American voters are the ones charged with determining the outcome of this election - not unnamed foreign leaders."

[Unknown Known]

14. Did the Saudis help * out also in 2000?

Just asking...but this new Woodward info certainly begs the question.

[Carni]

19. IMO yes, note the state the hijackers were in

and according to a lot of accounts they were acting more like mob guys than islamic fundies.

I have to wonder what the hell was going on down there?

[NNN0LHI]

21. I can think of one regime I won't mind seeing changed after Kerry wins

The Saudi regime has got to go.

Don

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

24. I guess they don't call him Bandar Bush for nothing. eom

http://www.mattwelch.com/NatPostSave/bandar.htm

[NJmaverick]

25. Well now we know why bush was so cocky

about winning the election. The fix was in with his Saudi oil buddies.

[farmbo]

28. Payback for Bush censoring Saudi misdeeds from Cong. 9/11 Report?

Any question now as to who was the beneficiary of Bush's censoring of those mysterious 26 pages in the Joint House/ Senate 9/11 Report last year? No doubt the 26 pages detailed his buddies in the House of Saud's involvement with and support of the 18 Saudi 9/11 hijackers.

And now they are now paying him back with a top flight election issue: bargain basement gas prices in October and November.

This is Blood Money folks!

[enough]

29. Josh Marshall has the transcript of the gaggle today

which makes it very clear that they will NOT answer the guestion, "Was there a deal?"

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

[powergirl]

30. Thanks for the link

Well, what I read from that line of questioning is the "yes" Bush had a deal with Prince Bandar. McClellan kept telling the reporter to "ask Prince Bandar" and would not answer the question - no way no how. Remember the fracas with Gore and the Buddhist Monks - how sanctimonious Bush was about letting foreigners influence our elections. That is NOTHING compared to this oil blackmail.

:mad:

[enough]

31. Yep, there are so many things he could have said

instead of "Ask Prince Bandar."

Like, "That's absurd," or "Absolutely not," or "We would never do something like that to the American people," or "No."

[powergirl]

32. IF IT WASN'T TRUE, THE WH SHOULD SUE WOODWARD

for slander. Those are very serious charges. The fact that McClellan just greases around it makes me suspicious. I checked out the freeper site and lucianne.com. That crowd isn't exactly denying the charge either. They are saying things like "well, that's another reason to vote Bush b/c if Kerry wins, the gas price will go up." Just some more of that wingnut "logic."

They did it - I just know they did. Pieces of garbage - putting our young men in women in mortal danger so the WH can play footsies with the Saudis.

:puke: