Daniel Ellsberg on the Sibel Edmonds allegations on nuclear proliferation

Daniel Ellsberg is calling attention to the allegations of Sibel Edmonds about proliferation activities being carried on by some US officials in conjuction with foreign agents of various powers, in Covering Up the Coverage - The American Media's Complicit Failure to Investigate and Report on the Sibel Edmonds Case Brad Blog 01/20/08. He refers the reader to stories from the Sunday Times of London:

For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets by Chris Gourlay, Jonathan Calvert, Joe Lauria 01/06/08

FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft by Chris Gourlay, Jonathan Calvert and Joe Lauria 01/20/08

I've heard about Edmonds and her allegations but I can't claim to be very familiar with the story or have any strong opinion about its credibility. But I do know that Ellsberg is a serious and well-informed guy. He may be wrong, but I don't think he would be calling attention to her story in this way for frivolous reasons.

Despite its prestigious past, the Times of London is a Rupert Murdoch property. And they have been known to flog some shaky stories. They've reported a number of times, for example, on Israeli plans to bomb Iran soon. And so far those stories haven't panned out. To the point that I've started automatically discounting the latest version of it whenever it appears in the Times.

Ellsberg urges the Establishment press in the US, which apparently has ignored the story entirely, as well as Congressional committees to dig into this story:

It's not that "the cover-up is always worse than the crime": that favorite media mantra is itself a cover story. The criminal cover-up by the FBI revealed by Edmonds and the Times' documents is, as often the case, to conceal extremely serious crimes endangering our security, and to protect the official perpetrators. But if "freedom of the press is mainly for the people who own presses," it is time for those owners to stop using that freedom to help conceal official wrongdoing. And the people who own computers should be using them to light a fire under the owners of presses and television networks.

In support of the official cover-up, various American journalists in the last weeks have reportedly received calls from "intelligence sources" hinting that "what Sibel Edmonds stumbled onto" is not a rogue operation by American officials and Congressmen working to their own advantage --- as believed by Edmonds and some other former or active FBI officials --- but a sensitive covert operation authorized at high levels. If there is any truth to that, we clearly have another prize candidate --- giving us, as blowback, the Pakistani Bomb and nuclear sales --- in the category of "worst covert operation in U.S. history," rivaling such contenders as the Bay of Pigs, Iran-Contra, and the secret CIA torture camps abroad.

From what I know about the history of CIA covert ops, Ellsberg is on the mark in the following comment:

Many, if not most, covert operations deserve to be disclosed by a free press. They are often covert not only because they are illegal but because they are wildly ill-conceived and reckless. "Sensitive" and "covert" are often synonyms for "half-assed," "idiotic," and "dangerous to national security," as well as "criminal." All of these would apply to the pattern of activities revealed by Edmonds if it were truly presidentially authorized, as is being whispered. Such activities persist, covertly, to the point of national disaster because the press neglects what our First Amendment was precisely intended to protect and encourage it to do: expose wrongdoing by officials. (my emphasis)

Official secrecy, law-breaking and incompetence are a trio often found in close company.

Tags: daniel ellsberg, sibel edmonds