FOR SALE: WEST’S DEADLY NUCLEAR SECRETS
AZG Armenian Daily
14/02/2008
International
Insight: Chris Gourlay, Jonathan Calvert, Joe Lauria
A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how
corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to
steal nuclear weapons secrets.
Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for
the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations
while based at the agency’s Washington field office.
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.
Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the
support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive
military and nuclear institutions.
Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence
that 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.
The name of the official – who has held a series of top government
posts – is known to The Sunday Times.
He strongly denies the claims.
However, Edmonds said: "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."
She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior
Pentagon officials – including household names – who were aiding
foreign agents.
"If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case,
you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials,"
she said.
Her story shows just how much the West was infiltrated by foreign
states seeking nuclear secrets. It illustrates how western government
officials turned a blind eye to, or were even helping, countries such
as Pakistan acquire bomb technology.
The wider nuclear network has been monitored for many years by a
joint Anglo-American intelligence effort.
But rather than shut it down, investigations by law enforcement bodies
such as the FBI and Britain’s Revenue & Customs have been aborted to
preserve diplomatic relations.
Edmonds, a fluent speaker of Turkish and Farsi, was recruited by the
FBI in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Her previous claims
about incompetence inside the FBI have been well documented in America.
She has given evidence to closed sessions of Congress and the 9/11
commission, but many of the key points of her testimony have remained
secret. She has now decided to divulge some of that information after
becoming disillusioned with the US authorities’ failure to act.
One of Edmonds’s main roles in the FBI was to translate thousands of
hours of conversations by Turkish diplomatic and political targets
that had been covertly recorded by the agency.
A backlog of tapes had built up, dating back to 1997, which were needed
for an FBI investigation into links between the Turks and Pakistani,
Israeli and US targets. Before she left the FBI in 2002 she heard
evidence that pointed to money laundering, drug imports and attempts
to acquire nuclear and conventional weapons technology.
"What I found was damning," she said. "While the FBI was investigating,
several arms of the government were shielding what was going on."
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.
They were helped, she says, by the high-ranking State Department
official who provided some of their moles – mainly PhD students
– with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear research
facilities. These included the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in
New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear
deterrent.
In one conversation Edmonds heard the official arranging to pick
up a $15,000 cash bribe. The package was to be dropped off at an
agreed location by someone in the Turkish diplomatic community who
was working for the network.
The Turks, she says, often acted as a conduit for the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, because they were less
likely to attract suspicion. Venues such as the American Turkish
Council in Washington were used to drop off the cash, which was picked
up by the official.
Edmonds said: "I heard at least three transactions like this over a
period of 2½ years. There are almost certainly more."
The Pakistani operation was led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, then the
ISI chief.
Intercepted communications showed Ahmad and his colleagues stationed
in Washington were in constant contact with attache in the Turkish
embassy.
Intelligence analysts say that members of the ISI were close
to Al-Qaeda before and after 9/11. Indeed, Ahmad was accused of
sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11
hijackers, immediately before the attacks.
The results of the espionage were almost certainly passed to Abdul
Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist.
Khan was close to Ahmad and the ISI. While running Pakistan’s nuclear
programme, he became a millionaire by selling atomic secrets to Libya,
Iran and North Korea. He also used a network of companies in America
and Britain to obtain components for a nuclear programme.
Khan caused an alert among western intelligence agencies when his aides
met Osama Bin Laden. "We were aware of contact between A Q Khan’s
people and Al-Qaeda," a former CIA officer said last week. "There
was absolute panic when we initially discovered this, but it kind of
panned out in the end."
It is likely that the nuclear secrets stolen from the United States
would have been sold to a number of rogue states by Khan.
Edmonds was later to see the scope of the Pakistani connections when
it was revealed that one of her fellow translators at the FBI was the
daughter of a Pakistani embassy official who worked for Ahmad. The
translator was given top secret clearance despite protests from FBI
investigators.
Edmonds says packages containing nuclear secrets were delivered by
Turkish operatives, using their cover as members of the diplomatic and
military community, to contacts at the Pakistani embassy in Washington.
Following 9/11, a number of the foreign operatives were taken in for
questioning by the FBI on suspicion that they knew about or somehow
aided the attacks.
Edmonds said the State Department official once again proved useful. "A
primary target would call the official and point to names on the list
and say, ‘We need to get them out of the US because we can’t afford
for them to spill the beans’," she said. "The official said that he
would ‘take care of it’."
The four suspects on the list were released from interrogation and
extradited.
Edmonds also claims that a number of senior officials in the Pentagon
had helped Israeli and Turkish agents.
"The people provided lists of potential moles from Pentagon-related
institutions who had access to databases concerning this information,"
she said.
"The handlers, who were part of the diplomatic community, would then
try to recruit those people to become moles for the network. The
lists contained all their ‘hooking points’, which could be financial
or sexual pressure points, their exact job in the Pentagon and what
stuff they had access to."
One of the Pentagon figures under investigation was Lawrence Franklin,
a former Pentagon analyst, who was jailed in 2006 for passing US
defence information to lobbyists and sharing classified information
with an Israeli diplomat.
"He was one of the top people providing information and packages
during 2000 and 2001," she said.
Once acquired, the nuclear secrets could have gone anywhere. The FBI
monitored Turkish diplomats who were selling copies of the information
to the highest bidder.
Edmonds said: "Certain greedy Turkish operators would make copies of
the material and look around for buyers. They had agents who would
find potential buyers."
In summer 2000, Edmonds says the FBI monitored one of the agents
as he met two Saudi Arabian businessmen in Detroit to sell nuclear
information that had been stolen from an air force base in Alabama. She
overheard the agent saying: "We have a package and we’re going to
sell it for $250,000."
Edmonds’s employment with the FBI lasted for just six months. In
March 2002 she was dismissed after accusing a colleague of covering
up illicit activity involving Turkish nationals.
She has always claimed that she was victimised for being outspoken
and was vindicated by an Office of the Inspector General review of
her case three years later. It found that one of the contributory
reasons for her sacking was that she had made valid complaints.
The US attorney-general has imposed a state secrets privilege order
on her, which prevents her revealing more details of the FBI’s methods
and current investigations.
Her allegations were heard in a closed session of Congress, but no
action has been taken and she continues to campaign for a public
hearing.
She was able to discuss the case with The Sunday Times because,
by the end of January 2002, the justice department had shut down
the programme.
The senior official in the State Department no longer works there. Last
week he denied all of Edmonds’s allegations: "If you are calling me
to say somebody said that I took money, that’s outrageous . . . I do
not have anything to say about such stupid ridiculous things as this."
In researching this article, The Sunday Times has talked to two FBI
officers (one serving, one former) and two former CIA sources who
worked on nuclear proliferation. While none was aware of specific
allegations against officials she names, they did provide overlapping
corroboration of Edmonds’s story.
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. "We have no indication that Turkey has its own nuclear
ambitions. But the Turks are traders. To my knowledge they became
big players in the late 1990s," the source said.
How Pakistan got the bomb, then sold it to the highest bidders
1965 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s foreign minister, says: "If
India builds the bomb we will eat grass . .
. but we will get one of our own"
1974 Nuclear programme becomes increased priority as India tests a
nuclear device
1976 Abdul Qadeer Khan, a scientist, steals secrets from Dutch uranium
plant. Made head of his nation’s nuclear programme by Bhutto, now
prime minister
1976 onwards Clandestine network established to obtain materials and
technology for uranium enrichment from the West
1985 Pakistan produces weapons-grade uranium for the first time
1989-91 Khan’s network sells Iran nuclear weapons information and
technology
1991-97 Khan sells weapons technology to North Korea and Libya
1998 India tests nuclear bomb and Pakistan follows with a series of
nuclear tests. Khan says: "I never had any doubts I was building a
bomb. We had to do it"
2001 CIA chief George Tenet gathers officials for crisis summit on the
proliferation of nuclear technology from Pakistan to other countries
2001 Weeks before 9/11, Khan’s aides meet Osama Bin Laden to discuss
an Al-Qaeda nuclear device
2001 After 9/11 proliferation crisis becomes secondary as Pakistan
is seen as important ally in war on terror
2003 Libya abandons nuclear weapons programme and admits acquiring
components through Pakistani nuclear scientists
2004 Khan placed under house arrest and confesses to supplying Iran,
Libya and North Korea with weapons technology. He is pardoned by
President Pervez Musharraf
2006 North Korea tests a nuclear bomb
2007 Renewed fears that bomb may fall into hands of Islamic extremists
as killing of Benazir Bhutto throws country into turmoil
"Azg" Daily newspaper is among the first ten most reliable mass
media sources.
"Azg" Daily newspaper is among the first ten most reliable mass media
sources. This is the conclusion of the public opinion poll held by
the pan-Armenian Association of Mass media in the second half of 2007.
About 100 leaders of 25 parties, 45 NGOs and entrepreneourships
participated in the public opinion poll. In the test they evaluated
the trustworthyness of the mass media sources by the five score system.
According to the degree of trustworthyness, the following mass media
sources are included in the first tenc of the list: "Liberty" Radio
Station, "Noyyan Tapan" News Agency, "Shant" TV company, "Aravot"
newspaper, "A1+" site, "ArmInfo" News Agency, "Azg" Daily Newspaper,
"ARKA" News Agency, "Armenianow" Internet Newspaper and "Kentron"
TV Channel.
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