Free Press Releases
******************************************************************15th June, 2004
Forwarded from VVAW National Coordinator Dave
Cline to all on VVAWNET:
Ashcroft may face prison over 9/11 cover-up, says
Daniel Ellsberg
by Fintan Dunne http://www.fintandunne.com/,
Editor BreakForNews.com http://www.breakfornews.com/
http://www.breakfornews.com/Sibel-Edmonds1.htm
Two whistleblowers stood side
by side before a courthouse in Washington, D.C.
on Monday. Veteran of the Pentagon Papers
scandal, Daniel Ellsberg http://www.ellsberg.net/ was backing a protest by former FBI
translator Sibel Edmonds, against a court gag
order which has silenced her revelations about
the September 11th, 2001 attacks.
The whistleblower pair were
protesting yet another delay by Judge Reggie
Walton of the District Court of Columbia in
determining whether Edmonds' closed session
testimony to Congressional inquiries can be
declared state secrets by U.S. Attorney General,
John Ashcroft.
In a statement, Edmonds called
Ashcroft's legal moves anti-freedom of speech and
anti-due process.
Ellsberg's common cause with
Edmonds is founded on his own battle to make
public a top secret study of US decision-making
in Vietnam, known as the Pentagon Papers.
In an exclusive interview with
BreakForNews.com he said that Ashcroft's legal
actions against Edmonds were: "clearly
intended to keep her from
bringing out in public information that could
lead.... to criminal indictments and possible
convictions of major political figures."
Ellsberg says that if Edmonds'
allegations are confirmed, the current Attorney
General could be judged obstructive and share the
fate of A.G. John Mitchell --who in Ellsberg v.
Mitchell famously tried to squelch Ellsberg's
1971 revelations, and served prison time over the
affair.
"John Ashcroft may well
sleep eventually in the same cell as John
Mitchell," Ellsberg said.
http://www.breakfornews.com/newspics/sibel-edmonds040614.jpg
Enlarge
In a recent interview with
BreakFornews.com, Sibel Edmonds alleged that the
US State Department had blocked investigations
showing links between criminal drug trafficking
networks and the terror attacks on 9/11.
"Certain investigations
were being quashed, let's say per State
Department's request, because it would have
affected certain foreign relations [or] affected
certain business relations with foreign
organizations," she said. (Interview
http://www.breakfornews.com/Sibel-Edmonds040607.mp3- 4:00 min.)
Edmonds also indicated that the FBI's
intelligence translation service had been
penetrated by a criminal, semi-legitimate
intelligence group --not linked to any
government. Her measured words hinted at
politically explosive connections between
non-terrorist criminal networks and the 9/11
attacks.
Since October, 2002 Edmonds has
been bound by provisional gag orders while
awaiting an opportunity for a full hearing and a
definitive ruling. The recent moves in the case
arose from a government bid to exclude her
testimony from a class action lawsuit by families
of 9/11 victims.
Judge Walton had scheduled
Monday as the first ever hearing at which Edmonds
was to be allowed counter the state secret
privilege assertion by Ashcroft. But after an in
camera presentation last week by the government
side, he called off the hearing. Unofficial
reports say a new date may be set for early July.
Talk of US government
interference in 9/11 investigations, and the
considerable volume of online analysis
discounting the official conspiracy theory,
resonate with Ellsberg.
"I'm not an expert on all
this," he admits. "But I am
increasingly open to the explanation that people
in the administration did see this coming... and
may have indeed reduced some obstacles.., or
opened the door, in effect. I haven't been
absolutely convinced on that, but it does seem to
me to be an open question that deserves
investigation."
"Now beyond that... it
seems to me quite plausible that --plausible,
that's all I'd say-- that Pakistan was quite
involved in this, and that many Saudis were well
informed on this," says Ellsberg.
"And to say that. To say
Pakistan-- is to me, to say C.I.A. Because I
think the relations between the Pakistan I.S.I.
[intelligence service] and CIA were very close
from the beginning. And it's hard to say that the
I.S.I knew something that the CIA had no
knowledge of."
"So if you say, do I
accept confidently, and do I rely on the official
interpretation? Certainly not. But, I wouldn't
say that I have been yet been thoroughly
convinced by any alternative."
"I can add one thing
though -from my own experience, that's
relevant."
"Is it possible... that an
American president could have... welcomed an
attack on America that he would interpret [as]
justifying an invasion of another country?"
"Well, that's more than
possible, that happened --under a president that
I served. Lyndon Johnson did put American
destroyers in harms way, deliberately provoking
an attack.. in the Tonkin Gulf. Not only in
August of '64, but in February of '65. ...There
was an attack on August 2nd, and that was not
unwelcome to the United States at that
point."
Sibel Edmonds has already
become somewhat of a flag-bearer for the diverse
9/11 truth movement, which ranges across advocacy
groups, families of victims, individual
investigators and a host of online web sites
--all disputing the official 'Al-Qaida
conspiracy' theory.
But an article today
http://baltimorechronicle.com/061404ScottLoughrey.shtml
by Scott Loughrey on the
Baltimore Chronicle online, alleges that Edmonds
is offering a limited hangout version of events,
and accuses her of "repeating the propaganda
of the state."
Loughrey writes that Edmonds
blames intelligence failures, rather than more
sinister explanations, for the failure to prevent
the attacks.
That's misleading and unfair.
Yes, the superficial reports of her claims in the
mainstream media focus mainly on intelligence
failures. Yes, Edmonds was coy in her early
public statements --out of defenence to the
sensitivity of her information and the gung-ho
public sentiment at the time, no doubt.
But in closed session testimony
to Congressional inquiries, Edmonds has given a
much fuller account of her concerns. So dangerous
an account that Ashcroft seeks to retrospectively
cloak that testimony with state secret privilege
And as a disillusioned Edmonds
has seen her evidence disappear unremarked into
the black hole of those inquiries, she has blown
the whistle publicly --as unreservedly as the gag
order allows:
She says the pre-9/11 US
intelligence system had been penetrated by a
drug-linked, semi-legitimate criminal
intelligence network, operating with seeming
impunity inside the FBI.
The post-9/11 intelligence
'failures' included the willful quashing by the
government, of investigations tracing those
criminal networks.
The 9/11 terror plot itself,
intersected with the activities of a drug
trafficking network of international scope, in
ways that form a "crystal clear"
picture of what was going on --to quote
Edmonds.If that's a limited hangout, God help us.
The truth must be awful.
If it's true, as Edmonds
asserts, the official line is a shallow sham.
Fintan Dunne, Editor
BreakForNews.com http://www.breakfornews.com/
Contact Me
http://www.fintandunne.com
More Stories:
BreakForNews Homepage
http://www.breakfornews.com/
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in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107.
Reference:
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