Jack Kemp trashes Kerry (with video)

Despite using foundation letterhead, Morrow said the request for the plane was a private effort by the movie producer Jack Abramoff to aid the Kemp campaign. She at first blamed the whole thing on Abramoff, whose movie, "Red Scorpion," was apparently financed in part by South African intelligence, as reported last week by Newsday. Morrow finally admitted that she was probably skirting with illegality. "It sounds to me from what I know now what I was suggesting didn't sound legal," she said.

Abramoff, a former IFF official who has denied receiving money from South African intelligence, also said he did try to organize a plane for the Kemp campaign but couldn't because "a lawyer told me it couldn't be done." At one point, he said the deal fell through simply because "I didn't personally have the resources."

This week, we saw the first person to plead guilty in the oil- for-food case, Samir Vincent, an Iraq-American businessman who bought oil from Iraq and resold it at a great profit. Baghdad also gave him hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby to get sanctions lifted on his country.

Vincent was convicted among other things of failing to register as an agent of a foreign government. Since the Justice Department says Vincent tried to lobby former Clinton and Bush administration officials on behalf of Saddam Hussein, it was only a matter of time since a name or two was disclosed.

However, there's absolutely no indication whatsoever that the people who met with Vincent did anything improper.

Former Republican vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp confirms to CNN he answered questions about Vincent from the FBI several months ago. He said he cooperated fully and that they had no further questions. Kemp told CNN he met with Vincent after the Iraqi-American called after reading a column Kemp wrote on the Middle East on economic development.

At one point, Kemp put Vincent's name on a planned committee to establish a Marshall Plan in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. He was one of two dozen people on that list, but the committee never got started.

Kemp says he never advocated with the Bush administration a program for sanctions to be lifted. First, Kemp said, there needed to be full access for weapons inspectors.

Kemp says his ideas on Iraq were rebuffed by the Bush administration.

Former President Jimmy Carter also crossed paths with Samir Vincent. He was present when Carter met with Iraqi clerics in early 1999 to hear their views on the plight of children in Iraq and the impact of U.S. sanctions.

Jimmy Carter has not been interviewed by the FBI and says he did not lobby the Bush administration to get sanctions lifted.

Another Washington figure, former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, reportedly gave a good reference on Vincent to Kemp. Carlucci and his firm, The Carlisle Group, deny doing any business with Vincent or his company, Phoenix International.

Another name on Kemp's proposed committee, former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. He says he never heard of or met Vincent -- Kitty.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0501/21/ldt.01.html

Dick Cheney has a history of lobbying to lift sanctions in countries where Halliburton was doing, or hoped to do, business. Those countries include Burma (he signed an amicus brief against the Massachusetts Burma Law), Libya, Iran and Azerbaijan. During the 2000 presidential campaign, he acknowledged that Halliburton — through off-shore subsidiaries — did business in those countries but insisted “Iraq’s different.”

Jack Kemp, former Republican Vice Presidential candidate and former head of the anti-tax group Freedomworks — which coordinated artificial folksy townhalls for President Bush’s Social Security tour last year — also lobbied to have the sanctions regime against Iraq lifted. According to MSNBC, Kemp has been questioned by the FBI about his dealings with Samir Vincent, a major player in the OFF scandal who was indicted for lobbying on behalf of Iraq in exchange for millions of dollars in illicit funds.

Kemp, James Baker, Samir Vincent and former Reagan Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci — now Chairman of the Carlyle Group — all sat on a committee to promote “economic development” in the Middle East organized by Kemp in 2003. According to MSNBC, “Carlucci told Kemp that Vincent was a ‘good guy,’ said Kemp, who added that Carlucci and Vincent were tennis partners.”

And then there are the contributors. Among the biggest American players in the Iraqi markets were Bayoil (registered in the U.S. and the Bahamas), the Valero Energy Group and Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt (working through several different corporations he owned, and as an individual).

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/13/debunking-the-right-the-world-did-not-see-the-iraqi-threat-as-bush-did