Hightower Lowdown

At last, George W. has his legacy. Working with military contractors who backed his presidential runs, Bush has become history's number-one gunrunner! He has now sold or given away more war weaponry to more countries than any other U.S. president.

This year has been his best. Bush's Pentagon sales force, which acts as broker between U.S. weapons makers and foreign buyers, has produced $32 billion in sales this fiscal year, a giant leap from $12 billion in 2005. Fighter jets, missiles, tanks, drones, helicopters, warships, you-name-it--the Pentagon has been turned into a Weapons R Us mega-store for the world.

This year's rush is because it's the last of the Bush-Cheney reign, and the U.S. industry fears that the next administration might tighten up a bit on such proliferation. Bush & Company are eager to re-arm Iraq, for example, hoping to buy its long-term acquiescence to a permanent U.S. military presence in that increasingly balky nation.

Beyond Iraq, sales are-- pardon the pun--booming all around the world. Hot markets include Argentina, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Georgia, India, Morocco, and Pakistan. In Bush's first term, sales to these governments totaled less than a billion dollars; in the past four years they've-- pardon another pun--exploded to nearly $14 billion.

A Bush appointee who helps coordinate some of the biggest arms sales insists that such profligate spreading of weaponry will cement George's legacy because "this is about building a more secure world." Yeah, sure --security is no longer a blanket, it's a bomb.