An explosive new report describing the FBI and Justice Department's cover-up of American, Turkish and Israeli involvement in A.Q. Khan's nuclear black market smuggling network has been published by London's Sunday Times.
The Times' Insight Team reports:
The Insight Team writes,
As revealed by the Times and others two weeks ago, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Marc Grossman, currently Vice Chairman of the hawkish Cohen Group, was a mole for criminal groups involved in A.Q. Khan's nuclear black market. As a former Ambassador to Turkey, Grossman was well-connected to high-powered Turkish lobby groups such as the American-Turkish Council (ATC), a veritable front for U.S. multinational defense firms. ATC "partners" include corporations such as Boeing, General Electric and Northrop Grumman.
Turkish and American officials linked to the network were acting as conduits for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), described by analysts as a "state within a state." In addition to actively aiding Khan's nuclear smuggling ring, senior Pakistani nuclear scientists and top ISI officers have been implicated in passing nuclear secrets to the Afghan-Arab database, al-Qaeda.
In Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons, authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark write,
The Times reports,
Edmonds told The Times,
(For more information on Sibel Edmonds case see Lukery's Against All Enemies webpage.)
THE FBI has been accused of covering up a key case file detailing evidence against corrupt government officials and their dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets.According to Edmonds, the FBI was investigating...
The assertion follows allegations made in The Sunday Times two weeks ago by Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistleblower, who worked on the agency's investigation of the network.
...a Turkish and Israeli-run network that paid high-ranking American officials to steal nuclear weapons secrets. These were then sold on the international black market to countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.A key case file has now gone missing.
The Insight Team writes,
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.The FOIA request had be made by the Washington, D.C.-based Liberty Coalition, a broad civil liberties defense group that spans the political spectrum from the ACLU to former conservative congressman, Bob Barr.
As revealed by the Times and others two weeks ago, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Marc Grossman, currently Vice Chairman of the hawkish Cohen Group, was a mole for criminal groups involved in A.Q. Khan's nuclear black market. As a former Ambassador to Turkey, Grossman was well-connected to high-powered Turkish lobby groups such as the American-Turkish Council (ATC), a veritable front for U.S. multinational defense firms. ATC "partners" include corporations such as Boeing, General Electric and Northrop Grumman.
Turkish and American officials linked to the network were acting as conduits for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), described by analysts as a "state within a state." In addition to actively aiding Khan's nuclear smuggling ring, senior Pakistani nuclear scientists and top ISI officers have been implicated in passing nuclear secrets to the Afghan-Arab database, al-Qaeda.
In Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons, authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark write,
Early in the summer [2001], George Tenet made a secret trip to Islamabad to urge General Mahmood Ahmed at the ISI to trade information on Osama bin Laden. But the Taliban-supporting general had no intention of cooperating.This too, had been covered-up by the Bush administration as it planned for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
There was much he was already withholding from the CIA. In August 2001, the ISI had proof positive that Osama bin Laden had received in person two retired nuclear scientists, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chaudiri Abdul Majeed, at his secret headquarters in Afghanistan.
At the meeting...Osama bin Laden allegedly told the two scientists that he had made great headway in advancing the apocalypse of which Mahmood had written. He had succeeded in acquiring highly enriched uranium from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and he wanted their help to turn it into a bomb.
The Times reports,
...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.Since her revelations were reported back in 2002 by CBS' 60 Minutes, Edmonds has been gagged by the Bush administration's Justice Department via the use of the draconian "state secrets" privilege allegedly to protect "sensitive diplomatic relations." But what's being protected here are not the American people but high-powered Bush cronies and their corporate sponsors.
Edmonds told The Times,
"I cannot discuss the details considering the gag orders," she said, "but I reported all these activities to the US Congress, the inspector general of the justice department and the 9/11 commission. I told them all about what was contained in this case file number, which the FBI is now denying exists.The cover-up continues...
(For more information on Sibel Edmonds case see Lukery's Against All Enemies webpage.)
7 comments:
Doesn't it appear as though the crooks were saving this story for after they lit one off on US soil ?
Then they would have the excuse that bin Laden had all the parts and scientists to build one.
The plot sickens
Flo
Just a minor point of pedantry, Joe. The Sunday Times and The Times are two separate newspapers. Although sister - Murdoch-owned - publications, they have separate editors and reporting staff. (For what it's worth, Brits use "the S.T." rather that "the Times" when referring to the Sunday Paper.)
Still, you're to be congratulated at least for not calling either "The London Times", which is about as correct as "The Boca Raton National Enquirer" would be.
anonymous wrote:
"Just a minor point of pedantry, Joe. The Sunday Times and The Times are two separate newspapers."
Antifascist here: I wrote the post, so cut Joe some slack! ;)
If you refer to the top of the piece, I did report it as being published in The Sunday Times. Further mentions were referenced as The Times.
Flo,
For what its worth, it doesn't appear as you assert at all. While overall, CIA and MI6, failed to wind-up Khan's network for geostrategic reasons, there were individual officers and other bureaucrats who did. Reference the case of Richard Barlow for details.
The Khan network was in play for decades and predated the Bush regime; it was covered-up by successive UK and US governments. Why? To keep the ISI and other "allies" such as the Saudis "on board" as imperialism did its dirty work in the Middle East and Central Asia.
Far from being the "enemy" of the United States, the Afghan-Arab database, al-Qaeda in particular, the Muslim Brotherhood in general, and various and sundry strands of political Islam, that is Salafist far-right extremism are staunch allies of the U.S.
Don't think so? Check out Richard Labeviere's Dollars for Terror, Robert Dreyfus' The Devil's Game, John Cooley's Unholy Wars or Brisard and Daquie's Forbidden Truth.
Disposable assets after all, do go "off the reservation."
Think I'm blowing smoke, then ponder this: in northern Iraq, the PKK are "official enemies" of US imperialism; in Iran, PJAK are "friends and allies." Same organization, different names.
Anti, I don't think your "blowing smoke" at all, as a matter of fact, I agree...The "Official" story won't read anything close to that though.
They create their own reality.
I'm still trying to figure out if all the nukes arrived at Barksdale from Minot ;) Flo
Harry Shearer got the Sunday Times Edmonds story onto Huffpost yesterday, where it was a major sidebar but has since slipped to a minor sidebar down the scroll. The comments are supportive and largely grateful for the ST piece's getting subprime US mainstream exposure, plus the blogger history (e.g., lukery, Bradblog, Larissa Alexandranovda) gets cross-referenced.
Two weeks earlier the Sunday Times reported that Israel plans to attack and destroy Iran's nuclear-weapons capabilities, possibly using nukes in a bunker buster strike:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2535310,00.html
Maybe there's a connection, maybe we'll hear an Oval Office Speech that explains Everything, i.e., everything, and that will go down in history as the Mother of All Cover-ups.
Waxing desultory: Remember the reports that the US told Israel not to retaliate against Iraq's SCUDS being lobbed at Israel's cities in 1991? The CNN diplomacy included promises that Israel doesn't always strike early, but it eventually exacts its revenge and eliminates any possible retaliation against themselves. It's nothing peculiar to Israel. The US has not yet forgiven the Iranian Revolution of 1979, not by a long shot. It's been a long time now, but once upon a time many states and kingdoms in the Middle East wanted regime change in Iraq. Sadly, the US had a coke cowboy and a geezer with advanced heart disease calling the shot. Anyway, in exchange, Israel will be allowed to temper the dreams of Iran's Revolution, and license plates ending in even numbers can get some gas on MWF, odd numbers on THSa, never on Sunday.
These Edmonds-FBI/Israeli-strike revelations in the EC press appear to be the last appeals to Iran to accept the Nuke Club's ultimatum.
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