AIPAC hires lawyers

[seemslikeadream]

By JANINE ZACHARIA

NEW YORK

The FBI has not contacted AIPAC employees or their lawyers to resume interviews since an initial visit to the pro-Israel lobby's office on Friday, when two staffers were questioned as part of an investigation into whether a Pentagon official passed a secret document on Iran policy to the group, sources familiar with the investigation said Wednesday.

The FBI began questioning the two staffers, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, and made a copy of Rosen's computer hard drive on Friday, sources said. The two then said they wanted to consult with attorneys before proceeding, but have made clear they are ready to continue to cooperate with authorities.

The lobby has hired Nathan Lewin, an experienced Washington attorney who specializes in white-collar criminal defense work and constitutional law. Throughout his career he has represented prominent officials, including former attorney general Edwin Meese.

Rosen and Weissman are being represented by Abbe Lowell, one of Washington's most prominent attorneys, who is known as an aggressive, criminal defense attorney. Lowell was the Democrats' chief investigative counsel in the impeachment hearings of president Bill Clinton.
more
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1094008164446

[Larkspur]

1. The plot thickens!!!

[hang a left]

2. Yes!!!!!!

I would like to see somebody break out in handcuffs this week.

[Tamyrlin79]

3. I would prefer the handcuffs to come the week before the election myself

[peacetalksforall]

4. If CNN is asking what Bush can do to win, then we should ask what we

should do to make him lose and this Israel lobby possible treason is a cause we need to act on - we have to learn about it and start talking it up so that there is instant attention paid to it and unrelenting pounding at the press - because the neo-cons are going to devote more energy on deflecting this than the energy they devoted to controlling the WH, Congress, and the Supreme Court.

[markses]

5. They're lawyered up...hey, isn't the President (*) also lawyered up???

Criminale.

[sattahipdeep]

6. The devil and Paul Bremer

http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=103&contentid=1440
Slip the dogs
Paul Bremer is reported to be vacationing at his Swiss hideaway, having

escaped clean with the loot, so to speak.

[thebigidea]

7. Thought he was jogging in Vermont.

[Octafish]

8. The Crimes of Iran-Contra Have Never Ended

Israel tried to manipulate Bush? Golly.

This article appears in the June 4, 2004 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

The Crimes of Iran-Contra
Have Never Ended

by Jeffrey Steinberg

A funny thing happened, early in May, when President Bush met with Jordan's King Abdullah II in Washington. According to news accounts, the Jordanian ruler provided the President with a dossier, revealing that Ahmed Chalabi—the head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) and the darling of the neo-cons in the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney, the civilian apparatus at the Pentagon, and such Beltway think tanks as the American Enterprise Institute and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)—was passing top secret U.S. government material to the most radical ayatollahs in Iran.

It is no secret that the Jordanian government has had deep misgivings about Chalabi's prominent role in the postwar Iraq occupation government. Chalabi has a 22-year jail sentence awaiting him in Jordan, as the result of massive fraud at his Petra Bank in the 1990s. The Jordanian Ambassador in Washington and King Abdullah II have both publicly accused Chalabi, and his INC, of being behind the bombing of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad in August 2003.

The King's dossier bolstered intelligence already in the hands of the CIA and the National Security Agency, indicating, among other things, that Chalabi's so-called Free Iraqi Force was heavily penetrated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. National Security Agency (NSA) intercepts had revealed much deeper ties between Chalabi and radical factions within the Islamic Republic than had been known to American officials previously.

The dossier, provided by King Abdullah, checked out, and, as a result, the White House ordered Coalition Provisional Authority boss Paul Bremer to raid Chalabi's home, and the INC offices. That raid occurred on May 20, catching both Chalabi, and some of his neo-con allies in Washington, flatfooted.

CONTINUED...

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/3122chalabi_ghorbanifar.html

BTW: The source is affiliated with the, um, interesting LaRouche org. Big deal. The facts are in the story. And the Truth is what's going to kick the BFEE into prison.

[Octafish]

9. Ch-Ch-Ch-Chalabi!

So the guy saw the writing on the wall, skipped Israel and went straight to the Ayatollahs. Big deal. Chalabi-pet is helping Ari "Butcher of Sabra and Chatilla" Sharon get the war he wants -- America versus Iran. Nice. It's like Clint Eastwood in a "Fistful of Dollars."



How Ahmed Chalabi Conned the Neocons

The hawks who launched the Iraq war believed the deal-making exile when he promised to build a secular democracy with close ties to Israel. Now the Israel deal is dead, he's cozying up to Iran -- and his patrons look like they're on the way out. A Salon exclusive.

By John Dizard

May 4, 2004 | When the definitive history of the current Iraq war is finally written, wealthy exile Ahmed Chalabi will be among those judged most responsible for the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein. More than a decade ago Chalabi teamed up with American neoconservatives to sell the war as the cornerstone of an energetic new policy to bring democracy to the Middle East -- and after 9/11, as the crucial antidote to global terrorism. It was Chalabi who provided crucial intelligence on Iraqi weaponry to justify the invasion, almost all of which turned out to be false, and laid out a rosy scenario about the country's readiness for an American strike against Saddam that led the nation's leaders to predict -- and apparently even believe -- that they would be greeted as liberators. Chalabi also promised his neoconservative patrons that as leader of Iraq he would make peace with Israel, an issue of vital importance to them. A year ago, Chalabi was riding high, after Saddam Hussein fell with even less trouble than expected.

Now his power is slipping away, and some of his old neoconservative allies -- whose own political survival is looking increasingly shaky as the U.S. occupation turns nightmarish -- are beginning to turn on him. The U.S. reversed its policy of excluding former Baathists from the Iraqi army -- a policy devised by Chalabi -- and Marine commanders even empowered former Republican Guard officers to run the pacification of Fallujah. Last week United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi delivered a devastating blow to Chalabi's future leadership hopes, recommending that the Iraqi Governing Council, of which he is finance chair, be accorded no governance role after the June 30 transition to sovereignty. Meanwhile, administration neoconservatives, once united behind Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress he founded, are now split, as new doubts about his long-stated commitment to a secular Iraqi democracy with ties to Israel, and fears that he is cozying up to his Shiite co-religionists in Iran, begin to emerge. At least one key Pentagon neocon is said to be on his way out, a casualty of the battle over Chalabi and the increasing chaos in Iraq, and others could follow.

"Ahmed Chalabi is a treacherous, spineless turncoat," says L. Marc Zell, a former law partner of Douglas Feith, now the undersecretary of defense for policy, and a former friend and supporter of Chalabi and his aspirations to lead Iraq. "He had one set of friends before he was in power, and now he's got another." While Zell's disaffection with Chalabi has been a long time in the making, his remarks to Salon represent his first public break with the would-be Iraqi leader, and are likely to ripple throughout Washington in the days to come.

Zell, a Jerusalem attorney, continues to be a partner in the firm that Feith left in 2001 to take the Pentagon job. He also helped Ahmed Chalabi's nephew Salem set up a new law office in Baghdad in late 2003. Chalabi met with Zell and other neoconservatives many times from the mid-1990s on in London, Turkey, and the U.S. Zell outlines what Chalabi was promising the neocons before the Iraq war: "He said he would end Iraq's boycott of trade with Israel, and would allow Israeli companies to do business there. He said would agree to rebuild the pipeline from Mosul to Haifa ." But Chalabi, Zell says, has delivered on none of them. The bitter ex-Chalabi backer believes his former friend's moves were a deliberate bait and switch designed to win support for his designs to return to Iraq and run the country.

CONTINUED...

http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news1/salon8.html

[Octafish]

10. Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

Then there's the fellah who's about the only spy we ever got into Al Qaeda that Bushco decided to exposer, for whatever reason. Gee. Why would they do that? Do they WANT a war? Oops. I said a funny.

How the Pakistani double agent was ‘burned’ by the US

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: The unthinkable in the murky world of intelligence has come to pass: the cover of a double agent was blown while he was still active.

On 2 August, the Bush administration blew the cover of double agent Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan. A day earlier, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge had announced a new alert against an Al Qaeda plan to attack financial institutions in New York and Washington. When the New York Times pressed certain administration officials for more information, they disclosed to the newspaper that the information regarding the Al Qaeda plot had come from a recently arrested man in Pakistan named “Khan.” The New York Times published his name on Monday. The later editions spelt out the full name.

According to an investigation by Reuters correspondents Simon Cameron-Moore and Peter Graff, “The New York Times published a story on Monday saying US officials had disclosed that a man arrested secretly in Pakistan was the source of the bulk of information leading to the security alerts. The newspaper named him as Khan, although it did not say how it had learned his name. US officials subsequently confirmed the name to other news organisations on Monday morning. None of the reports mentioned that Khan was working under cover at the time, helping to catch Al Qaeda suspects.”

SNIP...

Khan had been secretly apprehended by ISI in mid-July and persuaded to become a double agent. He was actively helping investigators penetrate further into Al Qaeda cells and activities via computer, and was still cooperating when the “senior Bush administration” figure told New York Times’ Douglas Jehl about him. ISI told Reuters, “He sent encoded e-mails and received encoded replies. He’s a great hacker and even the US agents said he was a computer whiz … He was cooperating with interrogators on Sunday and Monday and sent e-mails on both days.” This proves that the Bush administration just blew the cover of one of the most important assets inside Al Qaeda that the US has ever had.

Prof. Juan Cole of the University of Michigan’s analysis is more daring, “The announcement of Khan’s name forced the British to arrest 12 members of an al-Qaeda cell prematurely, before they had finished gathering the necessary evidence against them via Khan. Apparently they feared that the cell members would scatter as soon as they saw that Khan had been compromised. (They would have known he was a double agent, since they got emails from him Sunday and Monday!) One of the 12 has already had to be released for lack of evidence, a further fallout of the Bush SNAFU (situation normal all fouled up). It would be interesting to know if other cell members managed to flee. Why in the world would Bush administration officials out a double agent working for Pakistan and the US against Al-Qaeda? In a way, the motivation does not matter. If the Reuters story is true, this slip is a major screw-up that casts the gravest doubts on the competency of the administration to fight a war on terror. Either the motive was political calculation, or it was sheer stupidity. They don’t deserve to be in power either way.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_8-8-2004_pg7_42

BTW: I LOVE Asian journalism! Thank you Mr. Hasan!

[Octafish]

11. Uh. Whatever happened to Valerie Plame?

Remember how Ms. Plame was the Non-Official Cover CIA operative outted by Rove, Cheney and Bush to warn the rest of the government to keep their lips zipped, just because her husband had the audacity to tell the TRUTH? Gosh. Ms. Plame was involved in fighting the spread of nuclear weapons and other WMDs. That's about the most important job there is. And yet the idiot Bush and the BFEE put the nation at risk just to make some political hay. That should be all over the TV and newspapers, don't y'all think?


Watergate Redux

There is a cancer on the presidency

by Alan Bisbort - January 8, 2004
PHOTO COURTESY U.S. GOVERNMENT

President Bush holds a meeting in the Oval Office, Dec. 20, 2001. The World This WeekIn the early days of the Watergate scandals -- before Congress investigated the matter on live TV -- John Dean, then the president's legal counsel, told Richard Nixon, "There's a cancer on the presidency." His advice, sage and pragmatic, was to surgically remove the cancer, come clean to the public and distance himself from the spreading disease.

Instead, Nixon covered up, circled the wagons, paid hush money and conducted damage control. Nixon, like Karl Rove (aka "Bush's brain"), was canny enough to know that the attention span of the American people for political scandal is about 10 minutes (unless it involves semen on devilishly blue dresses). So, he paddled water until the political heat hopefully dissipated. But then, in a Shakespearean twist, Nixon made it known that he was going to allow others, including Dean, to take the fall for him. That was a big mistake. Dean began to sing like a canary to the federal investigators. Others followed suit to save their feathers.

Now, we have another cancer on the presidency. It began in July when it was learned that "two senior White House officials" -- many have pointed fingers at Karl Rove, some at Dick Cheney -- had leaked to journalists the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame (a felony, perhaps treason). As everyone knows, the leak was no simple case of incompetence. It served as nasty political revenge against Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who would not take the fall for the claim that Saddam had received uranium from Niger. He had, in fact, investigated this claim by going to the sources and verifying that it was fraudulent, and apprising both Cheney and CIA director George Tenet of this.

SNIP...

The only journalist of the several contacted by the "senior White House officials" who did the White House's dirty work was Bob Novak. With partisan glee -- one is tempted to say with pornographic glee -- he printed Plame's name in his column knowing full well what he was doing. Plame is one of the CIA's foremost experts on keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. "Outing" her is a disastrous breach of national security. Though we may never know how much damage was done, it's estimated that as many as 70 deaths of her "assets" around the world may have resulted from Novak's revelation.

CONTINUED...

http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:49159

There are still a few real American journalists. Thanks, Mr. Bisbort!

[seemslikeadream]

12. You said a funny!

This is all starting to take a toll on me. When is it going to hit the fan.
:hi:

[Octafish]

13. I'd LOL. But THAT's my life story!

And what's weird, the Winston's burn fast when it's windy. Must be the saltpeter. The Flags? Now everybody knows.



BTW: How've you been?

[seemslikeadream]

14. a nervous wreck

[Octafish]

20. Yeah. Same old same old.

I think I know exactly how you feel.



Max Ernst. The Elephant Celebes, 1921

[grasswire]

15. beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep

Warning.

See this? "The federal prosecutor handling the case, Paul McNulty, the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, has a "very good reputation" as a "hard-core, very aggressive prosecutor," one formal federal prosecutor said"

Do you know who Paul J. McNulty is?

He's a fixer. A FIXER.




Clinton impeachment. FIXER

Florida recount. FIXER.

Ashcroft's nomination. FIXER

McNulty is accustomed to high-profile, high-pressure situations. He was chief counsel to the House subcommittee on crime during hearings into the disastrous 1993 federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas.And he served as chief counsel and spokesman for House Judiciary Committee Republicans during impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton.During a nighttime jog on Washington's National Mall, McNulty conceived then-House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde's opening statement for the Senate trial. McNulty contemplated the oath that the 100 senators would take at the trial's outset, the oath of office that the president took to uphold the Constitution and the oath that Clinton took when he testified.McNulty realized that the concept of the oath unified his thoughts."The oath," Hyde, R-Ill., would say later on the Senate floor. "In many ways the case you will consider in the coming days is about those two words: 'I do.'"McNulty later served as chief counsel to House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas. McNulty returned to the Justice Department, where he served as chief spokesman under President George H.W. Bush. A year ago, McNulty headed the younger Bush's transition team and prepared Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft for his Senate confirmation hearings.Knowing that Ashcroft's hearings would be contentious, McNulty assembled top GOP lawyers to brainstorm questions that the former Missouri senator would face. By the time the hearing began, McNulty had prepared a weighty briefing book with appropriate answers.As Democrats grilled Ashcroft about his support for civil rights, McNulty sat just behind his elbow, straining forward as he balanced the book on his lap.

[grasswire]

16. addendum

A BUSH FIXER.

He worked for Poppy.

[hang a left]

18. I think I am gonna be sick. eom

[seemslikeadream]

19. COUNTERINTELLIGENCE Dave Szady - What about this guy?

FOCUS ON COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
Part 1 of an Interview with FBI Assistant Director Dave Szady

07/20/04

Let's start with the basics. What's counterintelligence?

It's much broader than just espionage--the traditional spy game. It also includes the protection of our critical national assets. And by that, I don't mean the bridges, the railroad stations, the nuclear plants. I mean things like our country's advanced technologies, its weapons systems, its military capacities--classified information and systems that are strategically important to our nation's well-being. Counterintelligence, or CI, also involves protecting trade secrets and guarding against operations or disinformation campaigns that would disadvantage the U.S.

What's the FBI's role in counterintelligence?

We're the lead agency for exposing, preventing, and investigating intelligence activities on U.S. soil. We run our own investigations and coordinate investigations of other agencies. Simply put, we're on point to protect the U.S. from intelligence threats within our country. We've also got the lead on cases overseas involving potential espionage.

Why is counterintelligence the FBI's #2 priority?

Because the threat is incredibly serious. It strikes at the heart of our national security--our political, military, and economic strengths; our position in the world; our future as a country. That's why only terrorism, with its threat of direct attacks and bombings and mass casualties, ranks above it.

more
http://www.fbi.gov/page2/july04/szady072004.htm


Lesley Stahl of CBS reported Friday that the FBI is about to "roll up" a spy working for Israel from within the office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon. "the suspected mole supplied Israel with classified materials that include secret White House policy deliberations on Iran. " The FBI investigation, headed up by Dave Szady, has involved wiretaps, undercover surveillance and photography that CBS News was told document the passing of classified information from the mole, to the men at American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington, and on to the Israelis. CBS sources say that last year the suspected spy, described as a trusted analyst at the Pentagon, turned over a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran while it was, "in the draft phase when U.S. policy-makers were still debating the policy."
http://dc.indymedia.org/feature/display/104306/index.php

[emad]

21. "Shady Dave": fate must have dealt him a winning hand at birth to

be blessed with the post of Head of Counter-Intelligence ops for FBI.....

Now why would a counter-intelligence chief be put in charge of such an investigation? Maybe because the Pentagon Israeli Spy story is part of a much larger STING led by a sophisticated mis-information op to weed out the remaining cold-war throwbacks that were only partially purged by the arrest and convictions of Aldrich Ames (CIA) and Bob Hanssen (FBI). Remember the first thing Junior did when sliming his way into office? throw out 50 Russians for spying....

It is an open secret in UK security/intelligence circles that the biggest potential beneficiary of any proposed coup in Iran may well be Reza Pahlavi, exiled son of the ex-Shah of Iran who lives in DC, is a Repulican Party backer and has terrorist links to UK-based IRA/Provisional IRA moneylaunderers/fraudsters pardoned by Blair under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

There were some reports in the UK last year of Pahlavi being bankrolled by billionaire/fallen Russian Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky (currently languishing in a Moscow slammer after being busted for fraud, corruption, moneylaundering etc). The story was to have been run in the Observer; however, a lawsuit was filed before actual publication and the Observer had to withdraw this item from publication because Khodorkovsky's UK lawyers threatened hellfiredamnation etc if they ran it...

If an FBI counter-intelligence chief is in charge of the Larry Franklin biz, this suggests a sophisticated operation may have been used whereby the big fish are caught with a series of ever-increasing juciy bit of plausible stuff that identifies the ring via the inclusion of deliberate spoilers.

Feels like there is a whole lot more to come - maybe relating to Peter Lowy, extremely shady Australian real estate developer (and close pal of Ariel Sharon's son - the one busted last year for an illegal property development scam) who signed an exclusive development lease on the WTC just prior to 9/11 and who paid Blair's Middle East envoy Lord Levy "consultancy fees" much derided in the UK press for being backhanders earned during Levy's globetrotting as cheerleader for Blair's Iraq war plans in 2002-3.

Edit: Reza Pahlavi has tried hard to get US backing to regain some $60 billion of seized Pahlavi family assets sequestered by the Ayatollahs after the '79 coup that threw them out ouf the country. Ronnie Raygun was leant on a bit to do something about it and failed, as did Poppy. However, under Clinton, some lines of communicaiton were opened only to be stalled after embarassing drug busts of Pahlavi's sister who subsequently od's on uppers/downers and died in London. Family also implicated in heroin smuggling to finance a notoriously lavish lifestyle while in exile in Europe; didn't go down well in diplomatic circles who eventually stalled all talk of any chances of Pahlavi relatives getting ANYTHING back from the Ayatollahs while the region was in such turmoil.

[Just Me]

17. Track that money,...seriously!!!!

Track the freakin' money!!!!

That firm will bring the house down,...if we track the money,...

,...talk about worse than RICO,...
<on edit> I am so damned sick of this greedy, power-mongering shit that I will no longer be merely a spectator,...I will be more than these manipulative, arrogant diseases have inflicted upon our population. I will be a participant, rather than a spectator,...in the arena of humanity.