Sibel Edmonds vindicated? FBI reveals investigation continues

25.10.2006 Source: URL: http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/85192-Sibel_Edmonds-0

On October 10, 2006, FBI spokesman Bill Carter confirmed that matters raised by Sibel Edmonds and shielded form public view by the invocation of the US States Secret privilege were still under internal investigation by the Bureau.

“Due to the fact that the allegations of Sibel Edmonds reflect internal administrative and investigative matters it would not be appropriate to respond to your inquiry. I will point out that the DOJ Office of the Inspector General has reviewed this matter and released a public report. I would refer this report to you for your review. The Inspector General's report concluded that the FBI did not adequately investigate allegations Ms. Edmonds made regarding a co-worker. After the OIG's initial classified report, the FBI conducted further investigation into Ms. Edmonds' allegations. That investigation is continuing.”*

Back in March of 2002, Edmonds was released from the FBI over her discovery of an array of espionage activities. Looking back, and with the benefit of new information from the FBI and elsewhere, it appears that the government of Turkey was spectacularly successfully in compromising FBI, CIA, DEA, DIA and DOS operations, and was also able to mount other espionage programs that allowed Turkish interests to obtain assorted military and WMD technology know-how, and garner US and Israeli military support for its bloody internal struggle against its significant and much maligned Kurdish population/opposition.

The Turks would not have been successful in staging what may be recorded as one of history’s finest intelligence coups had it not been for many sympathetic US military personnel, bureaucrats and politicians who, whatever their egotistical reasons, believed themselves to be acting in the USA's best interests. Certainly, no one can accuse them of not effectively representing their powerful Turkish clients whether in defeating US Congressional action recognizing the Armenian Genocide or ensuring that US corporations close lucrative deals in Turkey.

The sympathizers names are now overly familiar: Douglas Feith, Brent Scowcroft, William Cohen, Richard Perle, Michael Leeden, Bob Livingston, Marc Grossman, Paul Wolfowitz, Eric Edelman, Richard Armitage, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Dennis Hastert, et al. Rather than re-hash their affiliations and track records here, visit rightweb.irc-online.org to find out more about their linkages to each other and Turkey (Israel too).

The Turks knew it would take lots of cash to pull off such a scheme and sustain it. The illicit drug trade provided an endless source of funds to pay for WMD components, US defense technology, politicians, money laundering schemes, counterterrorist operations, safe interrogation houses, and dozens of front companies. Given Turkey's solid reputation as a key refining point/middleman for opium coming out of Afghanistan (it is ultimately transported into the Balkans and on to Europe and the USA), it is no surprise that the Turkish government always seems to have a steady supply of cash to spread around. Perhaps it is just coincidence, but under the watchful eyes of the Pentagon and US law enforcement and intelligence agencies, opium crop production in Afghanistan has increased over the last decade. The profits from refining and distribution of the product have flooded the black market - the playground for intelligence operatives and assorted criminal enterprises.

Desmond Fernandes, has recently published an extraordinary piece titled Turkey’s US Backed War on Terror: A Cause for Concern?* The information provided in this publication shows the lengths to which the US and Turkey (and Israel) will go to keep some very nasty activities quiet. One of the more interesting bits of news in the report is that, at the invitation of the Turkish government, US and Israeli forces are assisting the Turkish government in military operations against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PPK) and the Kurdish people and their culture. The US is ostensibly engaged in counter-narcotics operations with the Turks.

Joseph Ralston, former USAF General and now Lockheed Martin employee and American Turkish Council principal, is the special envoy/coordinator for US-Turkey anti-Kurdish operations. In October 2006, the US Congress approved the sale of 30 of F-16 combat aircraft worth $2.9 billion to Turkey.

The world has seen the effects of similar alliances on persecuted people, most notably the tragic one between the US and Israel. That template will now be applied in Turkey to manage the Kurds. It’s their turn to be abused and pushed from their homelands by the same methods and equipment used against the Palestinians (and now the Iraqis). American leaders sanctioned the elimination of the Palestinian leaders and their people, even groups freely elected like Hamas. With eager US approval, Israeli military operations continue unabated in Gaza and the West Bank into late 2006. US support for Israel's destruction of the Shia population in Lebanon during the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict in 2006, along with decades of unswerving support in the United Nations and the US Congress is notoriously legendary. All this bodes ill for the Kurds.

And so it begins. According to kurdmedia.com, “the PKK - the most prominent Kurdish freedom movement - declared a unilateral ceasefire that went into effect on Sunday 1 October. It still remains unilateral - the entire Turkish establishment, from top general Yasar Buyukanit to prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has rejected it, clearly stating their determination to continue the war… Joseph Ralston spoke for the US government when he indicated that “a ceasefire sort of implies an act that is taken between two states, two actors, to do that. And I don’t want to confer that kind of status on the PKK by saying a ceasefire…”

According to Fernandes, “General Joseph W. Ralston, the US government’s Special Envoy who is responsible for countering the terrorist PKK and coordinating actions and eliminationist strategies with the Turkish and Iraqi states…He…just so happens to be a member of the Board of Directors of Lockheed Martin, the same corporation whose deal for the sale of 30 F-16s to Turkey sits in the venerable halls of Congress at this very moment” in time. F-16s it must be remembered, were needed during Turkey’s genocidal War on Terror during the 1990s because of their usefulness in obliterating Kurdish settlements, killing civilians and terrifying Kurdish civilians.

It is widely known that the Turkish military used Lockheed Martin F-16s to assist with the destruction of Kurdish villages in North Kurdistan during the 1990’s Dirty War, with the facts well-documented by human rights groups. In 1995, Human Rights Watch documented arms sales to Turkey, along with related violations of the laws of war by that state…It included the many gross abuses that Turkey … perpetrated against the Kurdish people with the F-16 fighter jet figure[ing] prominently…In a report ordered by the US Congress, the State Department admitted that the abuses included the use of US Cobra helicopters, armored personnel carriers, and F-16 fighter bombers. In some instances, critics say, entire Kurdish villages were obliterated from the air.

This proposed new multi-billion dollar sale in 2006, the Pentagon has claimed, will enhance the Turkish Air Force’s ability to defend Turkey, no doubt against its internal Kurdish threat in the Kurdish colony in the southeast, and its external one in southern Kurdistan/Northern Iraq…The aircraft will be used to patrol the nation’s extensive coastline and borders against future threats and to contribute to the Global War on Terrorism and NATO operations… With this in mind, you should ask yourself what, exactly, General Ralston is coordinating. We all know the real deal, don’t we? We all know who have been the targets of those F-16s…”

On Monday, October 2, 2006, Captain Warren Comer (USAF, 374AW/PA, Yakota Japan) indicated that the USAF could provide no further information about Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Dickerson, a central figure in the Edmonds’ matter. “Looking at your request, the only information that I can confirm to you is what is written in the Fuji Flyer newspaper that you read. For any other questions on this subject, please refer to the FBI or the US State Department.”***

Taking Captain Comer’s advice, the US State Department was contacted. On Tuesday, October 3, 2006, Ms Nancy L. Beck (US DOS, PACE) indicated that “Responding to your inquiry, this is not a matter for the US Department of State. Recommend you direct your question to the FBI or Department of Justice.”

Dickerson was recently deployed to the Iraqi theater of operations where he heads up logistics matters for an element of the USAF. His handlers in the intelligence community apparently are happy about that and so must be the public affairs personnel who don’t want anything to do with him.

In 2002, Dickerson and his spouse Melek Can left the country for Belgium and a quiet post with NATO after Edmonds’ exposed them as Turkish operatives or, perhaps, US counterintelligence operatives. Dickerson and his wife’s activities remain a mystery. According to various reports, they were once stationed in Ankara, Turkey in the 1990s, and had contact with Douglas Feith and Marc Grossman. Another report indicated that: in 1995, while in Turkey, Dickerson was the subject of investigation for accepting money from foreign agents, whereupon he was abruptly transferred to Germany. In 1999, Major Douglas Dickerson returned to the United States. His wife, Melek Can Dickerson, started to work for American Turkish Council (atc.org) and related Turkish American business groups.

In 2001, Dickerson was apparently given a position in the weapons systems acquisition arena with the Pentagon and US Department of State. Dickerson’s areas of responsibility supposedly included Turkey, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. He also had dealings with Edelman formerly US Ambassador to Turkey, and now with the Pentagon’s Policy Organization. Dickerson was also active with ATC and Scowcroft. He and his wife associated with several Turkish and American individuals from the Turkish Embassy and the ATC. Many of these folks were targeted by FBI counterintelligence for criminal activity. But thanks to the Turkish government’s penetration of the highest echelons of the US political-military-intelligence-corporate apparatus, the Pentagon and US State Department forced the FBI to back off any criminal investigations that may expose criminal activity, and untidy and covert operations.

Finally, there’s the perplexing case of Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson. According to dozens of media reports, Valerie Plame was introduced to Joe Wilson by Brent Scowcroft at an ATC function. Shortly thereafter, the pair was invited to a Turkish Embassy function. Quickly after that, Plame’s CIA WMD operation (Brewster Jennings) was exposed by then Under Secretary of State, Richard Armitage. Coincidently, Dickerson was in close proximity to Plame & Wilson in the 1999-2002 timeframe and the Pentagon and US State Department. It seems likely that only a Turkish operative located somewhere in the US government/intelligence community would have uncovered that information and disclosed it to the Turks and their US sympathizers. Was it Wilson? Dickerson? Armitage?

More fallout is to come from the Edmonds’ matter and the word in Washington, DC-Metro is that it will involve some individuals named in this piece.

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security and political matters. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com

* Email to FBI PA Bill Carter from John Stanton. Thanks to Mir Carter and the FBI, plus the reference to usdoj.gov/oig/special/0501/index.htm. The CIA, DOD-IG, DEA and Turkish Intelligence did respond.

** From the October 2006 electronic edition of Variant: Cross Currents in Culture, No. 27, Winter 2006 variant.randomstate.org and from Chapter 5 of the book by Desmond Fernandes and Iskender Ozden (2006) US, UK, German and NATO ‘Inspired’ Psychological Warfare Operations Against The Kurdish ‘Communist’ Threat in Turkey and Northern Iraq (Apec Press, Stockholm)

© 1999-2006. «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our materials in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of PRAVDA.Ru's editors.

Consider also the author: John Stanton.

Yes, I usually ignore most of his raves and rants, plus he usually throws a lot of names together that don't belong together... In this case a couple of things got my interest that, if factual, could be news or not well-known info (like Scowcroft-Plame-Wilson connection). Thought would be good to put it into "public" domain for Freepers to validate or invalidate or possibly help connect the dots to other events or relationships ("social networking" research).

Don't trust the author but I hadn't heard before that Scowcroft actually introduced Joe Wilson to Valerie Plame?!? That personal tie alone could suggest much more of an ongoing relationship between Scowcroft and the Plamegate Two than is generally known. Of course, such introductions can be very casual and indicate nothing more than a passing acquaintanceship, but it would be very interesting if Scowcroft knew them both separately and then together years before Plamegate ever erupted......

Scowcroft and Wilson have ties to Turkish and Saudi interests which are well documented by Fedora and others.

The timeline fits (Wilson and Plame were married in 1998), cast of characters fits too (Scowcroft - Armitage, Grossman), and per your research ( http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1782647/posts?page=66#66 ),
in 1999 Scowcroft attended Harlow book-signing party along with Woodward and "a bevy of Washington reporters" (so they could've known Wilson-Plame early on).

Scowcroft is a chair of ATC
http://www.the-atc.org/data/aboutus/mission.htm

Sandy Berger is on the advisory committee, as well as Cohen Group (former Clinton's SecDef William Cohen)
http://www.the-atc.org/data/aboutus/070112ATCadvisoryboard.pdf

From your link ( http://home.att.net/~m.harlow/circ_wm/press.htm )
"Secretary Cohen presented Minister of Defence Robertson with a copy of Circle William," Bill Harlow's book.

Journalist Daniel Pipes at one time was ATC board member, he may be an interesting man to talk to about Scowcroft-Wilson-Plame-Harlow connections, and/or reporters who knew them.

Thanks for the pings. I've been trying to keep an eye on this story. I don't know what to make of Edmonds yet. Her information is very interesting, but she'd be more credible if the US antiwar movement and Pravda weren't among the voices championing her cause. Regardless, her story is noteworthy whether it turns out to be true or not: if it is, it makes Plame and Wilson's ATC connection all the more significant, and if it isn't, it raises the question of why someone is taking the trouble to put such a story out there.

Actually, I originally posted this story (Stanton's history and "truthiness" notwithstanding) not because of Edmonds story, which was peripheral to me, but because of revelation (for me, at least) that Scowcroft introduced Wilson to Plame in 1997 at ATC event, and his connections to Marc Grossman (former Ambassador to Turkey) and Richard Armitage, all players in Plamegate.

That introduction is pretty well documented, among others by Joe Wilson himself in his book "Politics of Truth" (page 240) that he first met Valerie Plame in 1997, at the home of the Turkish ambassador where Wilson received an ATC award.

According to Wilson, Scowcroft was the one to push for publishing the story in NYT. Scowcroft was also pushing for folding DIA into DNI / CIA combined entity / financing, which Rumsfeld, to his credit, properly resisted and won.

Scowcroft is a chair of ATC, which counts as members of advisory committee Cohen Group and Samuel 'Sandy" Berger...

Scowcroft is also a co-founder and co-chair of Aspen Strategy Group at Aspen Institute, to which Armitage also belongs, as well as Sandy Berger, Robert M. Gates, Judith Miller and Nicholas Kristof, among others. His co-chair at ASG is Joseph Nye, who was chairman of the National Intelligence Council and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs during Clinton administration.

Incidentally, Plame was working in American Embassy at Athens, Greece in July 1991, when she was coordinating visit of George H.W. Bush to Greece and Turkey. There may be some peripheral connection to Turkey here, but also how would anyone ever make a transition from working at an Embassy to NOC?

Now Enchante found that Scowcroft had some kind of connection to Bill Harlow, who was confirming "source" of Novak's (and who knows how many other reporters).

William Cohen, now chairman of Cohen Group and an ATC advisory member, was Clinton's SecDef at the time of Harlow's book party (1999), and presented Harlow's book to his UK counterpart. Book, incidentally, was about Libya's chemical WMD attack, and Clinton's inner circle loved it. Some hoped Clinton's endorsement would do for Harlow what Reagan's did for Tom Clancy, but Harlow has never written another book.

Harlow quit CIA around April 2004 (?), in the thick of Fitzgerald's "investigation" and is now "consultant" with NBC (don't know when he started as one, but could be interesting, gaps between careers are telling in Washington).

Seems like some answers from Harlow might shed some light on Plamegate, and who knew what when in Washington, too.

Haven't looked through Sibel Edmonds material in a long time. There may be something of interest here:

Whistleblower coming in cold from the F.B.I. [9/11 FBI Stonewall Alert]

FBI Arab translators cheered Sept. 11 Atrocities at FBI

War: A Fifth Column? Either FBI supervisor Mike Feghali ought to be fired instantly (and investigated to see if he should be prosecuted), or he has one heck of a libel suit . . . check out this potential bombshell article from FrontPage Magazine, charging that Feghali, a naturalized Arab-American, led his unit (translators who are a critical link in our homeland security apparatus) in celebrating the September 11 attacks, and added to that the Washington vice of deliberately slowing down work at his unit to show a need for more budget. (Link via Roger Simon).
But take the whole story, especially the more sensational parts, with a grain of salt, at least for now. The allegations seem to come entirely from one Sibel Dinez Edmonds, a disgruntled former employee who was fired by the FBI, and it's hardly unheard-of for disgruntled former employees to make up sensational charges. Still, the Senate Judiciary Committee, to whom Edmonds has complained, ought to make some efforts to ascertain the credibility of these charges.

Edmonds came to my attention in an article by Gayle Sheehy (9/11 Witness Says She Exposed Infiltration, Tells Kean Committee She Lost Bureau Position; Sen. Grassley Sees 'Potential Espionage Breach' by Gail Sheehy). More on Sheehy: Error-Prone Author (Gail Sheehy) Headlines New MoveOn.org Book

The cast of characters surrounding Edmonds are the likes of Daniel Ellsberg, the Jersey girls, the National Lawyers Guild and others from the left.

For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3137695.
ece

No real new information here but the story is resurfacing. Funny how the timeline of the allegations seem to be missing from the story. Protecting Clinton administration?

Also intersting: they are also not posting the names of the people involved, though Edmonds has surely given them the names.

I think the Times knows when most of this was going on and who these officials are who leaked nuclear secrets to the Pakistanis via the Turks ... and they happen to be more closely linked to Clinton’s administration than to either Bush administrations. Which makes it tricky to report on if you’re a whacknut outfit.

Formatted article : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article3137695.ece?print=yes

I don’t know how much Sibel Edmonds really knows about any of this, and particularly about any ongoing FBI investigations she describes (if there are any). She was hired as a contractor for position of FBI translator / interpreter just AFTER 9/11 (on September 20, 2001) and was officially fired on March 22, 2002 - altogether 6 months, last day almost 6 years ago - and practically most of that time spent lodging complaints and fighting with superiors in FBI and later DOJ (validity of which I don’t know and make no assumptions about), so I don’t know how much work she could have really accomplished and how much top secret level documents (particularly translations about State Dept personnel) she could see.

Let’s just say, I am not sure she is the most competent or reliable source on issues like this. That said, our State Dept is a vipers’ nest, and it’s not hard to imagine that many people there have more loyalty to their (globalist, socialist, take-a-pick) ideology than to American people or interests.

Some of the shenanigans from State Department personnel (and CIA) are described in recent Ken Timmerman book “Shadow Warriors”, here is a link to his book tour interview that describes these :
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID=0ADC3041-E624-45A4-B608-E5C9DEB99079

Yes, London Times is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

Whatever happened or didn’t happen with Edmonds, here she is just trying to keep herself “in the news” recycling the hearsay or tying in events that had nothing to do with her time in the FBI or reality.

e.g.

— “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.’ “ — well, she was nowhere near FBI in 2000, so could not overhear anything like this.

Lawrence Franklin was not passing any nuclear secrets, and which he had no access to - he was passing information to Israeli (in many cases legally on behalf of the government as “back channel”) about US policy and concerns towards Iran to Naor Gilon, a specialist on Iranian nuclear program at Israely Embassy. He fell under surveillance around 2004 (way after Edmonds was out of FBI and stopped being an “insider”) because Gilon was under surveillance, and there was no money involved - most information was legitimately passed, some was unauthorized but Israelis had no way of knowing which was and which was not. Two of the AIPAC employees are soon to be on trial (which is a another of DoJ’s travesties, BTW) in Franklin-related case (he made a deal to cut the time), but I don’t see what any of this it has to do with Sibel Edmonds - she is just using this as a “conspiracy gossip” to bolster her bona fide as an “expert” in whatever she is doing to promote herself and keep her in “gadfly business”.

Turkey and Israel are our allies (including intelligence), and we do share certain amount of information with them and their intelligence services. We also share with and keep certain information from our allies like Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Australia etc. FBI also keeps certain information from CIA and NSA and vice versa, etc. etc. “Lawrence Franklins”, passing unauthorized info, should be punished but I have not seen much evidence of that in recent years. Why do they have to do that when they can pass it to NYT and Washington Post with impunity?

Now, Wilson and Valerie Plame met at ATC dinner and had extensive ties with ATC, as discussed above on this thread. That is far more interesting (and yet unexplored entirely) than recent hearsays of Sibel Edmonds based on any news that come out from time to time from FBI or DoJ.

While I agree with you she is maintaining her gadfly status your first point about her hearing is related to taped conversations she was assigned to translate.

The question that needs to be asked is why is the MSM, except for the Dallas paper refusing to cover the story? The answer is because the tentacles lead all the way back to Clinton/Berger/Goss/Grossman/Cohen/Ralston/ATC/Lockheed and Bush II’s DOJ inability to pour piss out of a boot. Not to mention the fact that they refused to clean house at the DOJ/State/Pentagon once in office so they are in a roundabout way responsible for this continuing on their watch. No one wants to address the revolving door between the govt and the defense contractor world. The connections are there, whether the conspiracy is or not remains to be seen/proven. Either way the mere suggestion that this could have taken place would seem to be enough to trigger an investigation on the scale of watergate yet the sheeple keep grazing and they deserve what they get for their lethargic reaction to treason, alegedly.........instead it is behind closed doors and once again transparency takes a back seat.

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