Citing the possibility of a terrorist organization getting hold of a nuclear weapon as the greatest threat to U.S. security, Barack Obama persuaded 46 other countries at the recent Nuclear Security Summit to agree to secure the world’s loose nuclear material. Those leaders who came to Washington might have made done more to avert a nuclear attack, however, if they had asked the U.S. President to account for America’s own loose nukes.
Of course, President Obama may not even be aware of the egregious failure of the United States to secure its nuclear materials and know-how from the predation of its alleged “closest ally.” But since Obama is unwilling to even “speculate” about which country in the Middle East has nuclear weapons, he could hardly be expected to acknowledge how it got them.
In a recent Antiwar.com article aptly titled “America’s Loose Nukes in Israel,” Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (Irmep) and author of Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy, shows how “the U.S is a sieve for Israeli nuclear espionage.”
The massive arms smuggling network set up by David Ben-Gurion in the United States in the 1940s had acquired a nuclear branch within a decade, according to Smith. The 1955 purchase of the Apollo Steel Company plant in Pennsylvania was financed by David Lowenthal, a close friend of Israel’s first prime minister and a former member of the Haganah, the precursor to the Israeli army. The following year, Dr. Zalman Shapiro, head of a local Zionist Organization of America chapter, incorporated the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) at Apollo. Before long, NUMEC was receiving large quantities of highly enriched uranium and plutonium from Westinghouse and the U.S. Navy for nuclear reprocessing.
By the 1960s, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) became suspicious of security lapses at NUMEC, and even considered suspending its “classified weapons work.” A 1965 AEC audit discovered that 220 pounds of highly enriched uranium were unaccounted for. The following year, the FBI launched its own investigation, codenamed Project Divert, to monitor NUMEC’s management and its frequent Israeli visitors. Nevertheless, the diversion of nuclear material to Israel continued unabated. After a September 10, 1968 visit by four Israelis, including Mossad agent Rafi Eitan, a further 587 pounds of highly enriched uranium went missing.
Israel’s nuclear espionage against the United States didn’t end with its accession to the nuclear club in the late 1960s, however. As former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds revealed, its smuggling network received crucial assistance from three high-ranking officials in the George W. Bush administration. All three have close ties to Israel’s military-industrial complex.
According to the FBI whistleblower, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith provided Marc Grossman, the third highest-ranking official in the State Department, with a list of Department of Defense employees with access to sensitive data, including nuclear technology. The list also included highly sensitive personal details, such as sexual preference, problems with gambling or alcoholism, and how much they owed on their mortgages. Grossman then passed on the information to Israeli and Turkish agents, who used it to “hook” those Pentagon officials. In addition, as Edmonds testified in an Ohio court case, the foreign operatives had recruited people “on almost every major nuclear facility in the United States.”
After Israel and Turkey took what they wanted from the pilfered secrets, their agents offered what was left to the highest bidder. As Edmonds has told the Sunday Times, American Conservative and Military.com, nuclear information was sold on the black market, where anyone—even al-Qaeda—could buy it.
So then, it would seem that those who shout loudest about the threat of terrorists—namely, neoconservatives like Perle, Feith and Grossman and their Israeli counterparts—are the very ones who are aiding them, at least indirectly, to acquire those much touted weapons of mass destruction.
But why, one might reasonably ask, would Israeli agents help their supposed enemies get hold of the bomb?
Well, what would be the likely outcome if Obama’s worst fears of a nuclear attack on the United States—or one of its allies—are realized?
Regardless of the facts, some Islamic country— most likely, Iran or Pakistan—would be blamed for aiding the terrorists. And it doesn’t require an advanced degree in game theory to predict what America’s reaction would be. The retaliation would be so swift and devastating that the designated evildoers might envy the fate of post-invasion Iraqis—also victims of an Israeli misdirection.
If, as Benjamin Netanyahu admitted, 9/11 was “very good” for Israel, a nuclear 9/11 might be even better. As the spellbinding effects of that traumatic event nine years ago have begun to wear off, and with Americans increasingly questioning the costs of a one-sided alliance, it may even be considered necessary.
An Interview With Sibel Edmonds
"Scott Horton: [P]erhaps your case is tied in with the AIPAC spy scandal?
"Sibel Edmonds: Absolutely. And I cannot go into any details. … But even the AIPAC spy scandal, as far as I'm reading today, is just touching the surface of it. It's going only to a certain degree. It doesn't go high enough, in what it involves and how far it goes, and that's as far, and the best – as far as I can explain."
What connection does Sibel Edmonds' story have to the prosecution of Larry Franklin, Steve Rosen, and Keith Weissman of the Pentagon/AIPAC spy scandal? And for that matter, to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001? The answer has something to do with international drug, weapon, and money-laundering rings, and their ties to terrorists and unnamed officials of the Departments of State and Defense. This mess also goes back to at least 1997. Sibel says that when the truth comes out, it will make the AIPAC case look "lame" by comparison. (...)
For more details, see
AIPAC follow-up
L'arsenal nucléaire israélien en centre de la guerre entre Israël et JFK
L'assassinat de JFK: une décision de l'administration Ben-Gourion
La connexion israélienne: la seule à réunir toutes les pièces du puzzle de l'assassinat de JFK
Flashback:
L'espion de l'AIPAC Steve Rosen a été inculpé après que son rôle dans la divulgation de secrets nucléaires à Israël ait été révélé. Comme on pouvait s'y attendre, le juge a
abandonné les poursuites.
La sécurité nucléaire au coeur du scandale d'espionnage à l'AIPAC
La persécution des espions de l'AIPAC relèverait de l'antisémitisme
Secrets nucléaires divulgués à Israël par les criminels habituels
Rice, Hadley, Abrams, Wolfowitz, Feith, Armitage, Rosen et Weissman devront s'expliquer en cour sur leur rôle dans le scandale d'espionnage à l'AIPAC
Le procès de deux espions de l'AIPAC pourrait être reporté
Sibel Edmonds Names Names in "States Secrets" Gallery
sott.net editors
Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:56 CST
Sibel Edmonds has recently updated her website with a gallery of
21 photographs
in 3 groups, ostensibly of parties guilty in her case. Three of the
photographs are simply question marks, for reasons as yet unknown.
As Edmonds has
said, her case involves "highly-recognizable, highly-known names", as can be confirmed below.
Current and former Pentagon and State Department officials:
Richard Perle
Douglas Feith
Eric Edelman
Marc Grossman
Brent Scowcroft
Larry Franklin
Current and former congressmen:
Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Ex-House Speaker
Roy Blount (R-MO)
Dan Burton (R-IN)
Tom Lantos (D-CA)
?
Bob Livingston (R-LA), Ex-House Speaker
Stephen Solarz (D-NY)
Think Tank members:
Graham E. Fuller - RAND
David Makovsky - WINEP
Alan Makovsky - WINEP
?
?
Yusuf Turani (President-in-exile, Turkistan)
Professor Sabri Sayari (Georgetown, WINEP)
Mehmet Eymur (Former Turkish Spy Chief MIT)
So what are these men guilty of? In response to
this summary of the allegations, Edmonds as said: "as far as published articles go, this one nails it 100%":
Sibel Edmonds, the Turkish FBI translator turned whistleblower who has
been subjected to a gag order could provide a major insight into how
neoconservatives distort US foreign policy and enrich themselves at the same time.
On one level, her story appears straightforward: several Turkish
lobbying groups allegedly bribed congressmen to support policies
favourable to Ankara. But beyond that, the Edmonds revelations become
more serpentine and appear to involve AIPAC, Israel and a number of leading neoconservatives
who have profited from the Turkish connection. Israel has long
cultivated a close relationship with Turkey since Ankara's neighbours
and historic enemies - Iran, Syria and Iraq - are also hostile to Tel
Aviv. Islamic Turkey has also had considerable symbolic value for
Israel, demonstrating that hostility to Muslim neighbours is not a sine
qua non for the Jewish state.
Turkey benefits from the relationship by securing general benevolence
and increased aid from the US Congress - as well as access to otherwise
unattainable military technology. The Turkish General Staff has a
particular interest because much of the military spending is channeled
through companies in which the generals have a financial stake, making
for a very cozy and comfortable business arrangement. The commercial
interest has also fostered close political ties, with the American
Turkish Council, American Turkish Cultural Alliance and the Assembly of
Turkish American Associations all developing warm relationships with
AIPAC and other Jewish and Israel advocacy groups throughout the US.
Someone has to be in the middle to keep the happy affair going, so enter
the neocons, intent on securing Israel against all comers and also keen
to turn a dollar. In fact the neocons seem to have a deep and abiding
interest in Turkey, which, under other circumstances, might be difficult
to explain. Doug Feith's International Advisors Inc, a registered agent for Turkey in 1989 - 1994, netted $600,000 per year from Turkey, with Richard Perle
taking $48,000 annually as a consultant. Other noted neoconservatives
linked to Turkey are former State Department number three, Marc Grossman, current Pentagon Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman, Paul Wolfowitz and former congressman Stephen Solarz.
The money involved does not appear to come from the Turkish government,
and FBI investigators are trying to determine its source and how it is
distributed. Some of it may come from criminal activity, possibly drug trafficking, but much more might come from arms dealing.
Contracts in the hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars
provide considerable fat for those well placed to benefit. Investigators
are also looking at Israel's particular expertise in the illegal sale
of US military technology to countries like China and India. Fraudulent
end-user certificates produced by Defense Ministries in Israel and
Turkey are all that is needed to divert military technology to other,
less benign, consumers. The military-industrial-complex/neocon network
is also well attested. Doug Feith has been associated with Northrup
Grumman for years, while defense contractors fund many neocon-linked
think tanks and "information" services. Feith, Perle and a number of
other neocons have long had beneficial relationships with various Israeli defense contractors. (Philip Giraldi from Cannistraro Associates, April 24 edition of The American Conservative)
While Edmonds claims the
Times published only
20% of her allegations, antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo has published a good
analysis
that gets to the heart of some of the deeper implications of her case,
including Israeli involvement in 9/11, and the
American-Israeli-Turkish-Pakistani-"Al-Qaeda" (i.e., CIA/Mossad/ISI)
terror connections.
"The next president may have to deal with a nuclear attack," averred ABC’s Charles Gibson at
Saturday
night’s Democratic presidential debate. "The day after a nuclear weapon
goes off in an American city, what would we wish we had done to prevent
it and what will we actually do on the day after?"
It’s a
question that frightens everyone, and one to which there is no easy
answer: none of the candidates really rose to the occasion, and most
seemed baffled.
Hillary Clinton made sure she used the word "
retaliation"
with unusual emphasis, and when pressed on the question of how she
would retaliate against "stateless" terrorists nevertheless insisted
that she would indeed retaliate against
someone, because the perpetrators had to have a "haven" somewhere within a state.
Yes,
well, that’s not necessarily true, but what if that "haven" is… right
here in the U.S.? Or, perhaps, in a NATO country, say, Turkey?
Say what?
Impossible, you say? Not if you believe
Sibel Edmonds, a former translator for the FBI who listened in on hundreds of telephone intercepts and has now told the London
Times
that several top U.S. government officials conspired with foreign
agents to steal U.S. nuclear secrets and sell them on the black market.
The
Times reports:
"Edmonds
described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of
U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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."
Edmonds
brought all this to the attention of
lawmakers, as well as the American media, and several news organizations filed reports – until a federal judge issued an
unprecedented gag order. Edmonds’ story was deemed too hot to handle: if the public were allowed to know what she knows,
according to our government,
America’s national security would be severely impaired. Yet now she is
speaking out, and what she has to say is unsettling, to say the least.
Edmonds has
named at least one of the officials: he is
Marc Grossman,
a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, assistant secretary of state for
European affairs under the Clinton administration and undersecretary of
state for political affairs from 2001-2005. Grossman is now vice
chairman of
The Cohen Group, a consulting firm founded by Bill Clinton’s defense secretary, William S. Cohen.
Edmonds contends
that an international nuclear smuggling ring, associated with the
intelligence agencies of Pakistan, Turkey, and Israel, has been
permitted to operate in the U.S. with impunity. Our government, she
claims, knew all about it yet, in order to placate the foreign
governments involved, allowed a vast criminal enterprise to carry out
its activities, including money laundering, narcotics trafficking, and
espionage involving efforts to steal U.S. nuclear technology.
As
a translator for the FBI, Edmonds had the task of translating many
hours of intercepted phone conversations between Turkish officials and
Pakistanis, Israelis, and Americans who were targets of the FBI’s
counterintelligence unit. Thousands of hours of intercepted calls
revealed a network of moles placed in various military installations and
academic venues dealing with nuclear technology. Edmonds gives us the
details, via the Times:
"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 [Marc Grossman] who provided some
of their moles – mainly Ph.D. 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 U.S. nuclear deterrent."
And "while the FBI
was investigating," says Edmonds, "several arms of the government were
shielding what was going on." An entire wing of the national security
bureaucracy, associated with
the neoconservatives, has long profited from representing Turkish interests in Washington: this group includes not only Grossman, but also
Paul Wolfowitz, chief intellectual architect of the Iraq war and ex-World Bank president; former deputy defense secretary for policy
Douglas J. Feith; Feith’s successor,
Eric Edelman; and
Richard Perle, the notorious uber-neocon whose
unique ability to mix profiteering and warmongering forced him to
resign his official capacity as a key administration adviser.
Edmonds
draws a picture of a three-sided alliance consisting of Turkish,
Pakistani, and Israeli agents who coordinated efforts to milk U.S.
nuclear secrets and technology, funneling the intelligence stream to the
black market nuclear network set up by the Pakistani scientist
A.Q. Khan. The multi-millionaire Pakistani nuclear scientist then turned around and sold his nuclear assets to
North Korea, Libya, and Iran.
This was no "rogue" operation, but a covert action executed by Gen.
Mahmoud Ahmad,
the chief of Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, at the time. The
Turks were used as intermediaries because direct ISI intervention would
have roused immediate suspicion. Large amounts of cash were dropped off
at the offices of Turkish-American lobbying groups, such as the
American Turkish Council in Washington, which was reportedly picked up by at least one top U.S. official.
This
Pakistani-Turkish-Israeli Axis of Espionage, operating through their
respective embassies, systematically combed Washington officialdom for
potential moles, compiling lists that, according to Edmonds and the
Times,
“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.”
Nice work, there.
This sounds a lot like the setup the handlers of
convicted spy
Larry Franklin
worked with to glean information from the rabidly pro-Israel Franklin
and pass it off to Israeli embassy officials, including former Israeli
ambassador
Danny Ayalon;
Naor Gilon, the former political officer at the embassy; and
Rafi Barak, the former deputy chief of mission. And there is indeed a connection to the Franklin case, according to the
Times,
"One
of the Pentagon figures under investigation was Lawrence Franklin, a
former Pentagon analyst, who was jailed in 2006 for passing U.S. defense
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,’ [Edmonds] said."
Franklin
delivered his "packages" to AIPAC officials
Steve Rosen and
Keith Weissman
and their Israeli handlers for ideological reasons, but others, such as
Grossman – according to Edmonds – did it for money. Grossman angrily
denies the charge. In any case, apparently large cash transactions were
recorded on the tapes Edmonds translated, in which U.S. officials were
heard selling the nation’s nuclear secrets. As the
Times relates:
"Well-known
U.S. officials were then bribed by foreign agents to steal U.S. nuclear
secrets. One such incident from 2000 involves an agent overheard on a
wiretap discussing ‘nuclear information that had been stolen from an air
force base in Alabama,’ in which the agent allegedly is heard saying:
‘We have a package and we’re going to sell it for $250,000.’"
A
vast criminal enterprise supported by at least three foreign
intelligence agencies acting in concert with top U.S. officials,
including some "household names" – if true, it’s the story of the
decade. Yet that isn’t all. The really scary aspect of this labyrinthine
network of foreign agents, and their American dupes and collaborators,
is its connections to terrorist organizations, specifically
al-Qaeda.
To begin with, Gen. Ahmad is
suspected
of having wired a large amount of money into Mohammed Atta’s Dubai bank
account shortly before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. More ominously, the
Times
reports: "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."
Pakistani and/or Turkish operatives arrested or held for questioning in the wake of the 9/11 attacks? Well, that’s the first
I’ve heard of it. However, the U.S. authorities
did round up a
large number of
Israelis, including
these guys, and held them for several months before extraditing them back to their home country.
Even more alarming is the reason Edmonds approached the
Times
with the story, "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." That’s a reference to
this Nov. 2 story in the
Times, which details the career of a top al-Qaeda kingpin, one
Louai al-Sakka,
who claims to have trained several of the 9/11 hijackers at a camp
situated outside Istanbul in the resort area of the Yalova mountains.
Now
that‘s curious: a Muslim fundamentalist training camp in a country run by a
fanatically secular military that would normally not tolerate such activities. As the
Times
puts it: "Turkish intelligence were aware of unusual militant Islamic
activity in the Yalova mountains, where Sakka had set up his camps. But
they posed no threat to Turkey at the time."
Not a threat to
Turkey, eh? All too true: the terrorists’ target was the U.S. The
al-Qaeda recruits trained by Sakka were specifically chosen by the top
leadership of al-Qaeda – i.e.,
bin Laden
– to carry out the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. That
they were nurtured and steeled for their mission under the noses of our
NATO allies in Ankara seems bizarre – until one begins to take Sibel
Edmonds seriously. Then the whole horrifying picture starts to fall into
place.
The darkest secrets of 9/11 are buried at the end of the trail laid out in Edmonds’ testimony. As
Luke Ryland, the world’s foremost expert on the Edmonds case,
writes:
"The Times article then notes something that I reported
18 months ago. Immediately after 911, the FBI arrested a bunch of
people suspected of being involved with the attacks – including four
associates of key targets of FBI’s counterintelligence operations. Sibel
heard the targets tell Marc Grossman: ‘We need to get them out of the
U.S. because we can’t afford for them to spill the beans.’ Grossman duly
facilitated their release from jail and the suspects immediately left
the country without further investigation or interrogation.
"Let
me repeat that for emphasis: The #3 guy at the State Dept. facilitated
the immediate release of 911 suspects at the request of targets of the
FBI’s investigation."
Corruption and a massive cover-up
organized at the highest levels of government – America’s nuclear
secrets and technology looted on a massive scale, and sold to our
enemies via a network set up by our alleged foreign "
friends," while the threat of nuclear terrorism hangs over our country like a thick fog of fear, and
warmongering politicians
scare us into going along with the program – if even half of what
Edmonds alleges turns out to be true, then we are all in some very big
trouble.
In light of the Edmonds revelations, we have to
reconsider the implications of the question Charles Gibson opened with
during the ABC Democratic debate:
"The day after a nuclear
weapon goes off in an American city, what would we wish we had done to
prevent it and what will we actually do on the day after?"
Perhaps congressman
Henry Waxman,
who solemnly pledged to launch a public investigation into the
allegations made by Edmonds, will wish he had kept his promise. Maybe
even the national news media, which has been offered this story
repeatedly, by Ms. Edmonds and her supporters, will wish they had covered it.
Fortunately,
we don’t need the "mainstream" media to get the truth out to the
American people. With the new technology of the computer age, we can do
an end run around the media. This YouTube video is shocking:
As
Edmonds says, "we have the facts, we have the documents, we have the
witnesses. Put out the tapes, put out the documents, put out the
intercepts – put out the truth."
If a nuke ever goes off in an
American city, it will probably have been stolen from our own arsenal –
once the American people wake up to that scary fact,
the rest will follow automatically.
David Perlmutter, professeur à l'université de l'État de Louisianne, écrivait dans le
The Los Angeles Times du 7 avril 2002:
Qu'est-ce que [Israël] va faire? J'ai d'autres rêves aussi - des rêves apocalyptiques. Je pense que: Israël construit des armes nucléaires depuis trente ans. Les juifs ont compris ce que l'acceptation passive et impuissante de leur malheur a signifié pour eux dans le passé et ils se sont assurés contreune telle éventualité. Masada n'était pas un exemple à suivre - ça n'a pas fait mal aux Romains le moins du monde, mais, Samson à Gaza? Avec une bombe H?
Qu'est-ce qui ferait mieux payer au monde haineux des juifs pour ces milliers d'années de massacres, qu'un hiver nucléaire? Ou inviter tous ces chefs d'État européens bien-pensants et des militants pacifistes à nous rejoindre dans les fours?
Pour la première fois dans l'histoire, un peuple qui a fait face à l'extermination pendant que le tout le monde ricanait ou détournait le regard ... détient le pouvoir de détruire le monde. La justice ultime?
According to Israeli historian Michael Karpin, writing in his book, The Bomb in the Basement, Ben-Gurion referred to the Jewish money lords who donated some $40 million in the 1950s (the equivalent of $250 million today) to seed the weapons program as the "makdishim," or consecrators, and to their contributions as "hakdasha," consecration. Karpin noted:
Both of these Hebrew words derive from the word kadosh, sacred, which is also the root of the world Mikdash, or Temple -- the holiest institution of Judaism. And inside the Temple is the Kodesh Hakodashim, the Holy of Holies. And like the Temple, which was erected with the contributions of the children of Israel (Exodus 25 :1), so too Israel's nuclear program would be built with contributions. In Ben-Gurion's eyes, the nuclear project was holy. [Emphasis added.]
(...)Professor David Perlmutter of Louisiana State University, writing in
The Los Angeles Times of April 7, 2002:
What [is Israel] to do? I have other dreams as well -- apocalyptic ones. I think: Israel has been building nuclear weapons for thirty years. The Jews understand what passive and powerless acceptance of doom has meant for them in the past and they have ensured against it. Masada was not an example to follow -- it hurt the Romans not a whit, but, Samson in Gaza? With an H-bomb?
What would serve the Jew-hating world better in repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a Nuclear Winter? Or invite all those tut-tutting European statesmen and peace activists to join us in the ovens?
For the first time in history, a people facing extermination while the world either cackles or looks away ... have the power to destroy the world. The ultimate justice?
