Our friendship was more extraordinary because our cases proved antithetical in all ways. While I got accused of acting as an “Iraqi agent” on behalf of Saddam Hussein’s government, Nancy Zaia got indicted for trying to help other Iraqis escape Saddam’s religious and political persecution before the War.
She denied helping anyone enter the United States illegally. What she’d done was help families of Iraqi Chaldean Christians secure proper visas from Jordan to the nation of Ecuador, about 200 in all. The visas were legally acquired from the Embassy in Amman, as part of a policy to encourage wealthy Iraqis to establish residency in that impoverished Latin American country.460
The Justice Department claimed some of those Iraqi refugees kept moving northward after arriving in Ecuador. About 40-50 of those Iraqis ended up in the United States, including infants and children. Nancy swore that she had nothing to do with that. She had no contact with the Chaldean families after they left Jordan. However the Justice Department insisted that she should be responsible for their final destination. Nancy’s attorney argued the U.S. was running interference in Ecuador’s visa policy. Her defense claimed the arrest was extra-territorial, in attempt to strong arm Ecuadorean officials into reconsidering their friendly immigration policy towards Iraqi refugees. It reflected American paranoia after 9/11. But it had nothing to do with her actions.
The hypocrisy in Zaia’s case was that Congress cited Saddam’s torture practices as justification for the War.
If that moral outrage had been authentic, Nancy Zaia should have been praised as a hero— not imprisoned as a criminal.
Nancy Zaia had been sent to Carswell for a psychiatric evaluation because Saddam’s security forces had tortured her in Baghdad. She claimed that Iraqi Intelligence hanged her 3 year old son by his throat with a rope from a ceiling fan, and turned it on, so that the fan blades started rotating.
Then, one of the men took a butcher knife and started slashing the blade at the screaming, choking child. Nancy kept grabbing for the toddler. Trying to shield her little boy from the knife, she got slashed herself.
She had a 10 inch jagged scar on the inside of her arm to prove it.
Nancy Zaia was also forced into an arranged marriage at age 13, with a much older Kurdish man involved in the Northern Resistance movement. He had raped her repeatedly throughout her teenage years. When she fled Iraq with her young children, she was fleeing an abusive (mostly absent) husband, and the political troubles that his resistance work caused for her family. When Saddam’s security forces could not lay hands on him, they were not above inflicting pain on her.
Her attorney argued that those facts of her life in Iraq should be given substantial weight in the proceedings.
And so it was that Nancy Zaia and I arrived together at Carswell the first week of October, both of us arrested for political reasons that exposed the illogic of the government’s position on Iraq, and both of us subjected to the shenanigans of prison psychology at Carswell.
Unfairly, both of our psych evaluations had strong political overtones—in opposite directions. While I believe that I showed myself fully capable of assisting my defense, it would be difficult to make the same arguments about Nancy. At the first mention of Iraq, she would become so emotional, paranoid and overstressed that she could scarcely participate in a rational conversation for 10 minutes to discuss her defense.
Twice her attorney flew in from Washington. Nancy hid from him on both visits, because she couldn’t handle a simple attorney conversation about the charges against her. Guards searched for her everywhere. Our circle of inmates found her curled up on the floor of a bathroom stall in a fetal position. She was lost in memories of Saddam Hussein and her old life in Iraq. She couldn’t get past that pain. It’s doubtful that Nancy could have sat through a trial without an outburst, screaming in Arabic at the Judge and jury. Seriously, I could imagine her suffering a heart attack during trial.
Even dealing with me as a friend, she was subject to bursts of paranoia about my arrest as an “Iraqi Agent” that would stop her from speaking with me for days.
Nevertheless, in the highly politicized world of psychiatry at Carswell, Nancy’s evaluation flatly refused to acknowledge her incapacity to contribute to her defense. Carswell decreed that Nancy Zaia’s refugee status, and her personal comprehension of the suffering of Chaldean Christians in Iraq and the brutality of Saddam Hussein’s government, had no impact whatsoever on her actions. The personal oppression that she’d suffered as a 13 year old victim of spousal rape by a 35 + year old man was completely irrelevant. The attack on her children by Iraq’s Secret Police, the “Mukhabarat,” should have no weight in Court.
According to Carswell, she experienced no irrational outbursts or paranoia that impacted her ability to assist her defense.
It’s questionable how much of the court proceedings Nancy understood, given her wild volatility. She was deeply paranoid and prone to hysteria. She saw all events through that prism. During our months together on M-1, we walked hundreds of laps on the outdoor track, talking about our families and legal cases. Notably, she told me that Carswell offered her a finding of “competence” in exchange for a guilty plea, with time served. Carswell promised that she would go home to her family. They pushed Nancy hard, knowing she could not handle a trial, because of her explosive emotions on the subject of Iraq.
Complicating the matter, the fear of rampant abuse on M-1 hung over all of us. All of us were terrified of what we saw psych staff do to other inmates. Not surprisingly, Nancy was afraid to press for a finding of incompetence, though she’s one of the few inmates who I thought qualified for it. Almost nobody else had justification that I saw.
After I left, Nancy got stamped competent, in exchange for that guilty plea.
Only somewhere along the way, Carswell pulled a double-cross. It’s unclear how it happened—Nancy could not explain it later, when my brilliant attorney, post-Carswell, Brian Shaughnessy contacted her in prison, at my request. Somehow, after dangling time served in front of her while I was at Carswell, her choices changed starkly. The Justice Department recommended a 15 year sentence, which Nancy felt compelled to accept.461 I was horrified when I heard. They told her she could have a 10 year sentence, if she agreed to deportation back to Iraq. But by now she’d lived in the United States 25 years. All of her children and grand children are here. She accepted five extra years in prison so that she wouldn’t have to relive her trauma in Iraq. That says it all.
By any measure, 15 years was excessive. She got much tougher sentencing than “coyotes,” who run hundreds of illegal immigrants from Mexico to Texas and California. Only about 50 Iraqis entered the United States illegally, including children and infants, and her guilty plea declares that she only arranged for their passage to South America—which was handled legally.462 I can only say that I watched Carswell play head-games with Nancy, manipulating her past emotional traumas to get the guilty plea. Then they nailed her after she agreed.
But was she competent to accept the deal? I seriously question it.
All of the arguments to defame my competence absolutely applied to her. Nancy was so paranoid and explosive that she could not sit in a room with her attorney for an hour to discuss her legal strategy. She’d crawl into a fetal position and hide in the bathroom. Yet the same prison staff who declared me “unfit for trial,” swore that Nancy was competent to accept a guilty plea.
Go figure. That’s the nature of psychiatry at Carswell —inconsistent, political and unredeemably corrupt.
The Question of My Competence
Then, of course, there was me.
Brass tacks— Was I actually incompetent?
Given my bona fides, it begs the question: Are those the actions of an incompetent Asset? Is it fair to suggest that an Asset who warned about 9/11 and the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, and the 1993 World Trade Center attack; who started negotiations for the Lockerbie Trial with Libya, and the return of the weapons inspectors to Iraq, had performed p
oorly in this role?
Would the CIA tolerate an Asset to function as a back-channel to Libya and Iraq for 8 years, if that individual was untrustworthy analyzing trends and anticipating events? Given the advanced, proactive requirements for even the most basic intelligence work, does that make sense? Much less that my contacts involved the most volatile region of the world? And my work targeted nations considered potentially hostile to U.S. interests?
I think that’s very doubtful. Crazy like a fox, maybe, and non-conformist in my political viewpoints, definitely.
I’ve always believed that you’re judged by the strength of your enemies. Mine included Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Senator John McCain, Senator Trent Lott, Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales.
How flattering.
But was I really “incompetent—” as Republican leaders in Washington claimed, when I put together a message data base for all House and Senate offices—including every Chief of Staff, Legislative Director, Press Secretary and Foreign Policy assistant—Democrat and Republican alike?463
Was I “incompetent” when I warned about a $1.6 trillion dollar price tag for the War and Occupation of Iraq, and how that would financially stress Wall Street and America’s national debt?464
Or when I foretold the rise of Iran as a regional powerhouse?
Or when I predicted the rise of charismatic Al Qaeda leaders inside Iraq, and the flourishing of terrorist cells, in a violent backlash against the Occupation?
Or when I forecast that forces of democracy would transfer power to Islamic fundamentalists, away from moderate Arab governments?
Those rose petals died awfully fast in the desert sun, just as I forecast.
Was that incompetence on my part?
Or was I scapegoated for somebody else’s mistakes?
In 2007, the Senate Intelligence Committee cited specific warnings identical to mine, in declaring that reports from January, 2003 qualified as one of the “few bright spots” in Pre-War Intelligence.465 They called it “outstanding.” I campaigned on every single one of those arguments cited by the Senate. I was so aggressive, in fact, that the Justice Department cited my January, 2003 warnings to Andy Card and Colin Powell,466 as grounds for my indictment.
In 2007, Senator John Warner of Virginia called the substance of it “chilling and prophetic.”
In 2004-2006, it was called “treason.”
And I got condemned of “incompetence.”
Could psychiatry really be so corrupt? To put it bluntly— yes.
I had watched other women come in for psych studies, and leave after six or seven weeks. That’s all it took for these evaluations. There wasn’t much to it. Prison staff would interview us two or three times, typically. Then they’d speak with a couple of outside sources, like Ian Ferguson and Parke Godfrey.
If there was a previous psychiatric history, Carswell would review it. In my case, that would be Dr. Taddesseh in Maryland, who documented that he observed “no psychosis,” “no depression” and “no mood disturbances” in my behavior. His year’s worth of observations finished six months before I got sent to Carswell, so it was quite recent. I had a clean bill of “mental health” before I got to prison.467
Prison conversations with loved ones at home, and a generous outpouring of letters from loyal friends showed that I had good relationships throughout my life. Phone conversations with JB Fields revealed a healthy and mutually supportive relationship. I am not drawn to abusive or violent men. Likewise in prison, I was not socially isolated from other women. Quite the opposite, I quickly made friends on M-1, though inevitably some got transferred back to court for sentencing, or sent home after psych studies. I got left behind. That’s how prison works.
I required a subpoena to get my hands on observation notes by social workers and activity coordinators, who saw me daily on M-1. But when I succeeded, I found them highly informative.
Without exception, staff notes were brief and positive. Every monthly report declared that I “socialized well,” with “good intellectual functioning,” and “good physical health.”468
Shadduck and Vas and Pederson could hardly complain about that, could they?
Staff notes said, “Ms. Lindauer is functioning well on the unit.”469
Other handwritten notes470 said, “Functional and not a behavioral problem.” That was underlined by M-1 staff.
Another staffer wrote, “Not a problem when confronted about anything.”
Another guard wrote, “She is low key and cooperative. Cares for self, good hygiene. Zero behavioral problems. She is focused on getting a trial.”
Another wrote, “Pleasant, appropriate appearance, clear speech, good eye contact.”
Another wrote, “Cheerful and cooperative.”
And another, “Calm, pleasant, appropriate grooming. Good eye contact.”
And another, “Pleasant, smiling, appears to be happy, cooperative.”
By December, Carswell’s goal for “restoring competency” was that I should “A: Explain clearly the pros and cons of legal options within 90 days.”471
And “B: Demonstrate the ability to work with (my) attorney in a rational manner within 90 days.”
Nothing in those staff notes described behavioral problems that justified forcible drugging. Or voluntary drugging for that matter. It was medically absurd—like psychiatry itself.
As a precaution, I signed every monthly report with a written declaration that Carswell should get on the ball interviewing my witnesses to verify my story.472 Clearly I understood that the Court required independent sources to authenticate my claims. I was anxious to provide those assurances. With my signature, nobody could say I hadn’t lobbied hard to get it done – hardly the act of a defendant who expected the Courts to take my word for everything.473
Sure enough, when Shadduck finally got around to questioning Ferguson and Godfrey, my story checked out.
Even Carswell was compelled to rule against “involuntary medication,” after the internal hearing.474 There was no medical basis for it.
Any other inmate would have gone home after that, or back to court, whereas I faced a hard reality that the Feds intended to hold me for the full 120 days allowed by federal statute. This would be my only prison time. The Justice Department wanted to squeeze every possible day out of me. I had to cope with that.
One more thing protected me. Or so I believed.
I had a fail safe option, a statutory right to a hearing before the decision on competence got finalized. Federal law guarantees the right to call witnesses and show evidence opposing psychiatric evaluations.475 Courts are never supposed to rule on competence without due process. That’s a flagrant violation of an individual’s rights.
My story illustrates poignantly why those rights should be held sacrosanct.
To protect myself, I buckled down at the prison law library and read up on the law. I also filed a “pro se” request for a hearing with a list of witnesses, according to all the requirements of the law. My request was registered in an appropriate and timely manner.
I clung to the promise of that hearing like a sacrament. Truly I believed that I was covered on all fronts, whatever followed.
Ineptitude of the Court-Appointed Attorney
So what tripped me up?
As part of a competency review, it’s standard practice to assess whether a defense attorney might be shrugging off a complex case by using an incompetence defense. From the first in-take interview, Carswell staff honed on my public attorney’s difficulty maneuvering the morass of my legal situation.
From my first days on the SHU, Carswell was informed that Uncle Ted felt compelled to interview strategic witnesses, because of Talkin’s bumbling. Ted himself forcefully assured prison staff that he had personally investigated my story, and I checked out.476
In prison phone calls, Ted emphasized that he was reading up case law on psychiatry. By all objective measures, he was fiercely devoted to watching over me.
The need for legal i
ntervention by a family member should have set off alarms over whose competence should be questioned— mine or my public attorney’s. Even Judge Mukasey was aware that it had been necessary to seek a family member’s help.
Under normal circumstances, questions about an attorney’s performance would disqualify an incompetence defense automatically. In my situation, however, Talkin’s fumbling was carefully overlooked.
Ominously for my legal rights, by 2006, the United States and Britain were officially losing the War in Iraq. Insurgents had seized control of the chaos, and threatened to fragment the country in a violent bloodbath that polarized Shi’ite- Sunni relations from north to south. As battlefield casualties mounted, frothing on Capitol Hill reached new heights of fever over the failures of Assets involved with Pre-War Intelligence.
Politicians liked that story. They liked it very much.
From a psychiatric standpoint, Capitol Hill was suffering a major “psychotic breakdown.” Congress aggressively labored to reinvent themselves as the victims of deceptive intelligence practices to escape the fury of voters. Not surprisingly, the facts about Pre-War Intelligence are vastly different than what politicians in Washington told Americans and the international community.
And so the Justice Department got its marching orders: Nothing and nobody would be allowed to challenge the story that Republican leaders were selling to the American people. That was the “reality” that mattered at Carswell.
And so Carswell psychiatrists set about constructing a whole new reality of my work as an Asset that protected political interests in Washington—a game that pretended I suffered a “psychotic disorder not otherwise specified.”477.
It’s doubtful I was ever “incompetent” or “psychotic.” All those months, I showed no “symptoms of mental illness”—except post traumatic stress triggered by the Justice Department’s refusal to end my imprisonment on my release date.478 That’s a fairly sane response to the events, I’d say.
My judicial abuse provides striking evidence of a leadership breakdown in Washington. For all the falderol, Congress failed badly to provide support and oversight protections for me as an Asset.
EXTREME PREJUDICE: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq Page 46
