Cousin of White House Chief of Staff Tells How Illegally Jailed by Bush Administration
Greg Szymanski
A former journalist, congressional aide and U.S. intelligence asset in the Iraqi Embassy, Lindauer tried to notify the Bush administration through her cousin that Iraq posed no WMD threat and wanted to cooperate with U.S. authorities to avert a conflict.
For her actions contrary to the Bush administration's policy of "war at any cost without justification," Lindauer was charged with a federal crime for being an Iraqi agent, a charge she has vehemently denies throughout her long and unjustified incarceration.
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"After I sent the letter to my cousin, they came down on me hard," said Lindauer recently on Greg Szymanski's popular radio show, The Investigative Journal, on the Genesis Radio Network at www.gcnlive.com. "I was working for the benefit of the people, trying to get out the truth. But the Bush administration wanted no part of that and labeled me a terrorist because they intent on going to war even though there were no WMD in Iraq and, in fact, the Iraqi's wanted to cooperate with weapons inspectors in order to avert war.
"But I found out the hard way that the Bush administration already made up its mind to go to war and anybody who got in their way was going to be stepped on hard. The government charged mw with a serious crime and I was out on bond for more than 18 months, but then about a year ago, without any intention of going to trial, they mandated psychiatric evaluations based on my statements and actions opposing the war.
"First they put me in Carswell Prison, which sits on a military base outside of Fort Worth, Texas. I was there for seven or eight months until being transferred to the MCC New York Metropolitan Correctional Facility. It was such a horrendous experience and I never thought anyone could be treated this way in America."
Lindauer was released last month after Federal Judge D.J. Mukasey of the U.S. District Court, S.D. New York, ruled against the government's motion to keep Lindauer locked away under forced medication, saying "there is simply not enough here to warrant a finding by clear and convincing evidence that Lindauer is substantially likely to be rendered competent by forced medication and substantially unlikely to suffer effects that will impinge upon a fair trial.
Lindauer still faces espionage charges but after more than year of forced incarceration and unnecessary psychiatric evaluations and forced drugging, she finally walked away a free woman.
However, she still fears repercussions after going public with her story on Szymanski's radio show, saying "that is a sad reality that I must face but I am not going to keep quiet."
Lindauer appeared twice for a total of three hours on the radio shows and the archives of the two shows can be found at www.arcticbeacon.com
Lindauer also provided a written statement of her incredible ordeal, saying she is planning to write a book about her story. Here is her statement sent to friends and collegues after her release. It should be noted her story has been completely ignored by the corrupt U.S. media, which should be immediately dismantled and labeled nothing more than a propaganda arm of the government.
I was accused of acting as an Iraqi Agent for the purposes of lobbying against the War, (not spying). I am a Democrat. My cousin, Andy Card, is the former Chief of Staff to President Bush. A year ago, the Court ordered me to surrender to Carswell Prison, which sits on a military base outside of Fort Worth, Texas-- one of the most god-awful places I've ever imagined in my life. Truly sadistic staff. Very ugly people.
There I was declared incompetent to stand trial. Please note that I was denied the most basic right to a Competency Hearing, where I could have called long-time friends and associates to testify in my defense.
Since they had no behavioral evidence, or witness testimony from friends and family to support their request for forcible drugging, they told the court that I am "secretly delusional." Nobody knows about it, they said-- not even the court-ordered psychologist in Maryland, whom I was required to see for 18 months after my arrest. (He had no idea).
They pointed to fiction writing, and old religious writings that I had used in my approach to Libya, when we were trying to start negotiations for the Lockerbie Trial in the mid-1990s. Much of that was more than 10 years old. Moreover, they had plucked paragraphs, and spliced my writing all to hell, so that it does not even read like the originals.
That's forensic psychiatry for you, folks! it's a scary business, apparently lacking much in the way of integrity. As "Dr." Vas told me at Carswell. "I'm going to tell the Judge you made it all up. And who do you think he's going to believe-- you or me? I am a doctor."
Yes, truly frightening.
Thankfully, the Judge ruled against the Prosecution last week. I was released after serving 11 months in prison. But who can say if it's really over? For all I know, the Prosecutor is planning a new line of attack right now.
My dear friends--Yes, it's true. I am home after enduring what was truly a nightmare of political deceit and legal manipulations. I have spent several days trying to compose this letter in my head, but there's so much to tell you all -- some professional colleagues, others close friends. I think that all of you need to hear this message. I would be gratified if you would pass it on.
This White House leadership is much more dangerous than you think. But also our democracy is much stronger and enduring than we realize. Chief Justice Mukasey proved that our courts have the capability and wise stewardship to protect us as citizens when the government goes berserk and starts attacking pluralism. I am so profoundly grateful to his overall attack on the case against me, I just can't even tell you. It has been stupefying and totally, totally dishonest. But that's our Iraqi policy today. In many ways, the case against me reflects that chaos. I have been up against some very powerful and ruthless men, determined to wreak confusion as to my activities before the War, and I have no delusions that I am very small.
There's been so much bullshit flying that I want to clarify certain points for all of your benefit. And I hope that you would share some of this with others who have been confused by the media coverage in the past week.
For starters, you know that I have campaigned hard against this War, in the months before the invasion and after it. I never anticipated that my anti-war letters to my cousin, former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, would have greater impact than your own. To the contrary, all of us who have spoken against the war appreciate the magnitude of the stonewall opposition we ran up against. Everyone told the White House this war would be a disaster, including some of the Joint Chiefs of the military. They were asked to resign. The White House refused to consider objections from any source.
What made me different was that I had served as one of the very few U.S. Assets covering the Iraqi Embassy at the United Nations. I had done this for almost seven years before the War-- something I would never have been allowed to do if I was actually delusional, as the Justice Dept is suggesting now. Because of my position, I offered to give credible testimony to the Presidential Commission on Iraqi Pre-War Intelligence. On the day that President Bush appointed that Commission in Feb. 2004, I approached Senator Lott's office asking who I should contact on the brand new commission.
Knowing that I was staunchly anti-war and would not put the blame on US intelligence for pre-war failures, within 48 hours, my U.S. file had been turned over to a grand jury--- and I was indicted a month later, thanks to gaping holes in what the grand jury was allowed to know about me. If actions speak louder than words, that should tell you something about what the Administration believed I know about Iraqi Pre-War Intelligence.
Attacking me as delusional, therefore, is just a wee bit curious. But wait, you say. That's a huge jump. How does one become a U.S. Asset covering the Iraqi Embassy in the United Nations? If my case had gone to Trial, several things would have been established rapidly-- And yes, witnesses stood ready to verify this, which helps explain why the U.S. govt could never allow the case to go to trial.
First, it would have been established that I have a long history of working against terrorism-- but not from the traditional hawk perspective. I am now, and have always been, an Anti-War and Anti-Sanctions activist. Huh? you say. (a peace activist who works against violence? ok. but anti-terrorism? And I like Arab culture, I respect Islam? How can that be?)
Yes. Something happened on the way to the Forum, (to mix metaphors here) Back in 1993, as it turns out, I warned about the first attack on the World Trade Center, two days before it happened. Nothing delusional about it. I told a diplomat at the Tunisian Embassy in Washington, DC-- and that hooked me into a network of individuals on the U.S. side who are concerned with all sorts of anti-terrorism activiites. (For those who are interested, it was during the investigation of the first attack on the World Trade Center-- and again during part of the Lockerbie talks-- that my house was bugged, something that at times felt excessive, and which I complained about. Something that got stirred up in the latest media reportage, without any explanation from my side.)
After an investigation cleared me of involvement in the first World Trade Center attack, I was approached by liasons to U.S. agencies. The U.S. invited me to set up a back channel at the Iraqi and Libyan Embassies in order to support U.S. Anti-Terrorism initiatives. The U.S. was totally aware of my opposition to sanctions and war, and wanted to take advantage of the access it could give them. It was very clear that I would be well-positioned to deal with diplomats from those governments, since both were operating under sanctions.
And that's exactly what we did. For example, with regards to Libya, I started talks for the Lockerbie Trial, beginning in 1995. I established contacts at the Iraqi Embassy in 1996. We also worked to close down Libya's sanctuary for terrorists.
All of this was heavily supervised by contacts for the United States, surveillance provided by the boys at N.S.A.. And let me emphasize that diplomats at both embassies were fully informed of the availability of those American contacts throughout those years. It involved no concealment. From day one, the purpose of the Embassy visits was to encourage those Arab governments to use that back channel for anti-terrorism intelligence so that we could all act on a preemptive basis to thwart violence.
What made it unusual, with regards to Libya especially, was that I have a strong religious foundation in my life. I discovered early on that respecting Islam would accomplish a great deal more than attacking Islam. My approach proved highly successful. Everybody in both camps was very happy. My Arab contacts loved me, and my American contacts loved that my Arab contacts loved me. That's very different than what you havea been told. Everybody wants to pretend this was a short effort on my part that took my "poor cousin, Andy" totally by surprise. Or that I was weak and ineffective. Hah!
Nothing could be more wrong. At the time, I was frequently praised by my U.S. contacts as "brilliant and cutting edge" becausee I could persuade pro-jihadi governments, which traditionally support terrorism, to talk to me and work with us on these greater objectives. So everything that you guys have been reading in the media has been heavily twisted around, based on psych testimony, which was totally irresponsible and inaccurate. (The psycho crowd declared that nobody could actually do this work, so if I think I did this work, I must be delusional. Yet I have witnesses, whose names and addresses I immediately provided to the Judge, who could have been called to verify everything).
Everything was above board, hands on the table and visible at all times. The U.S. scrutinized every move I made-- which I fully acknowledge was their right to do. Only on the periphery did I get angry, for example, when a particular surveillance team got bored, and started videotaping me in the shower. (Yes they did. I got an apology later on). There's a helluva lot more that they did, which I did not complain about.
Essentially, if somebody visits the Iraqis and Libyan Embassies for 7 years, it should be expected that the NSA is going to monitor those contacts closely. That's just common sense. But there's a whole lot of other bad information, too.
I never called myself "Symbol Susan." The Iraqis sometimes used a symbol with my name, and called me an "Angel." That has connotations in Islam that are very different from Christianity. Essentially, they were saying that I am a highly moral woman with a strong religious faith. I hope that's true.
I love God. I enjoy worshipping God, and I try to be guided by moral values, especially with regards to non-violence and tolerance. In this day and age, society likes to pretend that we're all so advanced that we can ridicule people like me who want to contribute to improving the world.
Go right ahead! Laugh away! Scorn is not a bad thing. It reminds us how small we are, and how wonderful it is to feel and to give, even though we are small. The singer, Jewel, got it right. "My hands are small, I know. But they're not yours, they are my own." The bottom line is that I have enjoyed a marvelous adventure in my life. My experience has been authentic. I could call witnesses to testify to my authenticity. And.I have been blessed to be very happy.
Beyond that, the Prosecutor played dirty in his report to the Judge, asking for the right to forcibly drug me. For the record, Carswell testified that I suffer NO hallucinations, NO hearing voices, NO schizophrenia, NO depression, NO bipolar disorder, and NO violent outbursts.
Carswell noted that I experience HYPOMANIA at a constant rate of activity, and stress. In order to seek a justification for forcible drugging, the Prosecutor actually cited my FICTION WRITING to appeal to the Judge. The oldest piece was 17 years old, and described a fictional lover. He also tried to claim that religious experience constitutues delusional thinking. If somebody believes in God or a higher power, they've got to be somewhat crazy. Some of the writing was also part of the sophisticated communications that I used to approach the Libyans, which uses lots of religious imagery-- I called that the "je ne sais quois" factor, because I didn't really understand how it was working, but there was no question but that it was succeeding. Indeed, afterwards, the Libyan Ambassador urged me to write a book explaining to the Americans how to do Anti-Terrorism work in such a way that embraces Islam, instead of attacking it. He actually told me that if the Americans would just do anti-terrorism my way, everything would be much better, and everyone would want to help us. Oh yes, I was very good at anti-terrorism, friends. Which makes it very interesting that our leadership has no interest in learning how those of us who actually do the work successfully have built innovative strategies. That's because anti-terrorism today is about George Bush. It's not about the society or community welfare. It's about politicians. And press conferences to make politicians look good. Those of us who do this to support a noble cause of non-violence, we're like dinosaurs to these people. We are an oddity. They don't know what to do with us. It bodes very badly for our ability to succeed in the future.
Also, my success would indicate that more liberal-minded approaches can be equally successful. You don't have to use the hawk approach to get results. Conflict resolution works just as well as threatening the Arabs. In fact, there are many ways to do this work, without antagonizing Islamic people at all. The Administration calls that delusional, but I think it's a shame that the ADministration wants to suppress those possibilities. In my humble opinion, we need to cultivate an understanding of Islam, and we need to develop a greater range of approaches now more than ever.
There will be another attack, and when it comes, everyone will wonder why the bureaucracy in Washington failed to identify it, and stop it. The hard reality is that no bureaucrat and no press conference ever stopped a terrorism attack-- that work is done by Assets, who are strictly finite in number. I was proud to be one of those.
And, ah, this government should never have treated me this way.
Greg Szymanski
Greg also has his own daily show on the Genesis Communications Network. Go to www.gcnlive.com Greg Szymanski is an independent investigative journalist and his articles can been seen at www.LewisNews.com. He also writes for his own site www.arcticbeacon.com
Listen to my Radio Broadcast live Monday night at 8pm Pacific time on LewisNews, returning Jan. 1 2006 Radio http://webs.lewisnews.com/radio/index.htm. Greg is also regular on Rense.com the first Thursday of every month at 9-10 pm pacific time.