Peddling Peril, Peddling Lies

David Albright, President of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), has a new book out (which I haven't read) about AQ Khan and the nuclear black market called Peddling Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America's Enemies.

Remarkably, one of the sources for the book was former #3 at the State Department Marc Grossman.
Grossman was named, under oath, by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds as a key participant in the nuclear black market. You can read the gory details over at Boiling Frogs Post, but basically Grossman:

1. Arranged visas and security clearances for nuclear labs like Sandia and Los Alamos
2. Facilitated blackmail of American officials with access to various secrets
3. Outed Brewster Jennings in 2001, two years before Robert Novak wrote his infamous article.

Why is Albright using Grossman as a source? Why isn't Grossman facing criminal charges?

Full article at Boiling Frogs Post

What was Douglas Franz looking for?

Further to my recent post where I asked why John Kerry's Senate Foreign Relations Committee wanted Doug Frantz to meet the lawyers of Urs Tinner in Switzerland regarding AQ Khan's nuclear black market...

CQ's Jeff Stein asks the right question: What Nuclear Secret Was Kerry Aide Looking for in Switzerland?

Unfortunately, he doesn't get close to an answer, and his article ends weakly - or at least curiously - in my opinion:

But what was Franz looking for?  

"I wonder what political ends Kerry is seeking by digging into this," the intelligence operative, who worked on the nuclear black market, said. "Taking down AQ Khan is one of the agency's few public successes in the last decade."

Let's hope Stein continues his reporting on this.

(h/t Kingfisher)

"Nazis, dictators and shady businessmen"

Following up on my recent post, CIA and the Nuclear Black Market, Mark Hosenball has a curious little two-paragraph piece at Newsweek, The Swiss Say Get Out And Stay Out.

The set-up is in the first paragraph:

For decades Switzerland's banks have provided a haven for the ill-gotten wealth of Nazis, dictators and shady businessmen. But after 9/11, as U.S. investigators hunted for terrorist assets, the Swiss government promised to cooperate. For the first time, they opened some of their books. But that good will was fleeting. Swiss bankers and politicians have come to resent what they see as a squeeze on their most vital industry.

The second paragraph:

The strain is starting to show. This month, NEWSWEEK has learned, Swiss authorities threatened to throw a top U.S. congressional aide in jail as a spy if he tried to enter the country on official business. Douglas Frantz, chief investigator of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, contacted the Swiss Embassy to set up meetings regarding a family facing trial for alleged nuke smuggling. As it turned out, the CIA had secretly recruited members of the family as informants, infuriating the Swiss. According to a U.S. official familiar with the matter who asked for anonymity when discussing a sensitive issue, Switzerland's police chief warned Frantz in an e-mail that he'd face arrest on espionage charges. Frantz, who declined to comment, canceled his trip. A Swiss spokesman said Frantz was turned away due to "ongoing" investigations, but that U.S.-Swiss relations remain "excellent."

(hat-tip to Kingfisher)

I shouldn't really complain too much that Newsweek has actually reported on this story, given that I complained in my previous piece about the silence in the US media about this story, but... What.The.Heck?

Why did Hosenball give this 'U.S. official familiar with the matter' anonymity to tell us what has already been reported in Switzerland? Presumably it was this same anonymous source who gave Hosenball the spin that this was somehow related Swiss politicians' love of "Nazis, dictators and shady businessmen."

And, no, the Swiss were not infuriated that the CIA turned Urs Tinner as far as I can tell. As far as I can tell, the Swiss Justice Dept is infuriated that the US government somehow exported their famous 'unitary executive' concept to Switzerland and somehow convinced/bribed/blackmailed the Swiss president to destroy all the evidence in the case (even though that apparently failed.)

Also note Hosenball's use of scare quotes around "ongoing" investigations. The investigation is clearly ongoing, although the investigation suffered an incredible setback thanks to the US demand request to destroy all the evidence.

If Hosenball actually believes in the thesis of his own article, he will soon write an article highlighting how Obama's crackdown on money laundering centers is threatening world peace because it blocks investigations into Iran's nuclear weapons program and Israel will therefore be wiped off the face of the Earth. Or something. But Hosenball won't write that, because he doesn't believe it. But he will write snippy pieces about the Nazi-loving Swiss politicians if they suit the purposes of his anonymous US government sources.

Let's hope we see more reporting on this.

Update: Here is a new AP story on the matter. There's no mention of Swiss banking laws!

Douglas Frantz and Nuclear Black Market

A couple of extra notes regarding my earlier post, CIA and the Nuclear Black Market. I was going to post them in that piece, but didn't want to cover too many issues at once.

Well Regarded
By all accounts, the SFRC's Douglas Frantz is a good investigator and well-regarded. His 2007 book (co-written with his wife) on AQ Khan, The Man from Pakistan: The True Story of the World's Most Dangerous Nuclear Smuggler, was well-received (also see Adrian Levy's Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons, and William Langewiesche's The Atomic Bazaar: Dispatches from the Underground World of Nuclear Trafficking).

From memory, Frantz' book did a reasonable job covering Turkey's role in the nuclear black market in terms of publicly-available facts, noting the role of Selim Alquadis and Gunes Cires in supplying Libya, Iran and Pakistan. He also noted that some of the equipment from Turkey that was supposed to be on the ship, BBC China, when it was intercepted in 2003 on the way to Libya, went missing.

Some Questions
On the other hand, Frantz did not mention some important information regarding Zeki Bilmen and his New Jersey-based company, Giza Technologies. Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds overheard Zeki Bilmen on wiretaps, apparently organizing the sale and/or delivery of nuclear hardware with the Turkish embassy in Washington DC. Bilmen and Giza were finally exposed in 2003 , years after Sibel overheard them, when they were caught sending illegal nuclear hardware to the AQ Khan network.

Sibel emphasized to me the Turkish nature of Bilmen and Giza:

"Giza Technologies (Zeki Bilmen), HQ in New Jersey, is a Turkish company (with all Turkish employees), they have offices in Turkey, Dubai, & Spain. "

In 2004, Josh Meyer wrote an article in the LA Times about the deal that exposed Bilmen and Giza, but he did not really focus on Bilmen and Giza, nor did he mention the Turkish angle.

Last year, Sibel told me:

"In 2004 when Josh Meyer of the LA Times did a long but incomplete story on the Karni case, it was reported to him that one of the most important actors and angles in his article was that of Zeki Bilmen & Giza Technology. Bilmen's role and nationality were conveniently censored in the article.

Despite my efforts to get Meyer to report the relevance and significance of the Bilmen angle, and the FBI's files on him, Meyer bought in to the government's protection of Turkey and the Turkish angle. Of course, later, other outlets (mostly foreign) picked up Bilmen's significance, but still not a peep or follow-up to this day from the LA Times on this important story."

At the time of Josh Meyer's article, Douglas Frantz was working for the LA Times in Istanbul, Turkey (he was previously the New York Times bureau chief in Turkey). The LA Times Editor at the time was Frantz' "close friend" Dean Baquet. Baquet later promoted Frantz to Managing Editor. (Sibel recently excoriated Baquet for telling DNI Negroponte and NSA Director Michael Hayden about ATT whistleblower Mark Klein's allegations and then killing the story at their request. Baquet is now NY Times' Washington Bureau Chief.)

You still with me? Good.

Turkish Lobby?
Here's where it gets interesting (!) Frantz was forced to resign from the LA Times in 2007 after a scandal where he was accused of "obstructing an article on the Armenian Genocide" among other related matters. Denial of the Armenian genocide is a key issue for the Turkish Lobby - to the extent that they have reportedly bribed congressmen. (Frantz moved back to Istanbul after he resigned.)

I don't want to be unfair to Frantz, I frankly don't know enough about him, so I'm just pointing out some circumstantial evidence here:
1. Sibel accused the LA Times of censoring Turkey's role in the nuclear black market.
2. Frantz has repeatedly lived in Turkey.
3. Frantz did not even mention Zeki Bilmen and Giza in his book
4. Frantz was forced to resign from the LA Times for illegal activity (violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act) involving the denial of the Armenian genocide, a key issue of the Turkish Lobby.

Key Question
The key question then, is if Douglas Frantz is compromised by the Turkish Lobby, and by implication, the Israeli Lobby, then what of his role at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC)? Why did they hire him? His focus is reported to be nuclear proliferation, with an emphasis on the Iranian nuclear program. Will his 'investigations' be tainted? Will he continue to cover-up the role of Turkey and their pursuit of nuclear weapons?

According to the Times:

"One of the CIA sources confirmed that the Turks had acquired nuclear secrets from the United States and shared the information with Pakistan and Israel. "

Will Frantz focus on this, or will he simply focus on Iran, taking direction from the Israel Lobby?

Yesterday I wondered why Frantz wanted to meet with Urs Tinner's lawyer, and whether he wanted to ask questions, or if he wanted to deliver a message. And I wondered on whose behalf he was delivering a message. Perhaps we have an answer.

CIA and the Nuclear Black Market

In June 2008, I wrote about the destruction of evidence in a nuclear black market case involving A.Q. Khan, the CIA, and the Swiss government. Now we have some more interesting news.

Background
One of AQ Khan's key suppliers to his nuclear black market (as well as the Pakistani bomb) was a Swiss family - Urs, Marco and Friedrik Tinner. Urs Tinner was under investigation by the French authorities and the CIA told Tinner that they could make his French problems, and any other problems, go away if Tinner became an agent for the CIA.

Tinner agreed to inform for the CIA, and fed them some information when he was working for AQ Khan in Malaysia, building Libya's nuclear weapons program, but when the CIA eventually exposed the AQ Khan network, Tinner kept a digital copy of the 'nuclear blueprints' which he could then sell on the nuclear black market for his personal profit.

In 2004, Tinner was arrested in Germany, along with his brother and father, and extradited to Switzerland. In May 2008, while Urs Tinner was in jail awaiting prosecution, the Swiss President announced that, six months earlier, he had destroyed ALL files related to the Tinners case. These files included not just the nuclear blueprints, but also any evidence that the Tinners had been working with the CIA. This caused an uproar in Switzerland, with the Swiss courts and Swiss parliament outraged that the President apparently made this decision unilaterally. The President claimed that he destroyed the documents so that they didn't fall into the hands of terrorists, a patently nonsensical claim. Most observers agreed that the Swiss President was actually doing the bidding of the CIA.

At the time, I noted the amazing silence in the US media about this story, particularly given headlines such as in the Guardian: "Nuclear bomb blueprints for sale on world black market, experts fear."

Destroyed Nuclear Weapons Blueprints Found
Last month, the leading Swiss newspaper Le Temps reported (google translation from the French is here) that:

(C)opies of some files removed, including that contained plans for a new generation atomic weapon had simply escaped the destruction and slept in the archives of the Office of the Attorney General.

This remarkable news was also completely ignored by the US corporate media.

Swiss Block US Investigation
Now we learn that the Swiss is refusing to allow US access to the Tinners.

Douglas Frantz, former Managing Editor at the LA Times, wrote one of the better books on the AQ Khan network, and was the first to report that the CIA had recruited Urs Tinner. Frantz is among those who believes that the Swiss President destroyed the Tinner documents to hide the CIA's relationship with the network. Earlier this year, Frantz became the chief investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) under Senator John Kerry, focussing on nuclear proliferation.

Frantz wants to speak to Urs Tinner's lawyer, however Frantz received a letter from the Swiss Justice Department last week forbidding any meeting between the two, and threatening Frantz with three years in prison if he fails to comply.

Again, this news has not been reported in the English language media.

Murky
What is going on here? It's difficult to tell, not least because there is so little reporting on the matter.

After the Swiss President caved to US requests to destroy all the evidence, infuriating the Swiss Parliament and Justice Department, it is possible that the Swiss Justice Department is wresting back control of the case (the Swiss criminal case against the Tinner family is still pending.) If this hypothesis is true, then it is not surprising that the Swiss Justice Department is nervous about any discussions between the US and the Tinners. A possible compromise would be if the Swiss authorities sit in on the discussions between Frantz and Tinner's lawyer, but neither side appears to have made that offer...

It is not clear why Frantz wants to talk to Tinner's lawyer. Frantz's main focus appears to be the Iranian nuclear program, and it is possible that he wants to ask Tinner about Iranian procurement activities, but then why would he want to speak to Tinner's lawyer, rather than Tinner? (Perhaps that isn't possible for other reasons?) But if Frantz isn't there to ask questions, why is he there? Is he there to give Tinner a message? If so, is the message from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? That sounds unlikely. Is the message from the CIA? Since when does the Senate offer cover for the CIA?

Ironic?
It would be somewhat ironic -if that's the correct word - if the US was unable to get important inside information about the Iranian nuclear procurement program because the Swiss are upset that the CIA forced them to destroy all evidence of US activity in the same network nuclear black market...

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Update: see here