A Pakistani-based proliferation network centered around nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan and the ISI intelligence agency begins to use Turkish fronts to acquire technology in the US. This move is made because it is thought Turks are less likely to attract suspicion than Pakistanis. At one point the operation is headed by ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed. According to FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, intercepted communications show Mahmood and his colleagues stationed in Washington are in constant contact with attachés at the Turkish embassy. Edmonds will also say that venues such as the American Turkish Council (ATC), a Washington-based lobby group, are used for handovers, and packages containing nuclear secrets are then delivered by Turkish operatives, using their cover as members of the diplomatic and military community, to contacts at the Pakistani embassy in Washington. Edmonds will also allege: “Certain greedy Turkish operators would make copies of the material and look around for buyers. They had agents who would find potential buyers.” [Sunday Times (London), 1/6/2008]
Late 1990s-Early 2001: FBI Investigation Discovers Turkish Nationals Attempting to Bribe Members of Congress
An FBI investigation finds that Turkish nationals are involved in efforts to bribe members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat. Targets of the FBI’s investigation include individuals at Chicago’s Turkish Consulate and the American-Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Council (ATC) and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA). Wiretaps obtained by investigators also contain what appears to be references to large scale drug shipments and other crimes. In 1999 some FBI investigators call for the appointment of a special prosecutor to continue the investigation. But after the Bush administration comes to office, higher-ups in the Department of State pressure the bureau to shift the attention of its investigation away from elected politicians and instead focus on appointed officials. [Anti-War (.com), 8/15/2005; Vanity Fair, 9/2005]
Summer-Autumn 2001: State Department Official Allegedly Tips Off Nuclear Smuggling Ring about CIA Front Company
An unnamed high-ranking State Department official tips off members of a nuclear smuggling ring about a CIA operation to penetrate it, according to FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. Edmonds will later leave the FBI, becoming a whistleblower, and will say she knows this based on telephone conversations she translated. The ring is headed by Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan, and includes Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency, as well as Turkish and Israeli representatives. The official is said to tell a member of the ring that a company the ring wants to do business with, Brewster Jennings & Associates, is a CIA front company. Brewster Jennings & Associates is a front for Valerie Plame Wilson, who will later be outed as a CIA officer in 2003, and possibly other operatives. A group of Turkish agents come to the US on the pretext of researching alternative energy sources and are introduced to Brewster Jennings through a lobby group, the American Turkish Council (ATC). The Turks apparently believe Brewster Jennings are energy consultants and plan to hire them. According to Edmonds, the State Department official finds out about this and contacts a foreign target under FBI surveillance, telling him, “[Y]ou need to stay away from Brewster Jennings because they are a cover for the government.” The FBI target then warns several people about Brewster Jennings, including a person at the ATC and an ISI agent, and Plame Wilson is moved to another operation.
Comments and Denial – The Sunday Times will comment: “If the ISI was made aware of the CIA front company, then this would almost certainly have damaged the investigation into the activities of Khan. Plame [Wilson]‘s cover would also have been compromised, although Edmonds never heard her name mentioned on the intercepts.” The unnamed State Department official will deny the allegations, calling them “false and malicious.” Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi will comment: “It’s pretty clear Plame [Wilson] was targeting the Turks. If indeed that [State Department] official was working with the Turks to violate US law on nuclear exports, it would have been in his interest to alert them to the fact that this woman’s company was affiliated to the CIA. I don’t know if that’s treason legally but many people would consider it to be.” [Sunday Times (London), 1/27/2008]
Official Said to be Marc Grossman – The high-ranking State Department official who is not named in the Sunday Times is said to be Marc Grossman by both Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story and Giraldi, writing in the American Conservative. [Raw Story, 1/20/2008; American Conservative, 1/28/2008]
November 2001: FBI Translator Fails to Translate Wiretaps of Individuals with Whom She Has Connections
Recently hired FBI translator Melek Can Dickerson (see (Late October 2001)) begins marking as “not pertinent” wiretapped conversations that concern certain high-value surveillance targets working at the American-Turkish Council (ATC). As it later emerges, Dickerson previously worked as an intern for the ATC and maintains ongoing relationships with at least two individuals under investigation. [Washington Post, 6/19/2002; New York Observer, 1/22/2004; Vanity Fair, 9/2005] She also manages to obtain, and prevent from being translated, assignments designated for co-worker Sibel Edmonds. These wiretaps, which she marks as being completed by Edmonds, concern the same targeted persons. [New York Observer, 1/22/2004]
Early December 2001: FBI Wiretaps Reveal that Turkish Groups Attempted to Bribe Congress Persons in Late 1990s
Chicago FBI special agent Joel Robertz contacts FBI contract linguist Sibel Edmonds and asks her to review more than 40 wiretaps, some of which are several years old. The wiretaps include what Sibel believes are references to large scale drug shipments and other crimes. The targets of these recordings are individuals at Chicago’s Turkish Consulate and the American-Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations. She also finds evidence of attempts to bribe members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat, during the late 1990s (see Late 1990s-Early 2001). [Anti-War (.com), 8/15/2005; Vanity Fair, 9/2005]
December 2, 2001: FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds Invited by Co-Worker to Become Member of Group that Is Under Federal Investigation
FBI translator Sibel Edmonds receives a call from co-worker Melek Can Dickerson, whom she barely knows. Dickerson says she and her husband Major Douglas Dickerson are in the area and would like to stop by for a visit. [Vanity Fair, 9/2005] Douglas is a US Air Force major who procures weapons from the US for various Central Asian and Middle Eastern governments. [Anti-War (.com), 8/15/2005] “I’m in the area with my husband and I’d love you to meet him. Is it OK if we come by?” Edmonds recalls Dickerson saying. When the couple arrives, Douglas Dickerson encourages Edmonds and her husband Matthew Edmonds to join the American-Turkish Council (ATC) and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA). Joining the organizations would get them tied in with a network of high-level people, including officials at the Turkish Embassy. When Sibel’s husband Michael suggests that there are probably strict eligibility requirements for becoming a member of this organization, Douglas says to Sibel, “All you have to do is tell them who you work for and what you do and you will get in very quickly.” Sibel attempts to steer the conversation toward another topic. As part of her job at the FBI, some of the wiretapped conversations she translates involve the very same people the Dickersons are describing as “high-level friends.” She is concerned that the ultimate goal of the Dickersons’ offer is to get Sibel involved in espionage and to help shield those groups from FBI surveillance. [Washington Post, 6/19/2002; CBS News, 10/25/2002; New York Observer, 1/22/2004; Vanity Fair, 9/2005] Major Dickerson brings up the name of a wealthy Turkish man living in nearby McLean, Virginia, who is involved with the ATC and has access to US military information. Sibel Edmonds is surprised because she recognizes his name from an investigation she is working on and knows that he is the target of an FBI counterintelligence operation. The Dickersons intimate that they are so close to this man that they shop for him and his wife. [Sperry, 2005, pp. 163] “They wanted to sell me for the information I could provide,” she later explains in an interview. They promised her she would receive enough to “live a very comfortable life wherever we wanted. We would never have to work again.” [Anti-War (.com), 7/1/2004]
Between January 14, 2002 and February 1, 2002: FBI Translator Re-Translates Wiretaps Assigned to Colleague; Discovers Colleague Buried Critical Information
FBI contract linguist Sibel Edmonds re-translates 17 of the “hundreds” of wiretapped conversations that had been originally translated or reviewed by co-worker Melek Can Dickerson. [Anti-War (.com), 8/15/2005] She discovers that Dickerson marked as “not pertinent” every single file that included a reference to surveillance targets connected to the Turkish organizations with whom she had ties (see (November 2001)). One of those targets is a Turkish intelligence officer, who is a personal friend of Dickerson. Edmonds learns from the wiretaps that the officer had spies inside the US State Department and Pentagon seeking access to US military and intelligence secrets. [CBS, 10/27/2002] The wiretaps also reveal that the group is involved in arms and drug smuggling and is tied into a complex network of governmental and private figures in several countries. [United Press International, 11/15/2005] Additionally, Edmonds identifies hundreds of other instances where Dickerson’s work obstructed investigations. For example, she learns from one conversation that a US State Department staffer agreed to accept $7,000 in cash from certain individuals in the American-Turkish Council (ATC) in exchange for information. One wiretapped call discussed a payment to a Pentagon official, who seemed to be involved in weapons-procurement negotiations, while another suggested that Turkish doctoral students had been placed at US research institutions in order to obtain information about black market nuclear weapons. Edmonds also hears discussions about the laundering of drug smuggling profits, the selling of classified military technologies, and a scheme to secretly give Republican Congressman Dennis Hastert tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for political favors and information. She becomes convinced that the American-Turkish Council (ATC) is being used as a front for criminal activity. [Anti-War (.com), 7/1/2004; Anti-War (.com), 8/15/2005; Vanity Fair, 9/2005]
January 14, 2002: FBI Special Agent Concerned That Translator Is Protecting Surveillance Targets and Involved in Espionage
Dennis Saccher, the FBI’s special agent in charge of Turkish counter-intelligence, invites FBI translator Sibel Edmonds into his office and shares with her his concern that Edmonds’ co-worker, Melek Can Dickerson, is protecting surveillance targets at the American-Turkish Council (ATC). He shows her several translations of wiretapped conversations that Dickerson either marked as “not pertinent,” or for which she provided only a brief summary indicating that the conversations were not important. When Edmonds tells Saccher that her department, at the request of Dickerson, no longer assigns translation tasks randomly and that certain targets, including the ATC, have been permanently attached to Dickerson, Saccher is shocked. “It sounds like espionage to me,” he suggests. At Saccher’s request, Edmonds and Kevin Taskasen, another translator, re-translate some of the conversations Dickerson had marked as “not pertinent.” They agree to schedule a meeting with supervisor Mike Feghali on February 1 (see February 1, 2002). [Washington Post, 6/19/2002; Vanity Fair, 9/2005]
June 17, 2002: FBI Acknowledges Some Allegations by FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds
In a lengthy unclassified hearing held by the Senate Judiciary Committee, FBI officials confirm translator Sibel Edmond’s allegations that co-worker Melek Can Dickerson had either mistranslated or incorrectly marked “not pertinent” hundreds of wiretapped telephone conversations involving certain surveillance targets with whom she had become friends (see (November 2001)). They also acknowledge that she had attempted to take control over all translation assignments involving those targets (see November 2001 or December 2001). The targets worked at the American-Turkish Council (ATC), where Dickerson was an intern before taking her job at the FBI. The FBI confirms also that Dickerson had failed to disclose this information on her application (see also (Late October 2001)), but nonetheless attributes her failure to translate these wiretaps to lack of training. [Leahy and Grassley, 6/19/2002; Washington Post, 6/19/2002; United Press International, 1/24/2005; Vanity Fair, 9/2005] One of the participants of the hearing will later tell the New York Observer that the session was tense. “None of the FBI officials’ answers washed, and they could tell we didn’t believe them.” He remembers that one of the Congressional investigators told the officials, “You basically admitted almost all that Sibel alleged, yet you say there’s no problem here. What’s wrong with this picture?” [New York Observer, 1/22/2004]
August or September 2002: Air Forces Investigation Concludes that Major, Accused of Espionage and Obstruction, Has Not Done Anything Wrong
The Air Force Office of Special Investigations completes its investigation into Major Douglas Dickerson’s relationship with the American-Turkish Council. The inquiry had been launched in response to allegations by FBI translator Sibel Edmonds that Dickerson’s wife was using her position as an FBI translator to shield certain targets working for the ATC from surveillance (see December 2, 2001 and Afternoon February 12, 2002). On September 10, 2002, Colonel James N. Worth, the Air Force’s director of inquiries, writes in a letter to Edmonds’ attorneys: “We have determined the allegations contained in your letter of August 7, 2002, involving Major Douglas Dickerson do not show improprieties and therefore do not warrant a formal inquiry” by the Air Force’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). After conducting “a complete and thorough review,” he continued, the Office of Special Investigations could find “no evidence of any deviation from the scope of his duties. Absent new and relevant information we have closed this matter.” [Village Voice, 7/13/2004; United Press International, 1/24/2005] Edmonds, who was never interviewed as part of the investigation, will continue to press for an investigation. In a September 19 letter to Joseph E. Schmitz, the Air Force’s Inspector General, Edmonds’ attorney will request that the OIG reopen the case and thoroughly investigate her charges. [Colapinto, 9/19/2004]
