Pentagon says Bush's service records "accidentally" destroyed

Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request for National Guard records relating to the missing eight months of George W. Bush's military service, the Pentagon announced yesterday that Bush's payroll records were "inadvertently" destroyed in 1996 or 1997 during an attempt to salvage "deteriorating" microfilm.

Military records that could help establish President Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon.

It said the payroll records of "numerous service members," including former First Lt. Bush, had been ruined in 1996 and 1997 by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service during a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. No back-up paper copies could be found, it added in notices dated June 25.

The destroyed records cover three months of a period in 1972 and 1973 when Mr. Bush's claims of service in Alabama are in question.

Bryan Hubbard, a spokesman for Defense finance agency in Denver, said the destruction occurred as the office was trying to unspool 2,000-foot rolls of fragile microfilm. Mr. Hubbard said he did not know how many records were lost or why the loss had not been announced before.

Coincidentally, 1997 is the year a now-retired Texas National Guard officer says he overheard a conversation about destroying potentially embarrassing portions of Bush's service record and actually found some pages in the trash.

A former officer in the Texas National Guard said Thursday he once overheard a conversation in which there was a request to sanitize President Bush's Guard records during Bush's tenure as Texas governor.

Soon afterward, he said, he saw Bush's Guard performance review in a trash can. Bush served in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War era.

Retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, who was then an adviser to the Texas adjutant general, who in that capacity serves as the commander of the state's National Guard, made the allegations.

He said that in 1997 he overheard Joe Allbaugh -- who was Bush's chief of staff at the time -- ask Guard commander Maj. Gen. Daniel James to gather Bush's files and "make sure there wasn't anything there that would embarrass the governor."

I don't know anything about Colonel Burkett, but I do know the Bush cartel has a long history of lying. Whom should we believe?