Ex-Official Details U.S. Recruitment of Islamic Radicals in 1980s

Ex-Official Details U.S. Recruitment of Islamic Radicals in 1980s

by George Gedda
The Associated Press
July 17, 2002

To Michael Springmann, it was a puzzling process.

As a visa officer at the U.S. consular office in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, in the late 1980s, Springmann was accustomed to consistently turning down applications for U.S. travel documents from Pakistanis, Lebanese, Syrians and others who appeared at his window.

He felt that none had the slightest qualification for admission to the United States. But in each case, he says, superior overruled his rejections. It was not until years later that Springmann found out what was going on: These were no ordinary visa applicants. They had been recruited by the CIA to fight the Soviet Army in Afghanistan and needed visas to go to the United States for training.

The main task of any visa officer is to decide whether visa applicants have a legitimate reason to visit the United States or are "intending immigrants" - meaning they had no intention of leaving once they got into the country.

The training Springmann received before his arrival in Jiddah in September 1987 had not prepared him for the enigmatic situation that awaited him.

In a recent interview, Springmann recalled the time when two Pakistanis applied for visas to attend a trade show in the United States. But when they were unable to name the show or the city in which it was taking place, Springmann refused the visa requests.

A short while later, he said, the chief of the consular section overruled him. The Pakistanis soon were bound for the United States.

On another occasion, an unemployed refugee from Sudan showed up at the consulate. The person, Springmann said, had no good reason to go to the United States and only the most ephemeral ties to Saudi Arabia.

In other words, Springmann said, the Sudanese was the sort who would have no compelling reason to leave the United States once he arrived.

Springmann turned down the application but immediately encountered resistance. "I kept saying no," Springmann recalled. "But, again, the head of consular section gave him a visa. I asked why. He said national security reasons."

So it went for the 18 months that Springmann was in Jiddah. About 100 applicants whom he felt were unqualified were approved for visas over his objections, he said.

"I had people come to me and say, well, you can issue me the visa now or you can issue me the visa when the consul general overrules you," Springmann said.

The mystery about the bizarre situation disappeared around 1994, well after his departure from the foreign service. A former colleague told him Saudi Arabia was being used to funnel Islamic militants to Afghanistan by way of the United States.

"I got the whole story and it all hung together," he said. "They were running people (to the consulate) from the CIA's recruiting office," he said, obviously exasperated that he was not told at the time.

He said the entire consular operation was run by the CIA.

The State Department had no comment on Springmann's allegations except to say final authority over visa decisions rests with the consular officer in charge, not the junior officer, which was Springman's level.

Looking back on his experience in Jiddah, Springmann said he found the idea of using the Jiddah consulate as a U.S. gateway for Islamic militants to be "sleazy and disreputable."

"If they wanted to train these people, why not train them in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan? Why bring them to the States?" he asked.

Springmann's politics are hardly mainstream. Last winter, he outlined his experiences in Jiddah in a radical publication, The CovertAction Quarterly. The magazine is a successor to the CovertAction Information Bulletin, whose chief mission was to expose the identities of CIA agents around the world.

A senior Bush administration official, asking not to be identified, said the Bulletin's reports caused untold damage to the CIA over the years. The official declined comment on Springmann's allegations about his experiences in Jiddah.

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