Plame, Pakistan, a Nuclear Turkey, and the Neocons

While it's well known that the war party's fateful "outing" of CIA agent Valerie Plame was partly revenge against her husband, Joseph Wilson, for his 2003 New York Times article, it may have also been motivated by a desire to neutralize Plame's investigations into rogue nuclear trafficking. The long and storied history of indiscretions of powerful neocons in and around the Bush administration gives us reason to consider this possibility.

Plame at the CIA: Background

Within the CIA, Valerie Plame was an NOC (non-official cover) agent, meaning that she had "little or no protection from the U.S. government if she got caught." Far from being a "bit player," as neocons once belittled her, Plame was operating undercover and working to counter the spread of the world's most dangerous materials. And, while the front company by which she was ostensibly employed as an energy consultant, Brewster Jennings & Associates, may indeed have been little more than a "telephone and post office box" in Boston, Plame and her colleagues were using this ruse as a means of getting important information and undertaking delicate missions abroad.

Bob Novak's revelation of July 2003 thus did not just affect Plame. It affected all of us. Former CIA chief of counterterrorism operations and analysis Vince Cannistraro stated in October 2003 that since not only Plame but other agents were run through this front company, the leak had put them all in danger – and disrupted the international network of contacts the agents had carefully developed over the years. It severely impeded long-standing CIA investigations into one of the world's most serious issues.

The leak had wider effects, therefore, than just ruining one woman's career. It had serious national security implications, which have astonishingly enough been ignored by red-blooded backers of Washington's war party. The question thus becomes: who in the government would have stood to gain by ruining a CIA investigation into rogue nuclear trafficking, and in what ways?

Convergences Arise

An article published in Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, entitled "She Came to Turkey Too," cites an anonymous American intelligence expert who verifies that Plame's job involved "the 'top secret' part of nuclear weapons proliferation." The source also claims that it had brought her to Turkey several times, for follow-up visits with persons of interest:

"[P]lame and other employees of Brewster & Jennings, the CIA's fake energy consulting firm, used to visit the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA, located in Vienna] frequently. They used to attend the meetings and undertake deliberate operations to get 'targeted names' on their side.

"Plame and other 'energy consultants' used to continue with follow-up meetings for those persons whom they had contacted in Vienna, in Istanbul. … Plame met with foreign dignitaries who are in charge of nuclear weapons in their countries and scientists in Turkey, where she has visited several times as an 'energy consultant.'"

Independently of this, former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds told me recently that "Plame's undercover job involved the organizations [the FBI had been investigating], the ATC (American-Turkish Council) and the ATA (American-Turkish Association)."

Further, she adds, "the Brewster Jennings network was very active in Turkey and with the Turkish community in the U.S. during the late 1990s, 2000, and 2001 … in places like Chicago, Boston, and Paterson, N.J." These disclosures make it clear that nuclear trafficking was one of the widespread illegal activities enjoyed by government officials, foreign agents, rogue businessmen, and terrorists under surveillance prior to and during Ms. Edmonds' time at the FBI

Case Studies in Nuclear Smuggling

In May 2004, an intricate multinational scheme for smuggling in nuclear parts was documented by the L.A. Times. The case, which began with an anonymous tip from someone in South Africa in July 2003, "offers a rare glimpse into what authorities say is an international bazaar teeming with entrepreneurs, transporters, scientists, manufacturers, government agents, organized-crime syndicates, and, perhaps, terrorists."

The case centered around an Israeli, Asher Karni, who was caught trying to sell 200 triggered spark gaps that can be used for medical purposes – as well as for nuclear weapons – to Humayun Khan, a Pakistani with military and radical Islamist links, whose father had been a supplier to Pakistan's Atomic Energy Commission in the 1970s. The Pakistani government was thus suspected to be the final recipient.

Some two months before the L.A. Times piece, the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh had provided detailed information on Pakistan's "nuclear godfather," A.Q. Khan (no relation to Humayun Khan), who had been forced to admit to a long career of black-market nuclear trafficking that helped arm various volatile states. The revelations came when Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi voluntarily gave up his nuclear program, ushering in UN inspectors and casting light on the complex and far-flung network of dealers, suppliers, and clients from Malaysia to Dubai. This in turn implicated Khan, who was pardoned by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, despite being regarded as a hero for his role in developing the bomb. Official Washington said little about the pardon, though the investigations picked up. For successive American administrations that had held up Pakistan as a stellar ally, the disclosure was an embarrassment, to say the least.

The Karni-Humayun Khan transaction was allowed to continue so that investigators could trace the whole operation. Karni first requested the spark gaps from a Massachusetts company, Perkin-Elmer Optoelectronics, but a company official told him that he first "needed to submit required U.S. certificates detailing what the switches would be used for, and promising not to send them to blacklisted countries such as Pakistan or use them in nuclear-related applications."

Deciding not to fill out the forms, Karni instead contacted Zeki Bilmen, a Turkish Jew and head of Giza Technologies in Secaucus, N.J. Bilmen secured the shipment by giving Perkin-Elmer certificates stating that the switches would be used in a South African hospital. However, authorities became suspicious when Perkin-Elmer told them a typical hospital would only request five or six such devices, not 200. What followed was a textbook case of rerouted shipments, front companies, and multiple handoffs in numerous countries before it finally finished in Pakistan.

Bilmen's company also described the spark gaps as "'electrical splices and couplings for switchings," something for which no export license would be required. However, an affidavit filed by Special Agent James R. Brigham of the Commerce Department's Office of Export Enforcement pointedly noted that "providing such false or misleading information is a violation of federal law."

What is more, court records cited by the L.A. Times show that this was not the first time this threesome had worked together: in one of the several "suspicious deals" mentioned, "Karni bought for Khan a type of sophisticated oscilloscope often used in nuclear weapons and military programs, also through Giza."

Protections and Paradoxes

Despite these red flags, Zeki Bilmen was not implicated; with more success than the other two characters involved, he portrayed himself as a naïvely innocent victim of circumstances. "It's beyond logical explanation," said Sibel Edmonds back in August. "Maybe it was decided in high places that no one would touch him."

According to her, Giza's business in New Jersey, staffed by Jewish Turks, was not affected by the controversy:

"[T]hey have many shipments going out, coming in, all day long. To places like Dubai, Spain, South Africa, Turkey. They have branches in all these places. Yep, they're sailing along very smoothly."

Giza Technologies' Web site states that the company is characterized "by the speed and dexterity by the way it locates hard-to-find products and the flexibility and efficiency of the service that it gives its customers." The company's main European branch is located in Madrid, Spain, and it claims to have worked in an (unspecified) capacity on various European defense projects such as the Eurofighter, F-100 Frigate, and Leopard tank.

From the Hersh piece, one also gets the sense that the worst proliferators are getting off with a slap on the wrist. A former Pakistani government official, Husain Haqqani, quipped that with the A.Q. Khan case "it is not a few scientists pocketing money and getting rich. It's a state policy." This might explain the American reticence to put an end to the unsavory activities by embarrassing key ally Pakistan. One mystified international counter-proliferation official asked Hersh, "Why hasn't A. Q. Khan been taken out by Israel or the United States?"

An American intelligence officer "with years of experience in nonproliferation issues" could only lament to Hersh that "we had every opportunity to put a stop to the A.Q. Khan network 15 years ago. Some of those involved today in the smuggling are the children of those we knew about in the '80s. It's the second generation now."

Back to the Future

In the present context, nothing illustrates the old adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same better than this comprehensive 1993 report from the New Yorker's archive. Seymour Hersh chronicled how a desire to maintain certain foreign relations and prolong the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, as well as to cash in on lucrative military deals, inspired the Reagan and Bush I regimes to help Pakistan develop its nuclear arsenal – something that brought the volatile Southeast Asian state to the brink of Armageddon with neighboring adversary India in 1990. The Pakistanis, led by the aforementioned A.Q. Khan and radical Islamist generals, were able to develop a nuclear program "with the aid of many millions of dollars' worth of restricted, high-tech materials bought inside the United States."

As with the situation today, the State Department back then efficiently neutralized the many incriminating intelligence reports that revealed the clandestine role of prominent individuals and government officials in the whole sordid affair. Just as with the whistleblower cases of the past few years, the Pakistan imbroglio had its own hardworking and talented young agent to sacrifice: Richard M. Barlow, an expert on Pakistani nuclear proliferation issues. As with Sibel Edmonds a generation later, he stumbled upon hugely significant information while "rummaging" through a forgotten backlog of data. And, as with Edmonds, Barlow was harassed and then fired for refusing to shut up when he spoke up about clear evidence of wrongdoing. Hersh recounted events thus:

"[E]ven as Barlow began his digging, some senior State Department officials were worried that too much investigation would create what Barlow called 'embarrassment for Pakistan and trigger the Solarz Amendment, which would cut off all aid.' Protecting the Afghanistan war had emerged as a major policy of the State Department's Bureau of Near East and South Asia Affairs, which was responsible for Pakistani policy."

The State Department, deemed "easily the most corrupt" of major government agencies by Edmonds, was again the target in another of Barlow's investigations, which involved "possibly illegal State Department approval of licenses to the Pakistani Embassy in Washington for equipment whose export had previously been denied – for nuclear-proliferation reasons – by the Commerce Department."

The realities of then and now collide unhappily yet again with the ultimate example of What It's All About. When Barlow discovered that the government "was once again distorting intelligence on Pakistan's nuclear capability," he prepared a comprehensive study for the benefit of "Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney and other senior officials." Barlow's report, which was backed up by a similar one from the Defense Intelligence Agency, proved that Pakistan was retrofitting its American F-16 fighter jets to carry nuclear warheads.

This revelation presented a "big problem" for Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and the boys, because it imperiled the $1.6 billion they expected to rake in from the sale of 60 more F-16 fighters and subsequent acceleration of the India-Pakistan arms race. When Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Arthur Hughes stood before Congress on Aug. 2, 1989, and claimed that the planes could not be modified to carry nuclear missiles, Barlow immediately protested to his superiors that this was a lie, and was just as immediately terminated. The deal, like all the others before and after it, went ahead.

Humorously enough, when Khan finally admitted his black-market role in 2004, Cheney purported to be "shocked." For this act, he could have taken home the Oscar.

The Turkish-Pakistani Connection

Turkey has long been known as a vital transit and assembly point for contraband nuclear materials. It has been aiding the nuclear aspirations of Pakistan, in particular, since a military coup in 1980. A report from back in 2000 recalled that:

"[T]urkey has already been implicated in nuclear arms aid to Pakistan. An earlier attempt to build an Argentinean-designed reactor was likely aimed at plutonium production for nuclear weapons. Evidence of nuclear smuggling based in Turkey, and Turkey's push for its own nuclear fuel capability and indigenous reactor design, all pointed to possible nuclear weapons development. The support of prominent Turkish citizens for nuclear weapons development has leant credence to this evidence."

Over the past 20 years, various Turkish and Pakistani governments, as well as sections of the military, have looked kindly on the idea of creating Islamic nuclear states. The countries were specifically linked in the A.Q. Khan network; this July 2004 summary gives detailed information:

"[W]orkshops in Turkey made the centrifuge motor and frequency converters used to drive the motor and spin the rotor to high speeds. These workshops imported subcomponents from Europe and elsewhere, and they assembled these centrifuge items in Turkey. Under false end-user certificates, these components were shipped to Dubai for repackaging and shipment to Libya."

Today, it is not known whether Turkey possesses nuclear weapons. But remember, the crucial part of the above-cited 2000 report is:

"[E]vidence of nuclear smuggling based in Turkey, and Turkey's push for its own nuclear fuel capability and indigenous reactor design, all pointed to possible nuclear weapons development. The support of prominent Turkish citizens for nuclear weapons development has leant credence to this evidence."

Total trafficking levels are hard to adduce, though it's clear that more supplies get through than are caught. From 1993-1999 alone, there were 18 high-profile incidents of nuclear trafficking involving Turkey – the sort of cases that Valerie Plame's unit sought to investigate. As this report details, "these cases include nuclear material seized in Turkey, nuclear material interdicted en route to Turkey, and seizure of nuclear material smuggled by Turkish nationals." In most of the cases, the nuclear materials originated in unstable former Soviet states such as Georgia, Romania, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Russia itself. Among the destination states, Libya and Iran jump out. In addition to Turks, detained smugglers included nationals of Azerbaijan, Russia, Georgia, Romania, as well as a Kazakh army colonel and suspected Iranian secret service agents.

A couple of years later, on Sept. 10, 2001, the N.Y. Times reported that "in the last eight years, there have been 104 attempts to smuggle nuclear material into Turkey, according to an internal report by the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority."

An Unpredictable Future

As Seymour Hersh related in his 1993 article, Pakistani leaders were smart enough to know that the U.S. was just using them for their proximity to Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. They knew that when the Russians withdrew, the U.S. would have no further need for them – and would be less enthusiastic about letting the country go nuclear. However, by the time the Soviets pulled out, the damage had long been done. After all, A.Q. Khan had been boasting since the mid-1980s that his country had the bomb.

An even more frightening prospect is a nuclear Turkey. The country has been militarily subsidized even more than Pakistan; mass military aid and technology transfer were justified first of all by Turkey's status as a key Cold War ally and thereafter as a bulwark of secular Islam, holding the wall against Syria, Iran, and Iraq.

However, the very same American leaders who have been arming Turkey and allowing, in some cases even profiting from, nuclear smuggling there have also ruined the delicate balance of regional power with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and brought the world far closer to nuclear confrontations.

In the former case, they put huge strain on the "pro-Western" Musharraf government, strengthening the hand of fundamentalist Islamists in both the mosque and in the armed forces. Musharraf has survived multiple assassination attempts, but there is no guarantee that he will enjoy lucky escapes forever. If he goes, what then? Any coup by a populist, fundamentalist-based leader would instantly put both Pakistan and India on high alert, taking us back to previous near-apocalyptic nuclear showdowns. Mired in numerous other bloody commitments of its own making, there's no certainty that the U.S. could finesse the situation as it did in 1990.

While Turkey is much less likely to fall victim to an Islamist coup, preserved as it is by a strongly secular military, it could easily grow more isolationist. Major changes have occurred since the invasion of Iraq that have manifested themselves in a demoted role for Turkey in U.S. foreign policy considerations, a shifting relationship between it and Europe, a return to Islamic roots, and the revival of armed Kurdish insurrectionists in the southeast.

With 2002's war planning, the neocons decided that it was not enough to merely keep Turkey on as the dependable bulwark of the West's hinterland; instead, they chose to take the bull by the horns and seize the whole neighborhood for themselves. After the Iraq invasion gave the U.S. troops a huge and probably permanent regional military presence and the capabilities to easily strike Iran and Syria, Turkey's strategic importance has been downgraded. At the same time, the revival of Kurdish terrorism in Turkey, inspired by the "liberation" next door in Iraq, has left many Turks feeling angry and apprehensive that the U.S. no longer has its best interests in mind. They also sympathize on religious grounds with fellow Muslims who are being injured and killed every day in Iraq.

The way Turkey's other external relationships are handled in the coming months will also play a role in deciding the direction of future trends. The European Union recently began candidacy negotiations with Turkey, something about which large sections of the European public have deep misgivings. It's hard to see how they will become more eager to welcome Turkey aboard after having seen the rioting of Muslim immigrants that swept France and neighboring countries in recent weeks.

The issue of the EU is controversial not only in Europe, however; nationalist and religious-minded Turks do not want to make the sometimes humiliating concessions and "reforms" Brussels is requesting of them. That the Iraq war added to the volatility of the Middle East, rather than to its stabilization, goes without saying. But Turkey's sudden drop in the estimation of U.S. policy planners and its arm's-length treatment from the EU can only increase feelings of frustration and alienation among the general populace, strengthening the religious-based parties and go-it-alone nationalist sentiment alike.

Proud Turkey has always wanted to be seen as an important country. Were it to declare itself a nuclear one, it would become, for a time at least, the most important country in the world. The entire balance of power in Europe and the Middle East would be radically altered overnight, and the overall side results would not at all be positive for Turkey or anyone else – except of course for those cashing in on illicit nuclear sales. Nevertheless, the country is probably technologically capable by now. A new question that has thus arisen, as articulated recently by Turkish scholar Mehmet Kalyoncu on Balkanalysis.com, is the following: "If the U.S. and the EU do not approve of Turkey having nuclear weapons, what do they have to offer Turkey instead?"

This is a startling question that no one hopes will be asked. If it is, it certainly won't come as a surprise to those neocons of long experience who have gotten rich by helping Pakistan (and perhaps soon Turkey) realize nuclear ambitions – making the world a safer place for all of us in the process.