The interview by former Colin Powell Chief of Staff at the State Department, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, on more detailed review, opens up former Vice President Dick Cheney to criminal prosecution for his cover-up of the Saudi role in 9/11, and for explicitly soliciting lies to justify the attack on Iraq in March 2003. As Wilkerson made clear in his recent interview with 28pages.org, Vice President Cheney, on ten separate occasions, tried to force Secretary of State Colin Powell to insert claims that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and was providing material support to Al Qaeda during the period leading up to the attacks. Each time Cheney tried to insert the lies into Powell’s prepared testimony before the United Nations Security Council in Feb. 2003, Powell pushed back. But, according to Wilkerson, on the very eve of the scheduled Powell testimony, CIA Director George Tenet and his Deputy Director, John McLoughlin, showed up with “new eyewitness evidence” that Saddam was behind 9/11. Powell relented and allowed the claims of Saddam 9/11 links to be included in his testimony. It later came out that the “new” intelligence was actually a year-old discredited “confession” by tortured Al Qaeda figure Ibn-Sheikh al-Libi and was entirely false.

Wilkerson also recounted that Dick Cheney deployed top national security aides Scooter Libby and John Hannah to make sure that there was no mention of Saudi Arabia’s links to the 9/11 hijackers and that no real investigation was ever launched into the Saudi sponsorship. The cover-up of the 28 pages was part of a larger Cheney-led fraud, to secure both the U.S.-Saudi “special relationship” despite the Saudi complicity in 9/11, and to assure that the U.S. went to war to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Wilkerson was blunt about the Saudi claims that there was no evidence of any Saudi links to the 9/11 hijackers: “It’s utter hogwash with regard to the entire set of circumstances surrounding 9/11 in my view. As far as I know, there never was an official investigation of so many of the things that are intimated in these [in the 28 pages], not least of which is a really hard look by the intelligence community at the ultimate question of [saudi] government knowledge, government direction, even government strategy associated with the Salafist movement in general, but, more specifically, organizations like al Qaeda.”

Wilkerson added that the 9/11 Commission’s work was doomed from the moment that Philip Zelikow was named as staff director.

“It was clear to me from the very beginning that he was there as a control agent. I didn’t know how definitively he would control the process until later. He was tuned into the administration. He was tuned into what the administration wanted.”

The St. Petersburg summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has launched the first step in cooperation between the two countries on resolving the Syrian conflict. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavusoglu announced that a tripartite mechanism will be created, comprising representatives from each of the three countries’ intelligence agencies, foreign ministries, and military, as part of an effort to put all these functions under one roof. The two parties will hold their first meeting in St. Petersburg on Aug. 11. Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) chief Hakan Fidan and representatives from the Foreign Ministry and Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) already left today for St. Petersburg.

“The first concrete step [between Turkey and Russia]: Previously, there were different mechanisms between us on Syria, between militaries, foreign ministries and intelligence services. Now, we [will] establish a threefold mechanism,” Foreign Minister Çavusoglu told state-run Anadolu Agency Wednesday.

Also, a direct line of communications has been set up between the Turkish and Russian chiefs of general staffs. “We have agreed to be in close contact in order to avoid such incidents,” said President Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, referring to Turkey’s fighters shooting down a Russian Su-24 over Syria in November.  “In this frame, our chief of general staff and the Russian chief of general staff have reestablished a direct line. They are in talks on this,” said Kalin, speaking to the private broadcaster AHaber on Aug. 10, reported Hurriyet Daily News.

Cavusoglu said that although Turkey and Russia had different views on Syria, they were on the same page regarding the declaration of a ceasefire, providing humanitarian aid, and finding a political solution. He said Turkey did not approve of the siege of Aleppo, but had agreed to “inform their Russian counterparts about the locations of civilians and moderate opposition groups and will ask to first get focused on the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria,” reported Hurriyet.

Cavusoglu said ties with Russia should not affect Turkey’s ties to the West, but did note that Turkey has been facing political obstacles from the EU in the last 15 years: “If the West loses Turkey one day, it will not be because of Turkey’s good ties with Russia, China, Central Asian or Islamic countries but because of its mistakes,”Hurriyet quoted him saying.

When asked about the possibility of a Turkey-Russia- Azerbaijan trilateral summit, suggested by Baku when he was there on July 15, Cavusoglu said, “During our meeting in Baku, Azerbaijani officials said that a trilateral summit was established between Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran. I told them there can also be trilateral summit with Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkey.” Cavusoglu said that Erdogan had suggested such a trilateral summit to Putin their own summit in St. Petersburg, to which Putin gave a positive response, reported the state-run Anadolu Agency.

“Lots of subjects can be brought up during that meeting. Unfortunately there is this Karabakh issue and occupied lands of Azerbaijan,” Cavusoglu stated. “We have made lots of efforts to resolve the issue. Russia made some attempts as well. We are right now considering Russia’s suggestions, which suits our suggestions to Armenia.” Cavusoglu said Turkey will do its part, because “both our Russian and Azerbaijani friends want us to contribute to the subject.”

He was referring to the conflict over the Nagorno Karabakh region inside Azerbaijan, which broke away from Azerbaijan and wants to unite with Armenia. Resolving the conflict would greatly help stabilize the Caucasus and allow for deepening Eurasian economic cooperation over an area extending from China through to Turkey and Russia. Azerbaijan and Armenia are both members of the Commonwealth of Independent States of former Soviet republics.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan reached an agreement-in-principle following talks in late June in St. Petersburg.