DEEP STATE COMES TO AMERICA, PART 1

“A conspiracy is nothing but a secret agreement of a number of men for the pursuance of policies which they dare not admit in public”
~ Mark Twain.

It looks like a TV documentary will be aired this fall in Europe about the possible connections between the Turkish Deep State and American lawmakers. . . connections wide-ranging enough to bring together such disparate characters as Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis Hastert and Deep State drug lord Huseyin Baybasin?

The connections are coming to light as a result of FBI whisteblower, Sibel Edmonds, who was fired by the FBI for raising serious concerns about the possible espionage activities of another FBI Turkish-language translator, Melek Can Dickerson. A little preview on that, from "The Secrets Behind 'State Secrets'" by Mike Mejia:

According to what we know so far from Sibel Edmonds’ many interviews and from the groundbreaking story on her case from Vanity Fair, “An Inconvenient Patriot,” Edmonds found that within the U.S. a nest of Turkish spies, some working at the Turkish embassy, others affiliated with namely the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA), the American Turkish Associations (ATA) and the American Turkish Council (ATC), were involved in espionage, bribery, illegal lobbying, drug trafficking and the infiltration of U.S nuclear research labs. Separately, from a former CIA Counterterrorism official, Phillip Giraldi, who himself was once based in Turkey, we know that some arms sales meant for Turkey and Israel were actually meant for resale to countries like China and India- and perhaps even to international terrorists- using fake end-user certificates. So we have Turkish nationals at the Embassy and NGOs stealing U.S. secrets for sale to the highest bidder, re-selling arms meant for Turkey, bringing in drugs from Europe, and pouring money into bribes and lobbying activities.

In January, 2005, the Office of the Inspector General (part of the US Department of Justice) issued a declassified version of its review of the FBI's investigation of Sibel Edmonds' allegations. The review substantiates them:

We found that many of Edmonds’ core allegations relating to the co-worker [Melek Can Dickerson] were supported by either documentary evidence or witnesses other than Edmonds. Moreover, we concluded that, had the FBI performed a more careful investigation of Edmonds’ allegations, it would have discovered evidence of significant omissions and inaccuracies by the co-worker related to these allegations. These omissions and inaccuracies, in turn, should have led to further investigation by the FBI. [ . . . ] We also found that Edmonds was justified in raising a number of these concerns to her supervisors. For example, with respect to an allegation that focused on the co-worker’s performance, which Edmonds believed to be an indication of a security problem, the evidence clearly corroborated Edmonds’ allegations.

. . . However, Edmonds’ assertions regarding the co-worker, when viewed as a whole, raised substantial questions and were supported by various pieces of evidence. While there are potentially innocuous explanations for the co-worker’s conduct, other explanations were not innocuous. Although the exact nature and extent of the co-worker’s security issues are disputed, it is clear from the OIG’s investigation that the facts giving rise to Edmonds’ concerns could have been uncovered had the FBI investigated Edmonds’ allegations further. We believe that the FBI should have investigated the allegations more thoroughly. We also believe the FBI’s handling of these allegations reflected an unwarranted reluctance to vigorously investigate these serious allegations or to conduct a thorough examination of Edmonds’ allegations. As will be discussed in the next section, the FBI did not, and still has not, conducted such an investigation.

According to the Vanity Fair article, Melek Can Dickerson lied on her application to the FBI; she stated she had never worked before in the US when, in fact, she had interned for the ATC for two years. Melek's US Air Force husband was a big supporter of the ATC, apparently because it could help him and his wife retire early and live well. Obviously both stood to gain from the ATC and they knew it. Did they also know that ATC was under investigation by the FBI? Did they know that ATC phones were being wiretapped? Is that why, when she applied for a job to translate some of those wiretaps, Melek Can lied on her application?

A lot of other names come up in connection with Sibel Edmonds' allegations, two of which were mentioned in the previous Rastî post--Douglas Feith (former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy at the DoD) and Richard Perle (Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration)--both former Defense Department officials. Interestingly enough, both departed DoD leaving a wake of investigations into their activities.

In 1989, Richard Perle set up a consulting business "as a foreign agent representing the government of Turkey to "promote the objective of U.S.-Turkey defense industrial cooperation." Is this all a bunch of fancy talk to cover up the facilitation of weapons-trafficking, including the transfer of nuclear technology and materials? If some arms sales to Turkey are ending up in China and India, can't the same things end up in Iran, too? It's funny that now we have Iran wagging its own tail in Lebanon at precisely the time they were supposed to have the spotlight shined on them for their nuclear program. A few months ago, there was a little item from the AP on FOX News that never made headlines, although it should have.

ANKARA, Turkey — An Iranian-owned company, based in Turkey, has illegally shipped alleged guided missile parts as well as "dual use" nuclear-related material to Iran, including high-strength aluminum tubes, according to a recent Turkish government report obtained by The Associated Press on Friday.

The company imported the material to Turkey, the supposed end-user, from dozens of firms around the world, including the United States, and then shipped them to Iran apparently after falsifying documents to hide the nature of the material, customs inspectors said in the report dated May 12.

Turkish authorities would not comment on the report, which was first published by Cumhuriyet and Milliyet newspapers Friday. A government official provided a copy of the report to the AP.

Was that a good-will gesture on Turkey's part, in preparation for their hosting of joint military exercises as part of the Proliferation Security Initiative? How many other companies in Turkey are shipping dual use materials to Iran? More importantly, in light of Iran's face off with the international community over its nuclear weapons aims, why was this information not widely reported? Who made the decision to quash this news?

Another interesting guy is mentioned in connection with the Turkish lobby and Edmonds' allegations: Mark Grossman. Following the link at the Deep State article, we find the following from Grossman's bio:

In 1994, President Clinton appointed Ambassador Grossman U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. In Turkey, he promoted security cooperation, human rights and democracy and forged a vibrant U.S.-Turkish economic relationship. Ambassador Grossman had previously served as the embassy''s Deputy Chief of Mission from 1989 to 1992.

He worked in the US Embassy in Ankara for eight years during the height of the Dirty War against the Kurdish people and he failed in promoting everything except "security cooperation." He left in 1997, the year after Susurluk; the year of the soft coup. Imagine how much Kurdish blood is on his hands? Or on the hands of his friend, Ambassador Joe Wilson, who served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Baghdad from 1988 to 1991? What did he know about the Anfal operations? Old Joe has also been working for Turkey, at least through 2003, through a consultancy called Corporate and Public Strategy Advisory Group. Check out their "Press Coverage" page. Do any of the names of the newspapers and magazines look familiar?

Coincidentally, or maybe not, Wilson is married to Valerie Plame, supposedly a CIA operative whose identity was leaked to the public as political retaliation against Wilson. Wilson was the first to publicly criticize the Bush Administration's claims of Iraq's possession of WMD's. There's more on the Plame connection, by Mike Mejia, here.

Again, coincidentally, or maybe not, Brent Scowcroft, chairman of the ATC, also opposed the war, providing a number of reasons against it. The weird thing is that Scowcroft never mentioned Turkish reasons for opposition to the war: fear of Kurds and disruption of trade, especially petroleum. Turkey has the habit of crying about not receiving compensation for its economic losses during the Gulf War. Why didn't Scowcroft bring up these subjects? By focusing on other concerns, was he hiding the fact that he was pushing the Turkish government's agenda?

To be continued . . .