FBI buries docs showing US officials stole nuke secrets?
Link (Thanks, Bill)
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”.
(Image: NAM---Mk-5-Nuclear-Bomb, a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike photo from Marshall Astor - Food Pornographer's Flickr stream)
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OMG. The FBI lying? What is the world coming to?
well, regardless of thier current instabilities and dubious long-term commitments to medium-term US policy goals, they can't be much worse then the relatively unknown mujahedin we supported aginst the soviets for like goals. or, say, the young, ambitious and relatively unknown saddam hussein we supported against the iranians for like goals.
oh... wait. they aren't relatively unknown, are they? hm. and those are, er, much bigger boombooms.
whatcouldpossiblygowrongright?
well, regardless of thier current instabilities and dubious long-term commitments to medium-term US policy goals, they can't be much worse then the relatively unknown mujahedin we supported aginst the soviets for like goals. or, say, the young, ambitious and relatively unknown saddam hussein we supported against the iranians for like goals.
oh... wait. they aren't relatively unknown, are they? hm. and those are, er, much bigger boombooms.
whatcouldpossiblygowrongright?
woops. sorry for the double post. i'm sure it'll totally distract from the vast number of items of popular national coverage we'll see over the next few days.
not much to add except what's new? The U.S. has been giving it's secrets to the wrong people for a long time, either by design, by accident, or by deeds done by some greedy underpaid federal employee. Not to mention our flight schools training terrorists and our universities educating them. ho hum
The Israelis are selling nuclear secrets to the Saudis and Pakistanis?
William Langewiesche's excellent book on Pakistan's nuclear program just came out in May 2007, The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor.
Sadly, Seymour Hersh's 1991 book The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal & American Foreign Policy appears to be out of print. It documents at length who knew what when, and how the CIA came to understand it shouldn't tell the president things he didn't want to hear, even back in the 60s.
p180: "It was widely believed, the Israeli added, that the first warhead had the following phrase welded, in Hebrew and English, onto its exterior: NEVER AGAIN."
I recommend both of the above highly. Does anyone know of equivalent books about India, South Africa, or possibly Brazil's programs?
I haven't read Richard Rhodes' trilogy The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, and recent Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race, but would like to get to them someday.
The technically inclined may also enjoy Robert Serber's The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on How To Build an Atomic Bomb.
Hey Robot Friends,
It's real nice that you know enough history and current events that being glum about some under-reported fucked up shit is oh-so-easy.
However, I ask you to put down your joysticks for a minute and take a serious look at this story. It's roots have been simmering in the independent media for some time now, and this revelation by the foreign press could very well be the kick that's needed to put this story where it needs to be: on every front page.
I will say this in an effort to inspire something beyond apathy. The leading character in this saga is a former FBI CI agent by the name of Sibel Edmonds. She claims to have firsthand knowledge that Richerd Pearle, Marc Grossman, and Richard Feith, among others are actively involved in the black market of drugs, weapons, and nuclear secrets in collusion with the Turkish government/ mafia. Sounds like another nutcase, I know. But here's the thing the State department shut down her criminal investigation and gave her a gag order in the name of national security. All she has asked for is the right to testify. She was even called to give a disposition by in the lawsuit filed by the families of 911 and was forbidden to do so in the name of State Secrets. Two U.S. senators, the Office of Inspector General have stated on the record that based upon the evidence they were presented that Edmond was telling the truth. Her accounts have also been corroborated by numerous FBI agents.
We are talking about a criminal enterprise involving our highest officials and the world's most dangerous criminals for the sole purpose of profit.
All the investigations have been done. This story could be the wedge that cracks some light on the classified evidence. All we need is a good dose of outrage and we could have some of our biggest neocon assholes in prison.
I know, I know... I'm a dreamer.
P.S. Valerie Plame was the CIA agent investigating the nuclear secrets part of this mess, just so you know.
a secret israeli turkish cabal buying nuclear secrets from american neo-cons and selling them to pakistan on the international black market
and there's a government cover up!
aaaaaaaaaaaah!
too many possibilities for mocking
my head is going to explode
Nice summary earthmann, I think you presented it well.
Much may be accomplished by doing nothing -- Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons.
(BTW, Hersh's Samson Option is readily available via ABE.)
It's about time Sibel made it to the pages of BoingBoing. Her story goes a whole lot deeper than what is outlined here. Think 9/11. Think T-R-E-A-S-O-N at the highest levels.
Let's not forget the footnote to this story: William Gibson submitted it. He still seems to be obsessing about the world's weird and terrifying spy networks. As someone who loved Pattern Recognition and Spook Country, that's got me really excited about whatever he's writing now - hopefully another book in the same universe to round out a trilogy.
#8 posted by earthmann:
Welcome to the U.S. Govt. especially (but definitely not exclusively to) under the Bush regimes. Skull & Bones is a death cult, after all; what do you expect?
" Gur Jrngure Haqretebhaq " ( ► ROT13 ) tried to start a revolution to stop this evil some time ago (there's a stunning documentary on them in the torrents if you are curious), but the American sheeple yawned and turned the channel.
The struggle hobbles and continues... meanwhile, worldwide death & destruction mount. Our founding fathers would be so proud of us sheeple.
British press confirmation
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/British_media_confirms_FBI_whistleblower_Edmonds_0120.html
I never cease to be amazed by some people's limited range of reaction. Either, when presented with a "truth", they either have the "Well-whats-new" or the "Well-if-that-was-true-there-would-be-an-outrage."
There are degrees of fucked-upness, as I hope Bush has taught us well by now.
And how can we expect others to preserve the capacity for outrage, when we ourselves have lost it on our way to becoming world-wise, system-savvy.
I again encourage you to delve into this story. It really is quite something.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
http://nasathermalimages.com
#16 posted by earthmann:
earthmann, I have delved... and if you, yourself, more closely delved into the onion layers of my previous response to you... you may come to realize "quite something" yourself... there IS outrage out there, but if you go around show-boating it, you'll be neutralized. Take that outrage energy and convert it to progressive fuel.
This monster is too big to take out from the outside, we need inside people that reform it from within. Spread the word, but don't expect backflips at a place like boingboing.net. The ones fully entrenched in battle are either too busy or too smart to draw attention to themselves here. Peace out and don't give up.
There was an article about this a while ago in the New York Times - must have been around 2-3 years ago.
It was on page 15...at the bottom...2 paragraphs...under a half-page ad.
I don't understand this "nuclear secret" thing. What secret? You centrifuge a lot of uranium to separate out U235. You put the U235 together and you have a bomb. Any idiot could do it.
If the Americans did it 60 years ago, don't tell me that any third world country today cannot do it. It's not like these non-American "new nuclear nations" are incapable of developing their own nuclear weapons without stealing "nuclear secrets" from America.