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- 9 May 2006
United States of America Ambassador to Australia
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Page: 22761
The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS [10.44 p.m.]: Mr Tom Schieffer was the United States of America [USA] ambassador to Australia from July 2001 until February 2005. Since that time there has been no USA ambassador to Australia and the mission has been run by the current deputy chief of mission, Mr Bill Stanton. Recently it was announced that he will be replaced in July this year by Ms Carol Rodley, who is the head of the USA State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. That department is the spy agency for America's diplomats. She has access to America's most tightly guarded secrets about Al Qaeda and the global war on terror. Ms Rodley's job will involve liaising with Australian intelligence and law enforcement officers on terrorist threats in Asia and to Australia. She is part of the inner circle of Washington's top spies, which includes the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte. But ABC online states:
Ms Rodley may find herself acting as the ambassador, as the nomination of Robert McCallum as the new US ambassador to Australia was put on hold in the face of opposition from within the US Senate last week. McCallum was the man nominated by President Bush for the position. Mr McCallum currently serves as Associate Attorney General at the Department of Justice.
Deputy Democrat leader in the US Senate, Dick Durbin, Senator for Illinois, has objected to the nomination. Senator Durbin remains concerned about Mr McCallum's activities in the US Justice Department. Senator Durbin wrote to President Bush to express his concern about sending Mr McCallum to Australia while he is the subject of an ethics investigation by the Justice Department. The inquiry is examining whether Mr McCallum improperly influenced a US Government law-suit against big tobacco manufacturers when he was associate attorney-general. While he was Acting US Deputy Attorney General in July 2005, McCallum decided that the Government would "reduce the amount of damages it was claiming in a landmark anti-racketeering case against cigarette companies from $A180 billion to $A13 billion".
Mr McCallum was a former tobacco industry lawyer, who worked for Alston and Bird on behalf of R. J. Reynolds. He has denied exerting any improper influence on the case. It is interesting to note that both McCallum and President Bush were members of the infamous Skull and Bones Fraternity at Yale University, the graduating members of which are given a sizeable cash bonus to help them get started in life. Older graduate members, the so-called Patriarchs, give special backing in business, politics, espionage and legal careers to graduate Bonesmen who exhibit talent or usefulness. An article by Michael Gawenda in the Age, dated 16 March 2006, stated:
Mr McCallum grew up in Tennessee and has remained close to his Southern roots despite working in Washington for more than five years…. The White House will say only of Mr McCallum's friendship with President Bush that they were in the same year at Yale, and both were members of Yale's secretive and exclusive Skull and Bones society.
It is not surprising that the White House is reticent about the relationship between President Bush and Mr McCallum, given the view that cronyism is widespread in the Bush Administration.
A White House official confirmed that Mr Bush had been involved in choosing Mr Schieffer's replacement and that he had approached three other close associates about the job.
The tobacco industry donated $2.7 million to the Republicans in 2004 and $938,000 to the Democrats, but Justice Department officials insisted that the decision [to lower the amount of money asked from the tobacco industry] was made on legal grounds.
Justice Gladys Kessler is yet to hand down a decision in the case. The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility is considering whether the decision to reduce the claim was due to political interference or involved ethical and conflict-of-interest issues.
So, there has been no USA ambassador for Australia for the past 15 months. On 22 April, 2006, on ABC's Lateline, the former USA Deputy Secretary of State in the first Bush administration, Richard Armitage, said that the length of time it has taken the United States Government to appoint a new ambassador to Australia is "unconscionable and unfortunate". Is that indicative of the level of regard the Bush administration has for Australia? Is that how John Howard's new best friend treats him? What high regard has the current USA regime for its ally in the so-called "Global War on Terror"! Worse than that is the choice of a candidate for the job—an apologist for the tobacco industry who is under investigation by the USA Justice Department. Australia deserves better than a crony of big tobacco, with the alternative a spy. Thanks to our major parties, big tobacco has just got out of giving any evidence to the New South Wales Government's tobacco use committee, and does not need any more evil influence coming from the USA. Our civil liberties are being progressively trashed as our own spy agencies go into overdrive to keep us safe with our belligerent USA-driven foreign policy. It is frankly disappointing who are on offer as ambassadors, but the relationship between John Howard and George Bush is so close and so subservient that perhaps Americans think we are happy with it. Let them note: some of us are not!
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