This week Visibility 9-11 welcomes former diplomat from the State Department’s Foreign Service J. Michael Springmann. Mr. Springmann served postings in Germany, India, Saudi Arabia, and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research in Washington D.C. He is a published author of several articles on national security themes, and is an attorney in private practice in Washington D.C.

Michael has attended several 9/11 Conferences over the years, most notably, the 9/11 Omission hearings on 9/9/2004 chaired by former Representative and current Green Party candidate for President, Cynthia McKinney, as well as the recent conference in Keene, NH.

Included in this important interview is a discussion regarding a new article by Mr. Springmann titled, THE MISTAKE DEPARTMENT: One Example of Why American Foreign Policy is a Disaster that discusses the American Consulate General at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and it’s relationship to 15 of the 19 alleged September 11th hijackers. In it, he says that “the Jeddah Consulate was not a State Department post but an intelligence services operation”, “the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) routinely demanded (and got) visas for sleazy characters with no ties to either their home country or Saudi Arabia,” and “these vile people were terrorists recruited by U.S. intelligence officers along with Osama bin Laden, then a CIA asset.”

Direct download: visibility911_springmann.mp3

THE MISTAKE DEPARTMENT: One Example of Why American Foreign Policy is a Disaster
by J. Michael Springmann

THE MISTAKE DEPARTMENT: One Example of Why American Foreign Policy is a Disaster by J. Michael Springmann

After airplanes flew into the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon, The Los Angeles Times reported that 15 of the 19 alleged hijackers got their U.S. visas from the American Consulate General at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a consulate where I had served as chief of the Visa Section. What The Los Angeles Times did not report was what I had told their Washington, D.C. bureau after reading the story: (1) that the Jeddah Consulate was not a State Department post but an intelligence services operation; (2) that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) routinely demanded (and got) visas for sleazy characters with no ties to either their home country or Saudi Arabia; (3) that these vile people were terrorists recruited by U.S. intelligence officers along with Osama bin Laden, then a CIA asset. With the help of non-State Department officials, i.e., Consul General, Jay Philip Freres (retired and living in Clearwater, Fla.), the head of the Political/Economic Section, Eric L. Qualkenbush (retired and living in Findlay, Ohio), the Political Officer, Henry Ensher (currently assigned to D.C. and living in McLean, Va.), a Commercial Officer, Paul Arvid Tveit (retired and also living in McLean, Va.), the Chief of the Consular Section, Justice (given name) Stevens (whereabouts unknown), and a “part-time” Consular officer, Andy Weber (last seen on the PBS program “Bio-Terror”), they were sent to America for training in blowing things up and shooting things down. Afterwards, they were sent on to Afghanistan to murder Soviet soldiers. It seems pretty clear that they and people that they had trained are now pursuing their own goals (and most likely U.S. foreign policy interests) in helping destabilize Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Their next target may be Iran.

Having been Commercial Attaché at the American Embassy in New Delhi, India (a post with a goodly number of CIA and National Security Agency, NSA, staff) and twice in Stuttgart, Germany, a Consulate with successive Consuls General sent out by the intelligence services, Douglas Jones and Day Olin Mount (both now retired, whereabouts unknown), I was still flabbergasted at the blatant disregard (and wholehearted contempt) for the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Foreign Affairs Manual (the State Department’s Holy Book governing, inter alia, visa issuance). And it wasn’t until I was fired for questioning these spurious visa practices that I learned what was really going on and how the system worked–to America’s detriment.

Read the rest of this entry »