Bush's witchfinder-general had carte blanche to snoop on Americans - but then his ambitions grew too big. By John Sutherland. 25 August 2003 The Guardian 5 Few tears were shed for the departure last week of John M Poindexter. He was one of those operatives who work behind the scenes - dirtily and "deniably" - for their commander in chief. Serviceable rogues. For President Reagan, Poindexter negotiated Iran-Contra. He dutifully fell on his sword when that grimy deal came to light. Talents like Poindexter's are always in demand. Bush recalled him after 9/11, when no one was looking, to run the Total Information Awareness agency with carte blanche and limitless funding to snoop on the population of America. But it wasn't enough for him to be the administration's witchfinder-general. Poindexter (as before) had larger ambitions. Too large, as it turned out. He came to grief when a couple of senators, doing their own snooping, discovered that Poindexter was hiring experimental economists to model "terrorism futures". How, that is, could the financial markets be "gamed", to return a profit on, say, the assassination of Arafat or a WMD strike on Tel Aviv? These were not the "contingency plans" that any prudent government draws up. Poindexter was in it strictly for the money. He called his brainchild "Policy Analysis". Unfriendly commentators called it "a federal betting parlour on atrocities". Who knows, he might even be tempted to hire some freelance hitmen to shorten the odds. After all, he plays his games to win. One can see where Poindexter's bright idea originated. He was running a sophisticated version of the Ghoul Pool - a macabre game which has been given a new lease of life (so to speak) by the internet. The eponymous Ghoul Pool ( www.geocities.com/Hollywood/ Hills/1096/) proclaims itself first and best of the burgeoning "death prognostication sites". Pseudonymous players ("Reaper", "Flatliner", "Necro Nick") choose 30 celebrities they wager will snuff it within the next 12 months. You may not pick a celebrity already posted by another player. No children are eligible to be picked - even tastelessness has its limits. The contest is determined by Ghoul Pool's umpire, "Wishman". Trophies and cash prizes go to the winner. Masters of Ghoul Pool strategy avoid the usual suspects: the over-age or public figures known to be ailing. Too easy. Longshots reap the bonus points: Diana would have been worth 50 Queen Mothers in 1997. There are variations between the sites; www.stiffs.com, for example, specialises in "hate lists" (Madonna ranks consistently high). In these competitions victory goes to players who come up with the most entertainingly detestable candidates for imminent extinction. Most of us run a private ghoul pool in our heads; ranking our friends, family, and acquaintance in order of how long we estimate ("bet") they will be with us. Obituary editors, who must get their notices out while the corpse is still warm, maintain professionally efficient ghoul pools. The life-insurance and pensions industries run actuarial ghoul pools on the population at large. And political leaders, of course, have theirs. Floating prominently on the surface of George Bush's ghoul pool, although he's said nothing about it publicly, is that pesky barbudo [bearded one], who has given the last seven presidents such grief. Fidel Castro celebrated his 77th birthday on August 13. On the same day, Bush's chief campaign adviser, Karl Rove (a figure as sinister as Poindexter), predicted that, as in the last election, Florida would be "ground zero" next time round. What if Castro croaks in the run up to the 2004 election? What will play best with those all-important Cuban exile voters? Another Bay of Pigs? A full-blown US invasion? Or should America hold its hand and hope for a democratic uprising and the spontaneous restoration of Yanqui capitalism? Don't worry. Whoever replaced Poindexter will have gamed it by now, so it comes out well. For (second-term) President Bush, that is, not for Cuba. Poindexter ... serviceable rogue.