"Out, out damn spot!"
Eric Boehlert, Salon: A former FBI wiretap translator with top-secret security clearance, who has been called "very credible" by Sen. Charles Grassley, R Iowa, has told Salon she recently testified to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States that the FBI had detailed information
prior to Sept. 11, 2001, that a terrorist attack involving airplanes was being plotted.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/032704A.shtml
"We Should Have Had Orange or Red-Type of Alert in June/July of 2001"
By Eric Boehlert
Salon.com
Friday 26 March 2004
A former FBI translator told the 9/11 commission that
the bureau had detailed information well before Sept.
11, 2001, that terrorists were likely to attack the
U.S. with airplanes.
A former FBI wiretap translator with top-secret
security clearance, who has been called "very
credible" by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has told
Salon she recently testified to the National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
that the FBI had detailed information prior to Sept.
11, 2001, that a terrorist attack involving airplanes
was being plotted.
Referring to the Homeland Security Department's
color-coded warnings instituted in the wake of 9/11,
the former translator, Sibel Edmonds, told Salon, "We
should have had orange or red-type of alert in June or
July of 2001. There was that much information
available." Edmonds is offended by the Bush White
House claim that it lacked foreknowledge of the kind
of attacks made by al-Qaida on 9/11. "Especially after
reading National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
where she said, we had no specific information
whatsoever of domestic threat or that they might use
airplanes. That's an outrageous lie. And documents can
prove it's a lie."
Edmonds' charge comes when the Bush White House
is trying to fend off former counterterrorism chief
Richard A. Clarke's testimony that it did not take
serious measures to combat the threat of Islamic
terrorism, and al-Qaida specifically, in the months
leading up to 9/11.
Edmonds, who is Turkish-American, is a 10-year
U.S. citizen who has passed a polygraph examination
conducted by FBI investigators. She speaks fluent
Farsi, Arabic and Turkish and worked part-time for the
FBI, making $32 an hour for six months, beginning
Sept. 20, 2001. She was assigned to the FBI's
investigation into Sept. 11 attacks and other
counterterrorism and counterintelligence cases, where
she translated reams of documents seized by agents
who, for the previous year, had been rounding up
suspected terrorists.
She says those tapes, often connected to
terrorism, money laundering or other criminal
activity, provide evidence that should have made
apparent that an al- Qaida plot was in the works.
Edmonds cannot talk in detail about the tapes publicly
because she's been under a Justice Department gag
order since 2002.
"President Bush said they had no specific
information about Sept. 11, and that's accurate," says
Edmonds. "But there was specific information about use
of airplanes, that an attack was on the way two or
three months beforehand and that several people were
already in the country by May of 2001. They should've
alerted the people to the threat we're facing."
Edmonds testified before 9/11 commission staffers
in February for more than three hours, providing
detailed information about FBI investigations,
documents and dates. This week Edmonds attended the
commission hearings and plans to return in April when
FBI Director Robert Mueller is scheduled to testify.
"I'm hoping the commission asks him real questions --
like, in April 2001, did an FBI field office receive
legitimate information indicating the use of airplanes
for an attack on major cities? And is it true that
through an FBI informant, who'd been used [by the
Bureau] for 10 years, did you get information about
specific terrorist plans and specific cells in this
country? He couldn't say no," she insists.
Edmonds first made headlines in 2002 when she
blew the whistle on the FBI's translation department,
which was suddenly thrown into the spotlight as
investigators clamored for original terrorist-related
information, often in Arabic. Edmonds made several
reports of serious misconduct, security lapses and
gross incompetence in the FBI translations unit,
including supervisors who told translators to work
slowly during the crucial post-9/11 period to ensure
the agency would get more funds for its next annual
budget. As a result of her reports, Edmonds says she
was harassed at the FBI. She was fired in March 2002.
Litigation followed, and in October 2002,
Attorney General John Ashcroft asked the U.S. District
Court for the District of Columbia to dismiss the
Edmonds case, taking the extraordinary step of
invoking the rarely used state secrets privilege in
order "to protect the foreign policy and national
security interests of the United States." Ashcroft's
move was made at the request of Mueller.
During a 2002 segment on "60 Minutes" exploring
Edmonds' initial charges of FBI internal abuses, Sen.
Grassley was asked if Edmonds is credible. "She's
credible and the reason I feel she's very credible is
because people within the FBI have corroborated a lot
of her story," he said.
The Inspector General's office then launched an
investigation into Edmonds' charges and told her to
expect a finding in the fall of 2002. The report has
yet to be released. Edmonds suspects if it is ever
publicly released Ashcroft will demand that it be
immediately classified. "They're pushing everything
under the blanket of secrecy," she says.
That's why she felt it was so important to appear
before the 9/11 commission: "It's the only hope I have
left to get this issue added to the public domain."
-------
Posted by richard at March 27, 2004 09:52 PM