Eight US State Dept Veterans Challenge 9/11 OS

[wake_up_bomb]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/gen..._state_dep.htm

Official Account of 9/11: “Flawed”, “Absurd”, “Totally Inadequate”, “a Cover-up” January 5, 2008 Eight U.S. State Department veterans have severely criticized the official account of 9/11 and called for a new investigation. “There is no question in my mind, that there is enough evidence to justify a very comprehensive and hard hitting investigation of the kind we have not seen, with subpoenas, general questioning of people, releasing a lot of documents,” said Daniel Ellsberg, PhD, in a 2006 interview with Jack Blood. [1]

Daniel Ellsberg, PhD

Col. Ann Wright

Fred Burks

Melvin Goodman, PhD

Dr. Ellsberg is one of many signers of a petition to reinvestigate 9/11. [2] Best known for leaking the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971, Dr. Ellsberg is a former U.S. State Department envoy to Viet Nam and Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense.

Another State Department critic of the official account of 9/11 is Col. Ann Wright, who said in a 2007 interview with Richard Greene on the Air America Radio Network, “It's incredible some of these things that still are unanswered. The 9/11 Report -- that was totally inadequate. I mean the questions that anybody has after reading that.” [3]

Col. Wright is one of three U.S. State Department officials to publicly resign in direct protest of the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003. She joined the Foreign Service in 1987 and served for 16 years as a U.S. Diplomat, including assignments as Deputy Chief of Mission of U.S. Embassies in Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Afghanistan. She helped reopen the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in December, 2001. She also served for 13 years on active duty and 16 additional years on reserve duty with the U.S. Army.

She continued in her interview with Greene: “How could our national intelligence and defense operations be so inept that they could not communicate; that they could not scramble jets; that they could not take defensive action? And I totally agree, I always thought the Pentagon had all sorts of air defense equipment around it; that they could take out anything that was coming at it. And for a plane to be able to just fly low right over Washington and slam into that thing is just -- I mean, you still just shake your head. How in the world could that happen?”

Fred Burks, former Presidential interpreter, is another State Department veteran who questions the official account of 9/11 and who signed the petition to reinvestigate. “How is it possible that our military's highly touted missile detection systems could not locate Flight 77 in the 42 minutes it was known to be lost before it crashed into the heart of the defense system of the U.S.?,” he asked in an essay. [4]

During his 18-year State Department career, Mr. Burks served as interpreter for Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Vice Presidents Dick Cheney and Al Gore, Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright and many others.

Mr. Burks continued, “An even bigger question is why isn't our media asking these questions? Why isn't our military spending many millions of dollars to find out why military defense systems failed on 9/11? Why is it that the 9/11 commission budget was far less than the budget allotted to the Challenger Disaster or even the Monika Lewinsky affair? Why aren't we, the public, asking these questions and demanding answers?”

Melvin Goodman, PhD, is another former State Department employee who signed the petition to reinvestigate 9/11. He served as a Senior Analyst at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Dr. Goodman also later served as Division Chief of the CIA’s Office of Soviet Affairs and as Professor of International Security at the National War College, 1986 - 2004.

In testimony before a 2005 Congressional briefing on the 9/11 Commission Report, Dr. Goodman said, “I want to talk about the [9/11] Commission itself, about the flawed process of the Commission and finally about the conflict of interest within the Commission that is extremely important to understand the failure of the Commission. … The final report is ultimately a coverup. I don't know how else to describe it.” [5]

Dr. Goodman is currently Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy and Adjunct Professor of Government at Johns Hopkins University.
Another former career Foreign Service Officer who questions the official account of 9/11 is Michael Springmann. He is also one of many signers of the petition to reinvestigate 9/11.

In a speech at the National Press Club, Mr. Springmann said, “I used to be in charge of the visa section at the CIA's Consulate in Jeddah. ... There for a year and a half I issued visas to terrorists recruited by the CIA and its asset Osama Bin Laden. ... Fifteen of the nineteen people who allegedly flew airplanes into buildings in the United States got their visas from the same CIA Consulate at Jeddah.” [6]

Michael Springmann







George Kenney
During his more than 20 years of U.S. government service, Mr. Springmann worked at both the State Department and the Foreign Commercial Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Among his many assignments, Mr. Springman served as Consular Officer in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he supervised the issuance of visas.

In a later interview with the BBC, Mr. Springmann said, “In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by high level State Dept officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants. These were, essentially, people who had no ties either to Saudi Arabia or to their own country. I complained bitterly at the time there. I returned to the US, I complained to the State Dept here, to the General Accounting Office, to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and to the Inspector General's office. I was met with silence. ... What I was protesting was, in reality, an effort to bring recruits, rounded up by Osama Bin Laden, to the US for terrorist training by the CIA. They would then be returned to Afghanistan to fight against the then-Soviets.” [7]

Another State Department veteran publicly questioning the official account of 9/11 is former career Foreign Service Officer, George Kenney, who served as Yugoslav desk officer at the State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. He resigned his commission in 1991 over U.S. policy towards the Yugoslav conflict. He then served as consultant in residence at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Currently he’s a consultant and commentator on foreign affairs and current events.

In a commentary after a 2007 interview of David Ray Griffin, PhD, Mr. Kenney said, “We should strive to clearly separate what we know from things we don't. Thus, we have a reasonably high level of confidence that the Establishment conspiracy narrative is absurd. The World Trade Center structures came down through controlled demolition. Flight 93 was shot down over rural Pennsylvania. And whatever it was that hit the Pentagon could not have been Flight 77. Further, whatever his peripheral involvement, the planning and implementation of 9/11 did not originate with Osama bin Laden.” [8]
Michael Mennard, PhD, is another U.S. State Department veteran who questions the official account of 9/11 and calls for a new investigation. Among his assignments as a career Foreign Service Officer, Dr. Mennard served as Regional Public Affairs Officer in India.

In a statement to this author, Dr. Mennard wrote, “I am concerned about the numerous inconsistencies in the official account of 9/11. I support a new investigation regarding the tragic events of that day, the events leading up to it, and subsequent efforts to ignore the whole matter.”

Edward Peck
Shortly after the release of the 9/11 Commission Report, a group of over 100 prominent Americans signed a petition [9] urging Congress to immediately reinvestigate 9/11. In addition to six former CIA officials, [10] the signers included Daniel Ellsberg, Melvin Goodman, Fred Burks, Michael Springman (all mentioned above), and Edward Peck.

Edward Peck served as Deputy Coordinator, Covert Intelligence Programs at the State Department. He later served as Deputy Director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism under President Ronald Reagan. Mr. Peck, a 32-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service, also served as U.S. Ambassador and Chief of Mission in Iraq (1977 - 1980).
The petition stated, in part, “We want truthful answers to questions such as:

1. Why were standard operating procedures for dealing with hijacked airliners not followed that day?

2. Why were the extensive missile batteries and air defenses reportedly deployed around the Pentagon not activated during the attack?

3. Why did the Secret Service allow Bush to complete his elementary school visit, apparently unconcerned about his safety or that of the schoolchildren?

4. Why hasn't a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed that day?

5. Why haven't authorities in the U.S. and abroad published the results of multiple investigations into trading that strongly suggested foreknowledge of specific details of the 9/11 attacks, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of traceable gains?”

These questions and many others still remain unanswered three years after the petition was submitted and six years after the terrible events of 9/11. As the statements of these eight U.S. State Department veterans show, the need for a new thorough and independent investigation of 9/11 is not a matter of partisan politics, nor the demand of irresponsible, deranged, or disloyal Americans. It is instead a matter of the utmost importance for America’s security and the future of the entire world.

Statements questioning the official account of 9/11 and calls for a new investigation by more than 800 credible individuals can be found at http://PatriotsQuestion911.com

Additional information about prominent skeptics of the official account of 9/11 can be found in the author's other articles on this subject, listed below.

Dec. 13, 2007 - Seven Senior Federal Engineers and Scientists Call for New 9/11 Investigation - Official Account of 9/11: “Impossible”, “A Bunch of Hogwash”, “Fatally Flawed” featured statements by:

* Lt. Col. Robert Bowman, PhD, Director of Advanced Space Programs Development under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Former Head of the Department of Aeronautical Engineering and Assistant Dean at the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology
* David Griscom, PhD, Retired Research Physicist. Served 33 years at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.
* Joel Hirschhorn, PhD, Former Senior Staff Member, Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. Former Director of Environment, Energy and Natural Resources for the National Governors Association
* Enver Masud, MS, PE, Former Chief of the Strategic and Emergency Planning Branch, U.S. Department of Energy
* James Quintiere, PhD, Former Chief of the Fire Science Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
* Dwain Deets, MS, Former Director, Aerospace Projects at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center
* Edward S. Munyak, MS, PE, Former Fire Protection Engineer for the U.S. Departments of Energy, Defense, and Veterans Affairs. Contributing Subject Matter Expert to the U.S. Department of Energy Fire Protection Engineering Functional Area Qualification Standard for Nuclear Facilities

Dec. 4, 2007 - Eight Senior Republican Appointees Challenge Official Account of 9/11 - “Not Possible”, “a Whitewash”, “False” featured statements by

* Paul Craig Roberts, PhD, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Ronald Reagan
* Catherine Austin Fitts, Assistant Secretary of Housing under President George H.W. Bush
* Morgan Reynolds, PhD, Chief Economist of the U.S. Department of Labor under current President George W. Bush
* Col. Ronald D. Ray, U.S. Marine Corps (ret), Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan
* Mary Schiavo, JD, Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation under Presidents George H.W. Bush and William Clinton
* Barbara Honegger, Special Assistant to the Chief Domestic Policy Adviser to President Ronald Reagan and White House Policy Analyst
* Edward Peck, Deputy Director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism under President Ronald Reagan. Former Deputy Coordinator, Covert Intelligence Programs at the U.S. State Department. Former U.S. Ambassador and Chief of Mission in Iraq
* Morton Goulder, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Warning under Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter

Sept. 23, 2007 - Seven CIA Veterans Challenge 9/11 Commission Report - Official Account of 9/11 a “Joke” and a “Cover-up” featured statements by CIA veterans Raymond McGovern, William Christison, Melvin Goodman, Robert Baer, Robert David Steele, Lynne Larkin, and David MacMichael.

Sept. 5, 2007 - U.S. Navy 'Top Gun' Pilot Questions 9/11, featured the statement of Commander Ralph Kolstad, U.S. Navy ‘Top Gun’ pilot.

Sept. 4, 2007 - Former Congressional Office of Technology Assessment Senior Staff Member Calls for New Investigation of 9/11 featured the statement of Joel S. Hirschhorn, Ph.D., who served for 12 years as a Senior Staff Member of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and later as Director of Environment, Energy and Natural Resources for the National Governors Association.

Aug. 27, 2007 - National Academy of Sciences Member Calls for New 9/11 Investigation featured the statement of Lynn Margulis, Ph.D., world renowned scientist.

Aug. 21, 2007 - Former Chief of NIST's Fire Science Division Calls for Independent Review of World Trade Center Investigation featured the statement of James Quintiere, Ph.D., one of the world's leading fire science researchers.

July 16, 2007 - Former California Seismic Safety Commissioner Endorses 9/11 Truth Movement featured the statement of J. Marx Ayres, former member of the National Institute of Sciences Building Safety Council and former member of the California Seismic Safety Commission.

Endnotes

[1] Interview of Daniel Ellsberg by Jack Blood on the Deadline Live radio show July 14, 2006 http://www.infowars.com/articles/ter...be_did_911.htm

[2] Petition to Reinvestigate 9/11 Oct. 26, 2004 http://www.911truth.org/article.php?...41026093059633

[3] Interview of Col. Ann Wright and Laurie Van Auken by Richard Greene on the Air America Radio Network Sept. 11, 2007 http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/aacl091107.mp3

[4] 9/11 and Star Wars: Billions on Missile Defense Can't Stop Four Airliners on 9/11 by Fred Burks http://www.wanttoknow.info/911starwars

[5] The 911 Commission Report – One Year Later, a Congressional Briefing July 22, 2005 http://www.vt911.org/McKinneyReport2...transcript.pdf

[6] Video of Speech by J. Michael Springmann at the National Press Club June 10, 2002 http ://youtube.com/watch?v=zgYFo79q1Ek&mode=related&search=

[7] Interview of J. Michael Springmann by the BBC News Nov. 6, 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/newsnight/1645527.stm

[8] Audio interview of David Ray Griffin, PhD, by George Kenney on Electric Politics May 11, 2007
http://www.electricpolitics.com/podc...911_truth.html

[9] Petition to Reinvestigate 9/11 Signed by Over 100 Prominent Americans Oct. 26, 2004 http://www.911truth.org/article.php?...41026093059633

[10] Seven CIA Veterans Challenge 9/11 Commission Report by Alan Miller, Sept. 23, 2007 on OpEdNews http://www.opednews.com/articles/gen...veterans_c.htm

[lobuk]

Oh look, another decent thread with alternative views about 9/11 given 1 star by the in house muppet crew.

5 Star given and thanks for posting WUB. Your efforts are always appreciated.

[wake_up_bomb]

More about Daniel Ellsberg here:

Daniel Ellsberg & Senator Mike Gravel Call for a New 9/11 Investigation - Alex Jones Tv - YouTube

Daniel Ellsberg & Senator Mike Gravel Call for a New 9/11 Investigation - Alex Jones Tv - YouTube

[porridge]

Another great post WUB. keep it up chap you see how it obviously frustrates the trolls on patrol

[lobuk]

Originally Posted by porridge

Another great post WUB. keep it up chap you see how it obviously frustrates the trolls on patrol

Spot on and yep the Trolls are posting mega nonsense threads tonight which is pretty embarrassing.

[dan duchaine]

I would love to see a non rigged poll on how many people believe 911 was an inside job now.

[wake_up_bomb]

More from Daniel Ellsberg here:

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/...cover-911.html

Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg Says that the Government Has ORDERED the Media Not to Cover 9/11

It’s big news that the Pentagon Papers have finally been released by the government.

But the statements from Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg about 9/11 have not been covered by the corporate media.

As Fire Dog Lake’s Jeff Kaye writes today:

The entire 9/11 field of inquiry has been vilified, poisoned over the years by ridicule, sometimes fantastic conspiracy mongering, and fearfulness by journalists of approaching the material, lest they be branded as irresponsible or some kind of conspiracy freak. As a result, little work has been done to investigate, except by a small group of people, some of whom have raised some real questions …

Similarly, Air Force Colonel and key Pentagon official Karen Kwiatkowski – who blew the whistle on the Bush administration’s efforts to concoct false intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction – wrote (page 26):

I have been told by reporters that they will not report their own insights or contrary evaluations of the official 9/11 story, because to question the government story about 9/11 is to question the very foundations of our entire modern belief system regarding our government, our country, and our way of life. To be charged with questioning these foundations is far more serious than being labeled a disgruntled conspiracy nut or anti-government traitor, or even being sidelined or marginalized within an academic, government service, or literary career. To question the official 9/11 story is simply and fundamentally revolutionary. In this way, of course, questioning the official story is also simply and fundamentally American.

Several months after 9/11, famed news anchor Dan Rather told the BBC that American reporters were practicing “a form of self-censorship”:
There was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires around peoples’ necks if they dissented. And in some ways the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions…. And again, I am humbled to say, I do not except myself from this criticism.
What we are talking about here – whether one wants to recognise it or not, or call it by its proper name or not – is a form of self-censorship.

The head of CNN agreed:

There was ‘almost a patriotism police’ after 9/11 and when the network showed [things critical of the administration's policies] it would get phone calls from advertisers and the administration and “big people in corporations were calling up and saying, ‘You’re being anti-American here.’

Keith Olbermann said:
You can rock the boat, but you can never say that the entire ocean is in trouble …. You cannot say: By the way, there’s something wrong with our …. system.

Former Washington Post – and now Huffington Post – columnist Dan Froomkin wrote in 2006:

Mainstream-media political journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet, or even Comedy Central. The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being afraid to do what journalists were put on this green earth to do. . . .

There’s the intense pressure to maintain access to insider sources, even as those sources become ridiculously unrevealing and oversensitive. There’s the fear of being labeled partisan if one’s bullshit-calling isn’t meted out in precisely equal increments along the political spectrum.

If mainstream-media political journalists don’t start calling bullshit more often, then we do risk losing our primacy — if not to the comedians then to the bloggers.

I still believe that no one is fundamentally more capable of first-rate bullshit-calling than a well-informed beat reporter – whatever their beat. We just need to get the editors, or the corporate culture, or the self-censorship – or whatever it is – out of the way.

The Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam, Seymour Hersh, said:
“All of the institutions we thought would protect us — particularly the press, but also the military, the bureaucracy, the Congress — they have failed. The courts . . . the jury’s not in yet on the courts. So all the things that we expect would normally carry us through didn’t. The biggest failure, I would argue, is the press, because that’s the most glaring….
Q: What can be done to fix the (media) situation?

[Long pause] You’d have to fire or execute ninety percent of the editors and executives. You’d actually have to start promoting people from the newsrooms to be editors who you didn’t think you could control. And they’re not going to do that.”

Veteran reporter Bill Moyers criticized the corporate media for parroting the obviously false link between 9/11 and Iraq (and the false claims that Iraq possessed WMDs) which the administration made in the run up to the Iraq war, and concluded that the false information was not challenged because:

“the [mainstream] media had been cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the President — no questions asked.”


Of course, the corporate media is always pro-war. Since 9/11 provided a justification for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere, the mainstream media doesn’t want to question the government’s version of events.

As Tom Brokaw notes:

All wars are based on propaganda.

What Does Ellsberg Say?

Ellsberg says that the government has ordered the media not to cover 9/11:
Ellsberg seemed hardly surprised that today’s American mainstream broadcast media has so far failed to take [former FBI translator and 9/11 whistleblower Sibel] Edmonds up on her offer, despite the blockbuster nature of her allegations [which Ellsberg calls "far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers"].
As Edmonds has also alluded, Ellsberg pointed to the New York Times, who “sat on the NSA spying story for over a year” when they “could have put it out before the 2004 election, which might have changed the outcome.”

“There will be phone calls going out to the media saying ‘don’t even think of touching it, you will be prosecuted for violating national security,’” he told us.

* * *

“I am confident that there is conversation inside the Government as to ‘How do we deal with Sibel?’” contends Ellsberg. “The first line of defense is to ensure that she doesn’t get into the media. I think any outlet that thought of using her materials would go to to the government and they would be told ‘don’t touch this . . . .‘”

He supports a new 9/11 investigation.

He says that the case of a certain 9/11 whistleblower is “far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers“. (Here’s some of what that whistleblower says.) He also said that the government is ordering the media to cover up her allegations about 9/11.

And he says that some of the claims concerning government involvement in 9/11 are credible, that “very serious questions have been raised about what they [U.S. government officials] knew beforehand and how much involvement there might have been”, that engineering 9/11 would not be humanly or psychologically beyond the scope of those in office, and that there’s enough evidence to justify a new, “hard-hitting” investigation into 9/11 with subpoenas and testimony taken under oath (see this and this).

Alternative Media Is Not Much Better

It is not just the corporate media.

I have had the owners of highly-regarded alternative media companies confide in me privately that they don’t believe the government’s version of 9/11, but that are scared of discussing it publicly because they don’t want to be tarred-and-feathered for discussing “conspiracy theories”.

Even writers like Glenn Greenwald – who are good on so many issues – won’t touch it.

Of course – as Ellsberg points out – “Secrets … can be kept reliably … for decades … even though they are known to thousands of insiders”. Indeed, the whole label “conspiracy theory” is just an attempt to diffuse criticism of the powerful.

People used to understand this. As the quintessential American writer Mark Twain said in a more rational age:
A conspiracy is nothing but a secret agreement of a number of men for the pursuance of policies which they dare not admit in public.

Of course, as thousands of top American military officers, counter-terrorism officials, intelligence officers, congressmen, structural engineers, and others have publicly said, the government’s story about 9/11 makes absolutely no sense. See this, this, this and this. And family members of people who died on 9/11 – and many New Yorkers – want a new investigation.

But you’ll never hear that in the corporate media.

[wake_up_bomb]

Sibel Edmonds, Daniel Ellsberg - YouTube

Sibel Edmonds, Daniel Ellsberg - YouTube

[wake_up_bomb]

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5260

"I'd say what she has is far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers," Daniel Ellsberg told us in regard to former FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds.

"From what I understand, from what she has to tell, it has a major difference from the Pentagon Papers in that it deals directly with criminal activity and may involve impeachable offenses," Ellsberg explained. "And I don't necessarily mean the President or the Vice-President, though I wouldn't be surprised if the information reached up that high. But other members of the Executive Branch may be impeached as well. And she says similar about Congress."

The BRAD BLOG spoke recently with the legendary 1970's-era whistleblower in the wake of our recent exclusive, detailing Edmonds' announcement that she was prepared to risk prosecution to expose the entirety of the still-classified information that the Bush Administration has "gagged" her from revealing for the past five years under claims of the arcane "State Secrets Privilege."

Ellsberg, the former defense analyst and one-time State Department official, knows well the plight of whistleblowers. He himself was prepared to spend his life in prison for the exposure of some 7,000 pages of classified Department of Defense documents concerning Executive Branch manipulation of facts and outright lies leading the country into an extended war in Vietnam.

Ellsberg seemed hardly surprised that today's American mainstream broadcast media has so far failed to take Edmonds up on her offer, despite the blockbuster nature of her allegations.

As Edmonds has also noted, Ellsberg pointed to the New York Times, who "sat on the NSA spying story for over a year" when they "could have put it out before the 2004 election, which might have changed the outcome."

"There will be phone calls going out to the media saying 'don't even think of touching it, you will be prosecuted for violating national security,'" he told us.

"I have been receiving calls from the mainstream media all day," Edmonds recounted the day after we ran the story announcing that she was prepared to violate her gag-order to disclose all of the national security-related criminal allegations she has been kept from disclosing for the past five years.

"The media called from Japan and France and Belgium and Germany and Canada and from all over the world," she told The BRAD BLOG.

"But not from here?" we asked incredulously.

"I'm getting contact from all over the world, but not from here. Isn't that disgusting?" she shot back.


An Iranian-born American citizen, the linguistics expert Edmonds has been described by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as "the most gagged person in the history of the United States of America" since filing her original complaints at the FBI, where she had been hired in late 2001 to translate a backlog of pre-9/11 wiretaps.

She has previously indicated a litany of criminal corruption, malfeasance, and cover-ups concerning the penetration of the FBI and Departments of State and Defense by foreign agents in senior positions; influence-peddling and bribery by shadowy Turkish interests throughout the U.S. government over several administrations; undisclosed information related to 9/11; including alleged illegal activities of former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, and, most recently, two other "well-known" members of Congress whom she will now name to the mainstream media.

Edmonds has taken her whistleblower case all the way to the Supreme Court. She, and her allegations, have been confirmed as both serious and extremely credible by the FBI Inspector General, several sitting Senators, both Republican and Democratic, several senior FBI agents, the 9/11 Commission, and dozens of national security and whistleblower advocacy groups. She was even offered the possibility of public hearings on these matters by the Chairman of the U.S. House Government Accountability and Oversight Committee, after briefing his staff in a special high-security area of the U.S. Capitol reserved for the exchange of classified information.

Her extraordinary story was first aired by CBS's 60 Minutes in 2002 (and re-run twice thereafter), and via a detailed 2005 exposé in Vanity Fair.

All while she was unable to violate the yoke of the unprecedented use of the arcane "States Secrets Privilege," invoked by the DoJ in such a draconian fashion that she is still "gagged" from disclosing even innocuous personal details such as her date of birth.

After five years of being vetted and investigated, with a great deal of her allegations having leaked out via others sources and confirmed by myriad sources, her publicly undisclosed claims would appear to be as credible --- and as critically serious to national security --- as those of any whistleblower in the history of the nation.

After bringing her charges to the FBI, Congress, and the nation's highest court --- all of whom failed to take action or legitimately pursue her claims --- she now feels "obligated" to share the information with the American public. But the American Mainstream Media are apparently unwilling to air it.

Three weeks ago, she told The BRAD BLOG she had "exhausted every channel" and was prepared to "let them see how far they're going to get [by bringing] criminal charges against someone who divulges criminal activity." She was ready to disclose all.

Her "promise to the American public" at the time: "If anyone of the major networks --- ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, FOX --- promise to air the entire segment, without editing, I promise to tell them everything that I know."

"I don't think any of the mainstream media are going to have the guts to do it," she told us. We didn't believe that could be the case. Surely, we thought, loads of folks in the mainstream broadcast media would jump at the chance for such an explosive exclusive. 60 Minutes, after all, had re-run their initial story on her, including interviews with her, Senators Grassley and Leahy, and several FBI agents, not once, but twice!

It turns out, however, that she was correct. So far.

"How Do We Deal With Sibel?"

"I am confident that there is conversation inside the Government as to 'How do we deal with Sibel?'" contends Ellsberg. "The first line of defense is to ensure that she doesn't get into the media. I think any outlet that thought of using her materials would go to to the government and they would be told 'don't touch this, it's communications intelligence.'"

Edmonds, who founded the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), contends that she's very sensitive to matters of national security and would never reveal information that could put the country at risk.

"I am not about to expose any methods of intelligence gathering. I am not going to expose any ongoing investigations, or even any investigations that may be ongoing," she told us, explaining that all relevant investigations about which she has information were long ago shut down by the government.

"I am not going to name any informant's name. I am not going to jeopardize any ongoing intelligence. Anything I'm going to be talking about, I know they are investigations that have been shut down by January and February of 2002."

"I am Obligated"

When it comes to the sort of Executive Branch classification of information that's been used to stop Edmonds from revealing alleged criminal culpability, she contends it is the government, not she, that is violating the law.

Legally and constitutionally, she asserts, such classification "may not be used to cover up illegal criminal activities with consequences to public health, security, safety and welfare. It cannot be used to cover up illegal activities."

"The reason I went to Congress, the reason I went to the IG, all of this, is that I was obligated to do so. Because they are covering up illegal activities that effect the public health, security and welfare."

"I am obligated," she repeated again.

Ellsberg agrees. "What is involved in protecting Executive Branch crimes, the duty is to protect the law and to uphold and defend the Constitution. Though most don't understand that and they see loyalty to their boss and their party and their secrecy agreement as more important."

"They'll never get in trouble for that," he emphasized. "But they'll get in a lot of trouble if they are truthful to their oath to defend the Constitution."

Whether Edmonds will ever get that opportunity remains unclear.

Why Not YouTube It?

"When you have a publication like Vanity Fair, running a piece and naming someone like Dennis Hastert [as being allegedly involved in bribery by shadowy Turkish interests involved in narcotics trafficking] and nothing happens with it, you think they are going to pay attention to YouTube?" Edmonds explained when we asked why she didn't release the information herself as a video on the Internet.

Readers around the web have asked the same question in the wake of our previous story, which climbed to the top ranks of most linked and recommended at a number of Internet sites such as Digg.com, Reddit.com, DailyKos and others.

"Listen, I'm willing to have these people come after me with a prosecution --- they [the media] should be willing to do their part."

"This is the biggest risk that a citizen has ever taken...I guess, after Ellsberg...And I know why he did that with the New York Times," she explained referring to his giving thousands of pages of documents to the paper, who, at the time, went all the way to the Supreme Court to fight for their right to publish them, as they eventually did.

"What about the BBC? Would you do that?," we asked.

"Why am I going on BBC? This is about this country! This is about this country, and more of America needs to know the true face of the mainstream media," she exclaimed.

"The only way they got away with it was because of the mainstream media. They are the biggest culprit for the state of our country. Whether it's Iraq, or torture or the NSA wiretapping --- which the New York Times sat on for over a year! --- these people are the real culprit."

"Nibbles"

There were some "nibbles," as she called them. A producer from CBS Evening News had contacted The BRAD BLOG within hours of publishing our previous story, asking for Edmonds' contact information to forward to 60 Minutes producers. Nothing has come of it so far.

ABC News also inquired. Despite allowing presidents and other officials to make previously undisclosed claims on live programs such as This Week and others, they declined to extend the same opportunity to Edmonds. That, despite dozens of high-ranking officials, elected and otherwise, who have heard her claims over the years and repeatedly declared them to be exceedingly credible and meriting serious investigation.

What about Kieth Olbermann? Surely he'd pick up this story! A producer at MSNBC's Countdown --- perhaps the outlet most often suggested to us as likely willing to interview her --- expressed interest during multiple inquiries we'd made to them. Each time, the promise was made to call us back with on the record information on whether they would do the interview, and if not, why not. They never called us back.

Edmonds' phone was "ringing off the hook" for requests for interviews from independent radio shows. Ours was too, and our email inbox yielded dozens of similar requests.

But Edmonds has been clear: "I'm gonna do one major interview" to tell all of the 'states secret' information. "Afterwards, I'll do the others. But this is gonna be one round, give it all and say 'here it is.'"

The ground rules seem fair enough. She is risking being rushed off to prison after all.

"Setting Records for Shamelessness"

The mainstream media are "shameless," Ellsberg says; so is Congress, so is Bush.

"He's setting records for shamelessness. He should probably be in the Guinness Book of Records. He doesn't care what he says. And the media is shameless as well, as they'll run anything he says. And Congress is pretty shameless as well. You can't really shame these people."

Without mainstream corporate media attention, Ellsberg contends, Edmonds' story will stay off the radar, and her damaging contentions will do no harm to the powers that be.

"She's not going to shame the media, unless the public are aware that there is a conflict going on. And only the blog-reading public is aware of that. It's a fairly large audience, but it's a small segment of the populace at large."

Unless her claims reach the mainstream, he says, "they don't suffer any risk of being shamed. As long as they hold a united front on this, they don't run the risk of being shamed."

They Already Know

Edmonds revealed an additional tasty morsel while wrapping up one of our recent conversations. One that might help explain the American media's reluctance to jump at the chance for a scoop: apparently many of them already know the story.

"I will name the name of major publications who know the story, and have been sitting on it --- almost a year and a half."

"How do you know they have the story?" we asked.

"I know they have it because people from the FBI have come in and given it to them. They've given them the documents and specific case-numbers on my case."

"These are agents that have said to me, 'if you can get Congress to subpoena me I'll come in and tell it under oath.'"

Yet, despite promises she says she had received from staffers in Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) office to hold hearings once he became chairman of the House Oversight Committee, they no longer respond to her. "The only reason they couldn't hold hearings [previously]," they'd told her, "was because the Republicans were blocking it."

They're not blocking it anymore. Ever since the Democrats have taken control of the House. Nonetheless, there are still no plans for hearings. Even with more than 30,000 people having signed her petition, calling on Waxman to do so.

A spokesperson from his office finally replied to our repeated requests for comment on why they had not yet held hearings on Edmonds' case.

We were told only that there are no hearings currently scheduled on her case. Repeated attempts to gather a more specific explanation or confirmation that the office had previously promised hearings yielded the same answer, and nothing more. No hearing is presently scheduled on the matter.

"It's disgusting," Edmonds said about the broken promises. "They won't do it anymore. It's disgusting."

"This is criminal activity. That's why I went to Congress, to the Courts, to the [FBI] IG. I am obligated to do so. And that's what I've been doing since 2002."

"By not doing so, someone should charge me for not coming forward to say something about this," she continued.

"If they come after me...when they come after me --- to indict me, to bring charges --- it's going to be up to the American public to see it's not about some bogeyman in some Afghanistan cave. It's about an American citizen coming forward to expose information that concerns the security of Americans."

"An American citizen is coming forward to say that, no, they are depriving you of your security."

Ellsberg says there's a reason that the Government, and both political parties, would rather not deal with something as explosive as Sibel's charges. Much like his own case, when the Republican Nixon administration fought against publication of the Pentagon Papers even though they were bound to embarrass the Democratic Johnson administration far more than Nixon's.

"It involves our allies in various places in the Middle East. It involves our allies in Turkey and in Afghanistan and involves people in our Congress and our State Department," he says.

Yes, Israel, and the extremely powerful AIPAC lobby which supports both parties, is said to be involved as well.

"There's no way that the President and Vice-President can escape culpability in this case," Ellsberg charges. "If they claim they don't know about it, then they are culpable in not knowing about it, and that's impeachable right there."

Just as Ellsberg had hoped in 1971, and later encouraged others over the years, Edmonds remains hopeful that somehow, in telling her story --- if she will be allowed tell her story --- it will help others to step forward and do the same.

"Maybe it'll cause other whistleblowers at NSA, FBI...to see that they should come forward and tell what they know," she said in a telephone interview yesterday. "We haven't been seeing them come forward. Maybe it takes just one person to see what's going to happen."

"For now, as you can see," she added, "the fear tactics have worked."