RT
Capitol Hill: sex & drugs & Turkish `soap’
27 September, 2009, 01:38
Lesbian Congresswomen, gay Senators and other `sinners’ of the US
establishment fall victims of an espionage scandal. Former FBI
employee tells how Turkish intelligence gathers information on Capitol
Hill.
A 34-year-old, Turkish-born woman of Azerbaijani descent, Sibel
Edmonds, joined the FBI as a Turkish and Farsi translator a few days
after 9/11. Her duties included translation of recordings of
conversations between suspected members of Turkish intelligence and
their American contacts.
However, in April 2002 Edmonds was fired after she raised concerns
that one of the staff in her section was a member of a Turkish
organization that was under investigation for bribing senior US
government officials and members of Congress, drug trafficking,
illegal weapons sales, money laundering, and nuclear proliferation.
Despite the fact that no one has ever disproved any of her
revelations, no effort was made to address the corruption that she had
been monitoring. That is according to The American Conservative
magazine, which has had the opportunity to interview the former FBI
translator.
The cases disclosed by Sibel Edmonds may well be considered the most
incredible story of corruption and influence peddling in modern US
history.
`If this were written up as a novel, no one would believe it,’ The
American Conservative quoted the woman as saying.
Before and after 9/11
According to documents that Sibel Edmonds had access to, intelligence
agents repeatedly reported Al-Qaeda plans to arrange a series of
large-scale terrorist attacks on American soil. Despite that, their
chiefs dismissed the reports as dubious.
Moreover, John Ashcroft’s Justice Department twice invoked the State
Secrets Privilege on the files so Edmonds could not tell what she
knew, while the 9/11 Commission did not have a chance to see them
either.
Interestingly, between 1997 and 2001, not once did anybody use the
word `Al-Qaeda,’ the woman says. It was always always `bin Ladens’ `
plural.
`There were several bin Ladens who were going on private jets to
Azerbaijan and Tajikistan. The Turkish ambassador in Azerbaijan worked
with them¦ People and weapons went one way, drugs came back,’
Edmonds continues.
`A lot of the drugs were going to Belgium on NATO planes. After that,
they went to the UK, and a lot came to the US via military planes to
distribution centers in Chicago and Patterson, New Jersey. Turkish
diplomats, who would never be searched, were coming with suitcases of
heroin,’ she explained.
Generous Turks, helpful congressmen
After having been sacked, Sibel Edmonds had revenge on her former
employer by telling journalists that entire groups of American
congressmen and diplomats were permanently `supported’ by Turkish
intelligence and lobbyists in Washington DC.
For instance, they allegedly recruited Marc Grossman for regular
payouts, who was a US Ambassador to Turkey between 1994 and 1997.
On top of that, Edmonds lists several high-profile officials among his
collaborators, including the 13th US Deputy Secretary of State,
Richard Armitage, senior Pentagon officials, Richard Perle and Douglas
Feith, and Air Force Major Douglas Dickerson.
Simultaneously, she says, Grossman arranged for several US congressmen
to lobby Ankara’s interests on Capitol Hill, while compensation
reached up to $400,000.
`The number-one Congressman involved with the Turkish community, both
in terms of providing information and doing favors, was [a former
Republican Representative from Louisiana] Bob Livingston,’ Edmonds
said in an interview.
Bob Livingston ` also the founder of the renowned lobbying group, The
Livingston Group `was allegedly paid a monthly compensation of
$105,000 by the Turkish Embassy in Washington DC. In total, the woman
says, his family received $13 million between 2000 and 2005.
`Number-two after him was [a member of the US House of Representatives]
Dan Burton, and then he became number-one in Congress until [Dennis]
Hastert bec l, Janet Reno, was briefed on the investigations, and
since they were Republicans, she authorized that they be continued,’
Sibel Edmonds has said.
Employing the basic instinct
Yet, what really surprises is the way the Turkish intelligence
allegedly approached Janice, or "Jan" Schakowsky ` a Democratic member
of the US House of Representatives.
They arranged for the bisexual woman and her spouse, Robert, to be
seduced by a pretty Turkish lesbian ` all it took to get everything
the Turkish agents needed.
Even these few examples of Edmond’s disclosures of US officials
provides a glimpse of the overall scale of corruption in US
governmental institutions, as well as of the activity of Turkish
intelligence there.
Quite interestingly, all the US MPs who have been listed by Sibel
Edmonds were the first to actively oppose the pro-Armenian resolutions
concerning America’s recognition of the Armenian genocide by the Turks
in 1915.
All in all, Turkish agents reportedly received numerous strategic
secrets about the American military and, even more importantly, a
number of compromising ties that certain politicians, diplomats and
military officials established with various international criminal
syndicates.
op_News/2009-09-27/capitol-sex-drugs-turkish.html