Thanks, Spencer, for highlighting this cabinet choice that will allow America to feel our veterans are being looked after with love and respect.

Another 18 months passed without action until the prosecution requested that Lindauer undergo a psychiatric evaluation. The prosecution argued that she was unfit to stand trial for two reasons: she believed that she was not guilty and she was therefore unable to contribute to her defense since she didn’t understand that she might be convicted. Her failure to accept guilt by denying what the prosecution called delusions somehow proved mental incompetence.

Based on the psychiatric evaluation, Judge Mukasey ordered Lindauer to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, Federal Medical Center (Carswell FMC), Ft. Worth, located on the grounds of Carswell Air Force Base. Lindauer reports considerable distress at confinement and the condition of her fellow female inmates.

Now

Susan Lindauer seeks a trial on the charges to prove her innocence.

She says that:

She worked for United States intelligence to create back channel communication with key Middle Eastern states and all of her actions were under the supervision of U.S. intelligence.

She was recruited by U.S. intelligence to perform this function in 1994 due to her anti sanctions position and the belief that the targeted states would find someone with her position and contacts appealing.

She made significant contributions through her U.N. diplomatic contacts with Libya for the hand over of accused Lockerbie bombers to Scottish authorities. After Lockerbie, she worked as a back channel to Iraq on resuming weapons inspection.

She is innocent of all charges filed.
Lindauer reports that her role as a back channel operative for the U.S. resulted from a 1994 meeting with Dr. Richard Fuisz in Chantilly, Virginia. He approached Lindauer who was then on the staff of Representative Ron Wyden (D-OR), now a U.S. Senator. She says that Fuisz, reportedly a CIA operative, wanted to get out information on terrorist threats from Syria and its proxies who he said were responsible for the Lockerbie bombing. Fuisz claimed that he could identify the specific culprits behind the Lockerbie – Pan Am 103 bombing.

She noted that her knowledge of Arab culture and her positions as an anti sanction, pro peace advocate positioned her for service as a conduit to nations hostile to United States. This put her in a position, “to open a back channel to receive terrorism information from those nations under

And with her work in Iraq we learn this

During 2000, Lindauer began her efforts to cultivate Iraqi contacts for better relations with the U.S. She described an extraordinary opportunity that might have changed the entire direction of U.S. – Iraq relations. As the secular dictator of an Arab state, Hussein was not fond of Islamic terrorists. Lindauer reported to her U.S. contacts that the Iraq government would welcome an F.B.I. taskforce into Baghdad. She reported further, that “The F.B.I. would be able to interview witnesses and make arrests.” Further, she says that:

Iraq also offered banking records and proof of financial transfers that would prove Middle Eastern involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing and the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.

The program met with a frosty reception from the newly installed Bush administration. Lindauer said, “I was told that the new administration was evaluating its position on Iraq, in light of collapsing international support for sanctions.” There was no action on the plan. In fact, based on what we know now, improved relations with Iraq were not on the agenda from the beginning of the Bush-Cheney era.

This leads to the second phase of her activities regarding Iraq, the events that ended with Lindauer’s arrest, indictment, and incarceration at FMC Carswell, Ft. Worth, Texas.

I respectfully disagree with your characterization of General Shinseki, however, as standing head and shoulders above many of the current Generals. While his prescience and candor during his Feb 2003 testimony before HASC is remarkable, his tenure as Chief of Staff of the Army is a bit more complicated.