James B. Nicholson, Trustee vs. Harmon

THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

OFFICE OF THE U.S. TRUSTEE

David C. Farmer, Successor Trustee
vs.
Bobby N. Harmon

(Formerly Mary Lou Woo vs. Harmon and James Nicholson vs. Harmon)

CV05-00030 DAE/KSC

United States District Court, District of Hawaii

Judges: David A. Ezra; Kevin S. Chang

~ ~ ~

DEFENDANT’S WITNESS

RICHARD “DICK” CHENEY

United States Vice President under George W. Bush; former CEO of Halliburton.

~ ~ ~

July 10, 2009

Report: Bush surveillance
program was massive

By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration built an unprecedented surveillance operation to pull in mountains of information far beyond the warrantless wiretapping previously acknowledged, a team of federal inspectors general reported Friday, questioning the legal basis for the effort but shielding almost all details on grounds they're still too secret to reveal.

The report, compiled by five inspectors general, refers to "unprecedented collection activities" by U.S. intelligence agencies under an executive order signed by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Just what those activities involved remains classified, but the IGs pointedly say that any continued use of the secret programs must be "carefully monitored."

The report says too few relevant officials knew of the size and depth of the program, let alone signed off on it. They particularly criticize John Yoo, a deputy assistant attorney general who wrote legal memos undergirding the policy. His boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft, was not aware until March 2004 of the exact nature of the intelligence operations beyond wiretapping that he had been approving for the previous two and a half years, the report says.

Most of the intelligence leads generated under what was known as the "President's Surveillance Program" did not have any connection to terrorism, the report said. But FBI agents told the authors that the "mere possibility of the leads producing useful information made investigating the leads worthwhile."

The inspectors general interviewed more than 200 people inside and outside the government, but five former Bush administration officials refused to be questioned.

They were Ashcroft, Yoo, former CIA Director George Tenet, former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and David Addington, an aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

According to the report, Addington could personally decide who in the administration was "read into" — allowed access to — the classified program.

The only piece of the intelligence-gathering operation acknowledged by the Bush White House was the wiretapping-without-warrants effort. The administration admitted in 2005 that it had allowed the National Security Agency to intercept international communications that passed through U.S. cables without seeking court orders.

Although the report documents Bush administration policies, its fallout could be a problem for the Obama administration if it inherited any or all of the still-classified operations.

Bush started the warrantless wiretapping program under the authority of a secret court in 2006, and Congress authorized most of the intercepts in a 2008 electronic surveillance law. The fate of the remaining and still classified aspects of the wider surveillance program is not clear from the report.

The report's revelations came the same day that House Democrats said that CIA Director Leon Panetta had ordered one eight-year-old classified program shut down after learning lawmakers had never been apprised of its existence.

The IG report said that President Bush signed off on both the warrantless wiretapping and other top-secret operations shortly after Sept. 11 in a single presidential authorization. All the programs were periodically reauthorized, but except for the acknowledged wiretapping, they "remain highly classified."

The report says it's unclear how much valuable intelligence the program has yielded.

The report, mandated by Congress last year, was delivered to lawmakers Friday.

Rep. Jane Harman, D-Ca., told The Associated Press she was shocked to learn of the existence of other classified programs beyond the warrantless wiretapping.

Former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made a terse reference to other classified programs during an August 2007 letter to Congress. But Harman said that when she had asked Gonzales two years earlier if the government was conducting any other undisclosed intelligence activities, he denied it.

"He looked me in the eye and said 'no,'" she said Friday.

Robert Bork Jr., Gonzales' spokesman, said, "It has clearly been determined that he did not intend to mislead anyone."

In the wake of the new report, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt, renewed his call Friday for a formal nonpartisan inquiry into the government's information-gathering programs.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden — the primary architect of the program_ told the report's authors that the surveillance was "extremely valuable" in preventing further al-Qaida attacks. Hayden said the operations amounted to an "early warning system" allowing top officials to make critical judgments and carefully allocate national security resources to counter threats.

Information gathered by the secret program played a limited role in the FBI's overall counterterrorism efforts, according to the report. Very few CIA analysts even knew about the program and therefore were unable to fully exploit it in their counterrorism work, the report said.

The report questioned the legal advice used by Bush to set up the program, pinpointing omissions and questionable legal memos written by Yoo, in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. The Justice Department withdrew the memos years ago.

The report says Yoo's analysis approving the program ignored a law designed to restrict the government's authority to conduct electronic surveillance during wartime, and did so without fully notifying Congress. And it said flaws in Yoo's memos later presented "a serious impediment" to recertifying the program.

Yoo insisted that the president's wiretapping program had only to comply with Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure — but the report said Yoo ignored the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, which had previously overseen federal national security surveillance.

"The notion that basically one person at the Justice Department, John Yoo, and Hayden and the vice president's office were running a program around the laws that Congress passed, including a reinterpretation of the Fourth Amendment, is mind boggling," Harman said.

House Democrats are pressing for legislation that would expand congressional access to secret intelligence briefings, but the White House has threatened to veto it.

Yahoo News

~ ~ ~

April 10, 2009

Breaking news: Indictment of Bush
Officials May Come in Days

Newsweek Breaks Shocking New Revelations
About Disappeared Persons

From Pinochet to Bush, the Path to Prosecution

* The imminent indictment in Spanish courts of former officials of the Bush Administration is being applauded by civil and human rights organizations and legal scholars. The popular wave of support for indictment of Bush officials will inevitably lead to Bush himself.

* Newsweek Magazine blew open more shocking news about Bush' system of kidnapping, secret prisons and torture. A secret Red Cross report indicates that many kidnapped and tortured people were turned into "disappeared persons" by the CIA under instructions from Bush and Cheney. A former Bush administration official told Newsweek's Michael Isikoff that the information had been hidden from the Red Cross. "The majority of the people in the CIA program are unaccounted for. We don't know what happened to them," a human rights investigator told Isikoff.

* Like Bush, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, thought his power would shield him from criminal prosecution when his regime kidnapped and tortured and assassinated individuals who became known as the "disappeared." It was when Spanish courts brought indictments against Pinochet that everything changed. As Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights said, "the importance of this investigation [in Spain] can not be understated. Contrary to statements by some, the Spanish investigations are not 'symbolic.' Just ask Augusto Pinochet, who was stranded under house arrest in England and who ultimately faced criminal charges in Chile because of the pressure of the Spanish courts. If and when arrest warrants are issued, 24 countries in Europe are obligated to enforce them. The world is getting smaller for the torture conspirators.”

Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General has called for the prosecution of Bush and other high officials in the United States, stating, "The greatest danger arising from impunity for President Bush and his cohorts would be that all subsequent officials will feel secure in committing the same crimes and the people, having failed to compel impeachment for such open, notorious and egregious crimes, will feel even more helpless to prevent them. Ultimately the power and the responsibility to prevent criminal acts by government is with the people."

Now is the time for massive outreach and publicity. This requires newspaper ads, organizing national call-in days to pressure Congressional representatives, intensive media work, teach-ins and educational forums, and providing literature for people of conscience to distribute in cities and towns across the country....

--All of us at http://www.IndictBushNow.org

“Blinded by the lies,” by Carl Klang

"Can't you see? Are you blinded by the lies?"

- Jesus Christ of Nazareth

NEW DISCOVERY (01-08-09):

Cheney says no one saw
financial crisis coming

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press

Featured Topics:

Barack Obama

Presidential Transition

WASHINGTON – Vice President Dick Cheney says that his boss, President George W. Bush, has no need to apologize to the American people for not doing more to head off the financial calamity, saying no one saw the crisis coming.

During an interview Thursday with The Associated Press in his West Wing office, Cheney defended the administration's performance on an economy that is growing weaker daily and which recently collapsed in spectacular fashion. Cheney said that "nobody anywhere was smart enough to figure it out."

He said Bush doesn't need to apologize because he has taken "bold, aggressive action."

Comment on this story:

"Over time even two armed blind men in a room can do enormous damage to each other, not to speak of the room." - Henry Kissinger

For more on the Bush-Cheney affairs, check out: http://www.kycbs.net/Impeach-Bush.htm

The Catbird

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090108/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cheney_interview

~ ~ ~

NEW DISCOVERY (06-20-08):

June 20, 2008

McClellan Rips 'Secretive White House'

By LAURIE KELLMAN, AP

WASHINGTON (June 20) - If the nation doesn't trust the Bush White House, it's the president's and Dick Cheney's own fault, Bush's former spokesman told Congress Friday.

From life-and-death matters on down — the rationale for war, the leaking of classified information, Cheney's accidental shooting of a friend — the government's top two leaders undermined their credibility by "packaging" their version of the truth, former press secretary Scott McClellan said.

He described the loss of trust as self-inflicted, telling the House Judiciary Committee that Bush and his administration failed to open up about White House mistakes.

The focus of the panel's hearing was the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, and McClellan said that was a good example of the administration damaging itself by backtracking on a pledge be upfront.

"This White House promised or assured the American people that at some point when this was behind us they would talk publicly about it. And they have refused to," McClellan said. "And that's why I think more than any other reason we are here today and the suspicion still remains."

The White House dismissed Friday's hearing as unenlightening and McClellan, the president's former top spokesman, as uninformed. Republicans on the committee accused him of writing about sensitive matters to make money, a reference to his recent book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception."

"I think Scott has probably told everyone everything he doesn't know, so I don't know if anyone should expect him to say anything new today," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

Fratto, who is Bush's deputy press secretary, came to the White House after McClellan left, apparently in good standing, in April 2006.

McClellan, considered an ultimate Bush loyalist until the book came out, worked for Bush when the future president was Texas governor, jumped to his presidential campaign and then followed him to Washington when he won.

On Friday, McClellan returned repeatedly to his theme that Bush, Cheney and others in the administration had done great damage to themselves — and by extension to aides like McClellan — by being less than truthful on a range of official matters.

"This is a very secretive White House," McClellan said. "There's some things that they would prefer not to be talked about."

McClellan took aim at Bush's personal honesty when discussing the president's handling of allegations that he had long ago used cocaine.

In the book, McClellan recounts hearing Bush on the telephone telling a supporter that "I honestly don't remember whether I tried it or not."

McClellan called that kind of response to sensitive questions by Bush and other politicians "essentially evasion" that for Bush later "transferred over to other issues" of policy.

"It tells something about his character," he maintained.

Committee Republicans said McClellan was the one with the credibility problem.

"Some would say that you included that sensational information about the alleged drug use and his denial not to promote bipartisanship and civility but rather to promote book sales," said Rep. Ric Keller, R-Fla.

McClellan made clear in the book and in person that he felt especially burned by the Plame matter.

He said that former White House chief of staff Andy Card told him that the president and vice president wanted him to publicly say that Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was not involved in the leak.

"I was reluctant to do it," McClellan said Friday. "I got on the phone with Scooter Libby and asked him point-blank, 'Were you involved in this in any way?' And he assured me in unequivocal terms that he was not."

In fact, both Libby and former presidential adviser Karl Rove had discussed Plame's identity with reporters.

State Department official Richard Armitage first revealed Plame's CIA identity to columnist Robert Novak, who used Rove as a confirming source for a 2003 article. Around that time Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson was criticizing Bush's march to war in Iraq.

Plame maintains the White House quietly revealed her position to reporters as retribution for criticism from her husband. McClellan told the panel he agreed.

Libby resigned from office the day he was indicted on charges of covering up the leak. He was later convicted, but last July Bush commuted his 2½-year sentence, sparing him from serving any prison time. "It was special treatment," McClellan said of the commutation.

Rove left the White House last August. He has never been charged in the case.

McClellan told the House panel he doesn't know if a crime was committed and does not believe that Bush knew about or directed the leak. When asked about Cheney, he replied: "I do not know. There's a lot of suspicion there."

Fratto disputed the notion that the Plame issue concluded with Libby's conviction, freeing the White House to talk about it openly. He pointed out that she and Wilson are suing several administration officials.

"The White House has the consistent position that we would refrain from comment while there was ongoing litigation," Fratto said. "Scott must have forgotten the policy he repeatedly stated from the podium."

McClellan cited several other examples, some stemming from the Plame incident, of what he said was a lack of candor pervading the Bush administration.

The White House had said in 2003 and 2004 that anyone who leaked classified information in the case would be dismissed.

By July 2005, Bush qualified his position, saying he would fire anyone for leaking classified information if that person had "committed a crime."

When Cheney accidentally shot a friend during a hunting trip in 2006, McClellan initially quoted the owner of the ranch as saying that the injured man had been at fault for not letting Cheney know he was nearby. Cheney himself later said it was not his friend's fault.

McClellan Rips 'Secretive White House' - AOL News

~ ~ ~

NEW DISCOVERY (06-19-08):

June 19, 2008

Taguba Accuses Bush
Admin of War Crimes

Investigating Reports By MWC NEWS

Congressional Hearings Shed New Light on Government’s Endorsement of Torture; Maj. Gen. Taguba Accuses Bush Administration of War Crimes

On Tuesday, the Senate Armed Services Committee held an eight-hour hearing that exposed the role of top Bush administration officials in authorizing the use of harsh interrogation techniques. Meanwhile, Retired Major General Antonio Taguba, the Army general who first investigated the abuse at Abu Ghraib, has accused the Bush administration of committing war crimes. “The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture,” Taguba said.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Retired General Antonio Taguba, who led the US Army’s investigation into the Abu Ghraib abuses, has accused the Bush administration of “a systematic regime of torture” and war crimes. Taguba’s accusations appear in the preface to a new report released by Physicians for Human Rights. The report uses medical evidence to confirm first-hand accounts of eleven former prisoners who endured torture by US personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.

Taguba writes, “There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”

AMY GOODMAN: The report was published in the midst of two days of congressional hearings on Capitol Hill. On Tuesday, the Senate Armed Services Committee held an eight-hour hearing that exposed the role of top Bush administration officials in authorizing the use of harsh interrogation techniques. The committee released a series of previously classified documents detailing how the Pentagon and the CIA transformed the military’s SERE resistance training program into a blueprint for interrogating terrorist suspects. Committee Chair Senator Carl Levin explained the timeline of implementing the SERE, or Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, techniques and the role of military psychologists in devising these routines.

SEN. CARL LEVIN: On October 2, 2002, a week after John Rizzo, the acting CIA general counsel, visited Gitmo, a second senior CIA lawyer, Jonathan Fredman, who was chief counsel to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, went to Guantanamo, attended a meeting of Gitmo staff and discussed a memo proposing the use of aggressive interrogation techniques. That memo had been drafted by a psychologist and psychiatrist from Gitmo, who a couple of weeks earlier had attended that training given at Fort Bragg by instructors by the SERE school.

While the training—excuse me, while the memo remains classified, minutes from the meeting where it was discussed are not. Those minutes clearly show that the focus of the discussion was aggressive techniques for use against detainees.

When the Gitmo chief of staff suggested at the meeting that Gitmo “can’t do sleep deprivation,” Lieutenant Colonel Beaver, Gitmo’s senior lawyer, responded, “Yes, we can—with approval.” Lieutenant Beaver added that Gitmo, quote, “may need to curb the harsher operations while the International Committee of the Red Cross is around.”

Mr. Fredman, the senior CIA lawyer, suggested that it’s, quote, “very effective to identify detainee phobias and to use them” and described for the group the so-called “wet towel” technique, which we know as waterboarding. Mr. Fredman said, quote, “It can feel like you’re drowning. The lymphatic system will react as if you’re suffocating, but your body will not cease to function,” close-quote.

And Mr. Fredman presented the following disturbing perspective of our legal obligations under our anti-torture laws, saying, quote, “It is basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.”

“If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.” How on earth did we get to the point where a senior US government lawyer would say that whether or not an interrogation technique is torture is, quote, “subject to perception” and that if, quote, “the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong”? The Gitmo senior JAG officer Lieutenant Colonel Beaver’s response was: “We will need documentation to protect us.”

JUAN GONZALEZ: The Pentagon’s former general counsel William Haynes was repeatedly questioned at Tuesday’s hearing about his role in authorizing the interrogation techniques. During two hours of testimony, Haynes responded to dozens of questions by saying he could not recall or remember details about the process of approving the interrogation techniques. Democratic Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island blasted Haynes’s role in authorizing torture.

SEN. JACK REED: You said the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply, and they honestly ask, “What does apply?” And the only thing you sent them was: these techniques apply—no conditions, nothing. So don’t go around with this attitude of you’re protecting the integrity of the military. You degraded the integrity of the United States military.

JUAN GONZALEZ: A major McClatchy newspaper series investigating the detention of terrorist suspects names Haynes as one of a group of five lawyers at the White House, Pentagon and Justice Department who called themselves the “War Council” and reinterpreted US and international laws about accountability and the treatment of prisoners. Other members of the War Council included Vice President Cheney’s former legal adviser and current chief of staff, David Addington; former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo; and former deputy to Gonzales, Timothy Flanigan.

Despite the new revelations of systematic prisoner abuse sanctioned at the highest level of government, White House Press Secretary Tony Fratto insisted Tuesday that the administration does not abuse detainees.

TONY FRATTO: I can tell you it’s always been the policy of this government to treat these detainees humanely and in line with the laws and our legal obligations.

REPORTER: Along those lines, another memo came out suggesting that a senior CIA lawyer, while you were debating this in 2002, said the only short test for torture is if a detainee dies or not and said, quote, “If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.” Does that fit into the guidelines—

TONY FRATTO: I don’t, I don’t know who that is or who that came from. I’m telling you that abuse of detainees has never been, is not, and will never be the policy of this government.

AMY GOODMAN: Today, we spend the hour on torture. We begin with Mark Benjamin, national correspondent for Salon.com. He covered the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday. He joins us from Washington, D.C.

Welcome, Mark, to Democracy Now!

MARK BENJAMIN: Thank you for having me.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the revelations that have come out over these two days of hearings from the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday to yesterday’s House Judiciary Committee?

MARK BENJAMIN: Yes. I think particularly the hearing in the Senate, for me—and I’ve been covering Washington for over a decade—was one of the most incredible hearings I think I’ve ever been to. And the reason why, you had a quote from General Taguba in the lead up to this discussion that it was patently clear that there was an organized effort to torture and that it was against the law, and the only question left is whether anyone will be prosecuted. I have to say—it’s sort of amazing to say this, but I think he’s right.

What became painfully clear, I think, in the Senate hearing were two things. One is that soon after 9/11—and there was testimony and documents showing this—officials from Washington, not interrogators out there in the field, were calling—you mentioned the military SERE school—officials from Washington were calling SERE school—we’re talking about CIA officials— ...

www.kycbs.net/Torture.htm

~ ~ ~

NEW DISCOVERY (06-11-08):

June 9, 2008

Rep. Kucinich introduces
Bush impeachment resolution

WASHINGTON - Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a former Democratic presidential contender, said Monday he wants the House to consider a resolution to impeach President Bush.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi consistently has said impeachment was "off the table."

Kucinich, D-Ohio, read his proposed impeachment language in a floor speech. He contended Bush deceived the nation and violated his oath of office in leading the country into the Iraq war.

Kucinich introduced a resolution last year to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. That resolution was killed, but only after Republicans initially voted in favor of taking up the measure to force a debate.

Kucinich won 50 percent of the vote in a five-way House Democratic primary in March, beating back critics who said he ignored business at home to travel the country in his quest to be president.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25068638/

On the Net

http://kucinich.house.gov

The Articles of Impeachment

~ ~ ~

June 10, 2008

Ramsey Clark: A decisive moment for impeachment

Your help is needed!

Now is the time that our actions can prove decisive. Rep. Dennis Kucinich has introduced 35 articles of impeachment. Please read the important statement released today by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, which is below.

As Ramsey Clark makes clear, the impeachment of George W. Bush is the most important task of the moment for the safety and security of the people of the United States, the Middle East and throughout the world. None of us can risk being plunged further into war.

More than 1 million people have joined together in support of the impeachment movement launched by Ramsey Clark at ImpeachBush.org. From collecting signatures in towns and cities across the land to letter writing campaigns to direct congressional visits volunteers have forced impeachment "on the table."

Now we must act and take the next steps. We are doubling our efforts and we need everyone to pitch in. Please contact your congressional representative and demand they support the 35 Articles of Impeachment, and take a moment to make as generous a donation as you can to support this movement as we make this push.

We are printing thousands of leaflets, organizing door-to-door outreach for volunteers, phone banking, and exploring the possibilities for internet advertising and more newspaper ads. What we can achieve depends on the level of financial support provided by those who believe that the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is necessary.

Message from Ramsey Clark

Impeachment is not a political question. Impeachment is a constitutional duty. It is the one power and highest duty the Constitution rests in the Congress to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States when the President, Vice President, and other civil officers of the United States commit treason, bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.

George Bush has deliberately, falsely and systematically mislead the Congress and the American people concerning the most criminal, costly and harmful acts of his administration, leading us to war, tragic loss of human life, the devastation of Iraq, military expenses reaching trillions of dollars, disruption of the economy that will take decades to overcome, a contemptuous assault on the Bill of Rights, an international humanitarian disaster, deliberate antagonism and provocation of nations and people, most once friendly, and an enlarging assault on the earth's environment.

On June 5, 2008, a long delayed five year U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence study and 170-page report unanimously found President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top officers had made false charges and systematically presented a more dire picture about Iraq than justified by intelligence provided only to them. The Committee included both Democrats and Republicans.

Today President Bush is exerting all his power and influence to repeatedly urge Europe, Israel and others to support an attack on Iran which he intends to commence in the remaining months of the presidency. Iran is larger than Iraq and Afghanistan, has millions of people, richer by a multiple, unimpaired by recent war and will fight fiercely if attacked. He is negotiating a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq placing the U.S. on Iran's border.

The next several Presidents of the United States will spend their time in office miserably fighting wars started by Bush, as our economy is consumed in military spending.

Impeachment, a Constitutional duty, is the only way to prevent George W. Bush and his cabal from vastly enlarging the disastrous wars he has already inflicted on the world and the American people. The House of Representatives must quickly consider Bills of Impeachment long overdue, and the Senate must prepare to sit in judgment of President Bush, Vice President Cheney other officers who are implicated.

Ramsey Clark

June 10, 2008
www.ImpeachBush.org

~ ~ ~

NEW DISCOVERY (04-22-08): David Farmer’s undisclosed connections with AIPAC and U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney:

From Exhibit: “CONNECTING THE DIRTY DOTS TO AIPAC”:

David C. Farmer, Successor-Trustee vs. Harmon

(Formerly Woo vs. Harmon & Nicholson vs. Harmon)

CV05-00030 DAE KSC

U.S. District Court For the District of Hawaii

Judges: David A. Ezra; Kevin S. Chang

—

DEFENDANT’S EXHIBIT

—

A few words of explanation:

In his "MEMORANDUM IN OPPOSITION TO DEBTOR'S MOTION FOR ORDER TO DISAPPROVE APPOINTMENT OF DAVID C. FARMER AS SUCCESSOR TRUSTEE", filed with the Court on August 24, 2007, the Trustee's attorney, Steven Guttman, Esq., of the law firm, Kessner Umebayashi Bain & Matsunaga, stated to the Court:

"... Harmon is once again attempting to create issues of conflict where none exist by attempting to draw connections between phantom dots."...

Mr. Guttman does not elaborate beyond this simple statement of HIS PERSONAL OPINION, as to WHICH of the thousands of connections I have cited that he wishes the Court to accept, without question, as being merely "phantom dots". In other court filings, Mr. Guttman has characterized my Motions as consisting of "conspiracy theories" -- again with no specific references.

Despite these unnamed "phantom dots" and "conspiracy theories", the Court has blithely and unquestionably gone along with Mr. Guttman's opinions and has repeatedly denied ALL Motions that I have made. In fact, both Courts involved have ruled that the Court Clerk shall not accept any future filings from me without the Courts' prior approval - which it has repeatedly declined to give.

Therefore, due to the fact that I continue to discover new, material FACTS almost daily, I am preparing a set of NEW EXHIBITS in which I intend to document the financial, professional, personal, and political connections between the many various entities involved in this case.

~ o ~

The following is a listing of named witnesses in this case who have factual connections with the subject entity. Each underlined name has been linked to a detailed description of that witness to enable the reader to more easily CONNECT THE DOTS TO...

Judith Neustadter Fuqua

James B. “Jim” Nicholson

Dan Inouye

LEARN MORE ABOUT AIPAC:

http://www.stopaipac.org/

http://www.stopaipac.org/spystory.htm

www.hadassah.org/education/content/influentials_israel.asp

http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/021108/hawaii.shtml

http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1721.htm

http://www.antiwar.com/cole/?articleid=3467

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2007/06/lfow.html

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=AIPAC

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/03/6138/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zidtiC-UPNU

http://www.franklingate.com/aipac-cheney.htm

http://www.kycbs.net/AIPAC-Obama.mht

http://www.kycbs.net/AIPAC-Bush-Abramoff-Greenberg.mht

http://www.kycbs.net/AIPAC-Mische-7-11-7.mht

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vwV6O5AGKyw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8gHmJUa720

http://ifamericaknew.com/us_ints/mc-aipac.html

http://www.antiwar.com/glantz/?articleid=9697

www.literarylotus.com/2007/12/wimr-brian-schatz.html

http://www.kycbs.net/AIPAC-Lingle-Abramoff-Brownstein.mht

~ ~ ~

Monday, March 24, 2008

From: "maillist@michaelmoore.com" <maillist@michaelmoore.com>

To: bobby_n_harmon@yahoo.com

Subject: So? ... A Note from Michael Moore

Friends,

It would have to happen on Easter Sunday, wouldn't it, that the 4,000th American soldier would die in Iraq. Play me that crazy preacher again, will you, about how maybe God, in all his infinite wisdom, may not exactly be blessing America these days. Is anyone surprised?

4,000 dead. Unofficial estimates are that there may be up to 100,000 wounded, injured, or mentally ruined by this war. And there could be up to a million Iraqi dead. We will pay the consequences of this for a long, long time. God will keep blessing America.

And where is Darth Vader in all this? A reporter from ABC News this week told Dick Cheney, in regards to Iraq, "two-thirds of Americans say it's not worth fighting." Cheney cut her off with a one word answer: "So?"

"So?" As in, "So what?" As in, "F*** you. I could care less."

I would like every American to see Cheney flip the virtual bird at the them, the American people. Click here and pass it around. Then ask yourself why we haven't risen up and thrown him and his puppet out of the White House.

The Democrats have had the power to literally pull the plug on this war for the past 15 months -- and they have refused to do so. What are we to do about that? Continue to sink into our despair? Or get creative? Real creative. I know there are many of you reading this who have the chutzpah and ingenuity to confront your local congressperson. Will you? For me?

Cheney spent Wednesday, the 5th anniversary of the war, not mourning the dead he killed, but fishing off the Sultan of Oman's royal yacht. So? Ask your favorite Republican what they think of that.

The Founding Fathers would never have uttered the presumptuous words, "God Bless America." That, to them, sounded like a command instead of a request, and one doesn't command God, even if they are America. In fact, they were worried God would punish America. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington feared that God would react unfavorably against his soldiers for the way they were behaving. John Adams wondered if God might punish America and cause it to lose the war, just to prove His point that America was not worthy. They and the others believed it would be arrogant on their part to assume that God would single out America for a blessing. What a long road we have traveled since then.

I see that Frontline on PBS this week has a documentary called "Bush's War." That's what I've been calling it for a long time. It's not the "Iraq War." Iraq did nothing. Iraq didn't plan 9/11. It didn't have weapons of mass destruction. It DID have movie theaters and bars and women wearing what they wanted and a significant Christian population and one of the few Arab capitals with an open synagogue.

But that's all gone now. Show a movie and you'll be shot in the head. Over a hundred women have been randomly executed for not wearing a scarf. I'm happy, as a blessed American, that I had a hand in all this. I just paid my taxes, so that means I helped to pay for this freedom we've brought to Baghdad. So? Will God bless me?

God bless all of you in this Easter Week as we begin the 6th year of Bush's War.

God help America. Please.

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

~ ~ ~

January 22, 2008

Study: False statements preceded war

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.

The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war," the study concluded.

"Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, 'independent' validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq," it said.

On the Net:

Center For Public Integrity: http://www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx

Fund For Independence in Journalism: http://www.tfij.org/

~ ~ ~

November 20, 2007

BUSH/CHENEY MISLED PUBLIC
ABOUT CIA IDENTITY LEAK

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.

"There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

Bush's chief of staff at the time was Andrew Card.

The excerpt, posted on the Web site of publisher PublicAffairs, renews questions about what went on in the West Wing and how much Bush and Cheney knew about the leak. For years, it was McClellan's job to field — and often duck — those types of questions.

Now that he's spurring them, answers are equally hard to come by.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said it wasn't clear what McClellan meant in the excerpt. "The president has not and would not ask his spokespeople to pass on false information," she said.

Plame issued a statement saying the opposite.

"I am outraged to learn that former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan confirms that he was sent out to lie to the press corps," Plame said. "Even more shocking, McClellan confirms that not only Karl Rove and Scooter Libby told him to lie but Vice President Cheney, presidential Chief of Staff Andrew Card and President Bush also ordered McClellan to issue his misleading statement."

McClellan turned down interview requests Tuesday.

Plame maintains the White House quietly outed her to reporters. Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, said the leak was retribution for his public criticism of the Iraq war. The accusation dogged the administration and made Plame a cause celebre among many Democrats...

"Just when you think the credibility of this White House can't get any lower, another shoe drops," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "If the Bush administration won't even tell the truth to its official spokesman, how can the American people expect to be told the truth either?"

In the fall of 2003, after authorities began investigating the leak, McClellan told reporters that he'd personally spoken to Rove, who was Bush's top political adviser, and Libby, who was Cheney's chief of staff.

"They're good individuals, they're important members of our White House team, and that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved," McClellan said at the time.

Both men, however, were involved. Rove was one of the original sources for the newspaper column that identified Plame. Libby also spoke to reporters about the CIA officer and was convicted of lying about those discussions. He is the only person to be charged in the case.

Since that news conference, however, the official White House stance has shifted and it has been difficult to get a clear picture of what happened behind closed doors around the time of the leak.

McClellan's flat denials gave way to a steady drumbeat of "no comment." And Bush's original pledge to fire anyone involved in the leak became a promise to fire anyone who "committed a crime."

In a CNN interview earlier this year, McClellan made no suggestion that Bush knew either Libby or Rove was involved in the leak. McClellan said his statements to reporters were what he and the president "believed to be true at the time based on assurances that we were both given."

Bush most recently addressed the issue in July after commuting Libby's 30-month prison term. He acknowledged that some in the White House were involved in the leak. Then, after repeatedly declining to discuss the ongoing investigation, he said the case was closed and it was time to move on.

~ ~ ~

November 7, 2007

Cheney impeachment still alive

House votes to send Kucinich's measure to judiciary panel

By David Lightman and Renee Schoof, McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON -- The impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney was the last thing House Democratic leaders wanted to confront yesterday, even though some anti-war House Democrats were determined to force the issue.

Then, in a vote that stunned even the anti-war forces, the House of Representatives -- helped by Republicans eager to debate the issue and portray Democrats as radical -- voted 251-162 to keep the Cheney impeachment measure alive. The majority was formed by 165 Republicans and 86 Democrats.

The measure's next, and probably last, stop is the House Judiciary Committee, which Democrats control. The House voted 218 to 194, on a largely party-line vote, to send the measure there.

That was done to end the debate. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., adamantly oppose the measure. They say it takes time and energy away from more pressing concerns. They also don't want to engage in an impeachment debate that riles partisan passions going into a presidential election year.

"Pelosi did not want what she considers the party's radical element to control the agenda, but Dennis Kucinich called their bluff," said Michael Franc, a political analyst at Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Rep. Kucinich, D-Cleveland, a long-shot 2008 presidential candidate, was the chief backer of the impeachment resolution.

Kucinich's resolution said that Cheney is "in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of vice president" and that he has "purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of U.S. Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests."

It also challenged Cheney on Iran, saying he has "openly threatened aggression" against that country "absent any real threat to the United States."

www.dispatch.com/live/content/national_world/stories/2007/11/07

July 4, 2007

Cheney increasingly seen as a law unto himself

Sheldon Alberts, CanWest News Service

WASHINGTON - By the time reporters filed out of the White House briefing room yesterday afternoon, press secretary Tony Snow had fielded 85 questions about U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to spare Lewis (Scooter) Libby from prison.

There was only one he absolutely refused to answer: Did Vice-President Dick Cheney ask Mr. Bush to keep Libby out of jail?

"We never, as you know, talk about internal deliberations," Mr. Snow said.

His curt reply came as little surprise to anyone familiar with Mr. Cheney's obsession with privacy and his insistence advice he gives Mr. Bush remain confidential.

But after spending almost seven years in the White House trying to stay out of the headlines --going so far as to keep even his physical location secret -- Mr. Cheney suddenly finds himself facing unprecedented scrutiny from the media and in the cross-hairs of a Democratic-controlled Congress.

In the past 10 days alone, he has been subpoenaed to testify before Congress about the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program, stirring controversy by declaring himself exempt from laws regarding classified material, and has been the subject of a four-part Washington Post investigative series detailing his unprecedented influence on the U.S.'s security strategy since 9/11.

Mr. Bush's decision this week to spare Libby, Mr. Cheney's former chief of staff, from serving a 30-month prison sentence for perjury capped that remarkable string of events.

For some critics, the clemency for one of Mr. Cheney's closest friends cemented the perception of a vice-president who considers himself above the law and beyond accountability to Congress or Americans.

"Cheney sees himself as having a constituency of one, and that is George W. Bush," said Cal Jillson, a presidential historian at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. "But Cheney has gone from being an asset to George W. Bush to being a real detriment to both the President and the Republican party. The fact that George W. Bush doesn't realize that doesn't mean it is not doing him significant damage."

Mr. Cheney is widely considered the most powerful vice-president in U.S. history because of his close personal relationship with Mr. Bush and his behind-the-scenes efforts to restore presidential powers that were eroded after Watergate.

While he has long been the most unpopular member of the Bush administration, with approval ratings hovering just over 20%, Mr. Cheney only became a serious political target after the Democrats won control of Congress last November.

A decision last week by the Senate Judiciary Committee to subpoena him for internal documents about the legality of the government's wiretapping pro-gram prompted the claim he was exempt because of "executive privilege."

Mr. Cheney has also become engaged in a running battle with the U.S. National Archives, refusing to comply with a presidential order regulating the classification of sensitive documents.

The Vice-President said he was not required to provide the records, arguing he was not an "entity" in the executive branch of government because he is also president of the Senate.

The claim startled constitutional lawyers since Mr. Cheney has an office in the White House and would become president if Mr. Bush dies.

"Absolutely absurd," wrote John Dean, who was White House counsel during the Nixon presidency. "It is becoming increasingly difficult to find a law that Cheney believes does apply to him, whether that law be major or minor."

Mr. Bush's decision to commute Libby's sentence in the Central Intelligence Agency leak case has prompted new calls for Mr. Cheney to answer questions about his role in the controversy over the disclosure of a covert operative's identity.

Yesterday, Mr. Bush said he would "rule nothing in and nothing out" when asked if he would consider a full pardon for Libby in the future. But the White House denied he commuted the sentence in a bid to please Mr. Cheney.

~ ~ ~

April 17, 2007

Articles of Impeachment
To Be Filed On Cheney

Looks like he's reached his boiling point.

www.newscloud.com

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), the most liberal of the Democratic presidential candidates in the primary field, declared in a letter sent to his Democratic House colleagues this morning that he plans to file articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney.

Kucinich has made ending the war in Iraq the central theme of his campaign. He has even taken aim at the leading Democratic presidential candidates in the field for their votes on authorizing the war.

Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to impeach the president, vice president and "all civil Officers of the United States" for "treason, bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Sources tell the Sleuth that in light of the mass killings at Virginia Tech Monday, Kucinich's impeachment plans have been put on hold. There will be no action this week, they say.

Kucinich's office had no comment on the Congressman's "Dear Colleague" letter -- which apparently was drafted over the weekend, before the school massacre -- or on what the focus of articles of impeachment against Cheney would be.

But Kucinich shouldn't hold his breath on getting anywhere with his impeachment plan. "We'll see a Kucinich Administration before we'll see a Cheney impeachment," quipped one Democratic aide.

Here is the text of his letter, a copy of which was forwarded to the Sleuth:

April 17, 2007

Dear Colleague:

This week I intend to introduce Articles of Impeachment with respect to the conduct of Vice President Cheney. Please have your staff contact my office . . . if you would like to receive a confidential copy of the document prior to its introduction in the House.

Sincerely,

/s/ Dennis J. Kucinich

Member of Congress

~ ~ ~

November 5, 2004

The Coming Indictment of
Dick Cheney and the Neo-Cons

by Jeffrey Steinberg, Executive Intelligence Review

As we go to press, Americans are preparing to vote in the Nov. 2 elections. Regardless of the outcome of the Presidential race, during the immediate days and weeks ahead, Dick Cheney will finally be facing the music.

The Vice President has presided over one of the most corrupt Administrations in American history, and the proximity of the Presidential elections has postponed—but not quashed—a string of Federal grand jury and Congressional probes of the Vice President and his neo-con allies in the Pentagon and in his own "shadow national security council," housed in the Office of the Vice President, and headed by Cheney's chief of staff and alter ego, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Among Cheney's most recent election-eve damage-control efforts: the suppression of a Central Intelligence Agency Inspector General's report on intelligence failures, leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. According to recent reports in Newsweek, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, newly installed CIA Director Porter Goss, a partisan Republican Cheney pick, put the kibosh on the release of the IG report to Congress, despite the fact that the document was completed in June.

According to Los Angeles Times editorial writer Robert Scheer, the CIA study names the names of top government officials who sat on key intelligence leads prior to the attacks. Scheer quoted one unnamed intelligence official: "It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed.”

The report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterwards."

The top Bush Administration official who ignored pre-9/11 warnings and suppressed legislation aimed at creating a Homeland Security Department prior to the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacks was none other than Vice President Cheney, who was appointed by President Bush in May 2001 to head up a White House task force on terrorism. According to former National Security Council counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, that task force never held a single meeting, prior to the 9/11 attacks.

The suppression of the IG report has provoked bipartisan anger from the ranking members of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who wrote a letter of protest to Goss over the delay until after Nov. 2. More recently, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, also wrote to Goss, protesting the stall.

The IG report was the result of a 17-month probe by an 11-person CIA team. Another CIA official told the Los Angeles Times, "No previous director of CIA has ever tried to stop the inspector general from releasing a report to the Congress, in this case a report requested by Congress." Indeed, Newsweek reported that, following the publication of the Scheer article, Goss's top aides ordered the Office of Security to launch a probe into the leak. Senior U.S. intelligence sources have told EIR that Cheney hand-picked Goss to take the CIA post with one over-riding mandate: Block any pre-election leaks from within the CIA bureaucracy.

'Minister of Disinformation'

Adding to the pattern of exposés of Cheney interference in the national security intelligence process, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, released a 46-page report on Oct. 21, documenting the fabrication of intelligence prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

While the Levin report's findings centered on the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, which created an illegal parallel intelligence unit, outside the purview of the Intelligence Community (IC), to peddle a stream of disinformation on Iraq's non-existent ties to al-Qaeda, the report highlighted the personal role of Cheney. Sen. John Kerry recently aptly called Cheney "the Chief Minister of Disinformation" in the Bush Administration.

Senator Kerry knows, all too well, the personal role that the Vice President played in marching America into the Iraq quagmire. As the Senator has confided to several colleagues, it was a personal visit by the Vice President to Senator Kerry that convinced the latter to vote in favor of the Iraq war resolution in October 2002, which gave President Bush an unconstitutional Congressional green light to launch a needless and disastrous "preventive war."

Vice President Cheney lied to Senator Kerry, and, presumably, to scores of other hesitant legislators, that the Administration had hard evidence that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons program, and that it was the threat of a nuclear-armed Iraq that justified the preventive war to unseat Saddam Hussein and capture his supposed "vast arsenal" of weapons of mass destruction, before the "proof" emerged in the form of a nuclear mushroom cloud.

'You Can Run, But You Can't Hide'

On Oct. 28, just five days before the Presidential election, the FBI announced a criminal investigation, to determine whether Halliburton Co., which was chaired for five years by Dick Cheney (1995-2000), illegally got billions of dollars in no-bid contracts from the Bush Administration, to run Iraq's oil sector, following the U.S. invasion and occupation.

The criminal probe, touching on Cheney, was launched in response to allegations by Army Corps of Engineers senior contracting officer Bunnatine Greenhouse, who charged that she came under pressure from her superiors to drop opposition to Halliburton's five-year no-bid contract. The Greenhouse charges were featured in Time magazine, on Oct. 24.

In a letter to the acting Secretary of the Army, Greenhouse's attorney, Michael Kohn, charged that Gen. Robert Griffin and other top Army Corps of Engineers officials admonished her for questioning the Halliburton contract, which was approved on the eve of the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The letter detailed a February 2003 meeting at the Pentagon, attended by top Halliburton executives and Army officials, at which the $7 billion no-bid contract was discussed. Greenhouse objected to the presence of the Halliburton executives, and to the terms of the contract itself, arguing that the no-bid deal should be restricted to one year, and then opened to competitive bidding.

The next day, she received a copy of the five-year contract, unchanged, and was ordered by superiors to sign it. According to Kohn's letter, which was also provided to Congressional offices, Greenhouse was threatened with demotion, for raising a stink about the Halliburton deal.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee—which is now investigating billions of dollars in other Halliburton no-bid contracts under the United Nations-administered Oil for Food Program, and its successor Coalition Provisional Authority-administered Development Fund for Iraq—issued a statement on the Greenhouse case: "These charges," he told Time, "undercut months of assertions by Administration officials that the Halliburton contract was on the level."

Now FBI agents are set to interview Greenhouse and other Pentagon officials about the deal. They are also gathering documents from Army offices in Texas and other locations, all related to the Halliburton no-bid contracts. Associated Press reported on Oct. 28 that "The line of inquiry expands an earlier FBI investigation into whether Halliburton overcharged taxpayers for fuel in Iraq, and it elevates to a criminal matter the election-year question of whether the Bush administration showed favoritism to Vice President Dick Cheney's former company."

Indeed, documents already released by the Army Corps of Engineers confirm that Cheney Chief of Staff Libby was kept abreast of the Halliburton contract status on an ongoing basis.

The Halliburton Axis of Evil

Iraq is not the only case of Cheney-Halliburton corruption, currently under criminal investigation. Two other potential Halliburton crimes, both carried out while Dick Cheney was the company's CEO, are the subjects of Justice Department inquiries, U.S. Federal grand juries, and foreign criminal probes.

The first case involves $180 million in bribes, allegedly paid to Nigerian government officials by a consortium headed by Halliburton, which was seeking a monopoly on natural gas development in that oil- and gas-rich West African country. The case is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, French public prosecutor Renaud Van Ruymbeke, and the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crime Commission.

The French probe not only is targetting the bribes to Nigerian government officials; it also is focusing on $132 million, passed by the Halliburton-led consortium to British attorney Jeffrey Tesler, some of which, French investigators believe, may have been laundered back into the United States through offshore accounts, for use by the Republican Party in the 2000 elections.

According to a report prepared by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), titled "Ten Halliburton Scandals: Ten Billion in U.S. Contracts, Zero Senate Hearings": French magistrate Van Ruymbeke "has said that embezzlement charges could ultimately be filed against Cheney himself in a French court. In 2000, France joined the United States and more than 30 other countries in outlawing bribery of foreign public officials under the auspices of a convention negotiated through the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development."

Another explosive probe of Halliburton deals with the company's creation of a fictitious offshore subsidiary, to do business in Iran, in violation of a number of Federal statutes, including the Trading with the Enemy Act. In July 2004, after three years of investigation by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the case was referred to the Justice Department, which opened a criminal grand jury investigation in Houston, Texas.

At the center of the controversy is Halliburton Products and Services Ltd., a company founded in the Cayman Islands—outside the reach of U.S. laws, banning certain economic cooperation with Iran, a country on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism, and one of three "rogue states" identified by President George W. Bush in his January 2002 State of the Union address as part of the "Axis of Evil."

A January 2004 investigation by CBS "60 Minutes" producer Leslie Stahl confirmed that the Halliburton Cayman Islands subsidiary, in fact, doesn't exist. It has no employees and no office on the island—merely a letter drop which forwards all mail back to Halliburton headquarters in Houston. Its only operations are run out of the Dubai offices of Kellogg Brown & Root, the wholly owned unit of the American Halliburton Co.

Senator Lautenberg has spearheaded the Senate probe into Cheney and Halliburton, and he dubbed the Iran dealings, which today are up to over $40 million a year in sales and services to the Islamic Republic, "serious and willful violations" of U.S. sanctions laws. "It's unconscionable that an American company would skirt the law to help Iran generate revenues."

Not to be forgotten is the fact that Cheney's "golden parachute" from Halliburton yielded him tens of millions of dollars, that he still receives annual deferred payments from Halliburton, and he holds 440,000 stock options in the firm—while claiming that he has been divested of any Halliburton interests since becoming Vice President.

The Valerie Plame Case

Beyond his Halliburton corruption, the Vice President is also in the eye of another storm—with serious potential criminal consequences. In July 2003, syndicated columnist Robert Novak exposed the identity of an undercover CIA officer, Valerie Plame, who happened to also be the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

In February 2002, at the behest of the CIA, Ambassador Wilson, who served in both Iraq and Niger during a distinguished career as a foreign service officer, travelled to the African state, to probe reports that Iraq was seeking a large quantity of "yellowcake," a uranium precursor used in nuclear bombs.

The Wilson trip came directly as the result of a query by Vice President Cheney, about alleged Niger government documents obtained by the Italian secret service, SISMI, pointing to the Iraq-Niger yellowcake deals.

Wilson concluded that the reports were false, and his findings were passed by the CIA to senior White House officials. Ultimately, in early March 2003, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei revealed that the Niger documents, which had been subsequently obtained by the CIA and shared with IAEA analysts, were shoddy forgeries.

Several days after Dr. ElBaradei made these revelations at a United Nations Security Council session, Joe Wilson appeared on CNN TV, and reminded Administration officials that they had some knowledge about the Niger yellowcake affair.

According to EIR's most well-informed government sources, the Wilson TV appearance triggered a meeting in the Vice President's Office, to "get Joe Wilson." When Wilson penned an op-ed for the New York Times in early July 2003, detailing his Niger mission, the Novak leak appeared targetting his wife, a career CIA "non-official cover" officer, involved in sensitive overseas work, tracking weapons of mass destruction.

Senior CIA officers were incensed that Novak openly boasted that he had been given Plame's name by two senior White House officials. It is one thing when an enemy spy, like Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen, provides the names of undercover U.S. intelligence officers. It is another thing entirely, when top White House officials reveal such information, in an act of political revenge.

After months of stalling by Attorney General John Ashcroft, evidence surfaced of Ashcroft's long-standing ties to one of the White House leak suspects, Karl Rove. Ashcroft was forced to recuse himself from the case, and the Deputy Attorney General, Robert Comey, immediately appointed an independent counsel, Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, to find and prosecute the leakers.

Sources have informed EIR that the Plame leak probe has zeroed in on Cheney's office. They indicate that a top aide to the Vice President, John Hannah, has already confessed to leaking the name to reporters—at the behest of Cheney Chief of Staff Libby. One remaining question is whether Libby acted on his own, or on the orders of Cheney or some other White House higher-up.

The Fitzpatrick grand jury has been reportedly stalled, in the run-up to the Presidential elections, but one well-placed intelligence source reported that, if Bush-Cheney are re-elected, "You will see the Administration swamped by Watergate-like scandals, including the Plame affair."

Beyond Dick Cheney's own looming day in court, many of the Administration's leading neo-con officials and fellow-travellers, are facing an array of scandals, some involving espionage. Sources report that several top officials in the office of Undersecretary of Defense Feith are under investigation for leaking national security secrets to Israel and Iran. Among the reported targets of these probes are : Harold Rhode, David Wurmser, Michael Maloof, and Col. William Brunner. Feith underling Larry Franklin is the subject of an ongoing spy probe, centered around classified documents he allegedly passed to Israeli Embassy officials, via the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the semi-official Israeli lobby in the U.S.A.

These investigations are deadly serious, and they must be completed — regardless of the outcome on Nov. 2. Cheney and his neo-con allies have caused near-irreversible damage to America's standing in the world. If they are guilty of criminal acts, including passing classified material to foreign governments, trading with the enemy, violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and leaking the identities of undercover U.S. intelligence officers, they must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Such actions would go a long way toward repairing America's standing around the globe—and would go a long way towards assuring that the neo-con menace does not crawl out of its hole anytime in the near future.

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/3143cheney_indict.html

~ ~ ~

Dick Cheney is expected to testify regarding his business, professional, personal and political relationships with Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, Henry Paulson, Goldman Sachs, James A. Baker, III, Jack Abramoff, Mark Foley, Dennis Hastert, Henry Kissinger, Condoleezza Rice, Brent Scowcroft, Carla Hills, Dan Inouye, Daniel Akaka, Eric Shinseki, Norman Mineta, Linda Lingle, Ted Stevens, Robert Rubin, Citigroup, Titan Corp, Robert Kihune, Admiral Thomas Fargo, Trex Enterprises, Halliburton, Bechtel, DynCorp, Gilead Sciences, DuPont, Robert Gates, Fidelity Investments, Parker Drilling, Global Crossing, Gale Norton, Faye Kurren, The Nature Conservancy, Tesoro Petroleum, Aloha Petroleum, Harken Energy, Chevron-Texaco, BP Petroleum, Frank Carlucci, The Carlyle Group, Rand Corp, Marsh & McLennan, Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, American International Group (AIG), Chubb Group, St. Paul Travelers, Allied World Assurance, Wackenhut, Richard Helms, NutraSweet, Cindy Sheehan, V.K. Durham, Duncan Hunter, Jerry Lewis, Dow Chemical, Dole Foods, Rudy Giuliani, Andrew Card, William Cohen, and others to be named upon discovery.

"Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our Fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."

-- Abraham Lincoln

~ ~ ~

INTERNET REFERENCES:

IRAQ BODY COUNT

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National Priorities Project - Cost of War

$ $ $ $ $

A Timeline of Oil and Violence in Iraq

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WASHINGTON D.C. PEACE MARCH

The Dixie Chicks: “I Hope”

THE EAGLE HOODED:
THE 9-11 COVERUP