Scott Ritter, James Bamford and Glenn Greenwald were guests for the 11/17/09 KPFK Pacifica Radio edition of Scott Horton’s Antiwar Radio show.

The show is about an hour long and can be listened to here, beginning at 1:29 into the recording.

Scott Ritter discusses the Iranian nuclear program, James Bamford discusses the national surveillance state and Glenn Greenwald discusses what the upcoming Khalid Sheikh Muhammad trial in New York means for the rule of law.

Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for Inter Press Service, discusses longstanding Iranian contingency plans for a U.S. attack on their nuclear industry, the Qom facility’s use as a symbol of deterrence to Israel and the U.S., the likely failure of multiple party uranium processing agreements and how Iran’s potential nuclear “breakout” capability creates leverage in U.S. negotiations.

MP3 here. (27:33)

Gareth Porter is an independent historian and journalist. His articles appear on Counterpunch, Huffington Post, Inter Press Service News Agency and Antiwar.com.

Former FBI contract-translator-turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds and former FBI counter-intelligence officer John M. Cole discuss State Department cooperation with the “mujahedeen” in the Central Asian Turkic countries through the Turkish military and intelligence in the time before 9/11, a State Department order to release suspicious Uzbeks and Turks after the attack, the neocons’ and realists’ joint-attempt to negotiate the invasion of Iraq from Turkey in the summer of 2001, Edmonds’s overall credibility and level of access to information in her role as “language specialist” for the FBI, espionage within the FBI and why it continues unabated, Cole’s “conservative estimate” of 125 worthwhile investigations into Israeli espionage in the U.S. which quashed by political pressure from above, Edmonds’s accusations that Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and Marc Grossman have been participating in the stealing and fencing of nuclear secrets to Turkish and Israeli agents for years, Grossman’s outing of CIA front-company “Brewster-Jennings” to a Turkish diplomat in August, 2001 – nearly 2 years before the Valerie Plame scandal – and it’s destruction as a result, the grey area where legitimate lobbying by foreign governments crosses into espionage and criminality, Cole’s call for prosecutions and Edmonds’s intention to turn her new news Website, BoilingFrogsPost.com, into a home for journalists who want to practice their craft without partisanship or political pressure.

MP3 here. (1:17:21)

Sibel Edmonds is a former FBI-contract language specialist turned whistleblower against government incompetence and corruption. The ACLU has described her as the most gagged person in U.S. history.

John M. Cole, Former Veteran Intelligence Operations Specialist, worked for 18 years in the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division as an Intelligence Operations specialist.

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter discusses the overblown “gotcha” revelation of the “secret” Iranian nuclear facility, how the wonkish debate over IAEA Additional Protocol minutiae turned into accusations that Iran is building nukes, the secret Saudi, U.K. and U.S. funding of opposition candidates in the Iranian election and the likely disastrous results of a war with Iran.

MP3 here. (49:08)

Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer and a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. He writes for truthdig.com and is the author of numerous books, including Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement and Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change.

Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, discusses his new film “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” simulations that indicate nuclear war would be more destructive than previously thought, how the practice of killing civilians en masse in WWII became the premise of U.S. nuclear war planning, cancellation of the European missile defense shield and the staggering difference in destructive force between an H-bomb and every other weapon preceding it.

MP3 here. (53:13)

Daniel Ellsberg is the author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers and the article “U.S. Nuclear War Planning for a Hundred Holocausts.”

In 1959 Daniel Ellsberg worked as a strategic analyst at the RAND Corporation, and consultant to the Defense Department and the White House, specializing in problems of the command and control of nuclear weapons, nuclear war plans, and crisis decision-making. He joined the Defense Department in 1964 as Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs), John McNaughton, working on Vietnam. He transferred to the State Department in 1965 to serve two years at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, evaluating pacification on the front lines.

On return to the RAND Corporation in 1967, he worked on the Top Secret McNamara study of U.S. Decision-making in Vietnam, 1945-68, which later came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. In 1969, he photocopied the 7,000 page study and gave it to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; in 1971 he gave it to the New York Times, the Washington Post and 17 other newspapers. His trial, on twelve felony counts posing a possible sentence of 115 years, was dismissed in 1973 on grounds of governmental misconduct against him, which led to the convictions of several White House aides and figured in the impeachment proceedings against President Nixon.

Daniel Ellsberg, author of the article “Hiroshima Day: America Has Been Asleep at the Wheel for 64 Years,” discusses the 64 year cover-up of the destructive power of nuclear weapons, how the A-bomb is a mere trigger for the 1000X stronger H-bomb, the massive loss of civilian life in the allied fire-bombing of German and Japanese cities, the U.S. president’s free hand to commit atrocities in wartime and the need for government whistleblowers to step up and prevent the next false pretext for war.

MP3 here. (28:42)

Daniel Ellsberg is the author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. In 1959 he worked as a strategic analyst at the RAND Corporation, and consultant to the Defense Department and the White House, specializing in problems of the command and control of nuclear weapons, nuclear war plans, and crisis decision-making. He joined the Defense Department in 1964 as Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs), John McNaughton, working on Vietnam. He transferred to the State Department in 1965 to serve two years at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, evaluating pacification on the front lines.

On return to the RAND Corporation in 1967, he worked on the Top Secret McNamara study of U.S. Decision-making in Vietnam, 1945-68, which later came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. In 1969, he photocopied the 7,000 page study and gave it to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; in 1971 he gave it to the New York Times, the Washington Post and 17 other newspapers. His trial, on twelve felony counts posing a possible sentence of 115 years, was dismissed in 1973 on grounds of governmental misconduct against him, which led to the convictions of several White House aides and figured in the impeachment proceedings against President Nixon.

Greg Mitchell, editor of Editor and Publisher, discusses the suppressed documentary color footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki devastation, today’s casual threats to use nuclear weapons without a serious understanding of the consequences, the continuing disagreement over the need to use atomic weapons to quickly defeat Japan in WWII and the surprising cast of characters (MacArthur, Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles) who were against using the bomb.

MP3 here. (38:30)

Greg Mitchell is the author of Hiroshima in America, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits–and the President–Failed on Iraq and Why Obama Won: The Making of a President 2008.

Gordon Prather, former nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, discusses unsubstantiated claims Iran is secretly building nukes, the IAEA going beyond the scope of their mandate in Iran dealings, Bill Clinton’s broken promises regarding N. Korea’s nuclear program, accusations that Iran is pioneering new nuclear weapons designs, overstated dangers of EMP attacks and the indignant U.S. attitude toward Iran designed to provoke withdrawal from the NPT and IAEA programs.

MP3 here. (61:20)

Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army.

David Albright, founder and President of the Institute for Science and International Security, discusses the propaganda value of half-truth descriptions of Iran’s nuclear program, the details of IAEA/NPT compliance requirements and loopholes for avoiding them, the CIA’s smear campaign against Oak Ridge National Laboratory for disputing the Iraqi aluminum tube/uranium enrichment story, issues relating to the nuclear weapons of Israel, India, Pakistan and N. Korea, how the Bush administration’s warmongering wasted a golden opportunity to settle disputes over Iran’s nuclear program, and much more.

MP3 here. (83:34)

David Albright, a physicist, is President of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) in Washington, D.C. He directs the project work of ISIS, heads its fundraising efforts, and chairs its board of directors. In addition, he regularly publishes and conducts scientific research. He has written numerous assessments on secret nuclear weapons programs throughout the world.

Albright has published assessments in Science, Scientific American, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Arms Control Today, The Washington Post, Newsday, The New York Times, The Public Interest Report, and Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy. Research reports by Albright have been published by the Environmental Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. and Princeton University’s Center for Energy and Environmental Studies.

Albright has been cited often in the media and appeared frequently on television and radio. He has been cited regularly in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Time, Washington Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, London Sunday Times, Guardian, Die Zeit, Ashi Shimbun, Der Spiegel, Stern, Times of India and by Reuters, Associated Press, AFP and Bloomberg wire services. Albright has also appeared many times on CNN, FOX, MSNBC, ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, 60 Minutes, Dateline, Nightline and multiple National Public Radio shows.

Albright, in collaboration with Frans Berkhout, of Sussex University, and William Walker, of the University of St. Andrews, published World Inventory of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium, 1992 (SIPRI and Oxford University Press). A second, greatly-expanded edition entitled Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996: World Inventories, Capabilities and Policies was published in March 1997. He is also a co-editor and contributor to Challenges of Fissile Material Control and Solving the North Korean Nuclear Puzzle, published by ISIS Press in 1999 and 2000, respectively.

Albright cooperated actively with the IAEA Action Team from 1992 until 1997, focusing on analyses of Iraqi documents and past procurement activities. In June 1996, he was the first non-governmental inspector of the Iraqi nuclear program. On this inspection mission, Albright questioned members of Iraq’s former uranium enrichment programs about their statements in Iraq’s draft Full, Final, and Complete Declaration.

Larisa Alexandrovna, managing investigative news editor for Rawstory.com, discusses the possible treason in Valerie Plame’s outing, the subsequent loss of CIA covert contacts with the A.Q. Kahn network (that may have supplied al-Qaeda with weapons), evidence of the U.S. scheming to start a war with Iran as early as December 2001 and what living in a police state really looks like.

MP3 here. (26:37)

Larisa Alexandrovna is the managing investigative news editor for Rawstory.com.