Posted on 03/12/2004 5:37:43 PM PST by ValerieUSA
A former congressional press aide was arrested yesterday for allegedly maintaining an "intelligence relationship" for several years with U.S.-based spies for Saddam Hussein before the Iraqi leader was ousted. Among other activities, authorities said, Susan Lindauer, 41, cooperated with Iraqi intelligence agents in January 2003 by delivering a letter to the home of a distant relative, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, urging the Bush administration to hold off its invasion of Iraq so weapons inspectors could continue their work.
Lindauer, a former journalist, worked in the late 1980s for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Herald in Everett.
Lindauer, described by people who know her as an ardent foe of the U.S.-led war against Saddam's regime, was arrested at her home in Takoma Park, Md., by FBI agents after a federal indictment in New York charged her with several crimes, including acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government and violating laws against financial transactions with Iraq.
"I'm an anti-war activist, and I'm innocent," Lindauer said before her initial appearance yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. After entering no pleas and posting her home as $500,000 collateral, she was released from custody pending further proceedings but must reside in a halfway house designated by federal court officials.
She could face more than 25 years in prison if convicted.
"I did more to stop terrorism in this country than anybody else," said Lindauer, who has a master's degree in public policy from the London School of Economics. "I worked to get weapons inspectors back to Iraq when everyone else said it was impossible."
Law-enforcement sources familiar with the investigation said Lindauer's alleged activities caused little, if any, damage to U.S. national security, though they had the potential to cause harm. "It's not the biggest case out there," one of the sources said. "There's not a lot of money allegedly changing hands. Her efforts to impact U.S. policy were not successful."
Lindauer, who was not charged with espionage, allegedly met with Iraqi intelligence agents in Manhattan six times between October 1999 and February 2002 for reasons not specified in the indictment. In an October 2001 meeting, Lindauer "accepted a task given to her" by an agent, according to the indictment, which does not describe the task.
Then, for about two weeks beginning in late February 2002, she allegedly met with Iraqi agents in Baghdad, where she received cash payments totaling about $10,000.
In early January 2003, two months before the Iraq war began, Lindauer delivered a letter to the home of a U.S. government official, touting her Iraqi connections and unsuccessfully attempting to influence government policy, the indictment said. Several law-enforcement sources familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, identified the official as Card, who they said is a second cousin of Lindauer's.
One of those sources said Lindauer, in the letter, "was making the argument that the Iraqi government should be given more time for inspections and that sort of thing to delay the war."
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said yesterday that Card does not recall having any personal contact with Lindauer since President Bush's 2001 inaugural celebration.
"It is a very sad and unfortunate incident," McClellan said. "The various attempts to contact him on behalf of the former (Iraqi) regime were brought to the attention of the appropriate officials ... and Chief of Staff Card was fully cooperative with the FBI during the investigation."
According to the indictment, an FBI agent posing as a Libyan intelligence officer met with Lindauer twice in Baltimore last June and July to "discuss the need for plans and foreign resources to support resistance groups operating within" U.S.-occupied Iraq. In August, acting on the undercover agent's instructions, authorities said in a statement, Lindauer "left packages on two separate occasions for the (agent) ... in prearranged 'dead drop' operations." The indictment alleges that the packages contained documents and were left in Takoma Park.
In the early 1990s, Lindauer worked briefly as a researcher at U.S. News and World Report before becoming a press aide for a succession of Democrats in Congress. She was a press secretary for Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon in 1993; then-Rep. Ron Wyden of Oregon, now a senator, the following year; then-Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois beginning in 1996, and, for two months in 2002, Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California.
She worked as a temporary business reporter with the Seattle P-I in 1987 and then as an editorial writer at The Herald for two years.
Lindauer's father, John Lindauer, a former chancellor at the University of Alaska, lost a 1998 bid to become the state's governor as a Republican.
Lindauer's former co-workers at The Herald remember her as a brilliant, passionate woman.
Retired publisher Larry Hanson said she impressed him at editorial-board meetings with the depth of her feelings about issues under discussion. "This is very bizarre," he said of her arrest.
But Lindauer's former supervisor at The Herald, where she wrote editorials between August 1987 and July 1989, said she suffered from devastating mood swings and sometimes "erratic" behavior.
"She's a brilliant thinker, extremely energetic and all of that," said Lou Wein, who now owns a Snohomish antique store. "... But she was a very bumpy person to work with at times."
Diane Wright, a former co-worker at The Herald, remembered Lindauer as a true journalist, very plugged in to current events and passionate about her work.
"It's sad to think someone could be led in another direction by those traits of passion and inquisitiveness," said Wright, now a Seattle Times reporter. "It seems unbelievable to me."
Washington Post staff writers Susan Levine and Jerry Markon and staff researchers Richard Drezen and Madonna Lebling contributed to this report. Seattle Times reporter Diane Brooks contributed local responses.
You said "She spied for the enemy during a war"
According to the article, she did not.
That's all.
We know Saddam had them at one time, but he probably sold them and discovered he could maintain power indefinitely without making new ones.
I think Cheney should crack a joke about opening a commission to investigate Dems and reporters...
It doesn't take money to motivate the true believers. Whoever said this should go back to chasing bank robbers.
What? I thought treason was a death sentence.
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