Ben-Ami Kadish, free at last

Phil Giraldi, Justice Denied?:

Ben-Ami Kadish, the US Army engineer who spied for Israel in the same ring that included Jonathan Pollard, was finally sentenced today in New York City. Kadish had pleaded guilty after his arrest in December but for reasons not entirely clear his sentencing was repeatedly postponed. He received no prison sentence and only a $50,000 fine. The only time he spent in jail was the day he was arrested. The judge said that he had done a very bad thing but that the government had only sought to convict him on reduced charges instead of espionage, hence the slap on the wrist. I would note in passing that Kadish probably has a substantial pension from the US Army - almost certainly more than the fine - which he appears to retain. The ultimate insult on top of injury - getting a pension for working for the US government while spying for someone else. American justice works in strange ways.

Reuters:

An 85-year-old former civilian employee of the U.S. Army was fined but avoided prison time on Friday after earlier pleading guilty to giving classified documents to Israel in the 1980s in a case the sentencing judge said was "shrouded in mystery."
[...]
"Why it took the government 23 years to charge Mr. Kadish is shrouded in mystery," U.S. District Judge William Pauley said during the sentencing hearing in Manhattan federal court. "It is clear the (U.S.) government could have charged Mr. Kadish with far more serious crimes."

Giraldi, June 08:

"(Kadish's) arrest revived suspicions that Israeli agents might still be operating inside the U.S., most particularly “Mega,” whose cover name was revealed in an NSA-intercepted conversation between two Israeli intelligence officers. “Mega” was clearly at the policymaker level, as Kadish and Pollard frequently sought files by name or number. Someone more senior in Washington appeared to be directing the Israeli handlers toward sensitive information. Whoever “Mega” was, he is still at large."

Me, April 09, Who is Israeli spy MEGA?

Project Expose MSM

Over at her blog, Sibel Edmonds has announced Project Expose MSM.

I'm happy to present an experimental project, Project Expose MSM, created to provide readers with specific mainstream media blackout and/or misinformation cases based on the documented and credible first-hand experiences of legitimate sources and whistleblowers.123 Real Change is inviting all members of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), other active (covert or overt) government whistleblowers, and even reporters themselves, to publish their experiences in regard to their own first-hand dealings with the media, where their legit disclosures were either intentionally censored, blacked out or tainted.

Yes, we will be naming names -- myself included.

To launch the project, Sibel kicks off with the example of Retired Supervisory Special Agent/Covert Operations Specialist, DEA, Mike Levine.

I was interviewed by Levine in March 2007. Hour One, Hour Two. If you listen to that, you'll learn quite a bit about Mike's own case, as well as a little about Sibel's case. (The interview was at 4am my time, as usual, so I sound a little groggy.)

Levine has also interviewed Sibel when the Vanity Fair article was released - part one, two, three.

Coleen Rowley has announced that she will join the project:

"This is a good idea if only for history's sake. I've got a story involving "60 Minutes" which I'll get down and out this way."

More sunlight please.

Who do you think is lying? FBI ?

Back in March 2009, I filed a FOIA request with the FBI regarding the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) for "all records related to any FBI investigations, including counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism and criminal investigations" regarding the ATAA and "any sub-chapters / subsidiaries" of the ATAA, noting that the ATAA is an "umbrella organization representing 57 organizations."

The ATAA was mentioned in David Rose's 2005 Vanity Fair article about Sibel Edmonds:

"Vanity Fair has established that ... in December 2001, Joel Robertz, an F.B.I. special agent in Chicago, contacted Sibel and asked her to review some wiretaps. Some were several years old, others more recent; all had been generated by a counter-intelligence that had its start in 1997. “It began in D.C.,” says an F.B.I. counter-intelligence official who is familiar with the case file. “It became apparent that Chicago was actually the center of what was going on.”

Its subject was explosive; what sounded like attempts to bribe elected members of Congress, both Democrat and Republican...

In her secure testimony, Edmonds disclosed some of what she recalled hearing. In all, says a source who was present, she managed to listen to more than 40 of the Chicago recordings supplied by Robertz. Many involved an F.B.I. target at the city’s large Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American Associates [ATAA].

The ATAA also came up in an August 2005 interview of Sibel by Scott Horton, and again in a 2006 article by Phil Giraldi on Sibel's case.

In an interview in April of this year with Electric Politics, Sibel stated that the criminal network at the center of her claims:

(A)lso set up another organization called ATA - the Association of Turkish Americans, with chapters in every 50 states, and more than several offices in each state in different cities, and if you go and look at their websites they have ATA-DC, ATA-Chicago, and so on, which again is modeled after the same Israeli lobby. And a lot of their - I would refer to it as - less than clean, the dirty activities actually are carried out through ATA and their chapters and their branches that have basically established themselves all over the country.

(The ATAA is an umbrella organization, with the various regional ATAs as subchapters.)

Similarly, in a recent interview with Rob Kall of Op-Ed News, Kall asked Sibel about some specifics regarding the scandal. Sibel replied:

Well, the fact that (Dennis Hastert) was receiving suitcases full of cash from certain Turkish organizations, to do certain things in Congress..., and that some of his activities involved, actually, narcotics in Chicago.

(These 'certain Turkish organizations' include the American Turkish Council (ATC), ATAA and TACA - the Turkish American Cultural Alliance.)

Today I got a response from the FBI stating:

Based on the information you provided, we conducted a search of the indices to our central records system at FBI Headquarters and all FBI field offices. We were unable to identify responsive records. If you have additional information pertaining to the subject and you believe it was (sic) of investigative interest to the Bureau, please provide us the details and we will conduct an additional search.

(You may file an appeal blah blah)"

To be clear, in my request I simply asked for "all records related to any FBI investigations" into the ATAA, or any of the subchapters. The request was intentionally as broad as possible - so when the response from the FBI says "Based on the information you provided..." the only information I provided was the name of the group (and a reference to the subsidiaries) - the FBI can't legitimately be parsing here. (For the record, my request also offered an "Additional Comments" section in which I linked to references in the media (Rose, Giraldi))

Similarly, my request specifically noted that the ATAA had 57 chapters across the nation, and that my FOIA request pertained to all of these sub-chapters. Sibel specifically refers to the ATA-DC and ATA-Chicago. The FBI's response notes that they queried databases at "FBI Headquarters and all FBI field offices" - so they aren't parsing there either.

Who do you think is lying - Sibel, Phil Giraldi and all of David Roses' sources? Or the FBI?

This is not the first time the FBI has lied when responding to FOIA requests regarding Sibel's case. In January 2008, the UK's Times reported:

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.
[...]
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.

Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up by the FBI because its contents are explosive. She accuses the agency of an “outright lie”.

Again, who do you think is lying - Sibel and Phil Giraldi and Roses' sources and Joe Lauria etc? Or the FBI?

-----------
Notes In the Margin

1. Yes, I will appeal the FOIA response. If anybody has any suggestions about how to respond, or if anyone can see any holes in my request, or knows how to appeal, please let me know.
2. Yes, I have filed a bunch of FOIA requests since we got our new Hopey president. I'll keep you informed.

"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!

Cowboy words in a lawyer's voice.

Sibel has a new post up at her blog, Two Sides of the Same Coin... Heads-Heads, about Obama's positions on the State Secret Privilege, warrantless wiretapping, accountability on torture, the military commissions and the war in Afghanistan.

Sibel's post ends thusly:

What I want the readers to do is to read the extremely important cases above, step back in time to those un-ending campaign trail days, and answer the following questions:

How would Senator McCain have acted on these same issues if he had been elected? How would Senator Hilary Clinton? Do you believe there would have been any major differences? Weren't their records almost identical to Senator Obama's on these issues? If you are like me, and answer 'same,' 'same,' 'no,' and 'yes,' then, why do you think we ended up with these exact same candidates, those deemed 'viable' and sold to us as such?

With too much at stake, too many unfinished agendas for the course of our nation, and too many skeletons in the closet in need of hiding for self-preservation, the 'permanent establishment' made certain that they took no risk by giving the public, via their MSM tentacles, a coin that no matter how many times flipped would come up the same - Heads, Heads.

The Daily Show touched on this on Friday. Regarding Obama's mimicking of Bush's actions (and rhetoric), Jon Stewart says

"Obama has got a good trick: the trick is to use cowboy words in a lawyer's voice"

Check out 2.00 to 3.00 in this video

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
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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