Ex-Seattle Journalist Accused Of Spying For Iraq

NEW YORK - A former reporter and one-time press secretary for four members of Congress was arrested Thursday on charges she served as a paid agent for the Iraqi intelligence service before and after the U.S. invasion last year.

Susan Lindauer, 41, was taken into custody in her hometown of Takoma Park, Md., and made a brief court appearance in Baltimore, where lawyers argued over whether she should be granted bail.

"I'm an anti-war activist and I'm innocent," Lindauer told WBAL-TV outside the Baltimore FBI office. "I did more to stop terrorism in this country than anybody else. I have done good things for this country. I worked to get weapons inspectors back to Iraq when everyone else said it was impossible."

She was charged with conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of the Iraqi Intelligence Service and with engaging in prohibited financial transactions with the Iraqi government. The indictment makes no mention of her congressional staff work. She was not directly charged with espionage.

She could get up to 10 years in prison on the most serious charge.

The indictment said she accepted $10,000 for working for the intelligence service from 1999 to 2002, including payments for lodging at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad and expenses during meetings in New York City with Iraqi agents.

Prosecutors also said Lindauer tried to influence U.S. foreign policy early last year by delivering a letter to a U.S. government official in which she claimed to have access to members of Saddam Hussein's regime. The U.S. official was not identified.

The indictment did not specify a motive.

The Iraqi Intelligence Service is the foreign intelligence arm of the government of Iraq that has allegedly played a role in terrorist operations, including an assassination attempt against former President Bush.

The U.S. government said that the agency also was involved in bombings during the first Gulf War and has intimidated and killed Iraqi defectors and dissidents living abroad.

The arrest came as a surprise in Washington, where Lindauer had a long history as a journalist and a political aide.

She worked at Fortune, U.S. News & World Report and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer before going into politics. Her father, John, was the Republican nominee for governor of Alaska in 1998.

She worked for Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., in 1993 and Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in 1994. She joined the office of Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, D-Ill., as press secretary in 1996. In 2002, she worked for Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.

The indictment stems from a series of encounters and exchanges in recent years.

The government said Lindauer returned in March 2002 from a trip to Iraq with $5,000 in cash received from Iraqis agents, breaking a law prohibiting transactions with a government that sponsors terrorism.

Lindauer's work allegedly continued through last month, when she maintained contact with an FBI agent posing as a Libyan intelligence service operative who wanted to support resistance groups in postwar Iraq.

The indictment said she met the agent last July in Baltimore, "and discussed the need for plans and foreign resources to support resistance groups operating within Iraq." Acting on the agent's orders, Lindauer left documents at a spot in Takoma Park last August, the indictment said.

Lindauer's father owned newspapers in Alaska. After his defeat in the governor's race, he pleaded no contest to two charges related to his campaign finances. He received probation and a fine.

Lindauer is also a distant cousin of White House chief of staff Andrew Card, said White House press secretary Scott McClellan.