Sibel Edmunds tells of the nuclear secrets deals of Pakistan, Israel and Turkey

It appears that the cases of Sibel Edmonds and Valerie Plame are linked. Plame was in hot pursuit of the same network. Wayne Madsen, an investigative reporter, was the first to see the connection between the Edmonds and Plame cases. He wrote that Plame’s Brewster Jennings operation had intercepted a nuclear materials shipment that was supposed to have been planted in Iraq to make the case for weapons of mass destruction there. Madsen traces the corrupt tie to Turkey and other Islamic countries far beyond 1996 and, like The Times, links it to the Pakistani bomb. .Richard Barlow, head of the Counter-Proliferation Division, was fired in 1989, when he found evidence that the George H.W. Bush administration was helping the A.Q. Khan nuclear manufacturing program in Pakistan. Stephen Hadley, then an assistant to Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney, led the effort to fire Barlow. Today, the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s Office has been complaining that the administration of George W. Bush will not assist it in its investigation of AQ Khan.

The Scooter Libby case is interesting because “Turkey” kept turning up in documents that were released. When Cheney aids and Rove discussed Plame, their discussion evolved into a discussion of Russian mogul Mikhail Khodorkovsky, A Q Khan and the Turks. At one point, some of the White House e-mail had been lost, but prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald learned that it was stored at a facility in Olney, Maryland. After he found what he needed, the White House also found the missing e-mail and turned it over. In the trial, the prosecution produced hand written notes that proved that Cheney, Libby, Deputy White House communications director Cathie Martin, and others conspired to besmirch the reputation of Plame’s husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Despite revelation of this damaging information, some believe that Fitzgerald, who covered up some important information regarding the first World Trade Center bombing, has little choice but to take a dive in the current case for the Bush administration and that only Libby would suffer in connection to the revelation that Plame was a CIA covert operative. The defense continually said it would put Vice President Cheney on the stand, but declined to do so in the end. Libby was found guilty of lying, and President Bush subsequently commuted Libby’s sentence.

Edmonds has hinted at corrupt roles of unelected officials, whom some investigators thought could well have been neocons Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, and Marc Grossman. It is known that Grossman worked hard to stop probes of the possible link between Turkey and Al Qaeda. She has repeatedly spoken about how the international black markets in arms, sex, and drugs are interlinked. Before Congress, she also described the sale of information by State Department employees, various payments, and “dead drops. ‘ There were also Pentagon officials being paid for passing on secret information.

Representative Henry Waxman and two Senators defended her, Patrick Leahy and Charles Grassley. Grassley, a Republican, even went on camera to speak up for her. Behrooz Sarshar, another translator, took information to Grassley to support her claims, but the senator has not acted on it. In an informal meeting, FBI investigators confirmed that there was substance to her charges. John M. Cole, now a retired FBI counter intelligence agent, made the mistake of supporting her and saw his career go up in flames. He was forced to resign in 2004, but not before he was able to use numerous bureau contacts to confirm her story. A Justice Department Inspector General’s letter, released January 14, 2004, concluded that her claims "were supported, that the FBI did not take them seriously enough, and that her allegations were, in fact, the most significant factor in the FBI's decision to terminate her services." Attorney General John Ashcroft, retroactively classified what she had told Congress as well as the Inspector General’s report.

Another FBI translator said to her: “Why are you doing this, Sibel? Why don’t you just drop it? You know there could be serious consequences. Why put your family in Turkey in danger over this?” After this, Turkish police made an effort to locate her sister.

The Justice Department quickly muzzled Edmonds, and her efforts in court to regain free speech were not successful. The first gag order was issued by Michael Chertiff. Court proceedings were blocked when the government twice employed the assertion of the “State Secret Privilege. ‘ The Project on Public Oversight and The ACLU supported her efforts to regain free speech. Federal Circuit Judge Reggie Walton upheld the government’s right to silence her. He was later to preside over the case of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who was accused of perjury in the matter of the exposing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. Oddly, Walton listed no prior employment on the disclosure forms that federal judges must sign. He was the drug czar under G.H.W. Bush and now is the only federal judge whose past employment and financial records are not available

At the heart of her problems were her claims that Turkish money was making its way to US politicians and that the Turks and others were involved in the drug and illicit arms trade. She has repeatedly claimed that she was gagged because she knew criminally obtained money was reaching people in high places in the United States government. In 1997, British Home Secretary Tom Sackville angered his government by openly stating that Turkey was neck-deep in the international drug trade. He was correct in point of fact, but Turkey is an important western ally, and it would be disconcerting to take the next step and suggest that the US and UK simply look the other way, even when some of this drug money ends up in the coffers of Al Qaeda.

About $40 billion worth of heroin and illegal drugs pass through Turkey each year; most of it going to Europe. Turkey receives, processes, and ships heroin from a “Golden Triangle,” Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. The Turkish mafia coordinates all this, but they work in conjunction with the MIT (Turkish Intelligence Agency), the military command, and police. The trade comprises about a quarter of the nation’s GNP, and it can be assumed that much of the profit goes to the state itself. For some reason, the people on Vice President Cheney’s staff who were busy discrediting CIA agent Valerie Plame and her husband Ambassador Joseph Wilson had close ties to Turkey. So did their ally Assistant Secretary of State Marc Grossman, who busily discredited Plame and her husband. He was also under investigation for passing classified information to Turkey and AIPAC. It is ironic that Ambassador Joe Wilson first met his wife at the American Turkish Council in 1997. Brewster Jennings, a CIA front for the counter-proliferation division, had dealings with all the Turkish American organizations. Some of Sibel's comments suggest that she thought someone within those organizations found out Plame was a spy and could have been tied to the effort to out her .

It is probably more than coincidental that a number of top neo-cons have business relationships with Turkey. Richard Perle and Doug Feith do consulting and lobbying for Turkey through International Advisors, Inc. Others who work or worked for Turkey are Marc Grossman, Paul Wolfowitz, Eric Edelman, and former Congressman Stephen Solarz. Most of these people also have close ties to Israel. Of course, there is a strong de facto, but silent, alliance between Turkey and Israel. Citizens of both countries work together moving illegal arms and procuring illegal end user certificates to cover their shipments. Perle, Wolfowitz, and Feith have established records of trying to create loopholes in regulations affecting the arms trade.

In January, 2004, Israeli citizen Asher Karni, who was connected to the network, was arrested for shipping 66 nuclear triggers to Pakistan. Federal judge Thomas Hogan released him on $100,000 bail --which the prosecutor did not challenge, and Karni moved into a Jewish rest home. Hogan is the same judge who permitted the FBI to raid William Jefferson's Congressional office. Karni was eventually given a three year sentence. Zeki Bilman, his alleged accomplice, died under strange circumstances.

Karni lived in South Africa for twenty years and is said to have masqueraded as a Muslim. FBI leakers claim that wiretaps named Douglas Feith and Turkish MIT intelligence agents working in the American Turkish Council. In 1995, Der Spiegel claimed that Urs Tanner, who operated a plant in Switzerland and was allegedly tied to the ring, was a CIA agent, probably tied to Plame's Brewster Jennings counter proliferation effort. The same leakers claim that Eric Edelman , former ambassador to Turkey, was deeply involved in the drug and nuclear arms network. He had served as Scooter Libby's assistant and is now Undersecretary of Defense. Richard Pearle's International Advisors, Inc., a lobbyist for Turkey, was also tied to the network. Former Speaker Bob Livingston also lobbies for Turkey, and Dennis Hastert has received large political contributions from the Turkish lobby.