If you’re looking for pieces on Jack Idema and his team, please click on this link.

This is the transcript of Mike Levine and Mark Marshall in New York interviewing Jack Idema in Pulacharke prison in Afghanistan on the Expert Witness Show.

I was very disappointed that I couldn’t log on to the streaming show, but luckily, there’s a podcast and you can listen to it here.

As a DEA agent for 25 years, Mike Levine has unique insight into the world of law enforcement in America. The Expert Witness Radio Show is Webcast LIVE every Monday evening starting at 5:00pm Eastern from the WBAI radio studios in New York City. Want to know more about Mike Levine, be sure to check out Mike´s Books. Mike is also the author of “Deep Cover: The Inside Story of How DEA Infighting, Incompetence and Subterfuge Lost Us the Biggest Battle of the Drug War “. Deep Cover is a first-hand account of how the CIA, State and Justice Departments teamed up to destroy a DEA undercover sting operation that threatened to expose U.S. government ties to drug-financed governments in Mexico, Panama and Bolivia. He has a fascinating series coming up about murders on the border and US government involvement.

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Mike: The Jack Idema Affair. This is about one of the wildest things you’re ever going to hear on the Expert Witness Show–we’ve got a call direct into a prison in Afghanistan. You don’t want to miss this. Just hang in there.

This is Mike Levine, host of the Expert Witness radio show right here in New York City. With me is my partner, Mark Marshall. The show is also heard on ExpertWitnessRadio dot org and it’s going to remain up there for as long as there is an ExpertWitnessRadio dot org. And this is a show that you’re about to hear I guarantee you–you’re going to want to pass this around.

Mark: Not going to hear anything like this anywhere else, that’s for sure!

Mike: I have on the phone with me–I want to get into this really quickly. I have on the phone with me–a prisoner in an Afghan prison-there’s going to be a little delay because of the distance-you know, a couple of seconds, so -bear with us. His name is Jack Idema. Keith Jack Idema. It’s Jack, right? But your real name is Keith Idema.

Jack: Yeah, my middle name is Keith, my dad’s named is John–Yeah, everybody calls me Jack. Just kind of stuck with me as a nickname.

Mike: Ok, my friend. Let me tell the listeners a little bit what I know about Jack. Before we put this show together, I was contacted by a lot of DEA people who served our country internationally–and I’m talking about some of the most effective international undercover operatives as opposed to FBI and CIA who just allowed 9/11 to happen to us-just some of the top people for whom I have an enormous amount of respect–and they say that the greatest untold story thanks to the mainstream media either making light of it–or doing the same penguin walk they did that lead right to 9/11– is the Jack Idema story. And I think probably the best way to get into this–by the way, before I put this show on the air–I’m talking about an enormous amount of support. On top of the DEA people, came the support of a lot of military people whom I respect enormously. What they say that this story story is the surface of–is an ongoing war right now between the FBI the CIA and the military intelligence, the military people- on the ground in Afghanistan and perhaps all around the world–that you guys don’t know about–a war the is effecting the very security that we are depending on to protect us from nuclear terror right here in the US. Jack, would you argue with any of that, you want to expand on that a little bit before we get into uh…?

Jack: I would say that’s the best sum up I’ve heard yet on radio shows that I’ve done– that’s exactly –it is a war between the FBI, the CIA and the army. And we’re going to lose this war if it continues.

Mike: The American people are really going to lose this war. To show America really how little you know about the Jack Idema incident and how it’s being handled by mainstream media–I’m going to play a 9 minute-it’s going to be 9 minutes but it’s worth listening to- and then I’m going to talk about it-it’s Peter Bergen on National Public Radio–and he’s talking about Jack Idema and this is the impression that most people have of this case–you’ve got to hear this

Mark: It’s a really good synopsis I don’t know if you’ll necessarily have to run the whole 9 minutes–but this will give you the story in a nutshell.

Peter: Yes. Yeah, Jack Idema is quite a character. A Former special forces Sergeant who kind of appointed himself on a mission to hunt down terrorists in Afghanistan after 9/11, a New yorker who was affected by the 9/11 attacks. He’s one of these people that you either love or hate there’s very little in between, and I think however that there’s been a sort of miscarriage of justice in his case. The claims that he didn’t have any connections to the US Government or the Afghan government based on my investigation seems to be (completely) seems to be false. He did have some dealings with the US Government, people in the Pentagon were generally aware of what he was doing, Afghan officials were also aware of what he was doing.

Frank: Yeah, It’s an incredible story, really, because how this guy even got into special forces given what at least one trainer said about him along the way when he tried to make his way into the military said” he’s the worst recruit and the most immature guy I’ve ever seen….”

Peter: Yes. He’s got a conviction on fraud charges, spent 4 years in federal prison, he’s got multiple arrests for various things, so, you know, Jack has had a very checkered past and you couldn’t make up what’s happened to him now. Pulacharke prison where he and his two colleagues are, Brent Bennett and Ed Caraballo, is–you wouldn’t wish this on your worst enemy. I spent 5 days there, that was plenty. It’s the equivalent of the Leavenworth of Afghanistan, it’s–a lot of Taliban, members of Al Qaeda are in there. In fact, there was a prison riot in December where 4 of the Al Qaeda-linked prisoners tried to kill the American prisoners and ended up killing 4 prison guards. So it’s a dangerous place, it’s an unpleasant place, they are serving some pretty hard time there.

Frank: And…here’s a guy who actually retired and he was out of the service and after 9/11 he decides he’s got to do something so he puts on somebody’s uniform and runs off to Afghanistan.

Peter: Yes. Well he set up his own Task Force Sabre 7, he called it. He outfitted them with kind of Quasi-American military uniforms, he did seem to have some success in arresting people planning bombings in Kabul and planning to assassinate Afghan cabinet officials. The big problem is he didn’t have written authorization from the US government or from the Afghan government, although he operated with maybe a sort of a nod and a wink kind of a thing– they were aware of what he was doing.

Frank: Let’s get into his relationship with the military. A wink and a nod–he’s running around the country in some kind of quasi-military outfits, and he’s conducting operations and they know it.

Peter: Yeah. I mean, the larger picture here is there are now more American civilian contractors in Iraq than there are British troops. Kind of an astonishing statement if you think about it. Britain is our biggest ally in Iraq, yet there are more American civilian military contractors. So this is a new phenomenon. We’re increasingly privitizing things that the Armed forces would have done, whether that’s interrogating Al Qaeda members, or guarding senior figures like Hamid Karzai the president of Afghanistan, and, you know, Idema operated in this kind of shadow world between the civilian and the military. He was in contact with the Pentagon, he did have senior level contacts in the Afghan government. He did not have a contract from either government to do what he was doing, and he sort of fell between the cracks.

Frank: How do you start a prison in Kabul? I know it’s a fairly lawless place…but, you know-

Peter: Well, he bought a house, he set it up, and he had a number of helpers, some of whom (by the way) were Afghan government employees, further evidence that the Afghan governmentwas aware of what he was doing, and he imprisoned people. The Afghan government has claimed he was torturing his prisoners, he denies that. The trial that he and his colleagues were subjected to in the summer of 2004 was a farce. I think you can say that politely. I say in the piece, it was like a Gilbert and Sullivan Operetta directed by Woody Allen. I mean is what like–No one understood what was going on.. this was not due process.

Frank: Well, it doesn’t sound like there was much due process getting into his prison, either.

Peter: Well, that’s also true. He was arresting people based on the information that he was getting. I think some of the operations he was doing did avert–

Frank: He had real good inside information.

Peter: Yes. Some of it was wrong, I mean for instance, he claimed to have found that Bin Laden was living in Pakistan I checked that out and it didn’t check out. On the other hand, on three occasions, independent authorities found explosives in places that Jack said there would be explosives. Afghan cabinet officials have said that they think he was protecting them from assassination, so, you know, he was doing something right.

Frank: The problem was he then went out and arrested an Afghan justice.

Peter: Yes, he arrested an Afghan supreme court judge. You can’t make this stuff up. This would be like–imagine if a group of Afghans came to Washington D.C. and arrested like justice Ilia or Rehnquist and held him for 12 days. Well that’s what they did. And this was when Jack’s sort of private operation became rather public. Because people notice when an Afghan supreme court justice doesn’t show up for work. And that blew the cover off his operation, and led to him now–he was sentenced to 10 years, his colleague Brent Bennett was sentenced to 10 years, and Ed Caraballo who by the way is in my view a blameless journalist—he was just documenting what Jack was doing–was sentenced to 8 years. That’s an astonishing sentence for a journalist.

Frank: But he’d been with him on a number of adventures.

Peter: Well he’d had links with Jack in the past. But nonetheless, he was making a documentary. There was never any allegation at trial, by the way, that he’d mistreated–the he did anything other than simply document Jack’s activities. The Committee to Protect Journalists, the New York-based organization is supposed to protest these things- has done absolutely nothing in Ed Caraballo’s case.

Frank: Now when he went into arrest this judge, he had help–he’s got helicopter support…

Peter: (laughs) Well…The International Security Assistance force which is the main security force in Kabul, came in on three occasions to arrest people with Jack, brought heliocopters on one occasion, brought in bomb sniffing dogs and all of this. They say they were sort of duped by Jack. Jack seemed to have duped a lot of people. If you look at it one way. Or, alternatively, if you look at it another way, a lot of people kind of knew what he was doing.

Frank: Well you spoke with the man. Is it easy to be fooled by him? Is he a beguiling figure or does he come across as somebody you ought to be careful of?

Peter: Well look. It’s a fact that Jack spent 4 years in federal prison on fraud charges. He says that they were trumped up, a jury found something different. So, you can draw your own conclusions from that. I think Jack is a you know he’s a charismatic guy. People either absolutely hate him–with a passion–you know–it’s like the opposite of a love affair–they have a sort of hate affair with jack–or they think that he’s a Superpatriot and that he’s doing the right thing. I mean maintaining some kind of neutrality about Jack is not easy. I try to do that in the article, I try to make it as fair as possible to everybody in it.

Mike: Ok, yeah. Good. Let me repeat again for the listeners–you just heard Peter Bergen talking about Jack Idema. And I want to repeat that a lot of really top international undercover operatives who were effective, as opposed to FBI and CIA who we now know completely miserably in a very amateurish way failed us for decades–but these operatives–the DEA- who again DEA has been ommitted from homeland security–which is astonishing–but–they say that we need many more Jack Idemas rather than less, that it is the biggest untold story in America; uncovered by mainstream media–listening to Peter Bergen, you can understand why. They kind of put tongue-in-cheek to it-

Mark: You also can’t do it in 2 minutes or a minute and 30 seconds.

Mike: Yeah, you can’t. We’ve got, for those of you just tuning in we’re hooked into Jack Idema right now in prison in Afghanistan. Let’s start, Jack, let me hear your comments on what you just heard that went out in mainstream media about you.

Jack: First, I’ll say that some of what he said is true, most of what he said is true, some of it isn’t quite true, let me tell your listeners one thing. I’m talking to you from Pulacharke prison. Arguably one of the world’s most infamous-if not the world’s most infamous prisons where 20,000 people have been executed during the Russian and Taliban regime. And I’m talking to you on the phone. What does that tell you about the Afghan government? Do you think the Afghan government would let me have a sat phone and talk to you if they weren’t behind me? There is nobody else listening to this phone, I can guarantee you that. That’s for sure.

Mike: I can also tell my listeners–There are an enormous amount of military people who are behind you 100% and are right at this moment listening to this show on ExpertWitnessRadio dot o-r-g around the world. And the interesting thing about my contact with these military people, with these really world class international DEA operatives, is that they all say that you are the real thing, that we need more of you, and the story is untold. And me and Mark Marshall in trying to set this up, we were being helped by the Afghans who are around you-they’re making it happen–and I know also that the FBI and CIA would rather you not be on this show right now–which is astonishing in itself–think about this, ladies and gentlemen, listening to this show; CIA and FBI do not want Jack Idema ever to be a free man. They don’t want Jack Idema talking to you-yet he’s able to do it in Afghanistan. That’s why this show is on the air. But I want you to pick it up from there, Jack.–Comment on what he said about you…Let’s begin with whether or not you were authorized when you were there, or were you working with a wink and a nod, under what conditions were you working when you got there…maybe you ought to go back a little bit and quickly tell the audience about your career prior to going to Afghanistan, your military career, and then how you went there.

Jack: That was really the main problem I had with Peter’s article was that it kind of portrayed my past military experience from– as I was a rear-based radio operator that really never did anything and never went anywhere-that’s the part that irritated me the most about that article. Because Peter was the only journalist that was actually (cuts out) my military file. Correcting one more thing- I have no problem with the CIA-they’re out there-they really are trying to work hard. Granted they lost a lot of agents after Jimmy Carter-and they’ve never recovered from that even today.

Really, my problem has always been is the past ten years ago problem with Lithuania Russia and nuclear weapons is with the FBI. And that really boils down to what happened today. Remember that one girl Colleen Rowley she wrote a report that destroyed her career–because she wrote a report saying the terrorist guys were going to (cuts out)–the fact is when you’re dealing with the FBI, you’re dealing with accountants, and you’re dealing with guys that–they don’t want a guy in special forces. They don’t want a guy like you- they don’t want a DEA guy–they want a guy that came out of college that is very bureaucratic, that works along their bureacratic, small, very focused narrow road. We have a joke here–the FBI is called the Federal Bureau of Investigation–not the Federal Bureau of Interdiction. Quite frankly, I don’t want an organization that investigates the crime after the fact; I want an organization that stops the crime before it happens. Maybe if they’d done their job, 9/11 wouldn’t have happened. Mike, think about this. You’re the CEO of IBM. You go away for a vacation for a weekend. IBM headquarters burns to the ground. You think you have a job the following morning? Can you please explain to me why Robert Mueller is still the director of the FBI? C’mon, there’s no accountability!

Mike: Yes, you’re absolutely right. We do show after show after show after show about this. We actually played on the air–we had the FBI informant that infiltrated Al Qaeda, Jack, in 1993. Before they blew up the world trade center the first time. And he’s taping his phone calls with the FBI handler and they fire him. Somebody didn’t believe the guy. This informant. Everything that he said would happen happened. They blew up the world trade center, he was part of building the bomb. And of course, no one in media covered the story, all the people involved in his handling were promoted! They should have been-some of them, in my opinion, should have been jailed. And what Colleen Rowley said was-that the joke in field agents was that at FBI headquarters were moles for Bin Laden.

Part of this show- the reason for the existence of this show is that we believe that mushroom clouds are headed to America and the same people who failed us all the way up to 9/11 are still at the helm. And one of the key events that dovetails right into your story is-Military intelligence identified Mohammed Atta from overseas. They tried to notify the FBI. Allegedly. This is “Operation Able Danger”. Some accountant, in the government, we don’t know,

Jack: Very familiar with it.

Mike: They got in the way because quote unquote “it wasn’t legal.” Thus Mohammed Atta was allowed to function in America undisturbed, thanks to some accountants–some lawyer’s decision in government–and nobody went to jail for that. Instead a guy like you, who’s overseas and from my understanding, from my own contacts, is you’re the opposite–you’re effective with informants. You showed and proved your effectiveness. I don’t understand why you’re in jail–

Mark: Yeah in fact, I was just going to ask-I’m not really clear on it I’m sure the listeners aren’t, having listened to this much so far, how is the FBI involved in this story?

Jack: You just asked the best question. What is the FBI doing in Afghanistan? The last I understood their charter was–domestic response. They were involved in law enforcement.

Mark: Hang on. What I’m asking you is, logistically speaking- in terms of this story, how did the FBI get involved in this? What place does the FBI have in your story?

Jack: I guess I gotta give you a short background here. 9/11 happens, I’m in Los Angeles. They called at 5:00 in the morning said turn the tv on. I thought it was a prank call. I hung up on the guy. He calls me back a minute later–he says, Jack I’m telling you please turn on the t.v.. I turn on the tv, I see the second plane hit. That was it for me. I was like, ok, I can’t believe this is happening. I’m from New York. What do you expect a New Yorker to do? I got pretty pissed off.

I went back to the army, said, look. I had a long relationship in Afghanistan, with Massoud, with the United Front Military Forces, which journalists call the northern alliance, but it’s not really. It’s an alliance of anti-communist, anti-taliban, anti-terrorist forces that have been around for 15-20 years. Lead by Commander Ahmed Shah Massoud. Who was assassinated on September 9th -two days before- because Bin Laden said “there can be no victory while this man is alive”. So he was killed on September 9. Now anybody that does not think these two things were interrelated–that Massoud was killed on the 9th, to break apart the United Front which held only the north 10%-they’d been driven back into the northern 10% of the country- anybody that does not think that’s related to 9/11 is in sane. Massoud had prior to that, the December prior to that, given a speech to the US and said, if you don’t stop Al Qaeda and the Taliban now, if you don’t give me the resources and the money, I can guarantee you they will attack your cities, and New York will be first. Massoud was right. This is documented on film.

Mike: But not by American media. And by the way, we played Massoud on a film called Blowback. Where he was interviewed back in the 1980’s where he told the filmmakers that he warned the CIA about supporting -the people they were supporting in Afghanistan, that they were going to attack America. And at that point, the CIA was giving the Mujahideen $600 million to a billion dollars, Jack, that went right into the pockets of Bin Laden. That created exactly all of this. And Massoud was the guy on the ground over there warning them against it.

Mark: I want to stay on track here, we’re getting to how the FBI is involved

Jack: But I’m lovin’ this–Because you’re the first person that I’ve talked to who understands this! You’re exactly right!

Jack: And now all this…(cuts out)

Mike: Go ahead, Jack. You’re in jail, we want you to talk…

Mark: Where we were is–was –How the fbi got involved in your story.

Jack: Well I flew into Afghanistan, I was one of the very first Americans in Afghanistan. I packed my bags just a week after 9/11. Hit the ground in October, we started bombing on October 12th. I joined with the permission of the Northern Alliance, commissioned as an officer in the Northern alliance, which is the United Front Military forces. I brought a team in to bring in air drops, one of the guys Lt. Col of Defense Intelligence agency was wounded in the first few days, critically wounded. One of the other guys was critically wounded, I medivac’d them out, I came back in. I stayed with the Northern alliance for one straight year–from the north all the way from Kalikata (sp?) the very north of Afghanistan all the way to the south we took the country over. I would have stayed with them longer, but about eleven months later my mom died. I had to come back to bury her. And then I went back to Afghanistan a few months later, 6 months later, and worked with them. Then I went back to the United States.

And in December 2004-I’m sorry, December 2003, I was notified by some of my guys inside the Northern Alliance, that Al Qaeda had again deployed 36 people to the United States to attack 6 cities. I contacted my assets, my friends inside the Department of Defense, and Defense Intelligence Agency. I had a conversation with the agency, CIA. And then because my (cuts out) was now head of the counterterrorist task force and the FBI, I contacted him. So I started passing information back and forth with the FBI. Because my goal here was to help prevent another 9/11. And in January, February and March of 2004, I had repeated multiple meetings with the FBI. In Washington, in Fayetteville North Carolina, in Raleigh…mostly in Washington. Polygraphed because they thought it was too extraordinary to believe. Finally my friend’s like-you know, he’s definitely on the right track here, he’s got assets inside Al Qaeda, he’s got agents that have worked for him for three years inside Al Qaeda. He’s got the right information.

The moral of the story is that I identified a man named Gulumsaki whose brother is Mohammed Asef in Gitmo in Cuba. We identified him as a principle bomber who was going to kill several high ranking members of the cabinet who are part of Massoud’s party. If these guys get killed, believe me there is going to be a revolution the likes of which you have not seen in this century. This revolution is going to make a lot of American soldiers die during it. It will be civil war that will pale the civil war between Massoud and Hekmatyar who’s on the most wanted terrorist list.

Mike: Hekmatyar is on the terrorist list now, right?

Jack: He was still on the terrorist list in February of 2002. He just recently got taken off in our new policy of appeasement and let’s all shake hands and kiss each other again. I have no doubt that one day you’ll see Bin Laden taken off the most wanted list.

Mike: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, by the way, was the CIA’s direct asset, the man who was handed from $600 million to 1 billion dollars to supply the first Panarabisme in creation-with US taxpayer dollars-the man in charge was the CIA officer Milt Beerden who was quoted (and we played his voice) he was saying that it was his philosophy to put the guns in the hands of the shooters and let God sort it out. God is now sorting it out big time. But now it’s astonishing to me that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one time CIA asset and the receiver of almost a billion US taxpayer dollars, is now on and off the international terrorist list?

Jack: Oh, the guy is an absolute psycho Islamic fundamentalist wh–I mean he is the worst of the worst. If you think Bin Laden is a problem? Trust me, this guy is just as bad. In fact, him and Bin Laden have had very very close meetings on a regular basis. They’re in contact through a guy named Kabeer, they meet all the time in Konar Province and in Pakistan. Believe me that Hekmatyar is vehemently anti-American, anti-Western. He would burn us all down if he could, and he’s responsible for the death of those navy seals a few months ago. We’re talking about a top tier level terrorist here with Hekmatyar.

Mike: That was Massoud’s warning, by the way–to the CIA–that giving that money to Hekmatyar was like furnishing people who want to destroy America. And that’s exactly what came out. We don’t have near enough time with you, Jack. Let me just get into–We’re going to take a break soon–I’d like you to talk a little bit about what Americans-when you got on the ground there, what Americans did you contact, what Americans did you have to contact, what Americans had to know that you were working, and how did they support or try to stop you?

Jack: I came in the first time in 2001 with the full cooperation of the United States government. In fact, carrying letters and with visas issued special visas issued by the U.S. Government and along with direct connection to high activities–the whole point- my whole point was they needed somebody to be with the Northern Alliance. They needed somebody to be a direct conduit to the Afghans. Not the Special Forces Teams-there were lots of special forces teams- 300 guys total that were part of Task Force Dagger. And my Task Force was Saber, not 7, just Saber-and we were part of the northern alliance. I operated with the Northern Alliance on a daily basis, I fought with them on a daily basis, I lived with them on a daily basis–there is documentation to this

Mark: I don’t want to leave the listeners with any other impression. Task Force Saber is a private contractor, is it not?

Jack:No, we were not contractors. Task Force Saber was a task force with the Northern Alliance that would be the liaison between the United Military Front Military Forces and the U.S. Government.

Mike: But you could not possibly do this without US government support.

Jack: Of course not. I had everything I needed from them.

Mike: Exactly, that’s the point. Later, you have a big lawsuit–I have spoken with your attorney-you have a major lawsuit-before we finish the show I want you to just comment on that.

Everything that we’re talking about here, you listeners-if you have any questions, ExpertWitnessRadio dot o-r-g is the site, ExpertWitnessRadio dot o-r-g.–we are in direct contact with Jack Idema’s attorney, John Tiffany, here in New York. If you have any questions about the veracity of all this and the documentation of what Jack Idema is talking about, you are free to contact us, we will put you directly in touch with Mr. Tiffany–particularly you media guys. this is not a story that you should be pooh-poohing-the way NPR did.

This is a story that is a light on what may be a terrible weakness that’s going to lead directly to monstrous terror in the United States. Jack, hang in there we’ve got to take about a minute break, when we come back, you were in the hunt for Bin Laden, I’d like you to talk about that, why you think we lost him, how the hell did he get out of there? You were a guy on the ground. Stand by.

Click here for Part II.

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