[silk] FBI buries docs showing US officials stole nuke secrets?

[Srini Ramakrishnan]

I always thought it was the Chinese who sold the nuke to PK!

Cheeni


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3216737.ece

Also on BB, http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/19/fbi-buries-docs-show.html


>From The Sunday Times
January 20, 2008

FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft

The FBI has been accused of covering up a file detailing government
dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets INSIGHT

THE FBI has been accused of covering up a key case file detailing
evidence against corrupt government officials and their dealings with
a network stealing nuclear secrets.

The assertion follows allegations made in The Sunday Times two weeks
ago by Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistleblower, who worked on the agency's
investigation of the network.

Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator, listened
into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at
the agency's Washington field office.

She says the FBI was investigating a Turkish and Israeli-run network
that paid high-ranking American officials to steal nuclear weapons
secrets. These were then sold on the international black market to
countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023.
Last week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information
request for a file of exactly the same number by claiming that it did
not exist. But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an
FBI official showing the existence of the file.

Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up by
the FBI because its contents are explosive. She accuses the agency of
an "outright lie".

"I can tell you that that file and the operations it refers to did
exist from 1996 to February 2002. The file refers to the
counterintelligence programme that the Department of Justice has
declared to be a state secret to protect sensitive diplomatic
relations," she said.

The freedom of information request had not been initiated by Edmonds.
It was made quite separately by an American human rights group called
the Liberty Coalition, acting on a tip-off it received from an
anonymous correspondent.

The letter says: "You may wish to request pertinent audio tapes and
documents under FOIA from the Department of Justice, FBI-HQ and the
FBI Washington field office."

It then makes a series of allegations about the contents of the file b
many of which corroborate the information that Edmonds later made
public.

Edmonds had told this newspaper that members of the Turkish political
and diplomatic community in the US had been actively acquiring nuclear
secrets. They often acted as a conduit, she said, for Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's spy agency, because they attracted less
suspicion.

She claimed corrupt government officials helped the network, and
venues such as the American-Turkish Council (ATC) in Washington were
used as drop-off points.

The anonymous letter names a high-level government official who was
allegedly secretly recorded speaking to an official at the Turkish
embassy between August and December 2001.

It claims the government official warned a Turkish member of the
network that they should not deal with a company called Brewster
Jennings because it was a CIA front company investigating the nuclear
black market. The official's warning came two years before Brewster
Jennings was publicly outed when one of its staff, Valerie Plame, was
revealed to be a CIA agent in a case that became a cause cC)lC(bre in
the US.

The letter also makes reference to wiretaps of Turkish "targets"
talking to ISI intelligence agents at the Pakistani embassy in
Washington and recordings of "operatives" at the ATC.

Edmonds is the subject of a number of state secret gags preventing her
from talking further about the investigation she witnessed.

"I cannot discuss the details considering the gag orders," she said,
"but I reported all these activities to the US Congress, the inspector
general of the justice department and the 9/11 commission. I told them
all about what was contained in this case file number, which the FBI
is now denying exists.

"This gag was invoked not to protect sensitive diplomatic relations
but criminal activities involving US officials who were endangering US
national security."

Insight: Chris Gourlay, Jonathan Calvert and Joe Lauria

----- End forwarded message -----
-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE