David C. Farmer, Trustee vs. Harmon - Witness BIll Richardson

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

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DEFENDANT’S WITNESS

BILL RICHARDSON

William Blaine "Bill" Richardson III (born November 15, 1947) is a Democratic politician and the current Governor of New Mexico. Prior to being elected governor, Richardson served in the Clinton administration as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Energy Secretary. Richardson has also served as a U.S. Congressman, chairman of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and chairman of the Democratic Governors Association.

On December 3, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama designated Richardson for appointment to the cabinet-level position of Commerce Secretary.

Bill Richardson was born in Pasadena, California to María Luisa López-Collada Márquez (born in Villaviciosa, Spain in 1914) and William Blaine Richardson Jr. (1891–1972), a Nicaragua-born Citibank executive who lived and worked in Mexico City for decades. Richardson's mother was a socialite in Mexico, and she largely took care of him during his youth. He has a younger sister, Vesta.

Just before Richardson was born, his mother was sent to California, where her husband's sister lived, to give birth because, as Richardson explained, "My father had a complex about not having been born in the United States." Three of his four grandparents were Mexican citizens, and he identifies himself as Hispanic. Richardson, a U.S. citizen by birthright, was raised during his childhood in Mexico City....

He earned a Bachelor's degree at Tufts in 1970, majoring in French and political science and was a brother and president of Delta Tau Delta. He went on to earn a master's degree in international affairs from Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1971. While still in high school, he met his future wife, Barbara Flavin. They married in 1972 and have no children.

Early political career

After college, Richardson worked for Republican Congressman F. Bradford Morse from Massachusetts. He was later a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Richardson worked on congressional relations for the Henry Kissinger State Department during the Nixon Administration.

U.S. Congressman

In 1978, Richardson moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico and ran for Congress in 1980 as a Democrat, losing narrowly to longtime 1st District congressman and future United States Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan (R). Two years later, Richardson was elected to New Mexico's newly-created third district, taking in most of the northern part of the state.

Richardson spent a little more than 14 years in Congress, during which time he represented the country's most diverse district and held 2,000 town meetings.

Richardson served as Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in the 98th Congress (1983–1985) and as Chairman of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Native American Affairs in the 103rd Congress (1993–1994). While in the House, Richardson sponsored bills such as the Indian Tribal Justice Act, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendments, the American Indian Trust Fund Management Reform Act, the American Indian Agricultural Resource Management Act, the Indian Dams Safety Act, the Tribal Self-Governance Act, the Indian Tribal Jurisdiction Bill (commonly known as the “Duro Fix”) and the Jicarilla Apache Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act.

He became a member of the Democratic leadership as a deputy majority whip, where he befriended Bill Clinton after they worked closely on several issues. Clinton in turn sent Richardson on various foreign policy missions, including a trip in 1996 in which Richardson traveled to Baghdad with Peter Bourne and engaged in lengthy one-on-one negotiations with Saddam Hussein to secure the release of two American aerospace workers who had been captured by the Iraqis after wandering over the Kuwaiti border. Richardson also visited Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Peru, India, North Korea, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Sudan to represent U.S. interests and met with Slobodan Milosevic. Due to these missions, Richardson was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

In 1997, Clinton appointed Richardson as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. As ambassador, he represented the United States in UN proceedings regarding the Palestinian National Authority and the State of Israel, the completion of negotiations that strengthened the role and mandate of the United Nations Environment Programme regarding ecologically sustainable development as well as other duties of an ambassador to the UN. Richardson served there until 1998, when he was appointed U.S. Secretary of Energy, a post that he held for the remainder of the Clinton administration.

According to his autobiography, Richardson was asked by the White House in 1997 to interview Monica Lewinsky for a job on his staff at the UN. Richardson did so, and offered her a position, which she declined. The American Spectator provided evidence that Richardson knew more about the Lewinsky affair than he declared to the grand jury.

U.S. Secretary of Energy

The Senate confirmed Richardson to be Clinton's Secretary of Energy on July 31, 1998. His tenure at the Department of Energy was marred by the Wen Ho Lee nuclear espionage scandal, during which Richardson publicly named Lee, an employee at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, as a suspect who might have given nuclear secrets to the Chinese government; Lee later was cleared of espionage charges and won a settlement against the federal government (aka US Taxpayers) for the accusation.

Richardson was also criticized by the Senate for his handling of the espionage inquiry, which involved missing hard drives with sensitive data, by not testifying in front of Congress sooner. Richardson justified his response by saying that he was waiting to uncover more information before speaking to Congress.

Republican Senators called for Richardson's resignation while both parties criticized his role in the incident, and the scandal ended Richardson's hope of being named as Al Gore's running mate for the 2000 presidential election

Richardson tightened security as a result of the scandal, along with becoming the first Energy Secretary with a plan to dispose of nuclear waste. He created the Director for Native American Affairs position in the Department in 1998, and in January 2000 oversaw the largest return of federal lands, 84,000 acres (340 km²), to an Indian Tribe (the Northern Ute Tribe of Utah) in more than 100 years. Richardson also directed the overhaul of the Department's consultation policy with Native American tribes and established the Tribal Energy Program.

Educational and corporate positions

With the end of the Clinton administration in January 2001, Richardson took on a number of different positions. He was an adjunct professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and a lecturer at the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West.

In 2000, Bill Richardson was awarded a United States Institute of Peace Senior Fellowship. He spent the next year researching and writing on the negotiations with North Korea and the energy dimensions of U.S. relations.

Richardson also joined Kissinger McLarty Associates, a "strategic advisory firm" headed by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty, as Senior Managing Director.

From February 2001 to June of 2002, he served on the board of directors of Peregrine Systems, Inc. He also served on the corporate boards of several energy companies, including Valero Energy Corporation and Diamond Offshore Drilling. He withdrew from these boards after being nominated by the Democratic Party for governor of New Mexico, but retained considerable stock holdings in Valero and Diamond Offshore. He would later sell these stocks during his campaign for President in 2007, saying he was "getting questions" about the propriety of these holdings, especially given his past as energy secretary, and that it had become a distraction.

Governor of New Mexico

Richardson was elected governor of New Mexico in November 2002, having defeated the Republican candidate, John Sanchez, 56–39%. During the campaign, he set a Guinness World Record for most handshakes in eight hours by a politician, breaking Theodore Roosevelt's record. He succeeded a two-term Republican governor, Gary E. Johnson. He took office in January 2003 as the only Hispanic Governor in the United States, other than then-Governor Sila María Calderón of Puerto Rico.

In his first year, Richardson proposed "tax cuts to promote growth and investment" and passed a broad personal income tax cut and won a statewide special election to transfer money from the state's Permanent Fund to meet current expenses and projects. In early 2005, Richardson made New Mexico the first state in the nation to provide $400,000 in life insurance coverage for New Mexico National Guardsmen who serve on active duty. Thirty-five states have since followed suit.

Working with the legislature, he formed Governor Richardson's Investment Partnership (GRIP) in 2003. The partnership has been used to fund large-scale public infrastructure projects throughout New Mexico, including, through the use of highway funds, a brand new commuter rail line (the Rail Runner) that runs between Belen, Albuquerque, and Bernalillo. He supported LGBT rights in his career as governor; he added sexual orientation and gender identity to New Mexico's list of civil rights categories.

During the summer of 2003, he met with a delegation from North Korea at their request to discuss concerns over that country's use of nuclear energy. At the request of the White House, he also flew to North Korea in 2005, and met with another North Korean delegation in 2006.

On December 7, 2006, Richardson was named as the "Special Envoy for Hemispheric Affairs" for the Secretary General of the Organization of American States with the mandate to "promote dialogue on issues of importance to the region, such as immigration and free trade."

He was named Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association and announced a desire to increase the role of Democratic governors in deciding the future of their party...

As discussed frequently on CNN, Richardson supported the New Mexico policy of giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants....

In 2006, Forbes credited Richardson's reforms in naming Albuquerque, New Mexico the best city in the U.S. for business and careers. The Cato Institute, meanwhile, has consistently rated Richardson as one of the most fiscally responsible Democratic governors in the nation.

In December 2005, Richardson announced the intention of New Mexico to partner with billionaire Richard Branson to bring space tourism to the proposed Spaceport America located near Las Cruces, New Mexico.

In March 2006, Richardson vetoed legislation that would ban the use of eminent domain to transfer property to private developers, as allowed by the Supreme Court's 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London. He promised to work with the legislature to draft new legislation addressing the issue in the 2007 legislative session.

On September 7, 2006, Richardson flew to Sudan to meet Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and successfully negotiated the release of imprisoned journalist Paul Salopek. Salopek had been charged by the Sudanese with espionage on August 26, 2006, while on a National Geographic assignment.

Richardson won his second term as Governor of New Mexico on November 7, 2006, 68–32 percent against former New Mexico Republican Party Chairman John Dendahl. Richardson received the highest percentage of votes in any gubernatorial election in the state's history....

In January 2007, at the request of the Save Darfur Coalition, he brokered a 60-day cease fire between al-Bashir and leaders of several rebel factions in Darfur, the western Sudanese region. The cease-fire never became effective, however, with allegations of breaches on all sides.

During New Mexico's most recent legislative session, Richardson signed a bill into law that made New Mexico the 12th state to legalize marijuana for medical reasons. When asked if this would hurt him in a Presidential election, he stated that it did not matter, as it was "the right thing to do."

Richardson's current term in office ends in 2011 and he is term-limited from a third term as governor. However, it does not appear he will serve out his term, as President-elect Barack Obama tapped him on December 3, 2008 as his intended nominee to serve as U.S. Secretary of Commerce.

2008 presidential campaign

Richardson was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the 2008 presidential election but dropped out on January 10, 2008 after lackluster showings in the first primary and caucus contests.

Despite his long history with the Clinton family, Richardson endorsed Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination on March 21, 2008.

Commentator and Clinton ally James Carville famously compared Richardson to Judas Iscariot for the move. Richardson responded in a Washington Post article, feeling "compelled to defend [himself] against character assassination and baseless allegations."

Richardson was a rumored Vice Presidential candidate for Senator and Democratic presumptive nominee Barack Obama and was fully vetted by the Obama campaign, before Obama chose Joe Biden on August 23, 2008.

Secretary of Commerce nomination

Following Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election, Richardson's name was frequently mentioned as a possible Cabinet appointment in the incoming Obama administration. Most of this speculation surrounded the position of Secretary of State, given Richardson's background as a diplomat. Richardson did not publicly comment on the speculation.

It was widely reported, and eventually officially announced, that Hillary Clinton was in fact Obama's nominee for Secretary of State. Around this time, it was reported that Richardson was being strongly considered for the position of Commerce Secretary. On December 3, 2008, Obama indeed tapped Richardson for the post.

As Commerce Secretary-designate Richardson is expected to be formally nominated after Obama takes office on January 20, 2009. Like all other Cabinet appointees, Richardson would then have to be confirmed by the United States Senate in order to take office. Although Richardson may face some opposition in the Senate in light of issues surrounding his previous Cabinet appointments, his confirmation is considered likely.

If he is confirmed as Commerce Secretary, Richardson would resign as New Mexico governor. New Mexico Lt. Gov Diane Denish would then succeed Richardson as governor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Richardson

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NEW DISCOVERY (01-04-09):

Richardson drops bid for commerce secretary post

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on Sunday announced that he was withdrawing his nomination to be President-elect Barack Obama's commerce secretary amid a grand jury investigation into how some of his political donors won a lucrative state contract.

Richardson's withdrawal was the first disruption of Obama's Cabinet process and the second "pay-to-play" investigation that has touched Obama's transition to the presidency. The president-elect has remained above the fray in both the case of arrested Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the New Mexico case.

A federal grand jury is investigating how a California company that contributed to Richardson's political activities won a New Mexico transportation contract worth more than $1 million. Richardson said in a statement issued by the Obama transition office that the investigation could take weeks or months but expressed confidence it will show he and his administration acted properly.

A senior Obama adviser said that when Richardson was nominated, he gave assurances that he would come out fine in the investigation and the president-elect had no reason to doubt it. But as the grand jury continued to pursue the case, it became clear that confirmation hearings would have to be delayed for six weeks or even longer until the investigation was complete, said the adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity about the discussions because they were private.

Aides to both men insisted that Richardson made the decision to withdraw and was not pushed out by Obama.

Obama said he has accepted Richardson's withdrawal, first reported by NBC News, "with deep regret."

"Governor Richardson is an outstanding public servant and would have brought to the job of Commerce Secretary and our economic team great insights accumulated through an extraordinary career in federal and state office," Obama said in a statement. "It is a measure of his willingness to put the nation first that he has removed himself as a candidate for the Cabinet to avoid any delay in filling this important economic post at this critical time. Although we must move quickly to fill the void left by Governor Richardson's decision, I look forward to his future service to our country and in my administration."

Richardson said in his statement that he will remain as governor and told Obama, "I am eager to serve in the future in any way he deems useful."

"I have concluded that the ongoing investigation also would have forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process," Richardson said. "Given the gravity of the economic situation the nation is facing, I could not in good conscience ask the president-elect and his administration to delay for one day the important work that needs to be done."

The announcement came ahead of Obama's Monday meetings with congressional leaders on a massive economic recovery bill he wants lawmakers to pass quickly.

A person familiar with the investigation in New Mexico has told The Associated Press that the grand jury is looking into possible "pay-to-play" dealings between CDR Financial Products and someone in a position to push the contract through with the state of New Mexico.

State documents show CDR was paid a total of $1.48 million in 2004 and 2005 for its work on a transportation program.

Richardson ran against Obama in the Democratic presidential primary, but withdrew after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.

He is one of the most prominent Hispanics in the Democratic Party, having served in Congress and as President Clinton's ambassador to the United Nations and energy secretary. As governor, he has kept up an international profile with a specialty in dealing with rouge nations. Obama also considered him to be secretary of state.

CDR and its CEO, David Rubin, have contributed at least $110,000 to three political committees formed by Richardson, according to an AP review of campaign finance records.

The largest donation, $75,000, was made by CDR in June 2004 — a couple of months after the transportation financing arrangement won state approval — to a political committee that Richardson established before the Democratic National Convention that year.

In the Illinois case, Blagojevich is accused of trying to sell the Senate seat that Obama gave up to become president. Obama and two of his top aides have been interviewed by the U.S. attorney's office pursuing the case but have denied any knowledge of such a scheme and have not been accused by prosecutors of any wrongdoing.

- On the Net: Obama transition: http://www.change.gov

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090104/ap_on_el_pr/richardson

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June 25, 2007

New Mexico's Nuclear Governor

The Grooming of Bill Richardson

By BOB ANDERSON

New Mexico's Governor Bill Richardson has a long way to go before he can call himself a peace candidate as he has been doing in his presidential campaign in the press and out east. He can't do that back in his home state, not on peace nor on a range of other issues.

Ben Luce, the former head of New Mexico Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy said this week in a series of interviews that the governor is more in the pocket of the energy corporations than his image machine presents. Luce, a ten year activist on environmental issues and a former insider in the Richardson camp spoke out to warn voters that Richardson had crafted policies in favor of energy corporations while claiming they were much different. He said Richardson's laws make him look good as a presidential candidate but don't do much else (Albuquerque Journal, 6-20-07).

On war and peace many of us in the grassroots anti-war movement know the governor is in the pocket of the military industrial complex, just as he sides with the energy industry on many pieces of legislation. He would have unknowing voters believe he was a big voice in the movement for social and economic justice when he is not. Richardson claims to be for human rights too but yielded his veto pen to prevent elimination of the death penalty in our last legislative session.

Richardson may criticize other Democratic Party presidential contenders for their past actions and votes on the war in Iraq but his record is much the same, not different enough to warrant notice. This is important because when a voter evaluates a public official for truth it is the experience and past record of the candidate that tells us a lot about future possible actions. Richardson's man selling point is his experience in public service. If Richardson applied his yardstick to himself he would come up short and working more for the private sector than the public.

More and more New Mexicans are coming back dead from Bush's wars in the middle east, especially Iraq where a lot of New Mexico citizens serve as guard and reserve troops. So, what has the governor done in his role as chief executive to stop this killing? Nothing really. The governor actually made it more likely our state citizens would be willing to go war by getting a hefty state death-in-combat supplement passed for those who get killed. This is his idea of bring the troops home.

The governor, a creative man could have come up with some new use of his executive power to stop the guard deployment right here and saved their lives. He could have even stood with the concerned public in front of the buses full of soldiers departing to the war as we have done several times over the years he has been in office.

He has not stood with ANY of the large anti-war demonstrations in the state over the past four years. He has not even sent a wave to the anti-war folks at key times of large gatherings, of which there have been many in Albuquerque, the main city of our state. He has been seen at many meetings of the war profiteers here though. Our state is full of war profiteers like Lockheed Martin, Northrop, Boeing, Honeywell, etc. The governor is always being seen in the newspapers as having been at some ribbon cutting or function put on by the people who profit from war.

In 2003, fifteen million people demonstrated around the world against the start of the war against Iraq, saying it was a hoax. Five thousand stood in Santa Fe at the governor's office and was he there? No, and he could not then hear the massive voice of the people. Now he claims to be a leader in our movement.

The governor did not even send a solidarity message or anything to the crowd then or anytime later because he was supporting the war hawks but was afraid to speak out. How could we expect him to provide visionary leadership in the future on war and peace issues when he has no track record of that in the past in his home state?

We in the anti-war movement have marched and protested since before the war started in 2003 and the governor (like our city councilman Martin Heinrich who has jumped on the bandwagon to run for Congress as an anti-war leader) has been missing in action on this crucial front of struggle every single time.

We did see the governor break all kinds of land speed records to get over to Clovis, NM last year to stand with the Republicans who were complaining of the BRAC plan to close the obsolete Cold War Cannon AFB war base. As a result of bi-partisan high level lobbying it was kept open and turned into something even worse. The base is now to become a cover war training base for future wars in the fake war on terrorism.

This week a House committee has made major funding cuts for the nuclear weapons program at Los Alamos National Lab, our premier nuclear holocaust factory, and the governor is again calling to keep it open and growing (Albuquerque Journal, 6-16-07). In his speeches outside the state he has said he is for diversifying and not producing any new nuclear weapons, which sounds good, but here he says and works for the opposite. When he was head of the Department of Energy under the Clinton administration, at a time when he had some role of importance he never made any great changes. His tenure is marked by the racist scapegoating of Wen Ho Lee for a set of research labs drifting into a loss of mission.

The labs are a large government public works project for many high paid scientists and technicians who could not otherwise make a living. The governor always has their job interests in mind when he makes statements here in his state.

Here in Albuquerque, home to the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, the governor has never replied to repeated requests to make a statement about the great danger these weapons pose to our community of over 600,000 people. If he had any real message to give he could have pointed out in 2003, before President Bush launched the big war, that Albuquerque had 2,000 WMDs here and Iraq had none. It would have been a welcome gesture to have said let's talk of dismantling our WMDs and you do the same.

You would think as head of the Dept. of Energy and all that research he had privy to on nuclear issues he would have known that of the obvious nuclear weapons dump in Albuquerque. Albuquerque is the third largest nuclear power in the world. He missed that little fact because he was busy cheerleading for the war for control of the middle east. His real problem with the war is that it has become messy and has gone on too long, longer than WW II for us.

Our governor has said nothing about the Department of Defense's establishment of a major nuclear war planning center here at Kirtland AFB, in the center of Albuquerque, which is likely to make us another target in any global conflict era.

Nor has he questioned the most intensive industrial project in human history, much of it going on here in our state: the arms race in space. A real time Star Wars is being developed at a local military base, Kirtland AFB with help from our state universities. University faculty get big lucrative contracts to create the new weapons technologies for space war which is in violation of many treaties on space.

The university keeps some of the war profiteering money for overhead and all keep quiet. Richardson hand picked the CEO of the key university who in turn drove out critics of this large new Manhattan Project. In turn he was fired for his own malfeasance, costing the state taxpayers over a million in contract buy-outs.

Last fall (Sep. 29, 2007) Lockheed Martin held a symposium at the University of New Mexico to promote the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program, which would be a violation of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and very costly to the nation. The one sided discussion was attended by many grassroots activists whom the university threw out of the meeting for speaking out against the RRW program and the privatization of the public university for war profits. The governor could have used an event like this to announce his position on the RRW and war profiteering if he had really any serious intention here in the weapons Mecca of the world. Did he speak out as the newspapers carried articles and discussions on the arrest at the meeting and debate that followed? No.

Also, at the same military base in Albuquerque he has not spoken out about the intentions of the new covert program such as the radical technology tilt-rotor Osprey. The CV-22 is an aircraft designed for covert insertion of assassins into other countries. This is a program that will only cause us more grief as a nation. We don't need hidden and secret war machines anyway.

In his home city of Santa Fe local citizens have organized and called for his support to stop the military from placing a squadron of Blackhawk helicopters in the placid, peaceful town. Where has Richardson been on this issue? Like all the other times of grassroots struggle with the military industrial complex he has been silent and working behind the scenes to assist the other side.

Near Ft. Carson, Colorado where residents are opposed to closing an Army base he said he would take care of the Base Realignment and Closing process (Albuquerque Journal, 6-18-07). With Richardson as president we would have more of a war based economy than what we have now. Richardson has a message of hope and hype for all audiences. A sane person would have to wonder who he really is. Richardson is in the mold of his mentor, Bill Clinton, a New Democrat, one who talks values associated with the New Deal era of FDR but one who practices the neo-conservative economic and military polices of New Gingrich. Richardson is a neo-liberalist, a supporter of global interventions and expansion.

Richardson claims to be an enlightened leader with skills in international affairs and events. But it must be remembered he was dumb enough to go along with the Bush administration hoax of an Iraqi WMD threat. Why? He really agreed with the goal to support regime change in other countries, and has cheered on the Trojan Horse war on terrorism without missing a beat. Homeland Security has a large presence in our state thanks to his administration and the large war industry here.

As an experienced U.N. diplomat for our country, as he repeatedly reminds listeners, one would have expected enlightened dissent then, and a vision not so centered around war profiteers. And this is his same approach to health care. While our state is at the bottom of health care access lists for poor people his name was just painted on a huge ugly $300 million elite cancer treatment center here at the university hospital complex. His name will be up there in large font after he has long gone and the poor died from lack of treatment.

As this new center was being built over the last thee years, across the street hospital rank and file workers have been falling further and further behind in wages. Just last week they had to hold a picket as negotiators for the university tried to drive down again their demands for a living wage. Some workers have been there for 20 years and barley make a substandard wage. This is going on all the while Billy Sparks one of his spin doctors had a special job created at the same hospital to the tune of nearly $150,000. Richardson claims he has done a lot for labor and the poor here but don't believe it. Richardson is in the pockets of the insurance corporations not working for the workers. He has opposed universal access to health care for our state's poor time and again as just not feasible but he can year after year find tax cuts and roll backs for the corporate elite and global rich who reside in our state.

It is more likely the governor would still be for the war in Iraq if he saw it was a winner. His position on Iraq is basically the same as that of the Cato Institute's Ethical Realism policy (same as the Baker Commission plan, talk and divide the country as we fight at the same time).

Richardson, like Henry Kissinger his former consulting business partner (see Albuquerque Journal, Nov. 7, 05), and Rep. Heather Wilson all would like to see Iraq broken up into three sub regions for better management by an outside superpower. This ethnic cleansing would be managed by a puppet government and backed up by an outside coalition of "peace" troops from other countries, or NATO or the U.N.

This is old fashion colonialism in the post-colonial era dressed up for the unwise as progressive politics. Richardson has been heard to now say he would get U.S. troops out of Iraq but his real intentions is like that of the neo-cons. He is not about to give up on the oil resources in the region. He would just do it in a more sophisticated manner. Richardson we must not forget was quietly paid nearly half-million dollars for being a trophy on the board of directors for Diamond Shamrock Oil Company (in Texas, now renamed Valero) until it became an embarrassment to his presidential image. In this mold he is more like Bush and Cheney than most people know....

On Iran, Richardson has said he would use diplomacy first which means he would keep open the use of war machines if he felt it necessary. Noticeably absent from his message, especially as a former U.N ambassador is language to support the basic right of self determination and sovereignty for Iran, even if their people want a different leader or policy. Richardson is about how to make Iran bow to the empire not empowering national independence or a global community of equals.

On immigration as a border state governor he has appeared concerned but has not hesitated to help Bush militarize the border to appease the right wingers. Poor people now see more guns and armies on his soil as they try to find jobs. Thanks Bill.

One of the largest immigration detention centers, overcrowded to the max exists in downtown Albuquerque and he has said nothing. Protests have been held to get humane treatment for these people being held with out any legal rights. With his expertise at photo ops and getting hostages released it would be a great mission for him to undertake right here in his home state to do the same.

On his watch we could probably expect a much more brutal war of shock and awe against Iran than what Bush and company have unleashed against Iraq.

The governor still promotes the genocidal lie that Palestine was a desert vacant of people when Israel brought democracy to the region. He has said Israel, not the struggle for justice by Palestinians is our key ally in the middle east. As late as April of this year he was saying our relationship with this racist settler state is a cornerstone of U.S. policy in the region (Albuquerque Journal, April 26, 2007)....

The corporate elite from large energy companies, to private aviation jet manufacturers, to expensive mattress firms, to space tourists promoters and entertainment moguls have had a run at New Mexico, much like the global elite do elsewhere when exploiting a colony with a weak political structure. Richardson has gone so far as to hand them hefty capital investments of public money for risky business ventures. Hundreds of millions from the state's permanent and retirement funds have been diverted to assist the global rich by him. I am sure they will help him in his run for another office. This scheme must be something he learned while manager of Henry Kissinger's consulting firm for large corporations which offers policies on how to plunder poor counties in the global economy.

Under Richardson's watch Intel, the wealthiest and largest computer chip manufacture with a large non-union shop here was awarded a staggering $16 billion tax refund. This went down in a town where the plant is strategically located that can't raise enough money to build all the high schools needed for the local children of its workers.

Richardson was again silent while this mega rip off of the state took place and corporations offered more charity to help the high schools.

Two other high schools in Albuquerque just had to turn to a private charity to find funds to operate in-school health clinics, which sever mainly poor families. The unmet infrastructure needs for New Mexico's poverty population has grown by leaps and bounds under Richardson's tenure but at the same time a high tech infrastructure for space militarization, high tech weapons research and global war has grown with the assistance of the governor.

At the rate at which Richardson is racing to get out in front of the growing, global peace movement we might expect him to soon say he was helping Bob Dylan write anti-war lyrics, when in reality he was in prep school being groomed for leadership of a poor state that he could use to launch a large political career.

Bob Anderson can be reached at: citizen@comcast.net

http://www.counterpunch.org/anderson06252007.html

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December 20, 2005

Heads roll at Veterans Administration

Mushrooming depleted uranium (DU) scandal blamed

by Bob Nichols
Project Censored Award Winner

www.sfbayview.com/012605/headsroll012605.shtml

Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter charged Monday that the reason Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi stepped down earlier this month was the growing scandal surrounding the use of uranium munitions in the Iraq War.

Considering the tons of depleted uranium used by the U.S., the Iraq war can truly be called a nuclear war.

Writing in Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter No. 169, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, stated, “The real reason for Mr. Principi’s departure was really never given, however a special report published by eminent scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the definitive cause of the ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ has fed a growing scandal about the continued use of uranium munitions by the US Military.”

Bernklau continued, “This malady (from uranium munitions), that thousands of our military have suffered and died from, has finally been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the guessing. The terrible truth is now being revealed.”

He added, “Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of ‘Disabled Vets’ means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems!”

The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam.

“The VA Secretary (Principi) was aware of this fact as far back as 2000,” wrote Bernklau. “He, and the Bush administration have been hiding these facts, but now, thanks to Moret’s report, (it) ... is far too big to hide or to cover up!”

“Terry Jamison, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs, at the VA Central Office, recently reported that ‘Gulf Era Veterans’ now on medical disability, since 1991, number 518,739 Veterans,” said Berklau.

“The long-term effects have revealed that DU (uranium oxide) is a virtual death sentence,” stated Berklau.

“Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist, who retired from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, and was also involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers (from the 2003 Iraq War) as ‘spectacular … and a matter of concern!’”

When asked if the main purpose of using DU was for “destroying things and killing people,” Fulk was more specific: “I would say it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people!”...

www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/122005_world_stories.shtml#0

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July 20, 2005

Stealing Colombia's resources
through brute force

The Profits of Extermination:
How US Corporate Power is Destroying Colombia

By Francisco Ramierez Cuellar

Introduction and translation by Aviva Chomsky
Common Courage Press
141 pages, $20
Order via <info@commoncouragepress.com>

REVIEW BY BARRY HEALY

Everybody with a concern about the effects of Australia’s free trade agreement with the US should read this short publication from Colombian mining workers’ union Sintraminercol. It records the neoliberal strategies employed to prepare Colombia for the imposition of the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

The methods “range from simple violations of fundamental human rights to war crimes and crimes against humanity”, Francisco Ramierez writes. Through legal manoeuvres, corruption and violence, foreign companies have taken over Colombia’s resources, kicking out and murdering anyone in their way. This is what Venezuela can look forward to if the US manages to reimpose its will on it.

Colombia should be one of the richest countries in the world; it is blessed with enormous natural resources. For example, Ramierez claims that possibly the biggest gold deposit in the world is located there.

Yet 64% of Colombia’s people survive on less than US$3 a day (the official poverty line) and 23.4% subsist on less than $2 a day. Eleven-million Colombians exist on less than $1 a day — and 65% of those people live in the mining zones!

Why should poverty and mineral resources be linked? A map included in the book explains it. The key shows the location of the enormous range of mineral deposits in the country, and Colombia is indeed fortunate. There is coal, oil and gold — everything that the world is crying out for.

But the map shows three other symbols: one where paramilitaries operate, another for civilian displacements (internal refugees) and the last indicates massacres. There is an exact correlation between the wealth and the death; international companies extracting its riches have converted Colombia into one of the inner circles of hell.

With icy precision, Ramierez explains the process that brought about this catastrophe. It wasn’t accidental, it was manufactured. It began with loan agreements imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that bypassed democratic oversight. Especially, Colombian laws protecting indigenous people’s land rights, economic and political development have been nullified by these international arrangements.

Then, in the 1990s, sharp lawyers working for Canadian and US mining companies started writing a new mining code for Colombia. Corrupt officials went along with this and protesters were subjected to military repression. Finally, in 1999, US secretary of energy Bill Richardson announced that the US was willing to use military aid to protect strategically important investments in Colombia. Thus Plan Colombia was born, the “anti-narcotics” war that just happens to be based in the three most important mining and energy regions.

The repressive forces consist of the Colombian military, the US Drug Enforcement Agency and the irregular Colombian death squads. The companies profiting from their work include familiar names: the Bush family’s Harken Energy, Occidental Petroleum and even Australia’s BHP-Billiton.

US authorities obviously don’t care how these thugs go about their work. In 1999, the president of Panama, Mireya Moscoso, publicly asked the CIA to stop stealing Panamanian helicopters to give to the Colombian paramilitaries!

Their methods are pure horror. In 1997, Juan Camacho Herra, from the Agro-Mining Association of South Bolivar, was murdered and decapitated by a death squad. They kicked his head around like a soccer ball before nailing it to a stake.

In 2001, Valmore Locarno Rodriguez and Victor Hugo Orcasita Amaya, both local union leaders at the US-owned Drummond Coal mine were dragged off a work bus and murdered. Later in the same year, Gustavo Soler, who had been elected into one of the vacant leadership positions, was kidnapped, tortured and killed.

Their names must never be forgotten. They represent the huge numbers of union activists murdered in Colombia; over the past 15 years a union leader has been assassinated, on average, every second day.

Ramierez reports that an indigenous person gets assassinated every five days, on average, mostly in the areas of natural resource exploitation.

Sintraminercol is fighting back in every way it can. As well as producing this report, it has initiated court cases in the US against some of the mining giants. And it is reaching out internationally to build solidarity. The Spanish edition of this book was funded by the Northern Ireland Public Service Association.

The publication of this book in Colombia was met with the ultimate acclaim: the death squads bombed the union’s offices.

From Green Left Weekly, July 20, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

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Bill Richardson is expected to testify regarding his business, professional, personal and political relationships with Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Dan Inouye, Daniel Akaka, The Department of Indian Affairs, Gale Norton, Department of the Interior, The Department of Veterans Affairs, The U.S. Department of Energy, Donald Hodel, Carol Muranaka, Kamehameha Schools, Henry Peters, Richard Wong, Calvin Say, Neil Abercrombie, Jim Nicholson, Goldman Sachs, Robert Rubin, Henry Paulson, John Waihee, Ben Cayetano, David Farmer, AIG, Robin Campaniano, Paul Alston, Henry Kissinger, The Carlyle Group, Royal SunAmerica, AIPAC, The Nature Conservancy, Joshua Gotbaum, Hawaiian Airlines, Aloha Airlines, Ron Burkle, Yucaipa Companies, Enron, McKenzie Methane, Tesoro Petroleum, Faye Kurren, Shell Oil Co., Chevron-Texaco, The Department of Defense, Eric Shinseki, Marsh & McLennan, and others to be named upon discovery.