For Sale: West’s Deadly Nuclear Secrets

[Gold9472]

For Sale: West’s Deadly Nuclear Secrets

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3137695.ece

(Gold9472: WOW! - While Ahmad was in Washington D.C. during the week of 9/11/2001, his “most important meeting (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a090401mahmoodvisit#a090401mahmoo dvisit)” took place with Marc Grossman. If this (http://www.911blogger.com/node/6855) is any indication, Marc Grossman is the U.S. State Department official (ret.) mentioned in this article.)

1/6/2008

A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets.

Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.


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.

Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims.

However, Edmonds said: “He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”

She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials – including household names – who were aiding foreign agents.

“If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials,” she said.

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.

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.

Edmonds, a fluent speaker of Turkish and Farsi, was recruited by the FBI in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Her previous claims about incompetence inside the FBI have been well documented in America.

She has given evidence to closed sessions of Congress and the 9/11 commission, but many of the key points of her testimony have remained secret. She has now decided to divulge some of that information after becoming disillusioned with the US authorities’ failure to act.

One of Edmonds’s main roles in the FBI was to translate thousands of hours of conversations by Turkish diplomatic and political targets that had been covertly recorded by the agency.

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. Before she left the FBI in 2002 she 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.

They were helped, she says, by the high-ranking State Department official who provided some of their moles – mainly PhD students – with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities. These included the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear deterrent.

In one conversation Edmonds heard the official arranging to pick up a $15,000 cash bribe. The package was to be dropped off at an agreed location by someone in the Turkish diplomatic community who was working for the network.

The Turks, she says, often acted as a conduit for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, because they were less likely to attract suspicion. Venues such as the American Turkish Council in Washington were used to drop off the cash, which was picked up by the official.

Edmonds said: “I heard at least three transactions like this over a period of 2½ years. There are almost certainly more.”

The Pakistani operation was led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, then the ISI chief.

Intercepted communications showed Ahmad and his colleagues stationed in Washington were in constant contact with attachés in the Turkish embassy.

Intelligence analysts say that members of the ISI were close to Al-Qaeda before and after 9/11. Indeed, Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks.

The results of the espionage were almost certainly passed to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist.

Khan was close to Ahmad and the ISI. While running Pakistan’s nuclear programme, he became a millionaire by selling atomic secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. He also used a network of companies in America and Britain to obtain components for a nuclear programme.

Khan caused an alert among western intelligence agencies when his aides met Osama Bin Laden. “We were aware of contact between A Q Khan’s people and Al-Qaeda,” a former CIA officer said last week. “There was absolute panic when we initially discovered this, but it kind of panned out in the end.”

It is likely that the nuclear secrets stolen from the United States would have been sold to a number of rogue states by Khan.

Edmonds was later to see the scope of the Pakistani connections when it was revealed that one of her fellow translators at the FBI was the daughter of a Pakistani embassy official who worked for Ahmad. The translator was given top secret clearance despite protests from FBI investigators.

Edmonds says packages containing nuclear secrets were delivered by Turkish operatives, using their cover as members of the diplomatic and military community, to contacts at the Pakistani embassy in Washington.

Following 9/11, a number of the foreign operatives were taken in for questioning by the FBI on suspicion that they knew about or somehow aided the attacks.

Edmonds said the State Department official once again proved useful. “A primary target would call the official and point to names on the list and say, ‘We need to get them out of the US because we can’t afford for them to spill the beans’,” she said. “The official said that he would ‘take care of it’.”

The four suspects on the list were released from interrogation and extradited.

Edmonds also claims that a number of senior officials in the Pentagon had helped Israeli and Turkish agents.

“The people provided lists of potential moles from Pentagon-related institutions who had access to databases concerning this information,” she said.

“The handlers, who were part of the diplomatic community, would then try to recruit those people to become moles for the network. The lists contained all their ‘hooking points’, which could be financial or sexual pressure points, their exact job in the Pentagon and what stuff they had access to.”

One of the Pentagon figures under investigation was Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst, who was jailed in 2006 for passing US defence information to lobbyists and sharing classified information with an Israeli diplomat.

“He was one of the top people providing information and packages during 2000 and 2001,” she said.

Once acquired, the nuclear secrets could have gone anywhere. The FBI monitored Turkish diplomats who were selling copies of the information to the highest bidder.

Edmonds said: “Certain greedy Turkish operators would make copies of the material and look around for buyers. They had agents who would find potential buyers.”

In summer 2000, Edmonds says the FBI monitored one of the agents as he met two Saudi Arabian businessmen in Detroit to sell nuclear information that had been stolen from an air force base in Alabama. She overheard the agent saying: “We have a package and we’re going to sell it for $250,000.”

Edmonds’s employment with the FBI lasted for just six months. In March 2002 she was dismissed after accusing a colleague of covering up illicit activity involving Turkish nationals.

She has always claimed that she was victimised for being outspoken and was vindicated by an Office of the Inspector General review of her case three years later. It found that one of the contributory reasons for her sacking was that she had made valid complaints.

The US attorney-general has imposed a state secrets privilege order on her, which prevents her revealing more details of the FBI’s methods and current investigations.

Her allegations were heard in a closed session of Congress, but no action has been taken and she continues to campaign for a public hearing.

She was able to discuss the case with The Sunday Times because, by the end of January 2002, the justice department had shut down the programme.

The senior official in the State Department no longer works there. Last week he denied all of Edmonds’s allegations: “If you are calling me to say somebody said that I took money, that’s outrageous . . . I do not have anything to say about such stupid ridiculous things as this.”

In researching this article, The Sunday Times has talked to two FBI officers (one serving, one former) and two former CIA sources who worked on nuclear proliferation. While none was aware of specific allegations against officials she names, they did provide overlapping corroboration of Edmonds’s story.

One of the CIA sources confirmed that the Turks had acquired nuclear secrets from the United States and shared the information with Pakistan and Israel. “We have no indication that Turkey has its own nuclear ambitions. But the Turks are traders. To my knowledge they became big players in the late 1990s,” the source said.

How Pakistan got the bomb, then sold it to the highest bidders
1965 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s foreign minister, says: “If India builds the bomb we will eat grass . . . but we will get one of our own”

1974 Nuclear programme becomes increased priority as India tests a nuclear device

1976 Abdul Qadeer Khan, a scientist, steals secrets from Dutch uranium plant. Made head of his nation’s nuclear programme by Bhutto, now prime minister

1976 onwards Clandestine network established to obtain materials and technology for uranium enrichment from the West

1985 Pakistan produces weapons-grade uranium for the first time

1989-91 Khan’s network sells Iran nuclear weapons information and technology

1991-97 Khan sells weapons technology to North Korea and Libya

1998 India tests nuclear bomb and Pakistan follows with a series of nuclear tests. Khan says: “I never had any doubts I was building a bomb. We had to do it”

2001 CIA chief George Tenet gathers officials for crisis summit on the proliferation of nuclear technology from Pakistan to other countries

2001 Weeks before 9/11, Khan’s aides meet Osama Bin Laden to discuss an Al-Qaeda nuclear device

2001 After 9/11 proliferation crisis becomes secondary as Pakistan is seen as important ally in war on terror

2003 Libya abandons nuclear weapons programme and admits acquiring components through Pakistani nuclear scientists

2004 Khan placed under house arrest and confesses to supplying Iran, Libya and North Korea with weapons technology. He is pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf

2006 North Korea tests a nuclear bomb

2007 Renewed fears that bomb may fall into hands of Islamic extremists as killing of Benazir Bhutto throws country into turmoil

[Gold9472]

http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=81176&postcount=4

But the most important meeting was with Mark Grossman, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. US sources would not furnish any details beyond saying that the two discussed 'matters of mutual interests.'

[Gold9472]

Luke Ryland told me "btw - it most definitely is Grossman."

[simuvac]

Wow is right.

More like, holy fucking shit.

Let's see if CNN runs the story...

[Gold9472]

Marc Grossman is also neck deep involved in the Valerie Plame affair. I have an entire library with regard to that mess...

http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3246

[Gold9472]

Wow is right.

More like, holy fucking shit.

Let's see if CNN runs the story...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Oh. You were serious.

[Gold9472]

http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14819

Essentially, there is only one investigation – a very big one, an all-inclusive one... But I can tell you there are a lot of people involved, a lot of ranking officials, and a lot of illegal activities that include multi-billion-dollar drug-smuggling operations, black-market nuclear sales to terrorists and unsavory regimes, you name it... 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.

[simuvac]

I'm going to email this story to some news outlets. You all might try to do the same. Maybe somebody will run it.

[Gold9472]

I just sent the story out to the media.

[Gold9472]

US officials helped Pak steal nuke secrets: Report

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/US_officials_helped_Pak_steal_nuke_secrets_Report/articleshow/2678687.cms

6 Jan 2008, 1446 hrs IST,PTI

LONDON: Senior US officials have helped Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets, a whistlebloweer has claimed.

Intercepted communications showed former ISI chief Mahmoud Ahmad and his colleagues stationed in Washington were in constant contact with attaches in the Turkish embassy, according to The Sunday Times.

Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency's Washington field office, it said.

She approached the newspaper last month after reading about an Al-Qaida terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

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.

According to Edmonds, she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

Intelligence analysts said that members of the ISI were close to al-Qaeda before and after the 9/11 attacks on the US. Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a 100,000 dollars wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks, the report said.

The newspaper claimed that it knew the name of the official, who has held a series of top government posts, but he strongly denies the claims.

[Gold9472]

If the Times Of India "backed away" from the wire transfer claim, like some people say, this story would have been a perfect opportunity for them to voice their concerns.

[Gold9472]

Report: FBI translator says Israel planted nuclear 'moles' in U.S.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/942027.html

By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service
Tags: Pakistan, Turkey, FBI

A Britsh newspaper on Sunday published allegations by a former FBI translator that Israel has planted "moles" in United States institutions dealing with nuclear technology.

According to the report in The Sunday Times, Sibel Edmonds worked on translating "thousands of hours of conversations by Turkish diplomatic and political targets" that had been secretly taped by the FBI.

The report says that the recordings, which go back more than 10 years, were used in an FBI investigation "into links between the Turks and Pakistani, Israeli and U.S. targets."

The Times also says that Edmonds had claimed there were "senior officials in the Pentagon" who had provided assistance to Israeli and Turkish agents.

Edmonds also claims, according to The Sunday Times, that the "moles," mainly PhD students, received assistance from a "high-ranking State Department official" who gave them security clearance to work in "sensitive nuclear research facilities."

The paper says that among these institutions was the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is "responsible for the security of the U.S. nuclear deterrent."

According to Edmonds, the FBI investigation also stretches to the Pentagon. She also claims the involvement of former Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin, jailed in 2006 for delivering U.S. defense information to lobbyists and sharing classified information with an Israeli diplomat.

The Times quotes her as saying that Franklin "was one of the top people providing information and packages during 2000 and 2001."

[Gold9472]

Dumb question. If Sibel Edmonds testified for 3 1/2 hours before the 9/11 Commission, and mentioned this information regarding Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad (which I'm assuming she did), and the 9/11 Commission was also given the information regarding the $100,000 wire transfer by the families to investigate, and the 9/11 Commission STILL omitted any information about Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad from the 9/11 Report, and to my knowledge, didn't even bother investigating any of the allegations, then... isn't that a blatant cover-up? Doesn't this further illustrate how ridiculously inadequate and compromised the 9/11 Commission actually was? Why would ANY legitimate investigation into 9/11 attacks not think that Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad wasn't worth looking into? It's absurd.

[Gold9472]

Where's the press? The silence is deafening.

[Gold9472]

Nukes, Spooks, and the Specter of 9/11
We're in big trouble if even half of what Sibel Edmonds says is true…

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12166

by Justin Raimondo
1/7/2008

"The next president may have to deal with a nuclear attack," averred ABC's Charles Gibson at Saturday night's Democratic presidential debate. "The day after a nuclear weapon goes off in an American city, what would we wish we had done to prevent it and what will we actually do on the day after?"

It's a question that frightens everyone, and one to which there is no easy answer: none of the candidates really rose to the occasion, and most seemed baffled. Hillary Clinton made sure she used the word "retaliation" with unusual emphasis, and when pressed on the question of how she would retaliate against "stateless" terrorists nevertheless insisted that she would indeed retaliate against someone, because the perpetrators had to have a "haven" somewhere within a state.

Yes, well, that's not necessarily true, but what if that "haven" is… right here in the U.S.? Or, perhaps, in a NATO country, say, Turkey?

Say what?

Impossible, you say? Not if you believe Sibel Edmonds, a former translator for the FBI who listened in on hundreds of telephone intercepts and has now told the London Times that several top U.S. government officials conspired with foreign agents to steal U.S. nuclear secrets and sell them on the black market. The Times reports:

"Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of U.S. officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

"Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the U.S. State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan. The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims. However, Edmonds said: 'He was aiding foreign operatives against U.S. interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.'

"She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials – including household names – who were aiding foreign agents. 'If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials,' she said."

Edmonds brought all this to the attention of lawmakers, as well as the American media, and several news organizations filed reports – until a federal judge issued an unprecedented gag order. Edmonds' story was deemed too hot to handle: if the public were allowed to know what she knows, according to our government, America's national security would be severely impaired. Yet now she is speaking out, and what she has to say is unsettling, to say the least.

Edmonds has named at least one of the officials: he is Marc Grossman, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, assistant secretary of state for European affairs under the Clinton administration and undersecretary of state for political affairs from 2001-2005. Grossman is now vice chairman of The Cohen Group, a consulting firm founded by Bill Clinton's defense secretary, William S. Cohen.

Edmonds contends that an international nuclear smuggling ring, associated with the intelligence agencies of Pakistan, Turkey, and Israel, has been permitted to operate in the U.S. with impunity. Our government, she claims, knew all about it yet, in order to placate the foreign governments involved, allowed a vast criminal enterprise to carry out its activities, including money laundering, narcotics trafficking, and espionage involving efforts to steal U.S. nuclear technology.

As a translator for the FBI, Edmonds had the task of translating many hours of intercepted phone conversations between Turkish officials and Pakistanis, Israelis, and Americans who were targets of the FBI's counterintelligence unit. Thousands of hours of intercepted calls revealed a network of moles placed in various military installations and academic venues dealing with nuclear technology. Edmonds gives us the details, via the Times:

"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.

"They were helped, she says, by the high-ranking State Department official [Marc Grossman] who provided some of their moles – mainly Ph.D. students – with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities. These included the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the U.S. nuclear deterrent."

And "while the FBI was investigating," says Edmonds, "several arms of the government were shielding what was going on." An entire wing of the national security bureaucracy, associated with the neoconservatives, has long profited from representing Turkish interests in Washington: this group includes not only Grossman, but also Paul Wolfowitz, chief intellectual architect of the Iraq war and ex-World Bank president; former deputy defense secretary for policy Douglas J. Feith; Feith's successor, Eric Edelman; and Richard Perle, the notorious uber-neocon whose unique ability to mix profiteering and warmongering forced him to resign his official capacity as a key administration adviser.

Edmonds draws a picture of a three-sided alliance consisting of Turkish, Pakistani, and Israeli agents who coordinated efforts to milk U.S. nuclear secrets and technology, funneling the intelligence stream to the black market nuclear network set up by the Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan. The multi-millionaire Pakistani nuclear scientist then turned around and sold his nuclear assets to North Korea, Libya, and Iran.

This was no "rogue" operation, but a covert action executed by Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, the chief of Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, at the time. The Turks were used as intermediaries because direct ISI intervention would have roused immediate suspicion. Large amounts of cash were dropped off at the offices of Turkish-American lobbying groups, such as the American Turkish Council in Washington, which was reportedly picked up by at least one top U.S. official.

This Pakistani-Turkish-Israeli Axis of Espionage, operating through their respective embassies, systematically combed Washington officialdom for potential moles, compiling lists that, according to Edmonds and the Times, "contained all their 'hooking points,' which could be financial or sexual pressure points, their exact job in the Pentagon and what stuff they had access to." Nice work, there.

This sounds a lot like the setup the handlers of convicted spy Larry Franklin worked with to glean information from the rabidly pro-Israel Franklin and pass it off to Israeli embassy officials, including former Israeli ambassador Danny Ayalon; Naor Gilon, the former political officer at the embassy; and Rafi Barak, the former deputy chief of mission. And there is indeed a connection to the Franklin case, according to the Times,

"One of the Pentagon figures under investigation was Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst, who was jailed in 2006 for passing U.S. defense information to lobbyists and sharing classified information with an Israeli diplomat. 'He was one of the top people providing information and packages during 2000 and 2001,' [Edmonds] said."

Franklin delivered his "packages" to AIPAC officials Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman and their Israeli handlers for ideological reasons, but others, such as Grossman – according to Edmonds – did it for money. Grossman angrily denies the charge. In any case, apparently large cash transactions were recorded on the tapes Edmonds translated, in which U.S. officials were heard selling the nation's nuclear secrets. As the Times relates:

"Well-known U.S. officials were then bribed by foreign agents to steal U.S. nuclear secrets. One such incident from 2000 involves an agent overheard on a wiretap discussing 'nuclear information that had been stolen from an air force base in Alabama,' in which the agent allegedly is heard saying: 'We have a package and we're going to sell it for $250,000.'"

A vast criminal enterprise supported by at least three foreign intelligence agencies acting in concert with top U.S. officials, including some "household names" – if true, it's the story of the decade. Yet that isn't all. The really scary aspect of this labyrinthine network of foreign agents, and their American dupes and collaborators, is its connections to terrorist organizations, specifically al-Qaeda.

To begin with, Gen. Ahmad is suspected of having wired a large amount of money into Mohammed Atta's Dubai bank account shortly before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. More ominously, the Times reports: "Following 9/11, a number of the foreign operatives were taken in for questioning by the FBI on suspicion that they knew about or somehow aided the attacks."

Pakistani and/or Turkish operatives arrested or held for questioning in the wake of the 9/11 attacks? Well, that's the first I've heard of it. However, the U.S. authorities did round up a large number of Israelis, including these guys, and held them for several months before extraditing them back to their home country.

Even more alarming is the reason Edmonds approached the Times with the story, "after reading about an al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey." That's a reference to this Nov. 2 story in the Times, which details the career of a top al-Qaeda kingpin, one Louai al-Sakka, who claims to have trained several of the 9/11 hijackers at a camp situated outside Istanbul in the resort area of the Yalova mountains.

Now that's curious: a Muslim fundamentalist training camp in a country run by a fanatically secular military that would normally not tolerate such activities. As the Times puts it: "Turkish intelligence were aware of unusual militant Islamic activity in the Yalova mountains, where Sakka had set up his camps. But they posed no threat to Turkey at the time."

Not a threat to Turkey, eh? All too true: the terrorists' target was the U.S. The al-Qaeda recruits trained by Sakka were specifically chosen by the top leadership of al-Qaeda – i.e., bin Laden – to carry out the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. That they were nurtured and steeled for their mission under the noses of our NATO allies in Ankara seems bizarre – until one begins to take Sibel Edmonds seriously. Then the whole horrifying picture starts to fall into place.

The darkest secrets of 9/11 are buried at the end of the trail laid out in Edmonds' testimony. As Luke Ryland, the world's foremost expert on the Edmonds case, writes:

"The Times article then notes something that I reported 18 months ago. Immediately after 911, the FBI arrested a bunch of people suspected of being involved with the attacks – including four associates of key targets of FBI's counterintelligence operations. Sibel heard the targets tell Marc Grossman: 'We need to get them out of the U.S. because we can't afford for them to spill the beans.' Grossman duly facilitated their release from jail and the suspects immediately left the country without further investigation or interrogation.

"Let me repeat that for emphasis: The #3 guy at the State Dept. facilitated the immediate release of 911 suspects at the request of targets of the FBI's investigation."

Corruption and a massive cover-up organized at the highest levels of government – America's nuclear secrets and technology looted on a massive scale, and sold to our enemies via a network set up by our alleged foreign "friends," while the threat of nuclear terrorism hangs over our country like a thick fog of fear, and warmongering politicians scare us into going along with the program – if even half of what Edmonds alleges turns out to be true, then we are all in some very big trouble.

In light of the Edmonds revelations, we have to reconsider the implications of the question Charles Gibson opened with during the ABC Democratic debate:

"The day after a nuclear weapon goes off in an American city, what would we wish we had done to prevent it and what will we actually do on the day after?"

Perhaps congressman Henry Waxman, who solemnly pledged to launch a public investigation into the allegations made by Edmonds, will wish he had kept his promise. Maybe even the national news media, which has been offered this story repeatedly, by Ms. Edmonds and her supporters, will wish they had covered it.

Fortunately, we don't need the "mainstream" media to get the truth out to the American people. With the new technology of the computer age, we can do an end run around the media. This YouTube video is shocking:

Click Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Cm-uRQmfUU&) (GooTube)

As Edmonds says, "we have the facts, we have the documents, we have the witnesses. Put out the tapes, put out the documents, put out the intercepts – put out the truth."

If a nuke ever goes off in an American city, it will probably have been stolen from our own arsenal – once the American people wake up to that scary fact, the rest will follow automatically.

[Gold9472]

Whistleblower accuses Turkish diplomats

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=93008

Monday, January 7, 2008

A former Turkish language translator for the FBI has claimed that some United States government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to “steal nuclear weapons secrets.”

Sibel Edmonds, 37, said “Turkish agents in Washington” were also involved, adding that a “well-known senior official in the U.S. State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.”

Edmonds has been quoted as saying by The Sunday Times, that the official, whose name is withheld by the British paper, was “aiding foreign operatives against U.S. interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”

Claiming that the FBI was gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials “who were aiding foreign agents” while she still worked as a translator, Edmonds said, “If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials.”

She added that Turks often acted as “a conduit for Pakistan's intelligence agency” and venues such as the American-Turkish Council in Washington were used to exchange cash. Edmonds also alleged Pakistanis in pursuit of nuclear secrets were “in constant contact with the Turkish embassy.”

Edmonds, who also speaks Farsi, was recruited by the FBI in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Her main job was to translate conversations by Turkish diplomatic and political targets that had been covertly recorded by the agency, The Sunday Times wrote. She left the FBI in 2002, after six months, allegedly after becoming “disillusioned with the U.S. authorities' failure to act” against terrorism. Her allegations were heard in a closed session of the U.S. Congress, but no action has been taken and she continues to campaign for a public hearing.

[Gold9472]

West’s deadly N-secrets for sale
Former FBI official says she heard evidence that a US official was being paid by Turkish agents to get information

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C01%5C07%5Cstory_7-1-2008_pg7_10

Daily Times Monitor
1/7/2008

LAHORE: A whistleblower has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets, according to a Sunday Times article.

Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, who had listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office, approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

The newspaper quoted Edmonds as describing how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

Selling information: “Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan,” the Times said.

The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims, the paper said.

However, the article reported Edmonds as saying: “He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”

“She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials – including household names – who were aiding foreign agents,” the article read.

“If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials,” the Times reported Edmonds as saying.

“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,” the Times said.

“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. Before she left the FBI in 2002 she heard evidence that pointed to money laundering, drug imports and attempts to acquire nuclear and conventional weapons technology,” the Times said.

“What I found was damning. While the FBI was investigating, several arms of the government were shielding what was going on,” Edmonds was reported as saying.

“The Turks, she says, often acted as a conduit for the ISI, because they were less likely to attract suspicion. Venues such as the American Turkish Council in Washington were used to drop off the cash, which was picked up by the official,” the paper said.

“I heard at least three transactions like this over a period of 2½ years. There are almost certainly more,” the Times quoted Edmonds as saying.

[Gold9472]

Sibel Edmonds Speaks...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/sibel-edmonds-speaks_b_80077.html

Larisa Alexandrovna
Posted January 6, 2008 | 03:18 PM (EST)

Sibel Edmonds, the FBI whistle-blower who has been gagged for years by the Bush administration over intercepts she translated while at the bureau, was willing to go to prison to get her story told. She spent years trying to get her day in court, but the State Secrets gag against her prohibited her from telling her story even to a FISA judge. After years of trying to fight her way to through the maze of the US court system, Sibel Edmonds finally decided to tell her story no matter the consequences and offered to do so to any interested US media outlets.

Today, part of that story runs, but not in the United States, where not a single corporate outlet was willing to displease the White House and give Edmonds a platform. The Sunday Times Online, however, proved up to the task - somewhat. Here are the snips from that article:

"A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets.

Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency's Washington field office.

She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

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.

Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

The name of the official - who has held a series of top government posts - is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims.

However, Edmonds said: "He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives."

Let me help the Times here. The person against whom these allegations are being made is Marc Grossman. The Times could have published the name and also provided the denial from Grossman's camp. I find it incredibly disturbing that they would not name the official.

"She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials - including household names - who were aiding foreign agents.

"If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials," she said.

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."

Those senior DOD officials who are not mentioned in the Times article, all but one are no longer in government. They are alleged to be Doug Feith, Richard Perle, among others. There is also one person who is part of these allegations, still serving in a high level position at the DOD. His last name begins with an E.

I have tried getting someone in broadcast and print media to run this story. My sources did not include Edmonds, but because of the sensitive nature of the information, I was concerned that she would go to jail anyway, unless I proved she was not a source - which would require me to reveal my sources.

I thought if I approached a big enough news outlet, the pressure generated by the public response would spare Edmonds jail time and I would not be pressured to reveal sources - something I would not have done anyway. Even a former high ranking CIA officer offered to byline the article with me if that would help sell a broadcaster/publication on running the story. No one was interested.

That the Times ran these allegations (she is under a state secrets gag folks, so it is not like she is gagged for lying) is encouraging. But that they omitted all names from the allegations is unethical. The point of a free press is not to protect the powerful against the weak, but to protect the public from the powerful. The Times was willing to stick a toe in, but was not willing to risk upsetting a foreign government (This is, after all, a British paper).

There are more names, including members of Congress and people serving in the FBI. This is what happens when basic government services as well as the most sensitive government functions are outsourced to the global marketplace.

Back to the Times article, which toward the end illustrates that someone in the editorial offices located a backbone, even if temporarily:


"She has given evidence to closed sessions of Congress and the 9/11 commission, but many of the key points of her testimony have remained secret. She has now decided to divulge some of that information after becoming disillusioned with the US authorities' failure to act.

One of Edmonds's main roles in the FBI was to translate thousands of hours of conversations by Turkish diplomatic and political targets that had been covertly recorded by the agency.

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.

They were helped, she says, by the high-ranking State Department official who provided some of their moles - mainly PhD students - with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities. These included the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear deterrent.

In one conversation Edmonds heard the official arranging to pick up a $15,000 cash bribe. The package was to be dropped off at an agreed location by someone in the Turkish diplomatic community who was working for the network.

Let me again offer help to the good folks at the Times. The person in question is a Turkish military official who at that time also happened to sit on the board of a particular defense contracting firm.


"The Turks, she says, often acted as a conduit for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's spy agency, because they were less likely to attract suspicion. Venues such as the American Turkish Council in Washington were used to drop off the cash, which was picked up by the official.

Edmonds said: "I heard at least three transactions like this over a period of 2½ years. There are almost certainly more."

The Pakistani operation was led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, then the ISI chief."

Now, who is General Mahmoud Ahmad?


"Intelligence analysts say that members of the ISI were close to Al-Qaeda before and after 9/11. Indeed, Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks."

You can see why Edmonds had to be silenced for "diplomatic reasons." As though diplomatic (read: business) relationships are more important than national security. Let me give you one more snip from this incredible article (minus the censorship):


"Khan was close to Ahmad and the ISI. While running Pakistan's nuclear programme, he became a millionaire by selling atomic secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. He also used a network of companies in America and Britain to obtain components for a nuclear programme.

Khan caused an alert among western intelligence agencies when his aides met Osama Bin Laden. "We were aware of contact between A Q Khan's people and Al-Qaeda," a former CIA officer said last week. "There was absolute panic when we initially discovered this, but it kind of panned out in the end."

It is likely that the nuclear secrets stolen from the United States would have been sold to a number of rogue states by Khan.

Edmonds was later to see the scope of the Pakistani connections when it was revealed that one of her fellow translators at the FBI was the daughter of a Pakistani embassy official who worked for Ahmad. The translator was given top secret clearance despite protests from FBI investigators.

Edmonds says packages containing nuclear secrets were delivered by Turkish operatives, using their cover as members of the diplomatic and military community, to contacts at the Pakistani embassy in Washington.

Following 9/11, a number of the foreign operatives were taken in for questioning by the FBI on suspicion that they knew about or somehow aided the attacks.

Edmonds said the State Department official once again proved useful. "A primary target would call the official and point to names on the list and say, 'We need to get them out of the US because we can't afford for them to spill the beans'," she said. "The official said that he would 'take care of it'."

Read the whole thing. I urge you to print it, email it, share it with everyone you know. Edmonds has said enough now that she may very likely go to prison, but she is a true patriot and she must have our support, in the media and also in the public sphere.

[Gold9472]

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsAndRetailNews/idUSL0762166620080107

Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds says Turkey plays major role in trading nuclear secrets.

[Gold9472]

Wow. Reuters devoted a whole sentence.

[Gold9472]

Nuke deal scandal hits US official

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=37810&sectionid=3510203

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:21:44

An FBI whistleblower has revealed that US government officials sold nuclear weapon secrets to foreign costumers on the black market.

Sibel Edmonds, a former Turkish language translator for the FBI, said during hours of covert tape recordings she heard that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was passing foreign operatives highly classified information, from the State Department and the Pentagon, The Sunday Times reported.

Edmonds said she heard many conversations during which the US official arranged to pick up huge amounts of money in exchange for secret packages that were dropped at agreed locations and added that there were several such transactions of nuclear material every month.

According to one of the CIA sources the Turks had acquired nuclear secrets from the United States and shared the information with Pakistan and Israel.

The former FBI translator said Pakistani agents were among the eventual buyers and added that members of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) or Pakistan's spy agency were close to al-Qaeda before and after the 9/11.

Indeed, General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of the agency was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks.

Edmonds added that when after 9/11 foreign operatives were taken in for questioning, the State Department official said "We need to get them out of the US because we can't afford for them to spill the beans."

The four suspects on the list were released from interrogation and extradited from the country immediately afterwards.

The report added the name of the official, who has held a series of top government posts, is known to The Sunday Times; however, he strongly denies the claims.

[Gold9472]

FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds 'Names' Names
21 Photos Placed Onto a 'States Secrets Privilege Gallery' Page at the 'Gagged' Former Translator's Website...And 'Everybody Knows'...

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5521

1/7/2008

Sibel Edmonds is now naming names. 21 of them.

Or rather, just 21 photographs. On a page. Without comment. At her JustACitizen.com website. The page is simply titled "Sibel Edmonds’ State Secrets Privilege Gallery (http://www.justacitizen.com/images/Gallery%20Draft2%20for%20Web.htm)". (Screenshot at right.)

Surely there's nothing violative about that, right? Rogues gallery though it may be.

Sibel maven, Luke Ryland, has done us the favor of putting names to the faces, adding that "we can reasonably presume that they are the 21 guilty people in her case."

Here are those names, sectioned into three groups, as Edmonds has grouped the photos in her own "Gallery":

Current and former Pentagon and State Department officials...

Richard Perle
Douglas Feith
Eric Edelman
Marc Grossman
Brent Scowcroft
Larry Franklin
Current and former congressmen...

Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Ex-House Speaker
Roy Blount (R-MO)
Dan Burton (R-IN)
Tom Lantos (D-CA)
(Photo simply a box with question mark in it)
Bob Livingston (R-LA), Ex-House Speaker
Stephen Solarz (D-NY)
The 3rd group includes people who all appear to work at think tanks - primarily WINEP, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Graham E. Fuller - RAND
David Makovsky - WINEP
Alan Makovsky - WINEP
(Photo simply a box with question mark in it)
(Photo simply a box with question mark in it)
Yusuf Turani (President-in-exile, Turkistan)
Professor Sabri Sayari (Georgetown, WINEP)
Mehmet Eymur (Former Turkish Spy Chief MIT)
If you've yet to read yesterday's blockbuster report (http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5518) (and the several updates added throughout the day), please do.

And then, with facts and faces and names in mind...there's this to ponder over your breakfast, lunch, dinner or nightmare. Also courtesy of the good Mr. Ryland, as originally posted last Summer, if somehow more fitting of late, as the noose begins to tighten...

[PhilosophyGenius]

http://www.putz-max.at/admin/upload/man_head_spinning_lg_nwm_26695.gif

[Gold9472]

‘Corrupt US officials helped Pak steal N-weapons secret’

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2008/20080107/world.htm

London, January 6

Senior US officials helped Pakistan to steal atomic weapons secrets through Turkish agents in exchange for money and other benefits, with ISI passing on the sensitive information to the now disgraced nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, a media report claimed here today.

Intercepted communications showed that former ISI chief Mahmoud Ahmad and his colleagues, stationed in Washington, were in constant contact with attaches in the Turkish embassy, according to The Sunday Times.

The paper reported the account of whistle blower Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, who listened to hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

She approached the newspaper last month after reading about an Al-Qaida terrorist, who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of the US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

According to Edmonds, she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington, who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

Intelligence analysts said members of the ISI were close to Al-Qaida before and after the 9/11 attacks on the US.

Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a $ 1,00,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks, the report said. — PTI

[Gold9472]

The Bomb in the Shadows: Proliferation, Corruption and the Way of the World

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2008/011008Floyd.shtml

by Chris Floyd
1/11/2007

This week, the Sunday Times lifted the lid on one of the most important stories of the last quarter-century: how American officials sold nuclear arms technology to illegal proliferators -- including ideological allies of al Qaeda -- in return for bribes.Tuesday, 08 January 2008—This week, the Sunday Times lifted the lid on one of the most important stories of the last quarter-century: how American officials sold nuclear arms technology to illegal proliferators -- including ideological allies of al Qaeda -- in return for bribes and other inducements. This widespread corruption has been protected from exposure by the highest levels of the U.S. government, which has gone to enormous lengths to protect the truth from coming out. The entire planet has been put at grave risk by the greed -- and geopolitical gamesmanship -- that lies behind this criminal enterprise, which actually is even more extensive, and goes back further in time, than the newspaper's remarkable revelations.

The Sunday Times story is based on the evidence provided by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, who has been subjected to an unprecedented campaign of state-enforced muzzling by the Bush Administration since she first tried to speak out about the corrupt connections between American officials and foreign agents she discovered when reviewing transcripts associated with the 9/11 investigation. As even the leaders of the whitewashing 9/11 Commission themselves now admit, that investigation was deliberately sabotaged by the Bush Administration – in part to cover up the nuclear proliferation network that has directly or indirectly enriched so many in the American elite over the past decades – including the sitting president of the United States, George W. Bush.

BCCI was a prime vehicle for clandestine nuclear proliferation, among many other illegal activities, and was also used by the CIA and the White House for various covert operations, including secret military and financial support for Saddam Hussein.Edmonds' revelations should be seen in their larger historical context, as an outgrowth of the activities of BCCI, the "Bank of Credit and Commercial International," a supposed financial group that a U.S. Senate investigation called "one of the largest criminal enterprises in history." BCCI was a prime vehicle for clandestine nuclear proliferation, among many other illegal activities, and was also used by the CIA and the White House for various covert operations, including secret military and financial support for Saddam Hussein. It also paid numerous grandees of the Democratic and Republican parties to front its operations – and gave George W. Bush $25 million to rescue one of his many business failures.

Although BCCI as a "bank" eventually failed, spectacularly, costing its unsuspecting customers more than $10 billion, almost no one was punished for its myriad crimes, and the full extent of the organization's activities continue to be shielded by the many national governments that became entangled in its operations, including the United States and Great Britain, where the Labour government has made extraordinary interventions in court cases to protect BCCI's secrets, invoking the most draconian state secret laws to quash a lawsuit against the Bank of England for the blind but knowing eye that the regulator turned toward BCCI's deadly fraud.

Before exploring these deeper connections further, let's review the tip of the iceberg that Edmonds has courageously exposed, despite the very real threat of retaliation from the U.S. government. From the Times:

"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. Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

"The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims. However, Edmonds said: 'He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.'

"She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials – including household names – who were aiding foreign agents. 'If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials,' she said."
Edmonds goes on to provide details of the operation, which "appeared to be obtaining information from every nuclear agency in the United States," under the protection of Pentagon and State Department officials. Turkish and Israeli cut-outs were used to get nuclear info to the ultimate recipient, Pakistan's intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and Abdul Qadeer Khan, "father" of Pakistan's nuclear bomb. As the Times notes:

"The Pakistani operation was led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, then the ISI chief...Intelligence analysts say that members of the ISI were close to Al-Qaeda before and after 9/11. Indeed, Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks.

"The results of the espionage were almost certainly passed to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist. Khan was close to Ahmad and the ISI. While running Pakistan's nuclear programme, he became a millionaire by selling atomic secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. He also used a network of companies in America and Britain to obtain components for a nuclear programme. Khan caused an alert among western intelligence agencies when his aides met Osama Bin Laden."
While the Times declined to name the top State Department official cited by Edmonds, elsewhere she has said it was Mark Grossman, "former #3 at the State Department, former ambassador to Turkey, and current Vice President at The Cohen Group, the lobbying company run by former Secretary of Defense William Cohen," notes the blogger Lukery, who has long done sterling service in publicizing Edmonds' plight and her revelations – which, as Lukery notes, are not confined to the nuclear proliferation angle featured in the Sunday Times.

Lukery goes on to note that the other "household names" mentioned by Edmonds include "Richard Perle and Douglas Feith and possibly Paul Wolfowitz. Less familiar names include Eric Edelman, Feith's replacement at the Pentagon, and former Congressman Stephen Solarz."

Lukery also zeroes in on this telling revelation:

"The Times article then notes something that I reported 18 months ago. Immediately after 911, the FBI arrested a bunch of people suspected of being involved with the attacks -- including four associates of key targets of FBI's counterintelligence operations. Sibel heard the targets tell Marc Grossman: 'We need to get them out of the US because we can't afford for them to spill the beans.' Grossman duly facilitated their release from jail and the suspects immediately left the country without further investigation or interrogation.

"Let me repeat that for emphasis: The #3 guy at the State Dept facilitated the immediate release of 9/11 suspects at the request of targets of the FBI's investigation."
(Grossman has denied all of Edmonds' allegations, telling the Sunday Times: "If you are calling me to say somebody said that I took money, that’s outrageous . . . I do not have anything to say about such stupid ridiculous things as this.")

The nuclear proliferation-for-profit ring is just one of the criminal operations that a genuine investigation of the 9/11 attacks would bring to light. Because once you start exploring any part of the dark nexus where so much of the world's business is really conducted – the shadowlands where covert operations, criminal networks, terrorism, high finance and state policy mingle, and battle, in profitable murk – all manner of chicanery is bound to emerge. And so, much as the probe into the assassination of John Kennedy was short-circuited in part to prevent exposure of a wide range of "black ops" involving the U.S. government, the Mob and other unsavoury players, so too the 9/11 attacks will never receive a full, unfettered investigation, but will remain forever – and deliberately – a matter of dispute, breeding arrant crankery and disturbing truth in equal measure, with the latter always tarred and obscured by the former.

This is also true, in some respects, of the 1992 U.S. Senate investigation into what was known as "the BCCI Affair," which left several stones unturned and many questions unanswered. There are two main differences, however. First, the Senate investigation – although it operated within fairly circumscribed limits, pulled many punches, and shied away from some evidence that clearly led to the highest echelons of government -- was actually much more thorough than the official probes of the Kennedy assassination and 9/11. And second, unlike those two investigations, which continue to generate heated interest year after year, the BCCI Affair has been almost completely erased from public memory. Yet a grasp of BCCI's operations – many of which simply continued in other guises when the "bank" itself disappeared – is essential to understanding much of what is happening in the political world today, including Edmonds' revelations.

(The amnesia surrounding BCCI is even more remarkable when you consider that the man who led the 1992 probe – which turned up so much dirt involving the first Bush administration – was none other than Senator John Kerry. Yet Kerry – who knew where so many Bush bones were buried, and who had once displayed genuine moral courage in denouncing the Vietnam War after his service there – used none of this knowledge, and showed none of this courage, when seeking to oust the second Bush Administration, which retained many tainted figures from the first reign, and was headed by a man who had taken millions of dollars from BCCI. Instead Kerry spent the campaign – as he had spent much of his Senate career – trying to prove to the corporate and militarist elite that he was a "safe pair of hands," someone who wouldn't really rock the boat or kill the elite's flock of golden geese. Having thus disarmed himself, he failed to generate the landslide he would have needed to overcome the Bush Faction's election-skewing machinery – although it is very likely that Kerry would have won the election anyway had Ohio's votes been counted fairly. But here too he folded and refused to fight, choosing, like Al Gore before him, not to risk his insider status with a serious, genuine challenge to the system.)

The full details of BCCI's origins and activities – and its bipartisan corruption of American politics – can be found in the Senate report of its investigation, which is available in full at the website of the Federation of American Scientists. It is a long report, but repays reading. The extent of the criminality and moral corruption it documents is truly mind-boggling. Below is a very brief précis of the Senate's findings.

BCCI was founded by Pakistan tycoon Agha Hasan Abedi, who used what Senate investigators called his "extraordinary personal charisma" to charm his way into friendships with the world's global elite, including U.S. President Jimmy Carter and, more crucially for the operation's development, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, the illiterate ruler of Abu Dhabi, who had been installed as leader of the oil-rich state in 1966, after the British engineered a coup against his brother. Abedi became in effect the personal manager of Sheik Zayed's money – and the vast wealth of Abu Dhabi – which he used to fund the creation of BCCI.

As described by the Senate, BCCI's organization set-up sounds remarkably like the one set up later by Bush Family paymaster Ken Lay with his Enron Corporation:

"BCCI was from its earliest days made up of multiplying layers of entities, related to one another through an impenetrable series of holding companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, banks-within-banks, insider dealings and nominee relationships. By fracturing corporate structure, record keeping, regulatory review, and audits, the complex BCCI family of entities created by Abedi was able to evade ordinary legal restrictions on the movement of capital and goods as a matter of daily practice and routine. In creating BCCI as a vehicle fundamentally free of government control, Abedi developed in BCCI an ideal mechanism for facilitating illicit activity by others, including such activity by officials of many of the governments whose laws BCCI was breaking."
And what were the illicit activities that BCCI facilitated for its entangled crime gangs and government agents? The Senate report:

"BCCI's criminality included fraud by BCCI and BCCI customers involving billions of dollars; money laundering in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas; BCCI's bribery of officials in most of those locations; support of terrorism, arms trafficking, and the sale of nuclear technologies; management of prostitution; the commission and facilitation of income tax evasion, smuggling, and illegal immigration; illicit purchases of banks and real estate; and a panoply of financial crimes limited only by the imagination of its officers and customers."
The Senate investigators found that the CIA lied about is extensive, long-term contacts with BCCI, although the Kerry panel often couched this flagrant falsehood in more decorous tones, e.g., "the CIA inadvertently failed" to tell the proper federal officials about BCCI's criminal activities (emphasis added). Still, much of the findings are straightforward on this point: "After the CIA knew that BCCI was as an institution a fundamentally corrupt criminal enterprise, it continued to use both BCCI and First American, BCCI's secretly held U.S. subsidiary, for CIA operations."

The criminals of BCCI were intimately involved in the execution of U.S. foreign policy during the Reagan-Bush administrations, including the Iran-Contra scandal, in which Reagan officials shipped weapons to American hostage-takers in Iran in exchange for clandestine cash for the terrorist army it was using to wage proxy war against Nicaragua. When George Bush Sr. became president, BCCI became a primary conduit for funneling secret aid to Saddam Hussein. The organization also received extraordinary protection from the White House when lower-level federal prosecutors began indicting BCCI associates for laundering drug cartel money and running guns and money to Iraq.

As I have noted elsewhere, the Italian bank BNL was one of BCCI's main tentacles. BNL's Atlanta branch was the primary conduit used to send millions of secret dollars to Saddam for arms purchases, including deadly chemicals and other WMD materials supplied by the Chilean arms dealer Cardoen and various politically-connected operators in the United States like, weapons merchant Matrix Churchill.

When three BNL officials were indicted in 1991 for a fraud scam used to mask payments to Saddam, Bush I moved to throttle the investigation. He appointed lawyers from both Cardoen and Matrix to top Justice Department posts – where they supervised the officials investigating their old companies. The overall probe was directed by Justice Department investigator Robert Mueller. Meanwhile, White House aides applied heavy pressure on other prosecutors to restrict the range of the probe – especially the fact that Bush cabinet officials Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger had served as consultants for BNL during their pre-White House days as partners in Henry Kissinger's lobbying outfit, Kissinger Associates.



The Kerry report found that the 1991 BNL probe had been unaccountably "botched" – witnesses went missing, CIA records got "lost," all sorts of bad luck. Most of the big BCCI players went unpunished or got off with wrist-slap fines and sanctions.

One of the White House aides who unlawfully intervened in the BNL prosecution was a certain factotum named Jay S. ByBee. In 1994, ByBee was appointed by George W. Bush to a place on the federal appeals court – a lifetime sinecure of perks and power. Mueller, meanwhile wound up as head of the FBI, appointed to the post in by George W. in July 2001, where directed the FBI's response – or lack of response – to the torrent of terrorism alerts during that fateful summer.

Bush II had good reason to reward those who helped his father provide cover for BCCI. In addition to the continuing "shadowland" relationships between U.S. intelligence and key players in BCCI operations (especially the ISI connections which had used BCCI to fund Pakistan's secret nuclear arms program), George Walker Bush had benefited materially from his own connection to BCCI. As Kevin Phillips points out in his devastating – and woefully ignored – book on the Bushes, American Dynasty, Bush II's first large-scale business enterprise, the Arbusto oil company, was almost certainly financed in part with investments from American frontmen for BCCI-connected Saudi grandees Salem bin Laden, older brother of Osama bin Laden and then the head of the family, and Khalid bin Mahfouz, a major stockholder in BCCI.

The failing Arbusto was later bought out by Harken Energy in a sweetheart deal that landed business failure Bush a plum spot on the Harken board and plenty of stock to play with. Bush soon worked his magic touch on Harken: the company began to tank. It was saved by an unusual infusion of $25 million from the Union Bank of Switzerland, one of BCCI's associates. The deal was brokered by long-time Bush family contributor Jackson Stephens – who, curiously enough, was also a major paymaster for Bill Clinton's political rise. In fact, in 1992, Stephens was the largest individual contributor to both Bush I and Clinton in their presidential contest.

Phillips quotes a 1991 Wall Street Journal story on young Bush's myriad ties to the criminal organization: "The mosaic of BCCI connections surrounding Harken Energy may prove nothing more than how ubiquitous the rogue bank's ties were," the paper wrote. "But the number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken – all since George W. Bush came on board – likewise raises the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up to a presidential son."

Given the copious documentation by the Senate and media investigations of Bush I's extensive use of BCCI to fund his and Reagan's illegal dealings with Saddam, Iran, drug cartels and the Contras, and Bush's strenuous efforts to block investigations of BCCI, the latter's huge payoffs to Bush II look more like payments for services rendered by the Bush Family, rather than just attempts to curry presidential favor.

Many of the same interests that employed BCCI for various black ops turn up again in Sibel Edmond's revelations: the ISI and Abdul Qadeer Khan, and Turkish and Israeli criminals/covert operators. Indeed, the latter played a key role in one of the Senate report's more chilling segments: "Training of Cartel Death Squads." From the report:

[I]"In April 1989, a network of Israeli arms traffickers, operating out of Miami, made a shipment of 500 Israeli manufactured machine guns through the Caribbean island of Antigua for the use of members of the Medellin cartel. Later, one of these weapons was used in the assassination of Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan, and several other of the weapons were found in the possession of cartel kingpin Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha after his death in a gunfight with Colombian drug agents.
"The principals in the arms trafficking included Yair Klein, who had previously been identified in Colombian drug enforcement documents as involved in training paramilitary squads for the cocaine cartel in Medellin; Pinchas Shahar, an Israeli intelligence operative, and Maurice Sarfati, an Israeli "businessman" operating out of Miami and Paris.

"The scandal broke after a broadcast by NBC News on August 21, 1989 about Klein's activities, and a Colombian judge charged Klein with having engaged in criminal conspiracy in training the private armies for the cartel. In the months that followed, the scandal extended to Antigua as well, an island with no substantial military force and no need for the 500 machine guns its foreign minister ordered from Israeli military industries."
Oddly enough, the arming and training of death squads in Antiqua grew out of yet another corruption of Reagan-Bush policy by BCCI: a U.S. government loan of $2 million to Sarfati, supposedly for a melon farm he was to establish in Antiqua. The money was funneled through the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a prime channel of crony pork – and cover for covert operations – for decades. The loan was obtained after BCCI officials vouched for Sarfati's worthiness to OPIC. The Senate report says:

"Ultimately, OPIC lost its entire investment in the melon farm and concluded that it had been defrauded by Sarfati. After filing suit against Sarfati, OPIC sold its remaining interest in the melon farm, at a loss of 50 cent on the dollar, to an Israeli businessman, Bruce Rappaport, and an entity owned by him called the Swiss American Bank. Rappaport, a confidante of former CIA director William Casey, was in this period also in frequent contact with BCCI's original U.S. contact, Bert Lance [who had been forced to resign as Jimmy Carter's budget chief during a corruption scandal. Lance was also a major partner with Jackson Stephens and others in BCCI-related deals.] Coincidentally, one of BCCI's principal board members, Alfred Hartmann, who was also chairman of BCCI's secretly-owned Swiss affiliate BCP, also sat on the board of another of Rappaport's banks."
This is the way the world works. Behind the glitz and gossip of presidential campaigns, behind all the earnest "policy debates" on Capitol Hill, behind all the "position papers" and "vision statements" of think tanks and political parties, behind all the great panoply of state and our august Establishment institutions, thieves and murderers have their way, in league with the great and good.

Anyone who ascends to national power has to make a deal with the devil: either directly to plunge their hands into filth and blood, or else swaddle themselves in "plausible deniability," looking away from the grubby details but knowing full well that their minions, agents and backers are doing "whatever it takes" to keep the machine of power and money rolling on.

This doesn't mean that leaders can't also try to do good things as well, and occasionally accomplish them. After all, Al Capone was famous for his acts of benevolence. Indeed, some leaders pursue idealistic or ameliorative policies in order to "justify" the crimes and lies that sustain the system which has raised them on high. But the devil will have his due, and the price of power must always be paid – and it is ordinary people, especially the most innocent and vulnerable among us, who always end up paying it.

[Gold9472]

The UnderReported: A quick look at world events you haven’t heard about - Nuclear treason?

http://thedaily.washington.edu/2008/1/16/underreported-quick-look-world-events-you-havent-h/#comments

By Aditya Ganapathiraju
1/19/2008

In a bombshell case, former FBI translator and whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds claims U.S. officials were involved in selling classified nuclear weapons secrets to the highest bidder: Turkey, Israel, Pakistan and non-state terrorist groups.

“I’d say what she has is far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers,” said Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon whistle-blower who revealed the government’s early knowledge that the Vietnam War would not be won.

As a translator, Edmonds overheard countless hours of diplomatic com-munication secretly recorded by FBI investigations.

“If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials,” Edmonds told London’s Sunday Times.

Edmonds discovered information about members of the U.S. government involved in what she labeled “treason.”

“I can tell you there are a lot of people involved, a lot of ranking officials and a lot of illegal activities that include multi-billion dollar drug smuggling operations, black market nuclear sales to terrorists and unsavory regimes — you name it,” she told journalist Christopher Deliso. “And of course a lot of people from abroad are involved. It’s massive.”

One official Edmonds named as selling secrets to foreign operatives is Mark Grossman, the former U.S. ambassador to Turkey.

“He was aiding foreign operatives against U.S. interests by passing them highly classified information … in exchange for money, position and political objectives,” she said.

Grossman denies the allegations.

Edmonds claims Israeli and Turkish moles were planted in academic institutions across the United States and were involved in several exchanges of nuclear secrets per month.

These nuclear secrets made their way into Pakistan’s nuclear program, and were then sold to Iran, Libya, North Korea and possibly terrorist groups like al-Qaida, which is known to be close to Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Edmonds’ revelations appear to involve the American Turkish Council, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and a number of leading neoconservatives like Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.

The FBI Inspector General, former colleagues, retired and active counter-proliferation CIA agents, as well as several sitting U.S. senators and whistle-blower advocacy groups have all confirmed Edmonds’ and her story as “very credible.”

After five years of trying to get justice and accountability through the FBI, Congress and the judiciary, Edmonds has tried to get U.S. mainstream media to cover her story, with little success.

“I’m not the only one who knows about this,” Edmonds said. “Too many people know about this. The fraudulent 9/11 commissioners — every single one of them knows about my case. [People in the Congress, Justice Department and FBI] — they know. The truth is going to hurt them.”