Sibel Edmonds

[Joseph]

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/05/dont_whistle_while_you_work-4.html

Life as a State Secret
Sibel Edmonds
WHISTLE BLOWN ON: FBI
ALLEGATION: Bureau infiltrated by spy
REWARD: Fired
UPSHOT: $285,000 legal bill

Fluent in Turkish, Farsi, and Azeri, Sibel Edmonds was hired in the fbi's translation unit shortly after 9/11. Just six months later, after reporting her suspicions that her department had been infiltrated by a Turkish intelligence operation, she was abruptly fired.

The department's inspector general later found many of her allegations to be well founded and concluded that the fbi displayed "an unwarranted reluctance to vigorously investigate these serious allegations." The report offered eight recommendations for improving the fbi's translation service. None were implemented. Edmonds sued the Justice Department for unfair dismissal; former Attorney General John Ashcroft mounted an unprecedented defense, invoking the State Secrets Privilege to essentially classify any information regarding the case and even barring Edmonds and her lawyer from hearing the government's arguments to the judge. The suit was dismissed and Edmonds was left with a $285,000 legal bill. "Five years of fight, and it's like, 'Why do we even blow the whistle?'" she says. "It didn't fix the system."

[Joseph]

Interview Part II

Now the same thing was about to take place with Turkish counter-intelligence
in the main portion of the documented-wiretapped or paper-operations that I
translated verbatim not only for the Washington Field Office but also for
the Chicago and New Jersey offices. They were obtained before 2001. If we
were to put a date on it you're looking at end of 1996 to 2001. Now, in 1998
and 1999, there were so many pieces of evidence of U.S. individuals'
involvement. We're talking about people with official positions, whether
they were in the State Department or the Pentagon or the U.S. Congress. The
agents did the right thing again by starting a parallel investigation that
targeted individuals who were possibly committing acts of treason.

However, as I was told by first-source agents I was working with, this was
put on hold in 1999 because President Clinton was then going through the
Lewinsky scandal. After the current administration came into power and after
I was working there, the agents were told to shut down. The people who made
that decision were not the Justice Department or the FBI, and that's what I
try to emphasize all the time-they were pressured, they were forced by
higher-up forces within the Pentagon and the State Department. And what was
their reasoning behind the scenes? I don't know, I wasn't there, but they
gave similar explanations and justifications with the courts: "You're
talking about very sensitive diplomatic relations." And in fact,
then-Attorney General Ashcroft said this in his declaration when he invoked
the State Secrets Privilege in my case. He said that exposing these issues
in courts, whether or not I'm right, would damage certain sensitive
diplomatic relations and would hurt certain U.S. foreign business relations.
In this case we know one of the countries is Turkey. So you have a U.S.
citizen here who has been deprived of her First Amendment rights. Gagged. I
mean, is that an American concept, gagging a person? You're not talking
about an enemy combatant, you're not talking about a terrorist suspect. You're
looking at a tax-payer, a law-abiding American citizen. So these business
relations, these diplomatic relations have justified depriving a U.S.
citizen of her First Amendment rights, of her Fourth Amendment rights in
court. In fact, the U.S. State Department did a retroactive classification
illegally and Congress was effectively gagged in May 2004. They're not even
saying what diplomatic relations they refer to. Are they ashamed of it? Are
we talking about billions of dollars of weapons procurement? Why don't they
be more specific? Because this is top-secret, classified stuff. That's why I
have been writing these papers, relying on outside sources, getting all the
data. You're looking at $5 billion every two years of weapons procurements?
That's not top-secret. Who benefits from this? What companies? Who are the
individuals who are benefiting from this? And is there anything in the
issues that I dealt with that if exposed would harm the Americans and their
security? None. None whatsoever.

In fact, they are issues and they are cases that would help with their
national security because the same activities also involve money laundering
or certain narcotic activities. All you have to do is look at the State
Department's own reports on Turkey and opium. Ninety-two percent of the
heroin supplied in Europe is coming through Turkey, and it's being marketed
and distributed by Turkish individuals. This is not classified. This is
within the State Department's own report. The poppies are being produced in
Afghanistan and Taliban-esque people are getting benefits, and Al-Qaeda
people are getting the benefits of these poppies being sold to individuals
in Turkey who then distribute and provide 92 percent of Europe's heroin
market. Have we said "clamp down on these narcotic activities because it's
helping the terrorists, and the terrorists are threats to our national
security?" No, we haven't.

Time Magazine ran a piece about 11 pages long on how the Afghanistan opium
production has increased. They also put the value on that opium production.
And there were statements from various Congressmen including Walter Jones
who went to Afghanistan saying a lot of it goes to support Al-Qaeda and the
Taliban. The number was somewhere between $38 billion to $50 billion a year.
This same article limited the issue of poppy production to some farmers. And
you're looking at these Afghans in shalvars cultivating the poppies there,
and you think, these people aren't capable of managing a $50 billion
industry. They only get a small share. Processing the poppies into heroin
and then transporting them through the Balkan route is done by Turkish
individuals. And you're not looking at street thugs in Turkey, you're
looking at the Turkish military and the Turkish police. In 2000, a professor
in Turkey issued a documented report saying that a quarter of Turkey's
economy relies on heroin production and distribution. Of course, he had to
escape the country, go to Germany and ask for political asylum because he
committed treason by criticizing the Turkish government.

The Time Magazine article didn't talk about the main actors, the big people,
the powerful ones who are distributing, processing, marketing and laundering
the proceeds. Those people are not touched. If you look at the report you'll
see the countries involved-Turkey, Cyprus, the UAE. But they were
conveniently left out of the Time Magazine article, leaving any American to
conclude that the farmers are making $50 billion a year. Again, the culprit
is Time Magazine because that is not the case.

While the report shows Turkish, UAE and Pakistani involvement, we say they
are our allies, we don't want to touch them, we don't want to turn them off.
In fact, we have lots of good business and sensitive diplomatic relations
with them, as Don Ashcroft put it. Now if one of them were part of the axis
of evil, if one of them was Syria, if one of them was Iran, if one of them
was Korea, if it was Saddam, you would see the stink they would raise-how
Saddam's country and people are helping the Taliban with their finances and
helping Al-Qaeda with these cases. But there was this big oops! They're our
very close allies, the ones who we are giving billions of dollars of aid to,
the ones who come back and buy our weapons. We can't mess around with things
like that. We have too many powerful people, too many powerful companies
that are benefiting from this. There is this huge lobby industry that is
benefiting from this.

Who is representing the American people? Well we know former chairman Mr.
Livingston today is representing these outside interests, therefore our
Congress is representing these foreign powers. But who is really
representing the American public? And how? It's very hard to see the track
record. And these are the issues that you wish the mainstream media here in
this country would cover, and they're not.

Part II of this interview will appear in next week's issue of the Weekly.

. In Gag We Trust?
An Interview with FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds (Part II)
By Khatchig Mouradian

Part I of this interview appeared in last week's issue.

K.M. - Let us talk about you: your frustrations, your feelings. How do you
deal with all of this?

S.E. - I can't say it's been easy, the anger and disappointment over knowing
that my country, my government, has let me down, that the mainstream media
has let all of us down. With many whistleblowers, the pressure reaches a
point where they either have nervous breakdowns or they explode. And many of
them do explode or they get disgusted and go away. After one or two years of
fighting, they say the heck with it, I'm just going to leave.

If you explode, you have given them the perfect excuse to point at you and
say, look this person is crazy, she's not legitimate. If you go and expose
some documents, they have an excuse to say you have breached security and
should be jailed - and again, they benefit. They get away with this because
nobody has been willing to come forward, and right now, it's only me. If
there had been one or two other agents who had committed to that much
compromise and sacrifice and come forward, maybe we would have seen some
progress. But the fear factor is so great out there.

I've lived in this country for 18 years and am an American citizen. Maybe a
lot of people born here take their citizenship for granted, but for me it
was a conscious choice. At that point I was a student of this country's
history and its laws, and I was mesmerized. As part of that oath you make a
commitment to stand up for this country's constitution and rights and
people, whether the enemies threatening it are foreign or domestic. And I
did take it seriously and I do take it seriously, and I also look at the
alternative - the alternative being count your losses and go away; it's just
going to get worse.

Again, many Americans think this is about one whistleblower who lost her
job, that this is one case, and they don't see themselves affected by it.
With September 11, they saw themselves directly affected - 'I can be next.'
Well, I'm trying to tell them that with the money laundering, the narcotics,
their own representatives going against their own interests, they're all
being affected by the cover-ups.

It's been five years, and I never thought it would continue for this long. I
went to the Judiciary Committee in March 2002, and I thought that was it. I
thought that all I had to do was give them the documents, give them the
facts, the names, and everything would be taken care of. It was not. When I
went to the Inspector General's Office, I thought that was it. When I went
to the courts, I thought this was it, it was done. I never thought I would
be sitting here, five years later, saying that everything was shut down
successfully, and no accountability and no justice whatsoever had taken
place.

I set up this organization [www.justacitizen.com] to encourage other
whistleblowers, those good agents out there who dealt with Turkish
counter-intelligence operations in the FBI. And that's not the only agency.
There are other agencies in this nation, within our government, with good
conscientious people who should be saying enough is enough, it's time to
stand up.

K.M. - What can be done? What can the ordinary citizen do?

S.E. - It boils down to the people standing up and demanding their rights, the
right actions. I don't want to get my job back with the FBI. That's not what
I'm after. I'm not asking to be compensated in any way for my suffering.

I can never go back to Turkey and visit my family. I have been blacklisted
because I have committed, as any good journalist in Turkey would
automatically commit: the act of treason. Under their laws, anyone who
criticizes Turkey, or shows it under some negative light or hurts certain
official thugs there, is treasonous and should be arrested and taken to
military tribunals. All you have to do is read the Human Rights Watch
reports and see what happens to good reporters in Turkey. If they're lucky,
by the way, they will end up in a military tribunal, if not, they will end
up dead or disappear. If you look at the tens of thousands of people who
have disappeared in the past 10 years in Turkey for political reasons, the
number is astonishing for a country that is considered a democracy and a
great ally. You have tens of thousands of good activist students who have
just disappeared into thin air and nobody knows where they are. It happened
once upon a time in Argentina and Chile, but I don't know how easy it is to
say that things like that happen in a great democracy and an ally country.

But I'm not asking to be compensated, I'm not asking to get my position
back. All I have been asking is for justice to take place, for the American
people to know what's going on, and for those people who are working against
their interests to be held accountable.

Some respected, great Representatives, Democratic Congressmen, have
expressed interest in my case. The leader of that group was Congressman
Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), and I briefed his staff several times, by giving
them the same details I gave five years ago to the Judiciary Committee. They
obtained the classified version of the Inspector General's report two years
ago and they were outraged. I have several letters from Congressman Waxman
saying he finds these gag orders stunning and that the Republicans were
preventing a hearing from taking place on my case. Well, in January, after
we went through the change [in Congress], Congressman Waxman is now Chairman
Waxman and there is no power within Congress that can prevent him from
holding this hearing. He has the jurisdiction, the authority to put the
hearing there, and I have already obtained the consent and names of
conscientious, good agents. One of them was the head of the Turkish
counter-intelligence operations who actually retired two years ago. They're
all willing to come forward and testify on all the issues I have been gagged
on. And that gag doesn't work in Congress during a hearing.

So in January, after the election results, especially since we have such a
great Chairman today, 30 organizations have put together this petition
addressed to Chairman Waxman saying you have been promising us for the past
five years. These are major organizations, and we call them transpartisan,
because there are organizations from the right, organizations from the left,
organizations that are whistleblower-related such as the Project on
Government Oversight (POGO), the Government Accountability Project (GAP),
the National Whistleblower Center, human rights organizations, the National
Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), civil liberties-related organizations
such as the American Civil Liberties union (ACLU). We have 30 solid
organizations. According to the ACLU, there has been no case of an American
citizen who has had so many gag orders issued on her.

We also had 15,000 citizens sign the petition, and they delivered it to
Chairman Waxman's office in March 2007, just over a month ago. And based on
the office's own report, tens of thousands of people in the past 3-4 weeks
have called to say, well, when are you going to hold a hearing?

But we have received no response and we don't know why. None of these
organizations know why because they have all the facts, they have all the
confirmation, they have the IG report, they have the executive branch's own
report saying she's credible and her allegations have been supported by
other witnesses and documents. We are not talking about allegations. We are
talking about facts, documented and witnessed facts.

And I still believe that the Americans who care about their rights can make
this happen. Maybe it hasn't happened because one of the factors that is not
present there is the mainstream media. We know the mainstream media has such
influence over the Congress. Maybe Congress is not finding it worthy of
their attention despite all these severe consequences because the media
isn't there.

The citizens can change this, the constituents of Chairman Henry Waxman in
California, in the LA area, can change that. They can say, you represent us,
you represent our interests, and you are the chairman of the Government
Reform Committee. So after not hearing back from Chairman Waxman through
this petition and 30 organizations, I'm trying to reach out to those
constituents in California, I'm trying to reach out to all citizens in this
country and say, forget about me, this is not about Sibel Edmonds. Let's go
to the core issues: What was it that I reported that caused all these gag
orders and firings and threats? What was it? What I reported had nothing to
do with me. It had to do with the interests of the American public being
stomped upon. It had to do with elected officials abusing their authority to
obtain lucrative early retirement positions afterwards as representatives of
foreign interests. And this is very important. In order to obtain it
afterwards they had to serve those foreign interests while they were working
and had those positions. In every single one of them that's how it happens.
You start serving the interests of outside influences before you obtain your
positions afterwards and say bye to your civil service career. And that is,
especially in some cases, criminal. That is not something that should be
tolerated by this country, and we need to set an example of those people.

We have the facts, we have the documents, we have the witnesses, and it's
time to do it. So stand up and call Chairman Waxman's office, keep calling
until you get an answer on when the hearing will take place. For each
citizen it may cost four minutes. But the benefit to this country, and the
number of issues that we are going to shed light on, is worth it. And if it
was not, they would not have gone this far to gag it. I have been fighting
very hard, but they have been fighting very hard, too.

This is unprecedented. If I am the most gagged woman in the history of this
country, and if they have gone as far as invoking the States Secrets
Privilege, the issue is important enough. So for anyone who may say, well,
how do I know this case is credible? I'll tell you that there is a report,
there are statements from bipartisan senators, Senator Grassley, Senator
Leahy, Congressman Waxman. And these are all on the record establishing the
credibility of the case.

Call Chairman Waxman and write to him and do not stop until we have this
hearing in place, and we have the agents testifying. I'm going to emphasize
two things here: a) that they testify on oath, and b) that the hearings be
public. I have had some hearings, and they have been behind closed doors in
the Congress. I have briefed them. They already have this information. It's
the American public's turn to hear about this.

It's possible that in light of the Chairman's decision to hold a hearing,
the government comes in and says it has to be in close session and not in
public because these are classified issues. But they're not. If that
happens, we won't get anywhere because then it's futile. I would not even be
willing to testify because I have already done so. Five years ago I gave
them testimony behind closed doors. So did other witnesses. It's time to
have open, public hearings and have people under oath. I will testify under
oath, and the consequences of lying are severe.

So let's make this happen, and let's say that when all channels we rely
upon - be it the courts and the Congress and the executive branch and the
mainstream media - fail us, we still should move forward and not stop, and
reach out to the American public, and make it happen. I hope we can do it,
because not being able to do it sends a very bad, awful message to our
children and our grandchildren, to say that active citizenry is dead in this
country.

Contact Chairman Henry Waxman by calling (202) 225-3976 or writing to 2204
Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515.

If you are in the LA area, call (818) 878-7400 or write to 8436 West Third
Street, Suite 600, Los Angeles, CA 90048.

[Joseph]

Video of the interview

http://www.hairenik.com/HairenikTV/HA_TV_Clip65.htm

[Gavur]

The Silence of Henry Waxman

http://www.justacitizen.com./article...enryWaxman.htm



By Mike Mejia



And so it was, that in November, 2006, the American people cried for change and reform, an end to the quagmire in Iraq, as well as to the open and crass corruption of Dennis Hastert, Tom Delay and their fellow Congressional Republicans. The Democrats were swept into power on a wave of disgust at the decadence and decay that had enveloped D.C., taking back both Houses of Congress in one fell swoop. A revolution, it seemed, had begun. The good guys were in charge now.



Thus, one could not blame prominent FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, who served as a Turkish language specialist from 2001-2002, for feeling a surge of optimism after the Democratic sweep. After all, it was the Bush Administration and Republicans in Congress who had done everything in their power to suppress her case, which revealed high-level U.S. Neoconservatives acting as Turkish spies (amongst other illegal activities.) And it was the Democrats that assured Ms. Edmonds behind the scenes from 2002 to 2005 that once they took over, she would have the full, open hearings she had been pushing for. Furthermore, the buzz on the Democratic blogs was that, since Henry Waxman was going to be in charge of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, all the buried scandals of the Bush years would now finally be uncovered. Surely Ms. Edmonds had reasons to feel the tide was turning.



Alas: The bad news is that the sweeping changes the people voted for last November have been severely watered down. The war in Iraq wages on, and Waxman is confining his 'oversight' to very safe scandals that reflect badly only on Republicans. He appears unwilling to take on messy scandals like the Edmonds case, which reflects well on neither Party. Edmonds and a coalition of civil liberties and good government groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), presented Waxman with a petition containing over 15,000 signatures in March asking Waxman to hold hearings. But Waxman has to date refused to give any response.



Henry Waxman knows very well who Sibel Edmonds is; he can't plead ignorance. He has heard her testimony behind closed doors and has worked with her and her organization, the National Security Whistleblower's Coalition, in drafting whistleblower legislation. But despite the shock and outrage that Waxman apparently expressed when he heard the full classified version of Edmonds' allegations, his answer to the former translator and her grassroots supporters has been silence. Absolute silence.



For the record, the whistleblower's sources in Congress told her Waxman was initially disposed to hold hearings on the Edmonds case, but they were not going to be hearings that dug into the heart of the matter. They would not have exposed the darker machinations of the Turkish and Israeli lobbies, nor exposed an underground network of arms and drugs dealers with its tentacles reaching into U.S. agencies. Indeed, such hearings probably would not have allowed the words "Turkey" or "Israel" to be mentioned at all, much less named some of the U.S officials allegedly involved in passing classified information to these foreign powers. The hearings Waxman had planned, according to the grapevine, would have been the type of hearings to put even the most ardent Constitutional legal scholar to sleep for the night: they would have been sham discussions on the more arcane details of the 'state secrets privilege', with testimony limited to boring Bush hacks like FBI Director Robert Mueller.



Edmonds, a very strong-willed individual with a low tolerance for weak-kneed politicos, sent a clear message through her own channels: ‘no hearings’ were better than trumped up ones. Ms. Edmonds was not willing to let Waxman or any other politician grab the limelight and become "hero of the blogs for a day" unless they were really prepared to go to bat on this issue and defy John Ashcroft’s illegal retroactive classification. In the face of her principled stand, Waxman appears to have caved to the will of corrupt interests. His choice is logical from a political perspective, especially considering the Turkish lobby has now hired former Democratic House Minority leader Richard Gephardt. Waxman won't investigate these allegations because his current colleagues in the House and ex-colleagues like xxxx Gephardt and Stephen Solarz do not want him to. He has everything to lose, and nothing to gain, from a political perspective: by digging up this can of worms, he risks exposing that corruption and bad foreign policy is not limited to the Bush Administration.



Should the grassroots be surprised that Waxman made a choice to snub Edmonds, the ACLU and CREW? Sure, Edmonds was declared 'credible' by conservative Senator Charles Grassley, and was largely backed up in her core allegations by the Department of Justice's own Inspector General Report. And, yes, Edmonds’ translations of Turkish counterintelligence wiretaps do not look good for hated conservatives like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and Dennis Hastert. But these same wiretaps also do not look great for at least one Clinton appointee, former Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, or for at least two as of yet unnamed Democrats in Congress. Nor would they look good for the Turkish Lobby, the Israeli Lobby or defense contractors like Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, the beneficiaries of apparent corruption run out of the American Turkish Council. In Washington D.C., the only scandal that gets exposed is the scandal that implicates the other party and stays away from hurting vested groups that fund both Democrats and Republicans alike.



As former DEA agent and radio host Michael Levine noted in a recent interview with Australian Luke Ryland, a blogger who has written the most extensive investigative reports on the Edmonds case, the U.S. Congress has rarely tackled thorny issues like this Turkish corruption case. Not only do the Democrats have no backbone, but many of their own are bought off by the same special interest groups as the GOP, especially in the areas that touch on the military industrial complex and foreign policy. Most of the progressive community have not yet caught on to this harsh reality, and instead is focused on the 2008 elections. More sound advice would be to forget about 2008 and start holding the Democratic Party to its campaign promises. Otherwise, the illegal Bush wars will grind on and the corruption will continue unabated- albeit the Democrats will be getting a greater share of the lobbyist largesse.





Mike Mejia is a freelance writer with a degree in International Policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, where he specialized in International Trade and Arms Proliferation. He can be contacted at [email protected].

[Joseph]

Valerie Plame: Part 1

November 24, 2005
Lesser Neocons of L'Affaire Plame

by Christopher Deliso
balkanalysis.com

From start to finish, the Niger deception and the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame depended on a relay team of hawkish officials providentially placed throughout various government agencies. These included the CIA, the Pentagon and its Office of Special Plans (now under official investigation by the Pentagon's Office of the Inspector General), the State Department, and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), performing a handoff of information from the point of origin (the CIA) to the ultimate "commissioners" of the inquiry, the masterminds in the White House and the office of Vice President xxxx Cheney.

Considering the frequently attested intra- and interfactional nature of all of these agencies, it is understandable why the highest officials in the land jostled to get their "people" strategically inserted throughout the departments, where they could garner inside information and hinder the objectives of their ostensibly direct employers whenever they conflicted with the goals of their real minders.

Aside from the high-visibility officials involved or presumably involved in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame – Lewis Libby, xxxx Cheney, Karl Rove, etc. – we also have a generous sprinkling of neocons who, while somewhat less well known, have played a crucial role in not only the Plame outing but in policy-crafting and, perhaps, criminal activities as well.

The present study considers four such figures: David Wurmser and Frederick Fleitz, both formerly employed in the State Department office of the Madman with the Handlebar Mustache, John Bolton; Marc Grossman, a longtime State Department official recently turned lobbyist; and Eric Edelman, like Grossman a former ambassador to Turkey, longtime Cheneyite, and current recess appointee to Doug Feith's old position as No. 3 in the Pentagon.

John Bolton's Attack Dogs

While he has always been an outspoken opponent of arms control of all kinds, John Bolton was assigned to precisely that brief by the Bush administration in May 2001. Now his brief has been changed to acting UN ambassador, though he has in the past called for the cessation of the world body. At least he's consistent in his perversity.

On Oct. 27, on the eve of the Libby indictment, Richard Sale reported that according to "several former and serving U.S. intelligence officials," Libby was told of Plame's CIA identity via a phone call that "definitely came from the State Department office of John Bolton, then the arms control chief of the department."

More specifically, says Sale, Bolton assistants David Wurmser and Frederick Fleitz were part of the relay team responsible for leaking Plame's identity to Libby and then to Novak and Miller. "These same sources alleged that Wurmser, as Bolton's special assistant, got his knowledge of Plame's classified identity from a colleague in his office, Frederick Fleitz, a CIA officer detailed to Bolton's office from the agency who worked in the CIA's Weapons Intelligence Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center (WINIPAC)." Gary Leupp's Nigergate timeline of Nov. 9, 2005, gives further details on their involvement.

David Wurmser: A Blowhard Empowered

Bolton's attack dogs come from the very heart of the neocon establishment. It was Wurmser, after all, who largely wrote the now-infamous 1996 policy paper urging an invasion of Iraq for the sake of Israel: "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." Among the signers were Doug Feith and Richard Perle. Another was Wurmser's wife, Israeli-born Meyrav Wurmser, director of Middle East studies at the neocon-friendly Hudson Institute.

Out of power but continuing to skulk around the AEI with his neocon comrades, Wurmser handed out yet more free advice in a similar study published in 2000 by neocon Daniel Pipe's Middle East Forum and Ziad Abdelnour's U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon; it "advocated a wider U.S. role in Lebanon":

"The study, 'Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role?' called for the United States to force Syria from Lebanon and to disarm it of its alleged weapons of mass destruction. It also argued that 'Syrian rule in Lebanon stands in direct opposition to American ideals' and criticized the United States for engaging rather than confronting the regime. Among the documents signers were several soon-to-be Bush administration figures, including Elliott Abrams, Douglas Feith, Michael Rubin, and Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky. Other signers included Richard Perle, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Michael Ledeen, and Frank Gaffney."

When the neocons started feeling their oats with the return to power of a Republican administration later that year, hawks like Wurmser were locked and loaded to put these ideas into practice. With 9/11 came their ultimate opportunity. As Raw Story reports:

"[S]hortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Wurmser was handpicked by Harold Rhode, a Foreign Affairs Specialist in the Office of Net Assessment, a Pentagon 'think tank,' and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith to head a top secret Pentagon 'cell' whose job was to comb through CIA intelligence documents and find evidence that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States and its neighbors in the Middle East so a case could be made to launch a preemptive military strike. Wurmser largely invented evidence that Iraq had close ties to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden."

Wurmser's two-man "cell" was officially known as the Counter-Terrorism Evaluation Group, and was based in "a windowless, cipher-locked room at the Pentagon." In order to expedite Wurmser's "research," Feith and Rhode had to perform some "softening-up" operations on the professional intelligence community. A Jan. 26, 2004, report from Mother Jones explains their methods like this:

"[A]ccording to insiders, Rhode worked with Feith to purge career Defense officials who weren't sufficiently enthusiastic about the muscular anti-Iraq crusade that Wolfowitz and Feith wanted. Rhode appeared to be 'pulling people out of nooks and crannies of the Defense Intelligence Agency and other places to replace us with,' says a former analyst. 'They wanted nothing to do with the professional staff. And they wanted us the f*ck out of there.'

Frederick Fleitz: Dual-Use Technology Personified

For his part, Fleitz was an old confidante of Bolton's and "on loan" to his office from the CIA. A State Department intelligence analyst on WMD, Greg Thielman, told Seymour Hersh in 2003 that Bolton "surrounded himself with a hand-chosen group of loyalists, and found a way to get CIA information directly." Bolton affirmed for Hersh that he had demanded and received "direct electronic access to sensitive intelligence, such as foreign agent reports and electronic intercepts. In previous administrations, such data had been made available to undersecretaries only after it was analyzed, usually in the specific secured offices of the INR [the State Department intelligence branch]."

That Bolton's boys would betray Valerie Plame should come as no surprise, considering their consistently vicious previous tactics with intelligence officers who resisted their orders to make the intelligence fit their case. In April 2005, the New York Times reported on several antagonistic e-mails sent during 2002 by Fleitz to Christian Westermann, "the State Department's top expert on biological weapons," who also worked under Thielman.

Apparently, John Bolton could not tolerate the "wimpy" language that the INR recommended he use in a speech about Cuba. The always bellicose Bolton sought to accuse Cuba of developing biological weapons – a prospect even more fanciful than Iraq's alleged ambitions in the field. In any case, the war of attrition had its effect on Westermann, who on Sept. 23, 2002, wrote a high-ranking INR official, Thomas Fingar, stating that the incessant attacks from Bolton/Fleitz were "affecting my work, my health, and [my] dedication to public service."

Westermann, a career naval officer, was moved in 2000 to the State Department's Bureau of Nonproliferation. In 2005, he testified in a Senate hearing [.pdf] that "Mr. Bolton was very unhappy that a working level analyst [i.e., himself] had the temerity to alter language that he wanted to say." Regarding Fleitz, Westermann revealed that "Fred was a conduit for Mr. Bolton to receive other information [from the CIA] … there were times that material flowed from other agencies to Undersecretary Bolton not through INR." Frank affirmations of Bolton's abusive nature while in the State Department were made at his April 2005 UN confirmation hearings by Carl W. Ford Jr., Westermann's ultimate boss at the INR.

Marc Grossman: A Dark Horse Candidate?

It's clear that Cheney assistant Libby thought to ask John Bolton about the identity of the CIA's "secret envoy" to Niger (i.e., Wilson) because he recognized that the WMD-focused brief of Bolton and Fleitz meant they had a good chance of finding out who was behind Joe Wilson's trip to Africa. They also shared Libby's neocon ideology. In short, they were people he could count on.

But why, then, did Libby also ask a non-WMD specialist like Marc Grossman? How was he in a position to help, and why did Libby believe he could be trusted with the mission?

Although Grossman "has not been as high profile in the press" FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds cryptically told me the other day, "don't overlook him – he is very important."

She was not speaking about the Plame affair, though Grossman did indeed have a key role there, as we will see. According to her, Grossman was one of three officials – the other two, she says, are Richard Perle and Douglas Feith – who had been watched by both Valerie Plame's Brewster Jennings & Associates CIA team, and by the major FBI investigation of organized crime and governmental corruption on which she herself was working until being terminated in April 2002.

Marc Grossman has served in a number of interesting countries and positions over the past 29 years. From 1976-1983, at a pivotal point in the Cold War, he was employed at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan – America's key regional ally, through which millions of dollars in weapons and other "aid" were delivered by Pakistan's ISI intelligence service to the mujahedin following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

At the same time, Pakistan was actively seeking to become a nuclear power following another humiliating military defeat at the hands of India in 1971. This pursuit necessarily involved clandestine, black-market transactions, and it in fact led Pakistan to spawn the world's biggest eventual nuclear proliferator – A.Q. Khan, father of the country's nuclear program and supplier to numerous sketchy regimes and underworld characters. The U.S., as Seymour Hersh recounted in 1993, looked the other way as Pakistan developed nuclear technologies throughout the 1980s: "protecting the Afghanistan war had emerged as a major policy of the State Department's Bureau of Near East and South Asia Affairs, which was responsible for Pakistani policy."

Grossman's professional ties with Pakistan apparently long outlived his nine-year tenure there. The Guardian, among others, mentioned the fact that in the days immediately preceding Sept. 11, 2001, Pakistani ISI chief Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed – financier of 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta – paid a visit to senior administration officials, including Grossman, then undersecretary of state for political affairs.

A Pakistani article published on Sept. 10, 2001, claimed that Ahmed's

"most important meeting was with Mark Grossman, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs. U.S. sources would not furnish any details beyond saying that the two discussed 'matters of mutual interests.' What those matters could be is a matter of pure conjecture. One can safely guess that the discussions must have centered around Afghanistan, relations with India and China, disarmament of civilian outfits, country's nuclear and missiles program, and, of course, Osama bin Laden."

[Joseph]

Part 2

Following a three-year stint in the private office of NATO Secretary General Lord Carrington in Brussels, Grossman went on to become deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Turkey from 1989-1992. Two years later, he was appointed ambassador, representing U.S. political, commercial, and military interests in Turkey until June 1997. In this position, he would have been well informed of everything in these realms, and worked with leading lobbyists from both America and Turkey, as well as the firms they represented. A comprehensive study shows the staggering scope of American military aid to Turkey during the period in question. This largesse depended and continues to depend on the good offices of influential governmental and near-governmental officials and businessmen.

Examples abound: let's take the other two doubly implicated characters by Sibel Edmonds, Doug Feith and Richard Perle. In 1989, "Feith registered International Advisors Inc. (IAI) as a foreign agent representing the government of Turkey," wrote James Zogby, four months before 9/11. "One of the stated purposes of the work of IAI was to 'promote the objective of U.S.-Turkish defense industrial cooperation.'" In fact, in the ensuing years, the firm – its highest paid "external" consultant being one Richard Perle – was compensated for lobbying services for Turkey at a rate of $600,000 a year. Zogby cites a Wall Street Journal story from the time of IAI's inception stating that Perle "among other things supervised U.S. military assistance to Turkey during his recent seven-year hitch in the Pentagon."

Interestingly enough, at the same time Feith and Perle were greasing Turkish palms and Grossman was presiding over in Ankara, the CIA's Brewster-Jennings network and Valerie Plame were focusing on nuclear proliferation in Turkey. This scrutiny led them to trace private citizens in America as well as lobby groups like the American-Turkish Council – which is precisely where Plame met future husband Joseph Wilson, while "on duty" at a 1997 reception held by then-Turkish ambassador to the U.S. Nuzhet Kandemir.

The FBI also got involved on the domestic front, as the Edmonds case affirms. And there was discussion between successive Turkish and Pakistani governments, during the 1980s and 1990, regarding the idea of making both nuclear-armed Islamic states. At least as far as we know, only the latter has so far succeeded.

After leaving Turkey in 1997, Grossman was promoted by President Clinton to become assistant secretary of state for European affairs (1997-2000), where he helped expedite NATO's illegal war against Yugoslavia. Under George W. Bush, he would become undersecretary of state for political affairs. As the administration was pushing for war in early 2003, Grossman became a mouthpiece for neocon policy. In a March 3, 2003, interview for Dutch television, he made a statement that could have come out of some PNAC policy papers: "[T]he time has come now to make a stand against this kind of connection between weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. And we think Iraq is a place to make that stand first … the great threat today is the nexus between weapons of mass destruction and terrorism."

In June 2005, Grossman left the public sector and became vice chairman at all-powerful lobbying firm The Cohen Group, run by an old Kosovo War colleague, former Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen. Actually, as the Washington Post put it,

"Cohen Group folks don't officially lobby but, according to the group, provide clients 'the insights and intelligence needed to better understand and shape the business, political, legal, regulatory and media environments in which they operate.' The consulting shop has a 'strategic partnership' with DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, which has a lobbying component."

The Cohen Group, along with major Turkish lobbyist The Livingston Group, is a paying sponsor of the American-Turkish Council. Marc Grossman looks set for a long and comfortable second career well out of the public eye; no doubt, he will cash in handsomely by leveraging for Cohen clients the formidable influence he has gained through a long career of State Department postings under five different presidential administrations.

Grossman as a Key Source in the Plame Leak

Unless, of course, he finds himself tangled up in Plamegate or other related scandals that have as yet not been divulged. Gary Leupp recounts that on May 29, 2003, in addition to Bolton, Libby asked Marc Grossman for information on news reports "about [the] CIA's secret envoy to Africa in 2002." Grossman then requested a classified memo from INR boss Carl Ford (the boss of both Westermann and Fleitz), "and later orally brief[ed] Libby on its contents."

On July 21, 2005, the Washington Post stated that the memo had been written on June 10, 2003, "by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) … for Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, who asked to be brought up to date on INR's opposition to the White House view that Hussein was trying to buy uranium in Africa."

A subsequent Washington Post article of Oct. 17 pointed out that at the time, Grossman had actually assumed the role of acting secretary of state "since Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Deputy Secretary Richard L. Armitage were out of the country."

Yes indeed, while the cat is away, the mice will play…

The article also stated that Grossman "wanted the letter (classified 'secret') as background for a meeting at the White House where the discussion was focused on then growing criticism of Bush's inclusion in his January State of the Union speech of the allegation that Hussein had been seeking uranium from Niger." Grossman seems to have been regarded as suitable by Cheney et al. for finding out what the war party wanted to know about Joe Wilson.

The Grossman memo laid out the reasons why the State Department's INR had found the Niger intel not credible. It also described "a meeting at the CIA in February 2002, attended by another INR analyst [emphasis mine], where Plame introduced her husband as the person who was to go to Niger."

The article continues:

"Attached to the letter were the notes from the INR analyst who had attended the session, but they were written well after the event occurred and contained mistakes about who was there and what was said, according to a former intelligence official who reviewed the document in the summer of 2003.

"Grossman has refused to answer questions about the letter, and it is not clear whether he talked about it at the White House meeting he was said to have attended, according to the former State official."

Who could have been the "other INR analyst" sent to the CIA meeting? And was it the same analyst responsible for drafting the memo in the first place? Could the analyst have been Fleitz, the CIA officer "on loan" to Bolton's office in the State Department, but still working for the CIA at the same time? Indeed, how many other people would have had the freedom and relevant security clearances to go back and forth between the two agencies, let alone have direct access to the White House?

These disclosures indicate two things: one, that a covert channel of information through the CIA, State Department, and White House existed; and two, that Grossman definitely was involved throughout, probably enlisting the help of Fleitz and/or Wurmser in expediting the process.

From this it seems pretty clear that Grossman's mission was a key part of the neocon offensives against the intelligence community, as with the Bolton/Fleitz harassment of analysts like Christian Westermann. And, like all career diplomats serving under multiple administrations, Grossman's ideological sympathies were clearly flexible enough for the job.

Eric Edelman: A Witness, or More?

Another low-profile neocon associate who has been swept up in the Plamegate controversy is Eric Edelman, a former Cheney staffer, the previous ambassador to Turkey, and current replacement for Douglas Feith as undersecretary of defense for policy. However, as with John Bolton's appointment to the UN, Edelman was installed via a White House recess appointment.

According to the NY Times on Nov. 5, Edelman has been identified as the "then-principle deputy" of Lewis Libby in the weeks leading up to the outing of Plame, as named in the Fitzgerald indictment [.pdf]. Edelman and his boss spoke on the phone "on or about June 19, 2003, before Mr. Wilson's name became public."

It says that Mr. Edelman asked Mr. Libby in June 2003 whether information about Mr. Wilson's trip could be disclosed to the press to rebut allegations that Vice President Cheney had called for the trip. Reads the indictment:

"LIBBY spoke by telephone with his then Principal Deputy and discussed the article [in The New Republic]. That official asked LIBBY whether information about Wilson's trip could be shared with the press to rebut the allegations that the VP had sent Wilson. LIBBY responded that there would be complications at the CIA in disclosing that information publicly, and that he could not discuss the matter on a non-secure phone line."

What is interesting here, aside from the cloak-and-dagger, almost Franklinesque flair of Libby, is that Edelman was no longer even supposed to be employed with him at the time: as the NYT reminds, "Mr. Edelman ceased work for Mr. Libby on June 6, 2003, to begin language training in preparation for a posting as ambassador to Turkey."

Perhaps the need for a recess appointment had to do with Edelman's dangerous failure at his previous place of employment. A 2003 article from Turkish columnist Ali Aslan remarked on how strongly Edelman, in his new role as ambassador, was disliked by Turks. During his two-year tenure in Ankara, Edelman became a lightning rod for criticism as a meddlesome, bullying diplomat who disrespected Turkish sovereignty on a number of levels. The local media laid into him on numerous occasions. Columnist Ibrahim Karagul writing in "the Islamist daily Yeni Safak, known as the unofficial mouthpiece of the Justice and Development Party (AKP)," said, "if we want to address the reasons for anti-Americanism, Edelman must be issue one. As long as Edelman stays in Turkey, the chill wind disturbing bilateral relations will last." Milliyet writer Can Dsündar added, "[I]f Turkey today is the leader in the race of 'America-hating countries,' Edelman is a major part of it." Yeni Safak's Ahmet Kekeç, reciting a litany of abuses and revenge tactics Edelman used against the newspaper, closed by simply stating, "Edelman must go."

And go he did – straight back into the arms of xxxx Cheney and the war party, which he had already served on two occasions, first during the reign of Bush I, and again between 2001-2003 as a special assistant to Cheney. In the first period, he worked under Paul Wolfowitz in the creation of a Defense Policy Guidance that "stipulated that the U.S. should wage preventive war to maintain unchallenged U.S. military supremacy." The second time around, in the run-up to the Iraq war, Edelman played a vital role, along with Lewis Libby, Doug Feith, and other prominent neocons, in crafting the bogus rationale for war in Iraq that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. In August 2005, President Bush "used a constitutional power to bypass the Senate" in confirming Edelman as the new undersecretary of defense for policy, replacing Douglas Feith.

According to the above RightWeb article, "replacing Douglas Feith with Edelman allows the radicals running U.S. foreign policy to leave behind the controversies building around Feith and get a relatively clean start with a new undersecretary of defense for planning." However, that "relatively clean start" now seems in danger of being sullied by Edelman's as yet unknown role in L'Affaire Plame.

Fitzgerald's Announcement and the Woodward Revelations: More to Come?

When all is said and done, how many more "peripheral figures" aside from Fleitz, Wurmser, Grossman, and Edelman are going to be sucked in by the vacuum that is Plamegate? Although I don't have space here to dip into the feeding frenzy of speculation that has ensued following Bob Woodward's testimony that yet another official had informed him of Plame's identity in June 2003, a month before Libby told Bob Novak, it is worth mentioning that things are bound to get more exciting yet: after all, the meticulous and patient Patrick Fitzgerald has announced that a second grand jury will be convened.

So it looks as if the show's not over. Perhaps it hasn't even begun. And if certain business interests and foreign relations are going to be affected by the prosecutor's inquiry into high treason, well, that's just too bad.

[Joseph]

The web of corruption extend to the highest levels

One More Reason to Win: Letting Sibel Edmonds Speak

October 30 2006
Counterbias.com
by W. David Jenkins III

http://www.counterbias.com/789.html

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke

Sibel Edmonds once told me to “put aside 9/11” and instead concentrate on the workings of the Defense Department, amongst other government establishments, because what she had been trying to warn people about was considered by those involved as nothing more than “business as usual.” That was the real danger. What she had discovered during her short time with the FBI was so threatening to those doing such “business” that former Attorney General, John Ashcroft, couldn’t slap a gag order on her (and Congress) fast enough. But a lot of us already know that.

Truth be known, Dennis Hastert has more to worry about than the Mark Foley scandal. In fact, he may be seeing the writing on the wall regarding his upcoming departure from Congress as a welcome relief. However, that result is not only contingent upon a Democratic win in November, but a Democratic majority willing to dig through the tangled mess that is Turkish and American “business relations.”

Now, one must understand why Turkey is a big player, albeit a clandestine one, on the world stage: it involves the desperate need for security and acceptance. Turkey shares with Israel common enemies such as Syria, Iran and Iraq, and maintains relations in the U.S. in order to secure financial aid and military technology. These relations are enhanced by corporations, lobbyists and conservative think-tanks sharing a mutual interest in geopolitical advantage in the Middle East as well as making some big bucks.

These relations are connected between former and present Defense Department members, Project for a New American Century members, AIPAC, MIC Inc., Jack Abramoff, The Livingston Group and others. In other words, the more you dig the bigger the headache, yet you’ll get an idea of how intertwined all the players are.

Wanna go for a little ride? Let’s start with Hastert. The House Speaker has received contributions from Turkish sources to the tune of at least $500,000, and Edmonds knows that there are tapes from wiretaps that will back up this claim. One of the groups who bragged on those tapes about these illegal contributions was the American Turkish Council (ATC), but Hastert denies any ties to this or other Turkish groups. Yet between 1996 and 2002, Hastert made multiple trips to Turkey and would return home with so many “gifts” that his support staff was surprised that the “plane even got off the ground.”

In turn, Hastert has been very helpful to Turkey by using his authority to pull Congressional backing for a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide. Hastert, of course has denied this.

On June 3, 2003, Hastert’s political action committee held a $1500-a-plate fundraiser at Jack Abramoff’s restaurant where he received large donations from, among others, one Duane R. Gibson. Gibson is a consultant with the Livingston Group who has been lobbying on behalf of Turkey for about six years at the cost of $1.2 million a year. The only problem is that the money is not coming from the Turkish government and of course the FBI wants to know exactly who is shelling out all the dough. This is what Edmonds refers to as “business as usual,” and what is behind the façade in all of this is obviously so threatening that the government felt it necessary to implement an extraordinary gag order on Sibel and threaten members of her family.

Admittedly, the American–Turkish “connection” doesn’t make for glamorous news when put up against Iraq, Iran or North Korea, but many of the players in those headlines are also involved with Turkey. And if there were an active, inquisitive and motivated Congress in D.C., people might recognize the threat that so far has remained under the radar.

Sibel Edmonds stated many times that when certain intelligence regarding illegal activities (drug or illegal arms trafficking, etc.) which benefited alleged terrorist sponsors also implicated “certain allies or business interests,” then that intelligence was not passed on to counter-terrorism agents in the field. Turkish front groups under surveillance by the FBI (ATC and ATAA) were making large payments to officials high up in the government as well as lobbyists with connections to some of these same officials. These same groups were also nuzzling up to groups like AIPAC who had a mutual desire to embrace certain business interests that could enhance their pursuit of intelligence, influence and aid against common enemies.

With the rise to power of the neo-conservatives and their drive to secure dominance in the Middle East, these front groups found new opportunities. Douglas Feith and Richard Perle, infamous for their push into Iraq, were also recipients of hundreds of thousands of dollars from Turkish interests prior to joining the Bush Gang.

Other groups with long ties to Turkey as well as upper offices in the government consist of the aforementioned Livingston Group, Solarz & Associates, and The Cohen Group. All three are top members of the American Turkish Council with Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group, Joseph Ralston, sitting on their board of advisors. Getting pretty tangled up, huh?

One other firm I want to point out is the group M.I.C. Industries Inc. who boast of an “Ultimate Building Machine” on their web site (a machine worth a $60 million contract with Russia in 1997). Their board consists of, among others, William Cohen (Cohen Group/ATC) and Richard Armitage (PNAC/Valerie Plame outing) and is headed up by one Michael Asari who once teamed up with Alexander Haig in a corporation called US-CIS Venture Inc. which was established to assist in “developments” in Central Asia as well as establishing oil and gas pipeline projects through the region. M.I.C. Inc. is also one of the Livingston Group’s top clients.

These are some of the “business interests” I believe Edmonds’ was speaking of and here’s why. Enormous amounts of money are being funneled to top government officials and certain businesses whose members consist of former Defense and State Department officials and conservative think tanks that have a common interest in Turkey and Israel (in this case) and other countries that play a strategic part in a geo-political “business” plan. However, this money is not coming from those particular governments in question.

Currently, according to former CIA agent Philip Giraldi, there is an investigation into Israel’s illegal sale of U.S. military technology to countries like China and India. The companies mentioned in this article also have ties to the defense industry through their members’ history in government service – who also share close ties with Turkish front groups (as well as an alliance with AIPAC and JINSA) currently under investigation by the FBI. That these Turkish groups would be involved in the same illegal sales with the aid of the aforementioned businesses is not that difficult of a dot to connect as it definitely reflects the “can of worms” that Edmonds’ superiors at the FBI did not want opened. It’s also worth mentioning that Turkey is a large hub in the drugs coming out of Afghanistan and Edmonds has alluded to the drug trade in her past statements.

Yet, fellow FBI translator Malek Can xxxxerson, who had encouraged Sibel to join the ATC, was suppressing intelligence Edmonds’ was uncovering regarding these front groups and their relationship to “certain allies and American business interests” in deference to the very organizations that the FBI had under investigation.

One can look back at the names mentioned in this criminal activity and notice that many of the players were involved in the more glamorous stories in the news over the past years. Armitage (MIC Inc./PNAC) leaking the name of a CIA operative who was investigating arms trafficking to Iran, and Feith and Perle (IA Inc./PNAC) who were instrumental in the invasion of Iraq and who are together with Michael Asari (MIC Inc.) pushing for an attack on Iran, are just four of the most notorious examples.

One other thing I want to point out is the sorry state of affairs when it comes to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Unit database which is maintained by the Department of Justice. This database contains the “who and how much” when it comes to “foreign investment” in exchange for representation in D.C.

Luke Ryland, who has done some remarkable and detailed work on the Edmonds story, pointed out that the “huge database that serves as the public's lone window on lobbying activities by foreign governments has been allowed to decay to a point they cannot even make a copy of its contents” according to a report by the Center for Public Integrity in June, 2004. Even worse, as far as we know, that system is still operating on Windows 95. So much for investing in technology to fight the “war on terror.”

Sibel stated in an interview in 2005 that “You can start from the AIPAC angle. You can start from the Plame case. You can start from my case. They all end up going to the same place, and they revolve around the same nucleus of people. There may be a lot of them, but it is one group. And they are very dangerous for all of us.”

I can’t think of a better reason to take back the Congress.

==

W. David Jenkins III is a writer from New York. He can be reached at [email protected].

[Joseph]

By: Sibel Edmonds Part 1

Auctioning Off Former Statesmen and Dime-a-Dozen Generals
The High-Jacking of a Nation
By SIBEL EDMONDS

"The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise power from behind the scenes."

---Justice Felix Frankfurter

It used to be the three branches--congress, the executive, and the courts--that we considered the make-up of our nation's federal government. And some would point to the press as a possible fourth branch, due to the virtue of its influence in shaping our policies. Today, more and more people have come to view corporate and foreign lobby firms, with their preponderant clout and enormous power, as the official fourth branch of our nation's government. Not only do I agree with them, I would even take it a step further and give it a higher status it certainly deserves.

Operating invisibly under the radar of media and public scrutiny, lobby groups and foreign agents have become the 'epicenter' of our government, where former statesmen and 'dime a dozen generals' cash in on their connections and peddle their enormous influence to the highest bidders turned clients. These groups' activities shape our nation's policies and determine the direction of the flow of its taxpayer driven wealth, while to them the interests of the majority are considered irrelevant, and the security of the nation is perceived as inconsequential.

In Part1 of this series I used Saudi influence via its lobby and foreign agents by default as a case to illustrate how certain foreign interests, combined with their U.S. agents and benefactors, override the interests and security of the entire nation. This illustrative model case involved three major elements: the purchasing of a few 'dime a dozen generals,' bidding high in the auctioning of 'former statesmen,' and buying one or two ex-congressmen turned lobbyists. In addition, the piece emphasized the importance of the "Military Industrial Complex (MIC)," which became a de facto 'foreign agent' by the universally recognized principle of 'mutual benefit.'

This article will attempt to illustrate the functioning of the above model in the case of another country, the Republic of Turkey, and its set of agents and operators in the U.S. In doing so, I want to emphasize the importance of separating the populace of example nations--Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, Pakistan--from their regimes and select key participating actors. As is the case with our nation, they too suffer the consequences of their regime's self-serving policies and conduct. Not only that, they also have to endure what they consider 'U.S. imposed policies' that further the interests of only a few. Think of it this way, the majority of us in the States do not see the infamous and powerful neocon cabal as the chosen and accepted representatives of our nation's values and objectives. We do not want to be perceived and judged based on the actions of a few at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. The same is valid for these nations' citizenry; so let not their corrupt and criminal regimes be the basis of our judgment of them.

Moreover, as we all know, those subject to criticism in these articles have mastered the art of spinning when it comes to the media and propaganda. The Israeli lobby is quick to stamp all factually backed criticism as 'anti-Semitic' and attack it as such. The Turkish lobby, in this regard, as with everything else, follows its Israeli mentors; they label all dissent and criticism as anti-Turkey, or, Kurdish or Armenian propaganda; while the Saudi lobby goes around kicking and screaming 'anti-Muslim propaganda.' I am not known to be 'politically correct' and am often criticized for it. I readily accept that and all responsibilities associated with it. I am not seeking a position as a diplomat, neither am I serving any business, organization, or media channel furthering a particular ideology. This is me, saying it as I see it; no more, no less. By the end of this series it should be obvious, at least for many, that the selection of the nations encompasses varied sides and affiliations. Moreover, the main purpose, and the target of these commentaries, goes to the heart of our own government and its epicenter; lobbyists and the MIC.



* * * *

Many Americans, due to the effective propaganda and spin machine of Turkey's agents in the U.S., and relentless efforts by high-level officials and lobbying groups on Turkish networks' payroll, do not know much about Turkey; its position and importance in the areas of terrorism, money laundering, illegal arms sales, industrial and military espionage, and the nuclear black-market. Not many people in the States would name Turkey among those nations that threaten global security, the fight against terrorism, nuclear proliferation, or the war on drugs. For the purpose of this article it is necessary to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of Turkey, its strategic location within global criminal networks, its various networks and entities operating behind seemingly legitimate fronts, and its connection to the military and political machine in the U.S.

For many Americans Turkey is one of the closest allies of the United States; a most important member of NATO; a candidate for EU membership; and the only Middle-Eastern close ally and partner of Israel. Some acknowledge Turkey's highly prized status in the United States due to its location as the artery connecting Europe to Asia, its cross borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria to its East and South, with the Balkan states to its west, and with the Central Asian nations to its north and northeast. Others may recognize the country as one of the top U.S. customers for military technology and weapons.

Interestingly enough, these same qualities and characteristics which make Turkey an important ally and strategic partner for the nation states, make it extremely crucial and attractive to global criminal networks active in transferring illegal arms and nuclear technology to rogue states; in transporting Eastern Narcotics, mainly from Afghanistan through the Central Asian states into Turkey, where it is processed, and then through the Balkan states into Western Europe and the U.S.; and in laundering the proceeds of these illegal operations via its banks and those on the neighboring island of Cyprus.



The Real Lords of the Poppy Fields

It is a known fact that there often is a nexus between terrorism and organized crime. Terrorists use Narco-traficking and international crime to support their activities. Frequently, the same criminal gangs involved in narcotics smuggling have links to other criminal activities, such as illegal arms sales, and to terrorist groups. The Taliban's link to the drug trade is irrefutable. In 2001, a report by the U.N. Committee of Experts on Resolution 1333 for sanctions against the Taliban stated that "funds raised from the production and trade of opium and heroin are used by the Taliban to buy arms and war materials and to finance the training of terrorists and support the operation of extremists in neighboring countries and beyond."

Afghanistan supplies almost 90% of the world's heroin, which is the country's main cash crop, contributing over $3 billion a year in illegal revenues to the Afghan economy, which equals 50% of the gross national product. In 2004, according to the U.S. state department, 206,000 hectares were cultivated, a half a million acres, producing 4,000 tons of opium. "It is not only the largest heroin producer in the world, 206,000 hectares is the largest amount of heroin or of any drug that I think has ever been produced by any one country in any given year," says Robert Charles, former assistant secretary of state for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, overseeing anti-drug operations in Afghanistan.

Heroin trafficking is also the main source of funding for the al-Qaeda terrorists. A Time Magazine article in August 2004 reported that al-Qaeda has established a smuggling network that is peddling Afghan heroin to buyers across the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, and in turn is using the drug revenues to purchase weapons and explosives. The article states: "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." Anti-drug officials say the only way to cut off al-Qaeda's pipeline is to attack it at the source: by destroying the poppy farms themselves. This year, Afghanistan's opium harvest is expected to exceed 3,600 tons-enough to produce street heroin worth $36 billion.

Key congressional leaders have been pressing the Pentagon to crack down on the major drug traffickers in Afghanistan upon learning that Al Qaeda is relying more than ever on illicit proceeds from the heroin trade. Congressional investigators who returned from the region in 2004 found that traffickers are providing Osama bin Laden and other terrorists with heroin as funds from Saudi Arabia and other sources dry up. "We now know Al Qaeda's dominant source of funding is the illegal sale of narcotics," said Rep. Kirk-IL, a member of the House Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, as reported by Washington Times. Rep. Kirk added that Bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror organization is reaping $28 million a year in illicit heroin sales.

[Joseph]

Part 2

It is puzzling to observe that in reporting this major artery of terrorists' funding, the U.S. mainstream media and political machine do not dare to go beyond the poppy fields of Afghanistan and the fairly insignificant low level Afghan warlords overseeing the crops. Think about it; we are talking about nearly $40 billion worth of products in the final stage. Do you believe that those primitive Afghan warlords, clad in shalvars, sporting long ragged beards, and walking with long sticks handle transportation, lab processing, more transportation, distribution, and sophisticated laundering of the proceeds? If yes, then think again. This multi billion-dollar industry requires highly sophisticated networks and people. So, who are the real lords of Afghanistan's poppy fields?

For Al Qaeda's network Turkey is a haven for its sources of funding. Turkish networks, along with Russians', are the main players in these fields; they purchase the opium from Afghanistan and transport it through several Turkic speaking Central Asian states into Turkey, where the raw opium is processed into popular byproducts; then the network transports the final product into Western European and American markets via their partner networks in Albania. The networks' banking arrangements in Turkey, Cyprus and Dubai are used to launder and recycle the proceeds, and various Turkish companies in Turkey and Central Asia are used to make this possible and seem legitimate. The Al Qaeda network also uses Turkey to obtain and transfer arms to its Central Asian bases, including Chechnya.

Since the 1950s Turkey has played a key role in channeling into Europe and the U.S. heroin produced in the "Golden Triangle" comprised of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. These operations are run by mafia groups closely controlled by the MIT (Turkish Intelligence Agency) and the military. According to statistics compiled in 1998, Turkey's heroin trafficking brought in $25 billion in 1995 and $37.5 billion in 1996. That amount makes up nearly a quarter of Turkey's GDP. Only criminal networks working in close cooperation with the police and the army could possibly organize trafficking on such a scale. The Turkish government, MIT and the Turkish military, not only sanctions, but also actively participates in and oversees the narcotics activities and networks.

In July 1998, Le Monde Diplomatique reported that in an explosive document made public at a press conference in Istanbul, the MIT, Turkish Intelligence Agency, accused 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". MIT provided a list of names of some of the traffickers operating under the protection of the police. The Turkish police returned the compliment and handed over a list of named drug traffickers employed by the MIT!

In January 1997, Tom Sackville, minister of state at the British Home Office, 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 an article published in Drug Link Magazine, Adrian Gatton cites the case of Huseyin Baybasin, the famous Turkish heroin kingpin now in jail in Holland. Baybasin explains: "I handled the drugs which came through the channel of the Turkish Consulate in England," and he adds: "I was with the Mafia but I was carrying this out with the same Mafia group in which the rulers of Turkey were part." The article also cites a witness statement given to a UK immigration case involving Baybasin's clan, and states that Huseyin Baybasin had agreed to provide investigators with information about what he knew of the role of Turkish politicians and officials in the heroin trade. The article quotes Mark Galeotti, a former UK intelligence officer and expert on the Turkish mafia, "Since the 1970s, Turkey has accounted for between 75 and 90 per cent of all heroin in the UK. The key traffickers are Turks or criminals who operate along that route using Turkish contacts." In 2001, Chris Harrison, a senior UK Customs officer in Manchester, told veteran crime reporter Martin Short that Customs could not get at the Turkish kingpins because they are "protected" at a high level.

In 1998, the highly official International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) of the U.S. State Department, revealed that "about 75% of the heroin seized in Europe is either produced in, or derives from, Turkey", that "4 to 6 tons of heroin arrive from there every month, heading for Western Europe" and that "a number of laboratories for the purification of the opium used in transforming the basic morphine into heroin are located on Turkish soil". The report stresses that Turkey is one of the countries most affected by money-laundering, which takes place particularly via the countries of the ex-Soviet Union, such as Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan, through the medium of casinos, the construction industry, and tourism. INCSR's 2006 report cites Turkey as a major transshipment point and base of operations for international narcotics traffickers and associates trafficking in opium, morphine base, heroin, precursor chemicals and other drugs.

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?

We all know of our president's 'selective evilization' of countries that have been 'chosen' to be on our hit list. But how many of us know of our government's 'selective go free cards' that have been issued to those 'ally countries' that directly fund and support the terrorist networks? In fact, our government would rather move heaven and earth, gag 'whistleblowers' with direct knowledge of these facts, classify congressional and other investigative reports, create a media black-out on these 'allies' terrorist supporting activities, than do the right thing; do what it really takes to counter terrorism.

and the WMDs we actually located & have known about

In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush declared he would keep "the world's most destructive weapons" from Al Qaeda and its allies by keeping those weapons from evil governments. Later he told a campaign audience in Pennsylvania, "We had to take a hard look at every place where terrorists might get those weapons and one regime stood out: the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein." Well, the Iraqi WMD that never was!

Here is what CIA Director Porter Goss said bluntly before the Senate Intelligence Committee in February 2004, "It may be only a matter of time before Al Qaeda or other groups attempt to use chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons. We must focus on that." And we know that he knows; has known for the longest time!

Seymour Hersh in his March 2003 article quotes Robert Gallucci, a former United Nations weapons inspector who is now dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, "Bad as it is with Iran, North Korea, and Libya having nuclear-weapons material, the worst part is that they could transfer it to a non-state group. That's the biggest concern, and the scariest thing about all this. There's nothing more important than stopping terrorist groups from getting nuclear weapons."

Although numerous prestigious reports by agencies and organizations such as IAEA, and news articles in the European media, have clearly established Turkey, and various international networks operating in and out of Turkey, as major players within the global nuclear black-market and illegal arms sales, the relevant agencies and main media in the U.S. have maintained a completely silent and hands off position.

Nuclear black-market related activities depend on Turkey for manufacturing nuclear components, and on its strategic location as a transit point to move goods and technology to nations such as Iran, Pakistan, and others. Not only that, Turkey's status and close relationship with the U.S. enables it to obtain (steal) technology and information from the U.S.

Lying at the crossroads not only between Europe and Asia, but also between the former Soviet Union and the Middle East, Turkey is already a well-established transit zone for illicit goods, including nuclear material and illegal weapons sales. 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 played a major role in Pakistan and Libya's illicit activities in obtaining nuclear technologies. In June 2004, Stephen Fidler, a reporter for Financial Times reported that in 2003, Turkish centrifuge motors and converters destined for Libya's nuclear weapons program turned up in Tripoli aboard a ship that had sailed from Dubai. One of those detained individuals in this incident, a 'respected and successful' Turkish Businessman, Selim Alguadis, was cited in a public report from the Malaysian inspector-general of police into the Malaysian end of a Pakistani-led clandestine network that supplied Libya, Iran and North Korea with nuclear weapons technologies, designs and expertise. According to the report, "he supplied these materials to Libya." Mr. Alguadis also confessed that he had on several occasions met A Q Khan, the disgraced Pakistani scientist who has admitted transmitting nuclear expertise to the three countries. Selim Alguadis remains a successful businessman in Turkey with companies in several other countries. He was released immediately after being turned over to Turkish authorities. His partner, another well-known and internationally recognized wealthy businessman, Gunes Cire, also actively participated in transferring nuclear technology and parts to Iran, Pakistan and North Korea. Although under investigation by several international communities, Alguadis and his partners continued to roam free in Turkey and conduct their illegitimate operations via their 'legit international business' front companies.

[Joseph]

Part 3

David Albright and Corey Hinderstein of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) identify Turkey's major role in the nuclear black-market. According to their report, workshops in Turkey made the centrifuge motor and frequency converters used to drive the motor and spin the rotor to high speeds. These workshops imported subcomponents from Europe, and they assembled these centrifuge items in Turkey. Under false end-user certificates, these components were shipped from Turkey to Dubai for repackaging and shipment to Libya.

Turkey's illegal arms smuggling activities are not limited to Europe and the Middle East; many of these activities reach U.S. soil. According to a report published by the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, in April 2004 the Italian police searched a container destined for the port of New York onboard a Turkish ship at the port of Tauro during a routine customs inspection, sparked by discrepancies between the various customs declarations. Inside the container more than 8,000 AK47 assault rifles, 11 submachine guns, and magazines worth over seven million dollars were discovered.

Our tough talking president works very hard to sound convincing when he says 'we have to take a hard look at every place where terrorists might get those weapons;' in fact, he has succeeded in fooling many into believing those words. However, while he was determined to move heaven and earth to get our nation into a war and a quagmire with a country that did NOT possess 'those weapons,' he refused and continues to refuse to look at his own 'allies-packed backyard' where he would find a few that not only do possess 'those weapons,' but also distribute and sell them to the highest bidders no matter what their affiliation.



* * * *

Curiously enough, despite these highly publicized reports and acknowledgements of Turkey's role in these activities, Turkey continues to receive billions of dollars of aid and assistance annually from the United States. With its highly placed co-conspirators and connections within the Pentagon, State Department and U.S. Congress, Turkey never has to fear potential sanctions or meaningful scrutiny; just like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The criminal Turkish networks continue their global criminal activities right under the nose of their protector, the United States, and neither the catastrophe falling upon the U.S. on September Eleven, nor their direct and indirect role and ties to this terrorist attack, diminish their role and participation in the shady worlds of narcotics, money laundering and illegal arms transfer.

The 'respectable' Turkish companies established and operate bases in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and other similar former soviet states. Many of these front companies, disguised under construction and tourism entities, have received millions of dollars in grants from the U.S. government, allocated to them by the U.S. congress, to establish and operate criminal networks throughout the region; among their networking partners are Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Albanian Mafia. While the U.S. government painted Islamic charity organizations as the main financial source for Al Qaeda terrorists, it was hard at work trying to cover up the terrorists' main financial source: narcotics and illegal arms sales. Why?

For years and years, information and evidence being collected by the counterintelligence operations of certain U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies has been prevented from being transferred to criminal and narcotics divisions, and from being shared with the Drug Enforcement Agency and others with prosecutorial power. Those with direct knowledge have been prevented from making this information available and public by various gag orders and invocation of the State Secrets Privilege. Why?

Is this due to the fact that the existence and survival of many U.S. allies; Turkey, almost all Central Asian nations, and after the September Eleven attack, Afghanistan; greatly depend on cultivating, processing, transporting, and distributing these illegal substances? Is it caused by the fact that a major source of income for those who procure U.S. weapons and technology, our military industrial complex's bread and butter, is being generated from this illegal production and illegal dealings? Or, is it the fear of exposing our own financial institutions, lobbying firms, and certain elected and appointed officials, as beneficiaries?

When it comes to criminal and shady global networks most people envision either Mafiosi like entities who keep to themselves and are separated from society, or, street level gangster-like criminals. Contrary to these expectations, the top tier Turkish criminal networks consist mainly of respectable looking businessmen, some of whom are among the top international businessmen, diplomats, politicians, and scholarly individuals. Their U.S. counterparts are equally respected and recognizable; some of whom are high-level appointed bureaucrats within the State Department and the Pentagon; some are elected officials, and others consist of the combination of the two who have now set up their own companies and lobbying groups.

The American Turkish Council (ATC)

Operating tax-free and under the radar is one of the most powerful "non-profit" associations in the U.S., the American Turkish Council (ATC). Some who are familiar with its operations and players describe it as 'Mini AIPAC;' this description aces it. ATC followed the AIPAC model; with the direct help of AIPAC & JINSA, it created a base out of which to stretch its tentacles, reaching the highest echelons of our government. While the ATC is an association in name and in charter, the reality is that it and other affiliated associations are the U.S. government, lobbyists, foreign agents, and MIC. Investigative journalist, John Stanton, correctly describes the ATC as an extraordinary group of elite and interconnected Republicans, Democrats and corporate and military heavyweights who are spearheading one of the most ambitious strategic gambits in U.S. history.

Included in ATC's management, board of directors, and advisors; in addition to Turkish individuals of 'interest;' is a dizzying array of U.S. individuals. The ATC is led by Ret. General Brent Scowcroft, who serves as Chairman of the Board; George Perlman of Lockheed Martin, the Executive Vice President; other board members include: Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Ret. General Elmer Pendleton, Ret. General Joseph Ralston, Ret. Col. Preston Hughes, Alan Colegrove of Northrop Grumman, Frank Carlucci of Carlyle Group, Christine Vick of Cohen Group, Representative Robert Wexler, Former Rep. Ed WhitfieldBasically many formers; statesmen, 'dime a dozen generals,' and representatives.

On the members--paying clients * side; their list includes all the MIC's who's who, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman; the Washington Lobby scene's who's who; The Cohen Group, The Livingston Group, Washington Group International

Of course, there are also many Turkish companies that are members of the ATC. Most of these companies have branches and operations in Libya, Dubai, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. Although the official listings of their businesses are cited as 'construction,' 'real estate', 'manufacturing,' and 'tourism'; the main activities of these businesses are known to be related to global illegal arms sales and narcotic processing and trafficking. These companies provide necessary fronts and channels to launder proceeds. Curiously enough, hundreds of millions of dollars have been granted by the United States government, approved by the congress, to these Turkish companies under the guise of various 'U.S. Central Asian development programs;' and 'Iraq & Afghanistan reconstruction programs.'

Stanton notes: 'ATC is joined in the creation of the New EuroAsia by the American Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (AACC). AACC's Honorary Council of Advisors just happens to have General Scowcroft and the following persons of significance: Henry Kissinger and James Baker III. Former Council members include xxxx Cheney and Richard Armitage, and Board of Trustee members include media-overkill subject Richard Perle of AEI, and Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas.'