White House backs off pledge to release all Bush Guard records

By Mike Allen and Lois Romano
The Washington Post

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Bush's staff released a copy of a dental evaluation Bush had in the National Guard in Alabama in 1973 to rebut suggestions by Democrats who have questioned whether he ever showed up for duty there.

Bush enlisted in the Guard in 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, and became a first lieutenant and an F-102 fighter pilot before leaving in 1973 to attend Harvard Business School.

Throughout his political career, opponents have focused on May 1972 to May 1973, during which it has been unclear how he fulfilled his military service. Bush has said that he performed temporary duty in Montgomery, Ala., while he was working on a U.S. Senate campaign, but there has been no definitive proof he did so. In addition, his records for that period indicate that he no longer took military physicals and was suspended from flying.

The dental examination was performed on Jan. 6, 1973, at Dannelly Air National Guard Base, which is south of Montgomery. According to the White House, the dental exam shows Bush did report for duty in Alabama. The exam, however, was done after November 1972, when earlier reports have said Bush returned to Texas.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the administration would not necessarily make public additional records of Bush's tenure in the National Guard unless the president's aides determine that they are "relevant to this issue."

Specifically, McClellan refused to commit to releasing medical or disciplinary records that become available to the White House. Bush's aides had released payroll records and other documents on Tuesday that they thought would douse the controversy, but instead they inflamed it by raising new questions both about Bush's service records and the White House's current claims.

McClellan criticized Democrats and others who were asking new questions.

"I think what you are seeing is gutter politics," he said. "The American people deserve better. There are some who are not interested in their facts. They are simply trolling for trash."

Administration officials confirmed yesterday that the Defense Department is pulling together all of Bush's payroll, personnel and medical records from the National Guard to centralize his file.

But White House communications director Dan Bartlett was emphatic that the administration had no immediate plans to open Bush's entire file, which would include his guard medical records.
 
"These are attempts to troll for personal records for partisan advantage. We're not going to play," Bartlett said. "The goal post is being moved."

Over the past four days, a controversy that Bush's aides thought had been left in his pre-presidential past has mushroomed into a test of his credibility. It comes as he is preparing to possibly take on Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a swift boat officer in Vietnam who received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for his service in combat, in this year's election.

Although the White House has been unable to produce peers from Bush's service in Alabama, critics emerged from all quarters. Bill Burkett, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard, said in an interview with The Washington Post this week that he overheard a speaker-phone call about Bush's National Guard file in 1997, when Bush was Texas governor. Burkett said he was in a National Guard office when he overheard Joseph Allbaugh, who was then Bush's chief of staff, tell an officer in reference to Bush's military file that he "needed to make sure there was nothing to embarrass the governor."

Burkett said he later saw items from Bush's file in the trash. Bush officials and Allbaugh denied the allegations.

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