FOR SALE: West's Deadly Nuclear Secrets
TIMESonline, January 6, 2008
LINK

A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets.

Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency's Washington field office.

She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims.

However, Edmonds said: "He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for
money, position and political objectives."

She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials – including household names – who were aiding foreign agents.

"If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials," she said.

Her story shows just how much the West was infiltrated by foreign states seeking nuclear secrets. It illustrates how western government officials turned a blind eye to, or were even helping, countries such
as Pakistan acquire bomb technology.

The wider nuclear network has been monitored for many years by a joint Anglo-American intelligence
effort. But rather than shut it down, investigations by law enforcement bodies such as the FBI and
Britain's Revenue & Customs have been aborted to preserve diplomatic relations.

Edmonds, a fluent speaker of Turkish and Farsi, was recruited by the FBI in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Her previous claims about incompetence inside the FBI have been well documented in America.

She has given evidence to closed sessions of Congress and the 9/11 commission, but many of the key points of her testimony have remained secret. She has now decided to divulge some of that information after becoming disillusioned with the US authorities' failure to act.

One of Edmonds's main roles in the FBI was to translate thousands of hours of conversations by Turkish diplomatic and political targets that had been covertly recorded by the agency.

A backlog of tapes had built up, dating back to 1997, which were needed for an FBI investigation into links between the Turks and Pakistani, Israeli and US targets. Before she left the FBI in 2002 she heard evidence that pointed to money laundering, drug imports and attempts to acquire nuclear and onventional weapons technology.

"What I found was damning," she said. "While the FBI was investigating, several arms of the government were shielding what was going on."

The Turks and Israelis had planted "moles" in military and academic institutions which handled nuclear technology. Edmonds says there were several transactions of nuclear material every month, with the
Pakistanis being among the eventual buyers. "The network appeared to be obtaining information from every nuclear agency in the United States," she said.

They were helped, she says, by the high-ranking State Department official who provided some of their moles – mainly PhD students – with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear research
facilities. These included the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear deterrent.

In one conversation Edmonds heard the official arranging to pick up a $15,000 cash bribe. The package was to be dropped off at an agreed location by someone in the Turkish diplomatic community who was
working for the network.The Turks, she says, often acted as a conduit for the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's spy agency, because they were less
likely to attract suspicion. Venues such as the American Turkish Council in Washington were used to drop off the cash, which was picked up by the official.

Edmonds said: "I heard at least three transactions like this over a period of 2½ years. There are almost certainly more."

The Pakistani operation was led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, then the ISI chief.

Intercepted communications showed Ahmad and his colleagues stationed in Washington were in constant contact with attachés in the Turkish embassy.

Intelligence analysts say that members of the ISI were close to Al-Qaeda before and after 9/11. Indeed, Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks.

The results of the espionage were almost certainly passed to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist.

Khan was close to Ahmad and the ISI. While running Pakistan's nuclear programme, he became a millionaire by selling atomic secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. He also used a network of companies in America and Britain to obtain components for a nuclear programme.

Khan caused an alert among western intelligence agencies when his aides met Osama Bin Laden. "We were aware of contact between A Q Khan's people and Al-Qaeda," a former CIA officer said last
week. "There was absolute panic when we initially discovered this, but it kind of panned out in the end."

It is likely that the nuclear secrets stolen from the United States would have been sold to a number of rogue states by Khan.

Edmonds was later to see the scope of the Pakistani connections when it was revealed that one of her fellow translators at the FBI was the daughter of a Pakistani embassy official who worked for Ahmad. The
translator was given top secret clearance despite protests from FBI investigators.

Edmonds says packages containing nuclear secrets were delivered by Turkish operatives, using their cover as members of the diplomatic and military community, to contacts at the Pakistani embassy in
Washington.

Following 9/11, a number of the foreign operatives were taken in for questioning by the FBI on suspicion that they knew about or somehow aided the attacks.

Edmonds said the State Department official once again proved useful. "A primary target would call the official and point to names on the list and say, `We need to get them out of the US because we can't afford for them to spill the beans'," she said. "The official said that he would `take care of it'."

The four suspects on the list were released from interrogation and extradited.

Edmonds also claims that a number of senior officials in the Pentagon had helped Israeli and Turkish agents.

"The people provided lists of potential moles from Pentagon-related institutions who had access to databases concerning this information," she said.

"The handlers, who were part of the diplomatic community, would then try to recruit those people to become moles for the network. The lists contained all their `hooking points', which could be financial
or sexual pressure points, their exact job in the Pentagon and what stuff they had access to."

One of the Pentagon figures under investigation was Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst, who was jailed in 2006 for passing US defence information to lobbyists and sharing classified information with an Israeli diplomat.

"He was one of the top people providing information and packages during 2000 and 2001," she said.

Once acquired, the nuclear secrets could have gone anywhere. The FBI monitored Turkish diplomats who were selling copies of the information to the highest bidder.

Edmonds said: "Certain greedy Turkish operators would make copies of the material and look around for buyers. They had agents who would find potential buyers."

In summer 2000, Edmonds says the FBI monitored one of the agents as he met two Saudi Arabian businessmen in Detroit to sell nuclear information that had been stolen from an air force base in Alabama. She overheard the agent saying: "We have a package and we're going to sell it for $250,000."

Edmonds's employment with the FBI lasted for just six months. In March 2002 she was dismissed after accusing a colleague of covering up illicit activity involving Turkish nationals.

She has always claimed that she was victimised for being outspoken and was vindicated by an Office of the Inspector General review of her case three years later. It found that one of the contributory
reasons for her sacking was that she had made valid complaints.

The US attorney-general has imposed a state secrets privilege order on her, which prevents her revealing more details of the FBI's methods and current investigations.

Her allegations were heard in a closed session of Congress, but no action has been taken and she continues to campaign for a public hearing.

She was able to discuss the case with The Sunday Times because, by the end of January 2002, the justice department had shut down the programme.

The senior official in the State Department no longer works there. Last week he denied all of Edmonds's allegations: "If you are calling me to say somebody said that I took money, that's outrageous . . . I
do not have anything to say about such stupid ridiculous things as this."

In researching this article, The Sunday Times has talked to two FBI officers (one serving, one former) and two former CIA sources who worked on nuclear proliferation. While none was aware of specific allegations against officials she names, they did provide overlapping corroboration of Edmonds's story.

One of the CIA sources confirmed that the Turks had acquired nuclear secrets from the United States and shared the information with Pakistan and Israel. "We have no indication that Turkey has its own nuclear ambitions. But the Turks are traders. To my knowledge they became big players in the late 1990s," the source said.

How Pakistan got the bomb, then sold it to the highest bidders 1965 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's foreign minister, says: "If India builds the bomb we will eat grass . . . but we will get one of our own"

1974 Nuclear programme becomes increased priority as India tests a nuclear device
1976 Abdul Qadeer Khan, a scientist, steals secrets from Dutch uranium plant. Made head of his nation's nuclear programme by Bhutto, now prime minister
1976 onwards Clandestine network established to obtain materials and technology for uranium enrichment from the West
1985 Pakistan produces weapons-grade uranium for the first time
1989-91 Khan's network sells Iran nuclear weapons information and technology
1991-97 Khan sells weapons technology to North Korea and Libya
1998 India tests nuclear bomb and Pakistan follows with a series of nuclear tests. Khan says: "I never had any doubts I was building a bomb. We had to do it"
2001 CIA chief George Tenet gathers officials for crisis summit on the proliferation of nuclear technology from Pakistan to other countries
2001 Weeks before 9/11, Khan's aides meet Osama Bin Laden to discuss an Al-Qaeda nuclear device
2001 After 9/11 proliferation crisis becomes secondary as Pakistan is seen as important ally in war on terror
2003 Libya abandons nuclear weapons programme and admits acquiring components through Pakistani nuclear scientists
2004 Khan placed under house arrest and confesses to supplying Iran, Libya and North Korea with weapons technology. He is pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf
2006 North Korea tests a nuclear bomb
2007 Renewed fears that bomb may fall into hands of Islamic extremists as killing of Benazir Bhutto throws country into turmoil

Sibel Edmonds Speaks...
By Larisa Alexandrovna, January 6, 2008 | 03:18 PM (EST)
LINK

Sibel Edmonds, the FBI whistle-blower who has been gagged for years by the Bush administration over intercepts she translated while at the bureau, was willing to go to prison to get her story told. She spent years trying to get her day in court, but the State Secrets gag against her prohibited her from telling her story even to a FISA judge. After years of trying to fight her way to through the maze of the US court system, Sibel Edmonds finally decided to tell her story no matter the consequences and offered to do so to any interested US media outlets.
Today, part of that story runs, but not in the United States, where not a single corporate outlet was willing to displease the White House and give Edmonds a platform. The Sunday Times Online, however, proved up to the task - somewhat.

Here are the snips from that article:

"A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets.

Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency's Washington field office.

She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.



Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

The name of the official - who has held a series of top government posts - is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims.

However, Edmonds said: "He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives."

Let me help the Times here.

The person against whom these allegations are being made is Marc Grossman.

The Times could have published the name and also provided the denial from Grossman's camp. I find it incredibly disturbing that they would not name the official.

"She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials - including household names - who were aiding foreign agents.

"If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials," she said.

Her story shows just how much the West was infiltrated by foreign states seeking nuclear secrets. It illustrates how western government officials turned a blind eye to, or were even helping, countries such as Pakistan acquire bomb technology."

Those senior DOD officials who are not mentioned in the Times article, all but one are no longer in government. They are alleged to be Doug Feith, Richard Perle, among others. There is also one person who is part of these allegations, still serving in a high level position at the DOD. His last name begins with an E.

I have tried getting someone in broadcast and print media to run this story. My sources did not include Edmonds, but because of the sensitive nature of the information, I was concerned that she would go to jail anyway, unless I proved she was not a source - which would require me to reveal my sources.

I thought if I approached a big enough news outlet, the pressure generated by the public response would spare Edmonds jail time and I would not be pressured to reveal sources - something I would not have done anyway. Even a former high ranking CIA officer offered to byline the article with me if that would help sell a broadcaster/publication on running the story. No one was interested.

That the Times ran these allegations (she is under a state secrets gag folks, so it is not like she is gagged for lying) is encouraging. But that they omitted all names from the allegations is unethical. The point of a free press is not to protect the powerful against the weak, but to protect the public from the powerful. The Times was willing to stick a toe in, but was not willing to risk upsetting a foreign government (This is, after all, a British paper).

There are more names, including members of Congress and people serving in the FBI. This is what happens when basic government services as well as the most sensitive government functions are outsourced to the global marketplace.

Back to the Times article, which toward the end illustrates that someone in the editorial offices located a backbone, even if temporarily:

"She has given evidence to closed sessions of Congress and the 9/11 commission, but many of the key points of her testimony have remained secret. She has now decided to divulge some of that information after becoming disillusioned with the US authorities' failure to act.

One of Edmonds's main roles in the FBI was to translate thousands of hours of conversations by Turkish diplomatic and political targets that had been covertly recorded by the agency.



The Turks and Israelis had planted "moles" in military and academic institutions which handled nuclear technology. Edmonds says there were several transactions of nuclear material every month, with the Pakistanis being among the eventual buyers. "The network appeared to be obtaining information from every nuclear agency in the United States," she said.

They were helped, she says, by the high-ranking State Department official who provided some of their moles - mainly PhD students - with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities. These included the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear deterrent.

In one conversation Edmonds heard the official arranging to pick up a $15,000 cash bribe. The package was to be dropped off at an agreed location by someone in the Turkish diplomatic community who was working for the network.

Let me again offer help to the good folks at the Times. The person in question is a Turkish military official who at that time also happened to sit on the board of a particular defense contracting firm.

"The Turks, she says, often acted as a conduit for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's spy agency, because they were less likely to attract suspicion. Venues such as the American Turkish Council in Washington were used to drop off the cash, which was picked up by the official.

Edmonds said: "I heard at least three transactions like this over a period of 2½ years. There are almost certainly more."

The Pakistani operation was led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, then the ISI chief."

Now, who is General Mahmoud Ahmad?

"Intelligence analysts say that members of the ISI were close to Al-Qaeda before and after 9/11. Indeed, Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks."

You can see why Edmonds had to be silenced for "diplomatic reasons." As though diplomatic (read: business) relationships are more important than national security. Let me give you one more snip from this incredible article (minus the censorship):

"Khan was close to Ahmad and the ISI. While running Pakistan's nuclear programme, he became a millionaire by selling atomic secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. He also used a network of companies in America and Britain to obtain components for a nuclear programme.

Khan caused an alert among western intelligence agencies when his aides met Osama Bin Laden. "We were aware of contact between A Q Khan's people and Al-Qaeda," a former CIA officer said last week. "There was absolute panic when we initially discovered this, but it kind of panned out in the end."

It is likely that the nuclear secrets stolen from the United States would have been sold to a number of rogue states by Khan.

Edmonds was later to see the scope of the Pakistani connections when it was revealed that one of her fellow translators at the FBI was the daughter of a Pakistani embassy official who worked for Ahmad. The translator was given top secret clearance despite protests from FBI investigators.

Edmonds says packages containing nuclear secrets were delivered by Turkish operatives, using their cover as members of the diplomatic and military community, to contacts at the Pakistani embassy in Washington.

Following 9/11, a number of the foreign operatives were taken in for questioning by the FBI on suspicion that they knew about or somehow aided the attacks.

Edmonds said the State Department official once again proved useful. "A primary target would call the official and point to names on the list and say, 'We need to get them out of the US because we can't afford for them to spill the beans'," she said. "The official said that he would 'take care of it'."

Read the whole thing. I urge you to print it, email it, share it with everyone you know. Edmonds has said enough now that she may very likely go to prison, but she is a true patriot and she must have our support, in the media and also in the public sphere.

Sibel Edmonds' 2004 letter to Gov. Thomas Kean

BLOGGED BY Brad Friedman ON 1/19/2008 9:13PM
UK Sunday Times Scoops US Media Again, Confirms FBI Cover-Up of Documents in Sibel Edmonds Nuke Secrets Case
Existence of FBI Case Number, Described in Anonymous Letter Obtained by The BRAD BLOG, Corroborated by Paper
Letter Describes Senior State Dept. Official Marc Grossman as Tipping off Turkish Embassy to Valerie Plame Wilson's 'Brewster Jennings' Counter-Proliferation Operation...
By Brad Friedman from on the road...
LINK

London's Sunday Times has just published a follow-up to their explosive front-pager from two weeks ago which described allegations by former FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds.

Though there has been worldwide coverage of the recent blockbuster in the Rupert Murdoch-owned British paper, the U.S. media have remained entirely mum, a point which has drawn great consternation from both Edmonds and the 70's-era "Pentagon Papers" Daniel Ellsberg, whom The BRAD BLOG has spoken to this evening, following the release of tonight's extraordinary new Times piece.

The paper now reports that they are able to corroborate an apparent FBI cover-up of documents detailing an investigation of the theft and sale of nuclear secrets to agents working for Turkey and Israel, who in turn shared the secrets with Pakistan, who in turn may have shared those secrets with Iran, North Korea, Libya, and possibly even al-Qaeda.

As The BRAD BLOG reported along with the Times two weeks ago, the operation also includes allegations that high-ranking U.S. officials --- such as Marc Grossman, a former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, who served as the #3 official in the State Department under Colin Powell and Richard Armitage from 2001 to 2005 --- were involved in the sale of those secrets and may have accepted pay-offs from agents in the black market network in the bargain.

The Times article tonight was originally published under the headline "FBI 'covers up' file exposing theft of nuclear secrets," according to Google News.

Though that header has already been changed to "FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft."

The Times' article refers to an FBI case number (203A-WF-210023) referenced in an anonymous letter sent to The Liberty Coalition, a DC-based transpartisan civil and human rights watchdog organization. A subsequent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, asking for information referring to that case number, resulted in a denial from the FBI that such a case exists.

The letter describes, among other things, allegations that Grossman had warned officials at the Turkish embassy in DC of the existence of a CIA counter-proliferation operation using a "CIA cover company" by the name of "Brewster Jennings." That company was a front used by covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, who was later outed by White House officials in the now-infamous CIA Leak case.

The BRAD BLOG had obtained a copy of the anonymous letter some weeks ago, along with the FBI's denial of the existence of related information via the FOIA request. We've been in touch with the Sunday Times over the past week, as this story has been developing.

We have yet to publish the letter in full, however, as we have been unable to independently corroborate a number of allegations made in the letter.

The Times, however, reports that they've "obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file" referred to in the anonymous letter.

"Here is the FBI and DoJ in charge of investigating the CIA Torture Tape case and the missing White House emails. So who is going to investigate the FBI and DoJ if they have destroyed evidence, (emphasis added by Editor) because it looks like that's what they have done."

We've also just spoken to Edmonds, who has been under an unprecedented 5-year-long gag order by the U.S. Department of Justice. The DoJ has threatened Edmonds with prosecution under the so-called "State Secrets Privilege." The threat of prison has kept her from speaking publicly about details related to the case, which she claims to have heard while translating wiretaps for the FBI in 2001 and 2002. She has spent many years encouraging members of Congress to hold hearings and a public investigation into the case. Despite public support from senators such as Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and a promise for investigations from members of Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) office, who have been briefed on the details, no such investigation has been carried out to date.

Edmonds denied being the source for the anonymous letter, telling The BRAD BLOG "absolutely not," when we asked her directly if she was its author...

In addition to references in the letter to "Recorded wiretaps pertaining to conversations between Mr. Marc Grossman...and a Turkish official at the Turkish Embassy in Washington, DC, between August 2001 and December 2001," there are references to "Internal communication within the Department of Justice between December 2005 and march [sic] 2007." Edmonds points out she has no information on such internal communications at any period after 2002, when she was fired by the FBI after whistleblower complaints to her superiors about infiltration within the translations department. Those allegations were later described by the DoJ Inspector General as "credible," "serious," and "warrant(ing) a thorough and careful review by the FBI."

When we asked whether she could confirm the case number referenced in the anonymous letter, Edmonds told us, "I can confirm outright that the FBI lied in their denial of the existence of the file. 100%. It was an outright lie."

The case in question, she told The BRAD BLOG, careful to avoid categorical defiance of her gag order, "concerns 1996 to 2002 information, targeting Turkish counter-intelligence, and it involves U.S. officials both appointed and elected."

The Times' report tonight offers similar information from Edmonds on the FBI case number in question...

One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023. Last week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information request for a file of exactly the same number by claiming that it did not exist. But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file.

Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up by the FBI because its contents are explosive. She accuses the agency of an “outright lie.”

“I can tell you that that file and the operations it refers to did exist from 1996 to February 2002. The file refers to the counterintelligence programme that the Department of Justice has declared to be a state secret to protect sensitive diplomatic relations,” she said.

After the initial story in the Times two weeks ago, Edmonds posted a number of photographs of high-ranking U.S. officials and members of think tanks, on her website, without names or comment. The photos are believed to be those she alleges are involved in the criminal activities described in the various coverage of her explosive allegations. She would not comment to The BRAD BLOG concerning the photographs on that page, titled only: "Sibel Edmonds' State Secrets Privilege Gallery."

Luke Ryland, assuredly the world's foremost expert on the Edmonds case, writes tonight, on the FBI denial that any documents exist in reference to the specifically named case number:

The FBI's comments demonstrate conclusively that either:
a) They are lying, or
b) They have destroyed the evidence of this multi-year investigation concerning the corruption of high-level US officials, the nuclear black market, money laundering and narcotics trafficking.
"It's ironic," Edmonds told us, "here is the FBI and DoJ in charge of investigating the CIA Torture Tape case and the missing White House emails. So who is going to investigate the FBI and DoJ if they have destroyed evidence, if that's what they've done, because it looks like that's what they have done."

Without naming Grossman --- as they also failed to do in their previous report two weeks ago --- the Times reports on some of the letter's specific allegations...

It claims the government official warned a Turkish member of the network that they should not deal with a company called Brewster Jennings because it was a CIA front company investigating the nuclear black market. The official’s warning came two years before Brewster Jennings was publicly outed when one of its staff, Valerie Plame, was revealed to be a CIA agent in a case that became a cause célèbre in the US.

The letter also makes reference to wiretaps of Turkish “targets” talking to (Pakistan's) ISI intelligence agents at the Pakistani embassy in Washington and recordings of “operatives” at the (American Turkish Council).

"We are all familiar with the cliche that 'the cover-up is worse than the crime,' but that is often nonsense," Ryland writes tonight. "Just as in the CIA tape destruction case, here we have rational people making 'rational' decisions, not in the heat of the moment, to commit felonies by destroying evidence of treason amongst other crimes. The original crimes are much worse than the cover-up, and the guilty parties know it, that's why they decided to destroy and cover up all of the evidence."

He concludes by adding, "We have the crimes, we have the cover-ups, where are the consequences?"

American Media - (Still) Missing in Action

Last October, in a BRAD BLOG Exclusive, Edmonds had announced she was willing to defy her gag order, in order to give the entire story to any American mainstream broadcast outlet who would allow her to do so. Not a single media operation in this country took her up on the offer.

In November, we followed up that report with comments from the legendary Pentagon Papers whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg, who described Edmonds' story to us as "far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers," while excoriating the American mainstream media for their failure to cover the story. Even then, while foreign media requested interviews with Edmonds, the American media refused to touch the story.

London's Sunday Times then contacted The BRAD BLOG after our series of reports, hoping to get in touch with Edmonds. They claimed they had some corroboration for elements of her story that had leaked out previously, and wanted to touch base with her. After putting them in touch with her, the result was the blockbuster story two weeks ago detailing allegations of a wide network of "moles" in place at U.S. nuclear installations, who were stealing and selling information on the foreign nuclear black market, as U.S. officials either looked the other way or were complicit in the criminal activities.

In response to that story, the top newspapers from Turkey to Pakistan to India to Israel picked up on the report. But in the United States, incredibly enough, absolutely nothing. Not a single major American media outlet covered the explosive and disturbing allegations.

We asked Edmonds tonight whether she had concerns that the British media outlet leading the way on coverage was, in fact, the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sunday Times, as some in the blogosphere had noted, with some concern, after the initial report two weeks ago.

"Murdoch is not doing it," she replied. "It's the difference between the UK's reporters and the U.S. reporters and the way they go after stories. It shows that they have far more leeway. I think a lot of it is the self-censorship (of the U.S. media) and the reliance 100% on only government sources."

"I have had (American) reporters call me and tell me that I have 'stumbled on some big time national security, covert operation'," she continued, explaining that as the reason given by some for staying away from the story.

"Well, Iran-Contra was a goddamn covert operation too! Even if that's what they're telling reporters in the U.S., it doesn't make the operation any less illegal. And the cover-up of that is outrageous," she told us tonight.

In an op-ed response being prepared by Daniel Ellsberg for publishing tomorrow by The BRAD BLOG, the Vietnam-era whistleblower offers these thoughts, in the wake of tonight's Times story, and the shameful failure of the American media to cover this important story to date...

For the second time in two weeks, the entire U.S. press has let itself be scooped by Rupert Murdoch's London Sunday Times on a dynamite story of criminal activities by corrupt U.S. officials promoting nuclear proliferation. But there is a worse journalistic sin than being scooped, and that is participating in a cover-up of information that demands urgent attention from the public, the U.S. Congress and the courts. For the last two weeks --- one could say, for years --- the major American media have been guilty of ignoring entirely the allegations of the courageous and highly credible source Sibel Edmonds, quoted in the London Times on January 6, 2008 in a front-page story that was front-page news in much of the rest of the world but was not reported in a single American newspaper or network.
Ellsberg goes on to write, "It is up to readers to demand that this culpable silent treatment end."

Lost In Translation
60 minutes, Aug. 8, 2004
LINK

(CBS) This is the story of hundreds, if not thousands, of foreign language documents that the FBI neglected to translate before and after the Sept. 11 attacks -- documents that detailed what the FBI heard on wiretaps and learned during interrogations of suspected terrorists.

Sibel Edmonds, a translator who worked at the FBI's language division, says the documents weren't translated because the division was riddled with incompetence and corruption.

Edmonds was fired after reporting her concerns to FBI officials. She told her story behind closed doors to investigators in Congress and to the Justice Department. Most recently, she spoke with the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.

She first told Correspondent Ed Bradley her story a year after Sept. 11.

Because she is fluent in Turkish and other Middle Eastern languages, Edmonds, a Turkish-American, was hired by the FBI soon after Sept. 11 and given top-secret security clearance to translate some of the reams of documents seized by FBI agents who have been rounding up suspected terrorists across the United States and abroad.

Edmonds says that to her amazement, from the day she started the job, she was told repeatedly by one of her supervisors that there was no urgency,- that she should take longer to translate documents so that the department would appear overworked and understaffed. That way, it would receive a larger budget for the next year.

“We were told by our supervisors that this was the great opportunity for asking for increased budget and asking for more translators,” says Edmonds. “And in order to do that, don't do the work and let the documents pile up so we can show it and say that we need more translators and expand the department.”

Edmonds says that the supervisor, in an effort to slow her down, went so far as to erase completed translations from her FBI computer after she'd left work for the day.

“The next day, I would come to work, turn on my computer, and the work would be gone. The translation would be gone,” she says. “Then I had to start all over again and retranslate the same document. And I went to my supervisor and he said, ‘Consider it a lesson and don't talk about it to anybody else and don't mention it.’

"The lesson was don’t work, and don’t do the translations. ...Don't do the work because -- and this is our chance to increase the number of people here in this department."

Edmonds put her concerns about the FBI's language department in writing to her immediate superiors and to a top official at the FBI. For months, she said she received no response. Then, she turned for help to the Justice Department's inspector general and to Sen. Charles Grassley, whose committee, the Judiciary Committee, has direct oversight of the FBI.

“She's credible,” says Grassley. “And the reason I feel she's very credible is because people within the FBI have corroborated a lot of her story.”

The FBI has conceded that some people in the language department are unable to adequately speak English or the language they're supposed to be translating. Kevin Taskasen was assigned to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to translate interrogations of Turkish-speaking al Qaeda members who had been captured after Sept. 11. The FBI admits that he was not fully qualified to do the job.

“He neither passed the English nor the Turkish side of the language proficiency test,” says Edmonds.

Critical shortages of experienced Middle Eastern language translators have plagued the FBI and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community for years.

Months before the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, one of the plotters of the attack was heard on tape having a discussion in Arabic that no one at the time knew was about how to make explosives - and he had a manual that no one at the time knew was about how to blow up buildings. None of it was translated until well after the bombing, and while the FBI has hired more translators since then, officials concede that problems in the language division have hampered the country's efforts to battle terrorism.

According to congressional investigators, this may have played a role in the inability to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks. The General Accounting Office reported that the FBI had expressed concern over the thousands of hours of audiotapes and pages of written material that have not been reviewed or translated because of a lack of qualified linguists.

“If they got word today that within, in a little while, the Hoover Dam was going to be blown up, and it takes a week or two to get it translated, as was one of the problems in this department, you know, you couldn't intervene to prevent that from happening,” says Grassley.

In its rush to hire more foreign language translators after Sept. 11, the FBI admits it has had difficulty performing background checks to detect translators who may have loyalties to other governments, which could pose a threat to U.S. national security.

Take the case of Jan Dickerson, a Turkish translator who worked with Edmonds. The FBI has admitted that when Dickerson was hired, the bureau didn't know that she had worked for a Turkish organization being investigated by the FBI's own counter-intelligence unit.

They also didn't know she'd had a relationship with a Turkish intelligence officer stationed in Washington who was the target of that investigation. According to Edmonds, Dickerson tried to recruit her into that organization, and insisted that Dickerson be the only one to translate the FBI's wiretaps of that Turkish official.

“She got very angry, and later she threatened me and my family's life,” says Edmonds, when she decided not to go along with the plan. “She said, ‘Why would you want to place your life and your family's life in danger by translating these tapes?’”

Edmonds says that when she reviewed Dickerson's translations of those tapes, she found that Dickerson had left out information crucial to the FBI's investigation - information that Edmonds says would have revealed that the Turkish intelligence officer had spies working for him inside the U.S. State Department and at the Pentagon.

“We came across at least 17, 18 translations, communications that were extremely important for the ongoing investigations of these individuals,” says Edmonds. “She had marked it as 'not important to be translated.'"

What kind of information did she leave out of her translation?

“Activities to obtain the United States military and intelligence secrets,” says Edmonds.

She says she complained repeatedly to her bosses about what she'd found on the wiretaps and about Dickerson's conduct, but that nobody at the FBI wanted to hear about it, not even the assistant special agent in charge.

“He said ‘Do you realize what you are saying here in your allegations? Are you telling me that our security people are not doing their jobs? Is that what you're telling me? If you insist on this investigation, I'll make sure in no time it will turn around and become an investigation about you,’” says Edmonds.

Sibel Edmonds was fired. The FBI offered no explanation, saying in the letter only that her contract was terminated completely for the government's convenience.

But three months later, the FBI conceded that on at least two occasions, Dickerson had, in fact, left out significant information from her translations. They say it was due to a lack of experience and was not malicious.

Dickerson quit the FBI and now lives in Belgium. She declined to be interviewed, but she told The Chicago Tribune that the allegations against her are preposterous and ludicrous. Grassley says he's disturbed by what the Dickerson incident says about internal security at the FBI.

"You shouldn't have somebody in your organization that's compromising our national security by not doing the job right, whether it's lack of skills or whether it's intentional," says Grassley.

Does the Sibel Edmonds case fall into any pattern of behavior, pattern of conduct, on the part of the FBI?

“The usual pattern,” says Grassley. “Let me tell you, first of all, the embarrassing information comes out, the FBI reaction is to sweep it under the rug, and then eventually they shoot the messenger.”

Special agent John Roberts, recently retired as a chief of the FBI's Internal Affairs Department, agrees. And while he is not permitted to discuss the Edmonds case, for the last 10 years, he has been investigating misconduct by FBI employees. He says he is outraged by how little is ever done about it.

“I don't know of another person in the FBI who has done the internal investigations that I have and has seen what I have, and that knows what has occurred and what has been glossed over and what has, frankly, just disappeared, just vaporized, and no one disciplined for it,” says Roberts.

Despite a pledge from FBI Director Robert Mueller to overhaul the culture of the FBI in light of 9/11, and encourage bureau employees to come forward to report wrongdoing, Roberts says that in the rare instances when employees are disciplined, it's usually low-level employees like Edmonds who get punished and not their bosses.

“I think the double standard of discipline will continue no matter who comes in, no matter who tries to change,” says Roberts. “You, you have a certain, certain group that, that will continue to protect itself. That's just how it is.”

Has he found cases since Sept. 11 where people were involved in misconduct and were not, let alone reprimanded, but were even promoted? Roberts says yes.

"That's astonishing," Bradley told Roberts. "You would think that after 9/11, that's a big slap in the face. 'This is a wake-up call here.'"

"Depends on who you are," says Roberts. "If you're in the senior executive level, it may not hurt you. You will be promoted."

Last month, the FBI took the highly unusual step of retroactively classifying information it gave to Congress two years ago about the Sibel Edmonds case.

As for the FBI's language division, the bureau says it has dramatically beefed up its translation capabilities.

Common Dreams