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High Treason and the drum to war
« on: 2008-01-09 15:02:42 » |
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For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets
Draft
[ Hermit : This is an extraordinary story. Part of why it is extraordinary is that it is being presented by the UK's most respected conservative newspaper and not an American one. Another is that this is clearly yet another story that the US media is deliberately suppressing, and so we must assume that there is pressure being applied to them in one way or another, or that the interests of the media owners are better served by not having this story in the public eye. We have to ask ourselves "Who benefits?"
Sibel Edmonds has been trying to tell her story, which has been repeatedly corroborated by numerous sources, for the past 5 years. She has had a most unusual "State Secrets" gag order place on her for much of that time, and congressional investigations have gone nowhere. Which suggests, as do many other things, to my mind that this may be a conspiracy story that greed and incompetence are insufficient to explain. I am drawing on many sources to annotate this piece. Because of that I will be updating this article repeatedly. So please check back.]
Source :The Times
Authors: Chris Gourlay, Jonathan Calvert, Joe Lauria
]b]Dated: [/b]2008-01-06
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
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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Re:High Treason and the drum to war
« Reply #1 on: 2008-01-22 00:11:02 » |
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[Blunderov] The call goes out for the digital samizdat to shame the MSM into some semblance of journalistic integrity. Ha-ha said the clown. 
The meme that has been released into the bitbucket is that these matters are "sensitive". An awkward and double edged move this, implying as it does that sweetheart proliferation clients Israel and Pakistan, have (for secret strategic reasons) deliberately and subversively been allowed access to nuclear secrets in order to bypass US legislation. This gives the Bush hysterics about an Iranian nuclear program a rather hollow ring. VERY incovenient if it gets a head of steam going.
(PS Hermit: If it was your intention to have this thread remain uninterrupted, then my apologies. I would be happy to move this post to its own thread?)
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5583
BLOGGED BY Daniel Ellsberg ON 1/20/2008 10:52PM
DANIEL ELLSBERG: Covering Up the Coverage - The American Media's Complicit Failure to Investigate and Report on the Sibel Edmonds Case
In an Exclusive BRAD BLOG Op-Ed, the Legendary 'Pentagon Papers' Whistleblower Calls on the Media to Perform Their First Amendment Obligations, on Congressional Leaders to Perform Their Oversight Duty, and for Insider Sources to Come Forward to the American Public...
-- Guest BRAD BLOG Op-Ed by Daniel Ellsberg
For the second time in two weeks, the entire U.S. press has let itself be scooped by Rupert Murdoch's London Sunday Times on a dynamite story of criminal activities by corrupt U.S. officials promoting nuclear proliferation. But there is a worse journalistic sin than being scooped, and that is participating in a cover-up of information that demands urgent attention from the public, the U.S. Congress and the courts.
For the last two weeks --- one could say, for years --- the major American media have been guilty of ignoring entirely the allegations of the courageous and highly credible source Sibel Edmonds, quoted in the London Times on January 6, 2008 in a front-page story that was front-page news in much of the rest of the world but was not reported in a single American newspaper or network. It is up to readers to demand that this culpable silent treatment end.
Just as important, there must be pressure by the public on Congressional committee chairpersons, in particular Representative Henry Waxman and Senator Patrick Leahy. Both have been sitting for years on classified, sworn testimony by Edmonds --- as she revealed in the Times' new story on Sunday --- along with documentation, in their possession, confirming parts of her account. Pressure must be brought for them to hold public hearings to investigate her accusations of widespread criminal activities, over several administrations, that endanger national security. They should call for open testimony under oath by Edmonds --- as she has urged for five years --- and by other FBI officials she has named to them, as cited anonymously in the first Times' story.
It's a measure of how far the New York Times and Washington Post have fallen from their responsibilities...since I gave them the Pentagon Papers in 1971. They printed them then. Would they today?
And this is the time for those who have so far creditably leaked to the Times of London to come forward, accepting personal risks, to offer their testimony --- and new documents --- both to the Congress and to the American press. I would say to them: Don't do what I did and waste months of precious time trying to get Congressional committees to act as they should in the absence of journalistic pressure. Do your best to inform the American public directly, first, through the major American media.
But perhaps today the alternative media and the international press are a necessary precursor even to that. It shouldn't be true, but if it is, it's a measure of how far the New York Times and Washington Post have fallen from their responsibilities to the public, to their profession and to American democracy, since I gave them the Pentagon Papers in 1971. They printed them then. Would they today?
It's impossible to believe that they --- or Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal --- could not have acquired documents and testimony that Murdoch's London paper reports on today. Now the challenge to them is to end their silence on that reporting and do their job.
Otherwise, like the now-Democratic-controlled committees, they are complicit in cover-up. That's not what these institutions should be doing. It's not that "the cover-up is always worse than the crime": that favorite media mantra is itself a cover story. The criminal cover-up by the FBI revealed by Edmonds and the Times' documents is, as often the case, to conceal extremely serious crimes endangering our security, and to protect the official perpetrators. But if "freedom of the press is mainly for the people who own presses," it is time for those owners to stop using that freedom to help conceal official wrongdoing. And the people who own computers should be using them to light a fire under the owners of presses and television networks.
In support of the official cover-up, various American journalists in the last weeks have reportedly received calls from "intelligence sources" hinting that "what Sibel Edmonds stumbled onto" is not a rogue operation by American officials and Congressmen working to their own advantage --- as believed by Edmonds and some other former or active FBI officials --- but a sensitive covert operation authorized at high levels. If there is any truth to that, we clearly have another prize candidate --- giving us, as blowback, the Pakistani Bomb and nuclear sales --- in the category of "worst covert operation in U.S. history," rivaling such contenders as the Bay of Pigs, Iran-Contra, and the secret CIA torture camps abroad.
If "freedom of the press is mainly for the people who own presses," it is time for those owners to stop using that freedom to help conceal official wrongdoing.
In the first two of those, the American press gullibly responded to official warnings of "sensitivity" and sat on information they should have reported (as did the New York Times, for a year, on the illegal NSA surveillance program). If the Washington Post had heeded such warnings and demands with respect to the covert torture camps, they would have missed a well-earned Pulitzer Prize and the camps would still be torturing.
Many, if not most, covert operations deserve to be disclosed by a free press. They are often covert not only because they are illegal but because they are wildly ill-conceived and reckless. "Sensitive" and "covert" are often synonyms for "half-assed" or "idiotic," as well as for "criminal," as the pattern of activities revealed by Edmonds would appear to be if it were truly presidentially authorized. These activities persist, covertly, to the point of national disaster because the press neglects what our First Amendment was precisely intended to protect and encourage it to do: expose wrongdoing by officials.
===
Daniel Ellsberg is a former American military analyst who sparked a national uproar in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of government decision-making during the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers.
[Bl.] Editor and Publisher has picked up the story but with rather long teeth. Understandable. Americans have to watch what they say. We in the free world have a responsibility of support and must be outspoken.
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Blunderov
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Re:High Treason and the drum to war
« Reply #2 on: 2008-01-22 01:35:21 » |
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"Give me mine angle. We'll to th' river. There,
My music playing far off, I will betray
Tawny-skinned fishes."
[Blunderov] The known fishes: Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Eric Edelman, Marc Grossman, Brent Scowcroft, Larry Franklin, Dennis Hastert, Roy Blunt, Dan Burton, Tom Lantos, Bob Livingston, Stephen Solarz, Graham E. Fuller, David Makovsky, Alan Makovsky, Yusuf Turani (President-in-exile, Turkistan), Professor Sabri Sayari and Mehmet Eymur.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_luke_ryl_080118_sibel_edmonds_case_3a_.htm
January 18, 2008 at 10:29:35
Sibel Edmonds Case: Nukes for sale (Pt 2)
by Luke Ryland Page 1 of 3 page(s)
http://www.opednews.com
In a blockbuster article two weeks ago, the UK's Sunday Times described how a criminal network of Turkish, Israeli, Pakistani and American diplomats and officials conspired to steal nuclear secrets and sell them to the highest bidder in the nuclear black market.
The article, based primarily on the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, noted that:
"The wider nuclear network has been monitored for many years by a joint Anglo-American intelligence effort. But rather than shut it down, investigations by law enforcement bodies such as the FBI and Britain's Revenue & Customs have been aborted to preserve diplomatic relations."
The decisions to preserve those "diplomatic relations" - Pakistan, Turkey and Israel - were made by people within the US Government who happened to be personally profiting from those same relationships.
In this post, I'll discuss two other dimensions of the network that the Times article didn't cover:
a) The use of Turkish front groups to supply nuclear hardware to the network
b) The extraordinary legal steps the US and UK governments have used to hide their guilt
*****
Turkish Front Groups
One of AQ Khan's American suppliers was a company with strong Turkish roots called Giza Technologies in New Jersey. Giza's 'exposure' was 'officially' the result of an anonoymous email tip in 2003, however, as we know from Sibel's case, the FBI was aware of Giza's role in the AQ Khan network at least two years earlier. According to a documentary about the nuclear black market element of Sibel's case, Kill The Messenger, Giza's CEO Zeki Bilmen "was on the FBI wiretaps translated by Sibel Edmonds" who left the FBI in early 2002.
Given what we learnt in The Times, that phone call was probably between Bilmen and either the American Turkish Council or the Turkish Embassy - both targets of FBI counter-intelligence operations.
Inexplicably, Zeki Bilmen was never charged with his involvement, and Giza continues operating to this day. In 2005, Sibel said:
And (Giza's) business – well, business is good.
They have many shipments going out, coming in, all day long. To places like Dubai, Spain, South Africa, Turkey. They have branches in all these places. Yep, they're sailing along very smoothly.
When asked how this is possible, Sibel replied:
"It's beyond logical explanation. Maybe it was decided in high places that no one would touch him."
In fact, the identity of the company was even hidden in the indictment of one Humayun Khan, a procurer for the network who was close to Pakistan's ISI. In the indictment, Giza is simply referred to as 'a broker in Secaucus, New Jersey,' whereas every other company is clearly identified.
Investigative journalist Joe Trento might have an explanation for why Giza continues to operate, and why the US government wants to hide Giza's involvement. He says that
"The CIA even started using some of the Khan network's front companies for its own purposes."
As I documented here, it is very possible that Giza one of those companies. In Kill The Messenger, an anonymous "U.S intelligence officer" who is "very familiar with Turkish espionage activities" - including Giza and the American Turkish Council - says:
"There are people within the State Department and also in the U.S Congress that were facilitating the Israelis and the Turks in obtaining proprietary information or restricted technology.
That's why there is a gag order against Sibel Edmonds!"
That technology, he notes, can be:
"Nuclear or non nuclear. For example, computer hardware, maybe software."
Some people have wondered recently whether maybe Sibel inadvertently stumbled on a sting operation - but that is clearly not the case. The State Dept and Congress are certainly not the people who would be running a sting operation.
Further, when Sibel first reported her case to Congress, the first step taken was to make sure that this was not a covert operation, and that there weren't any double agents involved. Only after Senators Leahy and Grassley were assured this wasn't the case did they proceeded to hold unclassified hearings (which were retroactively classified.)
This shouldn't come as a surprise. Sibel has previously said that from her experience is concerned:
"The Department of State is easily the most corrupted of the major government agencies."
In fact, the same thing has been true for decades. As far back as 1986, the CIA was running diligent operations against the Khan network; then, as now, it was people at the State Dept who were ruining all the operations. As Seymour Hersh documented in 1993, a high-level top secret inter-governmental group was formed in 1986 "in an effort to stop illegal American exports to Pakistan and other non-nuclear nations." This group ran undercover operations to arrest those buying nuclear-related materials for Pakistan's program. Richard Barlow, "the government's leading expert on illegal Pakistani procurement," with the full knowledge and support of his superiors at the CIA and elsewhere, was able to engineer the arrest of some of Khan's suppliers - but only after they'd learnt not to tell the State Dept what their plans were. Here's Hersh:
"The State Department's Near East Bureau was not told of the planned operation, for fear that the officers there would tip off the Pakistanis, as they had done in the past...
"We still have cases on Pakistan and we still don't tell State about it," a senior Customs Service official told me recently, in anger. "The State Department constituted a security problem for us."
The Guardian effectively debunked with the same 'sting' claims recently:
"Intelligence officials on both sides of the Atlantic have said they waited until 2003 to strike against the Khan network in order to gather evidence on all its activities and all its customers.
"But what did they achieve?" Armstrong asked. "Where are all the people connected to the Khan network? There were at least 50 people in this thing, and there are only a handful of people under house arrest. Did they need three extra years to do that?""
Not only have very few guilty people suffered any consequences, the US government has even "hampered" the criminal prosecutions of some of the suppliers.
A segment on Democracy Now in 2006 notes:
Over the past year Swiss officials have requested at least four times that the Bush administration share documents and evidence related to Khan's nuclear black market. But the United States has never responded.
Swiss officials maintain it needs U.S. assistance in order to convict three Swiss men accused of helping AQ Khan set up a secret Malaysian factory to make components for gas centrifuges.
Last week U.S. weapons expert David Albright testified before Congress and said, "I find this lack of cooperation frankly embarrassing to the United States and to those of us who believe that the United States should take the lead in bringing members of the Khan network to justice for arming our enemies with nuclear weapons."
Albright has floated one theory as to why the Bush administration won't help the Swiss investigators. He says the three Swiss men accused of being part of AQ Khan's underground network may have been working for the CIA and being paid by the U.S. government.
Albright is echoing the same point made by Joe Trento - and if these firms weren't helping with a sting operation, then what on earth was the CIA using them for? The problem is that as soon as these firms are given immunity for their activities, then they immediately become a likely vehicle for all types of nefarious activities - whether it be funding illegal black-ops, or trafficking narcotics, or both.
Other American Suppliers
Giza is not the only American supplier to Khan's network. Sibel has previously told me that there are others firms. This was confirmed in 2004 by IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei. The involvement of these firms apparently "sheds new light on the activities of the network, known up to now for primarily supplying technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran." None of these firms have apparently been exposed, let alone faced any criminal charges.
Giza's Bilmen claims that he is an innocent victim, though Sibel told me that Bilmen "has social & business ties" with another supplier to Khan's network, Turkish businessman Selim Alguadis.
Other Turkish Suppliers
Giza is not the only Turkish company involved in supplying the AQ Khan network. Firstly, Turkey served as one of the transhipment hubs for components that were sourced in the US and elsewhere. Further, some of the nuclear components for Khan were actually manufactured in Turkey.
In Sibel's fantastic Highjacking of a Nation series, which outlines the contours of her case, she writes:
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 (BBC China) 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.
Gunes Cire has since died, however his company, ETI Elektroteknik, continues to operate freely, with Cire's son now at the helm. Selim Alguadis is apparently 'under investigation' but neither he nor his company, EKA, appear to be in any trouble three years later.
It's an odd pattern. There's strong evidence of Turkish complicity in the nuclear proliferation network, yet guilty people are allowed to walk free, and Western governments go to great lengths to cover up the facts.
States (cough) Secrets
There are significant parallels between Sibel's case and the recent case of British Customs official Atif Amin. The UK government, desperate to cover its complicity in allowing the AQ Khan network to continue proliferating, is trying to shut Amin down using the Official Secrets Act, the British equivalent of the State Secrets Privilege gag that has been used to shut down Sibel's case. Informed observers widely recognize that for the Bush administration, the State Secrets Privilege is simply a 'get out of jail free' card to shield themselves when they commit egregious crimes.
The same is true in the UK. An editorial, ', Secrets and lies,' in the Guardian last Friday noted:
"National security is being invoked not to protect us but to shield politicians from embarrassment
[...]
There are genuine threats to national security and to our public and personal safety. It is a dangerous abuse if a government hoists the flag of national security and deploys the Official Secrets Act when all it is really trying to do is protect itself from embarrassment."
In the US, we've recently seen the State Secrets card played to cover up illegal spying, torture, and any number of other crimes - including complicity in the spread of nuclear weapons to our purported enemies.
Enough is enough.
**************************
In case you missed it, the unnamed senior State Department official in last week's Times article is Marc Grossman.
*************************
In case you missed it, Sibel found a novel way of exposing the other guilty parties. She posted 18 photos on her website, without explanation. I published the faces along with the names here.
(cross-posted at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak)
http://lukery.blogspot.com/
Luke Ryland is a blogger with a particular interest in Sibel Edmonds' case.
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Hermit
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Re:High Treason and the drum to war
« Reply #3 on: 2008-01-22 07:31:25 » |
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Hermit: If it was your intention to have this thread remain uninterrupted, then my apologies. I would be happy to move this post to its own thread?
No, that was not the case, had it been I would have locked the thread :-) It was merely that this story desperately needs an airing, but to do that it also needs cross-references and confirmations. I spent several hours Googling through it, discovering that there is not one person challenging the substance of her story (outside of the FBI who assert that a case docket reference a summary of which was provided to Senator Grassley, doesn't not exist), and then crashed. I really meant to return to it as it seems so interesting, but simply ran out of time. Much thanks for the spadework and the interesting articles.
Kindest Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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Re:High Treason and the drum to war
« Reply #4 on: 2008-01-22 07:33:39 » |
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[Blunderov] The dots begin to connect. The Grinning Mountebank of Downing Street, Tony "Cocksucker" Blair, was at great pains to put the kibosh on an official investigation into corruption in the Saudi Arabia/ UK arms deal on the grounds that it would be diplomatically "embarrassing". To whom exactly, one begins to wonder?
It seems possible that the Saudis are in the same secret sweetheart nuclear proliferation society as Israel and Pakistan and that this was uppermost in what passes for "Phony" Blair's mind when he twisted Lord Goldsmith's arm so savagely.
"Lord Goldsmith told the BBC: "If you are faced with the reality of the situation that there's going to be massive damage - not to jobs - but to national security, our counter-terrorism capabilities, vital interests and against that you have the prospect of a case which is going to go nowhere, then I think the answer is you have to be realistic and bite the bullet." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6193703.stm
Hmm.
"Last year's unearthing of the black market nuclear technology network increased international suspicions that Khan had developed ties with Riyadh, which has the capability to pay for all kinds of nuclear-related services."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GG07Df05.html
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/21/1732226
FBI Burying Doc Showing US Officials Stole Nuclear Secrets?
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday January 21, @01:08PM
from the zomg-a-government-coverup dept.
BoingBoing is reporting that the FBI may be burying the existence of a document that proves US officials stole nuclear secrets for eventual sale to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
"One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023. Last week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information request for a file of exactly the same number by claiming that it did not exist. But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file. Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up by the FBI because its contents are explosive. She accuses the agency of an 'outright lie.'"
[Bl.] My take is that these secrets were deliberately passed on by American officials and were never stolen at all. The "criminal" aspect is pure window dressing to provide plausible (ha!) deniability.
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Blunderov
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Re:High Treason and the drum to war
« Reply #5 on: 2008-01-22 15:13:11 » |
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[Blunderov] This is beginning to look as good as the Downing Street Minutes, maybe even better.
<snip>We asked Edmonds tonight whether she had concerns that the British media outlet leading the way on coverage was, in fact, the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sunday Times, as some in the blogosphere had noted, with some concern, after the initial report two weeks ago.
"Murdoch is not doing it," she replied. "It's the difference between the UK's reporters and the U.S. reporters and the way they go after stories. It shows that they have far more leeway. I think a lot of it is the self-censorship [of the U.S. media] and the reliance 100% on only government sources."
"I have had [American] reporters call me and tell me that I have 'stumbled on some big time national security, covert operation'," she continued, explaining that as the reason given by some for staying away from the story.
"Well, Iran-Contra was a goddamn covert operation too! Even if that's what they're telling reporters in the U.S., it doesn't make the operation any less illegal. And the cover-up of that is outrageous," she told us tonight.</snip>
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5582
[Bl.] Meanwhile the hunt for case no 203A-WF-210023 continues. And the CIA torture tapes. And the missing White House e-mails.
Gosh. I wonder where they can possibly be? It's a mystery. 
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Re:High Treason and the drum to war
« Reply #6 on: 2008-01-25 13:35:25 » |
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[Blunderov] Thar she blows!
CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS
Friday, January 25, 2008
Bush quietly announced on Tuesday he wants Congress to approve sales of nuclear technology to Turkey: White House in panic over Sibel Edmonds?
White House in panic over Sibel Edmonds?
Friday, January 25, 2008
Sixteen days after the UK Times' published a blockbuster article, For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets, about how certain top US government officials were enabling Turkish and Israeli interests in supplying the nuclear black market, President Bush quietly announced on Tuesday that he wants Congress to approve sales of nuclear technology to Turkey.
Is this a reaction to the Times article? It sure looks like it. I wouldn't be surprised if we soon start hearing about retroactive immunity for the guilty parties, just as we are seeing in the illegal spying case currently in the Senate.
As always happens in this case, the silence in the US media is deafening.
Two years ago, Bush's efforts to sell nuclear technology prompted much "indignation and furor," but not a single major US media outlet has yet reported the proposed deal with Turkey. Agence France-Presse put out a report on its wires which has been picked up around the world, but that's about it.
The White House press release says that Bill Clinton agreed to the deal in 2000:
However, immediately after signature, U.S. agencies received information that called into question the conclusions that had been drawn in the required NPAS (Nuclear Proliferation Assessment Statement) and the original classified annex, specifically, information implicating Turkish private entities in certain activities directly relating to nuclear proliferation. Consequently, the Agreement was not submitted to the Congress and the executive branch undertook a review of the NPAS evaluation.
It would certainly be interesting to know which "Turkish private entitities" Bush is referring to here. If he had said "Turkish private companies" instead, we could be comfortable in presuming that he was referring to the two named Turkish companies involved in A.Q. Khan's network, EKA and ETI Elektroteknik. The phrase "entities" on the other hand, is broader, and could very well include the American Turkish Council, the 'entity' named in the Times article as well as other articles about Sibel Edmonds case.
The timing here is also interesting; "immediately after" Clinton approved the deal in July 2000, US agencies became aware of this Turkish involvement in the AQ Khan network. This was fully three years before the Khan network was officially exposed.
The White House press release continues with some curiously descriptive narrative:
"My Administration has completed the NPAS review as well as an evaluation of actions taken by the Turkish government to address the proliferation activities of certain Turkish entities (once officials of the U.S. Government brought them to the Turkish government's attention)."
Given that the entire press release is basically written in 'legalese', this unnecessary parenthetical aside stands out like a sore thumb. I wonder who injected this statement into the announcement, and why. It sure looks like butt-covering to me, given the latest revelations in the Times.
The phrase 'once officials...' also appears to be a curious formulation. I'm not overly familiar with presidential statements and US government protocols, but I would imagine that "Agencies" or "Departments" would normally communicate with foreign governments on such important matters, and I would imagine that presidential statements would normally refer to such agencies, rather than 'officials.' Perhaps I'm wrong, and perhaps this is common practice, but it sure looks like an attempt to exonerate certain individuals such as Marc Grossman who was accused of some very serious crimes in the Times article.
Who were these officials? How, when, and in what format, did they bring this information to the Turkish government? I'd like to see the official communication, please.
And what, exactly, has the Turkish government done to 'address these proliferation activities'? We know that ETA and EKI continue to operate, and as far as I know haven't been penalized. The press release says that this information is all classified.
Summary
It appears as though certain administration officials have been illegally supplying the Turkish nuclear program for years, and now that they've been publicly outed, the Bush administration will simply make the entire program legal, just as they are trying to do with the illegal spying.
Congress has 90 days to amend or block this legislation, otherwise it automatically becomes law.
We need public open hearings to determine which officials have been supplying the nuclear black market before this becomes law.
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Cross posted at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak
Posted by lukery at 1/25/2008 02:30:00 PM 2 comments
Labels: Sibel Edmonds
Posted by CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS mparent7777 Marc Parent CCNWON at 9:42 AM
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Blunderov
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Re:High Treason and the drum to war
« Reply #7 on: 2008-01-27 16:29:25 » |
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[Blunderov] Was there more than one reason for outing Plame perhaps?
"2nd Witch:
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes. [Knocking]
Open locks,
Whoever knocks!
[Enter Macbeth]
Macbeth:
How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!
What is't you do?"
Macbeth Act 4, scene 1, 44–49
http://www.bradblog.com/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3257725.ece
From The Sunday TimesJanuary 27, 2008
Tip-off thwarted nuclear spy ring probeInsight: Chris Gourlay, Jonathan Calvert, Joe Lauria in Washington
AN investigation into the illicit sale of American nuclear secrets was compromised by a senior official in the State Department, a former FBI employee has claimed.
The official is said to have tipped off a foreign contact about a bogus CIA company used to investigate the sale of nuclear secrets.
The firm, Brewster Jennings & Associates, was a front for Valerie Plame, the former CIA agent. Her public outing two years later in 2003 by White House officials became a cause célèbre.
The claims that a State Department official blew the investigation into a nuclear smuggling ring have been made by Sibel Edmonds, 38, a former Turkish language translator in the FBI’s Washington field office.
Related Links
FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft
For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets
Edmonds had been employed to translate hundreds of hours of intercepted recordings made during a six-year FBI inquiry into the nuclear smuggling ring.
She has previously told The Sunday Times she heard evidence that foreign intelligence agents had enlisted US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.
Her latest claims relate to a number of intercepted recordings believed to have been made between the summer and autumn of 2001. At that time, foreign agents were actively attempting to acquire the West’s nuclear secrets and technology.
Among the buyers were Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Paki-stan’s intelligence agency, which was working with Abdul Qadeer Khan, the “father of the Islamic bomb”, who in turn was selling nuclear technology to rogue states such as Libya.
Plame, then 38, was the glamorous wife of a former US ambassador, Joe Wilson. Despite recently giving birth to twins, she travelled widely for her work, often claiming to be an oil consultant. In fact she was a career CIA agent who was part of a small team investigating the same procurement network that the State Department official is alleged to have aided.
Brewster Jennings was one of a number of covert enterprises set up to infiltrate the nuclear ring. It is is believed to have been based in Boston and consisted of little more than a name, a telephone number and a post office box address.
Plame listed the company as her employer on her 1999 tax forms and used its name when she made a $1,000 contribution to Al Gore’s presidential primary campaign.
The FBI was also running an inquiry into the nuclear network. When Edmonds joined the agency after the 9/11 attacks she was given the job of reviewing the evidence.
The FBI was monitoring Turkish diplomatic and political figures based in Washington who were allegedly working with the Israelis and using “moles” in military and academic institutions to acquire nuclear secrets.
The creation of this nuclear ring had been assisted, Edmonds says, by the senior official in the State Department who she heard in one conversation arranging to pick up a $15,000 bribe.
One group of Turkish agents who had come to America on the pretext of researching alternative energy sources was introduced to Brewster Jennings through the Washington-based American Turkish Council (ATC), a lobby group that aids commercial ties between the countries. Edmonds says the Turks believed Brewster Jennings to be energy consultants and were planning to hire them.
But she said: “He [the State Department official] found out about the arrangement . . . and he contacted one of the foreign targets and said . . . you need to stay away from Brewster Jennings because they are a cover for the government.
“The target . . . immediately followed up by calling several people to warn them about Brewster Jennings.
“At least one of them was at the ATC. This person also called an ISI person to warn them.” If the ISI was made aware of the CIA front company, then this would almost certainly have damaged the investigation into the activities of Khan. Plame’s cover would also have been compromised, although Edmonds never heard her name mentioned on the intercepts. Shortly afterwards, Plame was moved to a different operation.
The State Department official said on Friday: “It is impossible to find a strong enough way to deny these allegations which are both false and malicious.”
It would be more than two years before Khan was forced to admit he had been selling nuclear weapons technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea.
In the meantime, the role of Plame and Brewster Jennings became public knowledge in 2003. Plame’s husband, Wilson, wrote a report that undermined claims by President George W Bush that Saddam Hussein’s regime had attempted to buy uranium in Niger – a key justification for the invasion of Iraq.
The following week Robert Novak, a journalist, revealed that Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent. In the scandal that followed, Novak’s sources were revealed to be two senior members of the Bush administration. A third, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted of obstructing the criminal investigation into the affair.
Phillip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, said: “It’s pretty clear Plame was targeting the Turks. If indeed that [State Department] official was working with the Turks to violate US law on nuclear exports, it would have been in his interest to alert them to the fact that this woman’s company was affiliated to the CIA. I don’t know if that’s treason legally but many people would consider it to be.”
The FBI denied the existence of a specific case file about any outing of Brewster Jennings by the State Department official, in a response to a freedom of information request. However, last week The Sunday Times obtained a document, signed by an FBI official, showing that the file did exist in 2002.
Plame declined to comment, saying that she was unable to discuss her covert work at the CIA.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/comment/0,,2239072,00.html
http://www.democracynow.org/2006/6/2/why_is_the_u_s_hampering
<snip>
Why is the U.S. Hampering a Swiss Investigation into A.Q. Khan’s International Nuclear Arms Smuggling Ring?
The Bush administration is ignoring requests from Swiss officials to hand over information that would help prosecute alleged members of Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan’s underground nuclear network. We speak with the spokesperson for the Swiss Attorney General, Hansjurg Mark Wiedmer, former U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, David Albright and Pakistani physicist, Zia Mian of Princeton University. [includes rush transcript]
The Bush administration is being accused of refusing to help out Switzerland’s federal prosecutor try three men at the center of the world’s most notorious nuclear arms smuggling ring.
The case involves a Swiss man and his two sons who are allegedly connected to the Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, better known as AQ Khan.
Khan, who is currently under house arrest in Pakistan, helped build Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and then secretly shared the technology with other countries including Iran, North Korea and Libya.
Two years ago President Bush praised the international community for working together to disrupt Khan’s network.
President Bush, February 11th, 2004
“Governments around the world worked closely with us to unravel the Khan network, and to put an end to his criminal enterprise. A. Q. Khan has confessed his crimes, and his top associates are out of business.” Full Transcript]
But behind the scenes, it is a different story.
Over the past year Swiss officials have requested at least four times that the Bush administration share documents and evidence related to Khan’s nuclear black market. But the United States has never responded.
Swiss officials maintain it needs U.S. assistance in order to convict three Swiss men accused of helping AQ Khan set up a secret Malaysian factory to make components for gas centrifuges.
Last week U.S. weapons expert David Albright testified before Congress and said, “I find this lack of cooperation frankly embarrassing to the United States and to those of us who believe that the United States should take the lead in bringing members of the Khan network to justice for arming our enemies with nuclear weapons.”
Albright has floated one theory as to why the Bush administration won’t help the Swiss investigators. He says the three Swiss men accused of bring part of AQ Khan’s underground network may have been working for the CIA and being paid by the U.S. government.
The CIA has refused to comment on the allegation but former CIA Director George Tenet acknowledged the Agency had penetrated Khan’s network during a speech at Georgetown University in February 2004.
George Tenet, speaking February 5th, 2004
“Now, as you know from the news coming out of Pakistan, Khan and his network have been dealt a crushing blow, with several of his senior officers in custody. Malaysian authorities have shut down one of the network’s largest plants. His network is now answering to the world for years of nuclear profiteering. What did intelligence have to do with this? First, we discovered the extent of Khan’s hidden network. We tagged the proliferators. We detected the network stretching from Pakistan to Europe to the Middle East to Asia offering its wares to countries like North Korea and Iran. Working with our British colleagues we pieced together the picture of the network, revealing its subsidiaries, scientists, front companies, agents, finances, and manufacturing plants on three continents. Our spies penetrated the network through a series of daring operations over several years. Through this unrelenting effort we confirmed the network was delivering such things as illicit uranium enrichment centrifuges. And as you heard me say on the Libya case, we stopped deliveries of prohibited material. I welcome the President’s Commission looking into proliferation. We have a record and a story to tell and we want to tell it to those willing to listen.” Full transcript] </snip>
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Fritz
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Re:High Treason and the drum to war
« Reply #8 on: 2008-02-06 19:48:54 » |
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Dialogging over coffee huddled out of the wind with gentlemen in there 30s from India. They told me they clearly remembered a time growing up, when the US was to be avoided/shunned and China was the good-guy. They also reminded me, in some detail, what a bang up job the west did dividing the Muslims and Hindus.
My question would be, give historical ties and an emerging Asian concentric world with far less fail safes in their political systems then North America:
Are events as depicted below not indications that an event as told by Sibel, noxious as it would appear to be, not going to seem mute to the mayhem that Asian politics and money driven imperatives have in store ?
My gloom and doom pause for the day.
Fritz
http://www.dawn.com/2008/02/06/int6.htm
NEW DELHI, Feb 5: A race for Indian military contracts worth billions of dollars will heat up this month when the world’s top arms makers descend on South Asia’s biggest defence fair.
About 300 international weapons companies from 30 countries have signed up for the four-day “DefExpo” in New Delhi from Feb 16, and there are expectations of several big-ticket announcements.
“This is the biggest ever defence exposition to be held by us and all the global players will be engaging,” chief organiser and member of the Confederation of Indian Industries Gurpal Singh said.
The Indian defence ministry said it expects solid participation from arms vendors in what is billed as one of Asia’s largest defence shows, an official who declined to be named said in an informal briefing to reporters.
Since 1999, India’s military purchases have been worth $25 billion.
The country, which has the world’s fourth largest military, is expected to buy another $30 billion of arms in the next four years.
Up for grabs are deals for six submarines worth $2.3 billion, an artillery contract tagged at three billion dollars and a global tender for helicopters as well as for scores of unmanned aerial vehicles.
India also plans to issue a tender for 126 war planes worth $10.24 billion as early as March.
Russia, which has ongoing projects worth $14.56 billion, wants to keep its position as India’s top weapons supplier and will be participating in the fair, the defence official said.
Another senior defence ministry source said India may announce a two-billion-dollar contract with US-based Boeing for eight long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft.
“Price negotiations began after the deal was cleared last month by the defence acquisition council and we can expect an announcement,” the defence source said.
If awarded to Seattle-based Boeing, it would be India’s biggest defence contract so far with the United States.
Earlier this month, Delhi approved a one-billion-dollar purchase of six Hercules transport aircraft from US-based aviation giant Lockheed Martin.
Lockheed is also in the race for the 126 fighter jets.
“DefExpo has become a superb opportunity for government officials and defence companies from a wide range of countries to exchange views and consider defence needs,” the company’s India chief Douglas Hartwick said.
Also up for grabs is a major helicopter contract.
India in December scrapped a $600-million deal for 197 choppers with Eurocopter, a unit of Europe’s EADS, citing irregularities in the contract process.
The country subsequently said it would combine other defence service helicopter needs and increase the order to 312.
“The combined global tender for the helicopters is (now) being issued,” Defence Minister A. K. Antony said without elaborating, as EADS said it would re-join the race for the deal, which is now worth more than one billion dollars.
“EADS is here to present state-of-the-art technology which are in most cases fully compliant with the requirements of the (Indian) armed forces,” said Stefan Billep, head of EADS-India.—AFP
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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