Sibel Edmonds 9/11 testimony on prior specific intel contrary to Rice

democracy now ^ | 3/31/04 | sibel edmonds

[oceanview]

don't be too optimistic, who knew this Clarke thing was coming. Luckily, Clarke's story was so incredulous and biased against Bush, while leaving Clinton smelling like roses during his 8 years, that it has been effectively neutralized. Condi's appearance will be more like a trial.

[TankerKC]

So, this lady goes back and reviews all of the traffic prior to 9-11 and says there was evidence, so what? I could probably go back and find evidence of 20 other incidents--incidents that never happened.

[js1138]

She needed to say that there was no specific information that planes would be used as weapons on or about 9-11.

I read somewhere that there were plans in place to deal with overseas airliners hijacked and targeting American sites. The problem was trusting airport security, inside the U.S.

[oceanview]

well, Clarke said the plane terror threat was made against the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. It didn't materialize. So does that mean from 1996 forward, that every anti-terror action taken had to factor in using planes as weapons? In fact, Clinton did nothing about airline safety after this supposed Clarke "alert" about planes and the Atlanta Olympics, but somehow spun that into being Rice's fault because they were finally used on 9/11. That was one example where Clarke's argument fell apart. If he knew about "planes as weapons" in 1996, why didn't they do a better job checking into who was taking flight training in 97, 98, 99, 00?

[an amused spectator]

...who knew this Clarke thing was coming.

Ummm, the White House, who vetted the book, and who the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) accused of holding the book back.

[an amused spectator]

If he knew about "planes as weapons" in 1996, why didn't they do a better job checking into who was taking flight training in 97, 98, 99, 00?

A good point, and I'll follow-up with this point, and it's the haymaker:

If it was common knowledge that planes would be used as weapons, why hadn't the feds (and specifically Dickie Clarke) persuaded the airlines to change their official policy of "accommodate, negotiate and do not escalate" with hijackers? This policy, of course, is completely dead as a result of 9/11.

[rocklobster11]

i agree. The whole thing is coming down to an attempt by the dems to release a charge this summer that 9-11 could have been stopped if the white house had been having daily meetings and shaking the trees in the intelligence community.

They'll say that Clinton had success in 1999 by preventing the attack on New Years by catching the guy with explosives at the canadian border, and they'll claim that that was a direct reult of Clinton's sense of urgency. In reality, I think everyone expected 12/31/2000 to be a perfect time for terrorist attacks, so everyone was paying attention. I know that I expected something on 12/31/2000 without being briefed by the FBI or WH.

They'll point to Clarke's statement about how he would have been able to put it all together if only he had know 2 Al Qaeda terrorist were in the country. It will be a media circus, but nobody but the partisan dems will believe it.

[alnick]

Sorry, but I don't see how the claims of a translator hired AFTER 9/11/2001 are relevant.

[cdrw]

I have read the subject interview and the FrontPage article referenced elsewhere in this thread. Here is the way I see it:

This woman was a translator not an intelligence agent and not a member of executive, decision making management of any government organization she worked for. She was a rank-and-file employee. Having been an executive manager I can tell all that it is VERY VERY common for rank-and-file employees to misunderstand or blow out of proportion bits of information they may come across about things they are neither directly involved with nor fully informed about.

She was dealing with highly sensitive information and her efforts to FoIA and then "discover" it for court purposes forced the administrations hand to seal it lest she reveal it all to the public. SHE compelled the sealing of information by attempting to make it public. Her interview is full of references to how important it is for "the American people to know". No its not. Not any more important that it is for us to know the exact location and plans for our troops during hostilities. Sources get revealed - people get killed. The administration is voted and hired in to handle that for us - NO GOOD would / will come from attempting to have congress and the NYTimes to micro manage those processes.

The fumblings she describes within the FBI exist inside of EVERY LARGE ORGANIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES. Individual acts of idiocy occur all over the place. None of that reflects on the President or his staff.

She may, in fact, have stumbled across some information that SHE considers obviously important with her perfect 20/20 hindsight but SHE was not responsible for counter terrorism so her opinion is irrelevant. Remember the whole "connect the dots thing"? There has never been any dispute that scattered bits of relevant information existed and were in the hands of government agents before 911. There are millions of scattered bits in our hands every day and some of them may someday turn out to be relevant to a terrorist attack.

She is a disgruntled ex-employee who is only having a chance to grind her ax because the administration would have to compromise national security in order to public ally shut her down. That allows her and whatever media picks up here story to propagate yet another anti-administration conspiracy theory. It looks to me like she was fired for stepping way out of line and shooting her mouth off in public about things that were none of her business.

How would your employer treat you if you were asked to grammar check a couple internal memos, concluded based on your own unqualified and misinformed judgment that the company was engaged in illegal pricing practices, and then proceeded to go to the local newspaper with the story?

[KriegerGeist]

Here is a link to another source:

Link to another source Independent.co.uk

[GraniteStateConservative]

Have any congresscritters in leadership mentioned this? Has it been in the mainstream press? Besides, the whole deal was that the lower-level FBI agents never got their info filtered up to Condi. How is she responsible for that?

[Julliardsux]

What about those stories of arabic translators in the FBI cheering and/or being happy re: 9/11 - anyone remember that?

[Puddleglum]

I suggest everyone read this article.

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12758

Very helpful link - thanks! Exposes a lot of the chicanery going on to smear Dr Rice.

[hobbes1]

Credible??? Are you kidding?

Re read her press release from 2002, AFTER she was fired.

NO mention of the claims she is raising now.....Not one.

"I am appalled that to this date the government has not taken any action against the persons responsible for security violations. It is horrific that my family members in a foreign country were threatened and targeted, and that I can never return to the country of my birth.

"Although the Attorney General and FBI Director were urgently notified in May about the foreign arrest warrant targeting a member of my family, to this date, no response has been received and no action has been taken by the U.S. government to correct this problem or protect my family.

"It appears that the responsible officials are intentionally refraining from facing the facts and their serious implications, both nationally and internationally."

[hobbes1]

She was dealing with highly sensitive information and her efforts to FoIA and then "discover" it for court purposes forced the administrations hand to seal it lest she reveal it all to the public

You missed one VERY IMPORTANT THING. She has a Lawsuit against the Government. That is what the discovery is aobut, Her Scumbag lawyers are trying to put the Government in the position of having to pay her off to avaid a Nat'l Security COnflict, or hopelssly taint the case with an appearence of impropriety.

Personally, I think that kind of Lawyering should result in immediate and permanent disbarrment.

[finnman69]

Texas sharpshooter theory. Get drunk, shoot 50 holes in the side of a barn, go and circle the biggest grouping of holes, then claim that is the area you were aiming at.

[muawiyah]

The problem with your "executive level" rationale for why Sibel is wrong and misguided is that it is identical with the sort of cover story folks at the "executive level" always put out when they've been caught misbehaving!

You'd think that after nearly 12,000 years of practice, "executive level" talent would have come up with a better story.

Makes me want to ask what benefit there is for you in peddling such a cover story on FR?

[cdrw]

Well bashing executives is fashionable indeed but its nothing more than superstition. Executive or not, anyone who has ever held a leadership position knows what I'm talking about. Everybody in the organization cant be informed about everything all the time. The only benefit to me "peddling such a cover story" is to illuminate a very clear and likely possibility other than the grand conspiracy asserted or implied by Sibel. Did it ever occur to her that she may have been fed intentionally false documents just to see if she was being honest in her translations? I have no idea what actually happened. I am not at all against a congressional inquiry into the matter. The only thing I know is that it should not be played out in public for national security reasons. There are certain things that the public has no right to know and are not in the publics best interest to reveal. Sibel's attempts to get the information public undermine the very national security she claims to be so concerned about.

There is only one circumstance under which I would advocate making this kind of investigation public and that would be if some portions of our government were actually complicit in the 911 attacks. I don't think Sibel suggested that or has ever stated that there is any evidence of that.

Your rationale about my "cover story" being identical to what a liar would say gives absolutely no credence to the fact that it is very likely true. Citing a plausible explanation as a likely cover-up without giving it any consideration is characteristic of conspiracy theories.

[cdrw]

When I used the term "discover" I was referring to the legal discovery process in her lawsuit. I agree completely with your assessment of what her lawyers are doing and that was on e of the points I was making but I don't blame them - I blame her. It is outrageous to think that the govt would allow 1500 pages of investigative and intelligence translations to become a matter of public record through the courts. Lawyers work for the client. If she didn't want to drag the govt through the mud all she would have to do is tell her lawyers to stop.

The dims have repeatedly attempted to give the administration a black eye by calling them on things they can not talk about for security purposes and then posturing the whole thing as some evil conspiracy and cover up. This whole Sibel thing is just another example although in this case Ms Sibel may be dim enough to believe her own story. I cant tell.

[muawiyah]

It's obvious to anyone who has looked into it that the whole point of Sibel's story is to "blame the Jews".

Here we have her friends on the professional left arguing that Mossad has infiltrated the FBI for the purpose of suppressing information, and only Sibel was "johnny on the spot" to find this out.

Or, examining it from the point of view of the Iranian religious police, poor old Sibel is being prevented from speaking out by the International Jewish Conspiracy headed by John Ashcraft and financed by Dick Cheney.

"Bashing Executives" may or may not be popular, but it's been my observation that as you move up the chain of command in the government, less and less is known about more and more. Presumably, if you could get to the top, nothing will be known about everything.

Sure puts the President in a bind!

I encourage some serious modifications of the way we select executives in the career levels of the agencies of the federal government. I am tired of these ignoramuses who float along 6 inches above the water, and are too busy to think about where we should go next.