EXTREME PREJUDICE: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq

by Susan Lindauer

  My confidence grew bolder. I read other dates in January and February, 2002, when I met with Iraqi diplomats at a hotel close to the United Nations.19 These were marathon sessions to finalize Iraq’s agreement to resume weapons inspections, according to rigorous standards for maximum transparency demanded by the United States, before the matter got handed over to the United Nations. The U.S. demanded that Baghdad agree to weapons inspections “with no conditions,” the operative phrase for “unconditional surrender.”20 It was entirely legitimate on my part, supervised by my CIA contacts and designed to guarantee Iraq’s performance. Our back channel dialogue from November 2000 to March 2002 made weapons inspections a successful reality.21

  Gleefully, I noticed that some of the dates in the indictment were flat wrong. I was confident that I could prove I was at my home in Maryland on several of those days.

  As an Asset with a long history of close relationships to Iraqi diplomats, I had a serious advantage over the Justice Department. I understood how they’d jumped to the wrong conclusions. My diplomatic contact in New York had a girlfriend named “Susan,” a young American who worked at the United Nations. How delicious that the FBI should have gotten us confused! Apparently this Iraqi diplomat had shared some inexpensive lunches with this other Susan, while I was safely tucked 200 miles away in Maryland, out of danger of prosecution. Such poor intelligence! The claws of my Cheshire cat struck back. I would teach the FBI not to mess with Assets cooperating with other Agencies. They would never want to do this again.

  And the coup de gras: “On or about January 8, 2003, Susan Lindauer delivered to the home of a United States Government official, a letter in which Lindauer conveyed her established access to, and contacts with, members of the Saddam Hussein regime, in an unsuccessful attempt to influence U.S. foreign policy.”

  That was actually my 11th letter to Andy Card, Chief of Staff to President Bush. The same letter also got hand delivered to the home of Secretary of State Colin Powell, who lived next door to my CIA handler, Dr. Fuisz.

  Interestingly, the indictment made no mention of the previous 10 letters to Andy Card, outlining the progress of our back channel talks on resuming the weapons inspections. Secretary Powell received several of those reports, as well.

  But by God, the Justice Department finally got something right in its indictment! I had warned my second cousin, Andy Card—and Secretary Powell and members of Congress in both parties— that war with Iraq would prove disastrous for U.S. and Middle East security. Invading Iraq would be simple. Occupation would be brutal. There would be no roses in the streets for American soldiers. We would face an angry and tenacious enemy not afraid to die for God, in order to throw us out of their country. It would raise Iran as a regional power, and fire up an insurgency modeled on Al Qaeda. Here’s an excerpt from that letter to Andy Card that the Justice Department judged to contain treasonous ideology:

  “Above all, you must realize that if you go ahead with this invasion, Osama bin Laden will triumph, rising from his grave of seclusion. His network will be swollen with fresh recruits, and other charismatic individuals will seek to build upon his model, multiplying those networks. And the United States will have delivered the death blow to itself. Using your own act of war, Osama and his cohort will irrevocably divide the hearts and minds of the Arab Street from moderate governments in Islamic countries that have been holding back the tide. Power to the people, what we call “democracy,” will secure the rise of fundamentalists.”22

  Mind you, I wasn’t the only one offering up that analysis. Others in the intelligence community, amongst a few experts interviewed all too briefly on the 24 hour news channels, reached the same conclusions. Kudos to all! We might have been the minority, but we foresaw that Occupation would turn Arab opinion sharply against the U.S. The groundswell of popular support that America enjoyed after 9/11 would be thrown away. Once the international community witnessed the chaos of U.S. mis-management and the brutality at Abu Ghreib, we would be finished as the world’s favorite. The cycle of destruction and death in Iraq would prompt the Arab community to rank George Bush as a greater danger to Arab peoples than Osama bin Laden. Young jihadis fighting Occupation would emerge as heroes defending their peoples against western tyranny.

  My letter to Andy Card would become a reality show on the nightly news, known as “Today in Iraq.”

  And they wanted to punish me with prison for daring to tell America’s leaders the truth? For getting it right? I was “Symbol Susan,” indeed.

  I could not have been prouder.

  I had a broader perspective. I recognized the fear of my enemy. I saw their weakness. And with total clarity, I understood exactly what the Government was trying to hide.

  This was no mistake.

  What pundits could not know was that thirty days before my arrest, I had contacted the senior staffs of Senator John McCain, future Republican Presidential nominee from Arizona, and former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi.23 I had formally requested to testify before the newly appointed Presidential Commission investigating Pre-War Intelligence. In fact, I’d practically demanded the right to testify.

  With unbridled enthusiasm, I informed Senate staffers that I was one of the very few Assets “on the ground,” covering the Iraqi Embassy for seven years.

  If Congress wanted to study Pre-War Intelligence, they had better talk to me.

  From my perspective, Pre-War Intelligence looked pretty outstanding— at least the part that wasn’t politicized and sold as hamburger meat to the American people. I wanted to testify that real intelligence from the field appeared to have been deleted from Congressional talking points. Factions ruled the intelligence community, like any other politically active body, but the dynamic of internal squabbling and debate had been healthy and vigorous in the run up to War. Dissension and debate come with the territory—if you appreciate vitality in democracy.

  Alas, Congress was singing from a different hymn book. Having forced a horribly unpopular war on the American people, they cringed from responsibility for their poor decision making. They vigorously battled to blame Assets for the War. Never mind that from what I sat—behind bars— there was almost no similarity in what Assets told the intelligence community, and what Congress and the White House told the American people that we told the intelligence community.

  In February 2004, I was blissfully in the dark about that strategy to reinvent history. Hearing about the new blue ribbon commission on Pre-War Intelligence, I rushed to inform Senate staffers that I had a great deal to say.

  FBI wire taps captured my phone calls to Senator Lott’s office, including conversations with his Chief of Staff and Legislative Director. What follows is the official FBI transcript for just one of those conversations on the evening of February 2, 2004, this one with Mitch Waldeman, the legislative aide covering Iraq—a few weeks before my arrest.24

  WALDEMAN: “Senator Lott’s office. Mr. Waldeman speaking.”

  (Followed by niceties of introduction)

  LINDAUER: “Well, I have enormous respect for Senator Lott. I know you love this country. I am in possession of information which now is turning out to be maybe painful…, very painful to the Republican Party.”

  WALDEMAN: “Hmph hmph, hmph hmph.”

  LINDAUER: “That’s why I’m coming to you. Um, I was acting as a back-door between Iraq and the White House…”

  WALDEMAN: “Hmph hmph.”

  LINDAUER: “And I happen to know, for example, that Iraq offered for two years to allow the return of weapons inspectors. And after September 11th, for example, they offered to allow the FBI to come to Baghdad to interview human assets in the war on terrorism.”

  WALDEMAN: “Hmph hmph”

  LINDAUER: “Including al-Anai. And the White House refused to do that, and the White House perhaps misrepresented, ah, you know…”

  WALDEMAN: “Hmph.”

  LINDAUER: “Iraq was behaving like an innocent country that did not possess weapons of m
ass destruction.”

  WALDEMAN: “Hmph hmph.”

  LINDAUER: “And Iraq was very eager, ah, that Iraq believed it had information on Oklahoma City and that it was able to provide break-through information for us that they thought we would reward them for. Now I would not have been doing those interviews. The FBI would have been doing it.”

  WALDEMAN: “Hmph hmph.”

  LINDAUER: “So the FBI would have determined the real quality of the information…”

  WALDEMAN: “Yeah.”

  LINDAUER: “I’m not trying to say I would have been inserting myself into that. I had been involved in the Lockerbie negotiations, and that’s how I got involved in this.”

  WALDEMAN: “Hmph hmph.”

  LINDAUER: “Now the question is (slight laugh), and maybe this is something you need to think about. Am I overstating the importance of what I know? I don’t think I am.”

  WALDEMAN: “Hmph hmph.”

  LINDAUER: “I’m not eager to create a crisis for the sake of creating unhappiness.”

  WALDEMAN: “Hmph hmph.”

  LINDAUER: “Let’s not say crisis. Let’s not say unhappiness. At the same time, does Congress need to know this? Where are my obligations?”

  WALDEMAN: “Right. Were you working for the Government at the time?”

  LINDAUER: “I’m not on the Secrets Act. However I have been an Asset.”

  WALDEMAN: “Okay. Right. Oh my.”

  LINDAUER: “On the other hand, this was not a failure of U.S. Intelligence.”

  WALDEMAN: “Right.”

  LINDAUER: “And it’s being portrayed that way.”

  WALDEMAN: “Let me ask you. Who else have you spoken with?”

  LINDAUER: “I called Mr. Gotschall first. (another senior staffer in Senator Lott’s office). It’s because of my enormous and profound respect for you, for your office and your integrity and also that you are concerned about National Security. You know, Presidential politics is…”

  WALDEMAN: “Right.”

  LINDAUER: “You know.”

  WALDEMAN: “Messy.”

  LINDAUER: “It’s messy.”

  WALDEMAN: “(Laughs). Right.”

  LINDAUER: “And I’ll tell you something else, Andy Card is the person who received all this information. He is my cousin. So you can be sure he got it.”

  WALDEMAN: “Oh my.”

  LINDAUER: “You can be sure he got it.”

  WALDEMAN: “Okay.”

  LINDAUER: “So we can’t say that the President didn’t know because…”

  WALDEMAN: “Right. How would you recommend we approach this dialogue?”

  LINDAUER: “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  LINDAUER: “Um, I will tell you something else, that Iraq, right before the War, was also offering Democratic reform.”

  WALDEMAN: “Hmph hmph.”

  LINDAUER: “They were offering to hold elections. The Iranians had made a statement. They were floating an idea that had come from the Iraqis. To allow the United Nations to monitor free elections in Iraq with free opposition parties, free opposition newspapers, ah, free opposition headquarters.”

  WALDEMAN: “Yeah.”

  LINDAUER: “You can argue whether this stuff is good or not, but we always were on the right track. I helped negotiate that, and the things we were negotiating were good things.”

  WALDEMAN: “And you thought that they were substantive, obviously?”

  LINDAUER: “They were substantive.”

  WALDEMAN: “Yeah.”

  LINDAUER: “And there was also, ah, U.S. oil.”

  WALDEMAN: “Hmph hmph.”

  LINDAUER: “Iraq offered to give the United States the LUKoil contract. The United States could have had all the oil that it wanted.”

  WALDEMAN: “Right.”

  LINDAUER: “It points to a vendetta.”

  WALDEMAN: “Hmph hmph.”

  LINDAUER: “An obsession with going after Saddam Hussein and the problem is, is that all the real criteria for the war fell apart.”

  WALDEMAN: “Hmph hmph. Hmph hmph. Do you think there’s an opportunity now that the President has called for a commission that some of this will come out?”

  LINDAUER: “No.”

  WALDEMAN: “Part of that?”

  LINDAUER: “They’ll absolutely never let this out. And see, that’s the problem. I feel an obligation to do something. It seems obvious I have to tell. I’m just not somebody who ever reacts on a knee-jerk basis.”

  WALDEMAN: “Well I appreciate you calling. I mean this is (sighs). I guess I would say that just over the course of the past year, I’ve actually heard bits and pieces of similar–”

  LINDAUER: “Hmph hmph.”

  WALDEMAN: “Similar things.”

  LINDAUER: “Probably things that I had done (unintelligible).”

  WALDEMAN: “Ah, maybe.”

  LINDAUER: “Yeah.”

  WALDEMAN: “Maybe. Bits and pieces and ah…Some of it actually. I mean there was some public discussion of on-going negotiations. There was never really any, any public debate or discussion over the substance of what they potentially led to and…”

  LINDAUER: “Hmph hmph.”

  WALDEMAN: “And so it, I mean, I think there was a general sense that some of that was going on, certainly was going in the past administration, as well.”

  LINDAUER: “Yes.”

  WALDEMAN: “Let me talk with Bill and give you a call.”

  LINDAUER: “Okay, thank you.”

  Hanging up the phone that evening on February 2, I felt excited. It appeared that Senator Lott’s staff probably had received debriefings as our back channel talks progressed on resuming the weapons inspections. Waldeman had some knowledge of the range of Iraq’s peace offerings. Critically, he admitted knowing that our talks originated during the Clinton Administration, which betrayed long term awareness of the project.25

  Quite rightly I believed I had set a chain of events in motion on Capitol Hill. I envisioned Congressional staff rushing to get subpoenas for my testimony. At worst, I expected to be forced to give closed door testimony, which would strategically restrict public access to knowledge about our comprehensive peace framework before the War. That irked me. I had not decided how I would handle that.

  I was right about the subpoenas, for sure. Within a couple of days of my conversations with senior staff for Senator Lott and Senator McCain, Republican leaders hurriedly convened a grand jury in New York, rushing to subpoena witnesses so they could indict me before I started talking to the media.

  It’s kind of funny, if you’ve got a sick sort of humor.

  The rest, as they say, is history. On March 11, 2004, I got arrested as an “Iraqi Agent.”26

  FBI Special Agent Chmiel told me the grand jury debated my charges for a full month before handing down my indictment. Ergo, by the FBI’s own admission, my Asset file got turned over to the grand jury just a few days after my request to testify at Congressional hearings.

  For one brief moment in that cage, I sympathized with the Republican predicament. If I had invented such a fabulous lie to justify going into a disastrous War, I would not want anyone to know the truth, either. I especially would not want anyone to know how easily the War could have been avoided altogether. Nor would I want voters to learn about the failures of Republican terrorism policy, thrown up as a bulwark to appease Americans for the cock-up in Iraq.

  I would be afraid of me, too.

  By this time I was composed. I had my legal strategy mapped out, with a list of witnesses sketched on the back of my indictment.

  I vowed to myself that I would fight to the end.

  I almost felt sorry for them.

  CHAPTER 2:

  ADVANCE WARNINGS

  ABOUT 9/11

  “Like Desperados Waiting for a Train…”

  —Guy Clarke

  I was locked in a holding cage, and the truth was locked up with me.

  It wasn’t just Iraq that frightened them. Our tea
m also gave advance warning about a 9/11 style of attack throughout the summer of 2001. And I carried the message.

  That scared them a helluva lot more

  I thought back to August, 2001 and the crucial weeks before the September 11 strike.

  I was talking by phone to Dr. Richard Fuisz, my CIA handler, about Robert Mueller’s nomination to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation.27 Our conversation burned my heart as I sat shackled in that tiny cell, waiting for a Judge to throw my bail like I was some criminal.

  Bastards.

  “There’s never been a terrorist investigation that sonovabitch didn’t throw!” It was the day of Mueller’s Senate confirmation hearings. I could not know how accurately I had just nailed the mark. Or that I would be a primary target of the FBI’s next terrorism cover up!

  “Lockerbie, yeah.” Dr. Fuisz agreed with me. “Mueller changed directions when Congress wanted to salvage Syria’s reputation and shift the blame to Libya.”28 (Mueller headed the Justice Department’s Criminal Division during the Pan Am 103 investigation, a.k.a Lockerbie.29) Dr. Fuisz and I believed that Libya was wrongly blamed for the bombing that exploded over the roofs of Scotland, killing 270 people.

  “What else?”

  “The Oklahoma City bombing. Isn’t Mueller one of the key figures who decided Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols acted alone?30 We all know that’s crap. Why would anyone reward McVeigh’s megalomania as the sole conspirator? Mueller is the Arlen Specter of anti-terrorism.”

  “Mueller plays to the politicians. That’s why his nomination will sail through Congress.” Dr. Fuisz told me.

  Admittedly, most Americans would vigorously object to characterizing Mueller as a shrewd political animal. My views are frequently more idiosyncratic than the general public. However, this conversation about Mueller’s confirmation hearing accounts for why I recall the timing of events so precisely, and with such clarity, in the weeks before 9/11. I can pinpoint my actions to the day of the week because of this hearing.

  With regards to the Oklahoma City Bombing, Mueller would reopen the investigation of a possible broader conspiracy in 2005. I could not know that in August, 2001.31