Jon wrote:
> THE TRUTH *WILL* COME OUT
Yes it will. I think we are very close to seeing an implosion of the Bush
administration. In light of the 9/11 hearings, it's time for impeachment
(which is just an investigation into the acts of the President: a reasonable
course of action). Here's more on how the Bush admin let thousands of
Americans die:
"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."
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