http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/1/6/154331/1458
Here's a little more on the unknown Edelman:
http://antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=8137
And some revelations of Sibel did testify to:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9774.htm
Did Speaker Hastert Accept Turkish Bribes to Deny Armenian Genocide and Approve Weapons Sales?
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/10/1346254
Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds is accusing the FBI of covering up improper contacts and financial dealings between certain Turkish nationals and the office of House Speaker Dennis Hastert. We speak with Sibel Edmonds and Vanity Fair journalist David Rose.
What is our government hiding?
Personally, I'm still amazed that Sibel Edmonds is still alive. There's obviously a reason that is very damning to this administration and the PNAC shadow government that she has been kept silent all of these years via Ashcroft's retroactive classifying of documents and testimony.UPDATE: Many have pointed out that Scooter Libby has had the lucky draw of Reggie Walton to be the judge presiding over the case Patrick Fitzgerald is bringing against him. Reggie Walton is the judge that, according to Sibel Edmonds, unfairly dismissed her lawsuit against the FBI over these issues - issues that seem to implicate Libby in a series of crimes against the United States. Judge Reggie Walton seems to be the go-to guy whenever the administration gets into legal trouble.
Gagged whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has verified that a comprehensive review of her public statements has provided one particularly dedicated blogger with the most accurate picture yet of the web of corruption she has long tried to expose.i got an email from sibel edmonds the other day after she had read some of my posts about her story - basically she wanted to let me know that i was on the right track (and that virtually no-one else is).
So what then is the "right track"? Evidently the American Turkish Council, AIPAC, the Usual Neocon Suspects (Feith/Perle/Wolfowitz/Libby) and specific high-ranking individuals including former Turkish ambassadors Eric Edelman and Marc Grossman are deeply involved in global arms smuggling, drug-dealing, money-laundering and black market nuclear sales to terrorists. Individuals involved in this crime nexus were instrumental in the outing of Valerie Plame in an effort to sabotage the work of CIA front Brewster Jennings - which was seen as increasingly threatening to them.
The bottom line seems to be that a group of influential lobbyists, high-ranking officials and diplomats in Turkey, Israel, the United States and the 'Stans --with the neocons at the center of all of it-- are caught up in a very large, fantastically lucrative and staggeringly corrupt scheme to facilitate precisely the ills (terrorism, arms proliferation, drug smuggling) these countries all claim to want stopped.
Not sure what to make of it all, but personally, I think Fitz needs to bring every last one of them in for a good long questioning.
Under oath.
Here's a little more on the unknown Edelman:
http://antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=8137
Another low-profile neocon associate who has been swept up in the Plamegate controversy is Eric Edelman, a former Cheney staffer, the previous ambassador to Turkey, and current replacement for Douglas Feith as undersecretary of defense for policy. However, as with John Bolton's appointment to the UN, Edelman was installed via a White House recess appointment.
According to the NY Times on Nov. 5, Edelman has been identified as the "then-principle deputy" of Lewis Libby in the weeks leading up to the outing of Plame, as named in the Fitzgerald indictment [.pdf]. Edelman and his boss spoke on the phone "on or about June 19, 2003, before Mr. Wilson's name became public."
It says that Mr. Edelman asked Mr. Libby in June 2003 whether information about Mr. Wilson's trip could be disclosed to the press to rebut allegations that Vice President Cheney had called for the trip. Reads the indictment:
"LIBBY spoke by telephone with his then Principal Deputy and discussed the article (in The New Republic). That official asked LIBBY whether information about Wilson's trip could be shared with the press to rebut the allegations that the VP had sent Wilson. LIBBY responded that there would be complications at the CIA in disclosing that information publicly, and that he could not discuss the matter on a non-secure phone line."
What is interesting here, aside from the cloak-and-dagger, almost Franklinesque flair of Libby, is that Edelman was no longer even supposed to be employed with him at the time: as the NYT reminds, "Mr. Edelman ceased work for Mr. Libby on June 6, 2003, to begin language training in preparation for a posting as ambassador to Turkey."
Perhaps the need for a recess appointment had to do with Edelman's dangerous failure at his previous place of employment. A 2003 article from Turkish columnist Ali Aslan remarked on how strongly Edelman, in his new role as ambassador, was disliked by Turks. During his two-year tenure in Ankara, Edelman became a lightning rod for criticism as a meddlesome, bullying diplomat who disrespected Turkish sovereignty on a number of levels. The local media laid into him on numerous occasions. Columnist Ibrahim Karagul writing in "the Islamist daily Yeni Safak, known as the unofficial mouthpiece of the Justice and Development Party (AKP)," said, "if we want to address the reasons for anti-Americanism, Edelman must be issue one. As long as Edelman stays in Turkey, the chill wind disturbing bilateral relations will last." Milliyet writer Can Dsündar added, "If Turkey today is the leader in the race of 'America-hating countries,' Edelman is a major part of it." Yeni Safak's Ahmet Kekeç, reciting a litany of abuses and revenge tactics Edelman used against the newspaper, closed by simply stating, "Edelman must go."
And go he did ? straight back into the arms of Dick Cheney and the war party, which he had already served on two occasions, first during the reign of Bush I, and again between 2001-2003 as a special assistant to Cheney. In the first period, he worked under Paul Wolfowitz in the creation of a Defense Policy Guidance that "stipulated that the U.S. should wage preventive war to maintain unchallenged U.S. military supremacy." The second time around, in the run-up to the Iraq war, Edelman played a vital role, along with Lewis Libby, Doug Feith, and other prominent neocons, in crafting the bogus rationale for war in Iraq that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. In August 2005, President Bush "used a constitutional power to bypass the Senate" in confirming Edelman as the new undersecretary of defense for policy, replacing Douglas Feith.
According to the above RightWeb article, "replacing Douglas Feith with Edelman allows the radicals running U.S. foreign policy to leave behind the controversies building around Feith and get a relatively clean start with a new undersecretary of defense for planning." However, that "relatively clean start" now seems in danger of being sullied by Edelman's as yet unknown role in L'Affaire Plame.
And some revelations of Sibel did testify to:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9774.htm
In her secure testimony, Edmonds disclosed some of what she recalled hearing. In all, says a source who was present, she managed to listen to more than 40 of the Chicago recordings supplied by Robertz. Many involved an F.B.I. target at the city?s large Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American Associates.
Some of the calls reportedly contained what sounded like references to large scale drug shipments and other crimes. To a person who knew nothing about their context, the details were confusing and it wasn?t always clear what might be significant. One name, however, apparently stood out ? a man the Turkish callers often referred to by the nickname ?Denny boy.? It was the Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. According to some of the wiretaps, the F.B.I.?s targets had arranged for tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert?s campaign funds in small checks. Under Federal Election Commission rules, donations of less than $200 are not required to be itemized in public filings.
Hastert himself was never heard in the recordings, Edmonds told investigators, and it is possible that the claims of covert payments were hollow boasts. Nevertheless, an examination of Hastert?s federal filings shows that the level of un-itemized payments his campaigns received over many years was relatively high. Between April 1996 and December 2002, un-itemized personal donations to the Hastert for Congress Committee amounted to $483,000. In contrast, un-itemized contributions in the same period to the committee run on behalf of the House majority leader, Tom Delay, Republican of Texas, were only $99,000. An analysis of the filings of four other senior Republicans shows that only one, Clay Shaw of Florida, declared a higher total in un-itemized donations than Hastert over the same period: $552,000. The other three declared far less. Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Joe Barton, of Texas, claimed $265,000; Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter, of California, got $212,000; and Ways and Means Committee chairman Bill Thomas, of California, recorded $110,000.
Edmonds reportedly added that the recordings also contained repeated references to Hastert?s flip-flop, in the fall of 2000, over an issue which remains of intense concern to the Turkish government ? the continuing campaign to have Congress designate the killings of Armenians in Turkey between 1915 and 1923 a genocide. For many years, attempts had been made to get the house to pass a genocide resolution, but they never got anywhere until August 2000, when Hastert, as Speaker, announced that he would give it his backing and see that it received a full house vote. He had a clear political reason, as analysts noted at the time: a California Republican incumbent, locked in a tight congressional race, was looking to win over his district?s large Armenian community. Thanks to Hastert, the resolution, vehemently opposed by the Turks, passed the International Relations Committee by a large majority. Then, on October 19, minutes before the full House vote, Hastert withdrew it.
At the time, he explained his decision by saying that he had received a letter from President Clinton arguing that the genocide resolution, if passed, would harm U.S. interests. Again, 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 or his campaign. Nevertheless, a senior official at the Turkish Consulate is said to have claimed in one recording that the price for Hastert to withdraw the resolution would have been at least $500,000.
Hastert?s spokesman says the congressman withdrew the genocide resolution only because of the approach from Clinton, ?and to insinuate anything else just doesn?t make any sense.? He adds that Hastert has no affiliation with the A.T.C. or other groups reportedly mentioned in the wiretaps: ?He does not know these organizations.? Hastert is ?unaware of Turkish interests making donations,? the spokesman says, and his staff has ?not seen any pattern of donors with foreign names."
Did Speaker Hastert Accept Turkish Bribes to Deny Armenian Genocide and Approve Weapons Sales?
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/10/1346254
Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds is accusing the FBI of covering up improper contacts and financial dealings between certain Turkish nationals and the office of House Speaker Dennis Hastert. We speak with Sibel Edmonds and Vanity Fair journalist David Rose.
What is our government hiding?
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