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Posted on 04/02/2004 8:05:05 AM PST by finnman69
LONDON (AFP) - US officials knew months before September 11, 2001 that Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s Al-Qaeda network was planning to use aircraft to carry out a terrorist attack, a former FBI (news - web sites) translator has alleged.
Sibel Edmonds told the Independent newspaper, in an interview published Friday, that a claim by US President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s national security advisor Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) that there had been no such warnings was "an outrageous lie".
The former translator with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation said that she had discussed her claims during a three-hour closed-door session with a US commission looking into the September 11 attacks.
"There was general information about the time frame, about methods to be used -- but not specifically about how they would be used -- and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks," Edmonds said.
"There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities -- with skyscrapers."
The 33-year-old Turkish-American translator said that, based on documents she had seen during her time with the FBI, after September 11, it was "impossible" that US intelligence officials had no forewarning of the attacks.
In a significant about-face, Bush agreed Tuesday to let Rice testify before the independent bipartisan commission looking into September 11 attacks, in which three airliners were hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon (news - web sites) in Washington.
A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania.
The Independent reported that the White House had sought to silence Edmonds and had obtained a gagging order from a court.
Edmonds emerged as a whistle-blower in July last year when, on the CBS television network, she alleged that FBI officials deliberately slowed down the translation of September 11-related documents to make it appear that the department was sorely understaffed.
Edmonds was among many language experts who had responded to appeals for translators in the days following September 11. She was tasked with translating documents and recordings from FBI wire taps.
From the documents she saw, she told The Independent, it was clear that there was sufficient information in spring and summer of 2001 to indicate that an attack was being planned.
"President Bush said they had no specific information about September 11 and that is accurate but only because he said September 11," Edmonds told the Independent.
There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away.
The most damning criticism of the Bush administration has come from former White House anti-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, who has alleged that it failed to give the Al-Qaeda threat enough priority.
Clarke, who left the White House last year, testified before the September 11 commission, shortly after the publication of his memoirs which were highly critical of the Bush administration's counter-terrorist efforts.
FBI: Jews need not apply for Arabic linguist jobs - Thread 1
FBI: Jews need not apply for Arabic linguist jobs - Thread 2
Arab translators cheered Sept. 11 [while the FBI kept the FBI free of Jews]
By Paul Sperry
WASHINGTON – In a shocking revelation, an FBI whistleblower claims some
Arab-Americans translating Arabic intercepts for the FBI spoke approvingly
of the terrorist attacks on America more than two years ago.
Former FBI translator Sibel D. Edmonds says translators of Middle Eastern
origin working for the FBI's Washington field office maintain an
"us"-versus-"them" attitude that's so strong it may be compromising al-Qaida
investigations.
She cited examples of mistranslations and security breaches within the FBI's
language division, where translators with Top Secret clearance interpret
sensitive terror-related information for agents.
"The issues and problems within the FBI's translation units range from
security failures to questions of loyalty to competence of translation personnel
to systemic problems within their low-to-mid-level management practices,"
Edmonds said.
She made the explosive charges Monday in a letter to the National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, an independent
panel investigating the 9-11 attacks and U.S. intelligence leading up to them.
WorldNetDaily has obtained a copy of the 9-page letter.
Edmonds, a translator who worked closely with FBI counterterrorism and
counterintelligence agents at an office within blocks of the Washington field
office, said she overheard some translators express sympathy for the 9-11
terrorist attacks.
"During my work with the bureau, I was seriously taken aback by what I
heard and witnessed within the translation department," she said. "There
were those who openly divided the fronts as 'Us' – the Middle-Easterners who
shared certain views – and 'Them' – the Americans who were the outsiders
[whose] arrogance was now 'leading to their own destruction.'"
Not long after the attacks, Edmonds said one translator said: "It is about time
that they get a taste of what they have been giving to the rest of the Middle
East."
She says the remark was made in front of the unit supervisor, also of Middle
Eastern origin.
"These comments were neither rare nor made in a whisper," Edmonds said.
"They were open and loud."
She says such attitudes call into question "the integrity and accuracy" of
information Arabic translators are feeding agents.
Edmonds says agents who don't speak Arabic have no way of knowing
whether the information they receive from translators is tainted.
"They simply have to trust the information given to them by translators," she
said, "and based on that, decide to act or not act."
Decisions to release terrorist suspects taken into custody are also based on
translations of interviews with those suspects, she argues.
Remarkably, agents don't even have direct security access to the translation
unit, Edmonds says. They have to be escorted into the area by translators.
She says she caught a Turkish translator intentionally blocking intelligence
from being translated by labeling it as "not pertinent." The translator also
intentionally mistranslated documents and other information, she says. And
she alleges the same linguist, Melek Can Dickerson, was granted security
clearance by the FBI despite ties to targets of FBI investigations.
After she brought the alleged breaches to the attention of her supervisors,
Edmonds was fired by the FBI. Her termination letter does not state a reason.
Edmonds filed a lawsuit, but Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI
Director Robert Mueller got a federal judge to block it by asserting the
extremely rare claim of "State Secret Privilege."
And her lawyers say Justice's inspector general is slow-walking an internal
review of her case, even though the office has criticized the FBI for security
lapses in recent reports, some related to the language program. In fact, a Nov.
15, 2002, IG report states: "A language specialist was dismissed for
unauthorized contacts with foreign officials and intelligence officers, receipts
of things of value from them and lack of candor in his convoluted and
contradictory responses to questions about his contacts."
Most of Edmonds' charges have been confirmed by Sen. Charles Grassley,
R-Iowa, and other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who have
quizzed the FBI about her case. Edmonds sent a copy of her 9-page letter to
Grassley, one of the FBI's biggest critics on the Hill.
The FBI blamed the security lapses on a chronic shortage of Arabic translators,
which has forced it to hire mostly immigrants from the Middle East, which
makes background checks more difficult.
The Washington field office did not return repeated phone calls seeking
comment.
But the chief of the FBI's language section, Margaret Gullota, has insisted in
congressional testimony that the FBI hasn't loosened its standards in recruiting
Arabic-speaking translators since 9-11.
Edmonds isn't the only one complaining, though.
John Cole, program manager for the FBI foreign intelligence investigations
covering India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, told Congress about what he
believed to be a security lapse regarding the screening and hiring of
translators.
And Donald Lavey, who worked in counterterrorism for 20 years at the FBI,
recalled loyalty issues with a former Arab translator in the FBI's Detroit office.
He said wiretap translations by Mideast-born agents should have a "second
opinion," because their backgrounds may "prejudice" their interpretation and
analysis.
Both he and Edmonds note that translators often exclude large sections of
Arabic dialogue as irrelevant to the investigation, when in fact, they may be
relevant.
"There are thousands of translated documents/information and documents
that were labeled as 'not pertinent to be translated' by certain translators
before and after Sept. 11, that need to, and have to, be retranslated and
re-examined," Edmonds wrote in her letter.
Also, she says some Arab-American translators, including a supervisor,
threatened to sue the FBI for discrimination after complaints were filed
against them.
"In one case, a certain individual ended up getting a supervisory position,
even though initially he was refused due to his questionable past,
incompetence and fraudulent invoices" for expenses, Edmonds said. She
declined to reveal his name.
Edmonds says she is working with some families of 9-11 victims to lobby the
9-11 Commission to investigate the Arabic translation department at the FBI.
From the documents she saw, she told The Independent, it was clear that there was sufficient information in spring and summer of 2001 to indicate that an attack was being planned.
She translated intel that showed al Qaeda plans - after the fact. So she's technically right that the intel existed - however, it was useless at the time because it was untranslated.
Edmonds emerged as a whistle-blower in July last year when, on the CBS television network, she alleged that FBI officials deliberately slowed down the translation of September 11-related documents to make it appear that the department was sorely understaffed.
Interesting. So muckety-mucks in the FBI wanted their empire expanded. And I'm sure that was Bush's fault.
That's why he's in an undisclosed location.
The guy you see on TV is an impostor.
However, it is her practical interpretation that is wrong. Fine, we had info that airplanes were going to be used as missles to hit targets in several cities. Now, what do you do with that info? Can't alert the public, as there would either be a massive shrug, or maybe even unneeded damage done to the airline industry. And what cities are you going to protect? Without specific dates and targets, this info is worthless.
Further, the F.B.I. and C.I.A. could not exchange info with each. So the F.B.I. knew the terrorists were here. Without going to the C.I.A. to attempt to obtain potential suspects, this info is also worthless, unless you're going to start investigating every Muslim immigrant in the country - imagine the uproar that would've occurred over that!
The 9/11 attacks are to be blamed only on the terrorists. Clinton tried to treat the problem as a law enforcement issue, which failed. Doesn't make him responsible (but, now that we now that policy is a failure, it is an abomination for Kerry to want to go back to that).
"9-11 family member, Jersey Girl, Kristen Breitweiser, arranged to have Ms. Edmonds address the gathered media right after the Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet testified."
If Hillary is indeed holding a secret which will effect the election, isn't that kind of a conspiracy?? Kinda like the bombings in Spain.
The problem with Bubba is that he lies like hell....in Court and in the media. This family does not emit "Trust Me".
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