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FAHRENHEIT 9/11 -- LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON VIGNETTE |
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by Michael Moore
Fahrenheit 9/11 -- Illustrated Screenplay &
Screencap Gallery
[Dan Brody, Author, The Halliburton Agenda] We wanted to look at which companies actually gained from September 11th. It turned up this company Carlyle Group, a multinational conglomerate that invests in heavily government-regulated industries like telecommunications, health care and particularly, defense. Both George W. Bush and George H. W. Bush worked for the Carlyle Group, the same company that counted the bin Laden family among its investors. The Carlyle Group was holding its annual investor conference on the morning of September 11th in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington D.C. At that meeting were all of the Carlyle regulars: James Baker, likely John Major, definitely George H.W. Bush, though he left the morning of September 11th. Shafiq bin Laden, who is Osama bin Laden's half brother and was in town to look after his family's investments in the Carlyle Group. All of them together in one room, watching as the planes hit the towers. And in fact, the bin Laden family was invested in one of their defense funds, which ironically meant that as the United States started increasing its defense spending, the bin Laden family stood to gain from those investments through the Carlyle Group.
[UDI Spokesman] Our commander in chief, President George W. Bush.
[George Bush] Thanks a lot.
[Michael Moore] With all the weapons companies it owned, the Carlyle Group was, in essence, the 11th largest defense contractor in the United States. It owned United Defense, makers of the Bradley armored fighting vehicle. September 11th guaranteed that United Defense was going to have a very good year. Just six weeks after 9/11 Carlyle filed to take United Defense public and in December made a one-day profit of $237 million. But sadly, with so much attention focused on the bin Laden family being important Carlyle investors the bin Ladens eventually had to withdraw. Bush's dad, though, stayed on as senior adviser to Carlyle's Asia board for another two years. |
