Howard & Cheney's Intervention In US Military Commission Trial Saw Terror Suspect's Charges Drop From Attempted Murder Of American Soldiers To Merely 'Aiding Terrorism'

February 2007 : Howard Says He Can Get David Hicks Set Free Anytime He Wants

By Darryl Mason

Only weeks before prime minister John Howard met with US vice president Dick Cheney in Sydney, back in March, he publicly boasted that he could get Australian terror suspect David Hicks set free from Guantanamo Bay any time he wanted to. Hicks had, by then, had spent more than five years in Guantanamo Bay, detained without charge, subjected to torture and intense interrogations.

In early February, public anger, and animosity within Howard's own party, over the alleged torture and abuse of David Hicks at the hands of Americans in Gitmo, was reaching fever pitch.

The unofficial election campaign, that is now expected to culminate with Howard losing the office or prime minister, had just begun to unroll, and Howard was under intense pressure from his party colleagues to get the extremely controversial issue of David Hicks out of media headlines.

On February 6, Howard boasted that he could secure the release of Hicks, whenever he liked, but he claimed that would have been "wrong" because Hicks was a terror suspect and had to face trial for the attempted murder of US soldiers in Afghanistan, shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

In March, Howard met with Dick Cheney and is believed to have asked the American vice president to do what he could to get Hicks in front of the military commission as soon as possible, and back home to Australia.

Howard wanted to make Hicks a non-issue and Cheney was willing to help out his vital ally in the War On Iraq.

Within weeks, a former staffer of Cheney had pushed aside the US military prosecutor, who had been seen all over the Australian news claiming that Hicks would be in jail for decades to come, and allowed lawyers for David Hicks to cut a plea deal.

Instead of facing charges of the attempted murder of American soldiers, Hicks was allowed to plead guilty to the incredibly weak charge, by comparison, of 'aiding terrorism'. He was sentenced to seven years, but the sentence was immediately suspended.

More On All This Here

Howard is now claiming that he did not intervene in the David Hicks trial and that justice was done.

Howard needs to stop lying about this. He needs to come clean immediately. The story is already making international headlines, as any stories involving Cheney and corruption always do.

The last thing Howard needs is for this fresh scandal to become a major election issue, as it is now likely to become, with the opposition set to use the scandal as a way to attack Howard's credibility and his high poll numbers on matters of national security.

The Howard-Cheney deal to get Hicks off attempted murder charges, so he would get through the military commission quicker, is sleazy, grubby and Howard looks like he has put his own political career before some of the most important goals of the 'War on Terror', one of which is supposed to be rounding up and prosecuting to the hilt any members and supporters of Al Qaeda, as Hicks has confessed himself to be.


Hicks Confesses To Fighting In The Taliban...For Two Hours

David Hicks Was Gitmo's Longest Serving Prisoner - Tortured And Broken

Insights Into How David Hicks Spent His Five Years In Gitmo

Cheney, Howard Cut Deal For The Release Of David Hicks

Howard Wanted The Hicks Issue Dealt With Before Election Began, BushCo. Were Happy To Help Out Their 'Man Of Steel' Down Under


UPDATE : How The Cheney & Howard Intervention In US Military Commission Saw Terror Suspect Charges Drop From Attempted Murder Of US Soldiers To Merely 'Supporting Terrorism'


If David Hicks was still being held in Guantanamo Bay, it would be just one more political nightmare for John Howard as he faces an uphill battle to win the federal election.

That Hicks was electoral poison for Howard was widely discussed in the media in late 2006, and many speculated that Howard was pushing his White House friends to get the issue off table, and out of the media, before he began his 11 month long election campaign.

Howard didn't want Hicks released, at first, he wanted him to face the military commission at Gitmo. Howard himself admitted that he could get David Hicks released from Gitmo whenever he wanted to, but he wasn't going to do that.

But by the time US Vice President, Dick Cheney, arrived in Australia for a controversial visit,
marred by 'Free David Hicks' protests, Howard knew he couldn't wait a month or two more. Hicks had to be brought home, and locked away somewhere, with no access to the media until after the election was over.

According to this story, Dick Cheney was more than happy to grant Howard's request :

US Vice-President Dick Cheney and Australian Prime Minister John Howard cut a deal to release Australian inmate David Hicks from Guantanamo Bay, according to a report published in the US today.

The report quotes a US military officer.

"One of our staffers was present when Vice-President Cheney interfered directly to get Hicks' plea bargain deal," the unnamed officer told today's edition of Harper's magazine.

"He did it, apparently, as part of a deal cut with Howard. I kept thinking: this is the sort of thing that used to go on behind the Iron Curtain, not in America. And then it struck me how much this entire process had disintegrated into a political charade."

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Hicks is set to be released from an Adelaide prison in December. He agreed to a plea deal in March, where he would take nine months in jail, back home in Australia, in exchange for pleading guilty to the extremely weak charge of 'providing material support for terrorism'.

For years we were told Hicks was an extremely dangerous terrorist, a "murderer" according to President Bush, and "the worst of the worst" according to some of Howard's senior ministers. We were told he would be charged with being a member of Al Qaeda, attempted murder of Australian and/or American soldiers and being involved in the plotting of terrorist attacks. Such a range of charges could have taken months to get through the military commission system. But a plea deal on the greatly reduced charges saw Hicks in and out of the commission in a matter of days.

In the timeline of events, Hicks became a fresh political nightmare for Howard in December, when claims of torture and mistreatment hit the headlines. The pressure on Howard to do something about the David Hicks problem increased through January, with the media filled with past prime ministers, members of Howard's own party and headline grabbing celebrities asking why we were allowing Americans, our allies in the 'War on Terror', to torture an Australian citizen.

When Cheney visited Australian in February, Howard was ready to cut a deal with the vice president to get the Hicks problem dealt with as soon as possible. Cheney returned home to the US in late February and kicked the process of getting Hicks before a military commission, on vastly reduced charges, into gear.

Within a month, Hicks was in front of a military commission, his plea deal was quickly cut and he was heading back to Australia.

The plea deal caused controversy within the legal ranks of the American military because it was negotiated by the military commission's convening authority, Susan J. Crawford, instead of the chief prosecutor, US Colonel Morris Davis, who had previously expressed great confidence that Hicks would go down for his crimes and not surface for decades.

No great surprise that Susan J. Crawford turns out to have once been a senior official in Cheney's Defence Department, when he was secretary of defence during the reign of President George HW Bush, the current president's father.

Howard furiously denied he was involved in a plea bargain for Hicks, or that he had asked Cheney to do him a favour, to get the Hicks issue out of the way before the federal election campaigning really began.

Howard said the idea that Hicks being cut a plea deal and sent home to face an almost token prison sentence (with the all important proviso that he not be allowed to talk to the media) had anything to do with the coming election was just plain "absurd."

But he didn't outright deny that he asked Cheney to get the Hicks issue rushed through.


March 2007 : Hicks Admits To 'Backing' 9/11 Attacks In Plea Deal, Is Given Suspended Sentence

February 2007 : Howard Says He Can Get BushCo. To Release Hicks Whenever He Wants Them To

December 2006 : David Hicks After Five Years In Gitmo : Unconvicted, Tortured, Broken

Dick Cheney Down Under : Inside The "Violent" Protests

Dick Cheney Down Under - Part 5

Cheney Makes His Case For War On Iran

20% Of World's Oil Supply "Is Vulnerable To Iranian Military Action"

By Darryl Mason

It must be years since US Vice President Dick Cheney sat down for an interview with someone who wasn't a kindly old friend or simply too terrified to actually ask him some tough, uncomfortable questions.

No big surprise then that Cheney's main interview while in Australia was with journalist Greg Sheridan, who just happened to have backed the War On Iraq, through late 2002 and all through 2003 and 2004, with a white-hot fervour that threatened to spontaneously combust his heard.

Just how much of a good friend to Cheney is Greg Sheridan?

They've known each other for at least 16 years, met half a dozen times or more, and once attended a conference together where "a young man undressed on the stage".

Or you can try this description of his old mate for calibration: "...you never find Cheney hiding in the shadows, he's always in the bright light of the day"

Or this :

There is something bracing about Cheney's unrepentant attitude generally

Or this :

(Cheney) certainly presents as the very model of sweet reason...

Good God man, have you no shame?

Sheridan's the chief foreign affairs writer for Rupert Murdoch's flagship 'The Australian' newspaper, so you might think the idea of the United States launching a War On Iran would fill him with unease, even a tinge of horror, considering the near ceaseless slaughter of civilians in Iraq over the past four years of war and the general state of calamity and fallout the war has produced across the Middle East.

Well, you'd be wrong :

US Vice-President Dick Cheney believes a military confrontation with Iran would be a lesser evil than an Iran with nuclear weapons.

Yeah, but they don't have nuclear weapons. In the same way that Iraq didn't have nuclear weapons, even though Cheney infamously insisted Iraq did. Again and again and again.

But then, it's not really the the threat of Iran's nuclear weapons that concerns Cheney the most.

Sheridan helpfully cuts through the miasma of standard Cheney 'War on Terror' rhetoric and NeoCon-plated recent history lessons on the Middle East with this lone, floating sentence, which is probably the most important thing Cheney has said in months, and all but confirms a War On Iran will begin with or without the support of the UN Security Council :

Cheney also points out that 20 per cent of the world's oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz and is vulnerable to Iranian military action.

You can pin that quote to the fridge, because you are going to be hearing that reasoning for why a War On Iran is necessary a hell of a lot in the coming weeks.

It also explains why the US currently has two massive battle cruiser fleets near the Strait of Hormuz.

Now that the US can control the flow of 20% of the world's oil supply, by confronting Iran over its non-compliance with UN Security Council backed demands to halt its nuclear enrichment programs, you can pretty well guess what kind of bargaining chip the US will now use to get the backing from China, Russia and the rest of the Security Council for more hardcore sanctions against Iran.

Cheney will soon claim that US action on Iran will help to guarantee the continuing flow of 20% of the world's oil supply to oil-hungry countries like Indonesia, India, China and the US itself.

But that's all for later, let's get back to Sheridan's fawning portrait of the man himself :

...in person he is avuncular, softly spoken, often deploying a little wry irony.

One of Cheney's most appealing qualities is that he tells it exactly as he sees it. There is never a trace of ambiguity in what he says...

Particularly when what he says is 80% distortion and spin.

Cheney had a lot to say to Sheridan, or through Sheridan, and the journalist appears not to have challenged or confronted Cheney on anything, least of all the real-time horrors of the Iraq War. But then, they're both guilty of creating that reality.

And to be fair to Sheridan, time for the interview was limited, and questions from the journalist would have cut into valuable propaganda time for Cheney.

Far be it for me to get in the way, too. Here's some highlights of the interview, where Cheney clearly spells out the case for a coming soon War On Iran :

"We've seen Iran in recent years led by a man who is a radical by most definitions - Mr Ahmadinejad - who espouses an apocalyptic philosophy and has made threatening noises to Israel and the US and others.

"They (Iran) are the prime sponsor of Hezbollah, working through Syria in the conflict with Israel last summer in an effort to topple the Government of Lebanon.

"Working through Hamas they have added to the difficulties of getting some kind of peace process started with respect to the Palestinians and the Israelis. They clearly frighten most of their neighbours.

"We believe they have engaged in providing improvised explosive devices to insurgents in Iraq. We've taken action recently to crack down on identifiable Iranian agents operating inside Iraq. We've made it clear to them that their conduct has been inappropriate."

Cheney also plenty of praise for Australia, for John Howard and Australia's troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there's also fresh reasoning from Cheney of why they can't leave Iraq any time soon.

To do so would disappoint all those who believed in, and committed, to the War On Iraq.

People like Greg Sheridan, and others :

"People, hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, who've signed on in this global conflict, with our backing and support - the thousands who've signed on to the Iraqi security forces, the millions who voted, people like Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan and (Pervez) Musharraf in Pakistan - they didn't have to make the choices they've made. They decided to sign on with the US and its allies to fight the extremists. If the US were to decide it's too tough and to go home, it would have devastating consequences, for all of those people who bet the farm on this struggle."

And just in case the War On Iraq turns out to actually be the worst foreign policy decision in the history of the United States, Sheridan supplies a closing bit of praise for his old mate, that utterly ignores the humongous death tolls, destruction and third world living conditions that are now daily realities for more than a third of all Iraqis :

You may not agree with Cheney but he certainly lets you know what he thinks. If the US fails in Iraq, it certainly won't be because he lost his nerve.

No, if the US fails in Iraq it will because Cheney and his old mate, Donald Rumsfeld, denied repeatedly for more than TWO YEARS that the Iraqi insurgency was a reality and was ripping the country to pieces and both of them did nothing to try and stop it, even when veterans back from the war publicly begged them to face the reality.

Instead, Cheney said the "Saddam dead enders" were in "their last throes" and Rumsfeld shrieked about how well-informed people who tried to warn of how powerful the insurgency actually was were "Chicken Littles" crowing on about how "the sky was falling."

And all the while hundreds of American and British soldiers were being blown to pieces in roadside IED attacks and car bombings.

Obviously the most important thing of all in the scale of this monumental tragedy is that Cheney didn't lose his nerve.

Imagine if he had.

That might have constituted a livid horror beyond anything the Iraqis, or the thousands of Americans and Brits who lost family members over there, are now suffering through.

Well, for Cheney and his good mate Greg Sheridan at least.


Iran Vows To Defend Nuclear Program

Cheney Warns Of Iran Strike

Cheney : China's Military Build-Up "Not Consistent With Stated Goal Of Peaceful Rise"

US Keeping "All Options" Open Regarding Iran

John Howard Denies Snubbing Cheney, Twice, "Absurd Proposition"

Dick Cheney Down Under - Part 4

Signs Of The Times, And Stupidity

The anti-Cheney protesters in Sydney have displayed an appalling lack of creativity in their sign-making. There were a few good ones, but not many worth mentioning. I did see two, however, that were kind of startling, for different reasons.

The first was the banner below from a small group protesting John Howard's drastic cuts to university funding across Australia over the past few years. Why were they at a protest rally centred around the Iraq War, Dick Cheney and David Hicks? Presumably they thought there would be a good turnout of teenagers, youth and students in general and presumed it might be a good place to do a little recruiting for their cause. But there were more journalists and photographers than their target audience.

Anyway, who'd want to talk to activists who think a banner like this is a good idea?



The image has been enhanced, but if you can't read it, it says "One More Cut - Howard's Throat!'

Clearly, nutbags who have no idea how to find a middle ground audience for their cause.

The second was this interesting sign about Australian Gitmo detainee David Hicks and Dick Cheney :



Again, the image has been enhanced. It reads : "Hicks And Cheney - A Fine Pair Of Dangerous Warmongers."

Certainly this was the most interesting sign at a protest focused around Dick Cheney and the Iraq War, and the five year long detention without charge or trial of David Hicks.

Clearly the sign-maker believe that Hicks and Cheney are both dangerous warmongers, but is this a counter-protest sign, or just dipping the toe in both ponds?

The Cheney & Hicks sign certainly got some very interesting, and troubled, looks from other protesters.

It exposes one of the great ironies of an anti-war protest taking the side of David Hicks. He was a man who wanted to go to war, and did so at least twice, in the Kosovo conflict and in Kashmir. He relished firearms and weaponry and wrote letters to his parents where he described the joy he got from discharging a rifle at his perceived enemy.

How can you be anti-war but support the freedom of a man who is expected to be eventually tried for war-related crimes, according to US prosecutors?

David Hicks has been tortured by the US, held in solitary confinement, deprived of his human rights and used as a political football by the Australian government, and no doubt has proved valuable as a deterrent to other young Australians who may have contemplated joining the jihad in Iraq.

But David Hicks, like Dick Cheney, was no pacifist.

The 'War on Terror' has produced endless ironies, including the fact that a war aimed at stopping terror has led instead to a massive increase in the use of terrorism as a tactic, and the horrors of more than 200,000 dead Iraqis has helped to radicalise millions of Muslims in the process, which is expected to lead to an even greater increase in acts of explosive terrorism for years, if not decades, to come.

The irony of a crowd of anti-war protesters chanting for the release, without trial, of a pro-war Australian is but the latest example of the hypocrisy and duality the 'War on Terror' has generated. On all sides.

Dick Cheney Down Under - Part 3

On The Inside Of A "Violent" Protest

Breaking Down The Numbers

Story And Photos By Darryl Mason



There was the usual chanting, singing, applauding, angry speech-making through dodgy crackling sound systems. There were the hand-drawn signs and glossy 'No War' placards bearing the names of political parties. There were the tables covered with Chomsky, Pilger and Che biographies and clipboards of anti-war, anti-bombs, anti-Bush petitions.

There were a spattering of ferals, a handful of professional agitators, a bushel of politically inspired uni students and a few dozen middle-aged to elderly people who wanted Cheney to "Go Home!" and to "Free David Hicks!"

The mostly peaceful protest next to Sydney's Town Hall earlier today, held four hours before US Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Australia, certainly didn't seem to have the makings of Big Trouble.

And there wasn't Big Trouble. Far from it.

Until the MC told the crowd police had refused permission for them to march through the city and declared it was "up to youse" whether or not they wanted to defy the police and "March On!"

The police, by this time, were standing in double-strength lines between the crowd and George Street, filled with early evening commuter traffic.

A few cheers of defiance went up, and the police edged closer.

Then it was on. Kind of. Less than fifty of the protesters decided it was time for some push-me/push-you action. The police never seemed overly concerned. It was basically some 'real-time' training for the riot squad, and a chance for the eight mounted police (all female for some reason) to practice their co-ordinated line up, pull back, line up again equestrian maneuvers.

"I like the protests because you get to see these beautiful horses," said some woman in her 80s, waving a little flag that told us the only thing right about Dick Cheney was his first name.

The police had the few dozen argy-bargy protesters squeezed up against the low sandstone wall of the Town Hall, and just about every goose who decided to shove a cop or shout in his face wound up in the back of the lined up police vans that filled one lane of the busy road.

The action wasn't going off enough for one TV cameraman, so he jostled the camera himself, turning it at sharp angles as he shot the pushing and shoving action. You'd have thought he was riding a rollercoaster while copping a beating from a rugby team. Hilarious. It always looks like those cameramen must have have been neck-deep in the action, risking their lives to get the wild footage that makes the blood run a little faster. Well not this time.

And then there was the freelance photographer who didn't think there was enough action, in amongst the big squeeze, so he shoved one of the protesters trying to get out of the thick of it straight into the wall of cops (or so it appeared from my angle). The cops grabbed this guy, put him down and dragged him protesting loudly to the van. The photographer got the photos he needed.




At one point of the push and shove, if you added together the number of police and riot squad and photographers and network news camera people, you'd get a figure way above that of those actually engaging in this useful act of defiance.

I say 'useful' because it did prove very useful, indeed.

Useful for all those Jerry Bruckheimer-speed flash video edits for the news breaks, as well as producing some gritty images of raging ferals getting in cops faces for newspaper front pages.

Actually, the most aggressive yelling I witnessed came from this couple below :



From what I could gather, they weren't actually protesting and were only passing-by and didn't want to go back and cross George Street twice to get where they wanted to be, a few dozen metres away on the other side of the Town Hall from the Big Squeeze.

They gave that poor young cop a hell of a serve.


Basically, if the protester vs cops push-and-shove didn't happen, and it only lasted a few minutes at that, the only footage the evening news would have had to herald the arrival of Dick Cheney in Australia would have been the absolutely riveting shots of his plane creeping along the landing strip at Sydney airport, in the dark, and the Big Dick himself walking alone down a flight of stairs and stopping to say hello to four people on a wet tarmac.

In the end, 10 protesters were arrested, many confused tourists asked locals "Who is David Hicks?" elderly people got to admire the police horses, the riot squad got some live training minutes under their belt, the media got its mouth-frothing "violent riot" story, and John Howard got the opportunity to blame Cheney-related shutdowns of entire sections of Sydney on a few dozen protesters.

And the protesters did get to have their march in the end.

Once the push-and-shove died down, and those involved caught their breath, the police decided that there were so few people actually wanting to march that they wouldn't need to close the city streets anyway.

The protesters fit quite easily onto the 'footpath' (or sidewalk for our American readers), and then it was down to Martin Place and a bit more yelling, singing and chanting outside the American Consulate.


It's interesting to note that when something close to 500,000 Sydneysiders filled Hyde Park to the brim and flooded the city for blocks in all directions during an anti-war protest in early 2003, the evening news told us there were "tens of thousands."

Today, depending on which news you viewed, there were anything from 250 to 350 "violent" anti-Cheney demonstrators blocking traffic and causing chaos in the heart of downtown Sydney.

I asked one cop what the estimate of protester numbers was.

"Probably close to 500," he said.

"You're kidding," I said. "Are you also counting all the tourists and office workers who just happened to be passing by?"

"It's a crowd," the cop said.

"Do you count cops and riot squads as part of the 500 strong crowd as well?"

The cop laughed.

Television news crews, radio reporters, videographers, photographers and freelance media easily made up 70 to 90 of the people present. There were a good forty to fifty police, another few dozen riot squad officers, and a few dozen more 'crowd co-ordinators' from the local council.

Another 100-150 people there were just onlookers, tourists, officers workers, and people who happened to wander out of the Town Hall station and stopped to see what was going on. None of them were cheering, jeering or holding placards.

If you stripped the 350 (or 500) strong crowd of "Anti-Cheney" protesters down to those who actually turned up to protest, and weren't involved in the organisation of the protest itself, you'd be hard-pressed to come up with a number bigger than 80.

And it still made news all the way around the world.

Amazing stuff.

"Violent Protest"?

I've seen more violence in the Seafood Buffet line at the Sydney Casino.

Another protest is set to be held Friday morning when Dick Cheney addresses the Australian-American Alliance at the Shangri-La Hotel in The Rocks.

MORE TO COME....

John Howard One Of The Few Left In The World Cheney Can Rely On To Do As He Demands, Or Begs

Howard Says Don't Blame Cheney For Long Traffic Delays Due To Greenlight Corridor Travel, Blame Protesters

Cheney Protesters Clash With Police

New York Times : "Police Have Attempted To Drive The Anti-War Protests Off The Streets. We Will Not Be Silenced"

Bias Free 'News' Headline : "Cheney Visit Brings Out The Hate In Peaceniks"


Dick Cheney Down Under - Part 1

Dick Cheney Down Under - Part 2

Dick Cheney Down Under - Part 2

Cheney's Posse Won't Be Forced To Hand Over Their Firearms After Prime Minister Intervenes

US Vice President Dick Cheney is about to arrive in Sydney, and key firearm laws have been over-ridden to allow Cheney's Secret Service army to keep their guns.

The NSW State Government had to rush through new gun laws oh so quietly last Friday so that Cheney could bring his dozens of armed Secret Service agents to Sydney.

Cheney, apparently, threatened to give Sydney the flick if his posse couldn't come to town fully armed.

The super-fast-tracked new firearm laws allow Cheney's Secret Service agents to use their own weapons on Sydney streets to protect the vice president from the thousands of war veterans, doctors, lawyers, teachers, office workers, nurses, homeless people, uni students, children, dogs and confused tourists expected to make up protesting crowds on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.

The Howard (federal) government actually had to force through an urgent demand to the NSW government to change the firearm laws at the last minute, when it was revealed Cheney was considering skipping Sydney altogether if his posse couldn't step out on the town armed to their back teeth.

The Daily Telegraph reports that the firearm law amendments were "rushed through specifically for Mr Cheney."

The same specially gazetted gun permits will also be in effect when dozens of world leaders, including President Bush, hit Sydney in September for the Asia-Pacific Economic Convention (APEC).

Previous to last Friday, security details travelling with foreign dignitaries, such as Cheney, were forced to hand over any and all firearms to Australian Customs the moment they stepped arrive in Sydney.

But Cheney's posse can now cruise Sydney with an assortment of firearms and weaponry.

The law would even allow Dick Cheney himself to carry a shotgun, just in case he feels the urge to blow a few seagulls out of the sky.

Not that Cheney is planning to go on a shooting spree, but you never know what mood may strike the vice president.


Dick Cheney Down Under - Part 1 : Sydney Goes Into "Lockdown" Mode

Dick Cheney Down Under - Part 3 : Inside The "Violent" Sydney Protest

Dick Cheney Down Under - Part 1

Sydney Goes Into Lockdown As Cheney Comes To Town

By Darryl Mason

US Vice President Dick Cheney is jetting towards Sydney as I write this, and the police and Roads & Traffic Authority are rushing to get this place ready for Dick's big visit.

The preparations mostly include locking down entire chunks of the city for most of Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, making sure all the necessary surveillance cameras are in working order and co-ordinating with Cheney's huge Secret Service detachment to plan escape routes from the venues where Cheney is holding meetings and giving speeches should anything go explosively wrong.

The authorities have said there is no credible threat against Cheney while he's in Sydney, but then they wouldn't be talking it up even if there was.

Regardless, Big Dick is going to be surrounded by an army of Secret Service agents, undercover detectives, uniformed state and federal police, counter terrorism officers, dog squads and hired on security guards.

How many? One source estimated Cheney may be bringing as many as 50 Secret Service agents to Sydney with him, with more than 300 local police and hundreds more security guards in place to keep protesters well away from the venues where Cheney will be holding court.

Two major protests rallies are planned, for Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.

The monster security operation is expected to use up most of the resources of the NSW Police Counter Terrorism Command, the police dog squads, the anti-riot units and and the city-based general police.

How much does it cost to be gifted with a visit from such a widely admired and respected leader of the free world?

Unofficial estimates range from $3 million to $6 million. For four days of Cheney time.

The least the vice president could do is draw the winning tickets at a couple of charity raffles while he's here, but no.

He has more important business to attend to : busting the prime minister's chops over why he will only send a measly 70 more soldiers into Iraq, heaping praise on supplicant journo-
propagandists, listening with utter contempt to the opposition leader, Kevin Rudd's, demands that Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee face justice or be freed, and holding court with Australia's business elite.

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Major Traffic Problems Expected In Heart Of Sydney For Three Days

You don't often get told to stay the hell out of your own city. But Cheney's coming to town, so the NSW and Federal Police, and the NSW Roads And Traffic Authority have decided to pre-warn Sydneysiders of the vast traffic chaos, gridlock and delays Cheney's visit is expected to cause :

People are warned to avoid the city if they can until Mr Cheney leaves Sydney on Sunday morning.

It's a good thing that protest rallies are being held.

This means that most of the traffic delays and chaos can be blamed on Sydneysiders exercising their democratic rights to express their disgust and horror at the child-heavy carnage the US vice president helped to unleash upon the people of Iraq.

Blaming the protesters for traffic delays means easy avoidance of the fact that the Dick Cheney visit requires entire streets to be shut down, traffic lights locked to green, and side streets searched, cleared and secured so his huge motorcade can whip through the centre of one of the world's busiest cities without experiencing undue delay.

The traffic problems will begin at 5.30pm tomorrow when protesters from the Stop the War Coalition will march from Town Hall and move along George Street.

The protesters will also demonstrate on Friday morning at the Shangri-la Hotel in The Rocks, where Mr Cheney is scheduled to speak to the Australian American Association.

At least three whole streets around Cheney's hotel in The Rocks will be totally closed for three days and nights while Cheney is in town.

The NSW police, burdened with handling most of the nightmarish logistics of closing down, locking down, huge sections of Sydney, regard Cheney as a "high risk dignitary."

Perhaps some of the huge street closures are for the safety of Sydneysiders.

With Cheney in his hotel room, surrounded by dozens of armed Secret Service agents, the vice president might be tempted to start unloading firearms from his hotel room windows at some of the local bird life.

Or lawyer life.

Dick Cheney Down Under - Part 2 - Cheney's Posse Allowed To Keep Hand Cannons

MORE TO COME....

Prime Minister : I Can Free David Hicks Whenever I Want...

But I'm Not Going To

David Hicks is probably the most famous and easily recognised name in Australia at the moment. His plight has generated enormous publicity in the Australian media, and for the past three months, much of that spotlight's glare has been downright sympathetic.

Which is remarkable, when you consider that the US military accuses 31 year old David Hicks of aiding terrorists and attempting to commit murder.

He is one of the Guantanamo Bay detainees that President Bush, and former US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, used to refer to as, "killers who kill" and "the worst of the worst."

For five years, Hicks has been isolated, tortured, deprived of sunlight, of sensory stimulation, of human contact. His lawyers claim he has become like a tired, old man, desperate and despondent. They fear he may prove to be mentally unfit to stand trial.

Hicks spends 22 hours a day in what his lawyer has described as a "steel cell". He is under constant surveillance, in order to prevent suicide attempts.

Hicks's lawyer, David McLeod, spent four days visiting Hicks In Guantanamo Bay last week :

"...when I left David on the Thursday, in my 30 years of professional life it was one of the hardest and most heartrending things I had to do.

To look him in the eye and say "David, I don't know when we'll be seeing you again, we'll do our best for you", but it was like looking into the eyes of someone dying from a potentially fatal illness who is being denied the life saving drug that would cure his ill and to leave him in that state alone with his thoughts, nobody to talk to, nobody to comfort him, it was a very heartrending thing for me to do...."

The US military have denied Hicks the opportunity of independent psychiatric assessment. No doubt they fear that any psychiatrist given access to a man like Hicks, who has been detained in such conditions for so long, is going to shout long and loud about the intolerable inhumanity inflicted upon him.

Last week the US Military announced they were planning to finally charge Hicks, but last night they revealed it could be months more before Hicks even gets close to facing trial by the reconstituted military tribunal.

Three years ago, most Australians would have not recognised David Hicks' name, or known why he was being held hostage by the American military in Guantanamo Bay.

But they know who he is now.

They know his face, they know parts of his life story, they are seeing images of him as a bright-eyed kid on a televised ad campaign, and they know the pain and torment his aging father has suffered while the Howard government refused to even pressure President Bush to get the Australian charged and on trial for four long years.

It was only after shocking polls showed just how much support the 'trial now or release him' demands by campaigners had found amongst the Australian public that John Howard was finally seen to be putting at least some pressure on his "close friend" President Bush.

As a sign of the extraordinary change in how Australian view Hicks' plight, a story about his extended detention and shattered mental state was aired last night on the highest rating current affairs in the country, and there was barely a mention that he was a suspected terrorist, or that he had been 'captured' by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in the weeks following the 9/11 attacks and sold for a bounty to US forces.

The story on Today Tonight stuck to a new script determined by polls that showed more than 70% of Australians were vastly unhappy with how the Howard government has dealt with the Hicks fiasco.

Almost 50% of Australians said that what happened to David Hicks would affect the choices they made come election day.

Remarkably, the demands by the Australian public that Hicks either face a fair trial for his alleged crimes or be set free is now shaping up to be one of the four key election decisions that will determine whether or not John Howard remains prime minister of Australia come 2008.



Prime minister Howard admitted yesterday that he can get David Hicks out of Guantanamo Bay any time he wants to.

But he won't do it, because he believes Hicks must face the terrorism-related charges set to be filed by the US Military, despite the fact that virtually no reputable law firm or expert in the world believes the trials proposed by the US military will come close to being fair, or just.

When Howard told his coalition MPs yesterday afternoon, on the first day that federal parliament resumed for 2007, that he could get the United States to set Hicks free, at least six MPs demanded to know why Howard wouldn't allow Hicks to come home.

Howard replied that Hicks couldn't be tried for his alleged crimes in Australia, as no offence under Australian law been committed at the time he was captured.

What Howard is saying is that he cannot stomach the fact that Hicks could be flown home to Australia and go free, to be reunited with his family after five long years.

But Australians have grown very aware of how their prime minister has manipulated them over the past decade, and they will be extremely suspicious if Howard manages to secure the release of David Hicks in the coming weeks.

If Howard thinks he can now boost his rapidly diminishing chances of winning the upcoming federal elections by Hicks out of Gitmo, before he faces trial, he's going to be in for a shocker of a surprise.

Hicks coming home would make the vast majority of Australians very happy, but that is unlikely to translate into votes for Howard. If anything, it may make Australians even more cynical about the prime minister's motivations, and his humanity.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

(Howard) indicated yesterday he would not let him languish indefinitely, saying he would set the US further timelines for the case to be dealt with.

He earlier gave the US until the middle of this month for Mr Hicks to be charged. At the weekend, two new charges were sworn against Mr Hicks but have not yet been approved or laid.

Lawyers from the US State Department said yesterday it was unlikely he would be formally charged by mid-February, and it was too early to say whether he would be tried within a year.

The Prime Minister said public sentiment was shifting and the matter had not been well handled by the Americans.

But this did not deter backbenchers from speaking out, saying it was not the person but the process that concerned them.

....MPs pointed out that Mr Hicks's case was becoming a "big concern" in the community.

The West Australian senator Judith Adams said a Labor victory in a state byelection in Perth over the weekend was in part fuelled by anger over Mr Hicks and Iraq.

Mr Howard dismissed this.

Labor's legal affairs spokesman, Kelvin Thomson, said Mr Howard's claim exposed the whole process as a joke.

"If the Prime Minister is claiming he can determine, and therefore by default, is determining David Hicks's fate, this is outrageous," Mr Thomson said.

New Charges Against David Hicks Announced : Is That All They've Got On Him?

Attorney General Approves Use Of "Coerced Evidence" Against Hicks In Trial

Hicks' Lawyer : "He's Clearly On The Spiral Of Despair"

Big Dick Down Under

US Vice President Dick Cheney will visit Australia from February 22 to 27.

Officially he's here to thank Australia, and Australian soldiers, for support in the Iraq War, and to talk up the benefits of a continued close alliance between Australia and the United States.

Unofficially, depending on who is doing the speculating, Cheney will be meeting the prime minister, John Howard, to tell him he can bring Australia troops home from Iraq before the November elections.

Or to gauge Howard's support for Australian troops becoming more involved along Iraq's border with Iran when/if the US begins air strikes on Iran's nuclear energy facilities.

Or to get in John Howard's face and demand he commit more Australian troops to the fight in Iraq, after turning down two or more near begging requests from former defence secretary (and Cheney's best mate) Donald Rumsfeld in the last quarter of 2006.

For whatever other reasons VP Cheney has decided to grace the nation with his presence, his will not be a popular visit with the public at large. The general reaction to the news of his visit could well be described as largely hostile.

Cheney Down Under is expected to provide a pivotal focus point for anti-war protesters, who have had few international targets to rally against in Australia since the Howard government first sent troops to Iraq, starting in late 2002.

Prime Minister Howard said that because "we do not live in a very certain world," it would be seen as to "rat on your ally" to disappoint the Bush administration when it comes to the Iraq War, and, more generally, the 'War on Terror'.

"I think this would be a very bad time, difficult though it is, a very bad time to be seen to be letting the Americans down," Mr Howard said.


You can see what some of the locals think of Cheney's visit (in comments) here, and here.


Cheney Visit To Grow Debate Over The Value And Future Of The Australian-American Alliance.