An Open Letter to Stockholders of Corporate USA

By: Herbert M. Greenberg, Ph.D.

I have been a corporate CEO for 43 years. Over the years, my company has helped scores of organizations, large and small, to select CEO’s and evaluate their performance. As a stockholder in a great institution – the United States – I, along with millions of other stockholders, have a critical decision to make: Do we fire or rehire our CEO based on our evaluation of his performance? A CEO needs to demonstrate that he or she is capable of continually moving that institution in a progressive, steady growth manner.

In addition, a critical responsibility of a CEO is to tell the stockholders the truth when he reports to them. As Al Smith once said, “Let’s look at the record.”

1We were told that we must immediately invade Iraq for three critical reasons:

A. Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that could be used against us.

B. Iraq had atomic weapons that could create a mushroom cloud over the U.S.

C. There was a direct connection between Iraq and al Qaeda – the perpetrators of 9/11.

These allegations have been irrefutably proven false. After turning Iraq inside-out,

not a single weapon of mass destruction has been found, no evidence of Iraq’s atomic capability has been presented, and unanimous testimony has indicated no connection between al Qaeda and Saddam.

Without these threats, there was clearly no need for “immediate” war. There was time to at least make efforts toward diplomatic solutions, efforts favored by Colin Powell and so many others, and if war was proved necessary, just maybe there would have been unanimity as in 1991.

2 When stockholders criticized our CEO for leading us into war under false pretenses – another falsehood was put forward to justify the ill-advised action – the reason to invade Iraq is the fact that Saddam is evil. There are few stockholders in corporate America who don’t agree that Saddam is one of the most evil people on earth and has acted in a manner that is, to say the least, reprehensible. However, no mention is made of the fact that he gassed and used chemical weapons on the Kurds that we provided, and, oh yes, he appeared to use them in Iran, but that was okay because we didn’t like the Iranians. For so many years Saddam has been evil, but he was “our” evil guy. Thus, can we accept our CEO’s belated claim that we invaded Iraq because of Saddam’s evil actions? Or, we must ask our CEO – hopefully before we rehire him – does he plan now to use the US as a weapon to eliminate all those bad guys around the world – some at least as bad as Saddam?

3 Was faulty intelligence the reason for immediately going to war? If so, why were not the providers of that faulty intelligence fired? They were not. In addition, there is a great deal of evidence from Paul O’Neill, former Secretary of the Treasury, Richard Clarke, and others that there was absolutely no consistent intelligence pointing to weapons of mass destruction or connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. To further compound the felony, evidence has been provided by former Secretary O’Neill and others that as early as 10 days after our CEO took office, he indicated his plans to invade Iraq – before 9/11 – before evidence of atomic capabilities, etc. Immediately after 9/11, he demanded of Colin Powell, Richard Clarke and others, that they find a connection between al Qaeda and Iraq despite the fact that they loudly indicated that they were unable to find such connection.

4Our CEO assured us that given our capabilities and high-tech, pin-point bombing, few civilians would be affected – there would be “little collateral damage.” The proven reality is that thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children have in fact been killed.

5Following September 11^th, the outpouring of love and support from the whole world was extraordinary, reminding one of the world’s reaction when President Kennedy was shot. Our CEO has single-handedly caused that universal feeling of love and support to totally erode through his unilateral invasion of a country that played no part in 9/11. Now, when one visits Germany, Mexico, Canada, England, Spain, Hungary, The Czech Republic and Australia, not even to speak of the Muslin world, all that’s heard is enormous negativity directed to the United States, but particularly towards our CEO. As stockholders, we need to listen, once again, to the rest of the world, since good business and common sense indicates that we must do business with the rest of the world. We now stand alone in the world – feared, rather than respected, and trapped in what appears to be an endless morass in Iraq, having contributed to the growth, not to the destruction of terrorism.

6A recent myth perpetrated by our CEO and his executive team is the fact that the attack on Madrid’s subways is an example of what happens as a result of appeasement, and that some how the election of a socialist in Spain is evidence of “giving in” to terrorism. The reality is that even in the countries that are allegedly part of the coalition, a vast majority of their people were strongly against the war. In Spain, for example, polls showed 90% of the Spanish people were against Spain’s involvement and when they paid the price of that horrific terrorist attack, that point was driven home to them. The Spanish Government joined us – their people did not; the Australian Government joined us – their people did not. Even England’s Government joined us – their people did not. Is that good business – is that the action of a balanced CEO? A recent study conducted by the University of Maryland indicated that out of 35 countries, the substantial majority of people preferred Kerry to Bush. In Europe, only Poland by a small majority preferred Bush.

7As we went to war, our CEO said that we would not have to bear the burden alone. Many other nations would share the burden with us. There is no one, including the most loyal supporters of our CEO who cannot laugh at this today. The war has gone a long way to hurt our economy, to contribute to the running up of the most massive deficit in our history and, again, not even to mention the lives lost. Few countries are in fact sharing in these costs and even some of those are now pulling out. We are essentially standing alone with a reluctant England and a reluctant Australia – governments not their people standing with us.

8CEO’s are charged with presenting their stockholders with valid projections of what the next year would have in store. Our CEO indicated, first on the aircraft carrier last April that it was “Mission Accomplished.” Second, earlier than that, he projected that our troops would be greeted with dancing in the streets and bouquets of flowers thrown at our soldiers. The reality of course, has been that we lost far more people after “mission accomplished” than prior, and the only things thrown at us have been suicide attacks, Molotov cocktails, car bombs, etc. Each month brings greater casualties – now over 1,000 American deaths, 7,000 plus injuries and 14,000 Iraqi men women and children. And there is no end in sight.

9Our CEO incorrectly indicated that we would be safer if we invaded Iraq. Iraq is a quagmire, al Qaeda is stronger and more active than ever, largely because we did not act promptly to destroy the enemy that attacked us while devoting our attention to attacking an uninvolved country.

10 Would we in fact be safer if we had immediately – immediately after 9/11 – gone into Afghanistan where the perpetrators were, with full military power, and obliterated the enemy that carried out that dastardly attack? Could we not have captured Osama Bin Laden and broken the back of al Qaeda terror? Rather, we waited a month and a half, put a few troops on the ground, and depended on ill-trained Afghani’s to do the job. Where we flexed our muscles was against Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. We let the culprits escape and did not deal with Saudi Arabia – 15 of whose citizens were in those suicide planes, or Iran, which indeed harbored terrorists and possesses atomic capabilities.

11 Further, how did our CEO “dare” to allow air planes to pick up 24 relatives of Osama Bin Laden shortly after 9/11, not allow them to be interrogated by the FBI or CIA, and fly them to Paris, where they were out of our reach? Isn’t it possible that one or two of those relatives might have given us a clue as to where Bin Laden was, or what his plans were, etc? Given the tight relationship between our CEO, the Saudi royal family, and the Bin Laden family, might there not be at least the appearance of insider trading here?

12 Speaking of insider trading, we are concerned that our CEO had very close relations with the Taliban while he was Governor of Texas. While our CEO was still Governor of Texas, they were wined and dined and, in fact, discussions were held relating to quid pro quo’s even after our CEO was elected. While 10 days after he assumed office, he indicated a desire to attack Iraq, at around the same time he installed Zalmay Khalilzad – who had previously stated that, “The Taliban are not into exporting revolution. Nor are they hostile to the United States.” A CEO must be responsible for his appointments – wouldn’t you agree?

13 We must ask what have we done to stop Saudi Arabia’s support (to the tune of millions of dollars) to help the families of suicide bombers and to support schools growing terrorists?

14 There has been much talk about our CEO’s competence in protecting us against terrorism. There is a great deal of evidence that little attention was paid to the war on terrorism between our CEO’s appointment on January 20, 2001 and September 11, 2001. Richard Clarke had prepared an aggressive plan for that war on terrorism under the Clinton administration, which he presented to our CEO’s subordinates prior to his assuming office. At the same time, a bi-partisan commission, co-chaired by former Senator Gary Hart (D) and former Senator Warren Rudman (R) filed a unanimous report in January of 2001 outlining an aggressive plan to fight terrorism, including their suggestion to establish a Department of Homeland Security. No definitive discussion was held on either of these plans until September 4, 2001, at which discussion our CEO was not present. Even according to Brent Scowcroft, Foreign Policy Advisor under Bush 41, there was far too much interest in Iraq as compared to the more vital interest in fighting the genuine war on terrorism.

While our CEO has concentrated on a war which we obviously did not need to fight, which has killed and injured thousands, he has left the needs of his stockholders largely unmet.

15 When our CEO applied for the job, he talked about, “No Child Left Behind.” His performance on the job, however, has left many children behind. Eight educational programs have been dropped or sharply reduced, including Head Start, After School and more. Simply put, children are far more behind today than before our CEO assumed his responsibilities.

16 Our CEO also indicated that he would embark on massive conservation efforts, and efforts to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. All conservation groups unfortunately feel that pollution has worsened in these past 3-1/2 years, conservation has eroded and we are certainly at least as dependent on foreign oil – and little or no efforts have been made to develop alternative energy sources.

17 When our current CEO took office, our institution had a budget surplus of $230 Billion. This surplus was achieved with full employment and without inflation. During our current CEO’s stewardship, this surplus has become more than a $400 Billion deficit and growing, and the jobless rate is unacceptably high. It should be added that the beginnings of the shift from surplus to deficit occurred before 9/11 and, of course, well before the costs involved in the Iraq war.

18 Our CEO submitted an expensive Medicare bill allegedly designed to help seniors. Many seniors opposed the bill, and expensive as the initial submission was, the actual tab was more than 30% higher.

19 More people than ever – some 43 Million – are without health insurance including children in the millions.

To sum it up simply, our institution is certainly less well off than it was when our current CEO took office. In the face of growing deficits, our CEO has provided tax cuts to the rich – those who least need them, with the resultant cut in programs desperately needed by the less fortunate.

We as stockholders living in this great country have a choice – we can rehire our current CEO, give him a contract for another four years and hope that, given the fact that he will not face another election, he somehow will do better. In viewing performance of scores of CEO’s over the past four-plus decades, I can state with a great deal of certainty that any two or three of the failings indicated above, would have meant instant dismissal of a CEO. The entire world is looking to our stockholders to hold our CEO accountable and to replace him with someone with whom they can again be allied. What message do we send to the world if we affirm our CEO’s action by reelecting him? The suggestion of giving that CEO another unbreakable four-year contract, should be dismissed by the stockholders in corporate USA. We now have that decision to make. I think the decision is clear – this CEO has failed us and must be replaced.

Herbert M. Greenberg, Ph.D.

President and CEO

Caliper

506 Carnegie Center Drive

Suite 300

Princeton, NJ 08543

Scowcroft, Brent, “Don’t Attack Saddam.” Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2002

Huffington, Ariana, “Pigs at the Trough.” Random House, 2003

Franken, Al, “Lies, and The Lying Liars Who Tell Them…A Fair and Balance Look at the Right.” Warner Books, 2003

Moore, Michael, “Dude, Where’s My Country?” Warner Books, 2003

Suskind, Ron, “The Price of Loyalty” Simon and Schuster, 2004

Phillips, Kevin, “American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceipt in the House of Bush” Viking Books 2004

Woodward, Bob “Plan of Attack.” Simon and Schuster, 2004

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