I'm especially impressed by this book for two reasons. One, it gives us a wealth of information which only an insider can give us. Second, it gives us a personal account about the terrifying use of the Patriot Act and the abuse of psychiatry in the justice system.
Lindauer was recruited by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence as an asset, specifically as a go-between between the CIA and the Libyan and Iraqi government in order to unofficially negotiate deals through back door channels when these two nations were under sanction and had no official relations with the US. These back door negotiations were never reported in the press, and if it weren't for Lindauer's informing us, we would never know about their existence. Lindauer's account of these back door negotiations is a source of precious information about "what really happened" which, I'm afraid, we will never know about had Lindauer not been here to tell us: for "what really happened" is unfortunately what our government did not want us to know. There are two things in particular.
First, Lindauer tells us about "what really happened" in regard to a stream of past terrorist attacks about which we have been fed with false information by the authority. During her work as the "go-between", her handler and the Middle Eastern diplomats she worked with provided her with insider knowledge about who were really behind the Oklahoma City bombing, the 1993 WTC bombing, and the Pam Am 103 "Lockerbie" bombing. The official stories which our government put out about these attacks were not true. There are a lot of speculations about what really happened with the Oklahoma city bombing, and Lindauer's account must be considered because it is based on the communication of the Iraqi government. What I have a particular interest in is the Pam Am-103 bombing. We are told by our authority that this was the work of the Libyan agent al-Megrah, who was convicted of this crime. Lindauer's CIA handler however revealed to her: "In part, Dr Fuisz explained how the bombing of Pam Am 103 was intended to strike down a team of Defense Intelligence Agents, who were flying back to Washington to protest the CIA's tolerance of heroin smuggling as part of locating the hostages in Beirut" (p. 46). A group of Syrians were hired for the purpose (p. 392). I suggest you compare her statement with what is told in Gordon Thomas' "Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of Mossad" (1999 edition), p. 328. The airline once hired a certain Yuval Aviv, a former Mossad officer, to investigate the matter. The report makes a similar claim: that CIA had a rogue team COREA which was smuggling drug from the Middle East to US, and that US Army major Charles McKee, who was on the Lockerbie flight, planned to expose it. The CIA thus decided to kill him. COREA was working with Al-Kassar who was linked to the Abu Nidal organization and they together loaded up a bomb to the Lockerbie flight when it was transferring in Frankfurt.
Another what for me is enlightening information from this book regards the true personality of some important politicians. We have been accustomed to the image of Collin Powell as an incorruptible politician whom the neocons have pushed aside because he wouldn't play the game of the Bush administration. Lindauer's story has however exposed General Powell as just as much a hypocrite as the others in the neocons' camp. He was fully aware that Iraq probably did not have WMD - if only because Lindauer herself had warned him so - before he went to UN to give his speech, and yet he later complained on national TV that no one in the intelligence community had warned him that this was so. With General Powell's reputation, you would never expect him to lie and put on a show on TV in order to protect himself and the "official story", and yet he did so, and you'll only knowing this from Lindauer's book. Similarly, it is only from this book that you learn that Iraq has fully agreed to cooperate with the international community about letting in weapon inspectors and with the United States about 911 and other terrorism investigations. Yet, knowing this, the Bush administration got on TV to lie that Iraq was uncooperative. Then John McCain got on TV to lie that Mohammed Atta had met with an Iraqi agent even though he knew this was false. It is only by reading Lindauer's story that we learn how politicians otherwise known as respectable can actually lie with a straight face.
Lindauer's story is also proof that foreknowledge of the 911 attacks was widespread in the intelligence community for she herself was warned about it by her handler. Her knowledge about this and the truth of Iraq's willingness to cooperate on everything in order to lift the sanction and avoid being invaded was what got her in trouble with the Republicans. When she requested to testify in Congress about what she knew she was arrested on the Patriot Act under some trumped-up charges as an "unregistered Iraqi agent". The second half of her book then details her impossible struggle with the Patriot Act - where the evidences for her "crime" were kept secret from her and her attorney and where her own attorney was required to collude with the prosecutor to work for her destruction - and with the abuse of psychiatry in the name of justice - where a stream of psychiatrists, supposed experts on what is reality and what is not, colluded with the government to declare reality "delusion" and non-reality reality.
The book is generally well-written, for Lindauer is a skillful creative writer. The only flaw in her style is her tendency to repeat the same piece of information throughout the book. This "flaw" dwarfs, however, in face of what we can learn about "what really happened" in regard to these past terrorist attacks, the events of 911, and the Iraq War, and about the horrifying abuse of the justice system. In these days when so much of the information which the government puts out through the mainstream media is false, we have nothing to count on except for these personal stories told by the actual participants without the help of traditional institutions. This book is thus precious. When we consider that Lindauer publishes this 400-page heavy duty account all by herself we have to be impressed by her incredible ability: not everyone can do this. It's obvious that any future historians who wish to write a genuine account about our current "era of terrorism" must take account of this book.
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Andreas Groß
Schön, dass es solche Whistleblower gibt
Reviewed in Germany on September 12, 2013
