|
Maryland activist charged iraqi spy { March 12 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51646-2004Mar11.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51646-2004Mar11.html
Md. Activist Charged With Working for Iraq
Indictment Says Ex-Press Aide Had Intelligence Links to Hussein
By Cameron W. Barr and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, March 12, 2004; Page B01
A former congressional press aide from Takoma Park was arrested yesterday for allegedly maintaining an "intelligence relationship" for several years with U.S.-based spies for Saddam Hussein before the Iraqi leader was ousted.
Among other activities, authorities said, Susan Lindauer, 40, cooperated with Iraqi intelligence agents in January 2003 by delivering a letter to the home of a relative, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., urging the Bush administration to hold off its invasion of Iraq so weapons inspectors could continue their work.
Lindauer, described by people who know her as an ardent foe of the U.S.-led war against Hussein's regime, was arrested at her home by FBI agents after a federal indictment in New York charged her with several crimes, including acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government and violating laws against financial transactions with Iraq.
"I'm an antiwar activist, and I'm innocent," Lindauer said yesterday before her initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. After entering no pleas and posting her home as $500,000 collateral, she was released from custody pending further proceedings but must reside in a halfway house designated by federal court officials.
The charges against her are punishable by more than 25 years in prison upon conviction.
"I did more to stop terrorism in this country than anybody else," said Lindauer, who worked as a journalist for several years until the early 1990s and has a master's degree in public policy from the London School of Economics. "I worked to get weapons inspectors back to Iraq when everyone else said it was impossible."
Law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation said Lindauer's alleged activities caused little if any damage to national security, although they had potential to cause harm. "It's not the biggest case out there," one of those sources said. "There's not a lot of money allegedly changing hands. Her efforts to impact U.S. policy were not successful."
Lindauer, who was not charged with espionage, allegedly met with Iraqi intelligence agents in Manhattan six times between October 1999 and February 2002 for reasons not specified in the indictment. She received a total of $814 for travel, lodging and meal expenses related to three of those trips, the indictment states. In an October 2001 meeting, Lindauer "accepted a task given to her" by an agent, according to the indictment, which does not describe the task.
Then, for about two weeks beginning in late February 2002, she met with Iraqi agents in Baghdad, where she "received cash payments of approximately $5,000" and "a total of approximately $10,000 from the [Iraqi intelligence agency] for services provided," according to the indictment and a statement from prosecutors. Upon returning to the United States, she allegedly met again with an Iraqi agent in Manhattan.
In early January 2003, two months before the Iraq war began, Lindauer "delivered to the home of a United States Government official a letter in which [she] conveyed her established access to, and contacts with, members of the Saddam Hussein regime in an unsuccessful attempt to influence United States foreign policy," according to the indictment. Several law enforcement sources familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, identified the official as Card, whom they said is a second cousin of Lindauer's.
One those sources said Lindauer, in the letter, "was making the argument that the Iraqi government should be given more time for inspections and that sort of thing to delay the war."
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said yesterday that Lindauer is "a distant cousin" to Card and that Card does not recall having any personal contact with her since President Bush's 2001 inaugural celebration.
McClellan declined to say how the letter was delivered to Card's house, whether Lindauer had any contact with members of Card's family or how many times Lindauer tried to contact the chief of staff. "It is a very sad and unfortunate incident," McClellan said. "The various attempts to contact him on behalf of the former [Iraqi] regime were brought to the attention of the appropriate officials . . . and Chief of Staff Card was fully cooperative with the FBI during the investigation."
A law enforcement source said FBI agents first took notice of Lindauer during her alleged visits to the Iraqi mission to the United Nations in New York before the war, when the mission was under heavy FBI surveillance.
Then, last summer, according to the indictment, an undercover FBI agent posing as a Libyan intelligence officer met with Lindauer twice in Baltimore, in June and July, to "discuss the need for plans and foreign resources to support resistance groups operating within" U.S.-occupied Iraq. In August, acting on the undercover agent's instructions, authorities said in a statement, Lindauer "left packages on two separate occasions for the [agent] . . . in prearranged 'dead drop' operations." The indictment alleges that the packages contained unspecified documents and were left in Takoma Park. A law enforcement source described the documents as nonsensitive.
Lindauer worked as a press aide for some Democrats in Congress in the mid-1990s and as recently as 2002.
The indictment was obtained by U.S. Attorney David N. Kelley of the Southern District of New York, whose office said in a statement that the Iraqi intelligence agency with whom Lindauer allegedly cooperated "had multiple missions, including foreign intelligence collection, counterintelligence and covert action. [It] also played a role in terrorist operations, including the attempted assassination of former President George H.W. Bush."
Staff writers Susan Levine and Jerry Markon and staff researchers Richard Drezen and Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
|
|
