Kill the Messenger: Sibel Edmonds

Wayne Madsen has a big new article about Sibel, Plame, Grossman, Dickersons and Brewster Jennings. I have posted it in full over (because Madsen doesn't have proper links) at my other blog, Wot Is It Good 4.

For those who don't know Madsen, you can read his bio here. For the record, Madsen is regarded by some as sometimes being unreliable.

based on some comments in some of the posts on this blog, I have a new post over at my other blog, Wot Is It Good 4, about Plame, Grossman and Brewster Jennings.

This snippet from my (as yet mostly unpublished) interview with KTM Director Mathieu Verboud:

Luke : One of the comments you make in the movie brochure (pdf) is Daniel Pearl - is his story directly related to Sibel Edmonds?

Mathieu : Before 9/11, Robert Baer was apparently the first to brief Daniel Pearl about the role of jihadist groups in Pakistan - and the fact that all road always lead to Pakistan.

When 911 happened, lots of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia - but lots of them are connected to the jihad in Pakistan - and Pearl wants to go there to see for himself. He wanted to talk to key people, and the people he eventually got in contact with happened to be very dangerous Islamic fanatics.

Now some say that Pearl wanted to know the Islamic connection to the nuclear effort in Pakistan, or secrets being passed by the Pakistani government to al-Qaeda. David Albright, who is a living encyclopedia in these matters, will confirm that this is indeed a true question: something occurred, but what ? Pearl may have wanted to know. All we know is he was abducted and killed. We also know that the ISI, Pakistan’s dreaded intelligence service, was cooperating to a degree with the FBI’s search of Pearl’s whereabouts.

from the AP today:

Musharraf Memoir Links Al-Qaeda #3 to Daniel Pearl Murder

The former top al-Qaida operative accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks either killed or participated in the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, Pakistan's president has alleged for the first time.

In his memoirs released this week, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf accused Khalid Sheikh Mohammed of taking part in Pearl's killing in the southern port city of Karachi following his Jan. 23, 2002 kidnapping. Mohammed is in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay.

"The man who may have actually killed Pearl or at least participated in his butchery, we eventually discovered, was none other than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaida's No. 3," Musharraf wrote in "In The Line of Fire," which was released Monday.

Mohammed has never been officially linked to Pearl's murder during police investigations or the trial that resulted in four Islamic militants being convicted and sentenced to death for the killing.

Sibel has posted two new reviews - Le Canard (pdf) and Le Monde (pdf) - both in French.

The Le Monde article, translated by me & the machine:

The history of Sibel Edmonds could be used to make a John Grisham 'whodunnit.' A few days after the attacks of September 11, the young woman of Turkish extraction is recruited by the FBI. She is in charge of the translation of the phone-tappings, the interrogations and the documents within the framework of the antiterrorist fight. Sibel Edmonds speaks Persian, Farsi and Azeri.

In December of the same year, she is contacted by a colleague from the FBI who tries to recruit her for the account of a mysterious Turkish lobbying organization. By denouncing this manifest case of espionage and by revealing that the FBI hides information over September 11, Sibel Edmonds found herself at the heart of the incredible business of State.

After the Children of Tranquility Bay, a beautiful documentary on the American camps of behavior modification, the film-makers Mathieu Verboud and Jean-Robert Viallet have made a film full with suspense and revelations about these men and these women - the "whistleblower" ("those which give a whistle") - which denounce the dysfunctions of an organization or an administration. An attractive diving (?), sometimes a little difficult, in the mysteries of the reason of State in America.

errors are mine.

another review by Armenews (rough translation, errors by me & the machine):

"Film on Canal+ Don't miss - based on Vanity Fair's investigation - Sibel EDMONDS/FBI, Turk-English translator who translated the communications between the Speaker of the House and Turkish officials to receive bribes in order not to allow the resolution of the genocide to Congress in 2000

The life of Sibel Edmonds took a nightmarish turn when she was fired for mysterious reasons. Young translator having joined the FBI after September 11, she was sanctioned for her uprightness. Indeed, it discovered that one of her colleagues covered illegal activities of Turkish and American officials . She immediately informed her superiors of them. Their answer was to fire her. But the young woman decided to inform the media. Having allowed the cameras of Mathieu Verboud and Jean-Robert Viallet to follow her in her search for truth, she defies the FBI today.

The muzzled truth

A WOMAN TO BE CUT DOWN is a true espionage thriller on the only American citizen who dared to defy the F.B.I so that the truth bursts, and to ensure the Americans the safety that their government owes them.

“This real-life Whodunnit” is especially the history of Sibel Edmonds and her combat: how a translator, link of the complex chains of American information, discovers wiretaps blaming officials from America her allies. How it will defy those which threaten it, to overcome its fears and to defend the freedom which justifies its work for the country. And how, in the name of this same principle, the American authorities will prevent Sibel from speaking.

There is a true phenomenon around the translator, who has broad public support. Last April, Sibel Edmonds received from Paul Newman the “2006 First Amendment Award”, eminent distinction decreed by the PEN Club, an association in support of writers and the freedom of expression.

Revealed secrets

The work of the film-makers, at Sibel's side, explores the stakes of secrecy, was since the first day blocked by the State which justifies the threats against the young woman. Since September 11, 2001, the safety of the United States however allows innumerable distortions to the sacro-sanct personal freedoms. But higher interests seem to dictate the policy of the Bush administration…

Agents of the American Intelligence Community nevertheless “remain patriots” who validated the investigations of Mathieu Verboud. Those carry out in Turkey, Israel and to Pakistan, in the slides of the ministries for Justice and the Foreign Affairs, the F.B.I and the Pentagon. They join other significant businesses and mix business with weapons, technological espionage, nuclear black market, heroin traffic, money laundering, corruption - in particular with the American Congress - and serious threats, directly relating to national security.

A captivating and alarming investigation."

another review - from L'Humanite. translation errors mine.

"“To always deny, always hide”. This is the currency of the American secret service. Sibel Edmonds learned to her costs.

Recall the facts. Only two months after having been employed by the FBI translation department, this woman of Turco-Iranian origin will be approached by Turkish spies within the service. After having referred about it to her superiors, she is laid off without explanation, and decides to attack in justice the FBI.

In vain, her lawsuit is rejected without reason and the Minister for Justice issues the secrecy of State on the business, thus prohibiting her from speaking about her discoveries. This documentary with the simple but effective realization plunges us in the slides of the administration Bush and it is far from being reassuring!"

A review from L'Express

"Who? Shortly after September 11, Sibel Edmonds, American of Turkish origin, is approached by the FBI to become translator in one of the most secret units. Patriotically, she accepts the job.

What? Quickly, the film demonstrates the presence of spies in the pocket of Turkish lobbies. It tells of the hierarchy, which dismisses her whole case. Sibel tries to warn the Congress, then justice, of her discoveries. But Justice Minister John Ashcroft stamps her entire case with "States Secrets"

Why? Mathieu Verboud and Jean-Robert Viallet reveal, in a palpitating investigation, the combat of this young woman against the FBI initially, then against the American authorities, whose lies hide behind the sacro-holy safety of the State"

(machine translated, errors mine)

I can't wait to see KTM.

Here is a (rough, machine) translation of Le Figaro's article (pdf, original ) on KTM:

"Channel + “a woman to cut down” the true story of a woman recruited by the FBI after September 11 then sanctioned for her uprightness.

Perhaps the Public imagined that with the Children of Tranquility Bay (film on a center for young difficult Americans, rewarded in Fipa), programmed last May on France 2, Mathieu Verboud and Jean-Robert Vialley had reached a peak in the originality of the writing. But the public didn't count on this new investigation worthy of the best whodunnit by John Grisham…

The difference is that this is a true story. That of Sibel Edmonds, called “the most explosive woman of September 11”, an involuntary detonator of a politico-legal explosive business.

“It is while working on the phenomenon of “Whistle Blowers”, these employees who denounce the illegal intrigues their incredible owners and stories (Enron, pharmaceutical laboratories…), that we could come into contact with it”, tells Mathieu Verboud.

Shortly after September 11, this American born in Iran and having grown up in Turkey, who speaks Persan, Azeri and Turkish, is recruited by the FBI to translate kilometers of phone-tappings. Corruption, drugs, money laundering, companies screens, nuclear black market… what she will discover is amazing. But when spies infiltrated within the department of translation try to recruit her, she decides to inform her bosses. It is there that her life gets rocked…

Attempt at intimidation, reprisals, Sibel Edmonds is finally laid off… She turns to the Congress, then towards the Dept of Justice, but the Bush Administration chooses to muzzle this too-awkward witness, “to kill the messenger” like one says to the FBI, by exhuming an old law: the “secret States' privilege”. In short: Silence or the prison. Why? To hide what?

The Pitiless Microcosm of Washington

The business could have stopped there. But this is just the beginning for the small translator, flag-carrier for “whistle blowers”, a long struggle which the film-makers capture. A crusade for the right to the truth. And for the public, a diving haletante (?) in the twists and turns of the espionage. “When a woman leaves in war, she is never innocent" continues Mathieu Verboud. If a whistle blower can cause an earthquake, imagine when it is about September 11. It was thought that she knew an enormous secret. But the objective was also to show how the world of information had managed the terrorist attacks, the political pressures and the incompetence of the bureaucracy. ”

A work of really good investigation which required ninety days of filming and which took on board the film-makers during six months in the life of this “woman to be cut down”: "She authorized us to follow it all the more easily - as the press did not support her. She uses her public image like a strategy. But she gave us total freedom - so long as we did not ask about her specific secret.”

Their film thus points the failures of the internal investigations of the FBI, the hazardous methods, the flip-flopping, lies of the heartless microcosm of Washington, fully supported with testimonies, official speeches and recorded footage. Thus they follow senior officials, federal employees, intelligence agents (FBI, the CIA, NSA) who did not hesitate to come forward: “They needed to speak. In the information also, there are honest people. I wanted to show that the political power was certainly instrumental, but never the State had handled them as much”, insists Verboud.

The camera tracking faces, expressions, faintnesses. The result is the height of the ambition. Their accounts, pure and hard, are so rich in revelations and leaves the audience, incredulous, flabbergasted or disgusted, and will have the feeling of watching a psychological thriller which mixes suspense and reflexion. Just some lengths will be reproached. It certainly is a complex business.

This documentary which could have been only one investigation into how the Bush Administration defies national security, goes well beyond.

Putting in prospect the strange bonds between the American politicians, Turkey, Israel, Pakistan, diplomats, secret service, multinational weapons procurement, nuclear programs - léaire (?), this film casts an unexpected light on the global environment and the crisis in the Middle East."

Again, errors are mine - but wow! What a great review from Le Figaro! Congratulations again to Verboud and Vialley. Variety's review of Tranquility Bay is here:

Shocking docu "Tranquility Bay" presents evidence of abuse at several behavior modification centers for troubled teens run by a Utah-basedcompany. The company's Guantanamo Bay-style approach to education has been reported previously in the media, but this English-language pic by Gallic co-helmers Mathieu Verboud and Jean Robert Viallet provides an in-depth investigation that eschews sensationalism and builds a scrupulously mounted case against the org via moving interviews with victims and parents, as well as present and ex-employees. Applauded at the IDFA and Thessaloniki doc fests, "Bay" has yet to find a berth Stateside, where it will be of most interest.

I sooo can't wait to see KTM.

please note that i've updated the AP review of KTM with a better translation - although we have removed two erroneous statements from the review - first that Israel helped the Pakistani nuclear program, and second that Al Qaeda attacked on 9/11 with nuclear equipment from AQ Khan. I have no idea why/how the AP thought that Al Qaeda used nukes in 911!

(thnx to Mathieu for the translation)

Sibel has posted three reviews of KTM from the French press - look under " International Press Coverage" here.

• LE FIGARO, 19 Septembre 2006
• Libération, 19 Septembre 2006
• Télé 7 jours, Du 16 au 22 Septembre 2006

They are scans from the French original - and I can't copy/paste/machine-translate - I'll try to get my OCR experts to help out - but if anyone wants to translate, that'd be a great help.

I could only find the Libération article online (here) - the (mostly) machine translation is as follows:

Sibel Edmonds is 32 years old when she is contacted for the first time by the FBI, a few days after September 11, 2001. Like numerous other translators, this American, usually speaking Turkish and the Persian language, is committed to make up for lost time of the American information to decipher thousands of hours of phone-tappings.

A few weeks later, Sibel translates sulfurous conversations about money laundering, trafficking of weapons and drug, and corruption implicating American, Turkish and Israeli political personalities... Two months later, Sibel is approached by one of her translator colleagues and her husband. They propose to her, without ambiguity, a financial arrangement if she does not transmit all information which she translates. Informing her bosses at once, Sibel Edmonds enters an infernal process which lasts nearly five years. Because all her direct higher interlocutors and direction of the FBI order her to keep silent. And when she alerts the Department of Justice, she is immediately fired from the FBI and is formally prohibited from speaking. This extremely rare procedure, Secret State Privilege, obliges her to keep her silence, even in front of a judge, in the name of the secrecy of State.

The documentary clearly aims at presenting Sibel Edmonds like an angry, passionate American. The title says it all, since her combat becomes extensive since she created a coalition of "whistle blowers", a term indicating those which denounce the dysfunctions of the State, she gathers a hundred former members of the FBI, NSA, the CIA and Justice...

It is difficult to really understand why Sibel is silenced: the deep lack of curiousity of the American agencies about counter-espionage or a corruption installed at the most top of the State? One can only choose.

Sibel has a conversation with Daniel Ellsberg (July 04) - 2 minutes.
(by request )


some quotes:

"If John Ashcroft is willing to gag Congress, publicly he is doing this, imagine what he is doing that we are not hearing about!"

and

For every time that they try to lie and smear me, I can put one thing out there that will haunt them for the rest of their lives - so, have them be my guest.

Very interesting news. In my backgrounder post regarding Douglas and Melek Can Dickerson, I wrote:

The Dickersons appear to have already disappeared into retirement - and by all accounts haven't been seen since they fled the country.

It turns out this isn't true - Miguel explains (in his very best AP voice):

Key Figure In US/Turkish Espionage Scandal Promoted

The case of former FBI whistleblower and translator Sibel Edmonds may have taken yet another bizarre twist. NATO sources who recently viewed the Belgian broadcast of the new documentary about Edmonds' case, Kill The Messenger, have contacted the whistleblower to say that Air Force Major Douglas Dickerson who, along with his wife, is accused by Edmonds of being involved in espionage and other illegal activities on behalf of Turkey, has received a promotion.
According to the sources, Dickerson has been promoted from Major to Lieutenant Colonel and transferred from Belgium to Yokota Air Force Base in Japan where he is the 374th Logistics Readiness Squadron Director of Operations . A Google search appears to partially confirm Edmonds' NATO sources: a January 23, 2006 online article of the military publication Stars and Stripes identifies a Douglas Dickerson as 374th Logistics Readiness Squadron's "acting commander", although he is still identified as a Major. It is not clear when, if ever, Dickerson's promotion took place.

If true, the incident is another piece of evidence that the Bush Administration's "war on terror" is directed principally at low-level suspects like former Guantanomo Bay translator James Yee, with well connected figures such as Dickerson being protected and even rewarded for potentially treasonous acts. The Turkish espionage is significant in the "war on terror" because Edmonds has intimated on more than one occasion that there were significant ties between al Qaeda's financial network and Turkish groups in the years leading up to 9-11, although this information apparently has been kept under wraps by the Bush Administration in order to avoid embarrassing what is now a key U.S. ally in fighting al Qaeda guerillas in Afghanistan.

Those familiar with the FBI translator case will recall that it was Douglas Dickerson's wife, Melek Can Dickerson, who was alleged to have mistranslated several wiretaps related to FBI targets at the Turkish Embassy and the American Turkish Council (ATC), an organization where Dickerson had previously held an intern position. According to Edmonds, shortly after Melek Dickerson joined the FBI as a Turkish translator, she and her husband Doug Dickerson paid an unexpected visit one Sunday morning to the Edmonds' household and made a blatant attempt to recruit Sibel and her husband Matthew into the ATC. The recruitment attempt led to the FBI agent in charge of Turkish counterintelligence requesting Sibel Edmonds to review Dickerson's wiretap translations, many of which upon re-translation appear to have been deliberately mistranslated in order to cover-up a major scandal: Some of the wiretaps revealed Turkish nationals boasting of payoffs to high-level U.S. officials- and the involvement of Turkey in the nuclear black market and Bin Laden-linked heroin trade.

What remains unclear is whether Doug Dickerson is currently under investigation by the United States Air Force. In early 2002, the Air Force opened an investigation into Dickerson based on a letter sent by Edmonds' attorneys. That initial investigation was closed down that same year. However, David Rose, who wrote the Vanity Fair article on Edmonds, "An Inconvenient Patriot", later related on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now that the Air Force investigation had been re-opened in 2005. According to Edmonds, the Air Force has never contacted her as a witness, so it is not clear whether or not the second investigation of Dickerson is still under way. In addition to relating to Edmonds news about Dickerson's apparent promotion, the NATO sources say Dickerson's bosses " are the same individuals who have been protecting Douglas Feith & Richard Perle from being thoroughly investigated by the FBI." Feith and Perle, both associated with the Turkish lobbying firm International Advisors Inc. (IAI) were claimed by Brad Friedman of Bradblog.com in March of this year of having an ongoing relationship with Douglas Dickerson. That relationship has not been independently confirmed.

Here is the quote from David Rose on Democracy Now, Aug 05:

"I think there's one very important new development, which has not been reported, because it took place after the magazine went to press, which is that in addition to making her complaints against the F.B.I. and talking about the apparent evidence of possible espionage, which she had discovered on the part of her colleague, Melek Can Dickerson, at the F.B.I., and her husband, an Air Force major, Douglas Dickerson. Back in 2002, Sibel Edmonds wrote to the Office of Special Investigation and the Air Force Inspector General, which conducted a very brief investigation in the summer of 2002 and in September 2002, after less than three weeks, without interviewing Sibel herself, the Air Force Inspector General wrote to Sibel Edmonds and her then attorneys and said that the case was closed, that they were not pursuing her allegations against the Dickersons, which I will go into in just a moment.

But the new development is that just ten days ago, her attorney in Washington, Mark Zaid, received a message from the Office of Special Investigation at the Air Force saying that after this very long gap, nearly three years, they were reopening the investigation into the Dickersons, into Can Dickerson and her husband, Douglas, and might at some near future date seek to interview Sibel. Now, it may or may not be coincidental that, as part of the research for my article for Vanity Fair, I had submitted about 150 different questions about the entire case to the Air Force, to other parts of the Pentagon, to the D.O.J. and the F.B.I., and none of these questions were answered, but they did, of course, set out in enormous detail the various allegations that are being raised. Following the receipt of those questions, the investigation was formally reopened, which is, I think, perhaps significant."

The letters that Sibel and her attorneys sent to Joseph E. Schmitz (Inspector General, DoD), Senator John Warner, & Alberto Gonzales, demanding an investigation into the Dickersons are here.

Dickerson's squadron recently "set out on a 120-day deployment this week in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom." Dickerson had the nerve to reflect thusly:

"Just one week from today is the day that Al Qaida struck the World Trade Center... We're coming up on the five-year anniversary of Sept. 11 and Airmen are just as enthusiastic (to deploy) today as they were then."

The Dickersons' assets are now reportedly under Melek Can's maiden name, Melek Can Harputlu, and she is now based in Ankara.

via email, Miguel notes:

" So this is now it works- play by the rules, you get harassed, steamrolled and villified. Lie, cheat, steal and take bribes and you get a raise and a nice cushy assignment in the Far East. It's the Peter Principle on steroids."

Incidentally, Douglas Dickerson was previously in weapons procurement - first as an attache in Ankara from 1991-1995, then in Germany till 1999 when the Dickersons moved to the US and he was given weapons procurement responsibility for all of the Turkic countries.

Thanks to the folks at NATO, let us know if you have any more dirt. Same for the good folks at Yokota.

(Incidentally, Miguel has previously speculated that Dickerson was at Yokota. Great job Miguel!)

(updated for clarity)

The following is from an article from InTheseTimes called "Why Pakistan Gets A Nuclear Pass":

"(Bush's) criteria for membership in this club (axis of evil) of rogue states were clear: a dictatorship that possessed or aimed to acquire weapons of mass destruction with documented ties to Islamic terrorist groups. What Bush didn’t mention was that he had already entered into a marriage of expedience with Pakistan, the one regime that fully met each of the three requirements (although he did profess his admiration for “the strong leadership of President Musharraf.”)

Pakistan bears a striking resemblance to Iran, which Bush has described as a country held hostage by an “elite that is isolating and repressing its people, and denying them basic liberties and human rights.” Like Iran, Pakistan is a regime that, in Bush’s words, “sponsors terrorists and is actively working to expand its influence in its [neighboring] region.” But unlike Iran, this sponsor of Islamic radicalism is already a bona fide nuclear power that has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. What’s more, Pakistan has shared its nuclear technology with almost every country on the administration’s sworn enemies list: Libya, North Korea, and, yes, Iran.

Before its hasty switch of allegiances in the wake of 9/11, Musharraf’s military dictatorship had been one of the Taliban regime’s closest allies, and many top-ranking members of the Pakistani Army and the all-powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had close, long-standing connections to al-Qaeda, dating back to the heydays of the anti-Soviet mujaheddin resistance. In fact, al-Qaeda was founded at a 1988 meeting in Peshawar, Pakistan. As a former diplomat told Seymour Hersh in the November 5, 2001, New Yorker, “If you go through the officer list, almost all of the I.S.I. regulars would say, of the Taliban, ‘They are my boys.’ “

But the Bush administration needed Pakistan’s assistance to wage the war against Afghanistan, a country it knew practically nothing about. The result: a 180-degree reversal in U.S. policy, which in 1998, following Pakistan’s nuclear test, had included economic sanctions and the withdrawal of aid. “The U.S.-Pakistan relationship was fundamentally transformed within a very short period of time under a large amount of pressure after September 11,” says Council for Foreign Relations analyst Michael Levi.

[]

While the Bush White House’s Pakistan policy is undoubtedly flawed, it is also strikingly out of character. An administration best known for its ideological rigidity has been surprisingly pragmatic and subtle in its dealings with Islamabad. The same George W. Bush who is unable to differentiate between Hamas or Hezbollah in the Middle East has been willing in Pakistan to narrowly define terrorism to exclude groups who do not directly threaten U.S. interests—even though many of them have close links to al-Qaeda.

[]

This policy tells us that the administration is willing to use the kind of diplomatic engagement it pretends to disdain to further its goals, which—as U.S. concerns about India and China suggest—are not limited to battling terrorism. What’s more, it suggests that the reasons for the Bush administration’s military adventurism in the Middle East have little to do with a morally righteous crusade against Islamic terrorists.

[]

Control over the Middle East in turn requires eliminating any regime hostile to the United States and its closest ally, Israel. Iran is the enemy not because it is led by Islamist supporters of terrorism with plans to develop a nuclear bomb, but because it is a significant regional power opposed to the Bush administration’s plan to “restructure” the Middle East to suit its global ambitions. In contrast, not only has Pakistan allied itself entirely with the Bush administration’s war on terror, but Musharraf is now moving toward reinstating diplomatic ties with Israel.

The Bush double standard reveals a foreign policy that is less ideological than imperial. In this, the administration is different from its predecessors only by degrees of its ambition and ruthlessness.

a great article, read the rest if these matters are of interest to you.

Of course, Sibel's take on this is probably a little bit different from the thesis offered here.

According to KTM, Turkey was aware of Pakistan's efforts to get the nuclear bomb from the very first days and turned a blind eye to it all, and people like Richard Perle and Douglas Feith (and others) appear to have been instrumental in AQ Khan's proliferation network - supplying Libya, North Korea and Iran.

Further, these same people have also supplied India with the requisite components to compete in the arms race. In other words, as long as someone wants to buy weapons, the neocons are happy to sell. The more the merrier. If you happen to get in the way of this lucrative business like Valerie Plame, Sibel Edmonds, or Richard Barlow (and probably many others) then you'll be silenced, or worse.

To make matters worse, when they impose arms embargoes, such as the embargo on Pakistan, they create an opportunity to make even more money - because a) they can charge even higher prices to deliver the product illegally, and b) when the embargo is lifted, the embargoed country has to play catch-up and spend even more money on buying military equipment.

Oh, and for good measure, it appears that they also place spies/moles in the FBI and nuclear labs and visa-giving-embassies and so on to lubricate the system. Money makes the world go round, and illegal weapons sales has a nice profit margin - as high as drug trafficking. Nice work, if you can get it. If you can sleep at night.

In terms of the nuclear black market, this article "THE A.Q. KHAN NETWORK: CRIME… AND PUNISHMENT?" gives a good rundown of how AQ Khan's network operated, using Libya as the case study. There's a nice graphic there which explains the sourcing of all the components - I can't replicate it here so you'll have to go look yourselves.

As is suggested in the headline, there doesn't appear to be a whole lot of punishment going on - not only was AQ Khan pardoned, but many of the other players in the network, across many countries, were either released, given light penalties, still waiting on trials, put under 'house arrest', or conveniently dead.

Of the many participants from Pakistan, primarily from AQ Khan's Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) and the Pakistan military, only AQ Khan's principal deputy is currently in detention.

Malaysia's Tahir is also in dentention. He ran SCOPE in Malaysia where much of Khan's manufacturing was done, and also a distribution hub in Dubai.

The members of the Tinner family are being held is Switzerland, but:
"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.
[]
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."

In the US, Asher Karni was arrested in January 04, and released on only $100,000 bail. He was convicted in August 2005, and sentenced to three years in prison, although this court docket says that he "is scheduled to be released on August 12, 2006." I'm not sure if that is a typographical error.

The only other US participant in the network was Zeki Bilmen of Giza Technologies of New Jersey. Bilmen was Karni's supplier but was never charged. Bilmen died in 2004, from cancer according to his family, although others suggest that he " died under suspicious circumstances." Giza continues to operate.

On the Turkish front, Selim Alguadis of EKA, friend and associate of Zeki Bilmen, was arrested in Germany and is awaiting charges. One of Turkey's richest men, Gunes Cire of ETI Elektroteknik, died, aged 66, shortly after his arrest. I couldn't find any details about how/why he died. His son now runs the company.

Despite the fact that ETI Elektroteknik and EKA appear to manufacture the kind of technology that might be used in building nuclear capacity, it appears as though they were actually only facilitating the delivery of the relevant components. The Center for Nonproliferation Studies (pdf) describes the process thusly:

A June 8, 2005 article by Milliyet indicated that A.Q. Khan and the entities that worked with him had arranged for the acquisition of dual-use nuclear equipment related to uranium enrichment from German firms. The equipment was then shipped to Turkey in order to circumvent German export control requirements, which are less strict for items sent to Turkey, a NATO ally and member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. From Turkey, the items were transshipped to Dubai (United Arab Emirates) and Pakistan, with some items forwarded to the Malaysian firm SCOPE, which then prepared these items for use in Libya’s nuclear program.

To the extent that is true, note Alguadis' dodge in the Financial Times:

Turkish equipment, including centrifuge motors and frequency converters destined for Libya's now abandoned nuclear weapons programme, turned up in Tripoli in March this year aboard a ship that had sailed from Dubai in 2003. Mr Alguadis said his company, EKA, did make frequency converters but had not exported any to Dubai in 2003, and it made no motors of any kind.

For more on the nuclear black market, see here. Sibel seems to know a whole lot about this network - and I understand that KTM talks about it in length.

Here are some comments of support for Sibel after the first screening of Kill The Messenger in France. Translations mostly by babelfish and me, some in original - (some residual local flavour intentional)

(Updated below)
----------------------

Sibel, my dear!

The day has arrived,
Very far from the doubts and the fears,
Where the light appears as clear as day,
Where loneliness fights the hunters.

The eagle struggles as it can,
the doors are closed, the hands tied,
It is necessary that we help you a little,
My France sends unexpected thoughts to you.

I would like to assure you I have hope in your fight,
do not bend, when you doubt,
because that will arrive to you, think of France, its history.

And trust that we are talking about your fight.

--------------------------------------------

I just saw your story on Canal+ (french TV channel) and I was very shocked.

I always loved our system of freedom and democracy, but the last years people are losing control in front of "mondialisation"...

It seems everybody is looking only their own interest and are afraid to move or say something that could be "against" their own interest.

I am SO happy a woman like you EXISTS, and not only in a fairy tale...!

You gave me (and surely everybody who learned about your fight) a real HOPE on what the world is going to become. Without people like you all the planet would turn back to a BIG worldwide monocracy named "money and power".

I am not utopist and I know very well "cupidity" will always exist, but it will have to fight against "honesty", "human rights", "truth" and all others virtues that also exist in all human beings.

Again thank you for all these people in America you are helping, but also for all of us just "watching" without being able to say or do anything else than pray and hope these people to be caught and punished.

I really think everybody thinks it was just "IMPOSSIBLE" to happen without any sign, information or help in USA.

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My English is very poor but i just want to say one thing to your association : Go on ! Don't give up !

I saw yesterday night a "movie" on Canal + who talk about the story of Sibel Edmonds and i am so impressive by her courage !

Kill The Messenger will be shown on Canal Plus in Belgium tonight, at both 8.30 and 9.30pm.

It will also be shown another seven times in the next 2 weeks in France. See here for scheduling details.

In terms of the nuclear black market, in January, Sibel sent me three articles and added some emphasis to certain elements. The links below go to my reposting of the articles, and include Sibel's emphasis.

The first article is "Case Reveals Nuts and Bolts of Nuclear Network, Officials Say" by Josh Myer at the LATimes in May 2004. (link)

Judging by Sibel's emphasis:

Key People: Zeki Bilmen
Key Countries: Middle East, United State, 'global list', Turkey, UAE, Spain (?)
Key Issues: "Nuclear Black Market"
Key Companies: Giza Technologies

The second article: "Turkish businessman denies nuclear goods claim" by STEPHEN FIDLER June 11, 04, FT (link)

Judging by Sibel's emphasis:

Key People: Selim Alguadis, Zeki Bilmen
Key Countries: Libya, UAE, Turkey
Key Issues: "Pakistani-led clandestine network", "equipment, including centrifuge motors and frequency converters", "money laundering"
Key Companies: EKA

Article 3: "U.S. Firm Said Among Nuclear Black Market" by GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press
Posted on Fri, Jul. 09, 2004 (link)

Emphasis: Saudi Arabia

Also, there 's a PDF here called "Illicit Trafficking in the Southern Tier and Turkey since 1999: A Shift from Europe?" which looks at the apparent trade routes for smuggling nuclear and other radioactive material in the Caucausus, Turkey and Central Asia.

Miguel in the comments writes:

"Something just occurred to me. Maybe I'm a little dense to not think of this is before . But if Director Mathieu is correct, and several of his sources hypothesize that Sibel heard Grossman on wiretaps tipping off the Turks about Brewster, Jennings, then the right-wingers will have been right on the CIA Leak case in at least one respect: the Brewster, Jennings "cover" had already been blown open by 2003, before the chain of events that began with Wilson's Oped.

Think about it: if the Turks knew BJ was a CIA front, then undoubtedly the entire underground network of arms dealers were clued in shortly thereafter (I doubt the Turks could be trusted to keep a secret). Thus, the "damage" to National Security caused by the Armitage/Hadley/Rove/Libby leak was minimal; although the damage to Plame's career was extensive."

Of course, if Sibel did hear that, then the outing dated back to early 2002 at the latest. Perhaps much earlier.

Also interesting is the fact that the FBI knew that Brewster Jennings' cover had been blown, yet the CIA continued to use Brewster Jennings. Perhaps the message didn't get from the FBI to the CIA?

* the trailer for ktm is "#37 - Top Favorites (This Week) - News & Blogs" at youtube - go watch it again, and rate it - comment, send it to your friends. the more interest there is in this film, the more likely we will be able to get a national release.

The AP in france reviewed "Kill The Messenger":

The much-awaited documentary "Kill The Messenger" is showing Tuesday on Canal+. Mathieu (Verboud) and Jean-Robert Viallet met Sibel Edmonds whose life was transformed into nightmare after her ousting from the FBI. In a 84 minute film, they deliver the impressive testimony of Sibel Edmonds.

The young woman is 32 years old when she is recruited by the FBI as a translator, four days after September 11, 2001. She is charged with translating wiretapped conversations, some related to the 9/11 attacks. Sibel Edmonds was born in Teheran from Turkish parents, and spent the first 18 years of her life in Teheran and in Turkey, before landing in the U.S and marrying an American.

But her world gets turned upside-down when she discovers that a colleague is involved with illegal activities implicating Turkish officials. The filmmakers report the rest of Sibel's story. She reports the incident to her superiors and gets fired from the FBI. After her firing, she goes to the U.S Congress. Months pass and Sibel Edmonds realizes that nobody makes the slightest move. The young woman tells her story to the media. Time has come for Attorney General John Ashcroft to classify the whole Sibel Edmonds case as a"State Secret." If the young translator continues to speak, she'll go to prison. Determined, yet powerless, Sibel Edmonds suffers two years of loneliness.

In 2003, the Bush government accepts the creation of a commission whose role is to investigate the government and intelligence failures that led to 9/11. Sibel Edmonds then will carry out a long battle in order to expose her case: Turkish spies infiltrated the FBI and the government is apparently aware of these spies. July 24, 2004, the 9/11 Commission Report comes out, but Sibel's testimony is not included. The young woman is regarded as a "whistle-blower", she is joined in her fight by intelligence agents from the FBI, the CIA and NSA. The two filmmakers find leads pointing to the role of Turkey, Israel and Pakistan. In the 80's, at the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S and Turkey were instrumental in helping Pakistan acquire nuclear power. Turkey appears to have acted as a back-door conduit for some of those
operations. Later on, Israel came into play, too. At the time, the CIA knew everything but turned a blind eye, even when Pakistan started selling its technology to friendly countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya. By then, nuclear proliferation had gone out of control and the U.S let it go. In the 90's, when the Talibans were in power in Afghanistan, some nuclear equipment even landed in the hands of Usama Bin Laden.

In addition, American-Turkish Council (ATC), a powerful American lobby, has for many years facilitated trade of the weapons with the assistance of Israel. And it is in an indirect way that Sibel Edmonds denounces the secrets of these diplomats and secret agents with her superiors. In spite of this, the young translator finds herself entangled in a spy case whose ramifications are beyond the knowledge of the young woman and the TV viewer at the same time. Besides being thorough, the investigation is captivating and alarming. Sibel's case is so complex that it look like a labyrinth without exit.

Please note that this 'translation' was done by Mathieu Verboud, director of the film. He has removed two false statements - first, that Israel had helped the Pakistani nuclear program, and second, that Al Qaeda attacked on 9/11 with nuclear equipment from AQ Khan.

(updated with proper translation)

This blog is focused on the new documentary about Sibel Edmonds called Kill The Messenger. The premiere for documentary is Sep 19 in France and Belgium, with other countries to follow.

Sibel has established a site for Kill the Messenger where you can view the movie trailer, download the brochure, read an interview that I did with Mathieu Verboud, one of the directors, and even take a quick quiz by Mike Mejia, testing your knowledge about Sibel's case.

This an open thread to discuss.

This from the Press Release:

"The film presents a terrifying picture of Turkish networks’ activities in global nuclear black-market, narcotics and illegal arms trafficking activities in the United States, and examines the extraordinary efforts of officials within the US Government to insure that the secrecy surrounding Edmonds’ case be maintained at any cost – from Edmonds’ termination from the FBI, to invoking the State Secrets Privilege, to gagging the US Congress.

The film documents the formation of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition and the collective struggle of its members to bring legislative and media attention to retaliation by national security agencies against whistleblowers, and the resulting danger such suppression of the truth causes the United States. The entrenched bureaucratic power of the United States government would rather sacrifice those who would reveal the truth than face the changes necessary to protect the nation. The filmmakers interviewed many high-profile national security whistleblowers, including Daniel Ellsberg, Coleen Rowley (FBI), Russell Tice (NSA), Bogdan Dzakovic (DHS), John Vincent (FBI), Steve Elson (FAA), John M. Cole (FBI), and Matthew Fogg, among others.

Bill Weaver commented: “H.L. Mencken once said that ‘every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats’. This film makes me want to do just that. The incompetence, maliciousness, corruption, inefficacy, impudence, arrogance, and plain stupidity of the government’s criminal activities toward Sibel Edmonds are a national shame. Having lived under tyranny in Iran and elsewhere, Edmonds knows what it looks like. In her case, and in many other recent cases, tyranny comes in the form of the state secrets privilege, a foolproof mechanism of the federal government to hide executive branch corruption, incompetence, and illegal activity. This is a practice more at home with Czars and nabobs, and should have no place in the United States. But Edmonds gave the government something it never expected – a no holds barred battle. She hoisted the black flag and went on the attack by forming the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, an organization dedicated to changing the law, exposing government misdeeds, and giving hell to those who richly deserve it. This film will forever change the way you view the United States government and will give you an insight into what true patriotism, not Wal-Mart patriotism, looks like.” "

You can see the trailer to Sibel's new film over at her website - it looks great!

To help you out when you watch it, I've put together a list of the people who appear in the trailer in chronological order.


John M. Cole, Former Veteran Intelligence Operations Specialist, worked for 18 years in the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division as an Intelligence Operations specialist. One of his tasks at the FBI was to conduct risk assessment for FBI foreign born translators and analysts applicants before the bureau cleared them and granted them the required clearance to work for the bureau. Mr. Cole currently works as a senior counterintelligence analyst. Cole has first hand knowledge of Sibel's case (see VF)



David Rose (bio). David wrote the terrific article on Sibel for Vanity Fair. He is a key source for the movie because he is the only one who has spoken to people who know what’s on the FBI tapes of Hastert being bribed - this is what Rose is referring to when he says: "The people that I've talked to about these tapes are extremely nervous"




Joseph Trento is one of the top most credible investigative journalist in the nuclear black-market and proliferation areas. He was top CNN reporter on nuclear issues, and now is the director of an NGO on Nuclear education. He has had several best sellers about the CIA. (bio) - more here






Daniel Ellsberg is a former American military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation who precipitated a national uproar in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, the US military's account of activities during the Vietnam War, to The New York Times. The release awakened the American people to how much they had been deceived by their own government about the war.
(wikipedia)




Bogdan Dzakovic: He is the top expert on FAA/TSA security. His job as leader of the Federal Aviation Adminstration’s “Red Team” was to penetrate airport security in simulated hijackings. His team succeeded 90% of the time- But his team’s reports were ignored and suppressed. Just after 9/11, the Red Team was shut down. (bio)




Steve Elson: he has twenty-two years military experience, primarily in Naval Special Warfare. He has nine years Federal Service with DEA/FAA, and one year with Local Law Enforcement in Undercover Narcotics. Mr. Elson specializes in Counterterrorism, Intelligence, and Security, both nationally and internationally, enhanced by a wide range of training and advanced studies in diverse topics relating to security, leadership, and intelligence. He holds a Masters Degree in National Security Affairs/Naval Intelligence with a focus on Terrorism. (bio)





Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Husband of Valerie Plame.
(wikipedia)

"In their judgement, it's time to change the United States from a Republic to an Empire"

and of course, the star of the show - Ms Sibel Edmonds.



Also, at the end of the trailer, there is a voice-over when the highway sign scene is being shown saying "The nuclear and the drugs are a global game. You have to look at the connection."
This is David Albright, Top US expert on Nuclear proliferation; Former UN inspector
He has written numerous assessments on secret nuclear weapons programs throughout the world. (bio)

Other people in the film include Sibel's husband, Matthew, Philip Giraldi, two lawyers from the ACLU, Ann Beeson and Ben Wizner, and a 'Deep Throat' - a recently retired high-level FBI official on counterespionage/ counterintelligence unit at the FBI HQ.

I've put up a poll over on the left hand side of this blog so that you can rate the trailer. Discuss in the comments.

Richard Perle and Doug Feith are the 'stars' of Kill The Messenger.


In May 2006, Phil Giraldi wrote an article about Sibel's case which Sibel described as:

"a fantastic short piece by Phil Giraldi; it sums up the case very well, considering the length... as far as published articles go, this one nails it 100%"

Here's a snippet from Giraldi's article:

Someone has to be in the middle (of the Turkish, Israeli, American military/economic machine) to keep the happy affair going, so enter the neocons, intent on securing Israel against all comers and also keen to turn a dollar. In fact the neocons seem to have a deep and abiding interest in Turkey, which, under other circumstances, might be difficult to explain. Doug Feith's International Advisors Inc, a registered agent for Turkey in 1989 - 1994, netted $600,000 per year from Turkey, with Richard Perle taking $48,000 annually as a consultant.
[]
Contracts in the hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars provide considerable fat for those well placed to benefit. Investigators are also looking at Israel's particular expertise in the illegal sale of US military technology to countries like China and India. Fraudulent end-user certificates produced by Defense Ministries in Israel and Turkey are all that is needed to divert military technology to other, less benign, consumers. The military-industrial-complex/neocon network is also well attested. Doug Feith has been associated with Northrup Grumman for years, while defense contractors fund many neocon-linked think tanks and "information" services. Feith, Perle and a number of other neocons have long had beneficial relationships with various Israeli defense contractors.

and from my interview with KTM director Mathieu Verboud:

"MV: In the film we expanded on those notions with ex-CIA officer Philip Giraldi who wrote a very interesting article about Sibel Edmonds. He also states that Douglas Feith and Richard Perle may have helped, or have been instrumental in establishing false end-user-certificates that enabled some people to send weapons to the Chechnya guerillas - most of them, or at least some of them being very closely linked to Al Qaeda. He of course touches on Perle and Feith’s connections with Israel and Turkey, with Israeli and U.S defense contractors, always playing both sides of the fence."

Perle & Feith were both instrumental in writing A Clean Break. This from wikipedia:

A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, commonly referred to as the "Clean Break" report, was prepared in 1996 by a study group led by Richard Perle. The other participants were James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, Jonathan Torop, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser.

The report was prepared as a proposed new policy for the government of Israel, and presented to then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in July of 1996.

The principle recommendations were:

• A repudiation of the concept of "Land for Peace," which was the basis for the Oslo Accords
• Armed incursions into Palestinian areas under the rubric of the "right of hot pursuit"
• Armed incursions into Lebanon, and possible strikes against Syria and Iran
• The removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq
• A repudiation of the tenets of Labor Zionism, and a change to Economic liberalism

Funny how that turned out.

Marc Grossman also has a curious role in these affairs - he was involved in the Plame affair, and also in Sibel's case (and perhaps even the nexus of the two)

This from my interview with KTM director Mathieu Verboud:

Luke: I know that you interviewed Marc Grossman and that you cut it out of the film - can you talk about the interview at all?

Mathieu: Knowing the players in the game, and knowing the business that they engage in, and this being a small world, and Grossman having worked in Turkey and Pakistan, he’d met with ISI chief (Pakistani intelligence agency) on a much-hyped but yet mysterious meeting on September 11, at the time of the attacks, he is a pillar of the (American Turkish Council), etc, one could assume that Marc Grossman would not be far away from those dealings - legal or illegal, it doesn’t matter.

Most observers presume he was on Sibel’s wiretaps, possibly tipping Turkish friends about let’s say the risk posed by Brewster Jennings‘s activities. Sibel touches on that aspect in a masterful way in the film. Praises to her to be so smart in front of a camera.

Exposing Grossman or his role would have been interesting for the film, but the guy being what he is, there was no way that he would have given an interview if we had accused him of anything. Turkey, for example, was known to him as being a transit point for drugs not as the biggest opium–processing country in the world. He didn’t want to accept that simple fact (in the interview).

Then we tested him - we asked him about Valerie Plame - and it was amazing to see his face change! He had the nerve to say that he didn’t know anything about Valerie Plame, or about Brewster Jennings - which is simply false! As you know, his name had appeared publicly for months in the Valerie Plame's case – Anyway, we didn't mention the fact that we knew he was lying.

Next we pretended that we didn’t know anything about Sibel, and we just mentioned that there was this little woman of Turkish origin whose name was mentioned in an article in Vanity Fair speaking about Turkey… His face changed again, and he came up with this answer: ' Vanity Fair? I am afraid it is not a magazine I read '! We there asked him directly about Sibel Edmonds and he said that he didn't know anything about Sibel Edmonds – the name was ‘unfamiliar’.

Luke: That's hysterical. When was that interview?

Mathieu: April 2006.

Luke: (laughs) Oh that's great. And he's never heard of Sibel Edmonds and Valerie Plame. That's fantastic.

Christopher Deliso has also written about Grossman - this from an article (about Plame):

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

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

In another interview with Chris Deliso, Sibel also famously said:

"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."

How do you think Grossman, Feith and Perle fit into this story?

How about Plame and Brewster Jennings?

Dennis Hastert plays a major part in Sibel's story.


From David Rose's Vanity Fair article:

Edmonds has given confidential testimony inside a secure Sensitive Compartmented Information facility on several occasions: to congressional staffers, to investigators from the O.I.G., and to the staff from the 9/11 commission. Sources familiar with this testimony say that... she reported hearing Turkish wiretap targets boast that they had a covert relationship with a very senior politician indeed—Dennis Hastert, Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House since 1999. The targets reportedly discussed giving Hastert tens of thousands of dollars in surreptitious payments in exchange for political favors and information...
[]
Some of the (FBI wiretaps) reportedly contained what sounded like references to large scale drug shipments and other crimes. To a person who knew nothing about their context, the details were confusing and it wasn’t always clear what might be significant. One name, however, apparently stood out – a man the Turkish callers often referred to by the nickname “Denny boy.” It was the Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. According to some of the wiretaps, the F.B.I.’s targets had arranged for tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert’s campaign funds in small checks. Under Federal Election Commission rules, donations of less than $200 are not required to be itemized in public filings.
[]
Again, the reported content of the Chicago wiretaps may well have been sheer bravado, and there is no evidence that any payment was ever made to Hastert or his campaign. Nevertheless, a senior official at the Turkish Consulate is said to have claimed in one recording that the price for Hastert to withdraw the (Armenian Genocide) resolution would have been at least $500,000.

from my interview with KTM director Mathieu Verboud:

Mathieu: In our cast, David Rose (the author of the Vanity Fair article) had the crucial role of the guy who makes the first important revelations. He was the man for the job. He has a great vision of the whole thing, he's a great story teller, but at the same time carefully sticking to what he knows. He is the only one who has spoken to people who know what’s on the (FBI's) tapes. He met with the sources, and as he says in the film, ‘these sources were very nervous about the tapes’. His testimony helps strengthening the pillars of the story - yes, the tapes involved Turkish officials, some of them working for the embassy in the Washington, and others in the consulate in Chicago. Money in exchange secrets, basically what we could read in Vanity Fair… When that was done, he described how he found out about Hastert, and then alluded to what we expose in the last segment of the film: the Neocons connection.

From an interview with Meria Heller, here's Sibel:

“…what happened was, FBI had this information since 1997. In 1999, the Clinton Administration actually asked the Department of Justice to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate Hastert, and certain other elected officials that were not named in this (Vanity Fair) article, to be investigated formally. And the Department of Justice actually went about appointing this prosecutor, but after the Administration changed they quashed that investigation and they closed it despite the fact they had all sorts of evidence, again I’m talking about wiretaps, documents- paper documents- that was highly explosive and could have been easily used to indict the Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. That investigation was closed in 2001, and this was around the time I started reporting my cases to the Congress.”

What do you think of Denny Boy?

The Dickersons - U.S. Air Force Major Douglas Dickerson and his wife Melek Can Dickerson - also play an important role in Sibel's case.

Immediately after the 911 Commission report was released, Sibel wrote an Open Letter to the 9/11 Panel describing, among other things, the espionage by Melek Can Dickerson:

Melek Can Dickerson, a Turkish translator, was hired by the FBI after Sept. 11 and placed in charge of translating the most sensitive information related to terrorists and criminals under the Bureau's investigation. Dickerson was granted top secret clearance, which can be granted only after conducting a thorough background investigation. Dickerson used to work for semi-legit organizations that were FBI targets of investigation. She had ongoing relationships with two individuals who were FBI targets of investigation. For months, Dickerson blocked all-important information related to these semi-legit organizations and the individuals she and her husband associated with. She stamped hundreds, if not thousands, of documents related to these targets as "not pertinent." Dickerson attempted to prevent others from translating these documents important to the FBI's investigations and our fight against terrorism. With the assistance of her direct supervisor, Mike Feghali, she took hundreds of pages of top-secret intelligence documents outside the FBI to unknown recipients. With Feghali's assistance, she forged signatures on top-secret documents related to 9/11 detainees. After all these incidents were confirmed and reported to FBI management, Melek Can Dickerson was allowed to remain in her position, to continue the translation of sensitive intelligence received by the FBI, and to maintain her top-secret clearance. Apparently bureaucratic mid-level FBI management and administrators decided that it would not look good for the Bureau to have this security breach and espionage case investigated and publicized, especially after the Robert Hanssen scandal. The Melek Can Dickerson case was confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. It received major coverage by the press. According to Director Robert Mueller, the inspector general criticized the FBI for failing to adequately pursue the espionage report on Melek Can Dickerson. I provided your investigators with a detailed and specific account of this issue, the names of other witnesses willing to corroborate this, and additional documents.

Today, more than two years since the Dickerson incident was reported to the FBI, and more than two years since this information was confirmed by the United States Congress and reported by the press, the same people remain in charge of translation quality and security. Dickerson and several FBI targets of investigation hastily left the United States in 2002, and no criminal investigation has been opened. Not only does the supervisor who facilitated this criminal conduct remain in a supervisory position, he has been promoted to supervising Arabic language units of the FBI's counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations. Your report omits these significant incidents, and your recommendations do not address this serious security breach and likely espionage issue. This issue needs to be investigated and prosecuted. The translation of our intelligence is being entrusted to individuals with loyalties to our enemies. Important "chit-chats" and "chatters" are being intentionally blocked from translation. Why does your report exclude this information and these serious issues despite the evidence and briefings you received? How can budget increases address and resolve this misconduct by mid-level bureaucratic management? How can the addition of an "intelligence czar" solve this problem?

We now know that one of the 'semi-legit organizations' was the American Turkish Council.

In Vanity Fair, David Rose tells the story of how the Dickersons tried to 'recruit' Sibel into the espionage ring, promising that “It could help to ensure that we could retire early and live well."

Probably not coincidentally, Douglas Dickerson spent time as a military attaché in the Turkish capital of Ankara.

The Dickersons appear to have already disappeared into retirement - and by all accounts haven't been seen since they fled the country.

Sibel is President and Founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.

From their website:

National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), founded in August 2004, is an independent and nonpartisan alliance of whistleblowers who have come forward to address our nation’s security weaknesses; to inform authorities of security vulnerabilities in our intelligence agencies, at nuclear power plants and weapon facilities, in airports, and at our nation’s borders and ports; to uncover government waste, fraud, abuse, and in some cases criminal conduct.

The NSWBC is dedicated to aiding national security whistleblowers through a variety of methods, including advocacy of governmental and legal reform, educating the public concerning whistleblowing activity, provision of comfort and fellowship to national security whistleblowers suffering retaliation and other harms, and working with other public interest organizations to effect goals defined in the NSWBC mission statement.

The NSWBC membership is exclusively comprised of current or former federal employees or civilians working under contract to the United States who, to their detriment or personal risk, bring to light fraud, waste, and abuse in government operations and agencies when such improprieties compromise the national security of the United States.

You can see their list of members here. Familiar names include Daniel Ellsberg, Karen Kwiatkowski, Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern, Sibel, Russ Tice and Robert Wright.

There are approximately one hundred National Security Whistleblowers in the organization - with an average of approximately 20 years service to America's national security agencies.

Approximately 15 of them were interviewed for Kill The Messenger.

Support whistleblowers if you can. I recently interviewed Sibel about NSWBC's 'Dirty Dozen' - the worst 12 members of Congress. In particular, read Part Two which describes the (purported) legislative & oversight processes - more accurately, it describes the way that committee chairs can block legislation and oversight hearings.

In many ways, the film is about Turkey's role in the Nuclear Black Market.

From the press release:

"the film presents a terrifying picture of Turkish networks’ activities in global nuclear black-market, narcotics and illegal arms trafficking activities in the United States, and examines the extraordinary efforts of officials within the US Government to insure that the secrecy surrounding Edmonds’ case be maintained at any cost – from Edmonds’ termination from the FBI, to invoking the State Secrets Privilege, to gagging the US Congress. "

And from my interview with Director Mathieu Verboud:

Also, Sibel's case takes place in the context of geopolitics dating back to the 1980’s and the Afghan jihad against the Soviets and the U.S military and political support of Pakistan to help the Aghan mujahideens. At the time Pakistan, an Islamic country, wanted to have the ultimate weapon - the nuclear bomb. Thanks to David Albright's expertise, we also show that the Turks have been helping the Pakistani nuclear program since the very beginning. AQ Khan’s efforts were made possible because of the U.S, but also because of Turkey. At the time Israel also willing to help Pakistan, not for its nuclear program but for in terms of supplying weapons to the anti-Soviet jihad. That’s when the Triangle U.S-Turkey-Israel started taking off the ground.

who knew?

Also, there 's a PDF here called "Illicit Trafficking in the Southern Tier and Turkey since 1999: A Shift from Europe?" which looks at the apparent trade routes for smuggling nuclear and other radioactive material in the Caucausus, Turkey and Central Asia.

(more here - with details)