sibel and feith and perle?

update: sibel has personally vouched for most of the info in this post. see here for details

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further to my mission to track down the people sibel is trying to finger (see here, here, here and here) comes this article - it refers to a dec 11, 02 "joint letter to President George W. Bush sent by leading Armenian, Greek, and Kurdish American organizations urged a critical review of US policy towards Turkey based on the national interests of the US:

"The joint letter notes that... "The double standard on the application of the rule of law to Turkey and the appeasement of Turkey have been and are harmful to US interests in the war on international terrorism, on the Middle East peace process, and on America's image throughout the world,""
[snip]
"Citing a joint letter sent in September, the same organizations highlighted a number of misleading statements regarding Turkey made by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. "The prime architects of US policy towards Turkey, particularly military aid and sales, are Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, the former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs and now the Chairman of the Defense Policy Board, and Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman," they wrote.

The letter noted that Under Secretary Feith was a registered foreign agent for Turkey from 1989-1994 while serving as a principal for International Advisors Inc., and that he was a special assistant to Richard Perle at the Defense Department, while Perle was a paid consultant for IAI for Turkey. Feith negotiated an $800,000 contract for IAI with Turkey in 1989 and a $600,000 annual contract through 1994. They proposed that this should require Mr. Feith and Mr. Perle to remove themselves from matters concerning US-Turkey relations.

The letter also urges the President not to give Turkey any of the $228 million authorized by Congress for Turkey at the initiative of the Defense Department, until an investigation is made into the circumstances of its initiation. "When Richard Perle was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security from 1981-1987 during the Reagan Administration, he led the successful effort to give massive grant military aid to Turkey," they wrote, adding that Feith was on his staff at the time. "Wolfowitz and Grossman actively supported sending high levels of arms to Turkey. Weapons supplied by the US were used by the Turkish army against the Kurds since 1984 and are being used at the present time."
[snip]
The World Policy Institute and the Federation of American Scientists have documented the US arms trade with Turkey and its harmful effects on US interests in a comprehensive joint report, "Arming Repression: US Arms Sales to Turkey During the Clinton Administration.""

of course, its always difficult to differentiate between what is true and less true in the world of competing interests and duelling spinmeisters - but lets take a closer look.

in May, 01, James Zogby wrote a letter to Bush outlining his concerns about the appointment of Feith (and the Perle connection):

"during the almost six years that Feith and IAI were officially registered as Foreign Agents for the Government of Turkey, Feith and a number of individuals serving as staff and receiving payments from IAI were making tens of thousands of dollars of contributions to both pro-Israel PACs and pro-Israel Senators and Congressmen.
[snip]
More recently, Feith and Perle teamed up to represent another foreign entity... Perle and Feith worked for and advised the Bosnians during the talks. This time, however, they did not register with the Department of Justice, as foreign agents are required to do."

Feith was charging Turkey $600k per year at this time.

There was another "joint letter was signed by the following leading Armenian, Greek and Kurdish American organizations" sent in Sep02 to the DoD General Counsel complaining about conflicts of interest with perle and feith which included this:

"Mr. Perle resigned from the Reagan Administration in 1987, before the end of the Cold War, and went to Turkey and negotiated and $800,000 contract for International Advisors Inc., a company which he initiated and for which he recruited six former Executive Branch staff officials. " (emphasis in the original)

the same groups took wolfowitz to task in a letter the GWB for saying that Turkey is "one of our strongest, most reliable and most self-reliant allies" - pointing out that " The record shows that during the Cold War, Turkey brushed aside U.S. interests on many occasions and deliberately gave substantial assistance to the Soviet military."

i dont pretend to know anything about the turkish/cypriot/armenian/kurdish situation - but i'm just trying to follow the links that sibel is trying to point us to... (remember, the VF article specifically referred to the Turks buying off Hastert 2 years earlier re the armenian dont-call-it-genocide )

anyway, if we go back to the quote at the top of this post: ""Wolfowitz and Grossman actively supported sending high levels of arms to Turkey." here is xymphora just yesterday:

"Who is (sibel) referring to? The United States has a peculiar habit of completely changing government officials from administration to administration - is that habit unique amongst sophisticated countries? - and it is quite unusual for a senior bureaucrat to survive from a Democrat President's administration to a Republican President's administration. Who survived from Clinton to Bush? The most prominent figure I can think of is Marc Grossman, who had until his recent retirement and cashing in been Bush's Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Grossman had met with Pakistani General Mahmoud Ahmed when Ahmed was visiting Washington in the week before September 11, 2001. He had had a long career as a professional diplomat, and had been Clinton's ambassador to Turkey"

The Guardian tells us that:

"General Mahmoud Ahmed, the then head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wired $100,000 before the 9/11 attacks to Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker...
Ahmed, the paymaster for the hijackers, was actually in Washington on 9/11, and had a series of pre-9/11 top-level meetings in the White House, the Pentagon, the national security council, and with George Tenet, then head of the CIA, and Marc Grossman, the under-secretary of state for political affairs."

(Grossman was replaced earlier this year by the kinda-spooky, kinda-stepford Nicholas Burns - another NATO/Balkans playa)

Who knows where all that will end up?

Who can unravel it all? Maybe our friend Patrick Fitzgerald - who is currently most famous for his investigation into plame-gate. plame-gate is presumed to be an investigation into who outed plame - purportedly as a payback for wilson for discussing his nigeranium trip - altho some have speculated that maybe plame was outed for the specific intention of outing BrewsterJennings which may have been getting too close to having some success in uncovering the wmd network and associated activities. in light of sibels comments, this Brewster Jennings argument seems to be as likely as the 'treason-for-childish-retribution' argument. anyway, im getting ahead of myself...

Fitzgerald's other recent/current gigs include prosecuting Daley in Chicago (will this investigation touch hastert?) *and* the investigation into Chicago Sun-Times publisher David Radler, who is to be arraigned on Thursday. Radler is said to be assisting the investigation which will likely lead to Conrad Black and the rest of Hollinger.

"Also indicted was Mark Kipnis, the company’s former general counsel and Ravelston Corp., the Canadian private holding company Black once used to control Hollinger Inc., and through it, Hollinger International." (altho its not clear whether he is co-operating)

Richard Perle, of course, was also on the board of Hollinger - and is subject to a Wells' Notice which basically means he is under investigation by the SEC for bilking Hollinger. As we know, Perle was also in trouble for (separate?) conflict-of-interest issues when Hollinger invested $2.5M in Perle's Trireme Partners which was trying to build technology-related homeland-security/defense businesses. Interestingly, Trireme was also the vehicle that Perle and Feith used to establish International Advisors Inc - the lobbying vehicle that received more than $4million from the Turkish government. In return, the Turkish govt received massive military aid and sales, courtesy of the IAI efforts, with the help of Wolfowitz and Grossman. Its funny how that works.

This is all probably beyond Fitzgeralds (current) purview, but we can maintain some faint hope - particularly in light of this recent description "And always, (Fitzgerald) has methodically, inexorably pursued his investigations to target the man at the top of the organizational pyramid." - and we can combine that quote with a comment from sibel which i cant find at the moment but she basically said that it doesnt matter where you start the investigation - its all the same criminal organisation - you could start with aipac or any other place - as long as you keep investigating, all roads lead to Rome. This has been patently obvious to anyone paying attention - but its nice to have it confirmed.

Can Fitzgerald save us? can anyone save us? can anyone save Fitzgerald? place your bets.

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update - don't forget to read sibel's thoughts about this post.