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The Sunday Times Online reported today that…

…foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions. [...]

…one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan…

“He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”

– For Sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets Sunday Times Online, 1/6/08

The source is Sibel Edmonds, an FBI translator fluent in Farsi and Turkish, who was assigned to a backlog of untranslated documents and wiretaps in 2002. Following what she saw as an unsuccessful effort in late 2001 to enlist her in espionage similar to that reported above, Edmonds reported the Americans involved to the FBI — and was fired for her trouble in March 2002.* In his 2005 Vanity Fair piece “An Inconvenient Patriot,” David Rose described what came next:

But being fired is one thing. Edmonds has also been prevented from proceeding with her court challenge or even speaking with complete freedom about the case.

On top of the usual prohibition against disclosing classified information, the Bush administration has smothered her case beneath the all-encompassing blanket of the “state-secrets privilege”—a Draconian and rarely used legal weapon that allows the government, merely by asserting a risk to national security, to prevent the lawsuits Edmonds has filed contesting her treatment from being heard in court at all. According to the Department of Justice, to allow Edmonds her day in court, even at a closed hearing attended only by personnel with full security clearance, “could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the foreign policy and national security of the United States.”

Using the state-secrets privilege in this fashion is unusual, says Edmonds’s attorney Ann Beeson, of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It also begs the question: Just what in the world is the government trying to hide?”

Now we have a better idea.

Remarkably, Ms. Edmonds couldn’t get any major American news organization to agree to publish her allegations naming names. It’s really a bit of a shame the story is getting crushed by ObamaNewHampshireIowaEdwardsClintonHuckabeeRomney, and one may wonder why Ms. Edmonds took so long to go to foreign media with her story, which even as reported in outline form before now seemed like a huge scandal. The answer may have to do with libel laws abroad, or at least in the U.K., that are more protective of public figures than they are in the United States. Certainly no names were named in the Times Article.

However, Ms. Edmonds has now published a “State Secrets Privilege Gallery” on her own web site (”Just A Citizen“) with unlabeled photographs of well known Defense Department and intelligence figures like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Brent Scowcroft, and Congressmen Dennis Hastert, Richard Livingston, Stephen Solarz, and Art Lantos, to name a few — the full list is spelled out by lukery (”Let Sibel Edmonds Speak”). The intent appears to be to imply names to put to the allegations in the Times story, without taking the legally fraught step of connecting every dot in writing.

Whoever the weak links in the American chain turn out to be, the nexus of espionage that Edmonds’ story describes is unsettling indeed:

The Turks and Israelis had planted “moles” in military and academic institutions which handled nuclear technology. Edmonds says there were several transactions of nuclear material every month, with the Pakistanis being among the eventual buyers. “The network appeared to be obtaining information from every nuclear agency in the United States,” she said.

If the Israeli angle is true as well, it seems plausible that they were trying to get information about how to build “better” nukes of their own, though I suppose there are Israelis who’d sell nuclear plans to Pakistan. The Times provides a timeline of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development at the end of the story, and most reactions understandably focus on that country.* Jim Henley (”Unqualified Offerings”) writes, “The thing that most struck me is how much, over the decades, Pakistan has acted not at all like a client state of the US.”

The Turkish Connection
True. I’d add, though, that most of the article tends to point our good friend Turkey’s way in that respect. The Congressional involvement implied by Ms. Edmonds’ photo gallery is certainly all connected to Turkey; sometimes the worthy Congressmen involved were impressed that Turkey has been willing to work with Israel diplomatically and militarily, sometimes they’ve been impressed with Turkish money (Livingston’s lobbying firm is on an annual $1.8M retainer by the Turkish government), and sometimes both. Edmonds says Mr. Hastert may not have been willing to wait to get out of office before pocketing his payoffs. Rose:

[Edmonds] reported hearing Turkish wiretap targets boast that they had a covert relationship with a very senior politician indeed—Dennis Hastert, Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House since 1999. The targets reportedly discussed giving Hastert tens of thousands of dollars in surreptitious payments in exchange for political favors and information.

What sort of political favors? In an interview with Amy Goodman, Rose says that in secret testimony, Edmonds told Congressional investigators that Speaker Hastert may have sold out his support for the Armenian Genocide Resolution in 2000, withdrawing it just before a final vote:

One of the Turkish targets of these wiretaps claimed that the price for getting Dennis Hastert to withdraw the resolution would be $500,000. Now, I do emphasize there’s no evidence at all that he received such a payment, but that is what is said to have been recorded in one of the wiretaps.

Thus, it’s not all about nukes; denial of the Armenian Genocide is a centerpiece of Turkish policy, since acknowledging it would invite reparations claims — and might undermine the political legitimacy of a Turkish republic that has long and strenuously denied many of its founders’ responsibility for that genocide.

But it is likely very much about money in any case. Since 9/11, Turkey is the 7th largest recipient of military “aid” from the United States,** and Turkish military officials — who wield constitutional power in that country as designated arbiters of the secular tradition in that country — are both well placed and not reluctant to profit from sidelines, or recycle some of that largesse in ambitious ways. Entrepreneurism being universal, and absolute power notoriously corrupting absolutely, it would be little wonder if Turkish military and intelligence might go into all kinds of unexpected business sidelines.

We’ll just have to hope that responsible, upstanding people in Islamabad — and not Al Qaeda — were the final destination for any nuclear secrets said entrepreneurs got their hands on.

CROSSPOSTED TO “American Street”

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* Indeed, I wonder if Benazir Bhutto’s assassination was an additional reason Edmonds went to the Times. The stated reason, however, was that she “approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.” Joseph Cannon (”Cannonfire”) writes the story was probably this one about Louai Sakka (or Sakra), an Al Qaeda operative now jailed in Turkey. The “hall of mirrors” feeling about the story deepens in that Sakka is apparently linked to many Western intelligence services, according to a CooperativeResearch.org article citing the 9/11 Commission and media reports.
** $1.325 billion from 2002-04, according to PublicIntegrity.org. Countries receiving more aid — or “aid” — were Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, Afghanistan, and Colombia, with figures ranging from $9 billion to $2 billion over the same time period.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I’d be remiss not to mention that I’ve often written often about the Armenian Genocide and the struggle to have it acknowledged as such. (See, e.g., 90 years ago: Armenian Genocide Begins and Another Day, Another Turkish New Lira for the Washington Post) While I like to think I’d feel this way in any case, I’m married to an Armenian American.

From the New York Times article “Report Says Iraq Contractor Is Hiding Data From U.S.,” by James Glanz and Floyd Norris:

A Halliburton subsidiary that has been subjected to numerous investigations for billions of dollars in contracts it received for work in Iraq has systematically misused federal rules to withhold basic information on its practices from American officials, a federal oversight agency said yesterday. [...]

The oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, said KBR had refused to disclose information as basic as how many people are fed each day in its dining facilities and how many gallons of fuel are delivered to foreign embassies in Iraq, claiming that the data was proprietary, meaning it would unfairly help its business competitors.

So the United States outsources a function of the military and the State Department to a private company — and then can’t find out what that company is doing!? KBR should be fired and barred from future government work — as should those who hired it in the first place. Via MediaBloodhound and Avedon Carol (”The Sideshow”).

Lest I forget, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction is Stuart W. Bowen, Jr. — a.k.a. one of the last honest Republicans.

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UPDATE, 11/3: Solved that problem — Bowen just got his pink slip. Via Avedon Carol (”The Sideshow”)

While the first, last, and only pre-bad-news GOP instinct may be to “cover it up and hope it goes away,” the first post-bad-news instinct seems to be “rescue the money“:

Mr. Foley, who served on the House Ways and Means Committee, was a prolific fund-raiser. His campaign account had a balance of $2.7 million at the end of August, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Carl Forti, the communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Sunday that the committee would gladly accept Mr. Foley’s money or part of it to devote to House races. Mr. Foley already gave $100,000 to the committee in July, campaign records show, as part of the party’s Battleground Program, to which members are asked to contribute.“The money is in the control of Mr. Foley,” Mr. Forti said. “Whatever he decides to do with it is up to him.”

(Reported by Carl Hulse and Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times, via TPM.)

Stuff like this is why I can’t keep myself from returning to this story. It’s almost awesome in its pristine amorality, like something a nature TV program would show: the colony loses a worker, dismembers its remains, keeps going. See also the media worker ant frantically trying to spin the news, no matter how mindlessly. Nest in danger! Must repair damage!

Made you look. While I’m on the topic, best joke so far:

Now we know why the pages stick together. (*)

I also like the “GOP stands for…” contest. Yea, verily, God in His wisdom hath seen fit to demoralize both sides just in time for the November election. His truth is marching on! and I am but His humble servant.

Seriously, this is worth pushing a bit if you buy that this is a turnout election and that so-called “values voters” are some important part of the Republican base. But I also see the problem with stepping on the more substantive “State of Denial” revelations and the NIE story.

I suggest making a “narrative,” as they say, that ties the stories together: whenever the GOP “leadership” (scare quotes essential) gets unwelcome news, their first, last, and only instinct is to hide it and hope it goes away — no matter who else gets hurt.

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NOTE: “Made you look” link to Yglesias; next three to Steve Benen and commenters, last three to Washington Post articles.

Organ harvesting in China: postscript and followup, 7/19/2006; The perfect crime against humanity?, 7/16/2006 — Respected South China Morning Post (SCMP) reporter Mark O’Neill picks up the Falun Gong organ transplant charge (his piece begins at 5:55 minutes into the podcast), and finds the Kilgour-Matas report “lends extra weight” to the allegations, as an SCMP anchor puts it. O’Neill’s print article is quoted on a China studies listserv:

The report, mainly based on testimony provided by Falun Gong practitioners outside China, concludes that the government and its hospitals, detention centres and courts have since 1999 put to death a large but unknown number of Falun Gong members, removing their hearts, kidneys, livers, corneas and other vital organs for sale at high prices to local and foreign patients. [...]

Three pieces of evidence are the most persuasive. One is official statistics that show a sharp rise in organ transplants since 2000. From 1994 to 1999, there were 18,500, and, from 2000 to last year, 60,000. A tripling of these operations does not prove the allegations, but the harvesting of Falun Gong organs would provide an explanation.

The second is the transcript of an interview by Mr Kilgour in the US with the ex-wife of a surgeon who said that, between the end of 2001 and October 2003, her husband removed corneas from 2,000 Falun Gong patients. [...]

The third piece of evidence pointing to the possibility of the harvesting is material from websites offering organ transplants.

Makin’ an honest living, 6/8/2005— Last year the Justice Department suddenly reduced damages it was seeking in a high profile lawsuit against the tobacco industry from $130 billion to — ahem — $10 billion. On July 20, Justice Department political appointee Robert McCallum was deposed about the incident after a June ruling compelling McCallum to do so. Former Justice Department official Sharon Banks — now working for the winner of that ruling, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) — charges McCallum misled Congress:

Eubanks said McCallum mischaracterized a court order in his statements to Capitol Hill, making it appear that U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler criticized the government’s embrace of smoking cessation as a remedy in the lawsuit. McCallum cited the judge’s order in explaining why he reduced the government’s request.

Eubanks pointed out that the judge later rejected the tobacco industry’s arguments and allowed Eubanks’ expert witness to testify that the companies should pay $130 billion for smoking cessation.

McCallum claims an appeals court ruling requiring “forward looking” damages dealt a “body blow” to the Justice Department’s case. The DOJ’s Office of Professional Conduct says McCallum was not influenced by political motivations.

Race to save the Lord God Bird, 5/09/2005 — The Chicago Tribune’s Annie Bergman reports (”Birders find no new confirmation of rare woodpecker in Arkansas,” 5/18/2006):

Search teams exploring an Arkansas swamp for better evidence of the ivory-billed woodpecker said Thursday they had no new confirmation of the bird’s existence, and wildlife managers said there was no longer a reason to limit public access to the region.

“Certainly we’re somewhat disappointed,” said Ron Rohrbaugh of the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y. “We’ve had enough of these tantalizing sounds and we still have a lot of hope that there might be a pair, especially in the White River area.”

Srebrenica, 11 years on, 7/11/2006 — Accused Serbian war criminal Ratko Mladic is still at large. But Serbia’s bid to join the EU is stalled until Mladic is arrested, and Serbian officials are scrambling to come up with an approach to do so. Even Hague prosecutor Carla Del Ponte seems to think this time it’s for real:

Facing pariah status, Serbia presented EU officials with an “action plan” for Mladic’s arrest earlier this month, hoping that a serious show of effort would placate del Ponte and persuade the EU to restart talks.

“Since the action plan was adopted, I think the political will to arrest Mladic exists for the first time,” del Ponte said. “I would like to see the operational plan and be involved.” [...]

The plan has not been made public but it is said to include a media campaign to convince Serbs that it is necessary to arrest Mladic, who is accused of orchestrating the siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims. A government survey published on Thursday showed 51 percent of those polled opposed Mladic’s extradition, 34 percent supported it and 15 percent were undecided.

To me, this seems more like a way to look like you care about catching Mladic than a way to actually catch Mladic. But what do I know.

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NOTES: Follow title links to earlier posts on this blog backgrounding the followups above. The McCallum items are from the AP and the Washington Post’s Pete Yost, respectively. The Mladic item is via a Reuters 7/29 article.
EDIT, 8/27: Listserv name deleted by request.

Randy “Duke” Cunningham has pleaded guilty to graft and taking bribes from defense contractors, and has resigned from the House of Representatives. While I’m not going to feel sorry for him, I respect him quite a bit more after reading his resignation announcement:

When I announced several months ago that I would not seek re-election, I publicly declared my innocence because I was not strong enough to face the truth. So, I misled my family, staff, friends, colleagues, the public — even myself. For all of this, I am deeply sorry.

The truth is — I broke the law, concealed my conduct, and disgraced my high office. I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions, and most importantly, the trust of my friends and family. [...]

I cannot undo what I have done. But I can atone. I am now almost 65 years old and, as I enter the twilight of my life, I intend to use the remaining time that God grants me to make amends.

The first step in that journey is to admit fault and apologize. The next step is to face the consequences of my actions like a man. Today, I have taken the first step and, with God’s grace, I will soon take the second.

Via Max Sawicky, who adds, “The contrast with his assorted colleagues in Congress and the White House is obvious.”

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UPDATE, 11/28: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee introduces the Democratic candidate who will contest Mr. Cunningham’s open seat: Ms. Francine Busby.
UPDATE, 11/29: Digby isn’t the soft touch I am.

…is this kind of fun?

Newspapers around the country followed up on the Washington Post story that I mentioned yesterday: a Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) fundraising group that allegedly “telephoned corporations or trade groups subject to lawsuits or regulations by their state governments to solicit hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions.”

Basically — surprise — everybody denied doing anything shady. It’s part of the genius of the method Pryor dreamed up that the contributions were forwarded to the Republican National Committee without attribution to the AG’s involved, so that determining their involvement with a particular donation is next to impossible.

Anyhow, here are excerpts from the newspaper stories:

I’m no lawyer, but this seems pretty shaky to me. Today’s Washington Post runs a story by R. Jeffrey Smith and Tania Branigan, “GOP Attorneys General Asked For Corporate Contributions.” The top paragraphs:

Republican state attorneys general in at least six states telephoned corporations or trade groups subject to lawsuits or regulations by their state governments to solicit hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions, according to internal fundraising documents obtained by The Washington Post.

One of the documents mentions potential state actions against health maintenance organizations and suggests the attorneys general should “start targeting the HMO’s” for fundraising. It also cites a news article about consolidation and regulation of insurance firms and states that “this would be a natural area for us to focus on raising money.”

Naturally! What could be a more lucrative source of contributions than corporations looking for a way to avoid state legal action? It reminds me of Willie Sutton’s famous line about why he robbed banks: “Because that’s where the money is.”

The fundraising was coordinated by the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA); the documents provide details for the years from 1999 to 2001. RAGA’s origins provide another news peg:

RAGA was founded by [Alabama Attorney General William] Pryor and the Republican National Committee with the explicit aim of soliciting funds from the firearms, tobacco and paint industries and other industries facing state lawsuits over cancer deaths, lead poisoning, gunshots and consumer complaints, according to statements by Pryor and other officials.

William Pryor is already a highly controversial 11th Circuit Court of Appeals nominee. I think you can add a cavalier attitude about the appearance and reality of conflicts of interest to the list of criticisms against him.

The story lists a number of state attorneys general who were mentioned in the RAGA fundraising documents. To add a little value here, I’m providing links to their current web sites, and to the current state attorney general. If you’re from one of these states, you might want to find out whether your current or former attorney general hit up the HMOs or other companies (listed below) for what seems like a tasseled loafers version of protection money. You may want to suggest your current Attorney General should have a look, too, or at minimum take note that you take a dim view of this kind of fundraising:

VA: then-Virginia Attorney General Mark L. Earley

DE: Delaware Attorney General Jane Brady

SC: then-South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon

TX: then-Texas Attorney General, now U.S. Senator John Cornyn

OH: then-Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery

To be clear: I’d only have questions of each of these people; I don’t claim to be absolutely certain they’ve done something wrong or unethical. I don’t have the documents the Post reporters do. But the HMO and insurance quotes smell pretty bad, and the Post article provides details for Pryor’s and Cronyn’s activities. Re Senator Cornyn (R-TX):

One document states, for example, that Cornyn was asked to collect a donation from Shell Oil in late 1999, but does not mention whether Shell gave the group money. The firm was one of five energy companies that reached a $12.6 million settlement with Cornyn in August 1999 in a dispute over unpaid royalties. Two years later, Shell was one of 28 oil and petrochemical companies to reach a $120 million settlement with him and the U.S. Department of Justice in a separate dispute over toxic waste.

Last night, Don Stewart, a spokesman for Cornyn, said the senator does not recall telephoning Shell Oil. Stewart also said he was “troubled by the inference that there is some kind of connection” between any such phone call and a legal settlement that “benefited the citizens of Texas.”

Well, Don, I’m troubled, too; “does not recall” is so much weaker than the “did not” I’d have rather heard. Just too many fundraising phone calls to recall any particular one, maybe.

Other companies approached by RAGA members included Pfizer Inc., MasterCard Inc., Eli Lilly and Co., Anheuser-Busch Cos., Citigroup Inc., Amway Corp., U.S. Steel Corp., Nextel Communications Inc., General Motors Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Shell Oil Co., among other companies. The Post article notes:

[The fundraising documents] make clear that RAGA assigned attorneys general to make calls to companies with business and legal interests in their own states.

I, for one, would be especially interested if any of these companies faced legal or regulatory action in one of the states listed above. And yes, there is also a Democratic counterpart to RAGA; I can only hope they haven’t been targeting companies for fundraising that they are or should be targeting for legal action.

Hardball politics continues down in Austin, Texas. I hadn’t been following that part of the story on this blog, so I checked by Charles “Off the Kuff” Kuffner to get caught up.

Texas governor Perry called a special session of the Senate to consider a redistricting plan. Under Texas Senate rules, two thirds of the Senators have to agree to consider a bill; on Monday, it developed that there were enough Democrats — and Republican Bill Ratliff, from a rural district that would have been diluted with urban voters — to block the bill. Game over.

Not. Kuffner reports that (1) Governor Perry said he might call another special session, and (2) Texas Republicans began talking about getting around the Senate two-thirds rule. The parliamentary shenanigans would involve keeping a “blocker bill” off the agenda in the next special session. The Houston Chronicle explains:

Under Senate rules, senators are required to debate bills on the floor in the order they get out of committee. Senators typically put a “blocker bill” at the top of the list, forcing lawmakers to get support from two-thirds of the senators if they want to take up another bill first. A blocker bill already is on the agenda this session.

If Perry calls another special session, lawmakers may decide not to put a blocker bill at the top of the list, which could mean that only a majority of senators could be required to support a bill for it to get a Senate floor debate.

Only if there are enough senators in town to have a special session in the first place. The same Houston Chronicle article gets one Senator Armbrister’s (D-Victoria) reaction:

“Any kind of gamesmanship that violates the traditions of the Texas Senate, they won’t have a quorum,” Armbrister said, suggesting that a number of senators would boycott the Senate.

And Armbrister is actually undecided about redistricting.

Ardmore, Oklahoma might be hosting a passel of Texas politicians again pretty soon.

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UPDATE, 7/17: This morning Mr. Kuffner posted a great summary of the past week’s events.