George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 150

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“I’m back.”

A familiar face entered the Oval Office. It was the Chief of Staff, finally back after a week-long vacation.

“It’s been a while. Did you enjoy your vacation?”

“Well, I hope you can say that with your hand on your heart.”

This was usually a roundabout way of asking if he felt guilty, but Bush confidently placed his hand on his massive chest and pretended to ponder, before opening his mouth with the confident and dignified voice of a U.S. President.

“No problem here.”

“There are many.”

Bush looked genuinely incredulous because ‘he’ really didn’t feel guilty at all. This was him being as restrained as possible. Originally, he had planned to move around alone within the country without any escorts.

“No, why?”

“First of all, let’s just skip over the fact that you showed up at the airport unannounced and unidentified to test the stealth helicopter’s performance. The airport’s security awareness has significantly increased, with everyone wondering what would have happened if you had been a terrorist.”

The Chief of Staff was usually very stingy with praise. This stinginess was only because Bush had ordered it that way, believing that getting too excited could lead to a critical mistake somewhere down the line.

“But you were moving around alone in England. Isn’t that right?”

“That was all for security. There aren’t many people in the world who can transport classified documents more safely than the U.S. President.”

Of course, that was only a secondary reason; the real reason was that he just wanted to move around alone. Also, his friend had been talking so much that he was really curious about a village in Scotland.

“In that case, why didn’t you just entrust it to one of those few people?”

At those words, Bush looked away. There weren’t many people in the world who could extract information like a ghost without making a sound in a foreign country, and it was incredibly difficult to get such people to move, but Bush was someone who could entrust it to those few people.

“More than anything, the Federal Assembly is in an uproar. I heard that the Afghanistan matter was conducted unilaterally.”

The Afghanistan matter was conducted entirely on Bush’s own initiative, so the Federal Assembly was unaware of it. Naturally, no matter how much the Israeli government inquired with AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying group], there was no way AIPAC could know something that even the Federal Assembly didn’t know. The only answers they could give to Israel were that they were looking into it or that they didn’t know.

“Is it not working?”

“Does it seem like it?”

“Yeah.”

He felt himself aging rapidly as soon as he returned. The Chief of Staff took a deep breath and recited the Lord’s Prayer internally. The Chief of Staff hoped he could endure like Jesus, who willingly endured persecution and oppression for a greater cause.

After enduring internally several times, he felt a burning sensation in his stomach. If he collapsed here, who would stop that man? The Chief of Staff decided to ignore the strange signals his body was sending and continue the conversation.

“I heard you’re going to Korea tomorrow.”

“To be exact, Korea and Japan.”

Because it was finally the opening day of the 2002 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by Korea and Japan.

Normally, the United States, being a completely foreign country except for being an ally, wouldn’t be involved, but this time was special in many ways. That was because Bush was the one who had forcibly reconciled the countries that had been divided for 50 years and liquidated the past. In simple terms, it meant that he had finally ended the long war and brought peace.

Of course, there were no fruits without a price. One leader, whose name started with Kim and ended with Il, was secretly sacrificed, but that was a completely separate story. In any case, at Korea’s suggestion, the U.S. President would personally grace the opening ceremony with a speech.

To be exact, it was more like a special guest appearance, but no one disagreed that it was an unusual event.

“I know you don’t usually look at the speech draft, but there’s something you need to know.”

“There’s been a change in the name.”

“Name change?”

“To be exact, it’s the South-North Korea-Japan World Cup.”

“What?”

The World Cup is either the Korea-Japan World Cup, so what is this South-North Korea-Japan thing? It even looked childish at first glance.

“The Korean government seems to want to emphasize that the Korean Peninsula will soon be unified. Actually, the name hasn’t been officially changed; it’s only for domestic use in Korea. So, it’s an unofficial name. So, if you use this name in your speech…”

“So, South-North Korea-Japan World Cup in Korean. Korea is great. Kimchi is great. If I say that a few times, the Korean government will be overjoyed, right?”

“That’s right, but aren’t you being too blatant?”

In the early 2000s, this was exactly the kind of thing that would work. Frankly, he knew what it would be like in about 10 years, so he didn’t really want to do it, but if he thought of it as an extension of diplomacy, it was tolerable.

“What if it’s blatant? So, is there anything else to say?”

The Chief of Staff once again experienced the mystery of patience.

“There’s a lot, but if we start discussing it in detail, it seems like it will never end. It seems like it would take all day to resolve just one issue.”

There were more important things to do right now. These trivial stories were enough to talk about after retirement.

“Um. So.”

“It’s quite piled up.”

When Bush turned his head, he saw a pile of reports in the corner of the office, several times larger than usual. He wanted to shout that this couldn’t be real, but what did it matter? He had to look at them all one by one from now on.

“Let’s begin.”

With delicate and careful hands, like a surgeon starting an operation, he picked up the paper at the very top of the report building. Finally, the all-too-familiar routine began again. The pleasant days of enjoying business trips disguised as travel had disappeared beyond the horizon of time.

“Oh, this isn’t good from the start.”

“What? What is it?”

“The content itself isn’t a big deal. Frankly, I don’t know why this was even reported.”

Looking at it directly, the content itself really wasn’t a big deal. The problem was the ripple effect that would occur because of this content.

“What is this? Flint city water contamination?”

“Yes, it’s a problem, but it’s not serious enough to be reported here. It seems like someone filtered it wrong…”

“Look into this in detail. Does it catch fire if you put a flame to the water or something?”

“Excuse me? Fire to the water?”

Why would water catch fire, of all things? He was worried that he might have hurt his head while he was away, but Bush looked really serious. He rummaged through the reports, looking through the additional data inserted in between, and the point was that the lead levels in the water were high.

“There’s no mention of fire.”

“What? Then I guess not.”

Anyway, the Flint city lead poisoning incident was clearly in Kim Gap-hwan’s memory. Flint city originally received water through the Detroit water system, but in 2014, Flint city changed its water source to the Flint River. The problem was that the Flint River water was so acidic that it was not suitable for use as tap water, and it was not even good for industrial use.

There was Detroit’s exploitation and Flint city’s decision to somehow endure for a short time, as they could solve the water supply problem in a year or two. They tried to add chlorine to the already terrible water to use it, but this actually caused carcinogens.

Anyway, in a very short time, the lead pipes corroded rapidly, and as a result, Flint city produced 100,000 lead poisoning victims. It was a complete mess.

“Looking at it in detail, it’s worth reporting here.”

But the problem was why this happened in 2002.

‘Maybe it’s because of the massive infrastructure overhaul.’

As expected, after looking up the data, they had completely removed and replaced the water pipes. But here, the same problem occurred beyond time.

‘Even if people change, the position and situation don’t change, so the same thing happens?’

It was really frustrating. These things happened regardless of the country. It wasn’t like there weren’t similar incidents in Korea. In mid-2019, the incidents of red rust and black water coming out in all sorts of places, including Incheon, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Gwangju, Chuncheon, Cheongju, Pohang, and Pyeongtaek, were famous.

‘In fact, that was the last news I saw.’

Bush tapped the corner of the desk with his fingernails, looking slightly anxious. Rust coming out of the water was not a big deal in a day or two, but the above incidents were not temporary, but cases where water unsuitable for drinking came out for more than a week.

And in the case of Flint city, the problem was that it was caused by cutting budgets here and there in a roundabout way to save money, and 40% of the residents who were trying to respond were people with very low economic levels. If they couldn’t use tap water, they had to buy bottled water right away, but can’t you roughly guess how the household budget would work if they had to buy bottled water with their meager income?

In addition, Flint city had plenty of opportunities to prevent the corrosion of lead pipes by injecting minerals. However, the fact that lead poisoning occurred even though the Federal Assembly was investing enough budget meant that even the excuse of trying to save money was not valid.

‘It may not be a budget problem, but at least it doesn’t seem like a good reason.’

“Chief of Staff. You’ll have to suffer a bit as soon as you get back.”

“What do you need?”

“Fly to Flint right now. Put in a call.”

Bush was already getting up from his seat as he said that. If Bush’s hunch was right, this was a situation that could never be overlooked. And 100,000 people may seem small at first glance, but Flint is an area where 430,000 people live, and 100,000 of them live in the city. In other words, most of the people living in the city were poisoned.

And Bush had no intention of just letting this go.

“No, what about those reports?”

However, the Chief of Staff also had no intention of just letting this disaster go. The piles of reports that had accumulated like mountains in a week. Of course, if it increased further here, it would be absolutely impossible to handle.

Bush looked back and forth between the reports and the Chief of Staff before uttering a single word.

“Move them.”

With his one word, the piles of documents were moved from the office to the office on Air Force One.