One More Reason To Win - Let Sibel Edmonds Speak

[Lev7]

ONE MORE REASON TO WIN - LET SIBEL EDMONDS SPEAK

by W. David Jenkins III

 

OpEdNews, PA

Oct 29 2006

 

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to

do nothing."

 

- Edmund Burke

 

Sibel Edmonds once told me to "put aside 9/11" and instead concentrate

on the workings of the Defense Department, amongst other government

establishments, because what she had been trying to warn people about

was considered by those involved as nothing more than "business as

usual." That was the real danger. What she had discovered during

her short time with the FBI was so threatening to those doing such

"business" that former Attorney General, John Ashcroft, couldn't

slap a gag order on her (and Congress) fast enough. But a lot of us

already know that.

 

Truth be known, Dennis Hastert has a hell of a lot more to worry about

than the Mark Foley scandal. In fact, he may be seeing the writing

on the wall regarding his soon departure from Congress as a welcome

relief. However, that result is not only contingent upon a Democratic

win in November, but a Democratic majority willing to dig through

the tangled mess that is Turkish and American "business relations."

 

Now, one must understand why Turkey is a big player, albeit a

clandestine one, on the world stage; that would be the desperate

need for security and acceptance. Turkey shares with Israel common

enemies such as Syria, Iran and Iraq and maintains relations in the

U.S. in order to secure financial aid and military technology. These

relations are enhanced by corporations, lobbyists and conservative

think tanks who share a mutual interest in geo-political advantage

in the Middle East as well as making some big money.

 

These relations are connected between former and present Defense

Dept. members, The Project for a New American Century members, AIPAC,

MIC Inc., Jack Abramoff, The Livingston Group and others. In other

words, the more you dig the bigger the headache you may succumb to,

yet you'll get an idea of how intertwined all the players are. Would

you like to go for a little ride? Let's start with Hastert.

 

The House Speaker has received contributions from Turkish sources

to the tune of at least $500,000 and Edmonds knows that there are

tapes from wiretaps that will back up this claim. One of the groups

who bragged on those tapes about these illegal contributions was the

American Turkish Council (ATC) but Hastert denies any ties to this or

other Turkish groups. Yet between 1996 and 2002, Hastert made multiple

trips to Turkey and would return home with so many "gifts" that his

support staff was surprised that the "plane even got off the ground."

 

In turn, Hastert has been very helpful to Turkey by using his authority

to pull Congressional backing for a resolution recognizing the Armenian

genocide. Hastert, of course has denied this.

 

On June 3, 2003, Hastert's political action committee held a $1500

a plate fundraiser at Jack Abramoff's restaurant where he received

large donations from, among others, one Duane R. Gibson. Gibson is a

consultant with the Livingston Group who has been lobbying on behalf of

Turkey for about six years at the cost of $1.2 million a year. The only

problem is that the money is not coming from the Turkish government

and of course the FBI wants to know exactly who is shelling out all

the dough. This is what Edmonds refers to as "business as usual" and

what is behind the facade in all of this is obviously so threatening,

that the government felt it necessary to implement an extraordinary

gag order on Sibel and threaten members of her family.

 

Admittedly, the American - Turkish "connection" doesn't make for

glamorous news when put up against Iraq, Iran or North Korea but many

of the players in those headlines are also involved with Turkey. And if

there was an active, inquisitive and motivated Congress in DeeCeeVille

right now then people might recognize the threat that so far remains

under the radar.

 

Sibel stated many times that when certain intelligence regarding

illegal activities (drug or illegal arms trafficking etc.) which

benefited alleged terrorist sponsors and that same intelligence

also implicated "certain allies or business interests" then that

intelligence was not passed on to counter-terrorism agents in the

field. Turkish front groups under surveillance by the FBI (ATC

and ATAA) were making large payments to officials high up in the

government as well as lobbyists with connections to some of these same

officials. These same groups were also nuzzling up to groups like

AIPAC who had a mutual desire to embrace certain business interests

that could enhance their pursuit of intelligence, influence and aid

against common enemies.

 

With the rise to power of the neo-conservatives years ago and their

drive to secure dominance in the Middle East, these front groups found

new opportunities now that the American government was infiltrated

with many of their "business partners." Douglass Feith and Richard

Perle (PNAC), infamous for their push into Iraq, were also recipients

of hundreds of thousands of dollars from Turkish interests prior to

joining the Bush Gang.

 

Other groups with long ties to Turkey as well as upper offices in the

government consist of the aforementioned Livingston Group, Solarz &

Associates, and The Cohen Group. All three are top members of the

American Turkish Council with Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group,

Joseph Ralston, sitting on their board of advisors. Getting pretty

tangled up, huh?

 

One other firm I want to point out is the neo-con group, M.I.C.

Industries Inc. who boast of some "Ultimate Building Machine" on their

web site (it was worth a $60 million contract with Russia back in

'97). Their board consists of amongst others, William Cohen (Cohen

Group/ATC) and Richard Armitage (PNAC/Valerie Plame outing) and is

headed up by one Michael Ansari who once teamed up with Alexander Haig

in a corporation called US-CIS Venture Inc. which was established to

assist in "developments" in Central Asia as well as establishing oil

and gas pipeline projects through the region. M.I.C.

 

Inc. is also one of the Livingston Group's top clients.

 

These are some of the "business interests" I believe Edmonds' was

speaking of and here's why.

 

Enormous amounts of money are being funneled to top government

officials and certain businesses whose members consist of former

Defense Dept. officials, State Dept. officials and conservative think

tanks that have a common interest in Turkey and Israel (in this case)

and other countries that play a strategic part in a geo-political

"business" plan. However, this money is not coming from those

particular governments in question.

 

Currently, according to former CIA agent Philip Giraldi, there is an

investigation into Israel's illegal sale of U.S. military technology

to countries like China and India. The companies mentioned in this

article also have ties to the defense industry through their members'

history in government service - who also share close ties with Turkish

front groups (as well as an alliance with AIPAC and JINSA) currently

under investigation by the FBI. That these Turkish groups would be

involved in the same illegal sales with the aid of the aforementioned

businesses is not that difficult of a dot to connect as it definitely

reflects the "can of worms" that Edmonds' superiors at the FBI did

not want opened. It's also worth mentioning that Turkey is a large

hub in the drugs coming out of Afghanistan and Edmonds has alluded

to the drug trade in her past statements.

 

Yet, fellow FBI translator Malek Can Dickerson, who had encouraged

Sibel to join the ATC, was suppressing intelligence Edmonds was

uncovering regarding these front groups and their relationship to

"certain allies and American business interests" in deference to the

very organizations that the FBI had under investigation.

 

One can look back at the names mentioned in this criminal activity and

notice that many of the players were involved in the more glamorous

stories in the news over the past years. Armitage (MIC Inc./PNAC)

leaking the name of a CIA operative who was investigating arms

trafficking to Iran and Feith and Perle (IA Inc./PNAC) who were

instrumental in the invasion of Iraq and who are pushing for an attack

on Iran are just three of the most notorious examples.

 

One other thing I want to point out is the sorry state of affairs

when it comes to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Unit

database which is maintained by the Dept. of Justice. This database

contains the "who and how much" when it comes to "foreign investment"

in exchange for representation in DeeCeeVille.

 

Luke Ryland (wotisitgood4.blogspot.com), who has done some remarkable

and detailed work on the Edmonds story, pointed out on his blog

that the "huge database that serves as the public's lone window on

lobbying activities by foreign governments has been allowed to decay

to a point they cannot even make a copy of its contents" according

to a report by the Center for Public Integrity in June of '04. Even

worse, as far as we know, that system is still operating on Windows

95. So much for investing in technology to fight the "war on terror."

 

Sibel stated in an interview back in late '05 that "You can start

from the AIPAC angle. You can start from the Plame case. You can

start from my case. They all end up going to the same place, and they

revolve around the same nucleus of people. There may be a lot of them,

but it is one group. And they are very dangerous for all of us."

 

I can't think of a better reason to take back the Congress.

 

www.wdavidjenkins3.com

 

W.David Jenkins III is a writer/activist living in upstate N.Y. His

work has appeared in "Big Bush Lies" (Riverwood Books) and "The Girl

with Yellow Flowers in Her Hair" (Pitchfork Publishers). He also has

a regular column at oldamericancentury.org.

 

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_w_...reason_to_w.htm

[Stormig]

More like a reason to decriminalise certain plants and smoke home-grown.

 

For relatively less sensationalist past entries regarding Sibel Edmonds:

 

http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=48...mp;#entry138231

 

http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=48...mp;#entry138449

[Yervant1]

FBI WHISTLEBLOWER SIBEL EDMONDS WILL NOW TELL ALL, NAME NEW NAMES

by Brad Friedman

 

Huffington Post, NY

Oct 30 2007

 

to Any Major Television Network That Will Let Her

 

Will Release the Identity of Two 'Well-Known' Congress Members Involved

in Criminal Corruption...and Much More

 

The 'Most Gagged Person in U.S. History' Tells The BRAD BLOG She's

Now Exhausted All Other Channels...

 

Attention CBS 60 Minutes: we've got a huge scoop for you. If you

want it.

 

Remember the exclusive story you aired on Sibel Edmonds, originally on

October 27th, 2002, when she was not allowed to tell you everything

that she heard while serving as an FBI translator after 9/11 because

she was gagged by the rarely-invoked "States Secret Privilege"? Well,

she's still gagged. In fact, as the ACLU first described her,

she's "the most gagged person in the history of the United States

of America."

 

But if you'll sit down and talk with her for an unedited interview,

she has now told The BRAD BLOG during an exclusive interview, she

will now tell you everything she knows.

 

Everything she hasn't been allowed to tell since 2002, about

the criminal penetration of the FBI where she worked, and at the

Departments of State and Defense; everything she heard concerning

the corruption and illegal activities of several well-known members

of Congress; everything she's aware of concerning information omitted

and/or covered up in relation to 9/11. All of the information gleaned

from her time listening to and translating wire-taps made prior to

9/11 at the FBI.

 

Here's a handy bullet-point list, as we ran it in March of 2006,

for reference, of what she's now willing to tell you about.

 

"People say, 'why doesn't she just come forward and spill the beans?'

I have gone all the way to the Supreme Court and was shut down, I

went to Congress and now consider that shut down," she told The BRAD

BLOG last week when we spoke with her for comments in relation to our

story on former House Speaker Dennis Hastert's original attempt to

move a resolution through the U.S. House in 2000 declaring the 1915

massacre of 1.5 million ethnic Armenians in Turkey as "genocide."

 

"Here's my promise to the American Public: If anyone of the major

networks -- ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, FOX -- promise to air the

entire segment, without editing, I promise to tell them everything

that I know," about everything mentioned above, she told us.

 

"I can tell the American public exactly what it is, and what it is that

they are covering up," she continued. "I'm not compromising ongoing

investigations," Edmonds explained, because "they've all been shut

down since." ...

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedma...-e_b_70383.html

 

Another link which gives more info!

 

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/10/29/18456932.php

Edited October 31, 2007 by Yervant1

[MosJan]

FOR SALE: WEST’S DEADLY NUCLEAR SECRETS

 

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.

[Aratta-Kingdom]

Official Documents Confirm Major Criminal Investigations of Turkish Operatives in Chicago

 

AsbarezOnline

 

 

 

Newly Released FBI Documents Support Explosive Claims by Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds

 

From BoilingFrogPosts.com

Recently released FBI documents prove the existence of highly sensitive National Security and criminal investigations of "Turkish Activities" in Chicago prior to September 11, 2001. These documents add further support to many of the allegations that former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds has claimed, in public and in Congress, since 2002. The documents were released under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request into an organization called the Turkish American Cultural Alliance (TACA), an organization repeatedly named by Ms. Edmonds as being complicit in the crimes that she became aware of when she was a translator at the FBI.

 

The documents released under FOIA are almost completely redacted, but they do support many of Edmonds' claims, including:

 

There were a number of very serious FBI investigations into "Turkish activity in Chicago" involving a number of targets, including TACA

 

These investigations were related to "National Security" among other things.

 

These investigations were regarded as so sensitive that no files were to be uploaded to FBI's computer system.

 

Congressional corruption was involved.

 

The FBI repeatedly conducted actual "physical surveillance" against Turkish and American targets.

 

Some of these investigations were shut down in 2001.

 

The documents comprise primarily of internal FBI ECs (Electronic Communications) between FBI offices. Most of the ECs are titled "Turkish American Cultural Association" although one from Feb 2000 is titled "Turkish Investigations in Chicago" which indicates that there were at least seven different pending investigations into Turkish activity in Chicago, and another later document from July 2001 indicates that there were at least ten investigations into TACA alone.

 

The earliest document is a November 1999 EC from the FBI's National Security Division (NS-2D) to FBI field offices in Chicago, Washington DC, Los Angeles and New York (although there is a referenceto a September 1999 EC from NSD.) The timing is significant. In an article in The American Conservative by Phil Giraldi, Ms. Edmonds notes that although there were investigations into Turkish activity dating back to 1996, most of that activity was being monitored by Counter-Intelligence based on FISA warrants because the main targets were foreigners, however in 1999 investigations were opened into 'US Persons' and "they wiretapped the congressmen directly."

 

The FBI was obviously concerned about 'campaign donations' being paid to Congressional Representatives by these groups. Ms. Edmonds has repeatedly referred to certain groups making "different kinds of campaign contributions – legal and illegal, declared and undeclared" to various congressional members. Two days after an EC from the National Security Division, Chicago reviewed the Federal Electoral Commission (FEC) database which contains details of donations to congressional campaigns. Chicago was apparently interested in donations made by "three individuals who attended the meeting at TACA."

 

The FBI was also interested in the leadership of TACA. One EC notes that TACA held elections in 2000 and provides a list of all the newly elected officials. The EC states "Most pertinent to the above investigations was the fact that REDACTED had been REDACTED." We know that Mehmet Celebi was elected President of TACA at that meeting. Ms. Edmonds has previously referred to Celebi as a key player in the Turkish mafia in the US, noting that the Celebi family is involved in arms and heroin trafficking. Celebi was also Vice-President of the Assembly of Turkish-American Associations (ATAA), another organization named by Ms. Edmonds and others as being involved in various criminal activities.

 

In 2008, Celebi briefly received some attention when he was key fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, and was nominated as one of Clinton's Chicago delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. He was eventually kicked out of the Clinton campaign because of the scrutiny.

 

At the time, Ms. Edmonds said:

 

"

In 2005, Vanity Fair

reported

that Dennis Hastert had been bribed by Turkish interests. If people want to investigate this further they should FOIA the FBI's Chicago Field Office for information regarding Mehmet Celebi going back to 1997. If the FBI is honest, there will be boxes and boxes of files responsive to these FOIA requests.

"

 

Famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg once said that "Sibel says that suitcases of cash have been delivered to the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, at his home, near Chicago, from Turkish sources, knowing that a lot of that is drug money."

 

The aforementioned Vanity Fair article, apparently trying to dodge some potential legal liability, suggested that "the reported content of the Chicago wiretaps may well have been sheer bravado, and there is no evidence that any payment was ever made to Hastert," however a July 2001 EC regarding the "Statistical Accomplishments" of the TACA case notes that there were thirteen separate instances of actual 'Physical Surveillance' in the TACA case alone, suggesting that the FBI may very well have first-hand evidence of some of these crimes.

 

One fascinating feature of many of these documents is that many of them ominously warn about the sensitivity of the investigation. A typical warning reads:

 

"

Extreme caution must be exercised in the handling of sensitive information contained within. No material pertaining to this investigation is to be computer uploaded. Information concerning this REDACTED investigation is not to be shared with CID (Criminal Investigation Division) absent FBIHQ/DOJ concurrence.

"

 

Ms. Edmonds has often stated that these investigations into illegal Turkish activity were shut down by the White House and State Department in 2001 and 2002, but that the FBI Chicago Office fought to keep them open. Two of the ten cases related to TACA were officially closed by Chicago in July 2001, however even the documents relating to these 'closed' cases still warned that the information required 'extreme caution' and were not to be uploaded or shared with CID.

 

Asked to comment on these new documents, Ms. Edmonds replied:

 

"

Finally! I've been saying this for years, and now we finally have documented proof from the FBI of this Turkish criminal activity based in Chicago.

 

This is fantastic, but even this is only the tip of the iceberg. The main question is this: Why has the White House and the State Dept been so determined to shut these investigations down? They shut down these investigations at the FBI, they shut me down with the State Secrets Privilege.

 

What are they hiding? Chicago was the center of it all, Chicago was the center of the foreign espionage activity, and the center for money laundering, and also a major heroin distribution center. Celebi was a key player, but Dennis Hastert, Mayor Daley, Robert Creamer and other US officials also helped facilitate these activities. When will we see some accountability?

"

 

That is the ultimate question. We now have even more evidence of these crimes – but there is still no sign of any accountability. What will it take?

[Aratta-Kingdom]

Sibel Edmonds Speaks

 

http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=22301