Susan Lindauer (Takoma Park, Md.) speaks out
hcotn-nyc
http://www.gazette.net/200412/weekend/a_section/208001-1.html
Lindauer defends herself against accusations of spying
by Sean Sands
Staff Writer
TAKOMA PARK -- The woman at the center of an international spy case
said she is the victim of a political effort to silence criticism of
the U.S. administration's foreign policy approach to issues in pre-war
Iraq.
Sitting in a neighborhood coffee shop Wednesday for her first day of
media interviews following her arrest last week, a passionately
intense Susan Lindauer presented herself as a woman fully aware of
both the gravity of her actions and the seriousness of her situation.
Lindauer, 40, is accused of acting as a paid agent of former Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein's intelligence service, the Mukhabbarat.
Federal agents arrested Lindauer March 11 at her Takoma Park home
following a grand jury indictment accusing her of accepting $10,000
from Mukhabbarat operatives before Hussein's government was ousted.
Although Lindauer said she could not comment specifically on the
government's allegations, the self-described peace activist who works
as a media and political consultant used broad strokes to paint the
picture of a woman wrongly accused of working against her own
government in an effort to avert a second Gulf War.
"Everything I did worked to implement the priorities identified by our
own government," Lindauer told The Gazette. "I didn't create the
priorities -- they created the priorities. I wasn't giving speeches on
the Senate floor -- they were giving the speeches on the Senate floor.
"I was the one taking their speeches seriously enough to try to listen
and do something about it."
Lindauer said she worked on those priorities, using her contacts as a
former journalist and congressional press secretary to create a sort
of back-channel dialogue over the past three years between diplomats
and nationals of various countries. Those parties, she said, were
interested in two things: lifting the United Nations-imposed sanctions
on Iraq and getting weapons inspectors back into Baghdad.
At no time, she asserted, did she spy on the United States, nor did
she have access to information that could have jeopardized national
security. She also denied being in the employ of Mukhabbarat
operatives.
Instead, Lindauer said, she is a citizen with a "private passion for
peace building and conflict resolution in the Middle East" who
"offered alternative solutions that would have made war [in Iraq]
unnecessary."
Lindauer said she tried putting those solutions in front of American
policymakers in two ways: through three letters to White House Chief
of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., her second cousin, and through a letter
last month to congressional leaders.
One of the Card letters is mentioned in the grand jury indictment
count alleging Lindauer committed conspiracy to act as an unregistered
agent of a foreign government. She said she met her alleged
co-conspirators, Raed Noman al-Anbuke and Wisam Noman al-Anbuke, for
the first time in court in Manhattan on Monday.
The government described the Card letter as one "in which Lindauer
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.
Marvin Smilon, a spokesman for the U.S. District Attorney's office in
Manhattan, declined to provide additional information beyond what is
contained in the indictment and an accompanying press release.
Lindauer also declined to comment on the exact content of the letters
because of her pending trial, noting only that the documents were
intended to "offer an initiative -- a 'framework for peace' is what I
called it." She flatly denied that there was anything in the letters
that created a threat to the U.S. government.
"I hoped [the letters] would provide a starting point," Lindauer said.
"They were intended to create an opening for peace-building ... an
opening for conflict resolution."
Lindauer also declined to discuss specifics about her recent letters
to Congress, although she said she believes they were the impetus for
the government's indictment.
The letters "offered alternative solutions that would have made war
unnecessary and showed how easily avoidable the past year [of war in
Iraq] has been. Immediately after I go to Congress with this info,"
she said, "immediately after that, a grand jury is convened against
me."
Looking ahead to her trial, Lindauer said she is concerned about the
use of classified evidence, a move she said prosecutors mentioned
during her hearing Monday at the federal courthouse in New York. If
she is found guilty on all counts, she faces up to 25 years in jail.
Lindauer's view of the case is one of a woman using her professional
skills and personal and professional contacts from a career in the
media and on Capitol Hill to put action behind her convictions. But
unlike the "Think globally, act locally" mantra of other Takoma Park
activists, Lindauer both thought and acted on a world stage.
"The kind of stuff that I do is not easy -- it's very hard," she said.
"We're all trying to figure out how to make our world better, and I've
taken on some extremely difficult situations, or policy areas, and
I've tried to make a difference."
It is the global-mindedness of the city's residents and a sense of
shared values that brought Lindauer to Takoma Park three years ago,
she said.
"I believe that I've got good values and that I'm doing good things
for peace building in our community," she said. "I take action -- I
have initiated frameworks for resolving conflicts that I am incredibly
proud of. I'm incredibly proud of what I've done.
"...There are times when you take for granted the community you live
in ... because you get busy with life," she said. "And then something
like this happens, and you just have to say 'Thank God' that you can
reach out and touch people who are committed to the same social
justice and committed to respect for diverse opinions, whether they
agree with you or not.
"Thank God, I live in Takoma Park. I will never complain about my
property taxes again."