Sibel Edmonds

The Times of London has been serializing a blockbuster tale of nuclear espionage in America at the behest of former FBI translater Sibel Edmonds. After years of being gagged by abusive, supposed national security laws, Edmonds is risking jail by going public with the British paper. She alleges that under sponsorship of a high-ranking State Department mole, probably its #3 official Marc Grossman, Pakistani, Turkish and Israeli spies were seeded in U.S. nuclear research labs, stole weapons data and sent it to Pakistan by laundering it through the Turks, who are under less scrutiny. The ISI in turn allegedly sold it to bidders including China, Libya, Syria and North Korea.

As part of the scheme, she says, the FBI’s translation unit was fatally compromised. The daughter of Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, the former ISI chief who wired $100K to a 9/11 hijacker just before the attack, was made an Urdu translator for the FBI. She and some of the FBI’s Turkish translators allegedly covered up the plot by claiming incriminating intercepts contained nothing of interest. They then allegedly tipped off the ISI to Valerie Plame’s CIA front because she was investigating the spy ring.

Edmonds’ allegations are specific, documented and corroborated by other FBI employees. But to my knowledge, no major U.S. newspaper has published the story. It’s totally bizarre. But I’ve got some ideas about why that might be.

Remember how the NYT sat on the illegal wiretapping story for over a year at Dubya’s request? That’s what I bet is going on here — the administration has leaned on the Times, the WaPo and the WSJ to spike this story. They’re probably claiming national security, which almost always means bureaucratic ass-covering. And in this case, of course, Translatorgate is about the exact opposite of defending national security.

For one thing, the scale of the penetration is mind-boggling and calls into question fundamental government competence. For the sophisticated American intel apparatus to be penetrated by simple humint is very much like the jujitsu the Taliban guerrillas are pulling in the NWFP. It’s asymmetrical, and they have the advantage of being small and nimble.

A second factor is that these three nations are putative American allies. Although some U.S. counterintelligence was on the spies’ trail, others may have been sheltering the perps in an Iran-Contra-style end run. It’s much like the U.S.’ half-hearted investigation when Israel sank the USS Liberty.

Valerie Plame

A third factor is that the scandal is a bipartisan national disgrace. The spying may have begun under Clinton, and both Republicans and Democrats probably have dirty hands, which may be why Dem gadfly Rep. Henry Waxman hasn’t made an issue of it.

Edmonds herself theorizes about the government spiking the story…

… the Washington Post broke the story in July 2002… [and] stopped reporting on it when more important information came out and the State Secrets Privilege was invoked…

… there are certain officials in the agencies quietly telling journalists to stay away from the story because I came across a highly sensitive covert national security operation. [Link]

… and the media incentives not to dig:

… Turkey’s army of lobbyists in DC are very effective. The US press tends to stay away from any stories critical of Turkey, I would say even more than Israel…

… journalists are simply too close to their official sources. Those sources might tell the journalist that there’s nothing to the story, and so the journalist gives up on it, or the official sources might ‘request’ that the journalist to stay away from the story…

… this case is spread over two administrations… you might have one journalist who wants to use the story to indict Clinton, and another who wants to use the story to bash Bush, and in the end neither of them write about the story because it doesn’t fit their partisanship, their ‘narrative’…

… I was told by one executive that they weren’t doing the story because it was ‘old news’ because 60 Minutes did a single segment in October 2002… [ Link ]

She thinks the scandal will ultimately get the attention in the U.S. press that it deserves:

Marc Grossman

… it’s not over. Much more will come out. They won’t be able to ignore it any longer… there are many sources who have been waiting for the right time to come forward… This will play out like Watergate played out, with the drip, drip, drip. So I say to everyone ‘Buckle up, there’s much more coming…’ [ Link ]

This administration, which ran on the promise of national security and making a dangerous world safer, has instead actively proliferated nuclear weapons by looking the other way on Pakistan’s nuclear program, continuing to fund the Al Qaeda- and Taliban-sheltering dictator of Pakistan, allowing Translatorgate without penalizing its allies, and blowing a CIA agent’s cover to settle a petty political score. In fact, Dubya right now is trying to retroactively legalize selling American nuclear secrets to the Turks.

The first nuclear bomb to go off on American soil will have a Pakistani isotope fingerprint, an American and European nuclear lab pedigree and a bank receipt trail leading back to Washington, D.C. In a just world, Benedict Bush would be in prison. Instead he’s going to get an airport, a coin and a presidential library.

Heckuva job, Bushie.

The Times of London series:

For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets
FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft
Tip-off thwarted nuclear spy ring probe