Chertoff's client Dr. Elamir - brother Mohamed has ties with bin Laden

[seemslikeadream]

“Did Mohamed give Glass any indication as to who was going to get these arms?
“Never got a chance to ask him,” says Glass.
Glass says federal agents told him to drop the matter.
So, what happened to the case? “Nothing,” says Glass.
There was no follow-up. “No,” says Glass.
Was this a missed opportunity? “Hundred percent,” says Glass.
And Randy Glass doesn’t know the half of it, because that same intelligence report that talks about Dr. Elamir also names his brother Mohamed as having ties to Osama bin Laden.” (1)

...

The suspects named in Operation Diamondback are now known to have had ties to AQ Khan’s nuclear weapons network operating out of Pakistan. This info was not known during the operation by the ATF and FBI Agents who worked on the case. Dateline NBC revealed this information on January 14, 2005. ATF Agent Dick Stoltz who supervised Operation Diamondback had this to say:

“In the summer of 1999, a group of illegal weapons dealers were meeting at a warehouse in Florida, their conversations recorded by federal investigators. One of the men, from Pakistan, was seeking technology for nuclear weapons. Who did he say he was working for?
Dick Stoltz: “Dr. Abdul Khan.”
Chris Hansen: “A.Q. Khan.”
Dick Stoltz: “A.Q. Khan.”
Former federal undercover agent Dick Stoltz was posing as a black market arms dealer.
Hansen: “Did you realize what you had at the time?”
Stoltz: “No. We didn't.”
But now he does -- because A.Q. Khan is considered, by some, to be the most dangerous man in the world. Why? Because Dr. Khan has peddled nuclear weapons technology to some of the countries the United States considers most dangerous, and some accepted his offers.”

I find it very interesting that Michael Chertoff, the man tapped to cut off the flow of finances to known terrorists, had in fact represented a man from 1998-2000 who allegedly had ties to Osama Bin Laden and may have sent millions of dollars to him.

I also find it interesting, that while Michael Chertoff served as Assistant United States Attorney and then United States Attorney for New Jersey from 1987 to 1994, that terrorist acts, including the first World Trade Center bombing, were perpetrated under his watch and were fueled from a mosque in Jersey City that was never shut down and still exists today. Chertoff’s former client, Dr. Magdy Elamir, is known to have supported the mosque financially while having suspected ties to Osama Bin Laden. Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 bombing, just happens to be the nephew of the 9-11 mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

more
http://www.opednews.com/duncan_013005_chertoff_questions.htm

[Spinzonner]

1. You've got a point here

but we should stop pussy-footing around with these middle men and just go ahead and offer the job to Bin Laden.

Just think of the advantage:

1. We can stop spending all those resources on finding him and apply them to the real threat that was always Iraq. His salary, however astronomical, will be miniscule compared to the costs of the hunt.

2. He will get the best Al Queda intelligence. No more of these speculative color alerts that have jaded the public. When he says Orange, he'll mean Orange.

3. He can help us smoke out the foreign agents and infiltrators in the U.S. by hiring them for the department where we can keep an eye on them. And being green-carders at best, they won't be insisting on their union rights and enforcing labor laws. Another Bush Administration goal fulfilled.

[bigtree]

2. so does Bush I

who was having lunch with the bin Laden's family when the World Trade Center was attacked.

[seemslikeadream]

3. Chertoff Buried Early Evidence of Bush Torture Campaign in Afghanistan

Public Policy: Chertoff Buried Early Evidence of Bush Torture Campaign in Afghanistan

By Dave Lindorff, ILCA Associate Member

The nominee for new Homeland Security secretary, back in 2002, worked hard to keep the public from hearing courtroom testimony that would have revealed the Bush government’s new campaign of torture, allowing it to spread from Afghanistan to Guantanamo to Iraq.
From an article of mine in the current, Feb. 14 issue of The Nation magazine (www.thenation.org ).


Back on Friday, June 12, 2002, the Defense Department had a big problem: Its new policy on torture of captives in the "war on terror" was about to be exposed. John Walker Lindh, the young Californian captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and touted by John Ashcroft as an "American Taliban," was scheduled to take the stand the following Monday in an evidence suppression hearing regarding a confession he had signed. There he would tell, under oath, about how he signed the document only after being tortured for days by US soldiers. Federal District Judge T.S. Ellis had already said he was likely to allow Lindh, at trial, to put on the stand military officers and even Guantánamo detainees who were witnesses to or participants in his alleged abuse. >br>

...

Accordingly, Michael Chertoff, who as head of the Justice Department's criminal division was overseeing all the department's terrorism prosecutions, had his prosecution team offer a deal. All the serious charges against Lindh--terrorism, attempted murder, conspiracy to kill Americans, etc.--would be dropped and he could plead guilty just to the technical charges of "providing assistance" to an "enemy of the U.S." and of "carrying a weapon." Lindh, whose attorneys dreaded his facing trial in one of the most conservative court districts in the country on the first anniversary of 9/11, had to accept a stiff twenty-year sentence, but that was half what he faced if convicted on those two minor charges alone.


But Chertoff went further, according to one of Lindh's attorneys, George Harris. Chertoff (now an appeals court judge in New Jersey) demanded--reportedly at Defense Department insistence, according to what defense attorneys were told--that Lindh sign a statement swearing he had "not been intentionally mistreated" by his US captors and waiving any future right to claim mistreatment or torture. Further, Chertoff attached a "special administrative measure," essentially a gag order, barring Lindh from talking about his experience for the duration of his sentence.


At the time, few paid attention to this peculiar silencing of Lindh. In retrospect, though, it seems clear that the man coasting toward confirmation as Secretary of Homeland Security effectively prevented early exposure of the Bush/Rumsfeld/Gonzales policy of torture, which we now know began in Afghanistan and later "migrated" to Guantanamo and eventually to Iraq. So anxious was Chertoff to avoid exposure in court of Lindh's torture--which included keeping the seriously wounded and untreated Lindh, who was malnourished and dehydrated, blindfolded and duct-taped to a stretcher for days in an unheated and unlit shipping container, and repeatedly threatening him with death--that defense lawyers say he made the deal a limited-time offer. "It was good only if we accepted it before the suppression hearing," says Harris. "They said if the hearing occurred, all deals were off." He adds, "Chertoff himself was clearly the person at Justice to whom the line prosecutors were reporting. He was directing the whole plea agreement process, and there was at least one phone call involving him."

more

http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1636&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

[seemslikeadream]

20. Chertoff Denies Advising CIA on Torture

Chertoff Denies Advising CIA on Torture


WASHINGTON -- Homeland Security Secretary-designate Michael Chertoff privately told congressional staffers Monday that he did not advise the CIA on the legality of using specific torture techniques on terror suspects when he headed the Justice Department's criminal division.

Meeting with Republican and Democratic staff members two days before his Senate confirmation hearings, Chertoff said any legal advice he gave the CIA was broad and generalized -- and merely from the viewpoint of "what a prosecutor would look for," one aide said.
...
The Capitol Hill meeting, which lasted several hours, was described as cordial. Several aides who spoke on condition on anonymity said Chertoff grew slightly exasperated after repeated questioning over whether he had any role in approving techniques that critics said violated Geneva Conventions prohibiting violence, torture and humiliating treatment.
...
Chertoff repeatedly told aides he gave only basic and generalized advice as "how a prosecutor would approach the statute."


http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-chertoff-hearing,0,1001949.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

Monday, January 31, 2005 · Last updated 11:05 p.m. PT

Chertoff denies advising CIA on torture

By LARA JAKES JORDAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

Federal appeals court judge Michael Chertoff speaks during the announcement by President Bush of Chertoff's nomination to be his new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Jan. 11, 2005. Chertoff is expected to win confirmation easily following his Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2005, hearing, although Democrats said they plan to question him about his role in advising the CIA about torture standards. (AP Photo/Susan Ann Walsh/File)

WASHINGTON -- As he prepares for his upcoming confirmation hearing, Homeland Security Secretary designee Michael Chertoff has denied advising the CIA on using specific torture techniques on terror suspects when he headed the Justice Department's criminal division.

Chertoff is expected to win confirmation easily following his Wednesday hearing, although Democrats said they plan to question him about his role in advising the CIA about torture standards.

Meeting with Republican and Democratic staff members Monday, Chertoff said any legal advice he gave the CIA was broad and generalized - and merely from the viewpoint of "what a prosecutor would look for," one aide said.

The Capitol Hill meeting, which lasted several hours, was described as cordial. Several aides who spoke on condition on anonymity said Chertoff grew slightly exasperated after repeated questioning over whether he had any role in approving techniques that critics said violated Geneva Conventions prohibiting violence, torture and humiliating treatment.
more
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1152&slug=Chertoff%20Hearing

[seemslikeadream]

4. Michael Chertoff and the sabotage of the Ptech investigation

from
Minstrel Boy

Remember Ptech? That's the Boston software firm financed by Saudi businessman Yassin Al-Qadi, who also happens to be an al Qaeda bagman, whose clients happened to include numerous sensitive US federal branches and agencies, including the FAA, the FBI, the military and the White House.

A little background, from the mainstream, even, thanks to WBZ-TV:

Joe Bergantino, a reporter for WBZ-TV's investigative team, was torn. He could risk breaking a story based on months of work investigating a software firm linked to terrorism, or heed the government's demand to hold the story for national security reasons. In mid-June, Bergantino received a tip from a woman in New York who suspected that Ptech, a computer software company in Quincy, Mass., had ties to terrorists. Ptech specialized in developing software that manages information contained in computer networks.

Bergantino's investigation revealed that Ptech's clients included many federal governmental agencies, including the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Naval Air Command, Congress, the Department of Energy, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, NATO, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service and even the White House.

"Ptech was doing business with every federal government in defense and had access to key government data," Bergantino said.

...

Bergantino was ready to air the story by September, but the government had different plans. Federal authorities told Bergantino not to air the story because it would jeopardize their investigation and would threaten national security. According to federal authorities, documents would be shredded and people would flee if we ran the story, Bergantino said. But Bergantino claims the government's demand to hold off on the story was merely a pretext.

In October 2001, President George W. Bush signed an executive order freezing the assets of individuals linked to terrorism. According to Bergantino, the list identified Saudi Arabian businessman Yassin Al-Qadi as a key financial backer of Osama Bin Laden. As it turns out, Bergantino said, Al-Qadi also is the chief financier of Ptech. The government failed to investigate Ptech in October 2001 and didn't start it's investigation until August 2002 when WBZ-TV's investigation called attention to Ptech.

Bergatino's tipster was Indira Singh, who has said she recognizes the separate command and control communications system Mike Ruppert describes Dick Cheney to have been running on September 11th as having "the exact same functionality I was looking to utilize for Ptech."

Now, how does Chertoff figure in the Ptech story? It goes back to the turf war of two years ago over Operation Greenquest, "the high-profile federal task force set up to target the financiers of Al Qaeda and other international terrorist groups." The aggressive, Customs-led task force was folded into Homeland Security, sending both the FBI and its minders at the Department of Justice into a tizzy. They "demanded that the White House instead give the FBI total control over Greenquest."

Now, consider this, also from Newsweek:

The FBI-Justice move, pushed by DOJ Criminal Division chief Michael Chertoff and Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, has enraged Homeland Security officials, however. They accuse the bureau of sabotaging Greenquest investigations — by failing to turn over critical information to their agents—and trying to obscure a decade-long record of lethargy in which FBI offices failed to aggressively pursue terror-finance cases.

...

One prime example of the tension is the investigation into Ptech, the Boston-area computer software firm that had millions of dollars in sensitive government contracts with the Air Force, the Energy Department and, ironically enough, the FBI. In what turned into a minor embarrassment for the bureau, the firm’s main investors included Yasin Al-Qadi, a wealthy Saudi businessman whom the Bush administration had formally designated a terrorist financier under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Al-Qadi has vigorously denied any connection to terrorism.

The Ptech case turned into an ugly dispute last year when company whistleblowers told Greenquest agents about their own suspicions about the firm’s owners. Sources close to the case say those same whistleblowers had first approached FBI agents, but the bureau apparently did little or nothing in response. With backing from the National Security Council, Greenquest agents then mounted a full-scale investigation that culminated in a raid on the company’s office last December. After getting wind of the Greenquest probe, the FBI stepped in and unsuccessfully tried to take control of the case.

The result, sources say, has been something of a train wreck. Privately, FBI officials say Greenquest agents botched the probe and jeopardized other more promising inquiries into Al-Qadi. Greenquest agents dismiss the charges and say the problem is that the bureau was slow to respond to legitimate allegations that an outside contractor with terrorist ties may have infiltrated government computers.

(And still, there are no charges or indictments against Al-Qadi or Ptech.)

The turf war was won on May 13, 2003, when John Ashcroft and Tom Ridge signed a "Memorandum of Agreement between the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, giving the FBI "unprecedented unilateral control of all terrorist-financing investigations and operations."

Several seasoned government agents fear for the nation’s security should the FBI be tackling most terrorism cases, as their ineptitude in preventing terrorism has been established time and time again. Yet, the memorandum between Ashcroft and Ridge places the FBI in an incredibly powerful position over Homeland Security. According to the memorandum, "all appropriate DHS leads relating to money laundering and financial crimes will be checked with the FBI."

Well, no reason to fear now, now that Michael Chertoff is heading up Homeland Security. Right?


http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2005/01/michael-chertoff-and-sabotage-of-ptech.html

[seemslikeadream]

5. Post-9/11 arrests dog Chertoff

Posted on Sun, Jan. 23, 2005

The Homeland Security nominee is criticized by some who were his allies in fighting racial profiling.

By Wendy Ruderman

Inquirer Staff Writer


The man President Bush wants as homeland security chief is now in the crosshairs of civil-rights advocates who say he eroded freedoms in pursuit of terrorists.

But, before 9/11, Michael Chertoff was a powerful ally in the battle against racial profiling in the pursuit of drug traffickers.
"I think in evaluating Mike's record, you need to look not only at his handling of the war on terrorism in 9/11, but also at the role he played in dealing with racial profiling in New Jersey - very different roles at very different times," said former Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert A. Mintz, who worked under Chertoff in the early 1990s.

...

On the day hijacked planes smashed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Chertoff was in charge of the Justice Department's criminal division.

After 9/11, Chertoff's tactics in ferreting out terrorists drew criticism from the very people who had applauded his crusade to expose racial profiling on New Jersey's highways. Some of that criticism came after Chertoff directed the arrests of 762 illegal immigrants, most of whom later turned out to have no ties to terrorism.

...

In June 2003, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine released a report criticizing federal authorities, saying they had made little effort to distinguish real terrorist suspects from harmless foreigners inadvertently swept up in the dragnet. Though many were jailed for months, only one of the 762 detainees - Zacarias Moussaoui - was charged with a terrorism crime, the report found.

Civil-rights advocates argue that the war on terror has become a kind of war on immigrants, not unlike the way the war on drugs morphed into a war on black and Latino motorists. The legality of those 762 arrests is besides the point, said David Harris, a critic of racial profiling and a criminal law professor at University of Toledo in Ohio.

more
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/10709286...

[seemslikeadream]

6. Michael Chertoff: Ashcroft's Top Gremlin

June 11, 2003


Michael Chertoff: Ashcroft's Top Gremlin
Spreading Mischief from DoJ to the Federal Bench
By ELAINE CASSEL


I have been watching John Ashcroft so long that it is getting to be a little boring. Promising to use all available means to "fight terrorism," prosecuting every violation of law "to the fullest extent of the law," desperately wanting the death penalty for every possible offense, and, according to his remarks last week before the Senate Judiciary committee, wanting laws changed to impose the death penalty for even more offenses. Ashcroft changes law and procedure by signing Executive Orders, and yes, he can get away with that unless a court stops him. So far, no court has. Some congressional members, damn few, express mild dismay at his tactics, such as locking up resident aliens after 9/11 and holding some of them for months without access to family or lawyers (or charges), then deporting many on the most technical visa violations (some of them the fault of INS, over which he has authority). It never ends-the Ashcroft watch. It only gets worse, and more frightening.

But now I have a new gremlin to watch, someone who is as intent on undermining the law and Constitution as Ashcroft. I am referring to the man behind the criminal prosecution of terrorists, Michael Chertoff. Chertoff, former chief of the Justice Department's criminal division, and a scary looking guy if ever there was one, has been elevated to the level of Court of Appeals judge--the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction includes Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. What's so scary about Michael? Well, besides having no judicial experience and being a right-ring radical who does not believe in the Constitution and wants to rewrite federal law and rules of procedure on an ad hoc, case by case basis, as it suits him, nothing I guess.

A good place to look for Chertoff's legal philosophy is in the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui , now taking place in the Eastern District of Virginia. Chertoff is not the prosecutor of course, Paul McNulty of the Eastern District is. But Chertoff is McNulty's boss and he is calling the shots. So Chertoff argued the government's case in the super secret hearing before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals last week. The government is trying to block trial judge Leonie Brinkema's ruling that Moussaoui and his lawyers have access to the government's star witnesses against him. The government has refused and appealed. Judge Brinkema, who still believes in the Constitution, rightly ruled that to deny Moussaoui that access is a blatant violation of the Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses.

more
http://www.counterpunch.org/cassel06112003.html

According to a June 20, 2000 article in the The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey, Chertoff defended accused terrorist financier Dr. Magdy Elamir. Elamir’s HMO was sued by the State of New Jersey to recoup $16.7 million in losses. At least $5.7 million went “to unknown parties... by means of wire transfers to bank accounts where the beneficial owner of the account is unknown,” according to the article.

Foreign intelligence reports given to then chairman of the House International Relations Committee Ben Gilman,
R-New York, in 1998 accused Magdy Elamir of having “had financial ties with Osama bin Laden for years,” according to an Aug. 2, 2002 Dateline NBC broadcast.

In 1999, Magdy Elamir and brother Mohamed were named suspects in Operation Diamondback, an FBI/ATF undercover infiltration of Pakistani arms merchants who sought to arm Osama bin Laden with conventional and nuclear weapons, according to independent researcher and former New Jersey police officer All Dateline confirmed that Elamir and his corporations had paid at least $5,000 to Egyptian arms dealer Diaa Mohsen, who Elamir referred to on camera as a family friend. Moshen was sentenced to 30 months for his involvement in Operation Diamondback. However, Elamir was never convicted. “By the time Operation Diamondback culminated in arrests in the summer of 2001, Michael Chertoff was the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the criminal division and Operation Diamondback would have fallen under his prevue since it was a criminal case and not a counterterrorism case,” Duncan said.

<snip>


Whether or not Chertoff had prior knowledge of Elamir’s alleged connections to Diaa Mohsen and bin Laden is unknown. Calls to Chertoff’s office were not returned.
ACLU Says Bush Choice for Homeland Security Head Worrisome
http://www.universitystar.com/main/article.php?aid=1236

Chertoff Played Key Role In Formulating Controversial 9/11 Policies
January 11, 2005

Statement of Gregory T. Nojeim
ACLU Washington Legislative Office Associate Director
Chief Legislative Counsel

<snip> He has been a vocal champion of the Bush administration’s pervasive belief that the executive branch should be free of many of the checks and balances that keep it from abusing its immense power over our lives and liberty.

His nomination as head of the Department of Homeland Security - a new and untested agency with great influence on civil liberties - means that Chertoff should be questioned aggressively to ensure his fitness for the position, and the strength of his dedication to the Bill of Rights.

This is made more imperative by the fact that, as with Attorney General-nominee Alberto Gonzales, some of Chertoff’s post-9/11 policies have been repudiated by others in the government. Namely, two reports by the Justice Department’s inspector general, released in June and December 2003, castigated Chertoff’s use of rarely enforced and minor immigration violations to hold non-citizens shortly after 9/11 for as long as possible, without bail or access to a lawyer. None of these non-citizens was found to have any connection to the 9/11 attacks.

Chertoff was also an architect of the USA Patriot Act, which has come under increasing fire from conservatives and progressives alike since its passage in 2001. <snip>

http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17293&c=206

Two top Justice Department officials Friday defended the need for government agencies to aggregate large amounts of personal information in computer databases for both law enforcement and national security purposes.

Speaking on two separate panels about privacy and civil liberties at the Federalist Society, Assistant Attorney Generals Viet Dinh and Michael Chertoff both said information is a key weapon in combating terrorism.

Chertoff, head of the criminal division and a key drafter of last year's major anti-terrorism law, said in a Friday morning panel that critics of Bush administration's civil liberties record are overstating their case."


http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1102/111502td1.htm

[seemslikeadream]

7. Did Bush's New Homeland Security Nominee Protect Terror-Linked Doctor

Did Bush's New Homeland Security Nominee Protect Terror-Linked Doctor from Prosecution?
Bernard Kerik, Michael Chertoff... Who's Next? Tony Soprano?
Daniel Hopsicker
January 12, 2005 - Venice, FL

Michael Chertoff, appointed by President Bush to head the Homeland Security Department, may have shielded from criminal prosecution a former client suspected by law enforcement of having funneled millions of dollars directly to Osama Bin Laden while in charge of the U.S. Government’s 9.11 investigation.

Egyptian-born Dr. Magdy el-Amir, a prominent New Jersey neurologist, was at the center of terrorist intrigue in Jersey City.

-El-Amir gave money to a conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman.

-His brother in Cairo was caught on tape attempting to buy weapons from an American undercover agent for Islamic militant groups.

-Before being arrested in a terrorist deal involving oil and heroin for guns and training, arms smuggler Diaa Mohsen was paid at least $5,000 by one of Dr. el Amir's companies, NBC’s Dateline reported.

And his HMO was suspected by law enforcement of being used to funnel money directly to Osama bin laden.


Wire Transfers to "Unknown Parties"

Chertoff’s client "caused more than $5.7 million to be paid by wire transfers to unknown parties," said the lawsuit filed shortly before the state took over his failing HMO. News accounts about el-Amir’s legal difficulties contain unanswered questions about undue political influence and its effect on national security.
For example, how did el-Amir, who only the month before had been granted a state license to operate an HMO, finagle a lucrative contract from the state of New Jersey in 1995?

“Why was this doctor allowed to start a health plan?” asked the October 25, 1999 issue of the medical trade journal Medical Economics.

“How could this medical entrepreneur, who had no experience running a managed-care or health insurance company, receive a license for an HMO that now provides care to 44,000 of New Jersey's most vulnerable citizens?" asked The Bergen Record. “Moreover, how could the state pay such a novice $ 6 million a month in taxpayers money to take on such a responsibility?”

Why did Michael Chertoff even take the case?

Con't-
http://www.madcowprod.com/01122004.html

[seemslikeadream]

8. Whistleblower Charges Justice Dept. with Misconduct (Chertoff)

Whistleblower Charges Justice Dept. with Misconduct in Chertoff's Prosecution of John Walker Lindh

snip

But as his record comes under fresh scrutiny, questions are being raised about his handling of the case of John Walker Lindh - the so-called American Taliban. As head of the criminal division of the Justice Department, the 2002 prosecution of Lindh was one of Chertoff"s biggest triumphs.

But the case resurfaced the following year in Senate confirmation hearings after Chertoff was nominated to be a federal appellate judge. At that time, Senate Democrats questioned Chertoff extensively about concerns that the FBI might have improperly questioned Lindh in Afghanistan even though his family had hired a lawyer for him.

The questioning yielded potentially damaging admissions from Lindh that factored into his decision to later plead guilty to felony charges, resulting in his 20-year prison sentence.

At his 2003 confirmation hearing, Chertoff said he and his deputies did not have an active role in discussions about ethics warnings in the case from lawyers elsewhere in the department. But a Justice Department whistleblower tells a different story.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/13/1455248

The Trials of Jesselyn Radack
Douglas McCollam
The American Lawyer
07-14-2003


Sitting in her well-appointed living room in a leafy northwest Washington, D.C., neighborhood, Jesselyn Radack seems an unlikely candidate for martyrdom in the war on terror. For three years the Yale Law School graduate and self-described soccer mom made her living telling other government lawyers how to stay out of trouble.

The 32-year-old former U.S. Department of Justice ethics adviser says she thought she'd be a career government lawyer. But that was before she decided to object to the government's tactics in the John Walker Lindh case last year.

Since then she's lost two jobs -- pushed out of her Justice post and then fired from the firm that had taken her in -- and now finds herself unemployed and in limbo. Her personal challenges are daunting: under criminal investigation, ailing from multiple sclerosis, and expecting a third child in January. But far from singing the victim's song, Radack appears composed and stalwart, telling her story with short, chopping hand strokes and near-encyclopedic recall.

And her story grows more ominous as new details emerge about how far the government will go in pursuit of one of its own.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1056139907383

Thursday, January 13th, 2005
Whistleblower Charges Justice Dept. with Misconduct in Chertoff's Prosecution of John Walker Lindh

We speak with former Justice Department attorney, Jesselyn Radack, who charges that department officials under Michael Chertoff improperly questioned John Waker Lindh and that her memos raising ethical concerns about his interrogation were purged and not turned over to a criminal court.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Chertoff, President Bush's Homeland Security Chief nominee, was praised by Senate Democrats and state lawyers this week as being a tough but fair prosecutor who would serve well as Tom Ridge's replacement.
But as his record comes under fresh scrutiny, questions are being raised about his handling of the case of John Walker Lindh - the so-called American Taliban. As head of the criminal division of the Justice Department, the 2002 prosecution of Lindh was one of Chertoff"s biggest triumphs.

But the case resurfaced the following year in Senate confirmation hearings after Chertoff was nominated to be a federal appellate judge. At that time, Senate Democrats questioned Chertoff extensively about concerns that the FBI might have improperly questioned Lindh in Afghanistan even though his family had hired a lawyer for him.

http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1005311.htm


Chertoff worth millions, documents show
By LARRY MARGASAK

Associated Press


WASHINGTON - Michael Chertoff, the president's nominee to head the Homeland Security Department, had assets worth between $2.1 million and $4.9 million at the end of 2003 but few investments were in individual stocks, documents show. <snip>

Chertoff, an appellate judge whose salary this year is $171,800, only listed one active stock investment at the end of 2003: holdings in Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc., a company that specializes in research, development and sale of drugs used primarily to treat and manage pain. The stock was worth up to $15,000 at the end of 2003. <snip>

Chertoff's wife, Meryl, formerly worked in the legislative affairs office of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the disaster response agency that is part of the Homeland Security Department. <snip>

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/106...

[Minstrel Boy]

9. Randy Glass and Operation Diamond Back

There's a video of an interview with Glass here:
http://innworldreport.net/video/2004-07-02/glass.html

Glass was an FBI informant working deep cover sting operations to net illegal arms deals. In the summer of 1999 he met, while wearing a wire, two men with ties to Pakistan's ISI, one of whom pointed to the World Trade Center and said "those towers are coming down." One of the dealers he met was Elamir's brother.

In July 2001, Glass took warning of imminent attacks to public officials, including Senator Bob Graham. His fax to Graham read "I've told you repeatedly about my terrorist case...the threats of blowing up the World Trade Center…Airplanes being used."

Glass believes, given his experience and what he saw from agents, that the FBI thwarted investigations which could have revealed 9/11. He also believes that Pakistan provided state sponsorship for the attacks.



A couple of excerpts from Paul Thompson's timeline:

July 14, 1999: US government informant Randy Glass records a conversation at a dinner attended by him, illegal arms dealers Diaa Mohsen and Mohammed Malik (see June 12, 2001), a former Egyptian judge named Shireen Shawky, and ISI agent Rajaa Gulum Abbas, held at a restaurant within view of the WTC. FBI agents pretending to be restaurant customers sit at nearby tables. (WPBF Channel 25, 8/5/02, MSNBC, 8/2/02) Abbas says he wants to buy a whole shipload of weapons stolen from the US military to give to bin Laden. (Cox News, 8/2/02) Abbas points to the WTC and says, "Those towers are coming down." This ISI agent later makes two other references to an attack on the WTC. (WPBF Channel 25, 8/5/02, Cox News, 8/2/02, Palm Beach Post, 10/17/02) Abbas also says "Americans are the enemy," and, "We would have no problem with blowing up this entire restaurant because it is full of Americans." (MSNBC, 3/18/03) The meeting is secretly recorded, and parts are shown on television in 2003 (see also August 17, 1999). (MSNBC, 3/18/03)

...

June 12, 2001: Operation Diamondback, a sting operation called uncovering an attempt to buy weapons illegally for the Taliban, bin Laden and others, ends with a number of arrests. An Egyptian named Diaa Mohsen and a Pakistani named Mohammed Malik are arrested, and accused of attempting to buy Stinger missiles, nuclear weapon components and other sophisticated military weaponry for the Pakistani ISI. (South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 8/23/01, Washington Post, 8/2/02) Malik appears to have had links to important Pakistani officials and Kashmiri terrorists, and Mohsen claims a connection to a man "who is very connected to the Taliban" and funded by bin Laden. (Washington Post, 8/2/02, MSNBC, 8/2/02) Some other ISI agents came to Florida on several occasions to negotiate, but they escaped being arrested. They wanted to partially pay in heroin. One mentioned that the WTC would be destroyed (see July 14, 1999 and Early August 2001). These ISI agents said some of their purchases would go to the Taliban in Afghanistan and/or terrorists associated with bin Laden. (New York Times, 6/16/01, Washington Post, 8/2/02 (B), MSNBC, 8/2/02) Both Malik and Mohsen lived in Jersey City, New Jersey. (Jersey Journal, 6/20/01) A number of the people held by the US after 9/11, including possible al-Qaeda members Syed Gul Mohammad Shah and Mohammed Azmath (see September 11, 2001) are from the same Jersey City neighborhood. (New York Post, 9/23/01) Mohsen pleads guilty after 9/11, "But remarkably, even though he was apparently willing to supply America's enemies with sophisticated weapons, even nuclear weapons technology, Mohsen was sentenced to just 30 months in prison." (MSNBC, 8/2/02) Malik's case appears to have been dropped, and reporters find him working in a store in Florida less than a year after the trial ended. (MSNBC, 8/2/02) Malik's court files remain completely sealed, and in Mohsen's court case prosecutors "removed references to Pakistan from public filings because of diplomatic concerns." (Washington Post 8/8/02)
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/randyglass.html

[seemslikeadream]

10. The Good Doctor Who Wasn't So Good

I have a theory that Elamir was not arrested, because if his case did come to court, then Chertoff's role as his lawyer in the HMO case might have been exposed. Since Elamir's HMO was supposedly a front for Bin Laden and millions of dollars were allegedly skimmed from the HMO to fund terrorism, Chertoff himself might be implicated in some way since he had to have had access to the HMO's books and Elamir's finances when he defended him.

I also have a theory that this may be why Operation Diamondback remained a criminal case and not a counterterrorism case. As head of the Criminal Division in the Department of Justice, the case would have been under the control of Michael Chertoff himself. Was this the real reason why the case came to a screeching halt with only a few arrests? Was this the reason why Randy Glass was told to drop the matter by federal agents when the case started focusing on Dr. Elamir's brother Mohamed El Amir? Was this the reason why so many federal agents were frustrated because they felt the case hadn't received the attention of higher ups in federal law enforcement? Maybe it had?
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20050114184216156

Thanks MB :hi:

[seemslikeadream]

14. Cheney Covered-Up Pakistani Nuclear Proliferation

Cheney Covered-Up Pakistani Nuclear Proliferation
Monday, 8 March 2004, 4:05 pm
Column: Jason Leopold

VP Cheney Helped Cover-Up Pakistani Nuclear Proliferation In '89 So US Could Sell Country Fighter Jets

By Jason Leopold

Cheney went to great lengths to cover-up Pakistan’s nuclear weaponry. In a New Yorker article published on March 29, 1993, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?040119fr_arch ... investigative reporter Seymour Hersh quoted Barlow as saying that some high-ranking members inside the CIA and the Pentagon lied to Congress about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal so as not to sacrifice the sale of the F-16 fighter planes to Islamabad, which was secretly equipped to deliver nuclear weapons. Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities and the had become so grave by the spring of 1990 that then CIA deputy director Richard Kerr said the Pakistani nuclear threat was worse than the Cuban Missile crisis in the 1

“It was the most dangerous nuclear situation we have ever faced since I’ve been in the U.S. government,” Kerr said in an interview with Hersh. “It may be as close as we’ve come to a nuclear exchange. It was far more frightening than the Cuban missile crisis.”

Presently, Kerr is leading the CIA’s review of prewar intelligence into the Iraqi threat cited by Bush.

Still, in l989 Cheney and others in the Pentagon and the CIA continued to hide the reality of Pakistan’s nuclear threat from members of Congress. Hersh explained in his lengthy New Yorker article that reasons behind the cover-up “revolves around the fact… that the Reagan Administration had dramatically aided Pakistan in its pursuit of the bomb.”

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0403/S00102.htm


CIA'S WHISTLE-BLOWER & SECURITY "DOUBLE-BIND"

To avoid oversight criticism for "lax security", the CIA asked the Justice Department, on 19 July, to investigate the possible disclosure of classified information in June when former Agency officials helped the media do a program on secret covert operations against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. During the same period, Congressional oversight resulted in the Agency and Pentagon being criticized for the 1993 treatment of a whistle-blower analyst, Richard M. Barlow, 42, who thought Congress should be warned that it been given misleading testimony concerning the possible Pakistani possession of nuclear weapons.

http://www.thepalmerpress.com/Art04.html


On the Nuclear Edge
by Seymour M. Hersh
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?040119fr_archive02

Khan Job: Bush Spiked Probe of Pakistan’s Dr. Strangelove

And there was a lot to investigate-or in the case of the CIA and FBI under Bush-a lot to ignore. Through well-known international arms dealers (I'm sorry, but in this business, sinners are better sources than saints) our team was tipped off to a meeting of Saudi billionaires at the Hotel Royale Monceau in Paris in May 1996 with the financial representative of Osama bin Laden's network. The Saudis, including a key Saudi prince joined by Muslim and non-Muslim gun traffickers, met to determine who would pay how much to Osama. This was not so much an act of support but of protection-a pay off to keep the mad bomber away from Saudi Arabia.



The crucial question here is that, if I could learn about this meeting, how did the CIA miss it? In fact, since the first edition of this book, other sources have disclosed that the meeting was monitored by French intelligence. Since U.S. intelligence was thus likely informed, the question becomes, Why didn't our government immediately move against the Saudis?



I probed our CIA contact for specifics of investigations that
were hampered by orders to back off of the Saudis. He told us that the Khan Laboratories investigation had been effectively put on hold.



You may never have heard of Khan Laboratories, but if this planet blows to pieces this year, it will likely be thanks to Khan Labs' creating nuclear warheads for Pakistan's military. Because investigators had been tracking the funding for this so-called "Islamic Bomb" back to Saudi Arabia, under Bush security restrictions, the inquiry was stymied. (The restrictions were lifted, the agent told me without a hint of dark humor, on September 11.)
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=312&row=0

[Al-CIAda]

17. That video is very nice. -eom

[seemslikeadream]

11. Chertoff headed the anthrax investigation

The legislation allows intelligence officials to share information with prosecutors for the first time. The immediate effect will be that a bundle of intelligence files from the CIA and other agencies on terrorism suspects will be shipped to a Justice Department terrorism task force headed by Attorney General Michael Chertoff.

Files on prior attacks and radical groups gathered before the Sept. 11 attacks are of particular interest for what they may reveal about possible new attacks, Justice Department officials said.

While new intelligence information will be available, investigators are still waiting for tests that will show whether the anthrax sent to Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., was treated with chemical additives.

That would indicate the anthrax probably is produced in a sophisticated state-sponsored lab. Officials have cited early indications that the anthrax attacks might be the work of a domestic terrorist.

Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said the anthrax sent to Daschle was altered to make it more easily inhaled.

http://www.courttv.com/assault_on_america/1026_terrorlaws_ap.html

[Al-CIAda]

12. kick

[Al-CIAda]

13. kick

[Octafish]

15. Cheney really likes nuclear proliferation ... Big Time Bucks, there.

Gee. One would think more DUers would be interested in learning about how the BFEE makes money off war. At the least, people should give pause when confronted with the facts that their "elected" leadership makes money off war and big money off nuclear war.

The A. Q. Khan Network and Justice

Dr. Subodh Atal

While the media focused on President Bush's style, his lack of depth in explaining his positions, and how bringing freedom to the world is such hard work, his opening remarks on the AQ Khan network being brought to justice may have been the biggest instance of "misleading" in the entire first debate of the 2004 US presidential elections.

Since the existence of the "AQ Khan" network was revealed earlier this year, there has been near unanimous agreement by experts around the world, in the US, and inside Pakistan, that Khan's monopolization of a nuclear proliferation network that spanned nearly two dozen countries and many continents, was impossible and incredulous. The concept that the Pakistani military, which has had a vise-like grip on Pakistan even during its democratic interludes, would have been unaware of the nation's nuclear technology, centrifuges and more being exported around the globe, can be described by one word: nonsense. That top Pakistani military leadership, including Musharraf, who claimed to have 400% confidence in November 2001 of his nuclear assets, would have been uninformed of this global network is not possible.

The only two entities in the world who claim that the Pakistani regime was blissfully unaware of the network are: a) the Pakistani regime itself, and b) the Bush administration. Both blame AQ Khan as a greedy nuclear scientist who did it for riches. Back to Bush's inclusion of "AQ Khan" and "justice" in the same sentence - was Khan then punished suitably for supplying some of America's worst enemies with nukes? No, he was pardoned quickly by Musharraf, and the Bush administration proclaimed it all an internal Pakistani matter and gave Musharraf a pass. Musharraf in a recent NY Times interview brazenly stated that no way would he allow US investigators to talk to Khan.

What does this all mean? Seymour Hersh wrote earlier this year that the "pardon" and the "pass" were part of a deal where the Bush administration was promised help in capturing Bin Laden. So do we get Bin Laden in return for allowing the details of the world's greatest nuclear proliferation scandal to remain obscured. It is no wonder that Nicholas Kristof wrote recently in the NY Times "If a nuclear weapon destroys the U.S. Capitol in coming years, it will probably be based in part on Pakistani technology".

SOURCE:

http://www.kashmirherald.com/featuredarticle/khannetwork-prn.html

Learn some new Bush treason every day now, y'hear? Then, spread the word.

EDIT: Changed the freaking post. Seemslikeadream posted my original article above. Great alike think minds.

[Octafish]

16. Of course there's plenty of money to be made in North Korea.

If you know the right people, that is.

Rev. Moon, the Bushes & Donald Rumsfeld

By Robert Parry

George W. Bush’s choice of Donald Rumsfeld to be U.S. defense secretary could put an unintended spotlight on the role of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon – a Bush family benefactor – in funneling millions of dollars to communist North Korea in the 1990s as it was developing a missile and nuclear weapons program.

In 1998, Rumsfeld headed a special commission, appointed by the Republican-controlled Congress, that warned that North Korea had made substantial progress during the decade in building missiles that could pose a potential nuclear threat to Japan and parts of the United States.

"The extraordinary level of resources North Korea and Iran are now devoting to developing their own ballistic missile capabilities poses a substantial and immediate danger to the U.S., its vital interests and its allies," said the report by Rumsfeld's Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States.

"North Korea maintains an active WMD program, including a nuclear weapon program. It is known that North Korea diverted material in the late 1980s for at least one or possibly two weapons," the report said.

Rumsfeld’s alarming assessment of North Korea’s war-making capabilities now is being cited by Republicans as a justification for investing billions of taxpayer dollars in an anti-missile defense system favored by Bush and Rumsfeld.

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/010301a.html

C'mon DU! Do you want to go into the fight unarmed? Get some real weaponry -- knowledge!

[Al-CIAda]

18. kick

[seemslikeadream]

19. ACLU Examines Chertoff’s Troubling Civil Liberties Record

ACLU Examines Chertoff’s Troubling Civil Liberties Record; Nominee Had Key Role In Controversial Post- 9/11 Policies

January 31, 2005

...

"The Bill of Rights is not a suggestion for how our government operates -- it’s the foundation," said Christopher E. Anders, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "Chertoff has an alarming record of pushing - an in some cases breaching - what is permissible under the Bill of Rights in the name of national security. The new head of the one of the nation’s largest collection of law enforcement agents must have an unwavering commitment to keep us both safe and free."

The New York Times reported over the weekend that Chertoff "advised the Central Intelligence Agency on the legality of coercive interrogation methods on terror suspects under the federal anti-torture statute." The ACLU has called on Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales, if confirmed, to appoint a special counsel to investigate and prosecute any criminal acts by civilians in the torture or abuse of detainees by the U.S. Government.

"Top level officials - including Chertoff -- that were involved in developing or applying policies that paved the way for the horrific abuses are not being sanctioned, instead they’re being rewarded," Anders said. "Enlisted men and women and low-ranking military officers should not be the only persons held responsible if civilians also engaged in misconduct."

...

And, perhaps most significantly, he was the real force behind the pretextual detention of hundreds of Arab and Muslim men during the 9/11 investigation using minor immigration violations that would not normally warrant detention, and the misuse of the material witness statute to detain individuals when law enforcement could not meet criminal evidentiary requirements for lawful arrest.

...

The two-year-old Department of Homeland Security controls a veritable alphabet soup of national security agencies, many of which directly impact civil liberties policies. DHS includes the Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the United States Secret Service. As head of that department, the Secretary has wide-reaching control over the civil liberties of American citizens and immigrants alike.

"Senators must closely examine Chertoff’s record to determine in what manner he will act to protect our nation," Anders added. "His past performance so far is troubling, and must be examined."
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17379&c=206