As usual with the former president, he began his remarks with a usual scare story. This one began with the influenza pandemic of 1918.

‘At this moment, there is no pandemic influenza in the United States or the world. But if history is our guide, there is reason to be concerned. In the last century, our country and the world have been hit by three influenza pandemics -- and viruses from birds contributed to all of them. The first, which struck in 1918, killed over half-a-million Americans and more than 20 million people across the globe...’

He was remarkably candid about the imminent danger to the American people:

‘Scientists and doctors cannot tell us where or when the next pandemic will strike, or how severe it will be, but most agree: at some point, we are likely to face another pandemic. And the scientific community is increasingly concerned by a new influenza virus known as H5N1 -- or avian flu...’

Mr. Bush went on to stress,

‘At this point, we do not have evidence that a pandemic is imminent. Most of the people in Southeast Asia who got sick were handling infected birds. And while the avian flu virus has spread from Asia to Europe, there are no reports of infected birds, animals, or people in the United States. Even if the virus does eventually appear on our shores in birds, that does not mean people in our country will be infected. Avian flu is still primarily an animal disease. And as of now, unless people come into direct, sustained contact with infected birds, it is unlikely they will come down with avian flu.’

Despite the admission of absence of a clear and present danger to the American public, the President called on Congress to immediately pass a new $7.1 billion in emergency funding to prepare for that not-imminent, not-pandemic, possible-in-the-future danger. The speech was an exercise in the Administration’s now-famous ‘pre-emptive war,’ this one against Avian Flu. As with the other pre-emptive wars, there is a multiple agenda—one might say, killing two birds with one stone, were it not so tasteless.

Prominent among the President’s list of emergency measures was a call for Congress to appropriate another $1 billion explicitly for Tamiflu.

Conflict of interest or insider trading?

The real point of interest is the company in California who developed Tamiflu, Gilead Sciences, listed on the NASDAQ as (GILD). US Secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, was Chairman of the Board of Gilead Sciences from 1997 until early 2001 when he became Defense Secretary.

A as-yet-unconfirmed report is that Rumsfeld recently purchased additional stock in his former company, Gilead Sciences, worth $18 million, making him one of its largest if not the largest stock owners today. Whether that is true or not, when the Bird Flu scare was just heating up, according to a report in a November 2005 issue of Fortune magazine, the Defense Secretary decided not to sell his many shares in Gilead so as to ‘avoid being accused of insider trading.’ If true, that meant Mr. Rumsfeld, apparently not one to shy away from turning a fast buck, had bagged an eye-popping windfall, as demand for Tamiflu worldwide exploded. On October of the same year the Pentagon announced it had stockpiled quantities of Tamiflu for members of the military.

Since early 2001 when Rumsfeld left the board of Gilead Sciences to become Defense Secretary, Gilead’s stock price has gone from around $7 per share to just a hair above $50 a share in 2005. The future price direction? The stratosphere, especially since the President made it an explicit goal of the US ‘flu defense pre-emptive war’ on November 1, 2005.

Gilead, which signed over the world marketing rights to Hoffmann-LaRoche, gets 10% of every dose of Tamiflu sold. Gilead was presently in a legal battle to retake 100% marketing control as well.

From $7 to $50 translated into a neat 720% profit for Mr. Rumsfeld’s Gilead stock holdings since he went to Washington in 2001 and up until 2005. Since the start of the carefully orchestrated current Bird Flu hysteria in March of 2005, Rummy’s Gilead stocks have gained a neat 56% alone.

That might explain why, instead of dumping his shares as one might expect from an honest government official wanting to avoid a conflict of interest, he instead opted to buy another $18 million worth. Curiously, the Secretary waited until October 26, 2005 before issuing an official Department of Defense press statement that he had ‘recused’ himself from involvement in any future Pentagon decisions involving Gilead Sciences. By then, of course, the horse had long burst out of the barn door and the price of Gilead was racing at full gallop as the Pentagon and the Administration had already decided to stockpile millions of doses of Tamiflu.

The reliable Washington friend, Britain’s Tony Blair, ordered the UK Government to buy enough Tamiflu drugs to supply 25% of the 56 million British citizens. Mr Blair seemed always ready to help his friends in Washington whether backing Washington’s war against WMD in Iraq or Tamiflu.

The Secretary of Defense, the man who allegedly supported the use of contrived intelligence to justify the war on Iraq, who oversaw billions of dollars in Pentagon no-bid contracts to Bechtel and Halliburton corporations, is now poised to reap huge gains for a flu panic his Administration has done everything it could to promote.

The Gilead model also suggests a parallel to the Halliburton Corporation, whose former CEO is Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney’s company has so far gotten billions worth of US construction contracts in Iraq and elsewhere. Is it just a coincidence that Cheney’s closest political friend is Defense Secretary and Avian Flu beneficiary, Donald Rumsfeld?

The Defense Secretary was an accomplished hand at getting the government to buy vaccines from companies in which he had a direct financial interest. Recall the scare just following the events of September 11, 2001. One of the terror scenarios discussed widely by the Administration was a possible release of a deadly smallpox attack that would devastate the American population.

In November 2001 the Administration reversed a two decade policy. On the advice of the Pentagon and others in the Administration, the President ordered that the US’ remaining stock of smallpox microbes, stored at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, not be destroyed as the world community had been urging, but be kept until new vaccines were developed.

In saying all that I remain a huge skeptic on this latest round of flu reports. The media is spinning this story like there already is a pandemic of colossal proportions. It just infuriates me to listen to them.

I find it to convenient that this flu scare came out at a time when the heat was on Cheney and the 'memos.' Did Cheney create this flu scare for his own sick agenda? Hard to prove but I say he would stoop lower than a snake's belly to take the heat off himself.

Now the GOP stripped the flu pandemic preparedness from the stimulus??