THE MISTAKE DEPARTMENT One Example of Why American Foreign Policy is a Disaster by J. Michael Springmann
After airplanes flew into the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon, The Los Angeles Times reported that 15 of the 19 alleged hijackers got their U.S. visas from the American Consulate General at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a consulate where I had served as chief of the Visa Section. What The Los Angeles Times did not report was what I had told their Washington, D.C. bureau after reading the story: (1) that the Jeddah Consulate was not a State Department post but an intelligence services operation; (2) that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) routinely demanded (and got) visas for sleazy characters with no ties to either their home country or Saudi Arabia; (3) that these vile people were terrorists recruited by U.S. intelligence officers along with Osama bin Laden, then a CIA asset. With the help of non-State Department officials, i.e., Consul General, Jay Philip Freres (retired and living in Clearwater, Fla.), the head of the Political/Economic Section, Eric L. Qualkenbush (retired and living in Findlay, Ohio), the Political Officer, Henry Ensher (currently assigned to D.C. and living in McLean, Va.), a Commercial Officer, Paul Arvid Tveit (retired and also living in McLean, Va.), the Chief of the Consular Section, Justice (given name) Stevens (whereabouts unknown), and a "part-time" Consular officer, Andy Weber (last seen on the PBS program "Bio-Terror"), they were sent to America for training in blowing things up and shooting things down. Afterwards, they were sent on to Afghanistan to murder Soviet soldiers. It seems pretty clear that they and people that they had trained are now pursuing their own goals (and most likely U.S. foreign policy interests) in helping destabilize Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Their next target may be Iran.
Having been Commercial Attaché at the American Embassy in New Delhi, India (a post with a goodly number of CIA and National Security Agency, NSA, staff) and twice in Stuttgart, Germany, a Consulate with successive Consuls General sent out by the intelligence services, Douglas Jones and Day Olin Mount (both now retired, whereabouts unknown), I was still flabbergasted at the blatant disregard (and wholehearted contempt) for the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Foreign Affairs Manual (the State Department's Holy Book governing, inter alia, visa issuance). And it wasn't until I was fired for questioning these spurious visa practices that I learned what was really going on and how the system worked--to America's detriment.
Despite being given ample notice, I still did not, in fact, could not, see the coming disaster--because I trusted my government. Consider:
--My predecessor at Jeddah (Greta C. Holtz, now assigned to Washington) simply did not answer my letters asking about the situation at the Consulate, later telling me that she was "too upset" to respond. (Once there, I learned that she had been repeatedly threatened with losing her job over visa refusals, but, later, was apparently "wised-up" about the situation since she then stopped her complaining.)
--The then-American Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Walter Cutler (who went on to head the Meridian International Center in Washington, D.C. for 17 years, promoting U.S. ties with Iran), spent 45 minutes with me before I left the U.S. In the meeting, he told me about all the problems my predecessor had caused him in refusing visas to unqualified people. When I asked the State Department Desk Officer for Saudi Arabia about this, he replied that he didn't know, "Cutler was just a queer duck".
--Again, while still in D.C., I had a chance conversation with a staff member (Ellen Goff) at the Executive Office of the-then Bureau for Near East/South Asia, learning that there were serious but unspecified problems connected with visa issuances at Jeddah.
--Upon my arrival, I was fêted for being a distinct change from my predecessor (who still has her job and is a high-ranking Foreign Service officer). Not long afterwards, things swiftly reversed themselves, and I was constantly browbeaten by the Consul General, Jay Freres, about refusing visas to unqualified applicants.
--It was not unusual for expediters carrying visa applications to the Consulate for their employers to tell me I could issue the visa then and there or, if I refused, later on, after the Consul General ordered me to.
--I was told by a contact outside the Consulate (Nestor Martin, whereabouts unknown), whom I now believe worked for the CIA, that if I spoke one word about the nefarious visa activities to a team inspecting the Consulate's operations, I would lose my job. One of the Inspectors (Joseph P. O'Neil, later retired, but afterwards assigned to various posts in Central Asia) came to me, questioned me in detail, while insisting I had to answer and that he would protect me. I did and I later lost my job.
--The Counselor for Consular Affairs in Riyadh, Stephanie Smith, (now retired and living in Florida) told me that things in Jeddah were very serious and that, on my way to my next assignment, I should speak about the disconcerting situation with the Bureau for Consular Affairs--which then professed absolutely no interest when I did so.
--After being notified that the State Department intended to pitch me out, I contacted that agency's Inspector General and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS). DS agents, including Travis A. Moran, told me that I simply had had a "personality conflict" with the Consul General (who, astonishingly enough, had had a visa signature plate made and had sat at the visa window interviewing applicants, a function far below his pay grade).
At the time (before I spoke with the journalist Joe Trento, a retired government official, and a man connected to a D.C. university (not named for their safety) and learned what was really going on), I had thought the whole problem was visa fraud, i.e., someone was paying good money for a chance to come to the U.S. Fraud like this is every consular officer's nightmare and is anathema at State. According to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security's website: "[V]isa fraud is a federal offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. If the offense is connected...to international terrorism [the sentence is increased to 20 years]."
But, when I said "fraud" to people charge with investigating it, I was told I had a personality conflict. And I became unemployed.
There you have it. The United States of America, whose diplomatic posts are too often outposts of the CIA and NSA, was running (and, from what I can see) is likely still running a visas for terrorists program, while blaming the rest of the world for causing disasters of its own making. According to a former CIA Station Chief and a member of State's Inspector General's office, both of whom I wish to protect, at least one-third of the people who claim to work for the Department of State in reality work for one of the many U.S. intelligence agencies. In my limited experience, I would be inclined to raise that proportion which, I am inclined to believe, is increasing. (In Jeddah, all but three of the 20 or so U.S. staff worked for intelligence offices.)
Despite my best efforts, no other agency of the United States government ever wanted to deal with this matter. My Freedom of Information Act lawsuit about the reasons for my dismissal was sealed (and shut down) as a threat to national security. The Government Accountability Office took no interest in what I told them about the issue. The FBI ignored my calls, even the ones after September 11, 2001. Congress then and later also took an ostrich's view of my charges with a staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee once telling me that we needed the CIA.
J. Michael Springmann was a diplomat in the State Department's Foreign Service, with postings to Germany, India, Saudi Arabia, and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research in Washington, D.C. The published author of several articles on national security themes, he is now an attorney in private practice in the Washington, D.C.area.
Each time I write or lecture about some aspect of the Visas for Terrorists Program, I'm always asked why there is no interest from the Mainstream U.S. Media. (The Canadian CBC, the British BBC, and the Italian RAI all have interviewed me "on the air".) My only explanation is the one advanced by the journalist Bob Parry: (1) the American Media are giant corporations more concerned with image and profit than hard-hitting reportage; (2) they don't want to jeopardize their relations with the U.S. government; and (3) the "journalists" they employ have been sufficiently cowed by governmental or corporate threats to their career to risk investigating a controversial story.
Mike Springmann
by
Michael Springmann (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 10:09:06 AM
I passed the written portion of the Foreign Service Officer exam many years ago, and was called in for the oral portion of the exam. During the course of that I was asked to agree to something that was clearly unconstitutional and undemocratic. I refused. They asked me the same question again (by law I am constrained from revealing what the question was), giving me a second opportunity to answer "correctly," and I again refused. Then they took me into a private room and a couple of them tried to persuade me to change my mind. Since I would not agree that there were any national security or other issues of any kind that overrode the Constitution or the requisites of democracy, I didn't expect to be hired, and I was not.
But somebody filed a class action suit a few years later and as part of that settlement they offered me a job. Fortunately for me, I already had a job, so I was able to turn them down.
If you went through the same hiring process, you made a mistake when you agreed to go along to get along, and they naturally expected you to continue to do so. Your mistake was believing that they knew more than you did and that there were valid reasons for what they were doing. Throughout the oral portion of the exam, most of which was done in a group setting, there was a clear political bias which would have been obvious to anyone who did not have that same bias.
Consider yourself fortunate not to be part of that organization any longer. Right now our State Department is totally dependent upon Blackwater mercenaries for protection. No State Department official can go anywhere in Iraq, Afghanistan, or many other places in the world, without Blackwater protection. But Blackwater has been facing various lawsuits and has threatened to severely reduce its security and personal protection work. That would leave the State Department hamstrung and unable to operate abroad, so it will have to pressure Congress and the White House to grant Blackwater any concessions it demands. That is what is commonly known as a protection racket.
Blackwater has also hired some top people who used to work for the CIA and started its own private intelligence agency, offering its services to businesses and governments for a price. Theoretically, if the U.S. was not the highest bidder and some foreign government or business made them a better offer, there would be nothing to prevent Blackwater from selling the high level intelligence these officials gained while working for the CIA, to interests inimical to the U.S.
In other words, if the White House and Congress do not grant Blackwater any concessions it wishes, it can refuse to renew its contracts to protect State Department and other U.S. officials abroad, leaving many of them helpless, stranded, and unguarded in hostile territory and conflict zones. And then, if it wished to, it could sell information about who and where these U.S. officials are to anti-U.S. interests. So far, there has been no clear jurisdiction as to who could hold them accountable. And since violence is their business, they might not wish to be held accountable so any such jurisdiction would have to be better armed and trained than they are.
When the U.S. started using private mercenaries under Bill Clinton's administration, the idea was that we would hire them and tell them what to do. Now that we are dependent upon them, they can tell us what to do.
Think about it.
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Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments)
on Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 10:51:15 PM
Good clean reportage, Mr. Springmann. We see a familiar pattern: a relatively small number of manipulators try to corrupt high levels of government to sneak their rackets into the apparatus. Narcotics trafficking goes through the Mideast--Bin Laden's Afghanistan supplied the most opium of any nation, and, as Daniel Hopsicker reports, Mohammed Atta and M. Al Shehhi were part of a group at that Venice FL airport where they trained to fly that appears to have been involved in a Wally Hilliard/CIA heroin operation. It was a quid pro quo: Bin Laden's people sent the heroin to the USA (Bin Laden's only competition for sway in Afghanistan was a one-eyed illiterate named Mullah Omar) and he got arms and technology in return.
It was worth billions of $ so familiar big money operators were in on it. Two whistle-blowers from the CIA, Cathy O'Brien and Dr. Sue Arrigo, both say that David Rockefeller headed a large part of the opium and human slave traffic--again, it's about money and the use of operatives to compromise people in government to make money and infiltrate more... In other words, your expose fits the pattern precisely. Saudi operatives with criminal or suspicious records were given visas so that they could do narco and "intel" dirty work across borders. Bush Jr.'s dad, George H. W., was involved in the same during his CIA and White House years. See Barry and the Boys, by Hopsicker, plus Welcome to Terrorland, both must-reads for further details.
Cathy O'Brien says that Saudi prince (and ambassador to the US) Bandar snorted cocaine openly in Memphis when she was with him, and that Dick Cheney was in on much worse with Bandar. And Hopsicker reports that mafia finance czar Meyer Lansky's heir apparent, Alvin Malnik, was actually married to a Saudi royal family princess---Malnik did royal family investments work, believe it or not. In other words, it's dirty money, intel. related and involves narcotics at various ends of the thread. And Osama Bin Laden's father, Mohammed, was one of the Saudi king's few best friends.
So when you see narco operatives and Bin Laden goons deliberately allowed into the US, plus 911 hijackers openly involved in a massive heroin network in FL, you can see why the fix is at the top. It's cheaper and more direct to corrupt the high levels, then simply fire men like M. Springmann who honestly report on sabotage of US government from within.
The solution? Get rid of the Federal Reserve Bank, which is the seat of Rockefeller and Rothschild corruption that is ruining this country. The Fed isn't even a government bank; it's a private thing that gives free money to it's owners and warps the structure of finance. Thank you Mr. Springmann, for reporting on how the doors are left open for organized crime between nations.
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George LoBuono (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 at 2:37:41 PM
3 comments
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