Let Sibel Edmonds Speak

Peddling Peril, Peddling Lies

2010-03-29T15:28:00.000-05:00

David Albright, President of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), has a new book out (which I haven't read) about AQ Khan and the nuclear black market called Peddling Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America's Enemies.

Remarkably, one of the sources for the book was former #3 at the State Department Marc Grossman.
Grossman was named, under oath, by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds as a key participant in the nuclear black market. You can read the gory details over at Boiling Frogs Post, but basically Grossman:

1. Arranged visas and security clearances for nuclear labs like Sandia and Los Alamos
2. Facilitated blackmail of American officials with access to various secrets
3. Outed Brewster Jennings in 2001, two years before Robert Novak wrote his infamous article.

Why is Albright using Grossman as a source? Why isn't Grossman facing criminal charges?

Full article at Boiling Frogs Post

Sibel Edmonds: Official Docs Confirm Major Criminal Investigations of Turkish Operatives in Chicago

2010-03-17T14:20:00.003-05:00

I have a new article over at Sibel Edmonds' place, Boiling Frogs Post, discussing a new FBI FOIA release regarding one of the Chicago-based Turkish organizations that Sibel has been talking about for years.

The sub-title is "Newly Released FBI Documents Support Explosive Claims by Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds."

The article begins thusly:

Recently released FBI documents prove the existence of highly sensitive National Security and criminal investigations of "Turkish Activities" in Chicago prior to September 11, 2001. These documents add further support to many of the allegations that former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds has been claimed, in public and in Congress, since 2002. The documents were released under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request into an organization called the Turkish American Cultural Alliance (TACA), an organization repeatedly named by Ms. Edmonds as being complicit in the crimes that she became aware of when she was a translator at the FBI.

The documents released under FOIA are almost completely redacted, but they do support many of Edmonds’ claims, including:

1. There was a number of very serious FBI investigations into "Turkish activity in Chicago" involving a number of targets, including TACA
2. These investigations were related to "National Security" among other things.
3. These investigations were regarded as so sensitive that no files were to be uploaded to FBI's computer system.
4. Congressional corruption was involved.
5. The FBI repeatedly conducted actual "physical surveillance" against Turkish and American targets.
6. Some of these investigations were shut down in 2001.

I asked Ms Edmonds for a response to these new documents. She replied:

"Finally! I've been saying this for years, and now we finally have documented proof from the FBI of this Turkish criminal activity based in Chicago.

This is fantastic, but even this is only the tip of the iceberg. The main question is this: Why has the White House and the State Dept been so determined to shut these investigations down? They shut down these investigations at the FBI, they shut me down with the State Secrets Privilege.

What are they hiding? Chicago was the center of it all, Chicago was the center of the foreign espionage activity, and the center for money laundering, and also a major heroin distribution center. Celebi was a key player, but Dennis Hastert, Mayor Daley, Robert Creamer and other US officials also helped facilitate these activities. When will we see some accountability?"

This is great news for all of us who have been following Sibel's case through the years. See Boiling Frogs Post for the full article.

(Completely independent of the above news, Boiling Frogs Post is currently in fund-raising mode. Boiling Frogs Post is a fantastic site, and the objective is: "To establish a venue for investigative articles, editorials, analyses, discussions, and interviews on issues largely censored and blacked out by the media." I strongly suggest that you frequent Boiling Frogs Post, and contribute to the fund-raiser if you like what you see there.)

American Conservative: Sibel Edmonds

2009-09-22T03:40:00.004-05:00

American Conservative magazine has a new cover story interview with Sibel Edmonds. Congratulations to Phil Giraldi and Sibel.

From 2-4 Eastern, Tuesday, Scott Horton will interview Phil Giraldi, ~~David Rose~~ and Joe Lauria for Antiwar Radio. Listen live. (update: audio download available here)

Bradblog has been doing fantastic reporting on all aspects of this case recently, and will undoubtedly continue to be the number one go-to place for all the latest information - so be sure to check in regularly, and of course, Sibel's blog, 123 Real Change.

Also, don't miss Luke Rosiak's two excellent reports on the Turkish Lobby for the Sunlight Foundation (Part one, part two)

And make sure you read Mizgin's excellent pieces on Hittite Microwave (1, 2, 3)

Sibel Edmonds, under oath

2009-08-25T11:12:00.001-05:00

Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds has finally been given the opportunity to testify, under oath, about crimes that she became aware of during her work at the FBI.

The video and transcript of her deposition were released yesterday, and include details of "blackmail, bribery, espionage, infiltration, and criminal conspiracy by current and former members of the U.S. Congress, high-ranking State and Defense Department officials, and agents of the government of Turkey" according to Bradblog, who has done extensive reporting on this case.

The video and the transcript are available at Bradblog.

Bradblog reports:

The deposition included criminal allegations against specifically named members of Congress. Among those named by Edmonds as part of a broad criminal conspiracy: Reps. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Dan Burton (R-IN), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Bob Livingston (R-LA), Stephen Solarz (D-NY), Tom Lantos (D-CA), as well as an unnamed, still-serving Congresswoman (D) said to have been secretly videotaped, for blackmail purposes, during a lesbian affair.

High-ranking officials from the Bush Administration named in her testimony, as part of the criminal conspiracy on behalf of agents of the Government of Turkey, include Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Marc Grossman, and others.

According to the deposition, her case includes, but is not limited to, activities involving attempts by Turkish, Israeli and Pakistani operatives:

"to obtain very sensitive, classified, highly classified U.S. intelligence information, weapons technology information, classified congressional records, recruiting key U.S. individuals with access to highly sensitive information, blackmailing, bribery. "

For many years, Sibel has wanted the opportunity to testify in public, under oath. All of her previous attempts to expose the crimes that she is aware of have been buried in what she calls the 'black hole' of testimony behind closed doors, where information goes in but never escapes. Hopefully this will change now that (some of) the charges have now been made in public, under oath.

A list of the guilty parties is available here. Sibel's blog is 123 Real Change. Bradblog will continue covering the story.

Some video

2009-08-13T15:03:00.002-05:00

Bradblog brings us video from outside the deposition.

There's some more here from Eric Larson

Liveblogging

2009-08-08T12:07:00.002-05:00

Bradblog is quasi-liveblogging Sibel's deposition today. Follow today's events here at Bradblog

DoJ intercedes to block testimony.

2009-08-07T23:17:00.001-05:00

Bradblog has the latest:

DoJ Intercedes With Ohio Commission in Effort to Block Edmonds Testimony

Brad writes:

In short, the DoJ has informed the (Ohio Election Commission ) that Edmonds has "not complied with the procedures for obtaining authorization from the FBI, her former employer, prior to making any disclosure relating to information that she acquired in the course of her work for the FBI. Therefore, she is not authorized to testify at the deposition."

[]
The DoJ further claims in their letter that the OEC's subpoena is not enforceable, because the deposition is to take place outside of Ohio.

In response, the OEC has said they will not enforce the subpoena, but they have not withdrawn it either. Thus, it seems, Krikorian is still within his rights to carry out the deposition at this time, and Edmonds tells The BRAD BLOG she plans on being there in the morning to answer it.
[]
In a brief conversation with Edmonds moments ago, she re-iterated her belief that the "MSM will be a no-show tomorrow", and therefore says "citizen journalists are needed" to cover what may happen at the deposition. Both she and Krikorian, as well as attorneys from all sides, will be available to answer questions from media --- both corporate and citizen --- before and after the scheduled deposition tomorrow. It is slated to begin at 10:30am Saturday morning (8/8/09) at the National Whistleblowers Center, 3238 P St. NW, in Washington D.C..

What happens next?

Sibel Edmonds Fights to Testify

2009-08-07T17:32:00.000-05:00

Bradblog has the latest.

The FBI and the Dept of Justice are trying to block Sibel from testifying, asserting that:

Edmonds is under “no compulsion” to testify in the Krikorian case and the FBI asserted that she, “does not have approval for any disclosure of any information.”

Sibel's lawyers responded that:

"the objections raised so far by the agency are not sufficient to block Edmonds' from "truthfully answer[ing] questions while under oath pursuant to a lawful subpoena" on Saturday morning in D.C. as scheduled.

Their press release [PDF], to be issued publicly later today, accuses the FBI and DoJ of attempting "censorship" and trying to "silence [a] whistleblower"."

Bradblog reports:

Edmonds told The BRAD BLOG today that she "absolutely intends to answer any questions, unless it's about intelligence gathering or informants." But, since "that has nothing to do with this case," she didn't anticipate any such questions.

She did say, however, that she was "obligated to respond to any questions that come out about any of the people in the 'State Secrets Privilege Gallery'". The "State Secrets Privilege Gallery" referenced is a webpage of unnamed photographs --- featuring current and former Congressmembers, high-ranking State and Defense Dept. officials, as well as lobbyists and agents from Turkish public interest groups --- which Edmonds posted in 2007. The names of most of those officials, and their ties to Edmonds own whistleblower case, has been detailed by Edmonds expert Luke Ryland here. Some of the names, said to have been illegally tied to Turkish influences, include former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Congressmen Dan Burton (R-IN), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Stephen Solarz (D-NY), as well as Bush Administration officials such as Richard Perle, Marc Grossman, Douglas Feith and others.

Bradblog continues:

Edmonds told The BRAD BLOG this afternoon that she believes she has an obligation to respond to questions raised during the deposition.

"This is not about being idealistic or heroic," she told us. "I am responsible to inform the citizens, and these people's constituents about who they're voting for. I'm responsible to the citizens of this country and the Constitution. I'm going to do my best answer to those citizens, especially when it comes to important issues of the Constitution."

The DoJ and the FBI have a few possible options, including re-invoking the State Secrets Privilege. Unless they actively move to block the testimony, it is scheduled to proceed at 10.30AM Saturday.

Dept of bad timing

2009-08-07T04:12:00.000-05:00

Sibel has been locked out of her blog and can't post anything there at the moment. I suspect that it is a coincidence more than a nefarious plot, but the timing is awful given her upcoming deposition.

Sibel obviously won't be able to post any updates there until that problem gets rectified, but Sibel has other ways of publishing any important messages. I will re-publish them at Against All Enemies.

Sibel Edmonds to break gag order

2009-08-06T04:30:00.003-05:00

Update: Sibel's deposition will now be closed to the press & public, although the deposition will eventually be available on video.

Bradblog has the full story on the latest Sibel Edmonds news. Here is the intro:

FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds Subpoenaed, Set to 'Break' Gag Order Unless DoJ Intercedes

Former agency translator called to testify in Ohio election case this Saturday on Turkish infiltration of U.S. government...

Unless the Dept. of Justice re-invokes their twice-invoked "state secrets privilege" claim in order to once again gag former FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, her attorneys have notified the department by hand-delivered, sworn letter of declaration [PDF] this week, that she intends to give a public deposition, open to the media, in response to a subpoena this Saturday in Washington D.C..

Edmonds has confirmed her intentions to answer any questions asked of her during the sworn proceedings, fully and publicly, during conversations with The BRAD BLOG this week. She notes that her agreement with her former employer, the FBI --- who fired her illegally after she filed whistleblower allegations about corruption and foreign infiltration in the linguistics department --- includes certain non-disclosure requirements. However, those requirements do not preclude her answering to a legally issued court subpoena.

The subpoena and request for sworn deposition is part of a case now pending before the Ohio Elections Commission in which Ohio's Republican U.S. Congresswoman Jean Schmidt (R-2nd District) has filed a complaint against her 2008 independent challenger, David Krikorian who Schmidt has charged distributed false statements about her during last year's campaign.

The resulting testimony, if it indeed occurs this weekend, could be far more explosive than either Schmidt or Krikorian might have ever guessed...

Read the rest at BradBlog

ATC / ATA bribed Dennis Hastert

2009-08-05T20:10:00.003-05:00

The following snippet is from a recent interview of Sibel Edmonds by Brad Friedman.

Brad Friedman: (24.30min) One of those folks is actually Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House, who has now gone to work for the Turkish government.

Sibel Edmonds: Isn't that amazing. Because as you know in August 2005 Vanity Fair had a six or seven page on this issue, and the fact that several FBI agents and Dept of Justice officials as sources, and some congressional people confirmed to this reporter, David Rose, that then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was the recipient of various bribery and other illegal conduct, let's put it that way.

And this (article) came out, and Dennis Hastert didn't do anything, they didnt sue Vanity Fair. In fact, they didn't really issue a real denial, and as you know he resigned a year later, and now he works actually for the Turkish Lobby that the Vanity Fair article named as one of the entities that was giving Mr Hastert these bribes.

Brad Friedman: Oh, Vanity Fair actually named that particular firm?

Sibel Edmonds: Correct, because they work with the American Turkish Council, and the ATA, and they are the clients for the lobbying firms that he's working for today. And the Government of Turkey of course, this lobbying firm for Hastert is now registered for Foreign Agents Registration Act...

Deposition pending...

2009-08-05T18:42:00.003-05:00

Sibel Edmonds may finally get a chance to speak. She has been asked to provide sworn deposition and affidavit testimony in an Ohio Election case. Her testimony will include details regarding:

How certain Turkish entities had illegally infiltrated and influenced various U.S. government agencies and officials, including but not limited to the Department of State, the Department of Defense and individual members of the United States Congress.

How certain Turkish American cultural and business lobby groups conduct their illegal operations with direct and indirect support from the foreign governments.

Sibel's deposition is scheduled for:

Saturday, August 8, 2009, at 10:30am. It will be held at the National Whistleblowers Center at 3238 P. St. NW, Washington, DC. The event is open to the press.

Jeff Stein has a story about this matter at CQ Politics.

Sibel Edmonds interviews NSA's Russ Tice

2009-08-05T05:12:00.004-05:00

This is a partial transcript of an interview by Sibel Edmonds & Peter B. Collins of NSA whistleblower Russ Tice. The audio is here.

Sibel Edmonds: (38min) ...And of course, what we have been seeing with the Congress, and I agree with you on the blackmail angle, because as you know yourself, the FBI has been doing this for a long, long time.

I know of several, 8, 9 congressional people that we were maintaining files on, files that were obtained under FISA on foreign entities.

And under the FISA laws, when you get information on US persons you have two options - you either pursue them criminally by going to the Justice Department and asking for warrants - separate warrants than FISA - to go and legally collect evidence on those Congressional people, any US persons, or you destroy those files.

Well, I'll tell you this, they didn't go after them criminally, and they never destroyed those files, and those were pretty thick files - whether it was a certain congresswoman who is currently serving, and has a lesbian relationship even though she has a husband and two grown up children, and how that is being used against her. I can't name names, but of course the State Secrets Privilege comes into work.

[SNIP]

Peter B Collins: (48 mins) Now, I do understand the compartmentalization of secure organizations, but we also have to allow for human beings and for constitutional rights, and when you took your pledge of secrecy to work in these various agencies. Russ, did you give up any constitutional rights?

Russ Tice: Now here's the thing, when you say 'pledge,' pledge is something that is spoken. The pledge that I take is the standard pledge in government to support and defend the constitution of the US. That was my pledge.

Now, when you are read into these programs, and I've been read into so many 'black' programs - 219 black world programs in my career, which is astounding for one person.

So when you read into these programs, you read it through and you sign something that says that you will not divulge the information that you've learnt in this program, so your pledge is to support and defend, and you're signing individual programs and your general clearance at a TS/SCI level - Special Compartmented Information - at that level you also sign something that says that you're not going to give up classified information.

But ultimately, when a program violates the law and the constitution, under Executive Order, that program classification is ultimately null and void, because the constitution trumps any illegal and unconstitutional classification stamped on any program.

Sibel Edmonds: Well that brings us to this whole issue of obliging with this secrecy, and I signed those papers too, OK.

And I also know our rights under this law that says the Executive Branch shall not classify criminal information that it has committed, to cover it up, or embarrassing information. So that law actually takes precedence over the secrecy and all those documents that we have signed.

So if you are in that position - and Russ this is actually a question because I really don't know the answer - and you know that the program is illegal, you know that the program is not constitutional, you know that the program is against the interests and the liberties of the nation, then do you test that and say well, they say it is classified (and that is kind of arbitrary because the executive branch is in charge of classification) yet the conduct is illegal?

Why is it that a lot of us are complying with this illegal classification which has actually been nullified based on an existing law that says 'Thou shalt not classify criminal conduct by the executive branch, or the embarrassing information' - so how do you explain that Russ?

Russ Tice: Well, first it is not a law, it is an Executive Order that says that, so ultimately the ability to counter that and say 'This violates the law and the constitution and I'm going to step up and I’m going to say something about that...' Ultimately your fate depends on the integrity of the Executive in the big White House. If the executive has no integrity, you're probably going to find yourself in jail, and no one is going to help you.

Sibel Edmonds: No, but first you're going to end up in court, OK. That means that you have to bring before the judge this information, and if they have brought criminal charges against you then it is going to be harder - they are still doing it, the Executive Branch today - for them to say 'Oh, it is all classified.'

If they are bringing criminal charges to jail you, then you get your opportunity to present to the court, the jury - because it is 'criminal', it is not the same as the administrative lawsuits that we have dealt with - and say 'OK. Here are these documents that shows that these operations, or what I reported, was illegal against the Constitution' and then it becomes up to the members of the jury to decide whether or not that information was not qualified to be classified. But it goes before the court first, and it goes to the criminal court - and if it goes to the criminal court, it is not the same dog-and-pony-show that they have had with us, because then you have access to the whole jury. Not?

Russ Tice: Well I think it would be exactly the same problem that you had. You know, why wouldn’t they tell a criminal judge or jury the State Secrets Privilege thing that they did in your case?

Sibel Edmonds: Because I've been trying to go to the criminal court, and they are not taking me there, because that was not the criminal court, that was the Federal Court under 'Employment', and the First Amendment.

And actually that lawsuit was brought by me, but two years ago I declared publicly, I said "OK. The mainstream media (and under two main conditions,) I will be willing to go and tell the American people what the Department of Justice and the State Department have been hiding under the State Secrets Privilege."

Of course, nobody is willing to do that within the mainstream media, because I was prepared to say 'Fine, you take me to the criminal court,' OK, because I have never been to the criminal court, then they can't really use the State Secrets Privilege because if they use it they have to drop the charges, and if they don't use (the State Secrets Privilege,) I get the chance to show the documents, to show the court, the public, the jury, documents that says 'No, this information is not State Secrets Privilege. (They show that) it is criminal conduct by the State Department and Pentagon between the years 1996 and 2002.' That's a different story isn't it?

Russ Tice: Well, in concept you could think of it that way, but in reality I have a feeling you'd end up with some sort of Kangaroo Court scenario and some sort of Kangaroo Court judge that would be hell-bent on...

Sibel Edmonds: (interrupts) Exactly, and we have problems with our courts today, you are right. You are absolutely right.

Russ Tice: So, like I said, when you have no one in the judiciary, no one in the legislature, and no one of course in the Executive that is willing to back you up, and the press themselves not doing their job, the poor guy or gal who is trying to get the word out is going to be crucified, and no one is going to shed a tear.

Update: From a BOILING FROGS interview with Phil Giraldi:

Sibel (32.50): You (Giraldi) are right, and you mentioned something else and you mentioned this process of 'hooking' and that's exactly what they do.

Now, the hooking can be via getting first some innocent information, and then making that information-level go higher and higher; money; and in some cases it is just the sexual stuff.

In one case that I had, and I can't talk about the specifics, it was this particular congresswoman, and she's still a congresswoman, that these ATC and AIPAC-related individuals got dirt on her, OK. They found out that even though she was married, and she still is, and has grown up kids, she is bi-sexual, she also has interests in other women. And they used that. They actually provided a Turkish lady to go and have an affair with her, and they recorded her, they tape-recorded the entire relationship , OK. Because their initial attempt to hook this particular congresswoman for a particular objective they had did not work, had not worked, so they went to the next level and said 'OK, this is how we hook', so there are various ways that they go and they hook people.

Sibel Edmonds on Mike Malloy

2009-07-31T05:06:00.004-05:00

The following is a partial transcript from an interview Sibel gave to Brad Friedman, guest-hosting the Mike Malloy show (audio). (All errors are mine, etc)

Caller: ... What are Sibel's thoughts about 9/11 possibly being an inside job?

Sibel Edmonds: As I have done for the past 7 or 8 years, I have basically stuck with what I know, first-hand, directly, my own knowledge, based on my own experience, based on what I obtained, which is not a lot, but it is extremely important.

And to answer a question like "Was it an inside job?" would be, first of all, preposterous for me to make that call. But what I can tell you is, based on what we know already - and these are the confirmed cases, like Colleen Rowley - look at her and her case - and look at the Phoenix Memo with the other FBI agents in the Phoenix field office, and then look at FBI agent Wright in Chicago, look at that case...

And if you read James Bamford's latest book, what the NSA obtained from Yemen before September 11, because we were following two of these hijackers in Yemen... Well, if you put all those things, all this information that has come from various agencies, in one place, and you look at it, and you say "Wow!"

You know, it is very easy to write off things when you have one or two slip-ups, and you attribute certain things to bureaucratic bungling - but it goes beyond that... Now, what is that? As I said, I wont be able to answer the question, but what I can answer is, yes, we had this 911 Commission that was formed (laughs) and first we had Henry Kissinger appointed to be the Chairman, this tells you what kind of Commission they had in mind, which was going to be cosmetic. It was pretty obvious. Then we had the final Commission, with a bunch of people with conflicts of interest, and we didn't get anything.

As you see, people have been gagged, a lot of things have been classified... And you think 'Why would they go so far to cover up bureaucratic bungling?' Again, that doesn't mean that this was an inside job, but what it tells you is that there are a lot of things that we don't know, there are a lot of things that our government doesn’t want us to know.

I mean, the recent thing just came out a few days ago with the case against Saudi Arabia, with the 9/11 family members. Well yesterday it made it to the front page of the New York Times with Eric Lichtblau, OK. So now the Justice Department under Obama is saying 'No you can't get this information because we want to protect Saudi Arabia.' Well, protect them against what? So those are the questions that have not been answered. And those questions that have been answered, nothing has been done about it, and no explanation has been given to us. So we have all these issues, and there is no simple answer, but one simple answer is that, yes, we are facing a lot of cover-up. And I want to know why, and I'm sure you want to know why too.

Brad Friedman: Nah, I don't want to know (laughs). So it's fair to say in your case then that you don't necessarily have information that you haven’t been able to disclose that reveals that 9/11 was an inside job, you just have, like I do, concerns about the information that we have, the bad information that we have...

Sibel Edmonds: (interrupts) I have to jump in here and say that I have information about things that our government has lied to us about. I know. For example, to say that since the fall of the Soviet Union we ceased all of our intimate relationship with Bin Laden and the Taliban - those things can be proven as lies, very easily, based on the information they classified in my case, because we did carry very intimate relationship with these people, and it involves Central Asia, all the way up to September 11.

I know you are going to say 'Oh my God, we went there and bombed the medical factory in the 1990s during Clinton, we declared him Most Wanted' and what I'm telling you is, with those groups, we had operations in Central Asia, and that relationship - using them as we did during the Afghan and Soviet conflict - we used them all the way until September 11.

Brad Friedman: Are you able to speak in more detail about that material that was classified?

Sibel Edmonds: People have written about it, based on the interviews conducted, and based on other people talking about it. And you know what, it's not very difficult to put two and two together on this. There is so much information that of course our Mainstream Media has not reported, but there have been some good books written on the topic, and that is: What we have been doing, what we were doing in those years, all the way, all the way until that day of September 11, in Central Asia, in what they call East Turkistan where we are talking about the Uighurs, and with Bin Laden, via Turkey.

And these are the Turkish actors because Central Asian countries are Turkic-speaking, they have the same heritage as the Republic of Turkey, the share the same language, the same culture. And we, as a country, the United States, used Turkey, along with actors from Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia to carry out a lot of operations.

The Russians have talked about it, because they have been screaming about it, again those things have not been reported, but what we have on that has been classified. They have been using 'sensitive diplomatic relations,' protecting Turkey, protecting Israel, protecting Pakistan, protecting Saudi Arabia...

Well, that does not say that 9/11 was an inside job, but that tells people, it would tell people, the information that they have gagged, they have classified, a lot of things that would maybe bring us closer to the answer, and why our government has been lying about it.

Some of my thoughts here.

There are criminal and terrorist-related cases...

2009-06-01T05:59:00.004-05:00

Scott Horton interviewed Sibel Edmonds in Jan 2005. For some reason I have not previously transcribed the interview. (Some comment on the interview here)

Here is a partial transcription (errors, omissions, editorial decisions etc are mine):

Sibel Edmonds: I started working for the bureau about a week after September 11, 2001, and I translated intelligence and investigations in three languages: Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani.

During my short tenure with the bureau, I came across certain issues and cases that I believed I had to report to higher-ups in the FBI and they consisted of, let's say, issues within three different broad categories.

One had to do with security breaches, serious security breaches, certain translators who were granted Top Secret clearance, who were internationally blocking certain intelligence from being translated by stamping them as 'Not Pertinent,' and also removing high level intelligence from the FBI, and alerting certain targets of investigations.

Another had to do with certain investigations under counter intelligence - counter intelligence - were not being transferred to counter terrorism despite their direct connection and link to certain criminal and terrorist activities against this country, simply because these counter intelligence investigations involved certain semi-legit organizations and, according to the agents I worked for, the State Department basically asked the FBI not to transfer these to counter terrorism, and not to investigate it, because it would touch upon 'certain diplomatic relations' and 'certain sensitive foreign business relations' of the United States. That was not right. It should not have done considering what we went through in this country on 911.

And of course, third, had to do with mismanagement and hiring practices within the FBI.

So I took these issues all the way up the chain, to higher management, all the way up to Director Mueller by February 2002 and his assistant Dale Watson, and also FBI OPR office - Office of Professional Responsibility - and it was interesting. Initially they were asking me not to demand investigations regarding these cases, because it would be highly embarrassing for the FBI, and later they started retaliating, they forced me to take a polygraph exam, which I took, they confiscated my home computers, they wanted to know whether or not I was communicating these issues and cases, outside the FBI with Congress, and at the time I was not, and they could not find anything on my computer...

After seeing and witnessing these retaliations, I took the issue to congress directly, to the Senate Judiciary Committee. As you know, they have this 'oversight' of the DoJ and FBI, and they have the right to know about these issues, and I gave this information to them, inside the SCIF, the secured facility, so that none of our intelligence gathering methods would be compromised, and also to the Inspector General's Office for the Department of Justice itself. And this was done during March 6, 7, 2002.

And after I did that, two weeks later they terminated my contract, they fired me, and I then waited patiently for two years for congress to do their job, to investigate this and to have hearings on this issue. And for the Inspector General's office to issue a report so that the American people could get this information. Meanwhile, I also went to the court, under FOIA, I asked them to release certain documents that I was ENTITLED to - and I knew what those documents were, but I just wanted to make these documents public, and also under the First Amendment rights that I have, I had another court case. So basically, I tried all the channels possible - from the Inspector General's Office, to our Legislative Branch, Congress, and our Courts.
[SNIP]

Scott Horton: Ok, well, Sibel, let's talk about national security here for a minute. The more cynical side of me says 'OK, national security just means 'if we knew, they'd be in trouble' but then again, you were translating intercepts and it could be argued, maybe, that these things that they are trying to keep secret really are a threat to national security if everybody knew.

SE: Well, two reasons that's not the case.

Number one: they are not even citing 'ongoing investigations' ok? For example, they are not saying 'Well, we are not investigating these issues currently and it would damage' and you know why? It's because they are not investigating, and that's what I have been saying for 2.5 years.

There are criminal and terrorist-related cases that our government chooses not to investigate, hypocritically, because it may affect certain sensitive diplomatic relations, and again, I repeat, and I have been doing this for a year now, they can not have it both ways. On one hand, they are coming to us, the public, saying 'September 11, National Security, compromise your civil liberties, and restrict your freedom because you must, because of what we suffered on that day,' and they are using this fear factor to do just that.

On the other hand, they are not pursuing certain investigations, and they are not bringing about accountability, simply because 'certain sensitive diplomatic and foreign business relations' are going to get hurt? The American people have the right to know what 'sensitive diplomatic relations' the Attorney General of this country is referring to? And I want to also emphasize the fact that the FBI is not into the business of 'sensitive diplomatic relations.'

And when I was working for the agents, the Special Agents, I was told that it was the State Department that was putting on the pressure. And why the State Department is not coming and making it clear what these 'sensitive diplomatic relations' are? Let the public decide whether or not we want to preserve certain foreign business relations over our national security. Look, without even WMD, they are saying 'Let's go to Iraq because it is so important and because of our national security' - at least this is the excuse they are providing, right, and they are willing to put our lives, our boys' lives in danger, and we are losing lives there. On the other hand, they are saying we are not going to investigate certain cases because of certain foreign business relations! That can't happen!

SH: Now, Sibel, when we talked before you said that government officials would go to jail if your story was known in its entirety. Can you tell me if these presumed criminal charges would be related to the problems within the translation department, or things that you learned while translating the intercepts themselves?

SE: Things that I learnt from certain counterintelligence investigations - well, they are not even called 'investigations' - so, information received under counterintelligence, which involved certain activities, criminal and terrorist-related activities by certain... I refer to them as semi-legit organizations who are connected here, and they operate here in this country and internationally - and they still do, 3.5 years after 911 - and their connections to certain individuals here. Now, the connections may be business-wise, or it can be other types of relationships, and I really can't get more specific than that, but 'they' can ('they' being congress, and 'they' being the Inspector General's office, and 'they' being our Department of Justice.)

SH: OK. Are we talking about these semi-legit organizations, are we talking about ties between them and officials in the Bush Administration?

SE: One of the things that I have said, I've tried to emphasize the fact that the issues and the activities involved are by no means partisan. And some of this intelligence goes back as far as 1997, 1998, and as I said it continues to this day, to right now, as we speak. Therefore, that is my answer to your question.

SH: But we are talking about the national government here, we're not just talking about private American citizens?

SE: Well, there may be certain businesses involved, there may be certain groups involved, and certain officials involved. It is a pretty wide network.

SH: And again, in the US of A, home of the First Amendment, you are not allowed to answer my question, under penalty of criminal action, is that right?

SE: Absolutely, you got it.

SH: OK, now you mentioned the three subcategories of your complaints about what was going on inside the translation department at the FBI, and I wonder if we can get a little bit more specific. Your first category there was about mistranslations and things being deleted on purpose, and things not being passed on that should have been pass on, right?

SE: Correct

SH: Can you say by who?

SE: Well, by individuals, and again, I distinguish between two different groups. One is things that were done purely due to incompetence, OK. They hired certain individuals that did not qualify, they did not pass the English test, or the target language test, put that aside.

Certain proven cases involved certain translators who intentionally blocked received intelligence, and they intentionally blocked this intelligence from being processed, from getting to the agents in charge of investigations, or the analysts in charge of investigations, and one case that the IG report said that it has been proven by facts, evidence and other witnesses involved this translator, Melek Can Dickerson, who actually was granted top secret clearance, and started working with the Bureau, despite the fact that she used to work for one of these semi-legit organizations that were actually under FBI counterintelligence investigations! Despite the fact that this individual had ongoing relationships with two *other* targets of *other* counter-terrorism related investigations , and despite the fact that this individual did not report these issues on her job application. Now, forget her job application, but all language specialists have to possess top secret clearance, OK, and in order to grant top secret clearance, the FBI is supposed to conduct thorough background checks, so no matter what you put on your application, this thorough background check that includes your tax records and interviews with your former employers, well, that somehow did not occur with certain translators, including this particular translator.
[SNIP]

SH: Now, this woman, Melek Can Dickerson and her husband, came to your house and tried to recruit you to be involved in the same espionage as them, right?

SE: Correct, and surprisingly, the Inspector General's report office, in their report, says that this is supported by other facts, evidence and other witnesses, and in fact, the FBI did not investigate these espionage cases. Now, not only that, now the FBI is saying that they are now starting to investigate it, but look, those targets of investigations, those people involved in those criminal activities, most of them left the country as late as February 2002, after I reported these issues.

SH: Sibel, I remember reading something about - wasn't Melek Can Dickerson's husband an officer in the Air Force, and didn't they have their own investigation into this?

SE: Correct, and I'm glad that you asked, because now the FBI says they have started investigating this case, however, in September 2002, the Dickersons left the US, hastily, and they haven’t been back. Initially they went to Belgium, but now nobody knows where they are, and the targets of the investigations, the most important top targets, they left the country too, so I don't know what they are really going to be investigating.

But let's say they are really investigating this case, the husband works for Department of Defense, Major Douglas Dickerson, and the Department of Defense’s Inspector General's office started investigating Douglas Dickerson in August 2002. Two weeks later they hastily closed the investigation, per request from the Department of Justice. Now, this individual, Douglas Dickerson, still has his top secret clearance, and he still has access to our military secrets and nuclear secrets, ok. This guy's job, he was handling the transactions, weapons procurement from the US by certain Central Asian countries, and certain Middle Eastern countries, I can't name the countries, I'm forbidden from naming countries, and he still has top secret clearance!

Now, the Department of Defense rule says that even if a person shares living quarters with a person under any investigation - especially security breaches - that person's top secret clearance will be put on hold until the investigation is completed, yet, the Inspector General's office for the Department of Defense hastily closed this investigation, per request by the State Department and the Justice Department, and this person, Douglas Dickerson, still has access to our military secrets. How much sense does that make?
[SNIP]

SH: Now, I want to get back to these semi-legitimate organizations. What exactly are we talking about here? Is this like an NGO or is this different?

SE: (sighs) Well, I know to this day sometimes they talk about certain charity organizations, and some of these organizations that have ties to fanatics, but they are not the only ones. There are other types of organizations that have legit fronts - and it can be business promotion, it can be cultural promotion - who do carry out criminal and terrorist related activities, and not because of ideological reasons, and that is something I want to emphasize, these people may be totally against, let's say, fanaticism, or terrorist ideology, but they carry out certain activities simply for monetary reason, OK. Simply as business transactions.

Now, that may involve illegal weapons procurement, that may involve certain narcotics being moved from one spot to another spot, and then to another spot, and they may be involved in obtaining certain intelligence, and selling it to the highest bidder, and they don't care who that highest bidder is, it may be some fanatics from certain countries we consider evil, or it may be some other countries that we consider communist, it doesn't matter. If the highest bidder is coming up with the money, they provide it to them. And to this day, we have not heard about these organizations and their involvement, how they maybe have facilitated certain money laundering activities, or narcotics activities - and guess what - because that will hurt certain sensitive foreign business relations.

SH: Do you have any information that ties these groups to the September 11 attacks, or Bin Laden's organization?

SE: As I said, through certain activities with money laundering and narcotics and illegal weapons procurement, yes. Not for ideological reasons, but for monetary reasons, yes.

SH: But we're not talking about just, you know, Hamas that doesn’t attack the US

SE: Oh God, no.

SH: We're talking about the real international terrorist network that target Americans?

SE: Correct
[SNIP]
SH: (A caller asks about 9/11)

SE: Well, again, I am just one part of a lot of different things as far as this whole issue of 9/11 goes, and my point has been, OK, we had this 911 Commission Report, we had this Joint Enquiry by the Senate, & House, yet currently there are so many reports that are still entirely classified.

There is another report by the Department of Justice's Inspector General's Office titled "FBI and 911 Foreknowledge" which you can see on their website. That report was completed in July 2004, and it dealt with my case, Coleen Rowley's case, the Phoenix Memo, and even more, yet that report is entirely classified, OK.

There is another IG report on CIA, that report is entirely classified. Then there is that 28 pages that Senator Graham was referring to, that dealt with certain foreign countries and their roles, those 28 pages, even today, after all the campaigns by the 911 family members, remains classified.

If you have done the investigations, if you have told the truth, if you have a clean conscience, why don’t you come out and make this information public? What are you trying to cover up so hard? Going out of your way by gagging the congress, by stopping court procedures? They are going as far as just disregarding the constitution completely, total disregard for our system of checks and balances, the separation of powers has disappeared, why? Why are they trying to hard to hold back, and what are they holding back? Do they really come across as people with clean consciences? Honest people? I mean, the notion of the government of people, by the people, for the people, how many Americans actually believe in that notion today? They would laugh at you, you know why? Because when you look at it, it seems like a separate entity, with all this secrecy, and this power within power, totally removed from the American people.

Some comments here

Rob Kall interviews Sibel Edmonds

2009-05-15T02:57:00.004-05:00

Rob Kall of Op-Ed News interviewed Sibel on Wednesday. The audio ought to show up here at some point.

The following is a partial transcript. All errors, edits and omissions are mine.

Sibel Edmonds:
[SNIP]
We (NSWBC) stopped our activities for a while, and we are restarting them again, and I just launched my blog, www.123realchange.blogspot.com, and the first series that I'm posting there is on the mainstream media, and in the next few days, you're going to see more than 300 whistleblowers who are going to post their comments at the blog too, about their experiences with various people in the mainstream media.

So that's going to be the main discussion, because currently we review the mainstream media as the culprit, because if they were to do their jobs, they would put pressure on the people in the congress, because these people want to get re-elected, and therefore that pressure would act as a catalyst to get these things that we, the people, have been asking for - the real hearings and accountability. But without the mainstream media putting that pressure, going after them, well, they don’t have anything really to fear. You know, you have to have carrots, you have to have sticks, but there have been no sticks for these people. They get away with everything.

And even when we have some coverage, it only lasts for a couple of days, you don't get what you saw, let's say, with Watergate. You have to keep at it, and the mainstream media is not doing this. And the best example of this is the Harman case, it just popped out, and then in a couple of days it disappeared, and it has been buried.

[SNIP]

They never ask "Why State Secrets Privilege?" and that is what I always bring up with people

Rob Kall: Well, why is there the State Secrets Privilege?

SE: That is the question, right. There are people in the, I would not even say the alternative media, some good researchers in the blogosphere who have worked on it and have been able to at least answer some of that question.

RK: What were the answers?

SE: Well, the answer is, from 1996 to 2002, there were certain investigations under one file within the FBI, that involved criminal activities by US persons, and these are the US government people, whether elected or appointed - and I'm talking about criminal deeds with some severe consequences, and if my case were to be public - to go to court all the way, or have hearings in congress, and you have the FBI agents as witnesses come and testify, with other witnesses, and myself, you will see a lot of these people go to jail.

You will see immediately a Special Prosecutor in this case and you will see the trial for these people because you are looking at very, very serious issues, very, very serious illegal activities.

[SNIP]

SE: Vanity Fair ran the story on Dennis Hastert and the fact that he may have been one of the top targets of the FBI in this corruption and criminal matters involving Turkey, because of his relationship, and some of the illegal activities he was engaged with, with certain Turkish and Turkish American people...

[SNIP]

RK: What was the scandal regarding Turkey?

SE: Well, the fact that he was receiving suitcases full of cash from certain Turkish organizations, to do certain things in Congress, and in the Senate (?) for them, and that some of his activities involved, actually, narcotics in Chicago.

[SNIP]

As soon as Hastert came out of Congress, he goes and becomes an agent for Turkey, getting $35,000 per month for serving this interest, and most likely, his son will be replacing that service provided from the inside (if the son gets elected to Hastert's seat). That's how it works with Congress - even when they are out, they are not really out.

You see, before Dennis Hastert, OK, the person who was serving this interest (Turkey) in congress was Bob Livingston; he was the Speaker of the House. And I can not tell you whether the FBI had thick files on Bob Livingston or not. Well, Bob Livingston resigned, left the Congress in 1999, OK, Hastert replaced him. In 1999 when Bob Livingston left Congress, a few months later he, again, registered himself as the agent for the Turkish interests, under FARA, Foreign Agents Registration Act, under this company that he set up, The Livingston Group, and he received $1.5 million per year for eight years.

His boy, Dennis Hastert, was left behind and became Speaker of the House. Now, Dennis Hastert is out and receiving $35,000 per month serving the Turkish interests. I'm sure he has several boys left behind there who would be doing what Hastert did while he was inside, and then when they come out, they will get their $35,000 or $50,000. That's how it works. And it's not only with the Turkish Lobby; you see that a lot with the Israel Lobby. A lot of people know this, but as I said, we get these crusty people and then we keep re-electing them. Why? Because a lot of people don't know about this, and they don't know about it because the mainstream media is not reporting it.

RK: What did Turkey get in the deal?

SE: It is not the Turkish government - it only looks like it is the Turkish government, but these are certain entities, and again there is plenty of information out there, these are certain Turkish entities that are engaged in certain international activities, some of them legal, some of them illegal.

And again, there are many pieces written on this, one is by Phil Giraldi .... which talks about what these Turkish entities do, and who they are... He links these Turkish entities directly to Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and Eric Edelman and Marc Grossman and Dennis Hastert, and he makes those links fairly accurately... He is a pretty solid freelance writer, he's very good, and very intelligent, and also knowledgeable with direct information on certain angles on my case, because that is what he did, he did work in Turkey, and he was involved in operations that involved, basically, some of the same people.

[SNIP]

RK: So Turkey basically gets better treatment from the US, they get access to military technology, maybe they get to be a little nastier with the Kurds...

SE: Yes, and when you're getting into the military technology, or intelligence stuff, you're basically looking at espionage activities, and they can obtain information from the Pentagon and State Department or congress. Classified information that belongs to the American government that is not supposed to go to other countries, but they're able to get whatever they want because they have their people in place.

[SNIP]

RK: What do you think of AG Eric Holder?

SE: He's basically the same old dung, the same crap, putting it crudely. There is no difference between him and Ashcroft or Gonzales, and unfortunately every day that passes in these four years we are going to see that. We are already seeing this. They dropped the AIPAC court case. Who did it? Obama's Justice Department, his AG decided, despite all the evidence on these Israeli spies, that they were going to drop it. Even the Bush administration didn’t go that far - because some of the FBI agents were out there who would have screamed, and they did. Because that is why we got that CQ piece on Harman. So they said 'we will not go after you.' Obama's administration right now, they are pressuring the British government saying we don't want you to pursue this torture case in your courts because it involves some of our classified information, and we don’t want you to do that. It's not only that they are classifying things here, trying to cover up with secrecy, they're trying to do it overseas, with England! That is ridiculous. It's the same with torture. It is this administration, this Justice Department that is saying that everybody is going to get off the hook...

[SNIP]

RK: Now you have a new website. What is it?

SE: www.123realchange.blogspot.com . And my first series is going to be on the mainstream media... and there will be a surprise element, because in the next few days there will be an announcement there, and I believe that will bring a lot of attention from the mainstream media. It may turn the whole thing into a war zone but we'll see about that, so some exciting things are going to happen there. I hope we will get more visitors and I hope I'll find more ways to promote...

I hope people will cross-post what I write I'm hoping to get tons and tons of comments at the blog, and we'll have the surprise announcement in the next few days which will be good, because we have about 300+ members and sub-members for NSWBC - people from the NSA, FBI, CIA, DoD, people such as Russ Tice, and all these people are going to be active with the blog, posting comments, some anonymous, some with their pseudo-names. Keep following the blog - because when the attack comes, and they start doing it, the mainstream media, I'm going to need all the support I can get! Don't leave me alone there! And I'm also working on the next op-ed piece which is going to be on Obama with some of the stuff we just talked about... And anyone can take any of these articles and reprint them, absolutely. And if people can point back to my blog, because I'll need these people to come and comment, I'll need these supporters because the attacks will follow, I know it's going to come.

RK: What kind of attack? What are you talking about?

SE: Well, this is going to be a pretty interesting thing. You're going to find out in two days - so that's something to look forward to, because, in a way, us, the whistleblowers, are going to turn the table on the mainstream media.

In fact, to say the 'mainstream media is the culprit' in a way let's them off the hook, because it's just a general term, like saying 'congress' but when you start going individually after individuals, or individual papers with specific cases it becomes a different story... These are the things we are going to put on my blog, and I'm going to hit them. Name, paper, incident, cases.

Good interview as always.

Update your bookmarks

2009-05-13T23:42:00.002-05:00

Sibel Edmonds has a new blog up and running, 123 Real Change. Congratulations.

Sibel is a great writer, and has lots of experience with the dysfunctionality of Congress, the Executive Branch, the Judiciary and the media. I'm sure that 123 Real Change will be a great blog.

Sibel Edmonds interview with Scott Horton

2009-05-11T03:57:00.001-05:00

The always-excellent Scott Horton interviewed Sibel Edmonds for Antiwar Radio. Sibel was typically effective at highlighting the real issues. The audio is here, the transcript, including any errors, is mine.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Scott Horton: I'm so excited to bring Sibel Edmonds back to the show. The precedent has been set, Sibel, you can tell me everything as long as you tell the Israeli embassy too. Go ahead!

Sibel Edmonds: (laughs) How are you Scott? Good to be on your show.

SH: I'm doing great. Welcome to the show. For people who don't know, Sibel Edmonds was a translator for the FBI, a contractor after September 11. Fluent in a few different languages there from the old world, and uncovered a bunch of scandals and corruption and got booted out and is founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Her website is JustACitizen.com. She is, according to the ACLU, the most gagged person in American history.

The government has invoked the State Secrets Privilege to prevent her from telling us about all of the criminality that she learnt about when working for the FBI, on penalty of prison. So, I kind of mean that, though. Steven Rosen gave classified information that he got from a Pentagon employee to the Israeli Embassy, and also to some journalists, and everybody hailed the charges being dropped against this spy because he gave it to some journalists too, so it became a First Amendment case.

I don't think I have an official press pass, but it seems like as long as you write a letter to the Israeli Embassy explaining all that you know Sibel, you ought to be in the free and clear now, am I confused?

SE: No, I think that you're right, and it did set a precedent here.

SH: So let's do it! Tell us all the things that you've been banned from saying all this time. It will be the biggest Antiwar Radio scoop ever.

SE: (Laughs) Scott, as you know, I just wrote a piece about this, and this was after, really sitting and simmering for a while after the case with Harman in Congress broke. And it was not only for the reasons such as my own personal case with the State Secrets Privilege etc, but what really got me extremely upset was the fact that in 2005 and 2006, my organization took several whistleblowers from the NSA and the Justice Department to certain offices in Congress including Harman's office and Pelosi's office, and now we are sitting here, feeling like fools.

SH: And you've argued all along from what you have been able to tell us that you kind of see all these different scandals tying together, as different layers of the same onion - seemingly from my perspective, all kind of going back to the Vice President's office of the previous administration, and the network of neocons that Larry Wilkerson calls the 'Cheney Cabal.' Do you think is about the right estimation?

SE: Well, one of the things that we've heard a lot was that getting this network and boiling it down into the five, six, seven faces of neocons - and I think that was one of the biggest mistakes we did commit, and we're still committing it. A lot of people are still doing that.

Again, I'm going to go back to this case with Harman. As soon as this piece came out on Harman, you heard so many people, and even the so-called progressive Democrats really screaming and saying that this is blackmail, and actually they ended up turning Harman into a victim.

SH: It really was incredible to see too, especially when... I don't know, I understand how people's political biases are, and they have a congresswoman that they like, and they see the evil, lurking, menacing, Gestapo-figure like Porter Goss involved and they want to figure out a way to use that fact, but Jeff Stein debunked all that immediately on his blog. He said 'No. Goss's only role in this was, he had to do his job under the protocol and inform congress, and then Gonzales stopped him. That's it. He's not the origin of this investigation. He didn't sic the FBI and the CIA onto Jane Harman. It's ridiculous.'

SE: Correct. And I want to emphasize one thing that you said, you said that the congressmen and women that they like, well let's take a look at this Congress-woman's record...

SH: I guess I shouldn't put those words in their mouths either, because what's to like about Jane Harman, really?

SE: But there was also a lot of confusion, or pretense of confusion, about whether this was an NSA tap, was she being tapped. And that is another issue that, if we have time today, I would like to explain, because while I was working with the FBI, I did exactly that.

Most of my translation work involved FISA on foreign entities here in the US, and yes, in several cases we did come across cases where we ended up with US persons getting involved with either espionage or criminal conduct, and therefore the procedure that was followed in some cases, to go after those US persons, not under FISA, but under separate procedures.

And it was mind-boggling to see that even a lot of journalists out there don't seem to understand the process, yet going and writing about this case and convoluting it, and making it a case that was not presented by Jeff Stein.

SH: Well, you know, you talked before about the FBI agents who were serious about doing their job, and how the bosses just will never let them do it, and that kind of thing, and I actually read something by Steven Rosen, who recently had the charges of espionage dropped, and he identified what, of course he called an anti-semitic group of terrible conspiracy theorists inside the Justice Department who were persecuting him...

SE: (laughs)

SH: ... but I kind of agree with him that, or I think, that there really is a group of counter-intelligence agents in the FBI who are serious about looking into this kind of criminality, no matter who it is even if it is people connected to the Israeli Lobby. Is that basically right?

SE: Absolutely. Absolutely. As for the agents who are doing their job 100% - I did not come across (and since NSWBC has been in place) I have not had a single case where the agents went about covering up a case, or going after a certain target for either certain political reasons, or personal beliefs. Absolutely.

But it's a different story when you're talking about the Department of Justice. And again, if we have time I want to give an example of how the process takes place from FISA to the US persons, to the criminal investigations / counter-espionage investigations.

SH: Please, go ahead.

SE: OK. So, what you have is, basically, you have under FISA - and for each country, for each language, for each target, you have a separate FISA obtained, and you have a separate division in the FBI, most of them, almost all of them, in the FBI's Washington Field Office, OK. So let's say, and I'm going to give you an example with my case, you are targeting under FISA, which is legal, certain diplomatic entities, whether they are Embassy people, or Consulate, or related, relevant, OK. So you have this pipeline that brings in all the information, all the communications that is coming to or going from this target, this organization, this entity.

SH: OK now, let me clarify my understanding here. You're talking about a warrant under FISA but it is still a Foreign Intelligence surveillance warrant which means it is not the same standard of evidence - probable cause - that is necessary for the government to legally tap an American. It is a lower standard of evidence, I guess 'reasonable suspicion' or some such, that the person being tapped is an agent of a foreign power, or a terrorist group, but then that brings up the conflict between whether any evidence obtained accidentally that way - like you're tapping an Israeli spy and you accidentally find an American congresswoman being bribed - then there's the whole difficulty of turning that over into a criminal investigation separate from an intelligence investigation.

SE: Absolutely. So let's say with the diplomatic community, the Justice Department doesn't even have to have any reason to get that warrant. I can tell you that except for one country, every single country - that includes all the European countries - diplomatic entities are being monitored, OK. That's a known fact - nobody wants to admit to it, but it's a known fact. You have French translators there, you have German translators there, for German language - so those are given. OK, every single diplomatic establishment is going through this FISA, and the first person who gets all this information daily is the language specialist.

A lot of people think the FBI agents get the information, and when it needs translation, he gives it to a translator. This is not the case. It is the opposite. Before it goes to the agent, a language specialist goes through it, because this is a foreign target under FISA, and it assumes that the communication is going to be mainly in that foreign language. So you as a language specialist get all this stuff, but of course thirty, forty, or even up to 50% of this communication ends up being in English, because the diplomatic target - let's say someone in the Israeli embassy, and that Israeli embassy has for example forty phone lines - all of them, let's say, are being monitored.

So you're going through that communication, and as you're going through that, well, a lot of these phone calls go to a US person, or from a US person, and it is in English. So the language specialist at this point has to stamp them as 'English only' and if it is pertinent, meaning, if it has to do with espionage, or receiving money, then has to mark it as 'extremely pertinent' and immediately forward it to the FBI agent.

So what happens in this case, as you're doing that, let's say you have a congressional member who is making or receiving a phone call from this diplomatic foreign entity that is being monitored, and the language specialist is listening, and the conversation is in English, and marks it as English, but it is important because they are discussing either giving certain money to this person, or the US person is going to give certain documents or information to this foreign entity, this is considered pertinent. At this point the language specialist says 'This is English. It is pertinent.' and because a certain operation is going to take place - let's say, receiving the money, or receiving the information, and therefore it may call for surveillance, meaning physical surveillance, let's say that this receiving of the money is going to take place the next day, so the agents have to get into their van, go and make sure that this transaction actually took place. So the translator has to go right away and inform the agents, telling them 'By the way, we received this information etc etc' Now, once you start collecting evidence or stuff like this from a congressional person or other types of US persons, or at the State Department or the Pentagon etc, now the agents start putting this evidence together. Here the 'target' is foreign, it is still under FISA, there is still no wiretap on that congressperson, or that US person.

Once the agent believes he or she has enough to expose it - there are so many cases, including the surveillance proving that the transaction took place - the agents write the report (and these are the agents from counterintelligence under FISA), submit it to the FBI headquarters, and says 'We need to get direct wiretaps on this US person because here is the evidence, and they have been involved in this and this and this, and here are all the transactions, and all the communications whether on the espionage front or the corruption front.' The FBI headquarters takes this information, gives it the Justice Department. The Justice Department attorneys, and the head of Justice Department at that point sit and look at this information, and they have a choice: either go to court, show the evidence to a specific judge, and get warrants, not under FISA - either under criminal or counter-espionage - to directly wiretap the US person, or not to do anything. Now, it is at this stage that certain things become political. Let’s say you are looking at 1999, and you're looking at several people in congress, let's say people such as Hastert, and people at the State Department...

SH: Let me just interject here real quick. 'Such as Hastert' who you can read about in David Rose's article in Vanity Fair concerning your case called An Inconvenient Patriot.

SE: Correct.

SH: I don’t want that to just be out in the air as though there's nothing really behind it or anything.

SE: OK - I hope you can provide the link to the last piece that I wrote. But in this case, the head of the Justice Department, the Attorney General, at this point, when he gets the evidence from the agents, looks at this information and says 'Ooh la la! I need to inform my boss, the President in the White House, and the President's advisors because this is getting dicey.' Because it is not Iran or Syria we are talking about. Let's say we are talking about Turkey, an important ally, or Pakistan, or Israel.

And some of these US persons, or the US persons are the ones that they collected this evidence on happen to be one of us. So he's not going to put himself in this really horrible position by doing his job and going to court and get it, allowing that. At this point the briefing occurs: the Justice Department either briefs certain people in the State Department, or the White House, saying 'Oh man, look, we got this! Our agents got this, and we are now in this position.' So, in some cases, they never go to the court to obtain the warrant to go and wiretap the person, and this has been the case many, many, many, many times. It is not only recently.

It has been the case a lot for political reasons, for the partisan reasons, for what they consider 'sensitive diplomatic relations' reasons. And in some cases, in some cases, if the evidence is really, really, really bad for the US person, and if some of the agents in the FBI headquarters are feeling very, very strong about it, like you're seeing in this APIAC case, they finally say "OK. We are going to get the warrant and go after the US person." The original target was, let's say, the Israeli Embassy, not AIPAC initially, but the Israeli Embassy, and we're looking at even mid-to-late 1990s, moving into AIPAC, and then from AIPAC with this evidence in early 2000, having the warrant to actually go and pursue the US persons.

SH: Right, and that's how they came across Larry Franklin.

SE: Correct.

SH: And the New York Times is reporting, late last week, they said that the FBI agents, the career, gum-shoe cops, they're still very angry. They thought they had a real case against Rosen and Weissman, and can't understand why it was taken out from under them like.

SE: Of course they did. And this is exactly the point I tried to make in this piece, because you have certain wanna-be journalists in the blogosphere taking this and giving this a conspiracy flavour, saying that the timing of this has to do with Goss, and getting back at Harman, and these agents have some other motives and agendas. I'll tell you what their agenda was - they did their job, and they knew this case was going to be dropped, it was dropped two weeks after the CQ article but they knew it was going to be dropped months before this, at least one and a half months before this. So this was in desperation to say 'This is wrong! We are letting the criminals go, these US persons who have been committing crimes against the US national interest.' So they did talk to this journalist, it doesn't go to some conspiracy, motive, that some of these wanna-be journalists in the blogosphere are trying to make.

SH: So, this is a case that people have heard of, maybe at least - they can go read Justin Raimondo all about it - but the Dennis Hastert thing, this is something that is very opaque, it was reported in the one Vanity Fair article and picked up by basically nobody in the mainstream press...

SE: No-one. Absolutely no-one.

SH: And the Times of London did a three piece special on some of the things, but I think for the most part people... well, you're referring to investigations that fall apart before they ever start, but that go on all the time, that include the most powerful people. You've often referred to high level people in the State Department and the Defense Department, you're talking about all these congress-people being on the make. I mean, tell the American people, what did you overhear, Sibel. What is it that you know?

SE: Let's take one name that has been public, because just my case alone involves several people in congress, we are looking about six or seven people just in congress, elected officials. It involves several people in the State Department and several people in the Pentagon. Now as for the congress, Dennis Hastert's name happened to come out because it was one of the main cases...

SH: That's former Speaker of the House of Representatives

SE: Correct. And just, as you mentioned, no-one covered this story. No real denial came from Hastert’s office, or Hastert's attorney. If it were me, if I was innocent, I would be going after Vanity Fair, I would do everything to clear my name. They didn't, so they were vindicated. Not only that, only about a month ago, we get this press release that Hastert is now officially working for the Lobby that represents Turkey, and is officially announced that he is getting $35,000 per month, registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, receiving $35,000 per month from Turkey.

If this is not a vindication, if no denial was not a vindication, if the fact that the 2006 Inspector General report was not a vindication, and if some testimony from congressional members such as Grassley and Leahy is not vindication, then I don't know what is. The mainstream media reported Hastert's newly acquired job, the former Speaker of the House now works for the government of Turkey - and there is no tie-in saying 'Three years ago, this and this and this and this was made known to the American people.'

SH: Right, anybody can listen to Daniel Ellsberg on this show or on Democracy Now explaining briefcases full of cash money being delivered to the Speaker of the House to thwart a resolution of no matter what description...

SE: There were a lot of different types of things that Hastert fulfilled for foreign entities. That was one of them. But what does it take for a congressman or woman to guarantee that kind of money - like $35,000 per month - from a foreign government when he leaves his or her job in congress? It doesn't happen overnight after you leave congress. You need to do what you have to do, serving those people's interest - even if it involves certain illegal interests - and that goes into your IOU column, and then you get out, and you get officially paid. While you're in congress, you get unofficially reimbursed for some of these things that you're doing, and that is through the campaign contributions etc, but the real payback comes when you finish and get out. Now, Hastert was exposed in 2005, and he is bold enough - because he sees himself, and doing this, so untouchable that he felt so bold to get this job, and in fact publicly announced it - that he can look us in the eye and say 'What are you going to do about it?' And that is the question, Scott - What do you do about it?

SH: I don’t know. I just do a little radio show, it's the best idea I can come up with, and it doesn't do any good. Let me ask you this, and I mean this in all seriousness. Now that the Rosen and Weissman case has been dropped, that really is a blow to the underhanded policy of, you know, the back-door Official Secrets Act that we have in this country known as the court-invented State Secrets Privilege, can you not get with you ACLU lawyers and just sit down and write a book and tell us every single incriminating thing you learned, classified or otherwise to whatever degree, and damn-the-consequences and bring-it-on? Come on, Sibel.

SE: Scott, believe me or not, I would do that whether the question of can-you-or can't-you is answered or not. But you've got to find one organization, and find one mainstream media, and that includes a publishing house, who is willing to do it. Just find one for me and I tell you what, I'm going on the record right now here, I will do it.

SH: All I’ve got to do is find you a publishing house? I mean, that doesn't seem impossible.

SE: Well, it's not only a publishing house, because what happens is, regardless of the State Secrets Privilege, all these people who have worked for the FBI, anyone, the agents, the attorneys, the language specialists, as part of getting that job, you sign documents saying that in the future, if you ever write anything, whether there is the State Secrets Privilege or classification, you have to submit your work for pre-publication review.

I need to do that, OK, I have already gone through several law firms and said 'Here it is, and they looked at it and said 'Even the most innocent stuff there, you are facing 60-70% of this manuscript - which is ready! It has been ready for quite a while - which will be blacked out. Now once you get the blacked out version not a single person will publish it. What are you going to publish?' Look at my Inspector General report - 90% of it is blacked out. Nobody is going to publish a blacked-out book! Then, you are in this position of going to court, and start fighting, line-by-line, everything that has been blacked out, saying this was not correct, this is not truly classification, and challenging it.

That's why I'm telling you, find any organization that would be willing to represent this because they look at me and say 'Sibel, this is impossible. Especially with your case, this is impossible. It is a fight that you won't win.'

And I'm going to remind you: I have got so many emails from the people, in fact I started getting these before the election, saying, 'Just wait, if we have Obama as president...' or 'Now that Obama is president, you should be able to do this and that' and we need to remind people - not your listeners, because they already know - but the State Secrets Privilege not only has not been eliminated, it has been expanded under the new Obama administration.

SH: Right

SE: And you saw what they did with the NSA warrantless wiretapping case. And now you see it was Obama's Justice Department that made the final decision dropping the AIPAC espionage case.

SH: Well, let me ask you this, was there not classified material, things that you weren't supposed to say but you did anyway in the series for the Times of London?

SE: With the UK, the London piece, you're looking at a piece that was written not only based on a conversation, an interview, with me, but with several other people, and those people they still want to remain anonymous because obviously things have not changed. Because, no matter what, even with the Vanity Fair article, in fact, their legal department, their lawyers, instead of their usual requirement of three sources, they said to David Rose 'You need to have minimum of five sources' because of the kind of case it is, the State Secrets Privilege. So he had to have a minimum of five sources, and instead of once double-checking, they did the triple double-checking, and each double-checking occurred under a different department because they wanted to make sure that they were protected, both against the government, and also against libel. So that piece came out not only based on Sibel Edmonds providing some information, it was done via five sources, and triple-fact-checking, and obviously nobody dared go after them. How could they?

SH: Well, as much of the story as we know, there sure seems like a hell of a lot, and I know there are real good reporters in this country, not an over-abundance of them, but there are really good journalists, and I don’t know why this whole story hasn’t been broken wide-open yet, and I don’t know what it would take to get the modern day Johnny Cochrane to represent you to actually get this thing done, but I sure wish you the best of luck, and you're welcome to come back on the show and keep us updated with the story any time, Sibel.

SE: Thank you Scott. It is always a pleasure to be on your show.

SH: That is Sibel Edmonds everybody. The website is JustACitizen.com. Former FBI translator, whistleblower, founder of NSWBC.

------------

Some extra thoughts here

Members of Congress: literally criminals

2009-05-04T23:17:00.003-05:00

Sibel Edmonds has a new op-ed over at BradBlog.

Brad's introduction reads:

The former FBI translator and whistleblower suggests blackmail may be at the heart of Congressional refusal to bring accountability and oversight to its own members - such as both Hastert and Harman - in matters of espionage and national security.

Read it all.

Some thoughts here

Sibel Edmonds interviewed by Electric Politics

2009-04-23T05:44:00.004-05:00

Sibel gave a 75-min interview to Electric Politics on April 10. You can listen to it here. Mizgin has an overview of the interview here. A partial transcript follows:

Heroin, money-laundering and terrorism

Sibel Edmonds: First of all, it has been documented in the past several decades, the importance of narcotics in the Turkish economy, but also the role of Turkish MIT - that is Turkish Intelligence - and the military having an active role. But you're also looking at the increased role of certain Central Asian countries and the Caucuses, and if you look at some of these regimes, these are the regimes that we have been supporting. Their economies also have become dependent on narcotics, because they have become a major transit - and in some places, for certain countries such as Azerbaijan, they have become major production centers.

After they shut down the casinos in Turkey - around 1998 - many of the large casinos in Turkey which were used to launder a lot of money, that also had to do with the narcotics, they actually moved and relocated to Azerbaijan, and there were several that went to Kazakhstan. So if you go through some of those Central Asian countries and you look at the list of the casinos, and you look at the ownership, you will see mainly Turkish ownership, and these are Turkish holding companies that relocated in 1998 to those countries.

George Kenney: Would that be for narcotics destined for Russia and former Soviet states?

SE: Well, even after the narcotics are processed they still go through Turkey, but then from Turkey they have several routes. The major route, at least until 2002, was the Balkan route, and it was jointly with partnership with the Albanians. So the Albanians and Turks from that point had a partnership, and from there it went mainly to Holland, and some to Germany and then from there to the UK and elsewhere.

GK: Well, if a loosely organized group of people that have semi-official status are taking in money on this scale, they have to do something with it. And I guess it is natural that they would be interested in putting it in the United States.

SE: Correct, and in fact, they did, and I can talk about one bank, one Turkish bank, that played a major role, and it was in partnership with certain US government people, and also with certain US-based organizations. And their center is in Cyprus, and it is called First Merchant Bank, and again, based on my information, but also public documents, I can tell you that between 1996 and 2002, First Merchant Bank was one of the top banks used for these banking transactions and laundering this money. And you would see about $40-$45 million deposited there, and again this is public record, you can find it - I had to make sure that they were before I was able to actually mention or talk about this. And one of them was the president of Kazakhstan in forms of certain Kazakhstan bonds, and then you're looking at the brother of (President) Aliyev from Azerbaijan, who deposited more than $8 million there, transferred money there.

So what happened was, this was very well known in the US, and this bank was also used, actively, by certain government agencies in the US, with certain operations dealing with Central Asia. After Sep 11, I believe in 2004, you can go and find congressional records and a report by Treasury that they just announced that they have blacklisted First Merchant Bank, and basically they list First Merchant Bank as one of the top banks dealing in narcotics and narco-dollars. And the fact that First Merchant Bank conducted a lot of business and transactions with certain US institutions including banking institutions. But they did this in 2004 - up until 2004, at least until 2002 - our government directly, or certain agencies within our government, directly dealt with First Merchant Bank in Cyprus.

So anyway, they blacklisted and we don’t have any more banking relationships with First Merchant Bank, they are listed internationally, but First Merchant Bank still is operating, and if you look at the ownership of First Merchant Bank you're going to see the brother of one of the Turkish presidents, Süleyman Demirel, and you will also see certain familiar names - they won't sound really familiar here in the US, but globally they will sound familiar because of the incident you and I discussed over email, and that has to do with the Susurluk scandal.

So that's just one example of it and we are looking at again this bank, that until 2004 was actively dealing, doing business with, both US government agencies, and also certain non-profit organizations in the US, and was declared in 2004 as a top money-laundering narco-dollar center, and a bank that also had been involved in certain terrorism financing, which is very interesting.

The Turkish / Israeli Lobby

GK: ...It seems that the Turkish lobbying effort has copied the model of the Israeli Lobby

SE: Well, the Turkish lobby in the US was set up - at least the largest and most successful one - the American Turkish Council (ATC) was actually set up by the neocons. In either 1987 or 1988, Douglas Feith and Richard Perle went to Turkey and had some high-level meetings there, and then they came back to the US and they set up this lobbying firm called International Advisors Inc, IAI. It was also registered under FARA - Foreign Agents Registration Act - and they were representing the government of Turkey.

And the office of this lobby was located next to one of the main Israeli lobby groups, in the same building, on the same floor. And Richard Perle and Douglas Feith were actually working with both offices. In fact, the rent - and this was referred to in an article, I believe by the Wall Street Journal in 1993, 1994 - was paid by this particular Israeli lobby group. Then after this was exposed by the Wall Street Journal, because I believe at the time Richard Perle either had some advisory position with the Defense Department, it kind of became scandalous after the story came out, so they shut it down.

They shut down IAI in 1994, and in 1994 they got together with several other well-known neocons, and they set up the American Turkish Council instead. So from that date on, you would constantly see Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and even at that time, Larry Franklin, as familiar figures in ATC's meetings, and this was again in their first year, 1994.

And even as far as the accounting firms are concerned, both AIPAC and the ATC used the same financial advisors for their accounting. And then of course, you go and look at their members, and things become even more clear. So, 'Yes' to answer your question, you will see the same people involved both with the Israel lobby, the neocons, and also with the Turkish lobby, the center of which is the ATC. And just like the Israeli lobby, they were very smart, and they were modeled the same way. Because in addition to the ATC, they also set up another organization called ATA - the Association of Turkish Americans, with chapters in every 50 states, and more than several offices in each state in different cities, and if you go and look at their websites they have ATA-DC, ATA-Chicago, and so on, which again is modeled after the same Israeli lobby. And a lot of their - I would refer to it as - less than clean, the dirty activities actually are carried out through ATA and their chapters and their branches that have basically established themselves all over the country.

GK: That would be very similar to the way that AIPAC works with other big Israeli lobbying groups where a lot of the arm-twisting takes place from members at local levels.

SE: Correct.

GK: Are there a whole lot of other kinds of subsidiary groups than ATA? Does this spread out more extensively than that?

SE: Sure. I'm aware of several. And again, I will talk about some that have been publicly mentioned, and known. One of them is called TACA - Turkish American Cultural Alliance. This is based in Chicago, and they have been very, very active there, and they basically say that they are there to promote the cultural ties between the US and Turkey, such as they bring, a couple of times a year, some folklore groups from Turkey to perform here so the Americans in Chicago will get to see them. Well, that is what they have been saying, but that's not what they have been doing. Most of their activities are political in other areas, and their other activities that, easily, can be considered illegal, with investigative files on them for years and years and years within the FBI.

And it's interesting, there was a documentary made on my case called Kill The Messenger, and the producers, the directors were here and they went to Chicago, they wanted to interview some people at TACA. They had a pretty large budget, so they found the office for TACA and it looked like a little warehouse there, with broken windows and a little Turkish flag, and for days they just sat in front of that building, and nobody came in, nobody left. It was just like a symbolic office there that is like a warehouse, with nobody working there. But then if you were to look at their budget, and look at the money moving from them to various other recipients, and their activities, they seem to be a pretty active organization. So that's just one example.

In fact, the president of TACA, his name came up during the primaries here because he was able to raise $100,000 for Hillary Clinton during the primaries, and Hillary Clinton gave him this position in her campaign. And then that itself actually got into the newspapers because certain Armenian groups found out about this guy's background, and the $100,000 was questionable, and then there was the question whether or not Hillary Clinton returned that money. And this was very recent if you were to go and put TACA's president's name and Hillary Clinton in Google there are even some mainstream media articles about that. So again, this is an organization with a little broken-window warehouse with no employees working in it, with a large budget, who were able to raise $100,000 for Hillary Clinton in a few days.

Bipartisan Coverup: The US Deep State

GK: When was the last time that you had any contact with Waxman's office?

SE: That would be, having real conversation/contact was before the election in 2006, but in March 2007, I spoke with one of his staff people... and he said the congressman was very serious about having these hearings. But just as he was planning on scheduling a hearing for my case - this is the State Secrets Privilege and the whole FBI case - he was called into a hearing with Nancy Pelosi, they went into a meeting for about 30 minutes, Chairman Waxman came out and told his staff that they were not going to have these hearings, including my case.

And interestingly, this was during a time that they were putting together this junket, this trip, to several countries, the first one being Israel, and Chairman Waxman was not on that list. After this meeting, two or three days later, his name was added to the list. I don't know if that means anything or not, if it was a coincidence, I don’t know. That was the last time.

GK: Sibel, do you suppose that there are any currently serving members of congress who would be affected by an open hearing?

SE: Yes. Yes. This is the point that I wanted to bring up when you asked the question. When I went inside the SCIF, with Congressman Waxman's staff, all the people who attended had clearance, so I started going through the facts because I can disclose to the appropriate committee, people with clearance etc, and I can talk about details.

So, as I started talking about congressional members, or certain appointed officials under both administrations who were involved in certain activities that were targeted by the FBI at one point, the legal counsel with clearance for congressman Waxman stopped me and said "I need to stop you right here and ask you a question. How many Democrats are involved here in the House or the Senate?" and I answered the question, I said "Concretely to answer that, the ones that I know for sure would be three." And he looked at his watch, and said "OK I think we have enough, we don't want to hear any more. What we would like to do is we want to receive the classified version of the Inspector General's report, which we never got, and after that we will contact you and ask you to continue."

Basically they said they didn’t want to hear it because if they heard it they would be responsible. So the meeting ended there - this was the SCIF meeting, and again, this was witnessed because I got the report from the Capitol police that came and declared that the room was secured, the date... so the fact that I went inside the SCIF with them, who I met, everything has been recorded, but this is how it went.

GK: That's fascinating. Let me ask you a related question, Sibel. Do you think that there are any currently serving officials in the administration who would be affected by open hearings?

SE: Yes. Absolutely. Because a lot of these people are recycled as you know. I'm sure you're aware of it because, it's very easy, and this is one of the fallacies from the Left groups, and that is they like to boil down all the bad and evil into maybe three or four or five faces, whether it's Wolfowitz, ok, Cheney, ok, the big bad evil people, and limit it to these people and say 'OK. These are the evil-doers, and we want to see them gone.' Well, it's much deeper than that. You really need to look at those people who keep getting recycled.

GK: So what this begins to look like is the Deep State that Peter Dale Scott talks about...

SE: Absolutely

GK: ...having transferred from Turkey over here to the US.

SE: Correct, because they usually refer to that term in Turkey. It's a very known term - in fact, even if you go to Wikipedia if you look even a lot of even international perspective in Turkey, it is a Deep State, and that is, Deep State consists of the military and intelligence and their involvement in a lot of criminal activities - part of it is narcotics, the other ones have to do with certain money laundering activities.

But within the US we have a much bigger, much more important, much more influential Deep State. I mean, I'm just going to throw a name - look at people like Henry Kissinger. Name one administration that has not had Henry Kissinger as a White House advisor.

And another one, because this is public. Now, if you look at the Chairman of ATC, you will see Brent Scowcroft, OK. Well just recently, President Obama appointed him as a special - whatever - envoy and now he is actually working for the Obama administration. But he's still residing as chairman of ATC. I mean nobody is even talking about conflict of interest.

Why the States Secrets Privilege? Grossman, Dickerson and Susurluk

GK: Now when you separated from the FBI, my guess is that you knew that there were a lot of different threads out there, but it probably took you a while to make sense of the bigger picture? Or did it?

SE: Yes, it did. Actually, while I was working there, and here is another interesting angle of this case, is that the case came out and was known publicly as the espionage case, and this is the angle that has already been confirmed by Congress, by the IG report: the Dickersons case.

Well, here is the interesting thing, as this espionage case angle came out in the New York Times and Washington Post and CBS 60 Minutes, yet no-one, not a single reporter ever asked 'Who the hell are these Dickersons?' Not one! Nobody even looked at it. Just a simple check on the Dickersons would have brought out so much information and the stuff that they are considering State Secrets Privilege.

When you look at Dickerson - Melek Can Dickerson - US citizen, Turkish born, her husband at the time, an Air Force Major, although he worked for DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, Douglas Dickerson. If they looked at Douglas Dickerson, they would have seen on the record that Douglas Dickerson was stationed in Turkey between 1992 and early 1997, and worked directly under Ambassador Marc Grossman in Ankara in the military attaché.

And then they would see that Marc Grossman and Douglas Dickerson were pulled out of their positions in Turkey at the same time, removed from Turkey, even though Grossman's term still had some time left, and the same thing with Douglas Dickerson, and this was right after the Susurluk scandal, OK? And then they would see that Douglas Dickerson, at the end of 2001, started working for Douglas Feith's office, dealing with certain Central Asian countries including Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Well, nobody ever looked, or wanted to look, or wanted to see this.

Richard Barlow, Pakistan and Afghanistan

SE: There's this very interesting case, in fact it's another State Secrets Privilege case that has to do with Richard Barlow. He used to work for the DIA and his position was in the department where he was the top analyst for Pakistan, and he was chasing this whole nuclear procurement for Pakistan, and he was the person who was asked by Congress to go and brief certain congressional members on the status on what was happening with Pakistan.

So he went there and did his job right, and he told them what was happening, and this basically caused outrage because the same congressional members were briefed by various Pentagon and State Dept officials and they were told that nothing concrete was there, they didn’t have any concrete evidence that Pakistan was procuring nuclear weapons etc etc.

Well he became the whistleblower... and he didn’t even think he was blowing the whistle, he didn’t even know that congress was lied to, he just went there and told them what he had found through his position, and this is what happened to him, and interestingly his case ended up being slapped by the same State Secrets Privilege. And his case is very, very close to mine, but again, there we were looking at Pakistan, we were looking at our activities there, and even our activities in Afghanistan during those years with the Mujaheddin there, with Bin Laden, and all those things we didn’t want to be known. And when I say 'we' I mean the government. Again, it's the same thing. It's very, very similar. That is a fact.

US Media: 'That's not how we do things'

GK: Now, Sibel, you offered recently to mainstream American media to CBS 60 Minutes or to any of the others that if they wanted to sit down and do a full interview with you that you would just tell them everything you knew.

SE: Yes, I did. And this was after actively fighting this case via so-called 'appropriate channels'
[...]
So, I said 'OK - here, I'll put the word out, but it will come with certain conditions' because I have dealt with the mainstream media for 5 or 6 years and I know how things go. I said I want either a) to do it live, unedited, or b) if it is going to be an interview that is pre-recorded, I want it to be witnessed and recorded by a third party.

GK: What about something like Keith Olbermann? Aren’t those shows ok?

SE: I would have gone on Keith Olbermann in a second. Absolutely. And in fact his show was bombarded - even if you go look when the press release went out - the fact that I would talk - all the letters and emails that were sent and the things posted on Olbermann's show, 'Please here it is, and here is someone who has been found to be credible by the IG blah blah', and nothing.

I didn’t get anything from Keith Olbermann, and there were others who came and sent their producers to say 'Yeah, we would like to do this, however we will not meet these conditions. It won't be live, it will be pre-recorded, and you can't have a third-party recording it, because that is not how we do things with the networks.' I said 'OK, so you record this, and I go on the record and talk about these criminal activities, and divulging criminal activity...' (If the US government classifies something in order to cover up criminal activities, then that classification doesn’t hold anyway, and this is based on laws - not that it matters any longer here in this country.)

They said 'No, we won't do it.' I said 'Well, OK, so you record this, and then what are you going to do with it? You're going to try to get comments, a response, from the Justice Dept and the FBI?' Of course, they said 'Yes.' I said 'And you are going to present them with what I've been saying?' And they said 'Yes, that is what we have to do.' I said 'OK - let's say they hear what I have said and they confiscate the tape, put a hold on it, and come and grab me and throw me in jail, with a closed court session, which has already happened several times in my case. I would be in jail, nobody would know what was being covered up, the criminal activities. That would be idiotic!'

Why the State Secrets Privilege?

SE: My case twice made it to the cover page of the New York Times, when they did the gag order on Congress, the retroactive classification, and when they did the State Secrets Privilege for the second time. Now, those stories, Washington Post, New York Times, all the mainstream media. NOT ONCE has any reporter asked 'Why the State Secrets Privilege?'

It's been all about this poor little whistleblower, and she was wronged, and they slapped her with States Secrets Privilege, and they are doing this excessive secrecy. Period. That's the story. You know, (journalists should) try to answer: Who? What? Why? But nobody, you will not see a single article, a single piece, a single news piece that says 'Why? We want to dig and find out why they were invoking the States Secrets Privilege. Why did they invoke it?'

GK: You had a couple of pieces in the London Times that sort of started to get at the story.

SE: Correct, and they did a pretty good job. Their stories were angled, and focused on, Pakistan. They were working on stories that had to do with Pakistan, and they had other sources, so there is a certain small aspect of my case that touches that area that they wrote about, directly, but it's not the main part of my case. But they covered that area, absolutely, and they did a good job. And as you said, it's the London Times, and you have David Rose from England coming here and writing this piece for Vanity Fair - and nobody else would do it here because they said if they didn’t have lots of documents etc, they would be sued by Hastert. Well guess what! This piece came out, and Hastert did not do anything. How could he?

GK: That's interesting. So nobody who might have threatened or anything actually did anything?

SE: No.

Interesting interview, as usual. I recommend that you listen to all of it.

See here for some of my thoughts on the interview.

New Interview

2009-04-17T05:30:00.002-05:00

Sibel gave an interview to Electric Politics last week (75 minutes).

Mizgin has an overview here.

Sibel made a few important points. I might be able to highlight some of them with a partial transcript next week.

NY Times confirms US involvement in Nuclear Black Market

2008-09-05T08:26:00.003-05:00

In last Monday's New York Times, David Sanger and William Broad wrote a front-page article about the CIA's involvement in the nuclear black market.

The article demonstrates (again) that the New York Times, Sanger & Broad in particular, has simply become a mouthpiece for the government (see my previous articles 1, 2, 3) but they did let one fact slip through to the readership. I can only presume that the slip was accidental, because they don't appear to have understood the ramifications of what they reported:
The US Government is covering up the fact that US citizens and entities are involved in the nuclear black market.

Background
Three members of the Tinner family in Switzerland were key suppliers to AQ Khan's nuclear black market ring. They were arrested in 2004 and have been awaiting trial but the US government has been trying to sabotage the Swiss trial because "compromising and embarrassing information about the CIA's activities with the Khan network" would be exposed if the trial were to proceed.

High-Level Visit
The New York Times reported that in July 2007, the Swiss Justice Minister came to the US to discuss the case with high-level US officials, apparently to find a mutually-acceptable arrangement regarding how to deal with the Tinner case.

According to an anonymous former Bush administration official:

"The State Department wanted the bomb plans destroyed as a way to stem nuclear proliferation, while the C.I.A. wanted to protect its methods for combating illicit nuclear trade."

Whether those two things are true or not I don't know - but the NY Times also notes, without elaboration, that the Swiss Justice Minister met with former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller (and Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence).

Domestic US Involvement
The US Dept of Justice and FBI have exclusively domestic jurisdiction. Why would the Swiss Justice Minister meet with Mueller and Gonzales regarding the planned destruction of evidence in a Swiss case involving the nuclear black market? The only logical explanation is that the case also involves US persons and US entities who have yet to be named and indicted. I presume that Gonzales and Mueller desperately argued that the Swiss needed to derail the Tinners' trial by destroying all the evidence because the FBI had an 'ongoing investigation' which would otherwise be exposed. What else could they have argued? Of course, there is no 'ongoing investigation, and there will not be any forthcoming indictments.

The AQ Khan network was officially exposed in 2003. Now we have proof that the Bush administration is well aware of the involvement of US persons and entities, and is apparently refusing to bring indictments against these people.

Sibel Edmonds Case
We know from the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds that the FBI has long been aware of nuclear black market activities within the US and has failed to do anything about it, going to such extraordinary lengths to gag Sibel using the State Secrets Privilege, and to illegally gag congress involving Sibel's case.

We know that high-level US officials were directly involved in these activities. We know that the Pentagon and State Department actively shut down the investigations that Sibel was involved with, and they also actively facilitated the gagging of Sibel.

We even know at least 3 of the US persons/groups that were actively involved in the nuclear black market:

Marc Grossman
Former #3 at the State Dept, Marc Grossman, was heard on FBI wiretaps facilitating the theft of nuclear secrets "from every nuclear agency in the United States." Other participants in the ring include officials from Pakistan, Turkey and Israel who were operating out of their respective embassies. Once the ring stole these secrets they were sold to the highest bidders on the nuclear black market.

Could it be that the US government was desperate to sabotage the Swiss case because they were afraid that Grossman's role in criminal activity would finally be exposed?

American Turkish Council (ATC)
The ATC is a powerful Military-Industrial-Complex lobby, home to some of the most pwerful people and companies in the US. It is also the "nexus" of nuclear black market activity in the US.

We also know that the CIA, via Valerie Plame's cover company Brewster Jennings, was investigating the ATC for its role in illegal nuclear proliferation.

Sibel Edmonds heard wiretaps of phone traffic between the Turkish embassy and the American Turkish Council involving dealings in the nuclear black market.

Could it be that the US government was desperate to sabotage the Swiss case because they were afraid that the ATC's role in criminal activity would finally be exposed?Zeki Bilmen & Giza Technologies
Turkish businessman and US citizen, Zeki Bilmen, illegally supplied nuclear hardware to Pakistan's military program via Asher Karni, an Isaeli businessman in South Africa. Karni was indicted, but Bilmen was never charged, and his company, New Jersey-based Giza Technologies, continues operating to this day, with shipments to and from from proliferation hotspots "like Dubai, Spain, South Africa, Turkey."

Bilmen was also heard organizing the transfer of nuclear technology on wiretaps translated by Sibel, meaning that his FBI file is at least seven years old.

Could it be that the US government was desperate to sabotage the Swiss case because they were afraid that Zeki Bilmen's role in criminal activity would finally be exposed?

Summary

Former CIA official Phil Giraldi:
"Nothing deserves more attention than the possibility of ongoing national-security failures and the proliferation of nuclear weapons with the connivance of corrupt senior government officials."

The involvement of domestic US agencies in the decision to destroy evidence in the Tinner case in Switzerland proves that there is a domestic US component to the nuclear black market. Five years after the public exposure of the AQ Khan network, the US government still refuses to bring indictments against a number of criminal US participants.

Why not?

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NY Times does it again: More 'Judy Miller' tapdancing (Pt3)

2008-09-02T08:38:00.001-05:00

A front page article "In Nuclear Net’s Undoing, a Web of Shadowy Deals" in last Monday's New York Times by David Sanger and William Broad details the destruction of evidence by the US government in a case involving the nuclear black market.

The article highlights again that the New York Times continues to engage in 'Judy Miller reporting' by warmongering and acting as a mouthpiece for the government.

This is the third article in a multi-part series. This article will focus on the NY Times' appalling reliance on government-friendly sources, the lack of any actual investigative reporting, the lack of supporting evidence, and the absence of any dissenting views. (The first piece of the series focused on the players in the AQ Khan / BSA Tahir nuclear smuggling ring, the second article focused on the countries involved.)

Given the New York Times recent history of being used and abused by their anonymous government sources you might think they ought to be a little more diligent when reporting a story such as this, but apparently they haven't learnt their lesson from the recent debacles such as Iraq/WMD or Anthrax/Hatfill.

David Sanger and William Broad need look no further back than their early reporting on this same story to see how badly they are getting spun - although given their performance, it appears that they don't even care.

As just one example, that previous article was a transparent attempt to spin the story away from the fact that the US government bailed out members of the AQ Khan nuclear proliferation network. The article noted that the AQ Khan had nuclear "blueprints" which are "rapidly reproducible for creating a weapon that is relatively small and easy to hide" which makes these weapons "attractive to terrorists."

Now Sanger and Broad tell us in their current article that these plans are "sketchy and incomplete" which have "little or no value for a terrorist..." There was no correction, no apology, no remorse or embarrassment, and apparently no lessons learned.

Despite this history, Broad and Sanger again spoke to "five current and former Bush administration officials" - presumably the same sources as their previous article - and gave them the cover of anonymity to again spread transparent nonsense. Apparently Sanger and Broad didn't even wonder why a handful of Bush administration officials were willing to talk to them about these 'classified' operations, and it surely won't occur to them to ask why the Bush administration hasn't opened up a leak investigation either.

Corroboration?
Last month, investigative journalist Joe Lauria joked that American journalists need five sources for something personally witnessed by the journalist. This is true for whistle-blowers, but there is a double-standard when it comes to official government sources. This kid-glove treatment of US officials is remarkable given the lies that we have been fed, particularly over the past seven years.

Did Sanger and Broad actually do anything to corroborate the story apart from speak to the five Bush officials who were all singing off the same hymn-sheet? Did they interview Richard Barlow, expert on Pakistan's nuclear program for his thoughts? Did they ask decorated British customs agent Atif Amin whether the story made any sense? Or former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds? Of course not.

Perhaps Sanger and Broad could have, for example, asked 'Dr Brian Jones, a former defence intelligence WMD specialist,' for his opinion. He was quoted in the Guardian on this very story back in June saying that he was "suspicious that the disclosure might be politically motivated." But that sort of thing would never get published in a US newspaper - unless it was a government source trying to undermine a whistle-blower.

Standard of Proof
If a whistle-blower tries to shed some light on government wrongdoing, then the Corporate Press in the US demands documents and multiple points of corroboration, and even then often don't run the story. They will question his or her motives, or they will argue that it is too difficult to establish the legitimacy of the whistle-blower case, or simply accept the government's denials.

In many cases, this standard of proof is legitimate, but it is applied so inconsistently that it turns the newspapers into organs of the government. The US corporate media will publish just about anything the government says, despite the Bush administration's documented history of lying to the press and the public. On the other hand, it is nearly impossible to get the US press to write about important matters that are not government-approved.

Again, take the case of Sibel Edmonds. Despite the fact that senators from both major parties reported that the case is credible, despite the fact that the FBI confirmed a lot of the case, despite the Justice Department's Inspector General's report, despite the State Secrets Privilege, despite the fact that there has not been a single substantial denial, despite the corroboration by Phil Giraldi, a CIA agent based in Turkey, despite the corroboration from veteran FBI agents John Cole and Gilbert Graham, the US media still can't report on the story.

I asked Sibel for a quote on this story, she said:

"You see this over and over again, and I'm not just talking about my case. As you know, my organization represents nearly 150 National Security whistle-blowers, and dealing with the US mainstream media, both the networks and print, we have faced the same double standards and bias consistently. Even if you get a high-ranking National Security whistle-blower with an impeccable record and no agenda, the response from the US media is "We need at least 2 or 3 more independent witnesses, as well as hard documents."

The same media reports the government propaganda & agenda-driven leaks as undisputed fact, based on a statement from a spokesperson from one of the agencies; no request for documents, no request for independent witnesses...

Another interesting thing with the whistle-blower cases is that the MSM always use words such as 'allegations' but when they act as government mouthpieces, you rarely see any evidence of doubt or phrases like that."

We've heard from numerous sources that the US government warned reporters off writing about Sibel's story earlier this year after the UK's Times published their series on the case. The reporters were told that they would be compromising a sting operation and harming national security if they published any information about this case - and they all fell for it! The same is true of the alternate media including the blogosphere to a large extent. Steve Clemons, respected by many, apparently spoke to some of his State Dept friends before deciding that Sibel must have been only seen the ""raw intel", unprocessed, or coordinated" communications of a sting operation - despite the corroboration of the FBI agents involved in the operation.

US Press vs Foreign Press
Sibel has another example involving the nuclear black market and the US press:

"Let me give you one other example, Luke. In 2004 when Josh Meyer of the LA Times did a long but incomplete story on the Karni case, it was reported to him that one of the most important actors and angles in his article was that of Zeki Bilmen & Giza Technology. Bilmen's role and nationality were conveniently censored in the article.

Despite my efforts to get Meyer to report the relevance and significance of the Bilmen angle, and the FBI's files on him, Meyer bought in to the government's protection of Turkey and the Turkish angle. Of course, later, other outlets (mostly foreign) picked up Bilmen's significance, but still not a peep or follow-up to this day from the LA Times on this important story."

Somehow, in the logic of the US corporate press, it is more legitimate to print unsubstantiated claims of a warmongering administration, with a history of lying in order to go to war, than the substantiated claims of Sibel Edmonds who has consistently demonstrated a clean, agenda-free, non-partisan, track record of trying to expose high-level officials whose activities endanger us all.

The foreign press is much better in these matters. The Guardian's reporting on the nuclear black market has been way ahead of the pack. Their May 31 article on the destruction of evidence in the Tinner case was 3 months ahead of this latest nonsense from the NY Times (which also calls into question the timing of this later Sanger/broad article), they have also reported on the case of Atif Amin, and shown appropriate skepticism regarding the leaks and spin on the Tinner case. Germany's Der Spiegel has also done great reporting on this nuclear black market ring.

"Make-Believe Journalism
For this article, I also interviewed Joe Lauria who was co-author of the UK's Sunday Times series on Sibel's case. I'll quote him extensively here:

"Obviously I believe that government sources must be held up to the same scrutiny as critics of government. Both need supporting evidence to back up their claims. When an official says something it might be "official" but it's not necessarily true. The role of corporate media as stenographer for government has grown in recent years, with Judy Miller's case being the most prominent. But I believe the dictates of careerism and the desire to be included in the "inner circle", especially in Washington, coupled with a vicarious sense of power, leads mainstream journalists to uncritically report the statements of government officials...

There was a brief period when American journalism fulfilled its promised, during the Watergate scandal. But today the vast majority of corporate reporters essentially fulfill the role of a state-owned press. Since we live in a corporatist state, it's not far off from the truth. I also think there is an element of naivete here. Many journalists really believe that government officials are working in the people's interests and not, more often, working for their own interests and those of their elite backers...

The result of all this is that American news reporting creates a “make-believe”, almost childish view of America’s role in the world. It transmits the American myth of the nobility of America’s foreign policy and use of the military to spread democracy, or look for weapons of mass destruction, never entertaining that America could be the aggressor. The media is still rooted in America’s role in the Second World War as liberator, not explaining that that has diametrically changed. The reason for this is simple: it is a corporate press providing this “make-believe” cover for corporate and government agendas. Behind this media-created buffer or curtain between the people and the power is US involvement in the shadows with drug dealing, nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Even a suspicion of these dealings never gets through the curtain of news and entertainment distraction to reach the American people. The leading presidential candidates and the conventions of both parties of course uphold these myths, never leveling with the American people. Therefore they do not know that there is only so much money to pay for a military empire or for social services at home. And the press never explains it in these stark terms."

Summary
David Sanger & William Broad continue to promote the "make-believe" view of American foreign policy, hiding anything of significance from the American people.

They might serve a useful purpose for their government masters, but their function certainly isn't as 'journalists.' Whatever the reason for the Times to provide the government's preferred spin on this case, David Sanger and William Broad have earned their place in the Judy Miller Hall of Fame.

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NY Times does it again: More 'Judy Miller' tapdancing (Pt2)

2008-08-28T08:06:00.003-05:00

A front page article "In Nuclear Net’s Undoing, a Web of Shadowy Deals" in Monday's New York Times by David Sanger and William Broad details the destruction of evidence by the US government in a case involving the nuclear black market.

The article highlights again that the New York Times continues to engage in 'Judy Miller reporting' by warmongering and acting as a mouthpiece for the government.

This is the second article in a multi-part series. This article will focus on the countries involved, and how and why the NY Times continues to act as a government mouthpiece by focusing attention on, and warmongering toward, Iran, and minimizing the role of so-called allies such as Turkey and Dubai. (The first piece of the series focused on the players in the AQ Khan / BSA Tahir nuclear smuggling ring.)

The Sanger/Broad article is obviously designed to drum up support for a war against Iran. Without evidence or support, they write that Iran is "presumably racing for the capability to build a bomb." They say this despite the fact that the US Intelligence Community's 2007 National Intelligence Estimate states that "Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen."

The Sanger/Broad article quotes government-friendly sources stating that there were two 'successful' 'sting' operations against the Iranian nuclear program, without noting that at least one of the so-called stings in 2006 was against the nuclear power program, not a weapons program.

The entire premise of the destruction of evidence in the prosecution case against the Tinner family, key suppliers to the AQ Khan network, in Switzerland is that the Tinners were supplying "electronic blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon on computers."

These blueprints were destroyed, we were told, so that they wouldn't get into "the hands of a terrorist organization or an unauthorized state." It isn't until the final page of a four-page article that Broad and Sanger inform us that the IAEA has "no evidence that Iran had acquired the bomb plans." (please see Broad and Sanger's previous article on this and note how they were played for a fiddle by their government sources. No correction has been made to the article.)

Ignoring Other Countries
By focusing on Iran, and cherry-picked elements of the Tinner case, the New York Times journalists, acting as government mouthpieces, chose to ignore the other countries involved in the network, countries who are not members of the Axis of Evil.

The article notes that the list of customers "may extend further" than Iran, North Korea and Libya, but does not question why these other customers have not been made public. Could it be that these countries are allies of the United States?

We know that:

"The wider nuclear network has been monitored for many years by a joint Anglo-American intelligence effort. But rather than shut it down, investigations by law enforcement bodies such as the FBI and Britain’s Revenue & Customs have been aborted to preserve diplomatic relations."

In the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, we know that the same excuse - "sensitive diplomatic relations" - was used to gag her and all the details behind her case. Which diplomatic relations are we referring to here? In 2005, Sibel noted that these 'diplomatic relations' are "not named since obviously our officials are ashamed of admitting to these relations."

How is it possible that these relationships outweigh the very serious implications of the spread of nuclear weapons?

Turkey
Turkey's role in the nuclear black market has been well documented, though poorly reported in the US. Turkey acted (and may continue to act) as both a manufacturing base for nuclear hardware, as well as a trans-shipment point for goods on their way to the end-customers such as Libya and Pakistan.

In 2000, Bill Clinton signed an order to allow Turkey access to US nuclear technology, but this order was blocked because, according to President Bush, certain Turkish entities were actively engaged in "certain activities directly relating to nuclear proliferation."

Note the timing here. Turkey was known to have been involved in the nuclear black market at least three years prior to the 'official' outing of the AQ Khan ring when a ship containing nuclear hardware, from Turkey and elsewhere, was intercepted on its way to Libya.

President Bush recently re-signed Clinton's order allowing Turkey access to US nuclear technology, although there is no evidence that Turkey has rectified any of these problems.

Turkish Procurement
According to IAEA investigators, the nuclear hardware supplied by Turkey to the AQ Khan ring - including 7000 centrifuge motors - "could be used in manufacturing enough enriched uranium to produce 7 nuclear weapons a year."

In fact, the entire deal to supply Libya with a nuclear weapons program began in Turkey with a meeting in 1997 involving AQ Khan, his Chief Operating Officer BSA Tahir, and Libyan representatives.

The known Turkish suppliers to the network, Selim Alguadis and Gunes Cire, were not indicted for their criminal participation in the ring, and their companies, EKA and ETI Elektroteknik, continue to operate freely today.

Further, Turkish businessman Zeki Bilmen and his US based company Giza Technologies, was caught supplying nuclear hardware to Pakistan's military program in 2003 via South African-based Israeli Asher Karni.

Bilmen was also overheard on wiretaps translated by Sibel Edmonds prior to 2002 organizing nuclear shipments, apparently with members of the Turkish and Israeli military and diplomatic community in Washington DC. According to Sibel, Bilmen was shipping product to and from other hotspots in the Khan/Tahir network such as Turkey, Dubai, South Africa and Spain.

Zeki Bilmen was not indicted, and his company continues to operate freely.

Marco Tinner, a member of the Tinner family that was effectively pardoned by the Bush administration's destruction of evidence, was also recommended for indictment in Turkey in 2005. He faced 32 years in prison in Turkey but that case also appears to have disappeared in the same manner as the Swiss prosecution case.

A Turkish Bomb?
Although there has been no official proof that Turkey is actively building a nuclear weapons, some experts on Turkey's nuclear program have recounted their support, suspicious that the energy program is a cover for a weapons program. In 2006, Mustafa Kibaroglu, a nuclear proliferation expert in Turkey told the Washington Post:

"I'm not supporting Turkey's nuclear energy program anymore because I'm not clear about what the real intention is. Let's put it that way."

Of course, David Sanger and William Broad chose not to mention any of this in their article despite the direct link to the Tinner case, preferring to cherry-pick information in order to facilitate the agenda of their government masters. This pattern is consistent with the whitewashing of Turkey's involvement in nefarious activity. Turkey's role in terrorism is a "best kept secret," Turkey's role in narcotics smuggling is a 'best kept secret,' and with the able assistance of the New York Times, Turkey's involvement in the nuclear black market will remain another 'best kept secret.'

Dubai
According to the US State Department, Dubai is a major center for the trans-shipment of narcotics and the associated money-laundering. The same is true for nuclear hardware and the laundering of the profits of the nuclear black market. It is also considered a major US ally.

Chief Operating Officer of the nuclear procurement ring, BSA Tahir, was based in Dubai, as was one of his main suppliers, Briton Peter Griffin. Most of the hardware supplied to the network was sent to Dubai, and sometimes via Turkey, on its way to the end-customers. Nuclear hardware from the Tinners, and also Turkish operatives, Alguadis and Cire, was sent to Dubai from where it was dispatched to Libya on board the BBC China.

Interestingly, the official report regarding the exposure of the AQ Khan / Libya deal appeared to imply that the shipments from Turkey had some semi-official blessing, noting that "it is surprising" that the consignment from Turkish businessman Gunes Cire to Libya was "allowed without any action" and also that the consignment from Selim Alguadis "arrived in Libya without any obstruction and this is unusual."

Pardoned
As I documented in my previous article, virtually all of the participants in this procurement ring have been allowed to walk free, without paying any penalty for these very serious crimes. The same can be said for the different countries that actively supported the network, such as Turkey and Dubai - as well as the US, the UK, and Pakistan. Iran is the only country feeling the heat. Why is that?

Summary
By focusing on, and misrepresenting, the Iranian angle, Broad and Sanger again have shown themselves to be lapdogs for the US government. For one reason or other, none of them flattering, Broad and Sanger chose to selectively sanitize the role of other countries who are more culpable than Iran in matters of nuclear weapons proliferation.

Whatever the reason for the Times to provide the government's preferred spin on the case, David Sanger and William Broad will remain in the Judy Miller Hall of Fame.

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Notes in the margin:
I was interviewed by Scott Horton on this topic yesterday. The interview can be downloaded here. An June interview regarding the Tinners is here.

Cross-posted at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak

(Email me if you want to be added to my Sibel email list. Subject: 'Sibel email list')

NY Times does it again: More 'Judy Miller' tapdancing

2008-08-26T08:36:00.003-05:00

"At the top of the hierarchy was a confidant of Khan's, Sri Lankan businessman Buhary Seyed Abu Tahir, who acted as a business manager of sorts, responsible for payments and contracts. He also appointed several division managers, who may not even have known of each other's existence. They were comprised of the Swiss Tinner family of engineers, including Friedrich Tinner and his sons Urs and Marco, who were apparently responsible for centrifuge parts; Briton Peter Griffin, a specialist in the procurement of tool-making machines; and (Gotthard) Lerch, whose job, as the prosecution claims, was to obtain the pipes that connect the centrifuges. Lerch's source for the pipes was Gerhard Wisser, a German national living in South Africa, with whom he had been doing business for decades."

Here is a more complete list of known actors in the nuclear proliferation ring that the Tinners were involved with:

BSA Tahir
Tahir, based in Dubai, was AQ Khan's Chief Operating Officer and right hand man. Tahir began working with Khan in 1995. In 2002, Tahir recruited Urs Tinner to help produce centrifuge parts, supplied in part by his brother and father. Tahir's involvement in the network was documented in a Malaysian Police Report in 2004, soon after a ship called the BBC China was intercepted on the way to Libya, filled with products from AQ Khan.

Interestingly, Tahir was released from prison two months ago in Malaysia because he is no longer considered a 'national security threat.'

Selim Alguadis, Gunes Cire & Hank Slebos
Turkish busisnessmen Alguadis and Cire were also key suppliers to the Tahir-Tinner ring. Alguadis' company, EKA, and Cire's company ETI Elektroteknik were both caught supplying hardware for Libya's nuclear program when the BBC China was intercepted.

Hank Slebos, a supplier to Khan's network for decades, was also a part owner of Gunes Cire's ETI Elektroteknik.

Despite their role supplying BSA Tahir, neither Alguadis nor Cire were ever convicted, and their companies continue to operate freely in Turkey. Slebos was sentenced to 12 months prison (8 months suspended, 4 months served) in 2005 for his role.

Turkey has a key role in the nuclear black market. In fact, IAEA investigators noted that the nuclear hardware supplied by Turkey to the AQ Khan ring - including 7000 centrifuge motors - "could be used in manufacturing enough enriched uranium to produce 7 nuclear weapons a year."

Asher Karni and Zeki Bilmen
Karni is an Israeli businessman based in South Africa. Zeki Bilmen is a Turkish businessman and CEO of Giza Technologies, headquarted in New Jersey. Karni purchased 200 spark-gaps in the United States from Giza Technologies n 2003 and then re-exported it to Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI.

Prior to 2002 Bilmen was also overheard on wiretaps translated by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds.

Zeki Bilmen was never charged. Karni was released on $100,000 bail and is now now a free man.

Peter Griffin
Peter Griffin is a Dubai-based British man who was said to have a "central role" in Libya's nuclear bomb program.

Griffin also supervised Tahir's project to build a manufacturing facility in Libya. A four-year British investigation into Griffin which spanned a dozen countries and cost millions of dollars was "quietly dropped" earlier this year. Griffin is currently living "scot-free.".

Gerhard Wisser
Wisser was a German national, based in South Africa, who supplied the pipes required for centrifuges. According to prosecutors, he was the South African "conduit" to the Tahir-Tinner ring. He was "given 18 years -- not in prison, but of nighttime house arrest in his mansion in a luxury neighborhood in Johannesburg."

Could it be...?
Why did the New York Times cherrypick facts, while obscuring and ignoring important, pertinent facts? Could it be that they are simply lazy? Could it be that they see their role as supporting the government's objectives, whether to protect allies such as Turkey and Dubai, or still chasing the dream of an invasion of Iran? Could it be that they want to sanitize Turkey and Turkish actors from the Tinners case in order to bolster President Bush's recently signed Executive Order giving Turkey access to nuclear technology?

Any of these possibilities might be accurate, but all of them are far from innocent, and none of them exonerate the New York Times propaganda machine.

Summary
By only reporting selectively on the Tinner case, quoting only more-than-eager government agency press officers, and by spinning the story toward Iran, the NY Times once again cements its reputation as a mouthpiece for the US government, even when it relates to important matters of true national security, that involves not only the US, but the entire world.

Whatever the reason for the Times to provide the government's portrait of the Tinner case, David Sanger and William Broad will remain in the Judy Miller Hall of Fame.

***

Cross-posted at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak

(Email me if you want to be added to my Sibel email list. Subject: 'Sibel email list')

Luke Ryland & Joe Lauria interviewed

2008-08-25T19:18:00.000-05:00

On Friday, I was interviewed with Joe Lauria, co-author of the UK's Sunday Times series on Sibel's case, by Peter B Collins.

You can download an MP3 of the interview here.

Sibel Edmonds Case: Richard Perle continues criminal enterprise, MSM still silent

2008-08-20T09:20:00.000-05:00

In 1989, the Wall Street Journal reported that Richard Perle and Douglas Feith had set up a lobbying company called International Advisors Inc [IAI] to lobby for “appropriation of U.S. military and economic assistance’ to Turkey."” When news of the $600,000 per annum contract got too hot to handle, Perle and Feith folded IAI and helped establish the American Turkish Council (ATC) to accomplish the same goals, but with a more respectable veneer.

Now, nineteen years later, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Richard Perle is “exploring going into the oil business in Iraq and Kazakhstan” with a “consortium founded by Turkish company AK Group International... Potential backers include two Turkish companies as well as Kazakhstan.”

Richard Perle issued a strange-sounding denial to the Wall Street Journal that he is involved with these latest oil projects, although he also issued a similarly "bizarre" denial to the 1989 WSJ article which reported on his consulting company IAI.

The WSJ continues:

"AK's chief executive is Aydan Kodaloglu, who, like Mr. Perle, has been involved with the American Turkish Council, an advocacy group in Washington."

In fact, according to her bio on the AK Group website, Kodaloglu "serves as a Board Member of the American Turkish Council." The ATC, established by Perle et al as a "sister organization" to AIPAC, was often caught on wiretaps heard by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. She described the ATC as a "front for criminal activity.”

The ATC has been under surveillance by both the FBI and the CIA since at least 1996, inpart because of suspected involvement in drug trafficking, public corruption and involvement in a nuclear black market procurement ring, but more importantly because of involvement in the 'great game' of the vast energy fields in Central Asia including Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

Investigative journalist John Stanton has written extensively about the connections between Central Asia and many of the 'associations' in the US, including the ATC, and others such as the American Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (AACC) and the US Kazakhstan Business Association (UKBA). Stanton argues that:

"While the ATC is an Association in name and in charter, the reality is that it and other affiliated Associations are the US government." (emphasis in original)

Perle's partner in this enterprise, the AK Group is an "international consulting" group whose two other directors are Murat Akay who works "Turkish companies interested in establishing joint ventures with U.S. and Israeli enterprises" and Fehmi Sait Hurol who is "involved in various cultural activities and exchange programs between Turkey and the U.S."

Interestingly, Sibel Edmonds has previously referred to "organization(s) supposed to be promoting the cultural affairs of a certain country within another country" as front groups for organized crime networks. Given the connections here, it would not be surprising if Mr Hurol and the AK Group are one such front group.

In my recent article "The Central Asia Islamization Cocktail: Mosques, Madrassas, Heroin & Terrorism" I quoted former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds describing the use of Turkish operatives and front groups to gain "control of Central Asia, particularly the oil and gas wealth, as well as the strategic value of the region." Sibel said:

"This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.

This is why I have been saying repeatedly that these illegal covert operations by the Turks and certain US persons dates back to 1996, and involves terrorist activities, narcotics, weapons smuggling and money laundering, converging around the same operations and involving the same actors.

And I want to emphasize that this is "illegal" because most, if not all, of the funding for these operations is not congressionally approved funding, but it comes from illegal activities.

And one last thing, take a look at the people in the State Secrets Privilege Gallery on my website and you will see how these individuals can be traced to the following; Turkey, Central Asia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - and the activities involving these countries."

Richard Perle is listed in Sibel's State Secrets Privilege Gallery, and now we see him attempting to profit from his ATC connections by entering into an oil deal in Kazakhstan and Iraq, two decades after the WSJ first reported on the early phases of this criminal enterprise.

Meanwhile, the US media is mostly silent on the key issues again. Despite even the most mainstream WSJ reporting on Perle's recent dealings, including the importance of Turkey and the American Turkish Council, the rest of the media is asleep at the wheel, completely ignoring, or whitewashing, these important elements of the story.

Perhaps investigative reporter Joe Lauria said it best last week.

"Centrism is the philosophy of the American media - and that essentially backs the status quo, when you're a centrist, and this game of objectivity that they play is really limited by parameters that you're allowed to ask questions and to investigate and in a sense then you're transmitting these assumptions, and reinforcing every day that the US is really a functioning democracy, not even a representative democracy. And as we know of course there are oligarchic interests that buy off Congress, that puts the person in the Whitehouse that they need..."

******
Cross-posted at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak

(Email me if you want to be added to my Sibel email list. Subject: 'Sibel email list')

Sibel Edmonds Case: FBI files "formal complaint" with Sunday Times

2008-08-18T08:11:00.001-05:00

Last week, Scott Horton interviewed (audio) investigative journalist Joe Lauria. Lauria was one of the co-authors of the three-part (1, 2, 3) series on the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds for the UK's Sunday Times.

In the interview Lauria discusses the Sibel Edmonds case, the state of the US media, and the Military Industrial Complex in the context of his new book with presidential candidate Mike Gravel: "A Political Odyssey: The Rise of American Militarism and One Mans Fight to Stop It"

In the interview, Lauria says that he spoke at length to the three FBI agents who were Sibel's immediate bosses at the FBI and that they "corroborated in general terms, that this story is true."

Lauria describes how he recently interviewed one of the FBI agents at his home for 90 minutes, and met another of Sibel's former bosses several times outside his house. The agents are unwilling to provide detailed corroboration on a lot of the details in the case because they fear being sent to prison, but their willingness to speak to Lauria about the case, and their supportive statements that "She's not crazy," provide generalized corroboration on the case.

The FBI itself is not happy that Lauria and the Sunday Times are still looking into the Edmonds case and they made a "formal complaint" with the Sunday Times (a British media outlet!) that Lauria stay away from the agents.

David Rose, author of the Vanity Fair article on Sibel's case, and the only other journalist who has been able to speak to some of the first-hand sources - from the FBI, Dept of Justice, and Congress - in Sibel's case, also reported how fearful his sources are:

The people that I talked to about these tapes are extremely nervous. There is a climate in America now which is punitive towards people who are suspected of disclosing information without authorization to journalists. The approach of the Bush administration is to punish people who come forward.

The good news is that Joe Lauria and the Times have a lot more information about the case that they haven't yet published, and are still actively investigating - 8 months after their first article was published, and 6 years since Sibel first went to Congress. It is no wonder that the FBI is nervous and issuing formal complaints.

Case Background
Lauria gave a good summary of the nuclear black market element of Sibel's case:

"What Sibel revealed to us, and has been revealing little by little since January, is that she has heard that there was a nuclear procurement ring operating inside the US to procure nuclear designs and parts for the AQ Khan network, and it was done not through Pakistani intelligence directly, but through the Turkish embassy.

Turkish businessmen who got the information and gave it to Turkish military attaches, who then turned it over to the ISI, and from there went on to the nuclear black market. To procure these parts and designs, high government US officials helped facilitate Turkish-Israeli PhD students to get into nuclear facilities in the US, they worked with the RAND corporation as well, some moles with RAND to help get this information. There was at least one American company, Giza Technologies, that was helping with parts, probably there were others, and this thing went on from 1995 at least until 2002, and it could still be going on - when this operation was shut down by the Dept of Defense and the State Dept.

Now, Sibel tells us that high government officials inside those two departments - Defense and State - were involved in this ring. She has named them on her website - at least, she has not named them, she has photographs of people - other bloggers have named them."

US Media
Lauria excoriates the US media in the interview:

"Centrism is the philosophy of the American media - and that essentially backs the status quo, when you're a centrist, and this game of objectivity that they play is really limited by parameters that you're allowed to ask questions and to investigate and in a sense then you're transmitting these assumptions, and reinforcing every day that the US is really a functioning democracy
[...]
The mindset of the American mainstream press does not allow certain ideas to easily filter through: the idea that high-ranking US officials might actually be facilitating this... It's entertainment all the time, the presidential campaign is entertainment, and do you actually think that these guys would actually go in there and make changes, whoever wins, when behind this wall of entertainment put forward by news media and the entertainment industry is a murky world of terrorism, nuclear procurement ring, of CIA, of the FBI working - and this rarely breaks through to the mainstream press...

They rarely look at the entire system being rotten, not just one official here or there being rotten, and they pat themselves on the back. And when I say the entire system being rotten, I mean Congress that is enthralled to corporate backers, and approving their aggressive foreign policy that enriches themselves, and does nothing to secure the American people or the interests of most American people. That is not even in the discussion in the mainstream press, so this Boston Globe reporter was unable to conceive easily that a government official could have been involved. "

Sibel's Comments
I asked Sibel for a comment about the interview, she replied:

Again and again you see journalists in this country who think that their job consists of nothing more than phoning the FBI press office to ask for a comment. Only two journalists have spoken to actual first-hand sources about my case; David Rose who is British, and Joe Lauria working for a British newspaper. Why is it that only these two reporters were able to speak to sources at the Dept of Justice, at the FBI, and in Congress who are familiar with the details of my case?

The agents that Joe Lauria spoke with are very familiar with all the details of the case because I worked directly with them. Yes, it is true that these sources are very nervous about speaking out because they fear the legal repercussions, however they shouldn't have anything to fear, because they know that it is illegal for the government to classify anything for the purpose of hiding criminality. As I've been saying from the beginning, Congress needs to hold hearings and put us all under oath where we are protected so long as we tell the truth.

It is time for hearings. All it takes is one congressman to hold hearings, or to read the classified information into the public record. Who will stand up?

Cross-posted at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak

(Email me if you want to be added to my Sibel email list. Subject: 'Sibel email list')

--------------------------
Transcript
The following is a partial transcript of the interview (full transcript here):

Horton: Welcome back to Antiwar Radio. It's KAOS 92.7FM in Austin Texas. Antiwar.com/radio. And introducing our guest today, it's Joe Lauria. He writes for the Sunday Times of London, Boston Globe and Bloomberg News, the Huffington Post. He is the co-author of the new book: “A Political Odyssey: The Rise of American Militarism and One Mans Fight to Stop It” with former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Mike Gravel. Welcome to the show, Joe.

Lauria: Thank you, Scott.

Horton: It's good to have you here. You came to my attention early this year when this three part - I guess it turned into a four part series - in the London Times came out, about at least part of the case of Sibel Edmonds, the former FBI translator-turned-whistleblower, and she's raised allegations kind of in all different directions - drug-smuggling and all kinds of different corruption and prior knowledge of impending attacks before 911 etc, and yet you guys focused really on the nuclear black market angle of her story. So I guess, if we could start here, Joe, perhaps if you could share with the audience a bit of the background of who Sibel is and her case, why she is a credible witness, and then what you guys began to find when you started looking into verifying her story.

Lauria: Sure. Sibel Edmonds is a Turkish and Farsi speaker who was hired by the FBI shortly after 911 - I think it was September 20 2001 - when there was suddenly a need to listen to a backlog of tapes that had been gathered by the FBI, and wiretaps, principally of the Turkish embassy in Washington - traffic in and out of there - that had gone on from 1995 till 2001. So Sibel went over six years of tapes, over a period of six months, and she started to make complaints about various things that were going on at the FBI, and she caused a lot of problems there because she was complaining particularly about one of her co-workers who she found worked for, and was also a member of, the American Turkish Council, which Sibel began to hear on these tapes was a crucial element in this nuclear procurement ring that she heard on the tapes. Now, as you know, she was fired in March 2002, she tried to sue to get her job back, this was all stopped and Ashcroft, the Attorney General, put a State Secrets Privilege gag order on her, after Sibel had gone to Senator Grassley and Representative Waxman - they listened to her several times, they took down her information, they promised hearings if Democrats took over the House, which they did in 2006, and that seemed to be progressing until Ashcroft put this gag order on her and the congressmen removed the information from their website that Sibel had given them and they never spoke about this again, even though we know - and this is related to Gravel's case too, we'll talk about that later - no congressman can be gagged by congress under Article Six of the constitution, they can't be questioned about anything they say in a legislative Act on the House floor or Senate floor or anywhere where there is a legislative act. So, the congressmen wimped out basically, Waxman and Grassley.

Sibel lost her case, and she was gagged. She got the ACLU to be her attorney, and they claimed that she is the most gagged person in the history of the US. So she pretty much held to that gag until December of last year when she put out on her website, and various other people that you know on the web, that she was willing to talk to the media, and tell them everything that she knew - because the press did not know what the real essence of what she had learned listening to these tapes, aside from some small complaints about irregularities at the FBI at Washington where she worked. Nobody in the US media took her up on her offer which is interesting, and something I’d like to get into later, but the Sunday Times, we contacted her, one of my colleagues, Chris Gourlay in London, in December, and Sibel actually called back and we began discussing with her the story, and then we ran - as you said - three stories about Sibel, and a fourth one on a related issue, and what Sibel revealed to us, and has been revealing little by little since January, is that she has heard that there was a nuclear procurement ring operating inside the US to procure nuclear designs and parts for the AQ Khan network, and it was done not through Pakistani intelligence directly, but through the Turkish embassy.

Turkish businessmen who got the information and gave it to Turkish military attaches, who then turned it over to the ISI, and from there went on to the nuclear black market. To procure these parts and designs, high government US officials helped facilitate Turkish-Israeli PhD students to get into nuclear facilities in the US, they worked with the RAND corporation as well, some moles with RAND to help get this information. There was at least one American company, Giza Technologies, that was helping with parts, probably there were others, and this thing went on from 1995 at least until 2002, and it could still be going on - when this operation was shut down by the Dept of Defense and the State Dept.

Now, Sibel tells us that high government officials inside those two departments - Defense and State - were involved in this ring. She has named them on her website - at least, she has not named them, she has photographs of people - other bloggers have named them. We have not named them for legal reasons, we have not been able to confirm their involvement so I won't be able to speak about who they are, but we believe Sibel obviously, and our job has been to corroborate what she has told us, and we've gotten lots of corroboration on the edges, but the main details, some of the main facts have been difficult to get. The main reason is that people who are in the know could go to jail for speaking about it, as Sibel can, and she has risked going to jail. And I know you've had Daniel Ellsberg on your show and he has talked about Sibel, and Daniel has written the foreword to the book I did with Gravel as well, and there aren’t many Sibel Edmonds around, there aren’t many Daniel Ellsbergs around who will risk their careers and possible imprisonment to speak about these things.

So what Sibel has given us is quite a fascinating and disturbing picture of what is going on and what I did last month - in June, rather - was to find the people immediately above her in the FBI who had worked with her on this case. I spoke with three of them, at length, and they have, just by virtue of them speaking to me, corroborated in general terms, that this story is true. They cannot, and would not, go into the details unfortunately because that could land them in a lot of trouble, including imprisonment, because this has been completely classified.

Horton: These were FBI agents you spoke to?

Lauria: Yes

Horton: And you said there were three different ones?

Lauria: Yes. One lived in Maryland, another lived in Virginia, but when I went out to see him I learned that he'd moved out West somewhere. He, we know from Sibel, was very angry when they shut down this investigation. You know, the FBI gets a bum rap, a lot of times, there's a lot to be answered for in this case, but we have to understand that there are good agents - 'good' in the sense of wanting to do their job, which is to investigate crimes - and the political appointees at the top, when they get the pressure from larger forces, the Whitehouse, or the Defense Dept or the State Dept, are stopped, and they are very angry, a lot of these guys that they couldn't pursue this no matter where it led, and this is what we saw in the case with Sibel, we saw it in the case with the Tinners in Switzerland where suddenly the US put pressure on the prosecutor, and the prosecution has been dropped and evidence destroyed, and in the fourth story in our series about Peter Griffin, a very close associate of AQ Khan since the 70s who had an investigation going on, with evidence gathered by the British Customs Dept and that was squashed as well, and without explanation.

Horton: We've got plenty of time here so lets put off the Tinners and Peter Griffin and this stuff for a little while here and go back over a few things that you've already mentioned. First of all, I understand British libel law and all that kind of thing but you're not going to have to hang up on me if I say the names of the people she's talking about?

Lauria: No I won't, but I'm not going to confirm what you're saying though. You can say whatever you want.

Horton: There is a whole list of her "Rogues Gallery" and so forth there at justacitizen.com, but particularly when we're talking about the State Dept, the accusations, and this is obviously the guy that your article centers around is Marc Grossman, and then she says Perle and Feith at the Defense Dept, right?

Lauria: Well I can't comment on the names

Horton: OK, well, anyone can Google that and look it right up. OK, secondly, as far as her credibility goes, because there is a State Secrets Privilege gag, and she has only been able to say so much, you said you've talked to these three FBI agents just a couple of months ago in June who confirmed some of this story for you. Obviously you had other sources besides Sibel for the series in the Sunday Times, I wonder if you could elaborate on that, maybe the Inspector General's report, statements of various senators, that kind of thing, so that people understand that when you're talking about. You know, we're talking about American moles, and Turkish moles, and Pakistani moles, and America’s nuclear program, this is some pretty out-there kind of stuff, so I want people to understand that what they're hearing is not some comic book. This is actually real!

Lauria: Well, a lot of... journalism is a credibility game, so we have to believe, first of all, our source, and we do believe Sibel. The issue then becomes corroborating what she says, because we need facts. You can't just go on whether we believe someone or not, and then the people we speak to we have to be able to believe them. And as I pointed out, there are not that many people who are aware of what is going on. There are the participants in the ring, who are never going to speak, of course, and there are the investigators in the FBI, and in the CIA - I didn’t bring that up, we could talk about the Valerie Plame connection that we uncovered in this story too - and then there are analysts like Philip Giraldi, the former CIA station chief in Istanbul, I believe, who knows Sibel, knows a lot about the case, who can provide on-the-record points of view that allow the reader to understand that this is not a comic-book episode, that this is very, very plausible, and totally within reason that this story that Sibel is telling us could happen - that high-level government officials could be involved in facilitating this.

And you go back to AQ Khan's network in the 70s and the Reagan administration, you can even go back further to the Carter administration when they tried to go after the Pakistanis to try to stop them from developing a nuclear weapon. Then when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, they needed Pakistan to help arrange the payment and the training of the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, so they suddenly turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear program. And the Reagan administration almost actively helped them do this because the Chinese were giving information to Pakistan, and they wanted the Chinese nuclear business for Westinghouse, it's obvious that the administrations starting from Carter and all the way has helped the AQ Khan network - at least by either protecting it, or even actively helping it, so this is just another phase of it. This story is not off-the-wall, if you started from the 70s you could start a direct line - Sibel just came in and heard what was going on from 95 to at least 2002 and possibly still today.

So as I was saying, we have the three types of sources: there's Sibel who has gone on the record at great risk to herself, although I don’t think they want to move on her because that would create the US media attention that our stories have not been able to create. There are those who are directly involved in the investigation - the FBI and CIA - and there are the analysts. So we've got analysts on the record saying things, but we need really FBI and CIA people to corroborate the details of what she is telling us, which we believe. We believed enough to write it in our stories without a lot of direct corroboration, because we believed that we should put her claims out there, and those FBI agents that I spoke to at length, and I got into the home of one for an hour and a half, and I spoke several times in front of the homes of another one.

The FBI made a formal complaint with the Sunday Times to keep me away from his house - why would they do that? Why was Sibel gagged if what she was saying is true? But the fact that these FBI agents spoke in general terms to me about her, made claims that she's not crazy, that she was not a fantasist, but that they could not go into details for the reasons I describe, may fall short perhaps of where we'd like to be, because we have a lot more stuff that she has given us, but we have not run the stories. I'm happy that a lot of the bloggers in the US and the foreign press has picked up on these stories, it has been total silence in the US, and there are people eager maybe to see more stories coming out in our series, and we're eager to get them out there, but we need more corroboration on the slew of more details that Sibel has given us - names, dates, places - that we believe but we cannot confirm yet because we can't get sources within the FBI to go on the record - even off the record, we don't need them to go on the record - we just need to know that they're giving us what they know, and I believe they know this, and I believe they want to talk, they would like to, they are just afraid, and you can hardly blame. You have to put sometimes - and this may sound corny - the good of the country and real national security, not the phony stuff that the Bush administration is talking about and all the false fears that cover-up operations just like this. And they can not go on the record for the reasons we've been saying, and so that's where we are right now in terms of corroboration.

Horton: OK - now, this has come up - the Tinners you brought up in talking about the corroboration, the people kind of shared with you the history of America's relationship with the Pakistani nuclear program, please provide me with some clarity - the AQ Khan network - well, as you said, they sort of at least turned a blind eye to it in the 1980s because they needed Pakistan’s help with the war against the Russians in Afghanistan and that kind of thing, does that last all the way through? Was Sibel over-hearing people who were actually part of a secret mission to co-operate with the AQ Khan network? And she mistakenly thinks they were being criminals when actually perhaps it was just officially-sanctioned criminality?

Lauria: No, we've never seen anything she told us as official US policy, but more of high-ranking US officials acting in an individual capacity in a rogue way. We don’t have any evidence, nor did she provide any evidence that this has been official US policy, but we do know that the Turkish and Israeli students getting this information, turning it over to Turkish businessmen, who then sold it - and everybody was getting paid along the way here - don’t forget it's about money - including some of the high ranking US officials - they turned it over to ISI.

One of the reasons that they used the Turks is because it would not look good for the Pakistan intelligence to be working inside the US. You know, it's interesting, another point of view with the Bush administration suddenly turning against the ISI for some reason in the last few weeks - but certainly they have worked closely with the CIA for Afghanistan, and also inside the US here in getting this information into the hands of the ISI, and AQ Khan worked obviously very closely together. So why don’t you drop these new designs, new parts, new information was sold - Iran, Libya, North Korea, perhaps, with the help of US Government officials. Now if this were a sting operation, as we understand, I've heard second hand that some correspondents in Washington have been told by their intelligence sources to stay away from this Sunday Times series because this is a big sting going on, and if you publish this you'll ruin the thing - but I mean, as Dan Ellsberg pointed out to me, and I think he's probably said to your show earlier, if that were the case, well they did a bad job, because Iran, North Korea, Libya - so-called enemies of the US got that bomb, or that information about the bomb, and they didn’t move early enough to do that. So this is obviously not true - I don’t believe that it was a sting. I think that is not true, I think that these officials were facilitating this.

Horton: There's a sort of an assumption there that if the CIA was working with this AQ Khan network that it would have to have been in order to stop them, but - like you said - they've been helping these guys since the 1970s. What indicates that they would want to stop them?

Lauria: Well, who in the CIA and the FBI? Not every rank and file FBI agent and CIA agent is told that we're protecting these guys because we want them to have the weapons, we want to enrich ourselves, or for other strategic reasons, but only top officials who were implicated will put a stop on the investigations so we saw Valerie Plame working, investigating, just as the FBI agents I spoke to were investigating this same nuclear ring that Sibel has laid out for all of us, and when Valerie Plame got too close at the American Turkish Council - again, the nexus of this operation in the US, and where she met her husband Joe Wilson - she was there and this high-ranking US government official...

In an anonymous letter that we got through a think tank in Washington said that this high-ranking government official - and it names him - he alerted a Turkish front company called White Energy that was part of the nuclear procurement network inside the US to stay away from Brewster Jennings, which was the CIA front company - that this Turkish front company wanted to hire...

Horton: Ah - and this is long before Robert Novak said anything about it on TV

Lauria: Yeah, yeah. Look, there are two parts to the Valerie Plame thing, we believe. The first part is this is in August 2001 that this high-ranking US official told the Turkish company to stay away from Brewster Jennings because they were actually investigating this ring. That blew the cover of Brewster Jennings and it happened to be that Valerie Plame was an important agent within Brewster Jennings that was in the ATC - so in effect, it blew Valerie Plame's cover amongst the people that she was investigating, not publicly. What happened with Novak is that it became public knowledge when he wrote it in his column - that very much may have been motivated it seems by Cheney's office to punish her husband because he tried to reveal that the evidence for the war in Iraq was phony - but that was a separate angle. The mainstream press was very very happy about the Novak story, they think they've got it, and they're not interested in going back to when Valerie's identity was first revealed, more seriously, than by Robert Novak.

Horton: Right - that's something that's not of interest to anyone, I don't think. You guys reported about it in the London Times, but that's the only place I’ve ever heard that.

Lauria: Yeah, well, you know the FBI was asked in a Freedom of Information request to reveal the files of Sibel's case, they claimed that the files don't exist, I saw an FBI document that shows that the files do exist - it could be that they were destroyed, so they could be telling the truth there - so obviously there appears to be a lot of cover-up going on, and they shut down the investigation. So you were saying why the CIA, on one hand seemed to be working with this network, and on the other hand they seem to be shutting it down - so I don't think Valerie Plame was in on wanting this network to succeed, I think that she was trying to do her job, just like the FBI agents I spoke to were trying to do their job, just like the customs officials were trying to do their job, but when they get too close to uncovering official involvement, it has got to be stopped. And there's no explanation.

This is what happens, there's no explanation - and the press doesn't probe it that deeply, unfortunately. And in the US in particular. I mean, it's just horrendous - and I'll tell you, and I haven’t revealed this, it's not a big deal, but I went to the Boston Globe because I’ve worked seven years for them as a correspondent, mostly at the UN, and I laid out the story for them, I wanted some American media attention and I talked to a correspondent that I’ve worked with for years at the Washington bureau and I could not convince her in an hour to even look into this story, let alone to buy any of what I was telling her.

Horton: Really?

Lauria: Yeah. they didn’t think there was anything to it and that Sibel obviously was not credible without even checking it out - and I think that these - having worked for mainstream media since 1990, always as a freelancer - except for a year at Bloomberg and I fled from that place - that these are centrists. Centrism is the philosophy of the American media - and that essentially backs the status quo, when you're a centrist, and this game of objectivity that they play is really limited by parameters that you're allowed to ask questions and to investigate and in a sense then you're transmitting these assumptions, and reinforcing every day that the US is really a functioning democracy, not even a representative democracy. And as we know of course there are oligarchic interests that buy off Congress, that puts the person in the Whitehouse that they need - and this gets me into the book of Gravel - that gets the defense contracts necessary to pump the American people with fear, so that we allow our taxpayers money to go and pay for defense outlays that are absolutely unnecessary and then fight wars that enhance our power and wealth...

Horton: Yep - I'm really interested in that scene, though, the bureau chief who just, in an hour, you can't even get her interested

Lauria: It was not the bureau chief, it was a reporter there

Horton: OK - but still, I just like that; 'No No No, just talk to the hand, I'm sorry, I don't want to hear it,' fingers in the ears

Lauria: I don't think that they were capable - not 'capable' - the mindset of the American mainstream press does not allow certain ideas to easily filter through: the idea that high-ranking US officials might actually be facilitating this... It's entertainment all the time, the presidential campaign is entertainment, and do you actually think that these guys would actually go in there and make changes, whoever wins, when behind this wall of entertainment put forward by news media and the entertainment industry is a murky world of terrorism, nuclear procurement ring, of CIA, of the FBI working - and this rarely breaks through to the mainstream press, and the idea that the American officials...
Look: it's the rotten apple theory, as opposed to the rotten orchard, the mainstream press will always want something that will bring down a government official or a corporate executive who had his hand in the till, or did some kind of corruption, and that says 'look, we're doing our job, we're defending the American people by doing our job as journalists. We really are questioning government authority.' Well that's baloney. I mean, once in a while you get a guy who falls through, but they rarely look at the entire system being rotten, not just one official here or there being rotten, and they pat themselves on the back. And when I say the entire system being rotten, I mean Congress that is enthralled to corporate backers, and approving their aggressive foreign policy that enriches themselves, and does nothing to secure the American people or the interests of most American people. That is not even in the discussion in the mainstream press, so this Boston Globe reporter was unable to conceive easily that a government official could have been involved.

They do have higher standards, maybe, than the British press - I've worked for both the British and American press - and I find the British papers maybe are too quick to go to story without corroboration, and the American papers need 4 or 5 sources for something that the reporter even witnessed directly sometimes. So, I didn’t ask the Globe to run the story straight away, I just wanted to start an investigation and I wanted to be part of it obviously, and if we didn’t find anything that met the Globe's standard, that would be fine, but they wouldn’t even begin to look into it.

Now why didn’t any other papers look into the story? I mean, Chicago Public Radio has done a series on it, they interviewed me on that, they interviewed Sibel, there was an attempt there, but it just doesn’t fit into the mindset of the American reporter. They're 'doing their job' and it's also on careerism I think, feeling the power vicariously of being close to government officials, rather than challenging them, wanting to be close to them, and part of the official theme. And of course we saw the cheerleading for all the military adventures and essentially the contracts that come back to the defense contractors. It's self censorship, and if you are going to get a memo from your editor about how to cover the thing then you're not going to be working there too long. You just know what you've got to do. I've worked for them, so I know what I can write and what I can't write, and this story is just outside the imagination of the American press, and I don't know how we're going to get it in there.

I really appreciate you having me on, and Dan Ellsberg and Sibel several times and Luke Ryland recently to talk about this case, because it needs to be spoken about and we need more papers to look into this story, more pressure put on by the press. When the FBI can not do its job any more because it is stopped - and this is one of the arguments I gave to these agents - this is the role of journalism, to step in there and do our own investigation. Unfortunately we don’t have subpoena power, so we're very limited in what we can do to get people to talk to us, but at least we've got the story out there.

Horton : Well, two questions, first of all, do you think that the internet is changing that at all? Do you think that that is more pressure on the mainstream media to kind of think a little bit more broadly? And secondly, are there any other major outlets in America that are mainstream enough that it's worth doing the work to publish it for them but who might be willing to let you write this story?

Lauria: Well, frankly, right now, on the second question, since we're still working on it for the Sunday Times I'm going to stick with them, I don't want to write it for anybody else. I'm a blogger at the Huffington Post, and I could write about it there but I want to investigate it for the Sunday Times and I hope that we can break it, and then other papers will pick it up - that hasn't happened yet, but we're going to stick with the story right there.

Your first question about the internet and its role, there's only one thing that will move the mainstream media, and that's business, whether it starts to hurt their business, and it is, it has, they're terrified of the bloggers, and they're terrified of the internet, because they realize that it is taking business away from them, people are reading them. At a basic level, classified ads are going online, that's really hurt the press, but in terms of journalism they're very much aware of that, and they're playing around with having their own reporters do blogs to try to co-opt the thing and it's not working very well, and there's a lot of crap on the internet - I would think that a large percent of what bloggers write is absolutely nonsense, and opinion without any fact, they're not trained as journalists, but the fact is that's very much the way it was at the beginning of the country, with the pamphleteers too, and a lot of it is anonymous, but there are a lot of important bloggers who are doing better work than mainstream journalists, they're doing it without pay! They're doing it because they want to show anywhere where the press is not doing its job, and they are feeling that pressure, and I hope that eventually as the newspaper business continues to die, they hire - millions of dollars they pay consultants to find ways of advertising the paper, television to get young people to read the paper - all this crap when they rather should pay journalists to go out and get stories. That's what sells newspapers. That's what always did. They seem to have forgotten this. They want just puzzles and horoscopes and comics, and whatever they can do to lure people to buy the paper. And the blogosphere is showing that there are people like Luke and others who are really starting to lead the way. And they aren’t professionals in the same sense of the training, but they are filling in where the mainstream press is failing - we've seen government run amok because of that, as you know - eight years of the Bush administration.

Horton: One thing that we have going for us on the internet too is the hyperlink - if we choose, every assertion that we make can be a link to the footnote, and the proof of it, and then in a situation like that, anyone who writes something that does not link to the proof of their assertions is automatically suspect. In the marketplace of ideas, well, if this is so true, where's all your links?

Lauria: That's a very good point. Of course, in a printed newspaper you're supposed to name you source if you can, on the record, and if not, you at least allude to someone whose identity is being withheld but on the internet, yes, the links can go on and on. You can keep investigating the story as much as you want, and they keep leading to different links.

Horton: I'm sorry - let's get back to this whole Nuclear Black Market thing. Tell me about this Tinner case - I guess, for the audience, give the background, German guys, arrested in Switzerland, computers destroyed, worked for the CIA, something like that. What is this story, what does it mean?

Lauria: We have not done a story on the Tinners yet. I just briefly mentioned them I think in the Griffin story. The Tinners met AQ Khan, I believe, when he was working in Europe in the 70s when he started to steal the designs there, so they've been very close associates with AQ Khan, and as AQ Khan was thrown into house arrest a couple of years ago, and he's recently started to speak out again, and what he's saying again is what Sibel has been saying in a way - which is that he got all this help from European companies, and from the US, and that they all knew what he was doing. So the Tinners were, after AQ Khan was put under house arrest, they started to prosecute people who were related to his procurement network going back to Griffin in Britain, and the Tinners in Switzerland, and this was suddenly shut down, and the US prosecutor had the files destroyed at the behest of the US. I interviewed David Albright about this some months ago - and I'm trying to remember, and he believed that China was the source of AQ Khan, not the US at the time, but that the Tinners were helping with parts and this was shut down, they just destroyed the evidence. We don't know why, it's obvious why - it's obvious why, I think, to us, because the Tinners were involved with the CIA, according to the Albright, and others - and exactly why, how that happened - in other words, were they being used as double agents? Were they being used to help facilitate this? This is not clear to me. I can't give an answer to that, not having investigated the Tinners case or written anything about that, but I’m just telling you what I’ve read. But they did work for the CIA, according to David Albright, he told me that. He is an expert on nuclear weapons.

Horton: And it should be noted here that the AQ Khan network, for all their nuclear proliferation, the terrible results that we know of, as far as I can tell, is that the North Koreans got some equipment that they never used, the Libyans got some equipment they never used, the Iranians got some equipment that they are using to enrich uranium to a measly 3.6% in the presence of IAEA inspectors, so for all the crisis, we don't have any rogue state making nuclear weapons because of this, other than Pakistan. Right?

Lauria: That's true. Well, the North Koreans did explode a device, didn’t they, a couple of years ago?

Horton: Oh yeah, but that was made out of plutonium harvested from their Soviet era reactors. There’s never been any evidence that they enriched uranium at all. They just bought the equipment.

Lauria: Well, I'll tell you about enrichment - Khan and his network enriched monetarily! That's a big part of this, you know, the business side of it. That reminds me, one of the theories is that they were actually selling phony parts to these countries.
...SNIP...
Horton: Well, let's hope that you can keep being a careerist journalist by writing good stories and proving that you actually are doing what it really takes, and not just cozying up there with your hairdo like the rest of these goofballs.

Lauria: I'm trying, and it's tough, I tell you, in terms of making a living trying to do it, but I appreciate what you said.

Horton: And I appreciate your effort. Everybody, that's Joe Lauria from the Sunday Times, formerly from the Boston Globe, Bloomberg News. You can find him at the Huffington Post. he is the co-author of Senator Mike Gravel's new book, A Political Odyssey: The Rise of American Militarism and One Man’s Fight to Stop It, and I urge you to check out the series co-written with Chris Gourlay and Jonathan Calvert at the London Times, that's "For sale: West's deadly nuclear secrets," "FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft," "Tip-off thwarted nuclear spy ring probe" and "Inquiry into Nuclear Mr. Fix-it? dropped." Thank you very much for your time today, Joe.

West Point Terrorism Expert: Turkish involvement in Terror is 'best kept story'

2008-07-18T09:59:00.002-05:00

"The story of Turkish involvement in transnational jihadism is one of the best kept stories of the war on terror."
Brian Glyn Williams, associate professor who "has tracked the movement of jihadis for the U.S. military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

A newly released AP article notes that al-Qaida is recruiting many foreign fighters - from Turkey, Central Asia, Chechnya and the Middle East - for the war in Afghanistan. According to the article,

"Turkey appears to have emerged as a source of recruits. Williams estimated as many as 100 Turks had made their way to Pakistan to join the fight in Afghanistan."

This story directly links to a 1998 DIA report on Al Qaeda’s Central Asia activities obtained by conservative watchdog Judicial Watch which calls the following disclosure a "stunning information point":

"A good deal of information concerning OBL’s and al Qaeda’s efforts in Chechnya, the Caucuses, Crimea, and the Central Asian Republics is covered in the (report). The confirmed existence of a [secure, reliable, terrorist-sponsored] “direct route to Chechnya from Pakistan and Afghanistan through Turkey and Azerbaijan” "

In a related article in November 2007, UK Times covers the case of Turkish Al Qaeda operative, Louai Al-Sakka, an "al-Qaeda Kingpin" who trained the 9/11 hijackers. The article highlights the key role played by Turkey as a center of al-Qaeda-related activities:

"(Sakka's) ability to keep providing high-quality forged papers made Turkey a main hub for Al-Qaeda movements,” his lawyer says.

Sakka’s lawyer said: “Just like there is money laundering, there is also terrorist laundering and Turkey was the centre of this.”"

As mentioned in my earlier piece, a large number of detained and captured terrorists have had Turkish passports - both real and fake. Here is a list of just a few of many documented cases of Turkish terrorists:
* Turkish citizen Soitekin Ollu admitted that he was an active member of an al-Qaeda linked organization from 2001-2005 and had operated in Chechnya (source)
* A German man with a Turkish passport, Zafer Sari, and Turkish-born Adem Yilmaz, both "accused conspirators" in a bomb-making plot in Germany, had received training in Pakistan "to prepare chemical explosives and military-grade detonators" (source)
* Egyptian man, Wael Abdel Rahman Kishk, arrested in 2002 with "a fake Egyptian pilot's uniform, phony documents identifying him as a pilot and a forged certificate from a Florida flight school" had a fake Turkish passport (source)
* Turkish citizen, Genan Ahmet, was convicted "for organizing several terrorist acts" in Kyrgyzstan in 2000. (source)

Well-Guarded Secrets
Turkey's involvement in nuclear black-market, illegal weapon trafficking, narcotics, the Islamization of Central Asia, and illegal activities within the US Government are also very well-guarded secrets.

Turkey’s Lead Role in Afghan Heroin Trade is One of the Best Kept Stories of the Wars on Terror & Drugs

According to the State Department's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs' 2006 Report:
* Turkey is a major transit route for Southwest Asian opiates to Europe, and serves as a base and refining center for major narcotics traffickers and brokers....

* Turkey is also a base of operations for international narcotics traffickers and associates trafficking in opium, morphine base, heroin, precursor chemicals and other drugs. The majority of these opiates originate in Afghanistan, and are ultimately trafficked to Western Europe.

* Turkey remains a major route, refining center and storage, production and staging area, for the flow of heroin to Europe. Turkish-based traffickers and brokers operate in conjunction with narcotics smugglers, laboratory operators, and money launderers in and outside Turkey. They finance and control the smuggling of opiates to and from Turkey. Afghanistan is the source of most of the opiates reaching Turkey.

* Opiates and hashish also are smuggled to Turkey overland from Afghanistan via Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.

In 1997, British Home Office Minister Tom stated that 80% of the heroin seized in Britain came from Turkey, and that his government was concerned by reports that members of the Turkish police, and even of the Turkish government, were involved in drug trafficking.

In 1998 France's Le Monde Diplomatique reported that:

"[T]he MIT (Turkey's Intelligence agency) itself accuses its rival organisation, Turkey’s national police, of having "provided police identity cards and diplomatic passports to members of a group which, in the guise of anti-terrorist activities, traveled to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary and Azerbaijan to engage in drug trafficking."

Further, journalist Adrian Gatton quotes Chris Harrison, a senior Customs officer in Manchester, that Customs could not get at the Turkish kingpins because they are “protected” at a high level.

Drug Trafficking Finances Terrorism

With 93% of worldwide heroin supply now coming from Afghanistan, groups like al-Qaeda and the Taliban necessarily benefit from this trade with their Turkish partners. Despite the odd attempts by the US government to cut off money flows to terrorist groups by focusing on charities, most of the funding comes from trafficking in drugs.

* In 2004, the Washington Times quoted Rep. Kirk-IL, a member of the House Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee saying:

"We now know Al Qaeda's dominant source of funding is the illegal sale of narcotics."

* Time Magazine reported in 2004:

“…al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies are increasingly financing operations with opium sales. Anti-drug officials in Afghanistan have no hard figures on how much al-Qaeda and the Taliban are earning from drugs, but conservative estimates run into tens of millions of dollars.”

Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds summed up the situation in Part Two of her Highjacking of the Nation series:

“We know that Al Qaeda and Taliban’s main source of funding is the illegal sale of narcotics. Based on all the reports, facts, and expert statements, we know that Turkey is a major, if not the top, player in the transportation, processing, and distribution of all the narcotics derived from the Afghan poppies, and as a result, it is the major contributing country to Al Qaeda. Yet, to date, more than five years into our over exhaustive ‘war on terror propaganda’, have we heard any mentioning of, any tough message to, any sanction against, or any threat that was issued and targeted at Turkey?”

Turkey’s Active Participation in Nuclear Black-Market and Illegal Weapon Trafficking is one of the Best Kept Stories of the War on Terror & WMD
* As reported in the New York Times, at least two Turkish businessmen were key suppliers to A.Q. Khan's nuclear proliferation network. Turkey was used to manufacture hardware for the network, and was also used for trans-shipment of nuclear technology on the black market. When authorities intercepted a ship called BBC China as it was delivering nuclear hardware to Libya in 2003, consignments from Turkish Businessman, Gunes Cire and Selim Alguadis, were found on board.

* As far back as 2000, Bill Clinton was forced to halt a deal to supply Turkey with nuclear technology because of Turkey's role in the nuclear black market.

* In another case covered extensively by the LA Times & PBS: Turkish businessman Zeki Bilmen of Giza Technologies in New Jersey shipped nuclear detonators to the AQ Khan network in Pakistan via South Africa. Both the US mainstream media and the court documents (pdf) in the case, while they named the nationalities of all players and companies involved in this case, they excluded the nationality of Bilmen and Giza Technologies.

* Further proof of Turkey's involvement in the nuclear black market came in early 2008 in the UK's Times. The Times reported that:

"Turkish agents in Washington... were selling the information on to (nuclear) black market buyers, including Pakistan."

* In 2008, Phil Giraldi, former CIA operative stationed in Turkey, discussed Turkey's role in using:

"falsified end-user certificates on weapons purchased in the United States to enable sales to third countries not allowed access to the technology. Principal recipients include the five “Stans” in central Asia—Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan."

* According to a report by Turkish Atomic Energy Authority (TAEA), at least 104 nuclear smuggling incidents had occurred in the past eight years in Turkey. For instance, in September 1999, 5 Kilograms of Uranium enriched to 4.6 percent were confiscated from an international smuggling ring in Turkey, which included four Turkish, one Azerbaijani, and three Kazakhstani citizens. The report cites over one hundred incidents like this, and these are only cases that have been intercepted and reported.

Turkey’s Operations in Islamization of Central Asia & Balkans via Mosques and Madrassas is one of the Best Kept Stories in US Pipeline Politics

* In 1999, Washington Times reported that:

"Some members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has financed its war effort through the sale of heroin, were trained in terrorist camps run by international fugitive Osama bin Laden...

* Similarly, the Wall Street Journal, Europe reported in 2001:

"For the past 10 years, the most senior leaders of al Qaeda have visited the Balkans, including bin Laden himself on three occasions between 1994 and 1996. The Egyptian surgeon turned terrorist leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has operated terrorist training camps, weapons of mass destruction factories and money-laundering and drug-trading networks throughout Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Bosnia. This has gone on for a decade."

* Turkish organizations such as the Gulen 'movement,' a $25 billion economic powerhouse, reportedly financed by the CIA, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, has been establishing madrassas and mosques across Central Asia - including Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan - for the past decade.

The construction and operation of these madrassas and mosques appear to serve a number of purposes:
1. Indoctrination and radicalization of students
2. Providing a front for CIA and State Department-sanctioned 'teachers' to operate with the protection of Diplomatic passports.

* The Gulen movement itself has "a university, eleven high schools, one primary school and nine education facilities training university applicants" in Azerbaijan, while the Turkish government itself is "sponsoring Islamic educational projects" featuring "a specifically Turkish form of Islam in this Shi‘a majority country."

* We see the same pattern of mosque building in Kazakhstan. Wikipedia states that:

"Construction of mosques and religious schools accelerated in the 1990s, with financial help from Turkey, Egypt, and, primarily, Saudi Arabia."

* And we see more of the same in Turkmenistan:

"Since 1990... More religious institutions, including religious schools and mosques, have appeared, many with the support of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Turkey."

The US government support and use of Turkey as a proxy in Central Asia and the Islamization activities in these ex-Soviet States have been guarded as State Secrets and "covert operations." I covered this operation and Gulen's movement in my two previous pieces here and here.

An FBI whistleblower case involving Turkey and Central Asia is one of the most gagged and Best Kept Secrets

Here is how the US government ensured that Edmonds' case involving Turkey and Central Asia remains a best kept secret:

* The US Justice Dept invoked the State Secrets Privilege on Edmonds case in 2002. Here is the press release from the DoJ announcing the decision.

* The US Justice Dept invoked the State Secrets Privilege a second time in 2003 (pdf) when Sibel was subpoenaed in a 911-related civil case. The Justice Department quashed the subpoena in an emergency motion "in order to protect the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States."

* New York Times front page story in 2003 reports: Justice Department Gags Congress in Sibel Edmonds case. Senator Grassley said, "This is about as close to a gag order as you can get."

* When the FBI's Inspector General issued a report which vindicated Sibel's case, it was immediately classified. A redacted version of the report which was recently released (pdf) is 90% blacked out. A recent NPR report on Sibel's case calls this document a "must read."

* The media and the public are barred from Edmonds' court appeal, reported Washington Post in 2005. "The court's unusual decision to close arguments prompted a challenge by Edmonds's attorneys. That challenge was supported by news organizations, including the Associated Press. "

Turkey & Central Asia: Best Kept Secrets
Major stories and cases involving Turkey and Central Asia, whether it is Turkish militants entering Afghanistan to join al-Qaeda, or Turkish operatives involved in Islamization and radicalization in Central Asia via mosques and madrassas, or the Turkish dealers running heroin trade and nuclear black market operations, or a US citizen and FBI whistleblower whose case involves Turkish and Central Asian targets in the US, are always, as Professor Williams says, Best Kept Stories.

The Central Asia Islamization Cocktail: Mosques, Madrassas, Heroin & Terrorism

2008-07-15T09:13:00.003-05:00

In my article last week, Court Documents Shed Light on CIA Illegal Operations in Central Asia Using Islam & Madrassas, we saw how the CIA, along with Saudi Arabia and Turkey, have been financing the promotion of radical Islam in Central Asia in a decade-long illegal covert operation.

The operation includes propaganda and indoctrination in the form of financing, building and operating madrassas, control of media outlets and publishing houses, financing of terrorist groups, and heroin trafficking, as well as facilitating the requisite money-laundering apparatus. It is this operation that is at the heart of the gagging of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, and many of the names on Sibel's State Secrets Privilege Gallery are associated with this operation.

This modus operandi is not new, of course. A recent New York Times article noted that "Saudi and American money" financed schools in Pakistan which "spread Islamic radicalism" dating back to the 1980s. Students from these schools went on to fight the Russians in Afghanistan alongside other CIA creations such as Osama Bin Laden.

The US government has also previously used Islamic fighters, including Al-Qaeda, in the Chechen and Balkan wars. In these cases, and with the Central Asian operation, we see the same elements - Islamic terrorist groups, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, and money laundering - converging with the 'foreign policy' objectives of a small group of US officials, and US energy companies. In each case, the activities of the Islamic groups have been facilitated by puppet states of the US; Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey.

Kosovo and Albania
In 1999, Washington Times reported that:

"Some members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has financed its war effort through the sale of heroin, were trained in terrorist camps run by international fugitive Osama bin Laden...

The KLA members, embraced by the Clinton administration in NATO's 41-day bombing campaign... were trained in secret camps in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and elsewhere, according to newly obtained intelligence reports.

The reports also show that the KLA has enlisted Islamic terrorists -- members of the Mujahideen --as soldiers in its ongoing conflict against Serbia...
[...]
The reports said bin Laden's organization, known as al-Qaeda, has both trained and financially supported the KLA.
[...]
The KLA's involvement in drug smuggling as a means of raising funds for weapons is long-standing. Intelligence documents show it has aligned itself with an extensive organized crime network in Albania that smuggles heroin to buyers throughout Western Europe and the United States.

Drug agents in five countries believe the cartel is one of the most powerful heroin smuggling organizations in the world."

Similarly, the Wall Street Journal, Europe reported in 2001:

"For the past 10 years, the most senior leaders of al Qaeda have visited the Balkans, including bin Laden himself on three occasions between 1994 and 1996. The Egyptian surgeon turned terrorist leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has operated terrorist training camps, weapons of mass destruction factories and money-laundering and drug-trading networks throughout Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Bosnia. This has gone on for a decade. Many recruits to the Balkan wars came originally from Chechnya, a jihad in which Al Qaeda has also played a part."

Ayman Al-Zawahiri, of course, is reported to have been the brains behind the September Eleven terrorist attack in the United States. His brother, Muhammad al-Zawahiri, is the head of the Albanian network, according to Yossef Bodansky, director of the House Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare.

In short, at a minimum, the United States, with NATO, were supporting the Kosovo Liberation Army alongside Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

Chechnya
In Chechnya we see the same pattern of certain US policy elites and al-Qaeda working on the same team.

According to a front page article in the Washington Post in 2003:

"Russian intelligence officials assert that Osama bin Laden donated at least $25 million and dispatched numerous fighters to Chechnya, including Ibn Khattab, a Saudi who led one of the best-trained contingents. The United States now agrees that Khattab had al Qaeda ties, and cited those links when it added three Chechen rebel units to its list of terrorist organizations earlier this year.

American officials said that several hundred Chechen fighters were trained at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and that bin Laden sent "substantial amounts of money" to equip Chechen rebels in 1999."

In fact, a 1998 DIA report (pdf), exposed by the conservative group Judicial Watch in 2004 via a FOIA request in 2000, noted that Khattab was a "personal friend" of bin Laden, and that bin Laden sent Khattab to Chechnya in 1995 to "organize training camps for international terrorists." Three camps were established, and graduations were held every two months.

US support for the Chechens has been well documented. In a September 2004 article in the Guardian, subtitled "The Washington neocons' commitment to the war on terror evaporates in Chechnya, whose cause they have made their own," a group called the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC) is put under the spotlight. It's members include Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, Frank Gaffney, Michael Ledeen, James Woolsey, Stephen Solarz and Morton Abramowitz.

The Guardian notes:

"The ACPC heavily promotes the idea that the Chechen rebellion shows the undemocratic nature of Putin's Russia, and cultivates support for the Chechen cause by emphasising the seriousness of human rights violations in the tiny Caucasian republic. It compares the Chechen crisis to those other fashionable "Muslim" causes, Bosnia and Kosovo - implying that only international intervention in the Caucasus can stabilise the situation there. In August, the ACPC welcomed the award of political asylum in the US, and a US-government funded grant, to Ilyas Akhmadov, foreign minister in the opposition Chechen government, and a man Moscow describes as a terrorist. Coming from both political parties, the ACPC members represent the backbone of the US foreign policy establishment, and their views are indeed those of the US administration.
[...]
Allegations are even being made in Russia that the west itself is somehow behind the Chechen rebellion, and that the purpose of such support is to weaken Russia, and to drive her out of the Caucasus. "

The aforementioned Judicial Watch account of the DIA report notes that:

"A good deal of information concerning OBL’s and al Qaeda’s efforts in Chechnya, the Caucuses, Crimea, and the Central Asian Republics is covered in the (report). The confirmed existence of a [secure, reliable, terrorist-sponsored] “direct route to Chechnya from Pakistan and Afghanistan through Turkey and Azerbaijan” is a stunning “information point” within this (report) – especially in light of the date of the information, 1998."

A 2008 article in the UK Times, "Al-Qaeda kingpin: I trained 9/11 hijackers," about Louai al-Sakka confirms the existence of the terrorist pipeline through Turkey to Chechnya.

(Sakka's) story is also one of a globetrotting terrorist in an organisation that is truly multinational.
[...]
The Chechens needed trained fighters. Sakka was telephoned by Ibn al-Khattab, the late militia leader controlling the foreign fighters against the Russians. Khattab requested that Sakka’s trainees should be sent on to Afghanistan for military training because “conditions are tough”.
[...]
One of Sakka’s chief roles was to organise passports and visas for the volunteers to make their way to Afghanistan through Pakistan. His ability to keep providing high-quality forged papers made Turkey a main hub for Al-Qaeda movements, his lawyer says. The young men came to Turkey pretending to be on holiday and Sakka’s false papers allowed them to “disappear” overseas.

Turkish intelligence were aware of unusual militant Islamic activity in the Yalova mountains, where Sakka had set up his camps.
[...]
Some of Sakka’s account is corroborated by the US government’s 9/11 Commission. It found evidence that four of the hijackers – whom Sakka says he trained – had initially intended to go to Chechnya from Turkey but the border into Georgia was closed.
[...]
Sakka’s lawyer said: “Just like there is money laundering, there is also terrorist laundering and Turkey was the centre of this.”

In fact, apprehended terrorists often hold Turkish passports - reportedly both fake and real. A quick google search, for example, demonstrates Turkish passports on terrorists captured in New York, Chechnya, Chechnya again and again, Pakistan training camps, and Georgia, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan. Many of the 'detainees' at Guantanamo also hold Turkish passports.

Central Asia
Now we come full circle to the current operations in Central Asia which are at the core of the gagging of Sibel Edmonds. As outlined in my recent article, "Court Documents Shed Light on CIA Illegal Operations in Central Asia Using Islam & Madrassas," the CIA has been funding an illegal covert operation to 'Islamicize' the Central Asian region in order to wrest control away from Russia and secure the vast energy resources of the region. The US has been using Turkey as a proxy to carry out this operation, for reasons that Sibel explained:

Given the history, and the distrust of the West, the US realized that it couldn't get direct control, and therefore would need to use a proxy to gain control quickly and effectively. Turkey was the perfect proxy; a NATO ally and a puppet regime. Turkey shares the same heritage/race as the entire population of Central Asia, the same language (Turkic), the same religion (Sunni Islam), and of course, the strategic location and proximity.

This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.

This is why I have been saying repeatedly that these illegal covert operations by the Turks and certain US persons dates back to 1996, and involves terrorist activities, narcotics, weapons smuggling and money laundering, converging around the same operations and involving the same actors.

And I want to emphasize that this is "illegal" because most, if not all, of the funding for these operations is not congressionally approved funding, but it comes from illegal activities.

And one last thing, take a look at the people in the State Secrets Privilege Gallery on my website and you will see how these individuals can be traced to the following; Turkey, Central Asia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - and the activities involving these countries.

As part of this operation, Turkish organizations such as the Gulen 'movement,' a $25 billion economic powerhouse, reportedly financed by the CIA, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, has been establishing madrassas and mosques across Central Asia - including Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan - for the past decade.

The construction and operation of these madrassas and mosques appear to serve a number of purposes:
1. Indoctrination and radicalization of students
2. Providing a front for CIA and State Department-sanctioned 'teachers' to operate with the protection of Diplomatic passports.
3. Laundering money for a variety of purposes.

In Azerbaijan, for example, there were only 20 mosques in the late 1980s. By 2002, there were 150 foreign built mosques in the country. In 2002, 80% of "religious structures" in Azerbaijan were unregistered, resulting in an effort by the Azeri government "to bring all religious organizations in the country under its control." In an interview, Rafiq Aliyev, head of the Azerbaijani State Committee for Work with Religious Structures said:

"You know, we are trying to ensure their transparency. People who avoid this probably have to conceal something, so they do not want to be transparent. They are reluctant to register their religious structures - medreses or religious communities.
[...]
We will find out what religious organizations really serve religion and what religious
organizations use religion as a cover. So, their activities will be seriously reconsidered."

Later in the interview, Aliyev noted that much of the money reported to be for mosque building was apparently used for other, undetermined, purposes:

"We are worried about the difference between the money brought into the country and the cost of building those mosques. I mean, a big sum is brought into the country, but only a part of it, is spent on building mosques. We have not succeeded yet in finding where the rest of the money goes.

I will give you one example, I think it will suffice. A total of 385,000 dollars were spent on the Qaracuxur mosque in the Razin settlement [in Baku]. So, the Turkish religious committee sent to Azerbaijan 385,000 dollars. But if we calculate the cost of the Qaracuxur mosque, it does not exceed 50,000 dollars.

In fact, up to 150 mosques have been built in Azerbaijan by foreign countries. As I have said, between 200,000 and 600,000 dollars were spent on building each of them. But our reports show that the majority of those mosques do not have technical documents, they have not carried out any stocktaking. What company or who built them, what was paid to the state or was anything paid at all - we are now collecting this information, we already have enough information. In time, and we will make it public."

If each of the 150 mosques is 'over-budgeted' by $300,000, then there is $45 Million of unaccounted foreign funds sloshing around Azerbaijan. To what end?

The Gulen movement itself has "has a university, eleven high schools, one primary school and nine education facilities training university applicants" in Azerbaijan, while the Turkish government itself is "sponsoring Islamic educational projects" featuring "a specifically Turkish form of Islam in this Shi‘a majority country."

We see the same pattern of mosque building in Kazakhstan. Wikipedia states that:

"Construction of mosques and religious schools accelerated in the 1990s, with financial help from Turkey, Egypt, and, primarily, Saudi Arabia."

And we see more of the same in Turkmenistan:

"Since 1990... More religious institutions, including religious schools and mosques, have appeared, many with the support of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Turkey."

Shady Dealings
The same people who were involved in supporting and facilitating the use of Islamic forces in Afghanistan, the Balkans and Chechnya are also involved in the Central Asian operation, including giving support, public and otherwise, to the Gulen movement. Many of them appear in Sibel Edmonds State Secrets Privilege gallery. Sibel has said repeatedly that one of Gulen's main companies, media conglomerate Ihlas Holdings is 'semi-legitimate' and 'alleged shady.'

This whole affair was recently exposed as a result of Gulen applying for a Green Card in the US courts. In a recent hearing, the prosecutors cited documents which argued that Gulen's operation was a CIA front, however earlier hearings also provide some very interesting information. A May 2007 filing by Gulen, published yesterday by Rasti, indicates that the FBI to date has not produced the results of a requisite criminal background check on Gulen. The document states:

44. Upon information and belief, the FBI has failed to issue to USCIS the results of criminal background checks and/or name checks relating to the Plaintiffs in connection with the Plaintiff’s Applications and Petition.

Given the latest revelations about CIA involvement in Gulen's affairs, it is readily apparent why the FBI wants to keep the details of its "Gulen file" secret. The details of Gulen's finances have not been made public, the details of his activities working for the US and the puppet states have not been made public, and the activities of the other companies who are financing Gulen are also wrapped in mystery.

Meanwhile, the State Secrets Privilege is still in place in the Sibel Edmonds affair, the Islamization of Central Asia, following the same model as the mujahideen in Afghanistan and the use of Islamist militants in Kosovo/Albania, using madrassas and mosques, along with narcotics and associated criminal activities continues to this day despite the big lesson of 911.

And yet the US corporate media continues its long-term blackout on the entire region - enabling the continuance of the illegal operations of our covert foreign policy and pipeline politics.

Wet Dream
Here is what Colin Powell told the House International Relations Committee in 2002 about the neocons wet-dream in Central Asia:

"America will have a continuing interest and presence in Central Asia of a kind that we could not have dreamed of before."

Court Documents Shed Light on CIA Illegal Operations in Central Asia Using Islam & Madrassas

2008-07-11T12:34:00.003-05:00

Court Documents Shed Light on CIA Illegal Operations in Central Asia Using Islam & Madrassas
- Sibel Edmonds State Secrets Gallery Connects Pipeline Politics, Madrassas & the Turkish Proxies

In a recent immigration court case involving Turkish Islamic Leader, Fetullah Gulen, US prosecutors exposed an illegal, covert, CIA operation involving the intentional Islamization of Central Asia. This operation has been ongoing since the fall of the Soviet Union in an ongoing Cold War to control the vast energy resources of the region - Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan - estimated to be worth $3 trillion.

Court Case
The scene for these dramatic disclosures was an application for a Green Card in the Eastern District Court in Philadelphia by "controversial Islamic scholar" Fetullah Gulen. Gulen, who has been living in the United States since 1998, argued that he qualified for the Green Card as "an extraordinarily talented academic."

The court case was covered extensively by the Turkish press. Leading Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported:

"Gülen's financial resources were detailed in the public prosecutor's arguments, which claimed that Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Turkish government, and the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA, were behind the Gülen movement. It stated that some businessmen in Ankara donated 10 to 70 percent of their annual income to the movement and that it corresponded to $20,000 to $300,000 per year per person. It added that one businessman in Istanbul donated $4-5 million each year and that young people graduating from Gülen's schools donated between $2,000 and $5,000 each year."

Another leading Turkish newspaper reported (translated by Rastibini)

Among the reasons given by the US State Department's attorneys as to why Gülen's permanent residence application was refused, is the suspicion of CIA financing of his movement.
[ . . . ]
"There is even CIA suspicion"

"Because of the large amount of money that Gülen's movement uses to finance his projects, there are claims that he has secret agreements with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkic governments. There are suspicions that the CIA is a co-payer in financing these projects," claimed the attorneys.
[ . . . ]
Among the documents that the state attorneys presented, there are claims about the Gülen movement's financial structure and it was emphasized that the movement's economic power reached $25 billion. "Schools, newspapers, universities, unions, television channels . . . The relationship among these are being debated. There is no transparency in their work," claimed the attorneys."

Who is Gulen?
Fetullah Gulen is "a 67-year-old Turkish Sufi cleric, author and theoretician," according to a recent profile in the UK's Prospect magazine. Prospect ran a public poll last month to find the world's greatest living intellectual. Gulen 'won' the poll after his newspapers alerted readers to the poll's existence. Gulen is also the leader of the so-called 'Gulen Movement' which claims to have seven million followers worldwide. The Gulen Movement has extensive business interests, including "publishing activities (books, newspapers, and magazines), construction, healthcare, and education."

Gulen and the CIA
The fact that the prosecutors in the court cite documents that claim that Gulen has been financed in part by the CIA is remarkable for a number of reasons, even though there have been strong suspicions about the CIA's involvement in the Gulen Movement for years. The Russian intelligence agency, the FSB, has repeatedly taken action against the Gulen movement for acting as a front organization for the CIA. In December 2002, Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported:

"Russian secret service claims: Turkish religious brotherhood works for CIA

The FSB, the Russian intelligence organization formerly called the KGB, has claimed that the 'Nurcus' religious brotherhood in Turkey has engaged in espionage on behalf of the CIA through the companies and foundations it has founded. FSB head Nikolay Patrushev has mentioned the names of these companies and foundations, saying, 'The brotherhood engages in anti-Russian activities via two companies, Serhad and Eflak, as well as foundations such as Toros, Tolerans and Ufuk.' Patrushev has accused the brotherhood of conducting pan-Turkish propaganda, of trying to convert Russian youths to Islam by sowing the seeds of enmity, and of engaging in certain lobbying activities. These companies and foundations have turned up in the internet site of Fethullah Gulen [alleged leader of the Nurcu religious community currently living in the United States who is a defendant in several court cases in Turkey, accused of engaging in anti-secularist activities.]""

Russia has banned all of Gulen's madrassas, and in April of this year, banned the Nurcu Movement completely.

Gulen's Madrassas
The Gulen Movement founded madrassas all over the world in the 1990's, most of them in the newly independent Turkic republics of Central Asia - Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan - and Russia.

These madrassas appear to be used as a front for enabling CIA and State Department officials to operate undercover in the region, with many of the teachers operating under diplomatic passports.

Why Central Asia?
Central Asia, with its vast energy wealth, is of major interest to US oil and gas companies. The region is also of key strategic interest in the 'Great Game' as Russia, China and the US compete for dwindling energy supplies. The US government has been using Turkey as a proxy to gain control over Central Asia via Pan-Turkic nationalism and religion.

Sibel Edmonds Case
Twenty six people wrote reference letters supporting Gulen's application for a Green Card - most notably ex-CIA agent George Fidas, former Turkish ambassador Morton Abramowitz, and former CIA Deputy Director Graham Fuller who appears in Sibel Edmonds' State Secrets Privilege Gallery.

I called Sibel Edmonds to comment on the latest revelations. She said:

You've got to look at the big picture. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the super powers began to fight over control of Central Asia, particularly the oil and gas wealth, as well as the strategic value of the region.

Given the history, and the distrust of the West, the US realized that it couldn't get direct control, and therefore would need to use a proxy to gain control quickly and effectively. Turkey was the perfect proxy; a NATO ally and a puppet regime. Turkey shares the same heritage/race as the entire population of Central Asia, the same language (Turkic), the same religion (Sunni Islam), and of course, the strategic location and proximity.

This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.

This is why I have been saying repeatedly that these illegal covert operations by the Turks and certain US persons dates back to 1996, and involves terrorist activities, narcotics, weapons smuggling and money laundering, converging around the same operations and involving the same actors.

And I want to emphasize that this is "illegal" because most, if not all, of the funding for these operations is not congressionally approved funding, but it comes from illegal activities.

And one last thing, take a look at the people in the State Secrets Privilege Gallery on my website and you will see how these individuals can be traced to the following; Turkey, Central Asia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - and the activities involving these countries.

Many of the people in Sibel's State Secrets Privilege Gallery are closely connected to Gulen, and each other, as well as the operations that Sibel mentions. Many of them have actively advocated for using Muslims to further their own needs - from Turkistan to Albania and Central Asia.

Marc Grossman, former State Department #3 and former Turkish ambassador, and one of the key named individuals in Sibel's case, is currently receiving $1.2 million per annum from Ihlas Holding, a Gulen-linked Turkish conglomerate. Sibel has previously referred to Ihlas as 'semi-legitimate' and 'alleged shady' - and emphasized that Grossman's current payoff is a result of services performed while he was in office.

Grossman's predecessor as ambassador in Turkey was Morton Abramowitz - in fact, Grossman actually worked under Abramowitz in Ankara for a number of years. During that period, the US opened an espionage investigation into activities at the embassy involving Major Douglas Dickerson, a weapons procurement specialist for Central Asia. Dickerson and his wife, an FBI translator, later became famous when they tried to recruit Sibel to spy for this criminal network.

Abramowitz, who is not listed in Sibel's State Secrets Privilege Gallery, wrote a letter in support of Gulen for his immigration case. He has long advocated the use of Islamic fighters in furtherance of US interests, including the Afghan mujaheddin against the Soviets and the Kosovo Liberation Army during the war in the Balkans, acting as an advisor to the Kosovar Albanians.

Another player from Sibel's Gallery is Enver Yusuf Turani - Prime Minister of East Turkistan, a 'country' recognized by only one country, the United States. East Turkistan, aka Xinjiang, is officially a part of China, and home to the Uyghur people and the "Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement," a UN-nominated terrorist organization "funded mainly by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and received training, support and personnel from both the al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime of Afghanistan." In fact, the Uyghurs constitute a significant percentage of detainees - at least 22 - at Guantanamo Bay since 2001. Five of those have been set free, and were eventually sent to Albania, amid much controversy.

According to TurkPulse:

"One of the main tools Washington is using in this affair in order to get Turkey involved in the Xinjiang affair is some Turkish Americans, primarily the Fetullah Gulen team who are prosecuted in absentia in Turkey for trying to found a theocratic State order in this country because he runs his activities from the United States, his protégé. Another Turk used in this affair is Enver Yusuf Turani, who is the self styled Foreign and Prime Minister of the East Turkistan Government in exile. He has been an American citizen since 1998. Enver Yusuf is in close cooperation with Fetullah Gulen... Their activities for the government in exile are based on a report entitled “the Xinjiang Project” drafted by Graham Fuller in 1998 for the Rand Corporation and revised in 2003 under the title “the Xinjiang Problem.” It emphasises the importance of the Xinjiang Autonomous region in encircling China and provides a strategy for it."

In fact, Abramowitz and Fuller were key players in the establishment of 'East Turkistan,'

"proclaiming the government in exile within 4-5 months, starting in May (2004) and completing the proclamation in mid- September. The ceremony was held at Capitol Hill under American flags in Washington."

Two others from Sibel's gallery, Sabri Sayari and Alan Makovsky, have been similarly involved with Gulen, Fuller, and Abramowitz - co-authoring books and articles, making joint appearances, dinners etc.

Illegal Operations
Earlier I quoted Sibel saying

"And I want to emphasize that this is "illegal" because most, if not all, of the funding for these operations is not congressionally approved funding, but it comes from illegal activities."

Where does this funding come from? Narcotics trafficking, nuclear black market, weapons smuggling, and terrorist activities. As Sibel makes clear in her The Highjacking of a Nation article, the management of the heroin industry from the farms in Afghanistan to the streets of London and elsewhere "requires highly sophisticated networks," from the protection of the convoys from Afghanistan through Central Asia to their final destination, to the laundering of the billions of dollars in proceeds in Central Asian casinos and financial institutions in Dubai and Cyprus. "So, who are the real lords of Afghanistan’s poppy fields?" Sibel asks. The heroin trade finances al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but they aren't the real lords of the poppy fields. Journalist Ahmed Rashid, author of "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia " and other similar books about these issues recently noted on Democracy Now that a "cartel" controls Afghanistan's heroin, which supplies 93% of global heroin supply.

Sibel has been trying to tell us about these operations for years, but has been gagged by the State Secrets Privilege which was invoked citing certain 'sensitive foreign diplomatic and business relationships.' These 'sensitive relationships' have now been exposed to a degree, thanks to the immigration case against Mr Gulen - one of the Turkish operatives who have been fronting for the CIA in the Islamization of Central Asia, incorporating drug trafficking, money laundering, and the nuclear black market, and the convergence with terrorism.

One Last Question
At the end of our interview, Sibel asked me to leave you with this question:

"After 911, the US Government engaged in mock investigations and shut down many small Islamic charities and organizations, giving the appearance of action in the so-called 'War on Terror.' Why did they harbor, support and resource Fethullah Gulen's $25 billion madrassa-and-mosque-establishment efforts throughout the Central Asian region and the Balkans?"

------------
Update: Thanks to the comment below, the court documents are now available here (word doc). The court documents tell a different story to the Turkish reporting on the court documents, and while it is true that the prosecutors cite documents that discuss the possibility that Gulen is financed by the CIA et al, they do it mostly to discredit this notion.
Update 2: see this comment below for further clarification.

Sibel Edmonds' Redacted IG Report Released

2008-06-17T18:48:00.003-05:00

I've got a few items today.

Firstly, former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds and I were interviewed by Scott Horton for Antiwar Radio last week. The interview went live on Monday. From the blurb:

"Sibel Edmonds and Luke Ryland discuss the London Times series on her case and the international nuclear black-market network surrounding A.Q. Kahn, the U.S. government’s total clamp-down by gag orders even against Congress, the American foreign policy hypocrisy of demonizing certain nuclear ambitions and supporting others, the military-industrial-congressional complex revolving door, the bipartisan lack of enthusiasm in pursuing whistleblower cases, the movie about Sibel’s case “Kill The Messenger,” and how it only takes one congressman to call her to testify to blow the case wide open."

You can listen (50 mins) to it here, and read the transcript here. The youtube version is here

For the first time, the redacted version of the Department of Justice's Inspector General's report into Sibel's case has been released - parts 1, 2, & 3 (pdfs)

The DoJ has previously released a 35 page unclassified summary of the report, but this is the first time that the 100 page redacted version has been released publicly. You won't learn much from trying to read the report but it is striking to see how much of the report is redacted. Here is the 'Introduction':

In the interview with Antiwar Radio, we discussed Hastert's new job lobbying for a company that lobbies for Turkey. I wrote about that here and here.

Sibel highlighted the fact that people like Hastert and others who have been involved like former #3 at the State Dept, Marc Grossman, have become 'untouchable.' From the interview:

"Horton: Even though for years now your story has somehow implicated [Hastert] in basically criminal interaction with these groups, and now he still goes right to them for employment when he quits [government]!

Edmonds: Absolutely – they all do. Because they have become… we have these people who have become untouchable.
[..]
So what I'm trying to say here is that you have this root problem in our country, you have this pattern, so when you say "Nothing happens to Marc Grossman," I'm telling you that these people are untouchable. They are the untouchables because you see this with many, many people, and it's not raising any flags, the mainstream media is not reporting on it, the congress is not doing anything about it, so what does Marc Grossman have to worry about? They have really thick skin, they are really, really bold about their moves, because they are saying "I'm doing all this despite all this stuff out there. Come and touch me. Catch me if you can." And there is no one out there for us to go and ask to catch these guys."

On the other hand, Sibel reiterated that although these people rightly feel untouchable, it only takes one honest congressperson to have the courage to stand up and invite Sibel to testify under oath in congress to bring down the house of cards and send some of the 'untouchables' to prison. Sibel has repeatedly said that the FBI counterintelligence officials that she worked with are also willing, and eager, to testify if called.

We also discussed the nuclear black market in the interview:

"Edmonds: You have to focus on one aspect, and that is that right now we are talking about a black market, the nuclear black market, and you're looking at international players within this nuclear black market activity, and this involves to a certain degree the Russians, Israelis, South Africa, Turkey, Iran, North Korea, so you're looking at many, many players...

The big deal is our hypocrisy-ridden foreign policy, and the fact that on one hand, we're talking about the danger of these weapons of mass destruction in the hands of whoever at the time we declare to be in the "Axis of Evil," and using this as a technique, and as a tactic, to invoke fear here in our country...

On the other hand, when it comes to these really serious issues and cases, a lot of them involving weapons of mass destruction, we cherry-pick the intelligence, and we cherry-pick on what we are going to take action.

As you know, right now, we are talking about possibly attacking Iran because they may have the nuclear capabilities and technology. On the other hand, we are looking the other way when it comes to this global scale nuclear black market activities, in some of which we have U.S. players, participation, and their role. But yet, we go out of our way – and this is our government – to quash this information, to gag this information, to let these people off the hook, and we can't do that!

That is the importance of it, it's not that "Okay, fine, Pakistan got it, and who played what role?" It is the fact that there is this nuclear black market, and we have many, many players, and some of these players happen to be our allies, some of these players happen to be U.S. persons, and yet, we only get partial stories, and whenever it is convenient for our government to say "Oh, okay if it is Syria, or if it is Iran…" and yet looking the other way when it happens to be people who we call our allies."

Some of those 'allies' who participate in this nuclear black market include officials from Israel and Turkey and the US. As reported in the UK's Times in January's "For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets":

"A backlog of tapes had built up, dating back to 1997, which were needed for an FBI investigation into links between the Turks and Pakistani, Israeli and US targets. ... (Sibel) heard evidence that pointed to money laundering, drug imports and attempts to acquire nuclear and conventional weapons technology.

“What I found was damning,” she said. “While the FBI was investigating, several arms of the government were shielding what was going on.”

The Turks and Israelis had planted “moles” in military and academic institutions which handled nuclear technology. Edmonds says there were several transactions of nuclear material every month, with the Pakistanis being among the eventual buyers. “The network appeared to be obtaining information from every nuclear agency in the United States,” she said."

This part of the interview was in response to the news last month that the CIA had helped orchestrate the destruction of evidence in a Swiss case involving some key suppliers to the proliferation network. I wrote about that a couple of weeks ago. Please note that this interview was conducted late last week, prior to the news in the US media in the last few days, scaremongering about the possibility that Iran and others might have received blueprints for a new compact nuclear weapon. As I mentioned in my previous post, the US media was silent about this story for weeks, before finding a way to spin it onto the front page of the Washington Post on Sunday ("Smugglers Had Design For Advanced Warhead")

The apparent trigger for this latest round of reporting in the US was a new report (pdf) by former weapons inspector David Albright which was released on Monday (and leaked in draft form over the weekend).

It will be interesting to watch how the spin on this story plays out. Albright's report notes that the defendants in the Swiss case, the Tinner family, had one full page, in a three page report, dedicated to the fact that the Tinners were working for the CIA, and notes that they received 'a large sum of money' from the CIA, but I suspect that part of his report will go largely unmentioned in the US media, even while credible outlets in the rest of the world have argued for the past month that the Swiss government destroyed the evidence in the case at the behest of the CIA.

Back in May the Guardian reported:

While the Swiss government maintains the treasure trove of nuclear intelligence was destroyed for reasons of national security, the Americans may have been involved because Tinner is believed to have also been working for the CIA. Albright said Tinner was recruited by the American agency from 1999-2000.

"The Swiss were doing other people's dirty work," said an international official familiar with the investigation into the Khan network. "The allegation is that Urs was on the CIA payroll for a very large sum of money."

Olli Heinonen, deputy director general at the IAEA, has led the investigation into the Khan network for years. Last year his office sought and gained access to the Tinner files and some of his officials were also summoned to witness their destruction.

The Americans were also present, according to the international official. "The Americans were involved in the destruction. They were calling the shots," he said. The IAEA refused to comment publicly on the case. A former senior IAEA official said: "I am quite astonished. It's very unusual to see people destroying documents like this."

Yesterday the Guardian stated flatly that:

"Officials from the Vienna agency and Washington supervised the recent destruction of the Swiss files"

The reporting in the US media has not been quite so forthcoming about the US role. Washington Post merely reported that the evidence in the case was "recently destroyed by Swiss authorities under the supervision of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency." The New York Times timidly reported that "the Tinners had provided information to the C.I.A"

According to Albright's latest report, the CIA promised to keep the Tinners, key suppliers of the network, out of prison but that the "CIA was unable to keep its promise on jail time." In fact, by destroying the evidence in the case, the CIA might be able to keep the promise after all, as the Tinners are now likely to go free because the destruction of the evidence means that they are now unable to get a fair trial.

Of course, the US government isn't necessarily concerned about keeping their promise to the Tinner family; it may very well be that they don't want their involvement, and the involvement of their allies, reaching the light of day. What is missing from the current reporting is that while the Swiss were trying to build a case against the Tinners in 2005 and 2006, the US government refused to even reply to multiple requests for assistance over an 18 month period. David Albright himself testified in congress that:

The United States should respond to the Swiss requests for assistance as quickly as possible. To continue to ignore these requests undermines the vital prosecution of key members of the Khan network and risks undercutting support for Swiss cooperation in non-proliferation matters. In addition, I find this lack of cooperation frankly embarrassing to the United States and those of us who believe that the United States should take the lead in bringing members of the Khan network to justice for arming our enemies with nuclear weapons.

As I wrote last week:

In an interview on Democracy Now a week (after his testimony in Congress), Albright said that he finds the US stonewalling "disturbing and perplexing," "mystifying" and "embarrassing as an American," adding:
"The signal (the U.S. government is) sending is that it doesn’t want the Swiss to prosecute these three people, and yet they provide no reason for that."
Albright's perspective certainly add some important context to the allegations that the US government pressured the Swiss to destroy the Tinner files in order to prevent a public trial - and all that might entail...

Given this context, MSNBC's 'Deep Background' has some interesting reporting. For some reason:

"U.S. officials are downplaying reports in the New York Times and Washington Post that Pakistan's A.Q. Khan may have given Iran--and other nations--blueprints for a miniature nuclear warhead first developed for his country's program.
[...]
Publicly, U.S. officials have been low key in discussing the reports, surprising in that the Bush administration has been pressing Iran to stop its uranium enrichment program.
[...]
A spokesman for the CIA declined all comment.

A senior U.S. official familiar with the network's operation explained why the U.S. is downplaying the reports, at least publicly.

"You'll have a hard time proving or disproving this," he said, referring to the possibility that Iran was given the blueprints. "We don't know that this transfer took place."

It sure is 'surprising.' Whatever happened to "We don't what the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud"?

Even as the rhetoric against Iran continues to heat up, the Bush administration is trying to deflect attention away from this matter. Why is that? This seems like the perfect 'opportunity' to scale up the pressure. Why are they distancing themselves? What do they have to hide?

-----

In other news, I was interviewed by Peter B Collins about Sibel's case for 20 minutes on Monday. You can listen to that here (mp3)

media alert

2008-06-10T04:39:00.003-05:00

Sibel and I will be on Scott Horton's radio show at 1.15pm Eastern on Tuesday.

Scott has done great work on Sibel's story in the past - and knows more about this case than just about anyone.

Update: Apparently there is some technical trouble at Antiwar Radio. The interview has been delayed.

Sibel Edmonds Case: More Destruction of Evidence re Nuclear Black Market

2008-06-06T06:58:00.000-05:00

It's remarkable, really.

The US government has taken some extreme measures to silence former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. Among other reasons, they are obviously very nervous about information that Sibel has regarding the involvement of US, Israeli, and Turkish officials in supplying the nuclear black market.

Now we have this: The US Government apparently demanded that the Swiss government destroy all evidence - all 30,000 pages of it - related to the pending prosecution of the Tinner family. The Tinners were "very key suppliers" of AQ Khan's nuclear proliferation network, but their court case is now unlikely to proceed, given the destruction of the evidence.

Basic Facts
The Tinners, the father and two sons, were arrested by German authorities and extradited to Switzerland in 2004 for their role in supplying the A.Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network.

Two weeks ago, the Swiss President, responding to media reports, read out a prepared statement announcing that all the evidence relating to the Tinners' case was destroyed late last year. He said that it was important to destroy all the evidence, which included sensitive information about how to make nuclear weapons, in case the information fell into the hands of terrorists. He also stated that Switzerland was merely meeting its obligations under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and that the IAEA supervised the destruction of the documents.

That sounds reasonable.

The Questions
Unilateral Decision Making. The Swiss government is under pressure internally as a result of its unilateral decision to destroy the evidence. Both the parliament and the courts are accusing the Swiss government of violating the principle of Separation of Powers. The Parliament has already announced that it will hold an investigation into the matter.

Why the Secrecy? The announcement that the evidence was destroyed (6 months ago) was forced on the Swiss President by rumours in the media. The Swiss government refuses to answer any questions regarding the matter, as do the IAEA and the US government.

NPT Obligations? I haven't seen any media report which confirms or supports the Swiss claim that this destruction of evidence was an obligation under the NPT. However the Guardian, which has the best reporting on this story, quotes a 'former senior IAEA official' saying: "I am quite astonished. It's very unusual to see people destroying documents like this. They should be put somewhere very safe."

The destruction of evidence took place with the apparent imprimatur of the IAEA, but they refuse to comment too. Has the IAEA been corrupted too?

US Involvement
Virtually every media article about this matter - including those articles preceding the official announcement - notes the strong suspicion that the Swiss Government acted on behalf of the US Government, specifically the CIA. The Guardian has the details:

"While the Swiss government maintains the treasure trove of nuclear intelligence was destroyed for reasons of national security, the Americans may have been involved because Tinner is believed to have also been working for the CIA. Albright said Tinner was recruited by the American agency from 1999-2000.

"The Swiss were doing other people's dirty work," said an international official familiar with the investigation into the Khan network. "The allegation is that Urs (Tinner) was on the CIA payroll for a very large sum of money."
[...]
The Americans were also present (at the destruction), according to the international official. "The Americans were involved in the destruction. They were calling the shots," he said.
[...]
Had the evidence been presented in court, compromising and embarrassing information about the CIA's activities with the Khan network could have surfaced, say experts and officials. "

Time Magazine has a more benign take on the reasons that the CIA might have wanted the evidence destroyed:

"The official stonewalling has fueled speculation that the United States, and specifically the CIA, has pressured the Swiss government to destroy the documents to aid its own efforts to stop nuclear smuggling, whatever the effect on the Tinners' trials. (emphasis mine)"

One item that I have not seen mentioned in any of the recent press reports is that the US government actively hindered the Swiss investigation into the Tinners for at least 18 months. In May 2006, former weapons inspector David Albright testified in Congress that the US government had been stonewalling the Swiss investigation:

"The U.S. Government Needs to Cooperate With Swiss Prosecutions of the Tinners.

Although the focus today is on Pakistan and unanswered questions about the Khan network, the United States has been remiss in assisting the overseas prosecution of key members of the Khan network. The United States has ignored multiple requests from Swiss prosecutors for cooperation that have extended over a year.
[...]
The (Swiss) Office of the Attorney General is disappointed over this matter. It is difficult to understand the actions of the U.S. Government. Its lack of assistance needlessly complicates this important investigation.
[...]
The United States should respond to the Swiss requests for assistance as quickly as possible. To continue to ignore these requests undermines the vital prosecution of key members of the Khan network and risks undercutting support for Swiss cooperation in non-proliferation matters. In addition, I find this lack of cooperation frankly embarrassing to the United States and those of us who believe that the United States should take the lead in bringing members of the Khan network to justice for arming our enemies with nuclear weapons."

In an interview on Democracy Now a week later, Albright said that he finds the US stonewalling "disturbing and perplexing," "mystifying" and "embarrassing as an American," adding:

"The signal (the U.S. government is) sending is that it doesn’t want the Swiss to prosecute these three people, and yet they provide no reason for that."

Albright's perspective certainly add some important context to the allegations that the US government pressured the Swiss to destroy the Tinner files in order to prevent a public trial - and all that might entail...

Secrecy
The Tinner case brings to mind the Sibel Edmonds case, in terms of the underlying issues, the secrecy, and the destruction of evidence.

One of the key issues in Sibel's case is the involvement of American, Turkish and Israeli officials in supplying the nuclear black market, including the so-called AQ Khan network. See the UK's Times' "For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets:

Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.
[...]
Her story shows just how much the West was infiltrated by foreign states seeking nuclear secrets. It illustrates how western government officials turned a blind eye to, or were even helping, countries such as Pakistan acquire bomb technology.

In order to keep this information from becoming public, Sibel's case has been swept under the blanket of secrecy by the invocation of the State Secrets Privilege.

Destruction of Evidence
In a subsequent article, The Times also reported that the FBI "has been accused of covering up a file detailing government dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets." The case file, 203A-WF-210023, was known to exist, but the FBI now denies that it exists. The question at the time was whether the FBI was lying about the existence of the file, or whether the case file, which contained all the evidence of a multi-year counterintelligence investigation, had been destroyed. I had been leaning toward the option that the FBI was hiding the existence of the file, but given that the US government has apparently been able to orchestrate the destruction of evidence in the Swiss Tinner case, it's easier to imagine that they could, and would, destroy their own case file.

Tenuous Justifications
The main argument for the destruction of the Tinner evidence is that it had to be destroyed in case the nuclear blueprints somehow got into the hands of terrorists or rogue states. This is obviously a worthy objective, however:
a) Copies of the exact same information are known to exist elsewhere, and is suspected to be on the Khan network computers in Dubai.
b) There is no indication in any of the media reports that any effort was made to destroy only the sensitive information while maintaining the evidence required to prosecute the Tinners.
c) The US (and UK) allowed the network to proliferate nuclear hardware and nuclear know-how for years without apparently being concerned about the fallout. Why the concern all of a sudden with the Tinner case?

The Times accurately described how the US has ignored proliferation for years, without any apparent concern:

"The wider nuclear network has been monitored for many years by a joint Anglo-American intelligence effort. But rather than shut it down, investigations by law enforcement bodies such as the FBI and Britain’s Revenue & Customs have been aborted to preserve diplomatic relations."

In Sibel's case, the FBI watched while the network delivered nuclear product not only to their acknowledged end-customers, but also while freelancers within the network made copies of the information stolen "from every nuclear agency in the United States" and sold it to the highest bidder. There's no indication that the US government did anything to stop the flow of any of this information at the time, but rather went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that Sibel's knowledge of these events did not become public. Similarly, people at the Pentagon and State Department were able to ensure that the honest counterintelligence agents at the FBI were prevented from moving forward on any of their multi-year investigations that had discovered all of these nefarious activities.

After all this, we are now being asked to believe that the destruction of evidence in the Tinner case is to prevent secure information from getting in the hands of terrorists? Please.

Where is the Media?
One other similarity between Sibel's case and the Tinner case is the absence of the US mainstream media. The Tinner case broke on May 23. The Guardian article was on May 31. The US media has been completely AWOL on this story, apart from a single AP story that ran in some venues on May 23. UPI ran a short article based on the Guardian story, and Time ran an article on June 3. The New York Times hasn't run a single article on the story.

The silence (1,2) is baffling.

Summary
The US government has done just about everything it can to ensure that Sibel Edmonds is prohibited from spilling the beans on what she knows about the nuclear black market, among other things. Now we see the hand of the US government apparently reaching into a foreign democracy, exporting the concept of the 'unitary executive' and upsetting the balance of powers, to destroy evidence which was to be used to prosecute crimes involving the spread of nuclear weapons to rogue regimes.

The US government had previously demonstrated that it didn't wanted to prosecute these crimes, therefore their flimsy ex-poste rationales for destroying the evidence, in secret, need to be held up for extra scrutiny.

What's going on???

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Crossposted at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak

For more background on Sibel's case and the nuclear black market, see my "Sibel Edmonds Case: Nukes for sale (Pt 2)" and "Sibel Edmonds Case: Benazir and The 'Islamic' Bomb"

Sibel Edmonds Case: ABC News investigates Hastert scandals and the Turkish Connections.

2008-06-04T06:30:00.003-05:00

Kudos to ABC News for (belatedly) taking the opportunity of Dennis Hastert's new lobbying job to give a run-down of some of the scandals Hastert has been involved in.

Despite the benign headline ("Ex-House Speaker Hastert Finds New Home"), Justin Rood mentions the Mark Foley / House Page scandal, Hastert's (under-reported) involvement in the Abramoff affair, and Hastert's dodgy land / earmarking deals. Rood's piece ends thusly:

"A 2005 Vanity Fair article alleged Turkish groups and individuals at the Turkish Consulate in Washington, D.C. had discussed funneling tens of thousands of dollars to Hastert in exchange for political favors; his spokesman at the time denied Hastert had any knowledge of Turkish groups and had done no favors.

Hastert's new firm has done work for the government of Turkey and Turkish companies, a spokesperson confirmed Monday. She could not say whether or not Hastert would be working on projects involving that country."

As far as I know, this is the first time that the Vanity Fair investigation has ever been referenced in the corporate media... 34 months after publication.

Please head over to the ABC article and leave a message of support & encouragement. We need to reward this sort of reporting, and also build on the momentum. The popularity of my article about Hastert on Monday demonstrates that there is a groundswell of interest in these matters.

Fox News, of all places, has also been reporting on (some of) Hastert's crimes:

"Budget earmarks became a national scandal — and a national joke — after some wasteful schemes made headlines recently:
[...]
The most recognizable name is Illinois Republican Dennis Hastert...

In February 2004, Hastert, with partners and through a trust that did not bear his name, bought up 69 acres of land that adjoined his farm some 60 miles outside Chicago. The price was $340,000. In May 2005, Hastert transferred an additional 69 acres from his farm into the trust.

Two months later, Congress passed a spending bill into which Hastert inserted a $207 million earmark to fund the “Prairie Parkway” which, when completed, would run just a few miles from the 138 acres owned by Hastert’s trust.

After President Bush flew to Hastert’s district in August 2005 to sign the bill, Hastert and his partners flipped the land for what appeared to be a multi-million dollar profit.

One of the problems with political reporting today is that these issues tend to only (if ever) get reported in 'silos.' We need to take the opportunity of Hastert's new job to present the portfolio of his crimes and dodgy deals in their entirety, and decide whether we really want to allow these people to seamlessly cross-over into private practice to continue to make millions of dollars, selling out the national interest.

One thing that I didn't mention in my article on Monday is that Sibel has repeatedly stated that there was actually a concerted effort to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate the fact that these Turkish interests were buying up congressmen, including Hastert.

Here's Sibel:

“…What happened was, FBI had this information since 1997. In 1999, the Clinton Administration actually asked the Department of Justice to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate Hastert, and certain other elected officials that were not named in this (VF) article, to be investigated formally. And the Department of Justice actually went about appointing this prosecutor, but after the Administration changed they quashed that investigation and they closed it despite the fact they had all sorts of evidence, again I’m talking about wiretaps, documents- paper documents- that was highly explosive and could have been easily used to indict the Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. That investigation was closed in 2001, and this was around the time I started reporting my cases to the Congress.”

Vanity Fair reported the same thing, from a different source

"One counter-intelligence official familiar with Edmonds’s case has told Vanity Fair that the F.B.I. opened an investigation into covert activities by Turkish nationals in the late 1990’s. That inquiry found evidence, mainly via wiretaps, of attempts to corrupt senior American politicians in at least two major cities—Washington and Chicago.
[...]
[I]n December 2001, Joel Robertz, an F.B.I. special agent in Chicago, contacted Sibel and asked her to review some wiretaps. Some were several years old, others more recent; all had been generated by a counter-intelligence that had its start in 1997. “It began in D.C.,” says an F.B.I. counter-intelligence official who is familiar with the case file. “It became apparent that Chicago was actually the center of what was going on.”

Its subject was explosive; what sounded like attempts to bribe elected members of Congress, both Democrat and Republican. “There was pressure within the bureau for a special prosecutor to be appointed and take the case on, “the official says. Instead, his colleagues were told to alter the thrust of their investigation – away from elected politicians and toward appointed officials. “This is the reason why Ashcroft reacted to Sibel in such an extreme fashion,” he says “It was to keep this from coming out.”

In her secure testimony, Edmonds disclosed some of what she recalled hearing. In all, says a source who was present, she managed to listen to more than 40 of the Chicago recordings supplied by Robertz. Many involved an F.B.I. target at the city’s large Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American Associates.

Some of the calls reportedly contained what sounded like references to large scale drug shipments and other crimes.... One name, however, apparently stood out – a man the Turkish callers often referred to by the nickname “Denny boy.” It was the Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert."

An enterprising reporter ought to be able to track some of this down... Counter-intelligence officials have confirmed that steps were taken to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate the fact that Hastert and others were taking bribes from officials at the Turkish Consulate, and key Turkish lobbying groups (American Turkish Council and Assembly of Turkish American Associates) related to "large scale drug shipments and other crimes."

We know that the FBI has been trying to determine the source of the money, and trying to determine how it is distributed:

Some of it may come from criminal activity, possibly drug trafficking, but much more might come from arms dealing. Contracts in the hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars provide considerable fat for those well placed to benefit.

We know that some of the other people named by Sibel have since been added to the Turkish payroll, with multi-million dollar salaries.

We know that Sibel has outlined a 'recipe' whereby "ex-congressmen turned lobbyists ... (pocket) a few dozen who still serve."

This is not about Hastert himself, so much as perpetuating a system where people like Hastert - and Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Eric Edelman, Marc Grossman, Roy Blunt, Dan Burton, Tom Lantos, Bob Livingston, Stephen Solarz and others - continue to subvert American democracy for private profit.

What will it take to stop it?

(For starters, please leave a supportive comment over at Justin Rood's article at ABC News)

Sibel Edmonds Case: Dennis Hastert to receive payoffs for 'services rendered'

2008-06-01T20:41:00.004-05:00

So, former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds is again proved right. For more than a year Sibel has been predicting that Dennis Hastert will join a lobbying firm involved with Turkey, and now we learn that Hastert is joining Dickstein Shapiro.

In the "Representative Engagements" section of Dickstein's website, we learn that they represented "the government of Turkey in connection with the development and financing by private sponsors of the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline and TransCaspian gas pipeline spanning from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean."

Dennis Hastert, who is listed in Sibel's "Rogues Gallery," was caught on FBI wiretaps accepting bribes from Turkish criminal elements associated with the Turkish government, as documented in Vanity Fair in 2005 and elsewhere.

The following clip from Kill The Messenger, a documentary about Sibel's case, discusses some of Hastert's involvement as mentioned in Vanity Fair.

In researching the Vanity Fair article, journalist David Rose interviewed various congressional staffers and counter-intelligence officials who are familiar with the case. He reported that there were three separate types of bribes paid to Hastert:
1) "(T)ens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert’s campaign funds in small checks."
2) "(T)ens of thousands of dollars in surreptitious payments in exchange for political favors and information."
3) "(A)t least $500,000"

Hastert was lucky that there was literally zero follow-up in the mainstream media to these most serious charges. Hastert did not sue Vanity Fair for libel, instead, Hastert got his spokesman to send Vanity Fair a bizarre Letter to the Editor in response, 6 months later. BradBlog has the letter here, along with Sibel's effective debunking of Hastert's response.

The only action taken in response to the startling revelations in Vanity Fair was by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) which filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) asking them to investigate the "(T)ens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert’s campaign funds in small checks." According to the Vanity Fair article, these bribes were funneled into Hastert's campaign in amounts less than $200, which would mean that the contributions were below the threshold for reporting. The Federal Election Commission dropped the investigation in early 2006 without answering the specific charge.

The bribes identified in Vanity Fair are probably just the tip of the iceberg, merely down-payments on what was promised to him when he left office, and could 'earn' a multi-million dollar salary as a lobbyist.

Sibel described how the process works, using another member of her "Rogues Gallery,"
former State Dept official Marc Grossman as an example:

"For example, look at Mr. Marc Grossman. He used to be the U.S. ambassador in Turkey and used his position within the State Department to secure future higher-level positions while in office—and I would like to emphasize this—while in office and with several agencies knowing about it. Some people in these agencies wanted to investigate these cases but they were prevented from going forward.

..And just take a look at where Mr. Grossman is today. Within a few months after he gave his resignation, he obtained a position with a semi-legitimate Turkish company that is supplying him with a very attractive monetary reward, (and) he obtained (another) position with a lobbying firm that represents (Turkey)."

And Sibel has made the same case elsewhere:

"Please do not make the grave and naive mistake of assuming that Grossman found and obtained his highly lucrative and questionable positions after his resignation in January 2005."

It appears that these arrangements aren't the typical 'Revolving Door' retirement packages, but rather specific quid pro quo deals. People like Hastert and Grossman and the others quite literally sell out their government while in office on the specific promise that they will be rewarded when they leave.

Hastert won't actually be a 'Lobbyist' according to Dickstein Shapiro, he'll be "providing strategy advice to the firm and its clients" - spending half his time in Chicago and half his time in DC.

Most likely, some of that 'strategy advice' will include advice on how to corrupt some of the sitting congressmen: The people who bribed Hastert and the others need to ensure the continuity of their operations, regardless of who is sitting in Congress. Sibel says that the foreign entities who are successful in this business simply need to follow a basic recipe:

"Get yourself a few ‘Dime a Dozen Generals,’ bid high in the ‘former statesmen lobby auction’, and put in your pocket one or two ‘ex-congressmen turned lobbyists’ who know the ropes when it comes to pocketing a few dozen who still serve."

Dickstein Shapiro, Hastert's new employers, were deeply involved with Turkey and the Central Asian region during the time that Hastert was caught taking these bribes - 1996 to 2001. For example, It was Dickstein Shapiro, in conjunction with the Baker Botts law firm, who put together the 'contract of the century' - the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (or BTC) pipeline which was to carry oil from Azerbaijan to the West, via Georgia and Turkey.

Some of Dickstein Shapiro's other claims to fame include:
1) Defending "former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams in connection with the Iran-Contra investigations."
2) "(S)uccessfully defended and represented prominent clients in a number of other high-profile cases such as...BCCI Bank"
3) Employing convicted felon Lewis Scooter Libby (and his wife), who was a partner at the firm from 1986 to 1989.

If there's any justice in the world, Dickstein Shapiro will soon be adding Dennis Hastert to their 'Ex-employees who are now convicted felons' Hall of Fame.

Sibel Edmonds' Kill The Messenger at DOXA festival

2008-05-30T02:18:00.000-05:00

Kill The Messenger, the documentary about FBI translator & whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, will be screened at the DOXA film festival in Vancouver on Saturday evening.

The Vancouver Sun lists Kill The Messenger as one of their 'Best Bets' for the festival.

----

As some of you know, I've been traveling for the last few months and haven't posted anything on Sibel's case for a while - unfortunately not much has happened in the interim.

There are still tickets available for the screening of Kill The Messenger at the DOXA festival in Vancouver on Saturday night. You can get your tickets here.

You may have already seen some of my YouTubes about the film. The trailer is here. In this new 5 minute clip from Kill The Messenger, Sibel's ACLU lawyers discuss the case.

From the clip:

Ann Beeson: It’s really phenomenal to me that any court can look at her case and say: "No, it can’t go forward, proceed or win her claim."

Ben Wizner: What you have here is the Attorney General of the U.S saying: "The plaintiff can’t even set foot inside a court because the entire case is a state secret."

Ann Beeson: The defendant is the Justice Department, it’s the FBI that committed the wrongdoing. And it’s the Justice Department’s own internal oversight body that has concluded that our client should win.

Ben Wizner: The danger is that if the government succeeds in that really overbroad invocation of the ‘State Secret Privilege’ in this case, it will be a very easy tactic for the government in future cases to avoid accountability and to avoid responsbility.

Ann Beeson: A brick wall and another brick wall and another brick wall!
And at every turn, it’s was the federal government who is preventing her from having,… from getting any justice!

Ben Wizner: And that cannot be!

Ann Beeson: Not in our democracy.

Ben Wizner: No, it can’t be!

Also from the clip:

Sibel Edmonds: Look! When the Attorney General came initially and invoked the State Secret Privilege, ok ? He cited two reasons: "to protect certain 'sensitive’ diplomatic relations," and "to protect certain foreign business relations of the United States."

Now, they‘re saying: That whole information, eveything is classified.

We don’t know what diplomatic relations they are referring to. They must be ashamed of it! They don’t want to mention it. So we have certain diplomatic relations that prevent criminals being prosecuted here.

And I am talking about criminals in the United States of America. American citizens! I am not referring to only foreigners here!

Some of those people have been named here

DOXA's blurb for the film is:

In the wake of September 11, 2001, Sibel Edmonds is approached by the FBI. As an American of Iranian and Turkish origin, Edmonds’ linguistic skill set makes her a valuable asset to the Language Services Unit, where she spends months translating high-security clearance documents. One day shortly after reporting the possible infiltration of her unit by Turkish spies to her supervisors and their supervisors, Edmonds’ world is turned upside-down.

Instead of seeing her colleague become the target of an investigation, she is interrogated, then unceremoniously fired and warned not to pursue her claims any further as she would be watched and listened to. In the years that follow, Edmonds is transformed into the country’s first public National Security whistle-blower and a prominent First Amendment advocate (the ACLU calls her the “most gagged woman in America”). Sibel is fighting for the very ideals that American democracy relies on and is facing, against overwhelming odds, some of the most reckless and powerful officials in the U.S. government. She brings her case to Congress, the 9/11 Commission, the media and the Supreme Court, facing down not only the FBI, but also then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, Vice-President Dick Cheney and then-National Security Advisor Condelezza Rice.

Sibel has granted the film crew full and exclusive access to document her story and her struggle as we zero in on her “secret”—the network of nuclear black-market, narcotics and illegal arms trafficking activities. Playing like a big-screen adaptation of Frontline, Kill the Messenger is a riveting true spy story that presents one citizen’s unexpected journey through the politicized quagmire that is America’s War on Terror.

The Vancouver Sun, in their 'Best Bets' of the festival says:

"This French film documents the cold, crass efforts by officials in the U.S. to bring down Sibel Edmonds, an American of Iranian and Turkish origin who was hired by the FBI as a translator after Sept. 11, 2001. Reporting the possible infiltration of Turkish spies turns her life upside down: she is interrogated, fired, and subjected to a relentless campaign of intimidation. Edmonds doesn't back down as she takes her fight to Congress, the 9/11 Commission, the media, and the Supreme Court. Saturday, May 31 at 9 p.m. at Pacific Cinémathèque."

Hopefully the screening of the movie will trigger some media attention to this case. When the documentary was first shown in France, all the major papers wrote about it. Here is a selection (apologies for some clunky translation):

Le Monde.

The history of Sibel Edmonds could be used to make a John Grisham 'whodunnit.' A few days after the attacks of September 11, the young woman of Turkish extraction is recruited by the FBI. She is in charge of the translation of the phone-tappings, the interrogations and the documents within the framework of the antiterrorist fight. Sibel Edmonds speaks Persian, Farsi and Azeri.

In December of the same year, she is contacted by a colleague from the FBI who tries to recruit her for the account of a mysterious Turkish lobbying organization. By denouncing this manifest case of espionage and by revealing that the FBI hides information over September 11, Sibel Edmonds found herself at the heart of the incredible business of State.

After the Children of Tranquility Bay, a beautiful documentary on the American camps of behavior modification, the film-makers Mathieu Verboud and Jean-Robert Viallet have made a film full with suspense and revelations about these men and these women - the "whistleblower" ("those who blow a whistle") - which denounce the dysfunctions of an organization or an administration. An attractive diving (?), sometimes a little difficult, in the mysteries of the reason of State in America.

AP (France)

The much-awaited documentary "Kill The Messenger" is showing Tuesday on Canal+. Mathieu (Verboud) and Jean-Robert Viallet met Sibel Edmonds whose life was transformed into nightmare after her ousting from the FBI. In a 84 minute film, they deliver the impressive testimony of Sibel Edmonds.

The young woman is 32 years old when she is recruited by the FBI as a translator, four days after September 11, 2001. She is charged with translating wiretapped conversations, some related to the 9/11 attacks. Sibel Edmonds was born in Teheran from Turkish parents, and spent the first 18 years of her life in Teheran and in Turkey, before landing in the U.S and marrying an American.

But her world gets turned upside-down when she discovers that a colleague is involved with illegal activities implicating Turkish officials. The filmmakers report the rest of Sibel's story. She reports the incident to her superiors and gets fired from the FBI. After her firing, she goes to the U.S Congress. Months pass and Sibel Edmonds realizes that nobody makes the slightest move. The young woman tells her story to the media. Time has come for Attorney General John Ashcroft to classify the whole Sibel Edmonds case as a"State Secret." If the young translator continues to speak, she'll go to prison. Determined, yet powerless, Sibel Edmonds suffers two years of loneliness.

In 2003, the Bush government accepts the creation of a commission whose role is to investigate the government and intelligence failures that led to 9/11. Sibel Edmonds then will carry out a long battle in order to expose her case: Turkish spies infiltrated the FBI and the government is apparently aware of these spies. July 24, 2004, the 9/11 Commission Report comes out, but Sibel's testimony is not included. The young woman is regarded as a "whistle-blower", she is joined in her fight by intelligence agents from the FBI, the CIA and NSA. The two filmmakers find leads pointing to the role of Turkey, Israel and Pakistan. In the 80's, at the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S and Turkey were instrumental in helping Pakistan acquire nuclear power. Turkey appears to have acted as a back-door conduit for some of those operations. Later on, Israel came into play, too. At the time, the CIA knew everything but turned a blind eye, even when Pakistan started selling its technology to friendly countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya. By then, nuclear proliferation had gone out of control and the U.S let it go. In the 90's, when the Talibans were in power in Afghanistan, some nuclear equipment even landed in the hands of Usama Bin Laden.

In addition, American-Turkish Council (ATC), a powerful American lobby, has for many years facilitated trade of the weapons with the assistance of Israel. And it is in an indirect way that Sibel Edmonds denounces the secrets of these diplomats and secret agents with her superiors. In spite of this, the young translator finds herself entangled in a spy case whose ramifications are beyond the knowledge of the young woman and the TV viewer at the same time. Besides being thorough, the investigation is captivating and alarming. Sibel's case is so complex that it look like a labyrinth without exit.

Le Figaro.

“A Woman to Cut Down” - the true story of a woman recruited by the FBI after September 11 then sanctioned for her uprightness.

Perhaps the Public imagined that with the Children of Tranquility Bay (film on a center for young difficult Americans, rewarded in Fipa), programmed last May on France 2, Mathieu Verboud and Jean-Robert Vialley had reached a peak in the originality of the writing. But the public didn't count on this new investigation worthy of the best whodunnit by John Grisham…

The difference is that this is a true story. That of Sibel Edmonds, called “the most explosive woman of September 11”, an involuntary detonator of a politico-legal explosive business.

“It is while working on the phenomenon of “Whistle Blowers”, these employees who denounce the illegal intrigues their incredible owners and stories (Enron, pharmaceutical laboratories…), that we could come into contact with it”, tells Mathieu Verboud.

Shortly after September 11, this American born in Iran and having grown up in Turkey, who speaks Persan, Azeri and Turkish, is recruited by the FBI to translate kilometers of phone-tappings. Corruption, drugs, money laundering, companies screens, nuclear black market… what she will discover is amazing. But when spies infiltrated within the department of translation try to recruit her, she decides to inform her bosses. It is there that her life gets rocked…

Attempt at intimidation, reprisals, Sibel Edmonds is finally laid off… She turns to the Congress, then towards the Dept of Justice, but the Bush Administration chooses to muzzle this too-awkward witness, “to kill the messenger” like one says to the FBI, by exhuming an old law: the “secret States' privilege”. In short: Silence or the prison. Why? To hide what?

The Pitiless Microcosm of Washington

The business could have stopped there. But this is just the beginning for the small translator, flag-carrier for “whistle blowers”, a long struggle which the film-makers capture. A crusade for the right to the truth. And for the public, a diving haletante (?) in the twists and turns of the espionage. “When a woman leaves in war, she is never innocent" continues Mathieu Verboud. If a whistle blower can cause an earthquake, imagine when it is about September 11. It was thought that she knew an enormous secret. But the objective was also to show how the world of information had managed the terrorist attacks, the political pressures and the incompetence of the bureaucracy. ”

A work of really good investigation which required ninety days of filming and which took on board the film-makers during six months in the life of this “woman to be cut down”: "She authorized us to follow it all the more easily - as the press did not support her. She uses her public image like a strategy. But she gave us total freedom - so long as we did not ask about her specific secret.”

Their film thus points the failures of the internal investigations of the FBI, the hazardous methods, the flip-flopping, lies of the heartless microcosm of Washington, fully supported with testimonies, official speeches and recorded footage. Thus they follow senior officials, federal employees, intelligence agents (FBI, the CIA, NSA) who did not hesitate to come forward: “They needed to speak. In the information also, there are honest people. I wanted to show that the political power was certainly instrumental, but never the State had handled them as much”, insists Verboud.

The camera tracking faces, expressions, faintnesses. The result is the height of the ambition. Their accounts, pure and hard, are so rich in revelations and leaves the audience, incredulous, flabbergasted or disgusted, and will have the feeling of watching a psychological thriller which mixes suspense and reflexion. Just some lengths will be reproached. It certainly is a complex business.

This documentary which could have been only one investigation into how the Bush Administration defies national security, goes well beyond.

Putting in prospect the strange bonds between the American politicians, Turkey, Israel, Pakistan, diplomats, secret service, multinational weapons procurement, nuclear programs - léaire (?), this film casts an unexpected light on the global environment and the crisis in the Middle East."

Armenews

"Film on Canal+ Don't miss - based on Vanity Fair's investigation - Sibel EDMONDS/FBI, Turk-English translator who translated the communications between the Speaker of the House and Turkish officials to receive bribes in order not to allow the resolution of the genocide to Congress in 2000

The life of Sibel Edmonds took a nightmarish turn when she was fired for mysterious reasons. Young translator having joined the FBI after September 11, she was sanctioned for her uprightness. Indeed, it discovered that one of her colleagues covered illegal activities of Turkish and American officials . She immediately informed her superiors of them. Their answer was to fire her. But the young woman decided to inform the media. Having allowed the cameras of Mathieu Verboud and Jean-Robert Viallet to follow her in her search for truth, she defies the FBI today.

The muzzled truth

A WOMAN TO BE CUT DOWN is a true espionage thriller on the only American citizen who dared to defy the F.B.I so that the truth bursts, and to ensure the Americans the safety that their government owes them.

“This real-life Whodunnit” is especially the history of Sibel Edmonds and her combat: how a translator, link of the complex chains of American information, discovers wiretaps blaming officials from America her allies. How it will defy those which threaten it, to overcome its fears and to defend the freedom which justifies its work for the country. And how, in the name of this same principle, the American authorities will prevent Sibel from speaking.

There is a true phenomenon around the translator, who has broad public support. Last April, Sibel Edmonds received from Paul Newman the “2006 First Amendment Award”, eminent distinction decreed by the PEN Club, an association in support of writers and the freedom of expression.

Revealed secrets

The work of the film-makers, at Sibel's side, explores the stakes of secrecy, was since the first day blocked by the State which justifies the threats against the young woman. Since September 11, 2001, the safety of the United States however allows innumerable distortions to the sacro-sanct personal freedoms. But higher interests seem to dictate the policy of the Bush administration…

Agents of the American Intelligence Community nevertheless “remain patriots” who validated the investigations of Mathieu Verboud. Those carry out in Turkey, Israel and to Pakistan, in the slides of the ministries for Justice and the Foreign Affairs, the F.B.I and the Pentagon. They join other significant businesses and mix business with weapons, technological espionage, nuclear black market, heroin traffic, money laundering, corruption - in particular with the American Congress - and serious threats, directly relating to national security.

A captivating and alarming investigation."

L'Humanite

"“To always deny, always hide”. This is the currency of the American secret service. Sibel Edmonds learned to her costs.

Recall the facts. Only two months after having been employed by the FBI translation department, this woman of Turco-Iranian origin will be approached by Turkish spies within the service. After having referred about it to her superiors, she is laid off without explanation, and decides to attack in justice the FBI.

In vain, her lawsuit is rejected without reason and the Minister for Justice issues the secrecy of State on the business, thus prohibiting her from speaking about her discoveries. This documentary with the simple but effective realization plunges us in the slides of the administration Bush and it is far from being reassuring!"

L'Express

"Who? Shortly after September 11, Sibel Edmonds, American of Turkish origin, is approached by the FBI to become translator in one of the most secret units. Patriotically, she accepts the job.

What? Quickly, the film demonstrates the presence of spies in the pocket of Turkish lobbies. It tells of the hierarchy, which dismisses her whole case. Sibel tries to warn the Congress, then justice, of her discoveries. But Justice Minister John Ashcroft stamps her entire case with "States Secrets"

Why? Mathieu Verboud and Jean-Robert Viallet reveal, in a palpitating investigation, the combat of this young woman against the FBI initially, then against the American authorities, whose lies hide behind the sacro-holy safety of the State"

Libération

Sibel Edmonds is 32 years old when she is contacted for the first time by the FBI, a few days after September 11, 2001. Like numerous other translators, this American, usually speaking Turkish and the Persian language, is committed to make up for lost time of the American information to decipher thousands of hours of phone-tappings.

A few weeks later, Sibel translates sulfurous conversations about money laundering, trafficking of weapons and drug, and corruption implicating American, Turkish and Israeli political personalities... Two months later, Sibel is approached by one of her translator colleagues and her husband. They propose to her, without ambiguity, a financial arrangement if she does not transmit all information which she translates. Informing her bosses at once, Sibel Edmonds enters an infernal process which lasts nearly five years. Because all her direct higher interlocutors and direction of the FBI order her to keep silent. And when she alerts the Department of Justice, she is immediately fired from the FBI and is formally prohibited from speaking. This extremely rare procedure, Secret State Privilege, obliges her to keep her silence, even in front of a judge, in the name of the secrecy of State.

The documentary clearly aims at presenting Sibel Edmonds like an angry, passionate American. The title says it all, since her combat becomes extensive since she created a coalition of "whistle blowers", a term indicating those which denounce the dysfunctions of the State, she gathers a hundred former members of the FBI, NSA, the CIA and Justice...

It is difficult to really understand why Sibel is silenced: the deep lack of curiousity of the American agencies about counter-espionage or a corruption installed at the most top of the State? One can only choose.

After the first US screening of Kill The Messenger in DC in February 07, a panel of journalists and lawyers discussed the film - James Bamford, Bob Parry, Kristina Borjesson, Ben Wizner and others. You can see a ten minute video of that here. Sibel also gave a short speech at the event, as did the two French co-directors, that video is here. I liked co-director Jean-Robert Viallet's observation:

Why are French people doing this film? Because nobody in America did it.

Kill The Messenger has been shown a few times in the US, but I'm not aware of any reviews appearing in the mainstream press. Hopefully our Canadian friends will take the lead of their French, rather than US, counterparts.

Giraldi Oped Makes Dallas Morning News

2008-02-19T12:19:00.005-05:00

Posted by Miguel

"This essay was adapted from a longer version that appears on the Web site of The American Conservative magazine (www.amconmag.com). "

Permanent link to Dallas Morning News article

Giraldi's original AMCON article is here

Key Clinton Backer Guilty in Sibel Edmonds Case

2008-02-13T08:09:00.000-05:00

The UK's Times has already run three bombshell articles on the nuclear black market element in the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds this year, and we are expecting more fallout in the near future as new evidence and witnesses come forward.

In the meantime, another important angle to Edmonds' case has opened up. Earlier this week, the New York Post ran a Page 6 piece, ODD FILM BY HILLARY BACKER, which highlights the close relationship between Hillary Clinton and Chicago-based Turkish businessman Mehmet Celebi.

Celebi, "one of the national leaders of the Turkish-American community in the US," is a key fundraiser for Clinton, and is one of Clinton's Chicago delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Celebi was also heavily involved in the controversial 2006 movie "Valley of the Wolves: Iraq" which has been widely regarded as "anti-Semitic, anti-American, conspiratorial agitprop."

Mehmet Celebi is also a key figure in the Sibel Edmonds case - he is heavily involved in the narcotics trade in the US and the corruption and bribery of high-level US officials.

According to Celebi's bio:

He has been serving as the President of the Turkish-American Cultural Alliance (TACA) since 2000, and as Member of the Board/Vice-President of the Assembly of Turkish-American Associations (ATAA), a Washington, D.C. based umbrella organization representing 57 organizations.

The Chicago-based Turkish-American Cultural Alliance (TACA) and the Assembly of Turkish-American Associations (ATAA) both figure prominently in Sibel Edmonds' case. Both are reported to be front groups for criminal activity involving illegal weapons sales, narcotics trafficking, and the bribery and corruption of high level US officials.

Mehmet Celebi first came to my attention in my first interview with Sibel in January 2006. My notes from that interview read:

"Sibel mentioned the mafia nature of the Turkish business establishment - in particular she mentioned Celebi as one of the key players - apparently they are involved in an arms trading cartel, and they ship narcotics in the cargo of their planes as they zoom around.

One of the Celebi family members (Mehmet Celebi) is chairman of the Turkish American Cultural Association (TACA) in Illinois. (Sibel has often pointed to both Chicago, and also to 'cultural exchanges')."

TACA and the ATAA were both targets of an FBI counter-intelligence operation investigating the corruption and bribery of high-level US officials from 1997 onward, including the period when Celebi had high level positions at these organizations.

According to the 2005 investigative piece in Vanity Fair into Sibel's case:

Vanity Fair has established that around ... December 2001, Joel Robertz, an F.B.I. special agent in Chicago, contacted Sibel and asked her to review some wiretaps. Some were several years old, others more recent; all had been generated by a counter-intelligence that had its start in 1997. “It began in D.C.,” says an F.B.I. counter-intelligence official who is familiar with the case file. “It became apparent that Chicago was actually the center of what was going on.”

Its subject was explosive; what sounded like attempts to bribe elected members of Congress, both Democrat and Republican. “There was pressure within the bureau for a special prosecutor to be appointed and take the case on,“ the official says. Instead, his colleagues were told to alter the thrust of their investigation – away from elected politicians and toward appointed officials. “This is the reason why Ashcroft reacted to Sibel in such an extreme fashion,” he says “It was to keep this from coming out.”

In her secure testimony, Edmonds disclosed some of what she recalled hearing. In all, says a source who was present, she managed to listen to more than 40 of the Chicago recordings supplied by Robertz. Many involved an F.B.I. target at the city’s large Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American Associates (ATAA).

Some of the calls reportedly contained what sounded like references to large scale drug shipments and other crimes. To a person who knew nothing about their context, the details were confusing and it wasn’t always clear what might be significant. One name, however, apparently stood out – a man the Turkish callers often referred to by the nickname “Denny boy.” It was the Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert."

Hastert is from Chicago, of course, but he wasn't the only congressmen who was bribed by these groups - others who were identified in Sibel's Rogues Gallery are Roy Blunt, Tom Lantos, Dan Burton, Robert Livingston and Steven Solarz.

The Vanity Fair article identifies a number of different mechanisms for bribing these Congressmen, and the bribes appear to come from three separate, yet overlapping, groups. In an article in 2006, I attempted to categorize these groups:

The first group is a criminal element of the Military Industrial Complex, represented primarily by Richard Perle, Doug Feith and Marc Grossman among others - generally using AIPAC and the American Turkish Council as front organizations.

The second group suspected of bribing Hastert is the 'mafia-like' Turkish 'Deep State', probably a mix of Turkish military, heroin producers and drug-runners. It is suspected that these funds are laundered through 'lobbyists' - originally Perle & Feith's company International Advisors Inc, and later (and currently) through Bob Livingston's company The Livingston Group.

The third group is a bit more hazy, but it is suspected that it is a group of Turkish heroin 'baba' (mafia) operating in the US, probably headquarted in Chicago. This group appears to use front organisations such as the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (A.T.A.A.) and the Turkish American Cultural Alliance (T.A.C.A.)

Mehmet Celebi is a key player in this third group, the Turkish heroin mafia.

Ex-CIA agent Phil Giraldi has also previously linked TACA and ATAA to Sibel Edmonds case,

"The commercial interest (between has also fostered close political ties, with the American Turkish Council, American Turkish Cultural Alliance (TACA) and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) all developing warm relationships with AIPAC and other Jewish and Israel advocacy groups throughout the US."

Given the strong connections between the Turkish and Israeli lobbies identified in Sibel's case, it is perhaps not surprising to see members of Israeli lobbying groups stepping forward to defend Celebi in the NRO and elsewhere, although the claims made in his defense are easily debunked.

Why is Hillary Clinton involved with such a character? The claims against him are well documented, and extend back to her husband's presidency, including steps in place to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate Celebi and the bribery of Hastert's and others. Sibel described the situation on a radio program in early 2006:

" In 1999, the Clinton Administration actually asked the Department of Justice to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate Hastert, and certain other elected officials that were not named in this (VF) article, to be investigated formally. And the Department of Justice actually went about appointing this prosecutor, but after the Administration changed they quashed that investigation and they closed it despite the fact they had all sorts of evidence, again I’m talking about wiretaps, documents - paper documents - that was highly explosive and could have been easily used to indict the Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. That investigation was closed in 2001, and this was around the time I started reporting my cases to the Congress."

Has Hillary forgotten all this? Or is she too for sale to the highest bidder? We are all well aware of George Bush's fund-raising giants, the Rangers and Pioneers, which resulted in many a scandal and prosecution including Ken Lay, Jack Abramoff and Brent Wilkes - yet here is Hillary Clinton engaging in the exact same behaviour, taking large sums of money from corrupt interests, and appointing these people to positions of political power. How can we even hope that a Clinton presidency will be an improvement over the last 8 years?

The right-wing blogs are already beginning to pick up this story of Celebi and Clinton - Debbie Schlussel, National Review Online, Gateway Pundit - focusing solely on Celebi's involvement with the movie "Valley of the Wolves." The Right-Wing-Noise-Machine will no doubt go into overdrive if Hillary wins the nomination to be the next president. This information needs to be made public immediately.

When asked for a comment, Sibel said:

"In 2005, Vanity Fair reported that Dennis Hastert had been bribed by Turkish interests. If people want to investigate this further they should FOIA the FBI's Chicago Field Office for information regarding Mehmet Celebi going back to 1997. If the FBI is honest, there will be boxes and boxes of files responsive to these FOIA requests.

Hillary Clinton knows, or should know, about Mehmet Celebi's activities. If she doesn't, she should ask Bill Clinton or his Attorney General Janet Reno."

The FBI's Chicago Field Office has investigative files relating to Mehmet Celebi's involvement in the trafficking of narcotics as well as the corruption of high-level US officials. We need to recruit some prominent 'good government' groups, of any political persuasion, to file a FOIA request with the FBI's Chicago Field Office (CFO) for all information relating to Mehmet Celebi and this criminal activity. I expect that the CFO will deny and stonewall, but as we saw with the recent UK Times article, false denials can lead to other frustrated whistleblowers coming forward with documents and other evidence which can prove the case. Please contact me if you can prepare, file, and follow-up the FOIA request.

--------------------

Cross-posted at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak

(Email me if you want to be added to my Sibel email list. Subject: 'Sibel email list')

Special thanks to Sherlock at Liberty Post and Mizgin at Rasti for being on this story for months already.

Sibel Edmonds Must Be Heard

2008-02-05T16:06:00.000-05:00

Guest Post by Miguel

Phil Girald has a new article about Sibel's case here .

I'll be traveling...

2008-02-03T00:12:00.000-05:00

I was hoping that the Times would have more on the case this weekend, but there is nothing in the weekend edition. Hopefully they, and others, will have more in the weeks to come. As Sibel said last week:

"As I have said from the beginning, this story is not about me, there are many sources who have been waiting for the right time to come forward, I've probably never even heard of most of them, and now they are coming forward. This will play out like Watergate played out, with the drip, drip, drip. So I say to everyone 'Buckle up, there's much more coming.'"

I'll be traveling for the next few months and will not be writing about the case regularly during that time. Miguel will be updating Let Sibel Edmonds Speak with links to any significant stories if and when they arise.

I will be communicating with Sibel while I'm away, and if anything significant occurs I will try to get to a computer and will publish something.

In the meantime, here are my three most popular youtube videos if you haven't seen them yet. (For all of my youtubes regarding Sibel, see here)

"Sibel Edmonds. Investigations Thwarted" (25,000 views)

"Sibel Edmonds. Everybody Knows." (10,000 views)

"Sibel Edmonds, Greatest Hits" (5,000 views)

Thank you all for your support. Please keep sending relevant articles to your congressmen and to media outlets asking them to report on these most important matters.

Sibel Edmonds: 'Buckle up, there's much more coming.'

2008-01-28T05:37:00.000-05:00

In the last few weeks, UK's Times has run a series of articles about the so-called 'Sibel Edmonds case.' ('For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets, 'FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft' and 'Tip-off thwarted nuclear spy ring probe')

Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds stumbled into a world of espionage, nuclear black market, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and corruption at the highest levels of the US government.

I interviewed Sibel yesterday regarding the current investigation and reporting by the Times, the failures of the US media, and last week's decision by the Bush administration to legalize the sale of nuclear technology to Turkey, in an apparent effort to exonerate prior criminal activity by officials in his administration.

Sibel also has some urgent 'action items' so that we can stop these dangerous nuclear proliferation activities. I urge you to act on her suggestions.

*************

Luke Ryland: What do you have to say about the recent work by the Insight journalists - Chris Gourlay, Jonathan Calvert, Joe Lauria - at the UK's Times?

Sibel Edmonds: They've done good, solid reporting so far by doing what reporters are supposed to. They have been chasing sources and getting their hands on documents. It's pretty simple. As you know, this story has been available to any journalist for six years now.

There's been a lot of speculation in the last few weeks that American reporters haven't touched this story because they are 'corporate owned' but it is wrong to exonerate these reporters so quickly. Many of them are too close to their official sources, and some are simply lazy. This Times team chases sources, and if they can't reach them one way, they'll try and try again, or they'll seek out alternate sources, or find other ways to ensure that they get the story.

When I hear from US reporters, they say 'Sibel, give us all the documents we'll need, and you line up all the sources for us, and then maybe we'll do a story' and if one source doesn't return their phone call, they simply give up. That's not journalism!

Luke Ryland: Why has the US failed on this story so dramatically for 6 years?

Sibel Edmonds: It's a combination of things, obviously. You need to consider that the entire US press corps has failed on this story; not only the regular print and TV media, but the alternative media has failed on this too.

Part of the reason is that journalists are simply too close to their official sources. Those sources might tell the journalist that there's nothing to the story, and so the journalist gives up on it, or the official sources might 'request' that the journalist to stay away from the story, and the journalist is then concerned about losing access to the source in the future.

Another reason is the partisanship. With the foreign press, there is no partisanship, and that's one reason why they have been more effective at covering this case, and I'm not just talking about the recent Times articles here. With the US media, it appears as though if there is no clear partisan angle, then there's no story. As you know, this case is spread over two administrations, and that appears to make it difficult for the reporters to cover the story. Even within one news organization you might have one journalist who wants to use the story to indict Clinton, and another who wants to use the story to bash Bush, and in the end neither of them write about the story because it doesn't fit their partisanship, their 'narrative', so they just drop it altogether.

I had such high hopes for the alternative press, and they do a lot of good work, but partisanship repeatedly gets in the way there too, on both sides.

The US media also suffers from a pack mentality. I was told by one executive that they weren't doing the story because it was 'old news' because 60 Minutes did a single segment in October 2002, even though they only covered a tiny part of the case. This executive literally told me that he'd only cover the story if it was 'hot and sexy.' I often think that I'd need to be able to hire Britney Spears to be a spokesperson - and this is not just for my case, but for any of the many other solid, important cases at the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Apparently this is what it would take to get any coverage.

Of course, given the pack mentality, if any of these stories does become 'hot and sexy' then all the journalists focus on the same issues and there's no differentiation in their reporting.

The other major problem in the US is the focus on symptoms, rather than root causes. My case is a good example, but there are lots of others too. Look at the early reporting on my case in 2002, the Washington Post broke the story in July 2002 about the espionage in the translation bureau and then they dropped the story after two weeks. They stopped reporting on it when more important information came out and the State Secrets Privilege was invoked. To this day not a single US reporter has asked 'Why was the State Secrets Privilege been invoked here? What is going on?'

Just this week I was approached by a major US outlet who wanted to do a story on Kevin Taskesen! [Ed note: Taskesen was an incompetent FBI translator who got his job because his wife worked in the administrative office] This is absolutely the most trivial element of the case, and it has already been reported at length. I told them that they could learn everything they needed to know by watching 60 Minutes, 2002. Again, the US media needs to start looking at the root causes of these problems, not the symptoms.

Luke Ryland: Will the US media start reporting on this now that it is 'hot and sexy' again?

Sibel Edmonds: It's hard to know. After being told for years that they won't cover it because it is 'old news,' now there are certain officials in the agencies quietly telling journalists to stay away from the story because I came across a highly sensitive covert national security operation.

Also, Turkey's army of lobbyists in DC are very effective. The US press tends to stay away from any stories critical of Turkey, I would say even more than Israel.

There's also the possible problem of 'eating crow' but I hope this isn't an issue, this story is way too important for any of that. The information that has been published in the Times recently could have easily come out four years ago in the US press. We now need everyone to focus on the important issues.

I have one message for the US media: If they think this is over, it's not over. Much more will come out. They won't be able to ignore it any longer, and so I hope they get over any reluctance they might have.

Look at the positive press that the Times' series has received since their first article ran. Do you think their editors haven't noticed? The Times is adding more and more resources to the story, more journalists, bigger budgets, and more importantly, they are getting more and more sources coming forward to shed light on these illegal activities. As I have said from the beginning, this story is not about me, there are many sources who have been waiting for the right time to come forward, I've probably never even heard of most of them, and now they are coming forward. This will play out like Watergate played out, with the drip, drip, drip. So I say to everyone 'Buckle up, there's much more coming.'

So, hopefully American reporters will start to cover the story. I'm not particularly confident, but to a certain degree it doesn't matter that much because the internet and the blogs can spread the reporting from the UK as soon as it hits the wires.

Luke Ryland: Two weeks after the first article in the Times about the involvement of high-level US officials being involved with Turkish and Israeli interests in supplying the nuclear black market, President Bush quietly announced that the US will start supplying nuclear technology to Turkey. Do you think that is a coincidence?

Sibel Edmonds: The timing is certainly very, very suspicious. The proposals that are being floated are very suspicious too. There are reports that Turkey will build an enrichment facility, and that Turkey will become the key supplier of nuclear fuel to other Muslim countries who want nuclear power plants. None of this makes any sense.

And again, the US media is nowhere to be seen on this issue. Where are the journalists? Do you remember the noise made a couple of years ago when the US announced that it would supply India with nuclear technology? So far, nearly a week after the announcement and not a single major US media outlet has even reported on the deal! Think of the hypocrisy, with all the saber-rattling at Iran over enrichment.

If it's such a good idea to sell nuclear technology to Turkey, why isn't the White House out there selling the idea? Where are the arguments in the press saying that this will be good for regional stability, or that it will help reduce demand for oil, or even that it is simply good business because US firms will be able to sell their hardware and knowledge? There's nothing! Silence. What does that tell you?

Luke Ryland: What needs to be done?

Sibel Edmonds: The way they've structured this deal is that Congress has 90 days from the announcement, now 84 days, to block the 'agreement' otherwise it basically becomes law.

The first thing that we need to do is to make sure that this doesn't 'automatically' become law. We need the journalists, the experts, and the bloggers to raise hell over this issue, and we need to make sure that Congress investigates this properly before rubber-stamping it. The clock is ticking and we need to act now.

As you know, and this was even published in the White House press release on this issue, certain 'Turkish private entities' have been involved 'in certain activities directly relating to nuclear proliferation.' This includes supplying the A.Q. Khan network - which built Pakistan's nuclear bomb, and also supplied North Korea, Iran and other countries - but as the recent Times stories indicate, so much more as well.

The White House press release states that all these issues have been resolved; that the Turkish government has addressed these issues, that the US government has evaluated these actions and that the US government is satisfied, and that all of this is secret, classified!

Given the track record of this administration in abusing classification and distorting intelligence, why on earth would we trust them with this? What is in the report? Is it truthful? Why is it classified? We saw these exact same people do the same thing in the late 80s when they enabled Pakistan to get nuclear weapons. Richard Barlow did his best to stop them then, but if Congress doesn't hold hearings this time around the same thing will happen again. We should have stopped Pakistan then, but unless this 'classified' report is made public and the contents publicly debated, then the Barlow of today won't even get the chance to debunk whatever is in that 'classified' report. What conceivable logic is there in classifying the details of how Turkey has cleaned up its act regarding nuclear proliferation? If they have, they should be proud of it!

There are many great anti-proliferation organizations out there, we need to rally all of them, and all of the 'pro-transparency' organizations, to this cause. We need journalists to contact these experts for their opinion and expertise, and we need these experts to contact journalists to ensure that the story, and the issues, is covered, and covered thoroughly.

We also need to recruit bloggers and alternative media to keep the pressure on. Perhaps a 'countdown clock' as we count down the 90 days might help.

Luke Ryland: What are the next steps in the process?

Sibel Edmonds: I'm not exactly sure of the process at the moment, but it has been reported that this 'automatically' becomes law after the 90 days, somehow, unless Congress blocks or amends the legislation.

Apparently the approval process somehow includes convincing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee not to object, so those committees appear to be our first firewall.

(Ed note: Senate Foreign Relations Committee includes Joe Biden (Chair), Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Russ Feingold, Barbara Boxer, Barack Obama and Jim Webb for the Democrats, and Richard Lugar, Chuck Hagel and George Voinovich for the minority. Hopefully one of them will stand up on this important issue. The House side looks more difficult, the Chairman is Tom Lantos who was listed in Sibel's Rogue's Gallery, which apparently identifies 18 of the guilty parties in her case, so that might be a problem. Ron Paul is also on that committee, he might be a prime target for this campaign.)

Luke Ryland: Is there anything else we can do?

Sibel Edmonds: There is one other hope. As last week's White House press release states, Bill Clinton tried to pass this legislation in 2000 but "immediately after" Clinton tried to send it to Congress it was blocked because some people apparently highlighted Turkish involvement in the nuclear black market and, who knows, maybe threatened to blow the whistle. Those same individuals, and others like them, can stop this again, and they should do everything they can to make sure that this doesn't happen. They should try to do it internally, and if they can't do it internally, then they need reach out to journalists, either on or off the record. Hopefully some honest, dedicated people will try to block it again, but we can't rely on that. We need to pressure congress to ensure that this doesn't go through.

Time is running out, the countdown clock is ticking down, and we need to stop this now. We need the help of journalists, congress, nuclear proliferation experts, bloggers and those active citizens in the blogosphere and elsewhere.

--------------

Many thanks to Sibel, as always.

Please do what you can to help block this proposed legislation.

If you can create a 'countdown clock' please contact me, and we'll offer it so that everyone can place it on their blogs and use it in their sigs etc.

-------------

Regarding alternative media, Sibel is particularly grateful to American Conservative and Antiwar.com for their objectivity and non-partisanship in covering this case. In particular, Phil Giraldi, Justin Raimondo, Joshua Frank and Scott Horton.

To reiterate Sibel's emphasis on the importance of the internet to help get the story out, Daily Kos statistics for the week Jan 19-25 have been released. During a primary week when many were (rightly) complaining that campaign diaries made it almost impossible for other issues to get any attention, diaries related to Sibel's case dominated the list. Sibel's story was both #1 and $2 for the week, and filled 3 of the top 11, and 4 of the top 25 diaries. Statistics at Democratic Underground will demonstrate the same level of interest in the case. Thank you to all of you, and I ask that you continue to support the case, and I ask that journalists and bloggers pick up the story and support the great work done by the Times. It's about time, no?

--------------

(Email me if you want to be added to my Sibel email list. Subject: 'Sibel email list')

UK Times: Brewster Jennings outed by 'treasonous' US govt official in 2001, not 2003

2008-01-26T16:35:00.000-05:00

The UK's Sunday Times has another article today, Tip-off thwarted nuclear spy ring probe, in their series about the penetration of US agencies by a criminal network of Turkish, Israeli and US government officials stealing nuclear secrets and selling them on the black market to the highest bidder.

The focus of this new Times article is the original outing of Brewster Jennings, the CIA cover company that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for. The article confirms that Marc Grossman, former # 3 State Dept official, and former Ambassador to Turkey, warned his Turkish associates to be wary of Brewster Jennings because it was a CIA front operation. This disclosure occurred in the summer of 2001, two years prior to the outing of Valerie Plame.

The FBI warned the CIA about Grossman's activities and Brewster Jennings was dismantled shortly thereafter.

Given the libel laws in the UK, the Times has not published Marc Grossman's name again in this piece, but long-time observers of this case all recognize that Grossman is the unnamed official in this article, as well as the previous two articles.

From the Times:

The claims that a State Department official [Marc Grossman] blew the investigation into a nuclear smuggling ring have been made by Sibel Edmonds, 38, a former Turkish language translator in the FBI’s Washington field office.
[...]
She has previously told The Sunday Times she heard evidence that foreign intelligence agents had enlisted US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

Her latest claims relate to a number of intercepted recordings believed to have been made between the summer and autumn of 2001. At that time, foreign agents were actively attempting to acquire the West’s nuclear secrets and technology.

Phil Giraldi chats about Sibel Edmonds

2008-01-25T16:42:00.000-05:00

Ex-CIA agent, Phil Giraldi, wrote a good piece earlier in the week for American Conservative magazine about the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds.

On Friday, he was interviewed by Scott Horton about the case. You can listen here (starts at 24.30min). (I was interviewed by Scott earlier in the week on the same topic, too)

The entire transcript is below, but I wanted to highlight a couple of points that Giraldi makes.

One of the questions that some people have about the case is how could Sibel have come across if she was 'just a translator,' and there is a related concern about the fact that, as a translator, Sibel must have only seen just a few snippets of information and couldn't possibly have seen the entire picture. These concerns stem from the fact that people apparently presume that translators are simply passive translators of material, isolated from the cases they are working on.

Giraldi, who is familiar with how these things work, says:

"(A)s a translator (she) would have worked very closely with the FBI supervising officers to try to figure out what these transcripts meant. So the argument that she only saw these 'bits' is not really true, she would have been very interactive in terms of the people running these operations and she would have found out a lot more.

Giraldi makes another good point. None of the guilty parties identified in the case have gone out of their way to exonerate their good names.

Quite honestly, if I were Marc Grossman, who allegedly is now making $3 million a year working for the Cohen Group, I would be kind of concerned about my personal reputation where people are saying that I was taking money, and I would want to straighten out the record and I would want to the FBI to produce a definitive statement about me, and he hasn't demanded that. He hasn't gone after than, and none of the other people in this case have gone after that, so I'm wondering why, if these people are innocent, they aren't making a more serious effort to demonstrate that they are.

Giraldi also debunks the 'she uncovered a sting operation' idea that has started floating around lately, after 5 years.

And the other argument that keeps getting trotted out, is that Grossman and all these other people might have been part of some sting operation back in 2001, 2002. Well, first of all a sting operation back in 2001, 2002 that has been pretty much exposed in the media in the subsequent six years is not something that you would necessarily have to hide. You could say 'Look, they were involved in doing the finest, highest level work for the US government' - they could say something like that to make this story go away, but they haven’t done that. And I assure you, as a CIA officer, that the agency would never have used the number 3 person at State Dept as a person in a sting operation. The State Dept would never have permitted it, and the agency would never have even conceived of it, so the whole argument that this was some kind of sophisticated scam to sting the AQ Khan network or something like that is ridiculous.

Then there's this:

See the point is that she's been gagged, and think about what the gag means. The gag means that the government is trying to suppress classified information that she has. That means that they believe that what she is saying is true.

Here's the full transcript.

----------------------------------------------------

SH: Alright everybody, it’s Phil Giraldi. He writes “Smoke and Mirrors” for Antiwar.com and is a contributing editor to the American Conservative magazine. His newest article is “Found in Translation. FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds Spills Her Secrets.” (http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_01_28/article1.html) Now, you’re a former CIA covert operative who was stationed in Turkey in the 1980s, is that right?

PG: That’s correct.

SH: And so you have quite a bit of background in the area of the world in discussion in the Sibel Edmonds case. For those who aren’t familiar, can you just give us the basic outline of who Sibel Edmonds is and what happened? What’s the big deal?

PG: Sibel Edmonds is a woman born in Iran of Turkic parents. She was raised in Turkey, emigrated to the US in the 1980s. After 2001, she worked as a Turkish and Farsi language translator for the FBI. While she was there she handled a lot of documents that gave her cause for some concern. She complained about some irregularities that were going on with the FBI’s translation staff and was eventually fired. [She] went public with some of her claims to “60 Minutes,” and also to congress where she was found to be a very credible witness. Her claims basically involve high level US government officials being involved in corruption that has resulted in US nuclear secrets and other defense information, and defense equipment, being sold to the highest bidder with the collaboration of senior Turkish government officials and also Israeli government officials, with the collusion of people in the Pentagon who were linked to these organizations. That’s the essence of her claims.

SH: One of the things that she says is that her story is basically the same story as the Larry Franklin case, is at least related to the Valerie Plame case, that basically all the scandals of the neoconservatives are all tied in with her same story.

PG: Yeah, basically what she is saying is that it’s not necessarily the same story, but the same people, and the same people are involved in all these various subsets of money going here and there. I wrote an article about her back well over a year ago in which I said that this is basically a neoconservative… you know, the neoconservatives don’t have a 401K, they have schemes like this that enable them to make a lot of money in short time, and exploit these relationships, so you have people who work at the Pentagon and State Department essentially who were collaborating with people who were selling American secrets.

SH: Okay, now tell me about the American Turkish Council.

PG: The American Turkish Council was established, I believe, in the early nineties. It was set up with the assistance of AIPAC, and the reason why there’s an AIPAC connection is because the Israelis and Turks have had a strong defense relationship since that time, and many of the lobbying groups that support Israel have fostered the Turkish relationship.

SH: And of course, a lot of this is tied in with the arms manufacturers in this country, because when our government “gives” military hardware to the Turks and the Israelis, that’s just cash in the pocket of Northrop Grumman and Lockheed, and so we see them populating the Board of Directors and so forth of this group [the ATC], right?

PG: Yeah, many of these groups, and indeed the groups like the American Enterprise Institute, some of the neocon think tanks are heavily funded by defense contractors for obvious reasons. Defense contractors do very well when you’re fighting the whole world all the time, so there are a whole lot of interlocking relationships here, and what Sibel is saying, essentially, is that these people are all the same people, they’re involved in Israel, they’re involved in Turkey, they are corruptly exploiting their positions in the US government to make all this happen, and they’re getting rich off it.

SH: In the movie Kill The Messenger, you describe Richard Perle as “an agent of influence for Israel” – what exactly is an agent of influence?

PG: That’s basically someone who works for a government, but is working for the interests of another government through his US government position. So when Perle was at the Defense Department, which he has been intermittently at through the years, he exploited his position, his contacts, on behalf of Israel. That’s not my assessment, incidentally, that was an assessment made by the CIA. There have been a number of other people in the government, particularly at the Defense Dept who’ve also been alleged to be agents of influence for Israel.

SH: Wow. And is that CIA assessment classified? Can I get a copy of that?

PG: I don’t know how one would actually get a written copy of it, but it has been referred to in secondary texts a number of times. If you do a google, I think you’d find it.

SH: Okay, so he’s not exactly a spy where he’s just outright getting paid and working for the Mossad or anything, it’s just that he puts the interests of Israel first, even though he works, or worked, for the US government.

PG: Well, to a certain extent he is a spy. Recall that Richard Perle was overheard in a restaurant in Washington quite some time ago giving classified information to somebody who was working for Israeli embassy, so it depends how you define ’spy.’ The investigation was, as I understand, dropped, which it always is in these cases strangely enough, but you know, there have been similar cases with Doug Feith and others also at the Pentagon.

SH: And now bringing up Doug Feith, what’s this International Advisors Inc? He had a lobbying firm that represented Turkey in the 1990s?

PG: That’s right, he had a lobbying firm, and Richard Perle worked for him as one of his consultants, so these people have had a long term relationship, both with Israel and with Turkey, and obviously that’s kind of the nexus, and now we’re discovering, if Sibel is correct in what she’s been saying, that the glue holding this all together is the sale of US nuclear and other military technology.

SH: And for those who don’t remember, Richard Perle was the Chairman of the Defense Policy Board during the run up to the Iraq war, and his buddy Douglas Feith was the Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy.

PG: That’s correct, yes.

SH: So that’s quite a position to be in, I guess, if you’re a foreign agent of influence.

PG: Well, look, the friends of Israel would argue that the strategic interests of Israel and the US are absolutely identical. Now, anyone with half a brain knows that that is not true, and that it could never be true in relationships between two countries, and yet that is, I think, how they are able to sleep at night. That’s the fiction that they pursue.

SH: Now what exactly are Sibel Edmonds’ accusations against Richard Perle and Douglas Feith?

PG: Well the accusations against Perle and Feith have never been spelled out. She claims that high officials in the Pentagon were part of this process of the sale of nuclear and other military technology. She has not named them. What she has done, is she has a website on which she has kind of a rogues gallery of pictures, and you go through the pictures and you find out basically who are the names - this is my interpretation of what I’m seeing - you put the names onto the pictures and you assume that these are the people that, at least at this time, she doesn’t feel comfortable enough to name. And Richard Perle’s picture is there, as is Doug Feith’s, as is Feith’s replacement at the Pentagon, who is currently there and is also a former ambassador to Turkey, Eric Edelman.

SH: And what about Larry Franklin?

PG: Larry Franklin is, according to her, also involved in this process, that AIPAC and the connections with AIPAC and with Turks and everything - but again, these are areas where she has revealed some things, but she hasn’t been very explicit, because she has a gag order.

SH: Because she could go to prison.

PG: Yeah. The areas where she has been extremely explicit, and this was the point of my article in the American Conservative, there are very specific charges against one former senior State Department officer, Marc Grossman, and she claims that he was taking money, that he was expediting people from Turkey and Israel, getting into the US Defense establishment, and a number of charges like that. One of the more interesting charges was that she says that she reviewed the transcript of a conversation in which Grossman warned the Turks that Brewster Jennings, the CIA cover company that Valerie Plame worked for, was “government” – you know, a code word for the Agency, and this apparently took place in late 2001, so it was way before Robert Novak outed Valerie Plame and her cover company. In this case, it went to the Turks, and the FBI was listening in on the Turks, when they called the Pakistanis and informed Pakistani intelligence about this.

SH: Wow. So that’s a felony, right?

PG: Yeah, I believe it is. And you kind of wonder why the US govt has been reluctant to follow up on this. Again, the point in my article is that we don’t know whether all of this stuff that Sibel is saying is true. We don’t. You haven’t seen the papers, I haven’t seen the papers, she claims to have seen papers.

SH: Right.

PG: And she claims that there are FBI files that back up what she is claiming, and in one case, an anonymous whistleblower who appears to be an FBI officer, sent in a message that I got a copy of, which actually gives the file number that all of this information is contained in. So, her claim is very specific, of illegal, criminal, possibly treasonous activity, and she is giving very specific information that she claims can be backed up by these files. My point of view is that I don’t know whether she’s telling the truth or not, but she certainly deserves a hearing.

SH: And this is the latest Sunday Times article that came out after your article, “FBI Denies File Exposing Nuclear Secrets Theft” and apparently they’ve been able to prove that the file does exist, and that the FBI is lying when they say that no such file even exists.

PG: That’s right. I’ve spoken to the journalist from the London Times and he claims to have written evidence proving that the file exists, even though the FBI claims it doesn’t. I think what the FBI did was that they took the file and they might have shredded it, but more likely the just refiled it under a different number, so they’re telling the truth when they say the file doesn’t exist (laughs).

SH: Right. They just spell all the keywords wrong so the search doesn’t work… Okay. In terms of the FBI, I’m trying to work out, when you have all these disparate pieces, you have the Larry Franklin investigation – again, he’s the guy who’s been convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison for passing secrets to Israel, who worked for Douglas Feith in the Pentagon – you have the investigation o the Valerie Plame thing, which obviously is a separate issue, the way that came up, but when it comes to Sibel Edmonds, the investigations that she was in on into Perle and Feith particularly and this group, is this all just one big investigation that goes back to 1996 and it just has its different branches? It’s hard to see because it’s all within the DoJ where I can’t really tell.

PG: Well, again, bear in mind that she has not named Feith and Perle. This is an assumption. I want to be careful about what we’re saying because there are things that we know and things that we don’t know here. The thrust of what she’s said is that yes, if you look at it, these are all parts of one big investigation that includes AIPAC, it includes the Turks, it includes the Israelis, it includes senior US government officials at both State Department and Pentagon, and that the FBI basically was investigating all these people, sometimes coming at it separately, but in the end, it’s all the same players doing all the same things.

SH: Now, on the issue of Sibel Edmonds’ credibility – because as you say, we don’t have the papers, she has a gag order, congress won’t do anything about it, we really don’t know – there’s been, I guess, quite a bit of criticism of Sibel Edmonds, she’s such a charismatic lady, that people, I guess, it turns people off, and they think that she’s said so much for a lady with a gag order that she must be over-reaching with some of this stuff, these are such outrageous charges. What do you make of the idea, for example, that she couldn’t possibly know the things that she claims to know?

PG: Well, that argument has a certain amount of credibility; here she is, a translator, she’s working with transcripts mostly, from what I gather, of telephone communications that have been intercepted by the FBI… There are a couple of arguments that suggest that when she made connections, she made connections because she as a translator would have worked very closely with the FBI supervising officers to try to figure out what these transcripts meant. So the argument that she only saw these ‘bits’ is not really true, she would have been very interactive in terms of the people running these operations and she would have found out a lot more. Another argument that she’s jumping the gun and putting things together, well, that might be true, but we won’t know the truth of this stuff until somebody does a serious investigation on her charges. Quite honestly, if I were Marc Grossman, who allegedly is now making $3 million a year working for the Cohen Group, I would be kind of concerned about my personal reputation where people are saying that I was taking money, and I would want to straighten out the record and I would want to the FBI to produce a definitive statement about me, and he hasn’t demanded that. He hasn’t gone after that, and none of the other people in this case have gone after that, so I’m wondering why, if these people are innocent, they aren’t making a more serious effort to demonstrate that they are.

SH: Well maybe it’s just because it’s a national security matter, State Secrets Privilege and all that, and they’re not really in a position to be able to defend themselves.

PG: Well, then they might be interested in saying that. They’re not saying that. See the point is that she’s been gagged, and think about what the gag means. The gag means that the government is trying to suppress classified information that she has. That means that they believe that what she is saying is true. And the other argument that keeps getting trotted out, is that Grossman and all these other people might have been part of some sting operation back in 2001, 2002… Well, first of all a sting operation back in 2001, 2002 that has been pretty much exposed in the media in the subsequent six years is not something that you would necessarily have to hide. You could say “Look, they were involved in doing the finest, highest level work for the US government” – they could say something like that to make this story go away, but they haven’t done that. And I assure you, as a CIA officer, that the agency would never have used the number 3 person at State Department as a person in a sting operation. The State Department would never have permitted it, and the agency would never have even conceived of it, so the whole argument that this was some kind of sophisticated scam to sting the AQ Khan network or something like that is ridiculous.

SH: Well now, what about the cover up? I mean, this is America, this isn’t a banana republic, at least not yet. What about separations of powers? Obviously Congress is inept, but can’t a Justice Department official make his name by convening a Grand Jury in this case and getting something done? Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of automatic checks and balances, separation of power thing that kicks in here that keeps traitors out of the State Department?

PG: Only if the Justice Department is being directed by the Attorney General to do precisely that. Do you honestly believe that this Attorney General will do that?

SH: Maybe if you waterboarded him.

PG: (laughs) Yes.

SH: See, this is the thing. It almost makes it seem like this treason, this crime ring, stealing and selling nuclear secrets to the Pakistanis through the Turks and all this criminality, it almost seems like it is just the government of the US doing it, not just people who work for the governmentt, if the entire government kicks in to help cover it up.

PG: You remember the scene in the movie The Godfather when Al Pacino was talking to his girlfriend, and she says “But, but, you know, congressmen and senators and people like that don’t go out and have people killed like you mafia people do” and Al Pacino’s response was “Now, who’s being naive here?”

SH: Right.

PG: Corruption is as American as apple pie. Hopefully we have a strong enough democracy where we can fight it, but I think in the last six, what we have seen is this whole terrorist threat, and the way it’s been hyped, and the way it’s been used, a lot of our fundamental liberties and our fundamental sense of what we are as a people has been eroded, and this is precisely what I’m talking about. You get a Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General, you get this guy Mukasey, these guys are not going to do anything that’s not in the interests of the Bush administration. And, hey, if we get a president Hillary Clinton somewhere around the corner, or even more terribly – and this is the buzz in Washington right now – that we’re looking at a McCain / Leiberman administration…

SH: Oh! PG: Yeah, think about who is going to be investigating any of these things. Nobody.

SH: Wow. What a way to wrap up an interview. There you go, everybody. It’s Philip Giraldi, he writes “Smoke and Mirrors” for Antiwar.com. He’s a partner in Cannistraro Associates, contributing editor at the American Conservative magazine and you can find his blog entries at Huffington Post. Thanks a lot, Phil.

PG: Thanks Scott.