Wednesday, December 28, 2005

sibel edmonds, brewster jennings, edelman and grossman

UPDATE: i've been in communication with Sibel and she has verified much of my writing in other posts. details here, including pointers from her about where to look, and details of our conversation)
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As you know, I've been promising a manifesto for months (!) about Sibel and how it all fits together.

The post below has been in its current (incomplete) state (since the last time i contributed was on november 28) - for a bunch of reasons, i'm going to post it now, as it is.

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back to my sibel obsession.

some questions:
1) what is Sibel claiming?
2) does she have any credibility?
3) who does she suggest is involved?
4) who fits that profile?

What are Sibel's Main Claims?
Sibel makes 2 specific related claims
a) Sibel claims that she has information which proves that senior officials knew that there were plans to attack America months before 9/11.

Specifically:
"There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used but not specifically about how they would be used and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities with skyscrapers."
and
"President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11 September," she said. There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away."
b) Sibel claims that she has evidence of a global multi-billion dollar smuggling/dealing network of weapons and drug which is hidden in plain view. Of course, there is also the requisite money-laundering infrastructure. She claims that the network comprises senior american government officials, terrorists, and 'unsavoury regimes.'

and they merge, giving us:
“drug trafficking, money laundering, foreign names and American names directly involved in the financing of the 9-11 attacks on WTC (World Trade Center) and the Pentagon.”

Does Sibel Have Any Credibility?
Sibel was a translator for the FBI with a top-secret clearance in Turkish, Azerbaijani and Farsi. She was hired in the immediate days after 91101 - working "about four days a week, generally from 5 to 11 p.m." and was fired 6 months later in March 02.

She sure seemed to learn a whole lot of secrets in that short period!

On the other hand, her story was deemed suffiently credible to a bunch of people - specifically Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Senior Member, Senate Judiciary Committee and Robert Mueller, Director, FBI. Attorney General John Ashcroft apparently got really nervous about a lot of stuff that Sibel was saying and invoked the States Secret Act - bacially gagging her from saying anything - including going to the extraordinary extent of retroactively reclassifying stuff that was previously in the public domain(!). Sibel testified to the 911 Commission, although she received nary a mention. A bunch of other folk from various government agencies (FBI, CIA, FAA, DIA, Customs) wrote a letter to Elliot Spitzer asking him to investigate.

xymphora offers some words of caution:
"Edmonds sometimes makes me a bit nervous as she seems overly adept with the terms and arguments of conspiracy theory for someone who is supposed to have been a lowly FBI translator (it's like she's been reading Peter Dale Scott!). Is she part of the battle in Washington between the Bush Administration enablers involved in the drugs/arms business who don't mind directly or indirectly supporting al Qaeda if it is good for business, and those old-fashioned types who still consider that dealing with American enemies is treason?"
I agree that some caution is warranted, particularly given her short, part-time tenure - to counter that argument, however, there seemed to be a deliberate effort to keep Turkic language translators out of the translation department. They 'lost' Sibel's job application, only to find it again when she called to enquire years later, and somehow had her security clearance ready to go on 9/12 - when she learned that she was the only Turkish translator - ergo its possible that certain people knew that they were being bugged, but didnt really care because they 'knew' that the conversations would never see the light of day.

For current purposes, I'll assume that there is something there, there.

Who Does Sibel Suggest is Involved?

As I mentioned earlier, Sibel has been gagged under the States Secret Act - therefore we can only guess. She claims that the network is actually visible and she has provided a roadmap of sorts - the task therefore is to triangulate her data points and see where we end up.

Firstly, lets try to get a handle on the scope of her charges. This from an August, 05 interview of Sibel (SE) with Christopher Deliso (CD):
SIBEL: Essentially, there is only one investigation – a very big one, an all-inclusive one. Completely by chance, I, a lowly translator, stumbled over one piece of it.

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. And of course a lot of people from abroad are involved. It's massive. So to do this investigation, to really do it, they will have to look into everything.

CD: But you can start from anywhere –

SIBEL: That's the beauty of 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. There may be a lot of them, but it is one group. And they are very dangerous for all of us.
That's quite a claim, no? The Theory Of Everything. Of course, we've seen similar criminal networks before - like BCCI, which John Kerry helped unravel in his earlier years (which he chose not to mention in the election campaign for some reason. perhaps he didnt think "fighting the 'War on Terror'" wouldnt sell (or that voters would confuse it with the BBC!))

So now we know what she is claiming, and we know that the idea isnt unprecedented.

Which countries does she claim are involved?
SIBEL: Turkey, Azerbaijan, and all the 'Stans, including Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and [non-Turkic countries like] Afghanistan and Pakistan.
she specifically goes out of her way to call them 'quasi-allies'. and, of course, there's America.

And why dont we prosecute these issues?
SIBEL: this would upset "certain foreign relations." But it would also expose certain of our elected officials, who have significant connections with high-level drugs- and weapons-smuggling – and thus with the criminal underground, even with the terrorists themselves.
What's the official excuse?
SIBEL: because the Department of State says, "You know what, you can't pursue this because that may deal with this particular country. If this country that the investigation deals with are not one of the Axis of Evil, we don't want to pursue them." (link)
and
OK, you're looking at Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and these are the countries that now we are busy establishing bases in... They are not even naming these countries. The role that Pakistan played before and the role that Pakistan is playing today." (link)
And where is most of the corruption within the USA?
" some of them in the Department of Defense, some of them in the Department of State" (link)
and
"CD: I know you can't name names, but are there any government agencies in particular that you can single out as being more corrupt or more involved with the substance of your allegations?

SIBEL: The Department of State.

CD: What, the most corrupt?

SIBEL: The Department of State is easily the most corrupted of the major government agencies." (link)
and
SIBEL: Watch the Department of State. Watch people who are involved with the countries I mentioned above. Watch their careers, where they were stationed, what jobs they held, what were their areas of expertise, where these interests overlap. Were they involved with weapons procurement ever? Would anything in their resumé indicate knowledge of and experience in not one, but several of these countries I have mentioned?

Because you know, it is not very often you can find someone with the requisite linguistic and cultural training necessary for working with several countries simultaneously, as well as the acumen and right mindset for these kinds of adventures. There can't be many.

Look out for the organizations they're involved in. Look at where these memberships overlap. Two major lobby groups that have come out in one way or another have been the American-Turkish Council and AIPAC. They're not the only ones, but you can start with them. Look at their members, their leaders past and present. Look at where these names overlap with the qualities I mentioned above.

What I am telling you is that this network is visible, and it is possible to grasp what's going on. And I think to a certain extent it's obvious that some of your neocons will be involved in these criminal activities. You don't need me to tell you that. But too often, they [the media] have looked in the wrong places.

CD: An example?

SIBEL: Well, I'm wondering why in this "war on terror" they aren't taking a look at the role of banks in Dubai, banks in Cyprus – they've always concentrated on banks in places like, say, Switzerland. They almost never look at these two other huge areas for money-laundering." (link)
and
"SIBEL: ... but also you should pay attention to the fact that some of these people have been (at the Pentagon and State) for a while, and some of these people had their roots in there even in the mid-1990s.

Scott Horton: So more career officials rather than political appointees.

SIBEL: Or maybe a mixture of both."
(as ive mentioned before - it's not obvious here whether she is saying: a) a mixture of both career officials and political appointees, or b) people whose appointments are both 'career' and 'political'.)

Who Fitz (sic) the Profile?

Riffing off that last quote from the interview by Scott Horton, xymphora wrote:
"Who is she 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 (remember that Edmonds' allegations refer to translations of Turkish documents for the FBI). He was appointed by Clinton to be Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs in 1997. From 1984 to 1986, he had been the Deputy Director of the Private Office of Lord Carrington, then Secretary General of NATO. The husband and wife team that Edmonds has fingered for wrongdoing are USAF Major Douglas Dickerson and Melek Can (aka Jan Dickerson). Douglas Dickerson, who had been working for the USAF selling American weapons systems to the 'Stans, was protected by posting him to NATO in Belgium."
I've written about grossman previously - he is knee-deep with Feith and Perle in their 'lobbying' efforts at the nexus of israel and turkey and arms deals. Grossman is also a triatorgator - he organised for *the* report on wilson to be produced, and disseminated. ive discussed the issue before, emptywheel suggests that grossman is a great candidate for the 'source' for the sep29, 03 Wapo article which claims that the whole outing of plame was a complete mistake - 'purely for revenge'. i suspect something more nefarious.

in any case, it seems that the suspicions about grossman were apparently well-founded. Christopher Deliso's piece earlier this week stated:
"Although Grossman "has not been as high profile in the press" FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds cryptically told me the other day, "don't overlook him – he is very important."" (emphasis in the original)
Deliso's piece also asked questions about Eric Edelman - i wrote about his history for this very purpose (and here). Edelman was recently Ambassador to Turkey, is entangled in traitorgate, has a long history inside the wolfowitz/cheney/perle cabal, was recently (recess) appointed to Feith's position at DoD - after having misrepresented his involvement in traitorgate in his Senate filings.

Edelman's official bio is here - he certainly meets Sibel's criteria that "some of these people have been (at the Pentagon and State) for a while, and some of these people had their roots in there even in the mid-1990s" - Edelman also survived xymphora's observation/filter that "it is quite unusual for a senior bureaucrat to survive from a Democrat President's administration to a Republican President's administration." Even more than that, Edelman moved from Cheney's inner-circle to the Turkey outpost, after the invasion, for some reason, and then recently back into the loving arms again. I can only assume the Turkey posting was integral to whatever the hell is going on. The Turkey gig seems like a banishment of sorts - i cant think of another neocon player who was thrown into the wilderness, and then recruited back to the heart of the operation.

Other recent Turkish ambassadors - and who therefore may be of interest are Mark Parris (Grossmans predecessor) and Ross Wilson (Edelman's sucessor).

Obviously these specific people are merely the enablers. Sibel points to a bunch of other groups that she calls 'semi-legit' - and she famously points to the ATC and others as another bunch of enabling agents. As i've mentioned, i wouldnt be surprised if USG organisations were also involved (something like USAID or NED or the DEA, for example). She also points to certain 'lobbyists' - primarily Feith and Perle as i've discussed before - and i wouldnt be surprised if our friend Charles Black isnt part of the same gravy train (although sibel hasnt pointed in that direction).
And then there are a bunch of players that help with the logistics - companies like Giza Technologies, for example - but i dont have any insight at all into the logistics side of it.

--------
So there you have it - an incomplete post - but hopefully that will put things in some perspective, for now. I'll have more to come (he promises, again). I'll throw up a couple of other posts that i've been 'working' on as well.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

What happens when once Top Secret documents make it onto the Internet exposing treason in wartime? Nothing! The 'evil doers' simply ignore the written word and pray that it will go away.
http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com/id120.html

Exposing these blatant felonies has had zero impact on the so called "Intelligence Community". There has been no public response or reaction from the former Attorney General, Ashcroft, who, along with Senators Kyl and Shelby of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, received this information in 2001. If the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the United States and two Senators can ignore this information, perhaps they will choose that route by ignoring revelations that only Sibel Edmonds can provide.

It's as simple as peeling layers from an onion or sqeezing toothpaste from a tube; once it happens the only thing that the government can do is ignore it.

Prosecuting the exposure of crimes is not a likely remedy because it is illegal to place a classification on a subject that is criminal in nature. Government regulations are quite clear on prohibiting a classification on criminal matters such as disregarding Presidential Directives issued during National Security Council meetings, during wartime.

Such felonies have no statute of limitations.

Bests,
John

Anonymous said...

Drug running, guns, family values -- sounds so Viet Nam. The only thing different between Iraq and VietNam is the internet. This is good use of a new media. Keep up the good work.

Your fellow Patriot,

Anonymous said...

Very intriguing. I've seen allegations that Armitage should be included here, because he has done significant work in the 'Stans, and has long been involved with covert ops. And he would fit Edmonds' criteria very well.

One thing I've never had adequately explained (and one reason I've put more trust in Grossman than others on the Plame thing, as you note here) is the American Turkic Council. The three people at State I know who had a close involvement there in 2003 were:

Grossman
Brent Scowcroft
Joseph Wilson

In other words, while I understand (but haven't seen the documentation) that some Neocons have been quite involved there, there are also some realists who had close ties. Their relationship at ATC is the root of Wilson's and Scowcroft's mutual criticism of the Bush Administration, for example.

Now one thing I will absolutely entertain is that the Powell wing (Powell, Armitage, Grossman--note that most accounts of his retirement put Grossman firmly in the Powell camp, not at all in the Neocon camp) is corrupt and nefarious in its own right. I think it's too easy for us to assume the Neocons are the only or worst enemies for this country. On the Plame issue, the Neocons appear to be at fault. But from your description here, you are (IMO) making a much stronger argument that the Realists are at fault in the Sibel Edmonds allegations than the Neocons.

To get to what I don't get. THe connection between Plame and this. Unless Wilson was effectively spying at ATC for Plame on this issue, it seems like the way the Plame issue pivots on this relates more to (perhaps) a rivalry WITHIN the US over ties to Central Asian influence. I don't know--I'll have to keep thinking on it.

One other thing you might consider--the recent Risen allegations that we leaked Iran plans for a bomb, and that someone at CIA basically leaked all of our Iranian agents to Iran. The first seems like an attempt to set-up Russia. The second seems like a case of a double agent--the mistake is just too ridiculous. Don't know what to make of these two elements either--but if you're right and AIPAC relates to Edmunds' allegations, then I feel sure that this does too, since AIPAC was basically about Iranian intelligence.

emptywheel

Anonymous said...

EW - yep, i think you are right to suggest that we shouldn't see State as a beacon of honesty - and i think the purported 'realist vs neocon' battle is largely overblown. similarly, i think the 'State=Realist' meme can also be very misleading. For example, it's pretty easy to argue that Armitage is all but a neocon (check this post, for example). Similarly, Grossman is now at the Cohen Group.

As for tying this into plame, have you read the other posts linked in the post? The working hypothesis is that Plame/BJ was getting too close to unravelling the arms/drugs trafficking network that is financially rewarding certain people at State and DoD and elsewhere - and she was therefore outed in order to block the BJ investigation and the possibility that the scam will be exposed.

Good point about the Risen/iran stories - i missed the obvious double-agent scenario.

Anonymous said...

oops - that comment above was from me (blogger is playing up)


Lukery.

Anonymous said...

Cross posted at KOS but, hey, it's a lot better stuff that the Hopsicker material.

***

I guess everyone interviewing and thinking about Sibel Edmonds has forgot about Susurluk. I can promise you that she hasn't forgotten about it. It's an interesting event for many reasons and it's very likely that the US side of it is exactly what Ms. Edmonds is talking about.

What TF is Susurluk?

Imagine a car accident at, say, the Greenbriar hotel in WVA. Several people are killed, among them Jeff Gannon, Douglas Feith, Warren Christopher, and OBL. Imagine a country were thousands of people who challenge the government just disappear. Imagine a country were the most wanted terrorist is employeed by a cabal of defense department honchos to attack political enemies and seed fear. Well, Turkey, in 1996 was that country. (Hmmmm, it sounds familar.) However, after the Susurluk accident, a car crash that killed Abdullah Catli (Turkey's most wanted terrorist at the time), a former deputy police chief of Istanbul, a True Path Party member of parliment who ran a private army (to protect the people against terrorists), a mafia don, and a prostitute all hell broke loose.

The fallout from the Susurluk accident turned Turkey's political structure upside down and the fallout is still being felt today. It was, hands down, the largest and most complex political scandal in Europe in the 1990s. Numerous investigations spread from the initial accident investigation, leading to elaborate documentation that Turkey was being run, more or less, by a secret government consisting of defense contractors, drug mafia dons, corrupt politicians, and, ahem, terrorists. Many of the most serious human right violations throughout Turkey were attributed to the Susurluk cabal.

Sure, everyone says Turkey is corrupt and run by the generals but after Susurluk, there was enough real evidence to prove it (and to take down dozens of politicians and the ruling party, and put people in jail.)

It is the mother of all proven conspiracy theories. And at the edges of Susurluk lie the same players as Sibel Edmonds is, apparently, talking about. Yes, the same guys from the state department, and the same neocons, and the same NATO defense contractors, and the same Israeli and Iranian arms dealers from Iran-Contra, and the same BCCI and Riggs bankers show up where the Turkish investigation of Susurluk shut down "for national security reasons." How were large quantites of drugs and arms moved and laudered? It's unclear but it looks like the people that Edmonds is pointing to handled that stuff. People who were dealing with Turkish criminals under the guise of fighting the cold war and stopping terror, ahem.

Take a look at Susurluk. It's mostly off the radar of the US press but there's lots and lots of stuff from Europe about it. It's bigger than you are thinking and remarkably well documented by various national investigations, Amnesty International investigations, UN investigations, etc. You'll have to dig but, hey, it's worth it.

Bruce Sterling has a nice little introduction to Susurluk in Wired Magazine here:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.08/cyprus.html?pg=2

There's a 1997 Washington Post article about the beginning of the scandal here:

http://kurdistan.org/Washington/couturier3.html

And there's a UN report on Turkish Extrajudicial executions from 2001 that credits and documents a remarkable array of human rights problems related to Susurluk here:

http://www.hri.ca/fortherecord2002/documentation/commission/e-cn4-2002-74-add1.htm

There's a lot more material out here. Enjoy.

Anonymous said...

A footnote to the above post...

Everyone interested in Turkey's politics in the 90s followed the Susurluk accident mess. It was 10x bigger than, say, Iran-Contra here. I'm sure Ms. Edmonds, even if she didn't know every detail knew tons about it just from being reasonably well-informed.

So, imagine you were following Iran-Contra a bit and you got a job translating criminal intercepts in another country and, whoa, all the Iran-Contra players showed up talking to various well-known politicians in your host country. You might be a bit surprised and you might have something to say to your colleagues about it.

I suspect Ms. Edmonds recongized various players/banks/arms dealers/diplomats from the Susurluk fallout and that set off bells, bells, bells.

Anonymous said...

Of course there's more to this. Any serious investigation into 9-11, and the Bushco house of cards collapses like a... well, house of cards. It is clear that the neocons planned and orchestrated and financed the whole thing. Remember Cannonfire's Joe Cannon revealed that "hijacker" Mohammed Atta was on Abramoff's Sun Cruz gambling cruise just 5 days before 9-11. And Atta's relatives, including his father, say he is alive and well and kept protected. And there is so, so, so much more. But when, oh, when, will any of our so-called fourth estate begin any serious investigation?

Of course the root of the neocon power comes from the stolen election machine. Diebold is rolling across America right now light a fat, filthy, black-smoke spewing freight train.

Click here to ask Barbara Boxer to lead the fight for fair elections!

Boxer was the only one with the stones to stand up against the seating of the Ohio electors in the stolen '04 election. Unless the Dems get their head out of the sand, and fast, Rove's master plan of a "permanent Reoublican majority" will be realized. Sign the petition!

http://www.petitiononline.com/boxer123

Anonymous said...

on the drugs and money aspect all should be aware of the John Diloren trial and the last words he said to the judge before he was told he was out of order. One would be foolish indeed to believe that the billions avaliable in the drug trade haven't affected our foreign policy moves as this society runs on who greases the tracks w/the green, (money).

Anonymous said...

I think we have the ultimate in corruption of any government in history of US and we should throw cheney, bush and their entire team out of government. Is it not that we are a Democracy ? God help us if we dont act now.
Keen

Anonymous said...

Lukery, an excellent job detailing all of Edmond's allegations. My head is spinning!

Keep up the fantastic work!

Anonymous said...

Fitz would not indict Plame and fits a profile that he was investigation as organized crime task force, CIA. As far as Plame in this, most are wondering about the 'Plame Madrid Spain ally' connection and the recent attack in Pakistan, another ally who's leader needs to go?

Anonymous said...

what is the plame connection to mardrid and the latest murders in pakistan?

PrissyPatriot said...

Excellent work, Lukery:)


May justice come soon!

Anonymous said...

9/11 happened as the National Guard was in the middle of an exercise lookng for what happened.

Lopakhin said...

Neoconvict: Remember Cannonfire's Joe Cannon revealed that "hijacker" Mohammed Atta was on Abramoff's Sun Cruz gambling cruise just 5 days before 9-11.

Not necessarily true, actually:

http://www.911myths.com/html/atta_and_abramoff.html

Neo: And Atta's relatives, including his father, say he is alive and well and kept protected.

Definitely untrue.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/07/19/atta.father.terror/index.html

CAIRO, Egypt (CNN) -- The father of one of the hijackers who commandeered the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, praised the recent terror attacks in London and said many more would follow.

Speaking to CNN producer Ayman Mohyeldin Tuesday in his apartment in the upper-middle-class Cairo suburb of Giza, Mohamed el-Amir said he would like to see more attacks like the July 7 bombings of three London subway trains and a bus that killed 52 people, plus the four bombers.

Displayed prominently in the apartment were pictures of el-Amir's son, Mohamed Atta, the man who is believed to have piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center as part of the attacks on the United States.

Anonymous said...

anyone who sells arms to al qaeda today would be engaging in treason(if they are indeed the ones attacking us e.g. 9/11)....there is no room for argument there. saying it is good for business is no excuse. dealing arms with american enemies is treason. that isnt old fashioned. it is just this kind of lack of rational reasoning ability which makes me lose hope for america sometimes.

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