- Read H. R. 2082 YOURSELF -

H.R.2082
Title: To authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2008 for intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United States Government, the Community Management Account, and the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Reyes, Silvestre [TX-16] (introduced 5/1/2007) Cosponsors (None)
Related Bills: H.RES.388, H.RES.859, S.1538
Latest Major Action: 2/13/2008 Cleared for White House.
House Reports: 110-131; Latest Conference Report: 110-478 (in Congressional Record H14462-14490)

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AN investigation into the illicit sale of American nuclear secrets was compromised by a senior official in the State Department, a former FBI employee has claimed.

The official is said to have tipped off a foreign contact about a bogus CIA company used to investigate the sale of nuclear secrets.

The firm, Brewster Jennings & Associates, was a front for Valerie Plame, the former CIA agent. Her public outing two years later in 2003 by White House officials became a cause célèbre.

The claims that a State Department official blew the investigation into a nuclear smuggling ring have been made by Sibel Edmonds, 38, a former Turkish language translator in the FBI’s Washington field office.

Related Links

• FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft

• For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets

Edmonds had been employed to translate hundreds of hours of intercepted recordings made during a six-year FBI inquiry into the nuclear smuggling ring.

She has previously told The Sunday Times she heard evidence that foreign intelligence agents had enlisted US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

Her latest claims relate to a number of intercepted recordings believed to have been made between the summer and autumn of 2001. At that time, foreign agents were actively attempting to acquire the West’s nuclear secrets and technology.

Among the buyers were Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Paki-stan’s intelligence agency, which was working with Abdul Qadeer Khan, the “father of the Islamic bomb”, who in turn was selling nuclear technology to rogue states such as Libya.

Plame, then 38, was the glamorous wife of a former US ambassador, Joe Wilson. Despite recently giving birth to twins, she travelled widely for her work, often claiming to be an oil consultant. In fact she was a career CIA agent who was part of a small team investigating the same procurement network that the State Department official is alleged to have aided.

Brewster Jennings was one of a number of covert enterprises set up to infiltrate the nuclear ring. It is is believed to have been based in Boston and consisted of little more than a name, a telephone number and a post office box address.

Plame listed the company as her employer on her 1999 tax forms and used its name when she made a $1,000 contribution to Al Gore’s presidential primary campaign.

The FBI was also running an inquiry into the nuclear network. When Edmonds joined the agency after the 9/11 attacks she was given the job of reviewing the evidence.

The FBI was monitoring Turkish diplomatic and political figures based in Washington who were allegedly working with the Israelis and using “moles” in military and academic institutions to acquire nuclear secrets.

The creation of this nuclear ring had been assisted, Edmonds says, by the senior official in the State Department who she heard in one conversation arranging to pick up a $15,000 bribe.

One group of Turkish agents who had come to America on the pretext of researching alternative energy sources was introduced to Brewster Jennings through the Washington-based American Turkish Council (ATC), a lobby group that aids commercial ties between the countries. Edmonds says the Turks believed Brewster Jennings to be energy consultants and were planning to hire them.

But she said: “He [the State Department official] found out about the arrangement . . . and he contacted one of the foreign targets and said . . . you need to stay away from Brewster Jennings because they are a cover for the government.

“The target . . . immediately followed up by calling several people to warn them about Brewster Jennings.

“At least one of them was at the ATC. This person also called an ISI person to warn them.” If the ISI was made aware of the CIA front company, then this would almost certainly have damaged the investigation into the activities of Khan. Plame’s cover would also have been compromised, although Edmonds never heard her name mentioned on the intercepts. Shortly afterwards, Plame was moved to a different operation.

The State Department official said on Friday: “It is impossible to find a strong enough way to deny these allegations which are both false and malicious.”

It would be more than two years before Khan was forced to admit he had been selling nuclear weapons technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea.

In the meantime, the role of Plame and Brewster Jennings became public knowledge in 2003. Plame’s husband, Wilson, wrote a report that undermined claims by President George W Bush that Saddam Hussein’s regime had attempted to buy uranium in Niger – a key justification for the invasion of Iraq.

The following week Robert Novak, a journalist, revealed that Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent. In the scandal that followed, Novak’s sources were revealed to be two senior members of the Bush administration. A third, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted of obstructing the criminal investigation into the affair.

Phillip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, said: “It’s pretty clear Plame was targeting the Turks. If indeed that [State Department] official was working with the Turks to violate US law on nuclear exports, it would have been in his interest to alert them to the fact that this woman’s company was affiliated to the CIA. I don’t know if that’s treason legally but many people would consider it to be.”

The FBI denied the existence of a specific case file about any outing of Brewster Jennings by the State Department official, in a response to a freedom of information request. However, last week The Sunday Times obtained a document, signed by an FBI official, showing that the file did exist in 2002.

Plame declined to comment, saying that she was unable to discuss her covert work at the CIA.

• Have your say

Keep digging. Maybe you will help put some traitors to America in prison.

MJB, Indianapolis, USA

So now any disgruntled employee can say what he/she wants and claims of conspiracy are aired. Sibel Edmonds 'heard evidence' of nefarious activities. Evidence in court? Tittle tattle? We are not told.

Are we really expected to believe that Israel assisted people from countries such as Libya and Pakistan to obtain nuclear secrets? Have you no shame?

RichardM: why aren't you condemning the pro-Turkish lobby as well as the pro-israeli one? Hmm....

GL40, London,

Yes,.. Thank You for bringing this issue to the forefront. These criminals, traitors , and treasonous spy/thieves seeking self enrichments must be exposed. The elite and "Powers to Be" here in America get the white glove treatment no matter what crimes they perpetrate and the media here gives them a free pass.

Again - thank you for the investigative reports and exposing the truth of this criminal conduct. The American media has certainly short changed us - to the benefit of the filthy rich and powerful avaricious warmongers and their fascist military industrial killing machine.

Ararat, Falmouth, Maine - USA

Radsan: Breaking the Code: A Call for Candor at the CIA

[sidebar: Mukasey did not ask for a special prosecutor, Congress now has as of yesterday!! I am enamored of the conclusion of the piece below. Way to go!!]

A month before the news broke about the destruction of CIA tapes, I was back in Washington to speak on a panel. After the event, one of my former colleagues came over to discuss something in hushed tones. (“Jay”, let’s call him, used to be the top lawyer at the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center.) He made it clear to me that he disapproved of those who broke the Company’s code of silence. “Be careful,” was his message.

As justification, I told Jay that former officials should enlighten the public about intelligence issues. Then, as a jibe, I said that current officials should do more than say “no comment” about every story. Jay nodded in a way I wishfully interpreted as an acknowledgement. But since then, perhaps because he was involved in the tapes, Jay keeps the code. Undeterred, I offer some tidbits — “unclassified”—that Jay doesn’t want you to know.

The CIA was already under investigation.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey, on January 2, announced a full criminal investigation into the tapes. Before his announcement, the Justice Department (DOJ) and the CIA’s Inspector General (IG) had reviewed the matter for close to a month in a “preliminary inquiry.” But that was not the first time DOJ and the IG had joined forces. According to the press, DOJ/IG have been investigating many other CIA programs.

An investigation that spanned the 9/11 divide was “Peru shootdown.” In April 2001, missionaries traveling in a float plane in Peru were mistaken for drug traffickers and shot from the sky. Two people died. Although Peruvian officers operated the plane that fired the shots, they acted on information from another plane, staffed by CIA contractors.

The joint DOJ/IG investigation into the Peru incident took several years while they determined whether the drug interdiction program had deviated from President Clinton’s original plan. Plus, DOJ/IG investigated whether American officials had made any false statements about the April 2001 shootdown. One irony from Peru is that the investigation was most intense at the same time the White House was assuring the CIA it had nothing to fear from being aggressive after 9/11.

Two years ago, DOJ announced that it had closed the criminal case into Peru. But the IG investigation probably continues. Although our government paid millions to settle with the Peru survivors, many CIA officers still worry about the IG’s final report. They hope this report, due out soon, will not be as tough as the IG’s findings about 9/11, released a few months ago.

In any event, the CIA’s Inspector General, John Helgerson, perhaps learning from the complications on Peru, will not assist DOJ on the criminal investigation of the tapes. This time DOJ will try to do things without him. And time will tell whether a career prosecutor from Connecticut completes the investigation or whether Mukasey succumbs to those who want a special prosecutor.

There once was a lawyer named Muller.

DOJ, of course, is interested in John Rizzo, the CIA’s top lawyer. Rizzo is set to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on January 16. A major question is whether he participated in, or was aware of, the tapes’ destruction in 2005. So far, however, less attention has been paid to Scott Muller, the CIA’s General Counsel from 2002-2004.

Muller, having litigated at Davis Polk before he joined the Agency, viewed his job through the lens of a criminal defense lawyer. Rather than always serve the Agency’s best interests, Muller incorporated the personal agendas of senior officers. For instance, some complained at DOJ — and within the IG — that Muller improperly applied pressure to shut down the Peru investigation. Thus, Muller’s aggressiveness on Peru parallels reports of his aggressiveness, far earlier than 2005, in seeking to destroy the tapes. In all, DOJ should not forget what Muller has done.

Rizzo adds so much irony.

Even though Rizzo was not central in approving the CIA’s interrogation program, he paid the political price. During his confirmation hearing in the summer of 2007, the Senate intelligence committee was dissatisfied that he did not disavow the Justice Department’s 2002 “torture memorandum.” Rizzo, realizing the votes were not there for him, withdrew his nomination.

Now, less than a year after the confirmation debacle, Rizzo is trusted as “Acting” General Counsel to clean up the mess concerning the tapes with DOJ, the IG — and with the oversight committees. For all, Rizzo is both intermediary and a subject of investigation.

At the CIA, so much depends on the nuances. One person’s hypocrisy is another person’s irony. And Jay’s code has become this man’s call for a bit of candor.


John Radsan, associate professor at William Mitchell College of Law, is a former federal prosecutor and a former assistant general counsel at the CIA from 2002-2004

January 15, 2008