The military news outlet Military.com is covering the story of FBI linguist-turned-whistelblower Sibel Edmonds as their lead story today.
Reporter Bryant Jordan’s 1,500 word feature includes a background summary of Edmonds’ story, which The BRAD BLOG has been detailing for years, and a summary of the allegations she offered under oath last August in her sworn deposition following seven years of “forced silence” under a court-ordered gag due to the so-called “State Secrets Privilege” twice-invoked by George W. Bush’s Department of Justice. A good round-up of the startling information Edmonds says she gleaned while listening to and translating wiretaps in the counterintelligence division at the FBI after 9/11 is offered throughout his coverage.
Jordan’s piece is well reported and includes, for the first time to our knowledge, several forms of denials of Edmonds allegations by some of Bush’s key State and Defense Department officials — such as Richard Perle and Douglas Feith — who, she says, were participants in espionage plots against the United States in order to share military and even nuclear secrets with Turkish and Israeli government operatives.
Edmonds also offers a very spirited and seemingly common-sense response to those denials (one of which is rather ironic in retrospect) and to critics who maintain she has been offering these allegations due to some form of vendetta.
If you’re not already familiar with Edmonds’ story, we’ll recommend Jordan’s full article at Military.com, just as we have previously recommended the excellent cover-story interview by CIA vet Philip Giraldi at American Conservative magazine also published following her 8/8/09 deposition in which she was finally able to tell her story publicly and on the record for the first time. She did so as the Obama Dept. of Justice chose not to invoke the “State Secrets Privilege” when they had the opportunity this time.
If you are already familiar with her story, then read on, as we’ll try to highlight the new information in which Jordan advances the story a few beats — as every other U.S. mainstream corporate media outlet has simply failed to since Edmonds’ remarkable allegations have finally become public…
Jordan ledes with the background on the specific aspects of Edmonds’ far-reaching allegations which he will then expand on throughout much of his coverage:
In sworn testimony to attorneys on Aug. 8, Sibel Edmonds described a Pentagon where key personnel helped pass defense secrets to foreign agents or provided them names of knowledgeable officials who were vulnerable to blackmail or co-option.
And firmly rooted in this espionage program in the 1990s, according to Edmonds’ deposition, were two men who, with the election of George W. Bush as president in 2000, found themselves in the Pentagon: Douglas Feith, who would head the Office of Special Plans, and Richard Perle, who would become chairman of the Defense Advisory Board.
“They were 100 percent directly involved,” Edmonds told Military.com. “They were not in the Pentagon [in the late 1990s] but they had their people inside the Pentagon.” One of those people, she said, was Larry Franklin, an Air Force officer assigned to the Office of Special Plans who, in 2003, passed classified information to representatives of the American Israel Public Affairs Office, or AIPAC. By then Feith was leading the OSP.
With that in place, Jordan offers various forms of “emphatic” denials from both Perle and Feith — something which, apparently, other U.S. news organizations have been unable or unwilling to do at all up until now. (Note: The BRAD BLOG has requested comment from a number of those accused by Edmonds, including former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Marc Grossman, former Ambassador to Turkey and Under Secretary of State in the Bush Administration who is said to have been the U.S. ring-leader in the operation. Both have refused multiple requests for comment.):
“This woman is a nutcase. Certifiable,” Perle said. “She makes wild accusations. She was fired from her job, and has been on a vendetta against … imagined demons ever since.”
Feith, in an email to Military.com, said: “What I’ve read on the Internet about Ms. Edmonds’s claims about me is wildly false and bizarre.”
Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Eric Butterbaugh declined comment, saying any investigation into such allegations would be carried out by the FBI. An FBI spokesman said the bureau’s policy is not to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.
You’ll note that Perle engaged in a direct ad hominem attack on Edmonds’ character in his direct quote — a non-denial denial, if you will – but he is not directly quoted as actually denying the charges, even as Jordan reports that Perle “emphatically denied Edmonds’ claims in an interview with Military.com.” So if Perle actually did deny the charges directly, we’ll have to take Jordan’s word on that for the moment.
It should also be kept in mind that Perle was one of the key Bush Administration players at the State Department advocating war against Iraq both before and after 9/11, claiming Saddam Hussein had WMD and “ties to Osama Bin Laden.” He had also been highly critical of the CIA for not acting on information being supplied by Iraqi defectors, such as Aghmed Chalabi and others, whose information was regarded by the agency as dubious long before it was ultimately and fully discredited. All of that is worth keeping in mind as Perle charges that Edmonds is “a nutcase” chasing “imagined demons.”
Military.com also received another general, blanket denial. This one from The Cohen Group, the D.C. lobbying firm where Grossman now serves as Vice Chairman. The Cohen Group has not answered several requests for comment from The BRAD BLOG in the recent past.
As we’ve previously reported, the firm, which has represented both Turkey and Israel, sells itself with this pitch: “Mastering the complex and often veiled dynamic where government, politics, media, and business intersect requires a rare combination of knowledge, skills and experience. Our Principals bring centuries of experience at the White House, the State Department, the Defense Department, and Congress.”
Founded in 2001 by President Clinton’s former Republican Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, the company’s website goes on to note: “The Cohen Group’s reach extends internationally where our Principals have developed great expertise and relationships with key political, economic and business leaders and acquired valuable experience with the individuals and institutions that affect our clients’ success abroad.”
Instead of receiving a direct denial from Grossman — who, we presume, declined to respond directly to Military.com for some reason — the article offers a denial from Robert S. Tyrer, co-president of Grossman’s lobbying firm:
Robert S. Tyrer, co-president of The Cohen Group, a Washington lobbying firm where Grossman is now a vice chairman, told Military.com in an email that Edmonds’ allegations against the former ambassador “are completely untrue and ludicrous.”
Jordan goes on to offer a direct response from Edmonds to the notion that she has been disclosing all of her information as form of bizarre vendetta, as charged by Perle in his non-denial denial quoted above:
“I did it [testified] under oath,” she said. “I have a very successful financial life, I’ve been married 18 years. I have a family, I have a daughter, I have a lot to lose. I’d have to be either mentally insane or someone who doesn’t have anything to lose, [who] just makes allegations and lies under oath,” to claim these things if they were not true.
The article also offers information and statements in support of Edmonds from others, such as from 18-year FBI executive John M. Cole. Cole, who, as The BRAD BLOG covered in detail two weeks ago, had corroborated several key elements of Edmonds’ allegations, including confirmation that Grossman had been targeted by a “decade-long investigation” by the FBI “which ultimately was buried and covered up.” Cole has also called for a “Special Counsel” to be named to “investigate [the] allegations and have people’s feet held to the fire. Have them be held accountable for their actions” in this matter.
He also added a chilling note to his comments, which we reported at the time [emphasis taken from his original, recorded statement]: “You know, it really irritates me that people are getting away with murder, in some cases. They should not be allowed to get away with that. There needs to be accountability.”
In Jordan’s article, Cole comments on an aspect of Edmonds’ allegations which have a fresh resonance this week, following the arrest of a top U.S. Dept. of Defense scientist busted by the FBI in a sting operation after he was allegedly attempting to sell nuclear secrets to an undercover agent he had thought was representing Israel:
“In the 1990s I was responsible for Western Europe and Israel [counterintelligence cases],” Cole told Military.com. “We did have ongoing investigations of officials in the State Department and also the Department of Defense.” And he said cases did extend outside the Pentagon, to various Air Force Bases and the RAND Corp. – something Edmonds also stated in her testimony.
As she has previously, Edmonds echoed Cole’s statements about “ongoing investigations” of various State and Defense Department officials as well as various contractors. Apparently scientist Stewart David Nozette, who was arrested this week for attempting to sell nuclear secrets to Israel precisely as Edmonds has long charged in her allegations, had been both an official at the Defense Department and a private contractor sharing information he had collected while working at nuclear facilities and the Pentagon.
…
“There is a black market for everything, including for nuclear-related information, weapons technology,†she told Military.com.
Finally, in a related note here, we’d like to flag your attention to blogger “Connecticut Man1” who, at ePluribus Media, has been digging and connecting a few interesting dots in the arrest of Nozette, reported by the DoJ to have travelled to an unspecified “Foreign Country A” as part of his alleged Israeli espionage bid. The blogger has collected some information which suggests that “Foreign Country A” could, perhaps, be Turkey, said to have been working very closely with Israel in all of the matters discussed in Edmonds’ charges.
“It is starting to look like a conspiracy theorist’s dream,” Connecticut Man1 concludes, “Or just what Sibel Edmonds was talking about all along.”
Uh, yeah. Or, we could just take the discredited Richard Perle’s word for it — as so many in the indispensable U.S. corporate media seem to have done — that “this woman is a nutcase.”
We report, you decide.
The BRAD BLOG receives no corporate or foundational funding. Please consider donating to The BRAD BLOG in support of our years-long continuing coverage of the Sibel Edmonds case.
I don’t think the FBI has the intelligence or the guts to put this thing together even though the dots all seem to connect in one big circle around the whole fucking treasonous mess…IMO
{Ed Note: Racist comment deleted. Racist, homophobic wingnut user known as “TreeTop007” and “Tommy|ymmoT” and “IcebergSlim” now banned for repeated violations of BRAD BLOG commenting rules in using multiple names to post. – BF}
IcebergSlim,
I don’t think that Brad will appreciate your replicating your posts in multiple threads, especially with this sort of content.
When you and treetop say that Ban-Ami Kadish is a ‘Jew traitor’, you are implying that he’s traitor to the “Jew” religion, which if you want to be more accurate and not slurring it, you would refer to him as a ‘JewISH traitor’, if you wanted to make him out to be a traitor to his JewISH religion.
But no, you are saying that he is a “Jew betraying his country”. WHICH country, the U.S., or Israel? THOSE are countries. There is no country named “Jew”. Therefore one can only conclude that “Jew” as you and Treetop use it is an ADDITIONAL adjective besides Kadish’s country used to denigrate him as a slur on his religion.
Now he might be an AMERICAN traitor, which I don’t think Brad would have necessarily taken issue with, if you have an honest reason to feel that he’s betrayed America, which many here, perhaps including myself might feel. But there’s no reason to use religious slurs when none are necessary. It just gives those who are trying to have honest criticism of these foreign country lobbies and those that are abusing their power in our government with them a bad name.
You don’t call other traitors here like Bush a “Christ-lover” traitor do you? He might be a traitor too, which I feel there’s a good argument for saying, but I wouldn’t use that terminology if I wanted to get others to hear what I am saying for the RIGHT reasons, and not for other reasons that appeals to other emotions instead of logic.
“”This woman is a nutcase. Certifiable,” Perle said. “She makes wild accusations. She was fired from her job, and has been on a vendetta against … imagined demons ever since.”
Feith, in an email to Military.com, said: “What I’ve read on the Internet about Ms. Edmonds’s claims about me is wildly false and bizarre.””
WHY DON’T THESE LOSERS SUE SIBEL IF WHAT SHE SAYS IS “wildly false and bizarre” OR “on a vendetta against … imagined demons”… WELL ?
That’s how they do it. When they want an issue or a person to fade away, they label the person a nutcase, loudly and repeatedly. Then they get the Mouth Piece Media to repeat it with smirks and head-shaking, until finally nobody in their right mind would ever take the nutcase’s claim seriously.
Good on Brad for calling out the ad hominem “nutcase” attack and pointing out that no actual denial by Perle was reported.
Also….Cascadiance, great reply!
Good point, Mick. She’s certainly severely libeled them as traitors (punishable by death, mind you!) if she’s lying.
Sounds like a fine lawsuit to me. Bring it on Messrs Feith and Perle! File today! Your good reputations demand it!
Let’s remove all the “Bush” plants in our Government so they can function.
Hey Brad. I’m assuming Clemons never got back to you.
Its interesting that Military.Com ran with this. Do you have an idea why? Is there any evidence that Sibel’s assertions are recieving notice within the ranks of our military?
I think I will cross post this at TWN, so get ready for the troll train.
Man, I’m glad to see the tail end of that guy from comment #2, but it was only a matter of time.
If this has anything to do with that “stinky pinky” comment then the Tunga is wicked sorry.
“Women and girls rule my world.” – Prince
Perle is full of it. He said he was going to sue Sy Hersh a few years back over an article where Hersh highlighted Perle’s shady business dealings with the Saudi royal family but nothing came of it. He’s probably mindful of that experience which is why he won’t sue Edmonds. It would luck bad if he had to back down twice. Feith is too stupid to know what to do. He’ll just copy Perle.
mick said on 10/21/2009 @ 4:37 pm PT…
WHY DON’T THESE LOSERS SUE SIBEL IF WHAT SHE SAYS IS “wildly false and bizarre” OR “on a vendetta against … imagined demons”
_________________________________
Neither Feith nor Perle would file such a lawsuit unless they had fools for attorneys.
E. Howard Hunt made that mistake when he sued former CIA officer Victor Marchetti and his publisher for libel over an article that linked Hunk to the JFK assassination. As a result, Hunt’s claim to have been in Washington DC on the date of the assassination was not only demolished when he was cross-examined by Mark Lane, but Lane was able to prove to a federal jury’s satsifaction in Hunt vs. Liberty Lobby that the CIA killed JFK and Hunt was involved.
Lane then presented his powerful evidence in book form in Plausible Denial. Hunt would later make a death bed confession.
Both Lane’s powerful case and Hunt’s death bed confession have been ignored by the corporate media.
So long as Sibel Edmonds’ powerful allegations are ignored by the corporate media, by Congress and, most importantly, by the Justice Department, the best course for Feith, Perle et al is to either ignore the allegations or issue non-denial denials like the one quoted by Bryant Jordan.
If they sued for libel, they would open themselves up to detailed questions — dates, times, people they met, etc. These could be verified or countered by others, opening more questions. Their sworn testimony could give rise to their being prosecuted for perjury, or, as the evidence emerges, espionage and treason.
Note: In giving sworn deposition testimony, Edmonds faced cross-examination from a very accomplished lawyer (Bruce Fein), and, at least in the opinion of this attorney, she came off as exceedingly credible.
Tunga, the glorious purple one says “Women NOT girls” rule his world. But I’m with you – either/or.
SR
September 21, 2009 – American Conservative Magazine
Who’s Afraid of Sibel Edmonds? – The gagged whistleblower goes on the record.
http://www.amconmag.com/article.../nov/01/00006/
August 19, 2009 – Peter B Collins Radio Podcast
Philip Giraldi, former CIA and DIA officer, on US/Israel relations, AIPAC, wiretapping and Rep. Jane Harman. This is the third installment of Boiling Frogs interviews co-hosted with Sibel Edmonds, and is quite explosive.
http://radiodujour.wordpress.co...ashington-d-c/
Confirmation of the credibility of Sibel Edmonds and her charges. In this program, former FBI counterintelligence specialist and manager John M. Cole gives strong support to the charges that Sibel outlined in our Podcast #40 and in the recent article in the American Conservative. Cole cites two extremely high level sources at FBI who confirmed to him that Sibel’s charges are true, and that the FBI was deeply concerned that she might go public.
He says that then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had an unusually close relationship with FBI Director Robert Mueller, and explains the pattern that Cole, Edmonds, and other FBI employees got when they tried to report wrongdoing. John Cole has a book due out in November, While America Sleeps. Cole talks more about his issues and other matters in an upcoming Boiling Frogs interview.
http://edwardrynearson.wordpres...phold-the-law/
I would have sent an email, but didn’t see contact info……
[ed note: brad@bradblog.com –99]
I guess the thing that makes me skeptical about all this is simple: how on Earth would a person of Ms. Edmonds’ rank have been in a position to learn all that she purportedly did? Just how high was her security clearance? How could she have gleaned all of this intelligence in the relatively brief period in which she was a translator for the FBI? From what I understand, her initial claims involved incompetence among the translators, not malfeasance on the part of high government officials. (It is these claims that were investigated by 60 Minutes.) So again: just how does she know all of these things? It strains my credulity.
The magic is in the “translating” …raw data is exactly that RAW.Even the people that hand out the RAW DATA have no idea what is in the data ,hence the need for a translator !
Part of “her initial claims” have since been expanded.
being skeptical, doesn’t release you from your sworn oath, wasting a decade doing nothing but covering it up however is treasonous
Sibel must know that the documents exist, unless they were destroyed already, that revealed the involvement of Perle, and the others. So what’s holding up the investigation? Should be under way if we had any officials with integrity.
Knowing the players she’s dealing with and how many different powerful organizations and people she can imperil, I am still amazed she hasn’t committed ‘suicide’. If a Madam would commit ‘suicide’ related to embarrassing entries in a black book, or a scientist in an anthrax lab committing ‘suicide’ because the Feds were closing in, well,….
Of course they are trying to discredit Sibel, but they won’t sue her because they know she is telling the truth.
Thanks Brad for keeping the fire burning on this extremely important story.
Thanks Sibel for having the courage to come forward and blow the whistle on these traitors.
Still taking Jordan’s word for it, Brad? Have you contacted him?
Joseph Miller @ 16 asked:
I’d recommend you read the comments of — and listen to the full interview with — John M. Cole, the 18-year FBI executive veteran who discussed, along with corroboration of several key elements of her story, including the FBI’s contemporaneous freak out at Edmonds claims when they first arose in 2002, what the role of the linguists are in the counterintel div. at the FBI.
For eg, here’s a snippet from The BRAD BLOG’s story on Cole’s interview a week or two ago:
“The thing is,” Cole explained to Collins, “the position that Sibel was in, she had access to extremely sensitive information. The translators have access to some of the most sensitive information that we receive.”
He detailed how first-hand information goes first from the translators to the investigators who then act on it, as some of the most important information collected by FBI language specialists could have “implications that may affect even the White House, or policy.”
“So what I’m saying is, I know she had access to some very sensitive stuff, and I could see why the Bureau would squirm over her coming out and speaking about some of the things that were going on.”
In other words, the linguists in the FBI’s countintel department are not merely “translators”, as you may think of them when you see someone give a speech at the U.N., and the translators merely repeat what the speaker is saying in a different language. The work of linguists at the FBI in Edmonds’ division, have a much larger role to play in interpretating data, working with field agents to discuss what’s important and what they need to understand or ask witnesses, etc. And much more.
Please see the entire report here on Cole’s interview, which includes both transcript snippets and the entire audio interview with Cole.
I believe Sibel. What she says makes sense and fits with other information I’ve digested. On the other side you have proven serial liars.
Let the sun in.
Bill Bergman @ 22 asked:
I have contacted him, Bill, and am in the process of trying to get more information on that point…Will update with any noteworthy additional info I’m able to get.
Turkey wants the heroin to flow again. The neo-cons want the oil and gas pipelines. They also wanted Saddam Hussein’s greedy, obstructionist attitude to go away permanently. How does one accomplish all of that in just two terms? Step One: Terror on our soil. Step Two: Heroin trade back up. Step Three: War In Iraq using ours and our allies’ military resources. Step Four: Back to softening of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Step Five: The pipelines are a go.
What did Jordan expect the perpetrators to do, admit to the whole thing? How naive. I’ve been an admin and a moderator on many sites around the Net, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years of political debate, it’s this: When people resort to personal attacks instead of arguing the substance of the issue or allegation, it usually means there is something to that allegation or issue.
I’ve known and supported Sibel Edmonds for many years online. She has no reason to lie. What, do they think she wants her job back with the FBI, working for the very people who’ve made her life a living Hell? Putting these people behind bars doesn’t gain anything for Sibel, she just wants these traitors stopped for the good of our country.
And for those people over at military.com who say, “so what, we’ve shared intelligence with our allies for years”… this isn’t the same thing at all. These naysayers need to be reminded of the Jonathan Pollard case. I would have thought the recent Stewart Nozette case would have been enough to open a few eyes, at least.
Not only have they not sued, remember that they gagged her for how many years. Only a court action could have and did free her up to speak. No, they don’t want court action. That is the last thing they want.
Which brings us to where the @#**!! is the Justice Department? How are we going to get protection from the heinous criminals selling nuclear secrets to our enemies? Isn’t that real Homeland Security?
… and while I’m on a rant about treasonous acts, what kind of real investigation followed the incident involving flying live nukes over US soil and possibly losing or misplacing one? Not to mention the many untimely deaths of dedicated servicemen who might have known something about it. Curious? start your google engines.
Looks like India is Country A.