PART 7:EXTREME PREJUDICE: THE TERRIFYING STORY OF THE PATRIOT ACT & THE COVER UPS OF 911 AND IRAQ

EXTREME PREJUDICE:

THE TERRIFYING STORY  OF 

THE PATRIOT ACT & THE 

COVER UPS OF 911 AND IRAQ

BY SUSAN LINDAUER

CHAPTER 14: 

GOODNIGHT, SAIGON… 

March 19, 2003. It was a cold and wet night in Washington, like heaven was storming tears of anguish. Or perhaps they were mine. 

All of the peace community was grief stricken. 

For that was the night the United States and Britain launched what the military bragged would be the most ferocious “shock and awe” bombing campaign in the history of the world. CNN brought the whole nightmare right into our homes and living rooms. Watching that pounding horror of explosions and fires that streaked Iraq’s skies, the brutality of that bombing horrified many of us as well. 

Around the world America would never be regarded in the same light of humanity and moral righteousness again. 

With every bomb that crashed down, the tradition of America’s virtue got smashed and broken in the flames. 

When Baghdad fell, so did we. 

Granted, most of us didn’t know it yet. We could not have envisioned how America’s destiny of influence and prestige could be so interlinked to the perceptions of other nations and peoples. Without that recognition of America’s inherent goodness, other nations would no longer trust our moral leadership, and they would start to question us on a wide range of issues. I think history has already shown that America lost its Super Power throne on that dreadful night. 

There are so many ‘what ifs’ that we face together as a people. If peace had triumphed instead of War, what would our nation look like today? Would we have a better health care reform policy? Would we have a stronger military? Would there be any major terrorist scenarios on our horizon? Would we have better job prospects for the Middle Class? Would our government face mountains of debt as mighty and treacherous as the Colorado Rockies? 

We can only speculate. 

That’s a lot to lose. I can’t really blame Americans still in denial about what the Iraq War has cost this country. They haven’t come to grips with it yet. 

The rest of us, with our eyes open in dismay, have discovered that our Great America, protector of the weak and downtrodden, vanished from the world’s eye that night. In its place stood a tyrant. Well, that just doesn’t work for me. I don’t feel like handing my country over to a few stupid men, so they can ruin us. That makes no sense to me. America might have tyrannical leaders, but with all my heart, I believe we’re not a tyrannical people. And I bitterly resent any White House official hijacking what’s precious about Our Country to promote get-rich quick schemes for his Beltway Bandit friends in the oil and defense establishments. 

But what could ordinary people do about it? That was a much tougher question. 

Today, some Americans think Occupy Wall Street has the answer. “Occupy” has fire in the belly—not to mention strength in numbers to hold Washington accountable to the 99 % outside the Iron Gates of the Bilderberg Country Club. Americans of all political stripes have found each other. When our freedoms are challenged, we are fighting back together. A word of warning to Big Brother: We refuse to be victimized or disregarded by manipulative politicians on Capitol Hill. 

Mediocrity in leadership insults us. Extremist politics aggravates us. We want workable policies. And together we have forced Washington to push Middle Class priorities to the top of their agendas. [I do not believe that at all,here in 2018,if anything they are ignoring us even more,she is and was part of the problem,no matter how much she protests otherwise DC]

Power to the people is back. 

On that rainy night, however, the question of “what could we do?” felt much more lonely. I spent that bitter night driving along the neighborhood back streets in Maryland, poking at that question, and listening to the radio for news breaks on the war. I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t stand to watch the explosions and fiery skies of Baghdad on CNN or FOX News. And I couldn’t turn it off in my mind. 

I was heartbroken and seething with rage. 

And folks, let’s be honest. I had a lot to be angry about. 

I could never forgive that Iraq had tried to resume weapons inspections from the opening days of the Bush Administration— a powerful indicator that Baghdad was not hiding W.M.D's. The U.S. had dragged its feet for two years before sending inspection teams. All that media spin from Washington and London disguised their fear of unmasking the game. 

It broke my heart. And now Washington was bombing Baghdad in a foolish attempt to link Iraq with 9/11. It was another breathtaking deception contradicted by Baghdad’s determination to cooperate with the War on Terrorism! 

Wouldn’t that send you into orbit? 

On the night of March 19, 2003, that sent me through the roof. There’s serious question as to whether the “War on Terror” turned out to be a hideous fraud. 

That struck me as unforgivable after such a grievous national tragedy. 

In my opinion, our leaders have endangered the United States for the long haul with this calculated selfishness. 

To put that in context, before 9/11 and Iraq, I estimate that only 200 to 300 men in the whole world focused their lives on destroying symbols of the United States. Many more fixated on Israel, agreed. But only real die-hard terrorists dreamed of glory attacking the United States. That would be half the size of a small high school auditorium. 

Today, thanks to the Iraq War, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, I would put those figures between 3,000 to 5,000 individuals—whose entire lives now focus on attacking the United States any way possible. This War on Terror has multiplied the number of terrorists two hundred fold. Now that strikes me as a cock-up situation. If there are more terrorists today than when we started, our strategy has backfired. 

Wouldn’t that make you angry, too? 

Driving alone that dreadful, rainy night, my thoughts raced with images of the massive explosions in Baghdad, and the brutality that our leaders inflicted on innocent Iraqi people in our name as Americans. I trembled in fury that our leaders would launch such destruction so casually and cynically, knowing the range of choices for conflict resolution available for months before the War. 

If you had told me on that dreadful night that within a year, I would get blamed for providing the poor quality of intelligence that led to this War, I would have beat you senseless. I mean it. I would have stomped you. You could not have crawled away like a dog on your belly. 

That’s got to be one of the most outrageous and despicable lies ever told in Washington, which let’s be honest, tells a lot of them. 

Instead that night, one of those really great D.J's on the radio seemed to understand the shock and disbelief break sad 264— MacArthur Park is melting in the dark, all the sweet green icing flowing down…. 

Just like Baghdad. I had to pull my car to the side of the road to cry. 

Pain scorched my spirit. I had worked so hard to build a reliable peace framework, so the U.S. conflict could be resolved without bloodshed. I’d worked on this project for two years with Iraqi officials and U.N. diplomats, overseen by muckymucks at CIA making outrageous demands to protect U.S. interests. We had started before the threat of War emerged on the horizon. We’d worked proactively and energetically to achieve every imaginable U.S. objective. And we had succeeded on every single issue. 

Someone left the cake out in the rain…I don’t think that I can take it, ‘cause it took so long to bake it. And I’ll never have that recipe again. 

I sobbed, with my head on the steering wheel, as the song played on. 

We did everything right. Our peace framework was tremendously positive for the United States, first and foremost. But it was also very good for our allies in Europe and the Middle East. And I think it was excellent for the Iraqi people, too. 

None of that mattered. We could not overcome the insanity of our leaders. 

I will win the worship in their eyes and I will lose it. And after all the loves of my life, I’ll be thinking of you. And wondering why? 

I’ve asked myself a thousand times why they did it. Others have begged me to explain it, too. Honestly, I see no answer. War with Iraq was wholly avoidable and unnecessary. Such an incredible waste of human talent and life’s ambitions and dreams. For nothing. For no purpose at all. Nothing justified such sacrifice. 

I thought of Richard Fuisz and Paul Hoven, and all of our years together, almost a decade that ended so abruptly, without explanation or goodbyes. 

And I thought about what we’d lost that night as a nation. 

America, what have We done to you? I wept with my head on the steering wheel. 

I kept asking myself what could be done? How could We, the People resurrect what I hold to be the most beautiful values of our country, when our leaders are ready to smash us to hell on the rocks? And damn the consequences! 

I drove all night until I ran out of gas. By the end, I thought I had an answer. It was admittedly very simple. But it sounded pretty good at two o’clock in the morning. 

It was this. America does not belong to the politicians. It’s not theirs to take. It’s not theirs to destroy. 

America belongs to the people. And by God, we are going to take it back! 

CHAPTER 15: 

WARNING: THIS MESSAGE 

CONTAINS DEMOCRACY

“The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself. Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable.” 

H.L. Mencken, American Writer 1880-1956 

I suppose you could call this my year in the wilderness. In which case, it helps to remember that I’m from Alaska. If anybody can survive in the wilderness, it’s me. 

I was now on the outside. We were long past “burn notices” from the CIA, when the intelligence community declares an Asset trespassing or “persona non grata’. Otherwise, they’d be flapping all over my doors and windows, shooting down the chimney. 

Oh but I was not alone. Trust me when I say the spooks stayed close and circled hard. 

Oh, I see. You think I’m “paranoid.” Let me prove you wrong. 

The peace camp in Washington folded up its tents shortly after the Invasion. Nonetheless, some die-hard friends and I wanted to make a difference to the Occupation. 

What else could we do? Our efforts evolved continuously. Some of my wonderful activist friends, like Muthanna al Hanooti and Mohammad “Mo” Alomari, headed for Baghdad, and tried to help the Sunnis integrate into the “New Iraq.” They tried to show Sunnis how to participate in elections, and protect their political rights, without resorting to violence. Both Muthanna and Mo provided humanitarian assistance to Iraqi citizens during the U.N. sanctions, through a relief organization called “LIFE for Relief and Development”—the only NGO licensed by the State Department to transport medicines and supplies to Iraq under the sanctions. As a consequence of that effort, my friends had deep ties throughout Iraqi society. 

Unlike al Hanooti and Alomari, Washington and London discovered that their own Iraqi allies— like Ahmed Chalabi— while exuberant in victory, had no friends or followers inside Iraq. Nobody supported them. The only Exiles who boasted small camps of supporters were Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir alHakim, who founded the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and members of the Islamic fundamentalist Dawa Party. Both had sought refuge in Iran during Saddam’s reign. Most secular Iraqis bitterly despised their Iranian connections. And though the western media tried to downplay it, most Iraqis regarded the Exiles’ support for the miserable U.N. sanctions as unforgivable War Crimes against the Iraqi people. 

Except for their protection by U.S. and British soldiers, returning Exiles would have been butchered on arrival, and orphaned by history. 

Al-Hakim was assassinated shortly after his return to Baghdad by rival factions promoting Moqtada al-Sadr, whose family stayed with Iraq’s people during sanctions and Saddam. 

Returning Iraqi Exiles appeared to grasp what a fragile position they occupied in the “New Iraq.” From the first weeks of Occupation, the Exiles executed one fundamental strategy for coming to power. Immediately after the fall of Baghdad, they started using American soldiers to burst into the homes of ordinary Iraqis in the midnight hours, in order to arrest former Baathist officials, teachers, Judges, civil servants, young and old, who might challenge their power base and authority in future elections. 

That first wave of arrests by U.S. soldiers began months before the Iraqi insurgency kicked off. There was no popular resistance at that point. Al Qaeda had not emerged as a force of reckoning. But in some villages, any Iraqi male over 5 feet tall got taken into custody. 

Right from the start, Exiles hunted out political competitors. They sought to remove any individuals who might create a leadership alternative in the community. Today it’s an open secret that Iraqis outside of the Exile Community, which nurtured its ambitions in London, Tehran and Detroit, are largely prohibited from participating in leadership of the country. In the 2010 parliamentary elections, 511 candidates were barred from the ballot, mostly domestic Iraqis. 

When I saw this activity, I found my own purpose in the Occupation. I thought the Iraqi people should have real democracy and human rights— not what I call “gun democracy.” Banning candidates from the ballot negates all claims of fair and free election, as far as I’m concerned. In a true democracy, anybody who wants to run for office has the right to throw their hat in the ring. The opposition doesn’t get to choose candidates, or strike off winners. 

So I took on the role of watch dog from Washington. And I stayed busy. 

Tragically, the Occupation was already going horribly wrong. At the beginning of June, 2003, an explosive story hit the British press. British soldiers had photographed naked Iraqi prisoners graphically positioned to emulate acts of sodomy and oral sex. British soldiers stood by laughing. Another Iraqi was hung naked from a rope tied to a forklift truck, bound hand and foot. 267 

A very brave young woman named Kelly Tilford spotted the pornographic pictures taken on the battlefield at her photo shop in London, and called the police immediately. 

“I saw the look on his face. He was petrified, ” Tilford told the British Sun. “I will never forget that terrible stare.” 

Another photo showed a close up shot of the naked backsides of two Iraqis, as if they were simulating anal sex. 

This story broke almost a year before the expose of identical torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, under U.S. control. Close similarities in the graphic sexual abuses practiced by British and American soldiers suggest the policy was deliberate and coordinated, in order to emasculate Iraqi males. 

Indeed, sexual degradation was applied across the country, from north to south, since Britain and the United States subjugated different parts of Iraq. British and American soldiers who got arrested for these gross human rights violations, like Gary Bartlam of the 1st Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, 268 and Lynndie England of West Virginia in the United States, 269 should stop blaming others for their abusive actions, the likes of which have been condemned throughout military conflicts for the past 100 years. Each was convicted of photographing naked Iraqis, forced to perform or simulate sexual acts for the amusement of Occupation soldiers. Unforgivably, it’s evident that U.S. and British commanding officers winked at this sort of behavior. Senior officers failed to motivate soldiers under their command to act honorably towards Iraqi citizens. That command failure produced incalculable damage to subjugation efforts from the start of the Occupation. 

On those grounds, I make no apologies for a letter that I submitted to British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock at the United Nations on June 4, 2003 —270 a year before Abu Ghraib broke in the media— on behalf of abused Iraqis. 

“The British government should consider itself hereby warned of (our) intention to file criminal charges against Prime Minister Tony Blair and the United Kingdom for violations of the International Geneva Conventions of War. It is our intention to seek maximum financial compensation for all Iraqi victims of British and American war crimes, in equal measure to what Britain and the U.S. have demanded in the past for their own citizens.” 

“You will find the price of degrading human life is not cheap, Mr. Ambassador.” 

“To protect the British treasury—if not for human decency— we urge Britain and the U.S. to immediately allow the International Red Cross to gain access to all warehouses and camps where Iraqi Prisoners of War continue to be held. You should be warned, sir, that reports abound of prisoners being chained and hooded 24 hours of the day, and abused in circumstances worse than Guantanamo Bay.” 

“It would be in Britain’s greatest national interest to guarantee a reversal in this horrific trend, for you should never doubt, sir, that Britain’s criminal actions will carry an enormous price. We are ready to protect and defend that law, with the knowledge and certainty that we are in fact defending the best moral values of humanity.” 

And by God, I meant every word! 

Amnesty International carried the day, forcing the British military to put several soldiers on trial for war crimes, and conduct a lengthy investigation of prisoner abuses that bear uncanny similarities to U.S. atrocities at Abu Ghraib. 271 Amnesty International kept Tony Blair’s government in the fire, and forced attention at the command level. 

As for myself, I began to explore avenues to raise money for a two-part legal project, both inside Iraq and at the International Criminal Court of The Hague. My goal was to hire a legal team inside Iraq to protect detainees captured in those midnight raids across the Sunni Heartland. Our team of Iraqi attorneys would establish a legal clinic, on behalf of impoverished families who desired legal representation for their captive sons and fathers. 272 

Investigators would also document the rampant thefts of cash and property like satellite phones and art treasures, stolen from Iraqi homes by American soldiers, and the many rapes of Iraqi women and random shootings by American and Coalition soldiers, routinely ignored by U.S. authorities. These abuses quickly embittered the largely impoverished Iraqi population. Our goal was to document offenses by Coalition soldiers, so that habitual offenders could be court martialed and abusive practices could be outlawed at the command level. 273 , 274 

Sadly, without that reporting mechanism, abuses of Iraqi citizens accelerated over the years. As of 2009, the U.S. military acknowledged that between 70 percent and 90 percent of Iraqi detainees never committed any crime, but suffered wrongful accusations for revenge or profit, since American soldiers paid cash rewards of up to $2,500 to informants for each arrest. Many of those Iraqis suffered detention without trial for years. 275 

The second part of my project focused on The Hague. I envisioned a team of international attorneys, backed by Iraqis, who would try to establish a legal precedent for mandatory human rights protections for citizens under Occupation, with financial penalties for violations. 276 That would have provided an enforcement mechanism for the International Geneva Conventions of War, a potentially valuable legal tool, which remains largely voluntary. The U.S. has mostly ignored it. 

For this part of the project, I identified a highly respected human rights attorney named Stanley Cohen of New York City, who has pioneered the use of international law, to assert the rights of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. With courageous forward vision, Cohen’s team has sought to hold Israel accountable to international law, in order to shield Palestinians from apartheid practices. If the International Courts could staunch human rights abuses, the thinking goes, we might persuade them to trust the Courts, instead of resorting to violence to remedy their injustice. 

Was our vision too idealistic? Perhaps, but that was my plan. I needed financing to the tune of $500,000 to pull it off. Half of that money would have paid for Stanley Cohen’s team at the International Criminal Court. 277 The other half would have financed the legal clinic inside Baghdad. It was a paltry sum compared to what great good our project might have accomplished. 

Needless to say, the CIA did not appreciate in any way, shape or form, whatsoever that one of their former Assets was aggressively harassing the British Ambassador to the United Nations, and threatening legal action against the “Coalition of the Willing, ” in order to protect Iraqi citizens from human rights abuses by undisciplined soldiers. 

Oh no, they didn’t like that at all. 

FBI wire taps captured my faxed letter to Ambassador Greenstock on June 4, 2003, along with dozens of faxes sent to Congress and the United Nations, protesting the War and Occupation policies. 278 

On June 12, I received a single warning from my old compatriots at the CIA to shut my god damn mouth on all matters tied to Iraq. 

The threat was not ambiguous. It arrived as an email marked “life insurance policy” under the name of the former Iraqi diplomat, Mr. A——who, prior to the war, had agreed to help the U.S. identify foreign terrorists playing hide and seek with Saddam’s Intelligence Service. The use of his name in that email reaffirmed that U.S. intelligence understood our special relationship very well. 

There was nothing subtle about the message. They weren’t going to limit their attacks to me. They were going to hunt down my old contacts in Baghdad, as well. The email said that if I wanted to keep them alive, I should go to ground and stay silent on all matters tied to Iraq. 

That just pissed me off. 

Hey, they were pissed off, too. 

We were both at each other’s throats at this point — with daggers drawn. I recognized that email would not be the end of it. Spooks become dangerous animals when threatened. No doubt they decided that somebody better investigate what I was up to, and how far I had progressed. It didn’t take them long to mobilize. 

As I have said before, when they want you, they will come and get you. 

That’s exactly what they did. 

Very early on the morning of June 23, 2003, I got a phone call at about 7 a.m. 279 

A man with a very slight Arab accent asked to speak with me that morning, before I headed off to work. He asked if I could meet him in the parking lot of a local restaurant called Savory. Clearly he’d scoped out my little peace-nik town. I’d walked my dachshunds that beautiful summer morning, and it appeared that he knew I was dressed for work when he requested the meeting. 

Now most people would run like the devil in the opposite direction if they got a phone call like that. Assets are different creatures. We’re supposed to handle this kind of stuff. Though I was officially retired, once you’re in that game—and it is a game— then you are expected to play whenever called upon. 

The game’s never over. You’re never really out of it. 

On that expectation, I agreed to show up in 30 minutes, as requested. 

We walked around my neighborhood for no more than 10 minutes. On our short morning walk, I learned that “Adam” claimed to have traveled from Michigan. He told me a small group of investors wanted to put together a peace project inside Iraq to influence the Occupation. Of critical importance, “Adam” claimed to know my friend, Muthanna, who’s also from Dearborn, Michigan. The conversation was necessarily brief, because I had to go to work. However, I agreed to meet him at a hotel in the Baltimore Marina later that night on June 23, 2003. 280 

Given who I am, I don’t take things on faith just because I’m told. The timing struck me as awfully suspicious. I’d sent my letter to British Ambassador Greenstock on June 4. I’d received the “life insurance” email on about June 15-16. And it was now June 23. So of course I made a connection. According to the schematics of the intelligence world, I recognized this approach as a rational action on their part. At the same time, something was in play, and as part of the game, I had to figure out what it was. 

A lifetime of expectations influenced how I viewed this man. From the opening, I considered that I was dealing with his “cover, ” and only a small part of it had been revealed on our morning walk. 

Right off the bat, I saw it was possible— but not likely— that Adam’s cover was authentic. Perhaps he knew Muthanna. Perhaps he did not. Right then Muthanna was traveling in Iraq. So I could not inquire. That did not matter though. It would be remarkable, truly perplexing, if after a decade as a CIA Asset, I failed to grasp that some kind of game was in play. I’d have to erase every experience I ever had not to be confident handling this. 

I saw three options. 

One, Adam was a jihadi. That struck me as extremely unlikely, since all my Arab friends and contacts understood that I famously oppose war and violence in the Middle East in all directions. It would have been awfully risky to approach me. He could expect to get rebuffed. He would gain nothing from the attempt. 

Two, he was a spook. That was always the most probable scenario, given my activities since the invasion, and the threat that I received a week earlier. 

Here’s where it got interesting. If Adam was a spook, I saw two possibilities. Most likely, he was unfriendly and wanted to keep tabs on the progress of my projects. In which case, I had nothing to hide. My actions supporting democratic reforms and human rights in Iraq are legal in any courtroom in the world, outside of North Korea, Mynamar (or apparently New York City). There was no danger that he might distract me. Nothing could persuade me to abandon my work for democracy and human rights under any circumstances. If they wanted to know what I was up to, I would jolly well tell them. They could hear from it my own mouth. 

There was a second possibility that intrigued me very much. Just maybe, Adam was a friendly spook, looking to build a team to go into Iraq for the purpose of countering bad actions by Occupation forces and strategic blunders in Washington. Maybe he was part of a faction that wanted to push things onto the right track. 

What quickened my pulse was that the State Department had just got evicted from Iraq by the Pentagon. Right then, pro-Arabist cliques were regrouping in Washington, still hoping to influence the Occupation. If one of those groups was feeling me out, it might afford a worthwhile opportunity to exert pressure in a totally different direction. That possibility tantalized me. It would mean a choice between fighting the Occupation from the outside, or trying to make things better from the inside. It would be a hard decision. Either way, I intended to challenge the Occupation. 

Third, Adam’s “cover” might be authentic. He might have told the truth that a group of Arab-Americans in Michigan wanted to finance a peace project inside Iraq. Given my strong reputation opposing military aggression and terrorism, I would be a safe American to approach. My involvement would give the others protection. Nobody could accuse them of supporting violence with me in the group. I’m proud of that fact. 

Which of those possibilities would prove correct, I could not say. 

But as an Asset, you’re expected to play. Paul Hoven, my old handler, always encouraged me to think of it like a dance. When a man asks a woman to dance, she’s supposed to say yes, because that’s what she’s gone to the Club to do. Then, over the evening, she’s supposed to identify her partner, and get to know him. She doesn’t have to go home with him for the night. Maybe she goes on another date, because there’s something they’d like to try out together. Maybe the relationship goes nowhere after three or four dates. That’s just like an Asset. 

An Asset has to figure out who has approached you, and why. It’s sort of a courtesy to agree to the first meeting, because somebody has gone to a great deal of trouble to learn who you are, and understand your projects. That’s more difficult than it looks, because everything’s done on the Q.T. There are many obstacles that would have to be overcome, in order to collect that information. So it’s important to find out why a stranger made the effort. 

All of that explains how I came to meet Bassem Youssef, aka “Adam” on the night of June 23, 2003, in a gorgeous five star hotel suite overlooking Baltimore Harbor. 281 

The Harbor had some historical significance, I noted gleefully to myself that hot summer night. Francis Scott Key wrote the “Star Spangled Banner, ” while imprisoned on a British flagship during the Battle of Fort McHenry in the War of 1812. Watching the guns blaze off British war ships throughout that unhappy night in Baltimore Harbor, Key wrote a beautiful poem that would become America’s national anthem, anxiously awaiting the morning to discover whether our young nation had prevailed in defending our independence against British forces. That evening I found the coincidence rather poetic, since my conversation with Youssef focused on how to guarantee the rights of fledgling democracy in Iraq, and whether a true democracy war ships throughout that unhappy night in Baltimore Harbor, Key wrote a beautiful poem that would become America’s national anthem, anxiously awaiting the morning to discover whether our young nation had prevailed in defending our independence against British forces. That evening I found the coincidence rather poetic, since my conversation with Youssef focused on how to guarantee the rights of fledgling democracy in Iraq, and whether a true democracy could be established at all. 

Little did I imagine that I was conversing with a British agent-provocateur that night! And one sent on behalf of British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock to stop American citizens from championing democracy and self determination for other peoples! 

I want an apology from the Queen! 

For indeed, our conversation that night revolved around how to achieve genuine, meaningful democratic reforms and protecting human rights in Iraq. Thanks to FBI body wires worn by Youssef, there’s no denying that’s exactly what we discussed. 282 

Lindauer: “We would have a legal challenge in international court— 

Youseff: “Hmph hmph.” 

Lindauer: “that the Iraqi people have a God-given right— we call it an inalienable right—to choose their own Government and… that it would be a violation of International law for anything to impose a Government on the Iraqi people from outside. We would go to the International Court and file an appeal demanding that the Court enforce the rights of the Iraqi people to form political parties of their own choice and to hold elections, so the United States and Britain cannot, under international law, interfere with the domestic process of the Iraqi Government. That’s the point.” 

Youseff: “Now—” 

Lindauer: “I don’t know where you’re coming from. Even if you don’t agree with it entirely, just think about it. Because the next part of it is very important. We would sue. We would say one, we demand that the Court enforce the natural rights of the Iraqi people to choose their own Government and to form political parties, and do whatever the hell they want. No outside force can choose a Government for the Iraqi people. There can be no ‘puppet government’ of Iraq.” 

Youseff: “Hmph hmph.” 

Lindauer: “And secondly, only a Government chosen by the Iraqi people can spend Iraqi oil money. Only a Government chosen…” 

Youseff: “That sounds reasonable.” 

Lindauer: “—by the Iraqi people. Okay.” 

Youseff: “Now, where are you and Muthanna and the lawyer in this process right now?” 

Lindauer: “Muthanna is in Baghdad. He’s supposed to be identifying an attorney, or a team. Because it has to have an Iraqi face. It has to be the Iraqi people asserting their own integrity.” 

Youseff: “Yes.” 

Lindauer: “We have to help them, but we have to get out of the way, too. You know what I mean? We can’t do this for them. We need to empower them, and provide financial resources. In order to succeed, there has to be something. Now it doesn’t have to be a lot of money. I mean probably a tragically small amount of money is going to help them enormously.” 

Youseff: “Well, for a good cause, I don’t think that there will be a problem.” 

Lindauer: “And then there would be an international component that the Iraqis will organize from the inside. They would receive technical assistance in presenting their case to The Hague, filing briefs, doing the international attorney law work.” 

Youseff: “Are there guarantees this would work?” 

Lindauer: “There are no guarantees in international law.” 

Youseff: “Of course.” 

Lindauer: “But you know, the thing is, you have to try… You can’t just let the United States get away with this. As much as possible, we need to use the precedents of international law that the United States has used for itself.” 

Youseff: “Sounds reasonable.” 

Youseff: “It seems from what you’re telling me that nothing is really finalized. This is something in the works.” 

Lindauer: “It can only be finalized if the Iraqi people want it to be finalized.” 

Youseff: “Well, of course.” 

Several months later I would get arrested for what I told Youseff that night, and charged with “Organizing Resistance to the United States.” 283 And so, vigorously I dispute the notion that Pro-War Republicans supported democracy at the start of the Occupation. Ultimately, activists around the world compelled leaders in Washington and London to accept true democratic reforms—But only because we dragged them to it. In truth, they bitterly resented us for forcing it on them. 

There would only be two meetings between me and Youseff— the first on June 23, almost three weeks after I contacted British Ambassador Greenstock. The second took place on July 17. 

My birthday. I thought that was a nice touch. 284 

Close to the end of our first meeting, Youseff began to drop hints of his knowledge about my intelligence work on Lockerbie. However it was only at the start of our second (and final) meeting on July 17 that Youseff revealed he’d been thoroughly debriefed on my intelligence background. 

The whole tone of the conversation changed immediately. 285 

Youseff: “I must tell you they like you so far very much.” 

Lindauer: “Oh good.” 

Youseff: “I have to ask you very seriously…” 

Lindauer: “Okay.” 

Youseff: “Are you ready to work with us?” 

Lindauer: “Oh yes! Yes. That’s why I brought all of this. So you could see my commitment is real.” 

Youseff: “Excellent, excellent. And so far, we are very happy that ah, you are coming over to our side. That’s why I’ve asked you a very straight, very honest question.” 
[A note to readers: This was an inside spook approach. Honest and straightforward does not begin to describe it. Quite the contrary, our conversation was loaded with double-entendres. It helps to remember that this is a perverse game with lots of diagonal cuts. However, this was my playground. I knew my way around the yard.] 

Youseff and I had exchanged pleasantries for about five minutes in our second meeting, when he played a crucial card on the table: 

Youseff: “We must know when you began your relationship with the ah, the Arab Intelligence agencies. It’s very important, because like I said, the people who are now over there, the Americans are talking to them. We don’t know who’s who.” 

Hold the fort! Real people don’t talk like that! Right there Yousseff “aka” Adam outed himself as a spook. He could never go back on that. Everything changed in that moment. Youssef continued to ask for the names of my Iraqi contacts. And immediately I began to look for a chance to call him out as American Intelligence. It was important to put him on notice that I’d broken his cover. Only then could we have a real conversation. 

So how would I do that? For one thing, from our first bright eyed morning walk in Takoma Park, Yousseff told me he knows Muthanna. That gave me a wedge. Our conversation was rolling fast now. For all the sweet talk at the beginning, it looked to me like a hostile approach. Unless proven otherwise, this was not an intelligence faction that I would ever support. Later, my friend, Parke Godfrey, would testify in Court that I told him about the meeting, and laid 50-50 odds that Youseff was an FBI agent. 286 

And yet— what if “Adam, ” as he called himself was part of a State Department faction that recognized mistakes in the Occupation, and hoped to accomplish something positive to undo that damage? What if his team turned out to be hopeful, instead? 

Though it seems unlikely to outsiders, frequently that’s what Intelligence factions have to do. Policymakers make a mess. Spooks go in to clean it up. I’d done that myself on several occasions, involving Libya and Iraq. If that was the case, I might want in. 

So as this conversation rolled on, I kept juggling. How hard did I want to slam the door? How could I keep that door open a crack? And yet I had to be clear that I was drawing a line. I could not support the Occupation as it existed. If my commentary appears harsh, it should be understood that Yousseff’s group required candor, whoever they were, before they put me, an Anti-War activist, on the ground in a war zone, in Iraq of all places. 

They needed to know my politics. And I needed to tell them. Neither one of us could compromise in such a situation. Brutal honesty mattered. 

So how could I finesse it? 

Lindauer: “What if we, uh, put a good list and a bad list? (Laughs)” 

Youseff: “Okay.” 

Lindauer: “Muthanna has done something that I’m very upset about.” 

Youseff: “Hmph hmph.” 

Lindauer: “Ah, Muthanna does not know about you.” 

Youseff: (Unintelligible mumbling). 

Lindauer: “Categorically.” 
[In other words, Youseff lied about how he learned of my work.] 

Youseff: “You have not told anybody, anything about…” 
[Read that, yeah, I lied, but you haven’t exposed us for approaching you? That would be death to the whole effort, if we tried to do something later in Iraq.] 

Lindauer: “Categorically.” 
[Youseff lied, but I hadn’t told Muthanna, who just returned from Baghdad, that a U.S. agent used his name to approach me.] 

Lindauer: “Ah, but it, it shocked me, ah, that Muthanna was over in Iraq, and he was having daily meetings—Daily meetings! with the Occupation forces. He was trying to set up a consulting job with the Occupation forces.” 
[That’s what I thought Youseff wanted to explore with me.] 

Youseff: “Hmph.” 

Lindauer: “He thinks he’s helping the Iraqis.” 

Youseff: “This is what he told you?” 

Lindauer: “This is what he told me.” We began to discuss Iraqis I worked with in the past, and whether I could work with them again. The question remained whether I would want to. 

Youseff: “And when you went to the Embassy, did you feel comfortable?” 

Lindauer: “Oh, I have always had very, very good relations with Iraq.” 

Youseff: “Always, from the beginning?” 

Lindauer: “Very good relations.” 

Lindauer: “Um, there is another man who is absolutely reliable, who it would shock me if he was not reliable. [meaning reliable for Youseff] I would be shocked.” 

Youseff: “You said that list, who’s on that list?” 

Lindauer: “Ah, Muthanna.” 

Youseff: “Okay.” 

Lindauer: “I’m sorry to say that. I’m very sorry to say that.” 

Youseff: (unintelligible mumbling) 

Lindauer: “He can’t even. I mean, Muthanna’s struggling. But the fact that he’s struggling… To me, it’s very clear cut.” 

Youseff: “Hmph hmph.” 

Lindauer: “There’s no way that I could go over to Iraq, unless I was working, doing it literally at your request.” 

Youseff: “Absolutely.” 

Lindauer: “I could not.” 

Youseff: “And we will talk about that. Okay.” 

Lindauer: “Yeah, I could never go to Iraq and pretend that it was acceptable. I couldn’t do it.” 

Youseff: “Hmph hmph.” 

Lindauer: “I mean, you’d have to be—you’d really have to, I mean, if you asked me to do it undercover…I would do it for you.” 

Youseff: “Right.” 

Lindauer: “But I would never just…” 

Youseff: “Yeah.” 

Lindauer: “I couldn’t. I couldn’t rationalize it. I couldn’t justify it.” 

Youseff: “So we can be comfortable to say that you would not go unless we asked you to do that?” 

Lindauer: “Absolutely, absolutely.” 

Poor Muthanna would be horrified to hear himself described as a collaborator. He’s a loyal peace-maker and community builder. He dedicated his life to opposing sanctions and bringing humanitarian relief to the Iraqi people. But I had to get my point across. It was strictly a matter of necessity. I had to make my position crystal clear. 

From that point on, our conversation turned to spook talk, and it would be ludicrous to pretend anything else. Until the end of the meeting, Youseff gave mixed signals as to whether his group wanted to improve the Occupation— or not. It frustrated me enormously not to know. By contrast, I underscored my opposition to Occupation policies with every breath. 

One more exchange with Youseff illustrates the sinister aspects of the Patriot Act. In our second conversation, Youseff and I discussed my knowledge of Lockerbie, and I mentioned some papers he might like to see. 

Imagine my surprise, therefore, to come home from work about a week later to find those papers laid out on my desk, and one of my filing cabinets broken and hanging crooked. In seconds, I recognized somebody had rifled through my home office. And I had no doubt who it was. 

Now, I would have needed several hours to locate those papers, for the simple fact that my older documents are buried deep in my files. And I have a good idea where they would be. I suspect it would have taken Youseff several hours to find them, too. 

Yet there was my Lockerbie collection, neatly laid out on my desk, next to my open computer screen. And behind it, a broken filing cabinet. 

Welcome to the Patriot Act, friends. It’s a brave new world, friends. 

That’s what Secret Police do in tyrannical Arab Capitals or Banana Republics in Africa. 

There was no cause for a warrant, since I had engaged in no criminal activities. All of my actions supported democratic reforms and human rights in Iraq. 

But under the Patriot Act, the government no longer requires legal cause to enter a private home, and conduct a search without the knowledge of the occupant. Federal agents have power to come and go at will, with no obligation to inform a household afterwards. I suspect I interrupted them, because the papers got left behind in the rush to get out my back door. Youseff recognized he had no business in my home, and fled. 

Ah, the plot thickens fast. When the break in occurred, I did not know Youseff was an under-cover FBI agent, who had just executed a “warrant less search.” I concluded, quite reasonably, that Youseff was an unstable young man, pushed to the limits of reason by the War. I was frazzled, too. But I’m an unmarried woman. I don’t need unstable men breaking into my house and tearing apart my private office. Can you imagine it? 

A few days later I got even more upset when Youseff phoned to ask for the papers left behind in his rush to get out of my house! 287 I was floored! He made no apology for entering my house without permission. He just wanted the papers. With some consternation, I agreed to hand them over. Seriously, if he wanted them so badly, he could have them. 

That wasn’t all. He asked me to leave the papers in a manila envelope in a children’s park close to my house. 288 Now I had to wonder if he’d been stalking me, perhaps while I walked my dachshunds, since he’d obviously studied the lay out of my neighborhood. 

Oh joy! I was convinced that if I refused to deliver those papers, he would break into my house a second time, and take them. I had no idea what else he might do, given his apparently agitated state. I had no desire to find out. 

So I did what he asked. I left a manila envelope in the park. 

That illustrates in graphic detail what abuses the Patriot Act has inspired —and how it confuses ordinary, law abiding citizens who expect federal agents to interact rationally with the public. It should set off alarms in Congress. 

First of all, it’s offensive that anyone who campaigns for democracy and human rights should be treated as a criminal. No one’s activism should be judged by federal authorities as a waiver of civil liberties under the Constitution. 

When the Patriot Act was passed, Congress insisted “only terrorists” had to fear the highly invasive surveillance rules. Indeed, the Feds strongly implied only international communications would be subject to monitoring. 

My experience makes a lie of that promise. The Feds are using the Patriot Act to hunt activists too, even those of us who champion non-violence and democracy. 

Ask yourself: What’s going to happen when the Feds come up against a law abiding American who defends her rights under the 2nd Amendment? Somebody’s going to get shot. And speaking from personal experience, I will feel no sympathy on that day when some abusive character like Bassem Youseff gets caught red handed, stealing papers without a search warrant, and gets a bullet from somebody who has no idea why he’s there. It’s a vulgarity. It’s a gross violation of everything our country stands for. And it’s guaranteed to cause a lot more problems, because the law was so badly written in the first place. 

As for me, Youseff was damn lucky that I got home before my housemate, Alyce — an honest, law abiding woman— who happens to have a concealed weapons permit. 

Alyce carries a gun in her purse at all times to protect herself from muggers— and home invasion. If she caught Yousseff, aka “Adam” rifling through her underwear drawer, she would have shot him point blank. What if she killed this unidentified male FBI agent with no search warrant? Should she face prosecution? What if he fired back, as a more expert marksman—and killed her inside her own home? Who would be to blame? 

I’ll tell you: It would be the members of Congress who approved this wretched law. The Patriot Act was a declaration of war against honest American citizens, in flagrant violation of all Constitutional protections. 

Members of Congress who voted for the Patriot Act are traitors to our country. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

About three weeks later, I got another agitated phone call from “Adam, ” aka Youseff, saying that some federal agents had interrogated him, and he was scared. 289 I gave him the name of a good attorney, but I couldn’t tell if Youseff was using that ploy to drop me, or if he was really in trouble. He still claimed to have “investors” who might finance my democracy project in Iraq. I had no idea if they would be as explosive and unstable as he evidently was. His behaviour frightened me.

But how could I possibly get in trouble for giving somebody the name of a good attorney? We haven’t reached a point where that’s illegal. (Or have we?) 

Against this backdrop, the situation in Iraq was deteriorating rapidly. Somebody urgently needed to reverse the disastrous policies of the Occupation. Iraq was getting ready to blow. And I had a very good understanding what that would mean. 

If Youseff hoped to distract me from my projects, he failed miserably. I took my threat of legal action to the United Nations. In a letter faxed to French Ambassador Jean Marc de la Sabliere on July 23, 2003 (also captured by FBI wire tap), I praised the “courageous foresight (of) President Chirac in rejecting” this war. 290 

I wrote: “We intend to prove that the International Courts can achieve justice for less powerful nations against the tyranny of unlawful usurpers…. forcefully and effectively, without necessitating violence.” 

“Thwarting the Courts of Law would be the greatest mistake in a military conflict already fraught with bad decisions. If the U.N. tries to prevent the Courts from guaranteeing the protections of international law to all peoples, uniformly and without prejudice, then it would become difficult to argue that violence is not the only avenue to justice. In which case, nations that send soldiers and weapons to Iraq would become primary targets.” 

I would get arrested for this, friends. My support for free elections and prison without torture would be categorized as “Organizing Resistance to the U.S. Occupation.” 291 

In the indictment, dear Youseff would pretend to have posed as a Libyan Intelligence Agent. 292 Which astonished me. If one thing was clear, it’s that I believed he was American Intelligence. And there was no third meeting. 

The Justice Department might have hoped to hang me in the court of public opinion, but they couldn’t possibly sell that to a Judge and jury. And they knew it. 

Shocking, isn’t it? 

If you ask now, was it worth it? I would say absolutely yes. If supporting genuine democracy anywhere in the world qualifies as “Organizing Resistance to the United States, ” then by God, sign me up! Something has gone terribly wrong in America. It’s time to make a stand right now, and take our country back! 

What’s extraordinary is not why I chose to devote my activism to supporting a platform of democracy and human rights in the “New Iraq, ” but why the U.S. and British governments attacked me for it. My arrest makes a lie of liberation, doesn’t it? 

I can sense you’re puzzled. Surely the U.S. and Britain supported democracy in Iraq, without need for watchdogs like me? Wasn’t that a primary justification for the invasion? 

Not originally. Not when you read the fine print. Free elections were not part of the original blueprint for Iraq’s future. Working together, activists inside Iraq and around the world brought the U.S. government to it. We won a critical victory in the end. But it was a people’s victory over politicians and bureaucrats. For all of the media hype afterwards, Washington and London did not appreciate our interference at all. 

No, the original U.S. policy announced by Paul Bremer, Czar of Iraq, on November 15, 2003, declared that the Iraqi People would have no direct vote in choosing their new government. 293 

In the original transition plan, Bremer’s staff at the Coalition Provisional Authority intended to hand pick the new leaders, who would form a transitional government. 

Each of Iraq’s 18 provinces would hold a political caucus run by “professionals, experts and tribal leaders.” Participants in the Caucus would be screened by a 15 person “organizing committee, ” which would also be handpicked by the Americans. 

The Caucus would choose representatives from its own group to attend a National Convention. The Convention would write a Permanent Constitution and choose candidates for a 250 member transitional assembly. 

The assembly would elect a President and cabinet from within its ranks. Through this convoluted process, direct elections by and for the Iraqi people would be delayed for several years. 

You could have heard a pin drop when Bremer announced this thinly disguised plan for U.S. autocracy in Iraq. Then there was shouting from all quarters. No! No! No! 

So many bad decisions had been foisted on Baghdad by this point. Efforts to deny Iraqis a direct vote for the new government was the last straw. There was open rebellion to the plan. 

Ayatollah Sistani emerged from seclusion in Najaf to declare a fatwa—a religious edict—opposing Bremer’s proposal. 

“There is no guarantee that the council would create a constitution conforming with the greater interests of the Iraqi people and expressing the national identity, whose basis is Islam, and its noble social values, ” Sistani decreed. 294 

That’s what saved democracy in Iraq. A religious edict. An Ayatollah’s fatwa! Democracy resulted from an uprising of the people so powerful that it overturned the autocracy of Washington. 

Oh yes, whatever happened to my good friend, Muthanna al Hanooti? 

While other Iraqi Exiles floundered trying to establish a base of political support inside Iraq, Muthanna flourished— always a peace maker, never a collaborator. Unlike exiles from London, Tehran and Detroit, Muthanna brought humanitarian relief to the people during the hated sanctions. Now they honored him for it. He emerged as a respected bridge builder, enjoying a remarkable level of support among the common people. 

If Muthanna al Hanooti had won a role in the top leadership of the “New Iraq, ” the world could have breathed a huge sigh of relief. It would have created a shot at real peace in the region. Muthanna’s that good. 

So what did the unpopular Iraqi Exiles do to knock down this outstanding man? 

Jealous of his extensive contacts throughout Iraq, former Iraqi Exiles campaigned vigorously for Muthanna al Hanooti’s arrest in the United States. Five years after the fall of Saddam, they finally got their wish. In March, 2008 Muthanna got indicted as an unregistered Iraqi Agent, ” on the ridiculous allegation that he received 2 million barrels of oil from Saddam’s government. 295 

Two million barrels of oil? 

I was dumb-struck when I heard this. First I was speechless. Then I laughed uproariously, because it’s so incredibly stupid. I first met Muthanna in 2002, while we both campaigned against war and sanctions. 296 Because of my past, I made it my business to know a great deal about Muthanna’s private life. Chalk it up to occupational hazard. Anyway, those accusations were the kind of baffling nonsense only the Iraqi Exiles could invent. They’re highly imaginative in their scheming. In all my years covering Baghdad, I never got over my sense of amazement for every new fantasy they concocted, with such embellishes and bellicose lies. I was sure they should win prizes for literary fiction. 

They say you can judge a man by the strength of his enemies. 

If the Iraqi exiles don’t like somebody, you know that person’s got integrity— like Muthanna al Hanooti. The corollary is that if pro-war factions in Washington led by Vice President Cheney and Senator John McCain oppose your activities, you must be doing something right. 

I was about to discover that for myself.

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The Crying Game 
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