Kill the Messenger: Sibel Edmonds

This is part 7 of my interview with Mathieu Verboud, co-director of the film about Sibel Edmonds, Kill the Messenger. (see Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six)

Here we talk about some experts in the film - Phil Giraldi, David Albright and David Rose.

David Albright says that 'Turkey' helped Pakistan build it's nuclear program from the very beginning - and that Al-Qaeda probably already has nuclear material from Pakistan's nuclear program.
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Mathieu Verboud: Then, we have the "experts" coming in. Their role in the film is to expose Sibel’s secret…

The first "expert" is David Rose, the British reporter who investigated Sibel's case for Vanity Fair. We also feature Joe Trento, a top journalist in the nuclear black-market and proliferation areas and David Albright, one of the world most prominent nuclear proliferation experts. And of course, ex CIA officer Philip Giraldi.

Luke Ryland: Ok – let’s start with your interview with David Albright - what did he have to say?

MV: To us, he was the most credible guy, someone who was able to document something really specific: that is, the role of Turkey in the build-up of the Pakistani nuclear program. Albright told us that Turkey started helping since the very beginning. We didn’t know that. He confirmed that some stuff most likely ended up in Al-Qaeda’s hands. And to us, that was sign that the cycle was complete: we had the Christian fundamentalists, ultra right-wing zionists and the Muslim fundamentalists all in the same bed, because of their hatred of communism.

All this because in the Eighties, the Saudis, the Muslim world, the Israelis, the Americans and China… all of them had a common enemy - the Soviet Union - most of them because they hated communism, and China because of Russia being a dangerous neighbour. This loose, yet determined, coalition waged a proxy war in Afghanistan and won it! At the time, countering Pakistan’s nuclear program was a concern for the U.S but not a priority.

Knowing the jihadists appetite for terror, we have to worry that they may have access to a nuclear weapon. What a legacy for the future!

All this because in the 80s, the U.S chose to see the Mujahideen as freedom fighters. After the Soviet debacle, it appeared all too clearly that many of these freedom fighters that the U.S had helped turn into invincible technoguerillas were Muslim fundamentalists now ready to fight, with the help of their friends from the Arabic Peninsula, a jihad without borders...

Under Reagan, the free world fought the ‘Evil Empire’ (the Soviet Union). But Reagan did not care about the likely post-war situation: the minute the Afghan war was finished, Pakistan was convinced that the U.S would stop supporting them against India. And this came to be true! In the 90s, the U.S started to be less tolerant towards the growing islamist activity in Pakistan, vis-à-vis the Pakistani bomb. Two ex-allies were drifting apart, quite logically.

Today, the Neocons say that we’re faced with a new threat: the ‘Axis of Evil’. What Neocons forget to tell you is most of those labeled as ‘Axis of Evil’ were at some stage U.S clients or protégés and they themselves did business with these countries. Sometimes private business. Drawing from Sibel’s case, one can assume that some of these Neocons even engaged in nuclear black-market activities. That’s very disturbing!

LR: OK, Philip Giraldi now. What did he have to say?

MV: Philip Giraldi appears in the last chapter of the film. Giraldi is the one who connects the final dots. He was stationed in Turkey in the 80s for the CIA. He knows the players in the game. He recently published a remarkable article in the American Conservative on Sibel’s case. Giraldi obviously understood most of what was to be understood about it.

As explained before, Giraldi knows the reason why there was a military relationship between Turkey and Israel for the last 30 years - Turkey wanting to get access to weapons in the US and Israel being interested in becoming friendly with a Muslim country. That's the starting point.

Beyond that, he understands the role of the Military Industrial Complex, both in the US and in Israel and Turkey - for example, Turkish Generals retain commissions on the works and the production lines of the Turkish arms manufacturing companies - in other words, baksheesh.

Giraldi then pointed to the neocons who are intertwined in the U.S-Turkey-Israel triangle and also insists on the fact that these people have been connected to the Turkish government, Israeli arms companies and the Military Industrial Complex in the U.S, as he says "making money, doling out influence."

Giraldi also insisted very specifically about the FBI investigations on Feith and Perle and some others. The belief we had before meeting Giraldi was that Turkey recruited the ‘crème de la crème’ of Israel's friends in the U.S, so that they would then have access to not only Washington’s officials, but also to the Pentagon and its most hi-tech weaponry. Giraldi confirmed that.

LR: In his article, Giraldi says that the false end-user certificates were used by Israel and Turkey to provide weapons to both China and India - I hadn't heard of India being involved.

MV: Well, in the 1990’s, it is well know that Israel has sold China sensitive U.S military technology. For almost two decades now, China and Israel have spied on the U.S more than any other country in the world. In the film, Philip Giraldi states that the FBI does an annual compilation of who spies most on the U.S. As he says : "The result is always the same: number one is China, number two is Israel. "

India is a different story. In Sibel’s case, some witnesses fingered the ‘India’ component, but for reasons already mentioned we didn’t go further (laughs)… By the way, if you look at the Giza case, it’s public record that the Israeli broker Asher Karni was also selling the nuclear detonators he got from Giza to India.

LR: In Giraldi's article, he also mentions Paul Wolfowitz and Stephen Solarz, did you come across them?

MV: Well – Giraldi mentions Stephen Solarz - but again, it's just indirectly linked to Sibel's case. In the mid 80s, Steven Solarz, a Jewish congressman and a strong supporter of Israel, was also an advocate for Ankara, ‘the’ U.S friend of Turkey at the times. But Solarz is interesting for other reasons linked to Richard Barlow’s case, back in the 80s.*

Again, what’s absolutely amazing with national security whistle-blowers, and intelligence officers with integrity, and that list includes people as different as Sibel, Rich Barlow, Valerie Plame, Robert Baer (and many others…), it’s the perfect correlation between the small picture (the fight of an individual) and the big picture (world events).

In the case of the four individuals, I just mentioned, there’s something more more. All four of them worked, in various capacities, on issues related to radical Islamic groups and their connections but it’s the U.S governmment who ignored their concerns and sometimes tried to silence them… How strange?

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Next (and final) installment Thursday-ish

(* I removed a paragraph here regarding Barlow and Solarz because it was inaccurate)