jon i:
Basque (Euskera) is a pre-Indo-European language, not a dialect
As the distinction between a dialect and a language is at best an arbitrary one, and has more to do with politics than linguistics, this is not an issue which can be given a definitive answer.
While you may have reasons to accept one side of the debate, the origins of Basque, and indeed even the subject of pre-Indo-European languages is still a source of differing opinion and speculation amongst experts, so we aren't going to be able to settle it here in a single sentence.
Anyway, it's hard to see where this point is meant to take us in the colonel's search for books by ETOR, although, after 14 years it's probable that if he is going to find one, he'll have done it by now!