Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Cheney Howard deal revealed

Did Cheney and Howard do a deal on David Hicks?

Yes according to a report in the latest Harper's magazine.

The report quotes a US military officer as saying Hicks' freedom was negotiated directly by US Vice President Dick Cheney and Prime Minister John Howard.

“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.

“It's demoralising for all of us.”

A month before the plea deal, Cheney visited Australia and met Howard. Hicks had been incarcerated at the US military prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for five years. It was a big issue in at the time and there were concerns that it could become an election issue!

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