Sibel Edmonds story picked up by Military.com

besides the articles from last year in the uk times (i've posted extensively on sibel - see here for the full list), this is some of the first exposure edmonds has gotten in the u.s. from other than weblogs and alternative news media, altho' i'm not sure military.com exactly qualifies as "traditional" news media...

anywayz...

In sworn testimony to attorneys on Aug. 8, Sibel Edmonds described a Pentagon where key personnel helped pass defense secrets to foreign agents or provided them names of knowledgeable officials who were vulnerable to blackmail or co-option.

And firmly rooted in this espionage program in the 1990s, according to Edmonds’ deposition, were two men who, with the election of George W. Bush as president in 2000, found themselves in the Pentagon: Douglas Feith, who would head the Office of Special Plans, and Richard Perle, who would become chairman of the Defense Advisory Board.

"They were 100 percent directly involved," Edmonds told Military.com. "They were not in the Pentagon [in the late 1990s] but they had their people inside the Pentagon." One of those people, she said, was Larry Franklin, an Air Force officer assigned to the Office of Special Plans who, in 2003, passed classified information to representatives of the American Israel Public Affairs Office, or AIPAC. By then Feith was leading the OSP.

Edmonds cautioned that she does not know if these practices are continuing, since she was fired by the FBI in April 2002 after pressing for an investigation into an attempt by a colleague to recruit her for an organization that was itself a target of FBI surveillance.

Perle, today a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and board member for or adviser to other think tanks, including the National Institute for Neareast Affairs and the Center for Security Policy, emphatically denied Edmonds’ claims in an interview with Military.com.

“This woman is a nutcase. Certifiable,” Perle said. “She makes wild accusations. She was fired from her job, and has been on a vendetta against … imagined demons ever since.”

Feith, in an email to Military.com, said: “What I’ve read on the Internet about Ms. Edmonds’s claims about me is wildly false and bizarre.”

"nutcase"...
"certifiable"...
"wild accusations"...
"imagined demons"...
"wildly false"...
"bizarre"...

interesting terms from two of the most vicious neocon nuts to ever fall from the wingnut tree...

edmonds obviously knows something of value or she wouldn't have been slapped with a "state secrets" gag order after her firing... she also has a very credible corroborator who is still working in the system...

One of Edmonds’ believers is John M. Cole, a former FBI counterintelligence analyst and author of “While America Sleeps: An FBI Whistleblower's Story.” Cole, who worked for the bureau 18 years and now works for the Defense Intelligence Agency at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., said the pattern of espionage described by Edmonds is familiar to him.

“In the 1990s I was responsible for Western Europe and Israel [counterintelligence cases],” Cole told Military.com. “We did have ongoing investigations of officials in the State Department and also the Department of Defense.” And he said cases did extend outside the Pentagon, to various Air Force Bases and the RAND Corp. – something Edmonds also stated in her testimony.

one of these days, this is going to pop open like the festering sore it is, preferably sooner than later...

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At least ONE country believes in accountability and the rule of law - too bad it's not the U.S.

let's get this party started...

scott horton in the daily beast...

The Bush Six to Be Indicted

Scott Horton is a law professor and writer on legal and national-security affairs for Harper's magazine and The American Lawyer, among other publications.

Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo, several reliable sources close to the investigation have told The Daily Beast. Their decision is expected to be announced on Tuesday before the Spanish central criminal court, the Audencia Nacional, in Madrid. But the decision is likely to raise concerns with the human-rights community on other points: They will seek to have the case referred to a different judge.

Both Washington and Madrid appear determined not to allow the pending criminal investigation to get in the way of improved relations.

The six defendants - in addition to Gonzales, Federal Appeals Court Judge and former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, University of California law professor and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, former Defense Department general counsel and current Chevron lawyer William J. Haynes II, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff David Addington, and former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith - are accused of having given the green light to the torture and mistreatment of prisoners held in U.S. detention in "the war on terror." The case arises in the context of a pending proceeding before the court involving terrorism charges against five Spaniards formerly held at Guantánamo. A group of human-rights lawyers originally filed a criminal complaint asking the court to look at the possibility of charges against the six American lawyers. Baltasar Garzón Real, the investigating judge, accepted the complaint and referred it to Spanish prosecutors for a view as to whether they would accept the case and press it forward. "The evidence provided was more than sufficient to justify a more comprehensive investigation," one of the lawyers associated with the prosecution stated.

But prosecutors will also ask that Judge Garzón, an internationally known figure due to his management of the case against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and other high-profile cases, step aside. The case originally came to Garzón because he presided over efforts to bring terrorism charges against the five Spaniards previously held at Guantánamo. Spanish prosecutors consider it "awkward" for the same judge to have both the case against former U.S. officials based on the possible torture of the five Spaniards at Guantánamo and the case against those very same Spaniards. A source close to the prosecution also noted that there was concern about the reaction to the case in some parts of the U.S. media, where it had been viewed, incorrectly, as a sort of personal frolic of Judge Garzón. Instead, the prosecutors will ask Garzón to transfer the case to Judge Ismail Moreno, who is currently handling an investigation into kidnapping charges surrounding the CIA's use of facilities as a safe harbor in connection with the seizure of Khalid el-Masri, a German greengrocer who was seized and held at various CIA blacksites for about half a year as a result of mistaken identity. The decision on the transfer will be up to Judge Garzón in the first instance, and he is expected to make a quick ruling. If he denies the request, it may be appealed.

i'm happy to take accountability and the rule of law where and when i can get it, even if it's spain picking up the baton to indict officials from my country...

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First, kill all the lawyers: Spain considers filing criminal charges against Gonzales, Feith, Addington, Yoo, Bybee, and Haynes

whatever comes of it, it's the right thing to do...

A Spanish court has agreed to consider opening a criminal case against six former Bush administration officials, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, over allegations they gave legal cover for torture at Guantanamo Bay, a lawyer in the case said Saturday.

[...]

The ex-Bush officials are Gonzales; former undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith; former Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff David Addington; Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee; and Pentagon lawyer William Haynes.

[...]

[T]he country's record in prosecuting such cases has been spotty at best, with only one suspect extradited to Spain so far.

[...]

Even if indictments are eventually handed down against the U.S. officials, it is far from clear whether arrests would ever take place. The officials would have to travel outside the United States and to a country willing to take them into custody before possible extradition to Spain.

[...]

Boye said he expected the National Court to take the case forward, and dismissed concerns that it would harm bilateral relations between the two countries.

He said that some of the victims of the alleged torture were Spaniards, strengthening the argument for Spanish jurisdiction.

"When you bring a case like this you can't stop to make political judgments as to how it might affect bilateral relations between countries," he told the AP." It's too important for that."

Boye noted that the case was brought not against interrogators who might have committed crimes but by the lawyers and other high-placed officials who gave cover for their actions.

"Our case is a denunciation of lawyers, by lawyers, because we don't believe our profession should be used to help commit such barbarities," he said.

yes, absolutely... it's too important to let political considerations get in the way... why is that so hard to understand in my own country...?

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Bill Moyers talks with Philippe Sands on the criminal complicity of Bush administration officials in authorizing torture

On Bill Moyers Journal, human rights lawyer Phillipe Sands discusses his new book on how the U.S. came to abandon the Geneva Convention and accept torture. Sands says Bush administration officials are unwilling to accept responsibility for their actions.

(thanks to think progress...)

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Doing an end-run around the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on torture

great god... it just gets worse and worse and worse...


General Richard Myers, chairman
of the US joint chiefs of staff from
2001 to 2005

from saturday's guardian...

America's most senior general was "hoodwinked" by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners, the Guardian reveals today.

General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture.

The way he was duped by senior officials in Washington, who believed the Geneva conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date, is disclosed in a devastating account of their role, extracts of which appear in today's Guardian.

In his new book, Torture Team, Philippe Sands QC, professor of law at University College London, reveals that:

· Senior Bush administration figures pushed through previously outlawed measures with the aid of inexperienced military officials at Guantánamo.

· Myers believes he was a victim of "intrigue" by top lawyers at the department of justice, the office of vice-president Dick Cheney, and at Donald Rumsfeld's defence department.

· The Guantánamo lawyers charged with devising interrogation techniques were inspired by the exploits of Jack Bauer in the American TV series 24.

· Myers wrongly believed interrogation techniques had been taken from the army's field manual.

The lawyers, all political appointees, who pushed through the interrogation techniques were Alberto Gonzales, David Addington and William Haynes. Also involved were Doug Feith, Rumsfeld's under-secretary for policy, and Jay Bybee and John Yoo, two assistant attorney generals.

there simply aren't words to adequately describe just how DESPICABLE these people are...

here's a thought from juan cole who, rightly, bemoans our country's failure to hold these criminals to account...

Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, is quoted as saying that the perpetrators of torture could well be arrested and tried in other countries as war criminals if they travel abroad. It is an index of the despotism to which the United States has fallen victim that we must hope for other, more civilized countries, to try our war criminals. Why can't public officials be prosecuted for violating the Bill of Rights' guarantee against cruel and unusual torture? Why can't an International Military Tribunal be set up as at Nuremberg?

they simply MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE...

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Awwwwww... Wolfie says he's getting SMEARED...

i simply cannot fathom how he could think that... when george made the nomination, the world financial community was very unhappy about it... his tenure so far has been marked by cronyism and chronic employee dissatisfaction... he has assiduously tried to impose an ideological agenda on the bank... and we haven't even gotten to the girlfriend problem yet... but SMEARED...? uh, no... i don't think so...

Embattled World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz said Monday he was the victim of a trumped up "smear campaign" aimed at forcing him to resign his position.

And signalling his intention to fight allegations that he improperly pushed a generous pay package for his girlfriend, the World Bank chief said he would not quit amid such "bogus charges."

"The goal of this smear campaign, I believe, is to create a self-fulfilling prophecy that I am an ineffective leader and must step down for that reason alone," Wolfowitz said in a statement to a World Bank investigatory committee.

"I, for one, will not give into such tactics," the former Pentagon deputy defense secretary vowed, as the panel met to weigh Wolfowitz's actions.

"And, I will not resign in the face of a plainly bogus charge of conflict of interest," he stressed.

and, remember, all of the above has come AFTER his major role in championing and leading the united states into an illegal war in iraq, along with his buds, cheney, feith and perle... he doesn't need to be smeared... the facts are plain...

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"The chorus of liars is gone"

the title of robert dreyfuss' alternet post is...

No One's Drinking Bush's Kool-Aid on Iran

It was, President Bush must have been thinking, a heck of a lot easier five years ago. Back in 2002, the president had a smoothly running lie factory humming along in the Pentagon, producing reams of fake intelligence about Iraq, led by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith and his Office of Special Plans. Back then, he had a tightly knit cabal of neoconservatives, led by I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, based in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, to carry out a coordinated effort to distribute the lies to the media. And he had a chorus of yes-men in the Republican-controlled Congress ready to echo the party line.

In 2007, Bush stands nearly alone, and he never looked lonelier than during a bumbling, awkward news conference on the Iraq-Iran tangle Wednesday.

[...]

Those prone to believe, along with the president, that Iran is fomenting the violence in Iraq have already drunk deep of the neocon Kool-Aid. The rest of us can only shake our heads in wonder that the president thinks he can get away with this.

i wouldn't go so far as to say he's standing alone or that no one's drinking his kool-aid... not when you've got michael gordon in the nyt to shill for you...

Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says

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