Will a former FBI translator finally get to tell us what she knows about 9-11?
Wednesday, March 9, 2005 at 05:34AM
TheSpook
Against all odds, former FBI translator
Sibel Edmonds's campaign to speak openly about what she knows regarding
9-11 and the FBI is moving forward—inch-by-inch. Edmonds, who was
borEdmonds, who was born in Iran and grew up in Turkey, is fluent in
several languages, among them, Turkish and Farsi. She was hired by the
FBI in the hectic aftermath of 9-11 and given top secret security
clearance. Almost immediately she was struck by the bizarre activities
in the FBI's translation department. Interpreters were dispatched to
Guantanamo to translate interviews with prisoners, but the translators
couldn't speak the languages they were asked to translate. She learned
of reports within the bureau relating the story of a long-trusted FBI
asset in the Middle East, who first reported bin Laden's plans for an
attack in April 2001. She came across activities which she thought
might involve active espionage within the bureau. Edmonds was fired
after she complained about the fishy translations. She told her bosses
that national security might have been breached when an interpreter
with a relative at a foreign embassy in Washington actually gave
wiretap information to the target of an FBI investigation. She claims
these people are still working for the FBI. Since then, there have been
letters of inquiry back and forth between the Senate Judiciary
Committee and top FBI officials, which tended to confirm her reports.
Just as it seemed her charges finally would break into the open, the
Ashcroft Justice Department invoked the rarely used states secrets
privilege to classify everything she had been telling the Senate
committee, and apparently retroactively classifying stories about her
in the press. What little progress she was making in bringing her story
to public attention suddenly stopped. Nothing could be disclosed
because it had become secret, its publication a threat national
security. [more] and [more]