What FBI Whistle-Blower Sibel Edmonds Found in Translation
Why is her story being covered up?
Most Americans have never heard of Sibel Edmonds, and if the U.S. government has its way, they never will.
The former FBI translator turned whistle-blower tells a chilling story of corruption at Washington’s highest levels - sale of nuclear secrets, shielding of terrorist suspects, illegal arms transfers, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, espionage. She may be a first-rate fabulist, but Ms. Edmonds’ account is full of dates, places and names.
And if she is to be believed, a treasonous plot to embed moles in American military and nuclear installations and pass sensitive intelligence to Israeli, Pakistani and Turkish sources was facilitated by figures in the upper echelons of the State and Defense Departments. Her charges could be easily confirmed or dismissed if classified government documents were made available to investigators.
But Congress has refused to act, and the Justice Department has shrouded Ms. Edmonds’ case in the state-secrets privilege, a rarely used measure so sweeping that it precludes even a closed hearing attended only by officials with top-secret security clearances. According to the Department of Justice, such an investigation “could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the foreign policy and national security of the United States.”
After five years of thwarted legal challenges and fruitless attempts to launch a congressional investigation, Sibel Edmonds is telling her story, though her defiance could land her in jail. After reading its November piece about Louai al-Sakka, an al-Qaeda terrorist who trained 9/11 hijackers in Turkey, Ms. Edmonds approached the Sunday Times of London. On Jan. 6, the Times, a Rupert Murdoch-owned paper that does not normally encourage exposés damaging to the Bush administration, featured a long article. The news quickly spread around the world - but not in the United States.
Ms. Edmonds is an ethnic Azerbaijani, born in Iran. She lived there and in Turkey until 1988, when she immigrated to the United States. Nine days after 9/11, she took a job at the FBI as a Turkish and Farsi translator. She worked in the 400-person translations section of the Washington office, reviewing a backlog of material dating to 1997 and participating in operations directed against several Turkish front groups, most notably the American Turkish Council.
The ATC, founded in 1994 and modeled on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, was intended to promote Turkish interests in Congress and in other public forums.
The FBI was interested in the ATC because it suspected that the group might be tangentially tied to drug trafficking and because of reports that it had given congressmen illegal contributions or bribes. Moreover, as Ms. Edmonds alleged in the Times, the Turks have “often acted as a conduit for the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s spy agency, because they were less likely to attract attention.”
(In 2005, a spokesperson for the ATC denied to Vanity Fair magazine that the organization has ever been involved in illegal payment or espionage activities.)
Over nearly six months, Ms. Edmonds listened with increasing unease to hundreds of intercepted phone calls between Turkish, Pakistani, Israeli and American officials. When she voiced concerns about the processing of this intelligence - among other irregularities, one of the other translators maintained a friendship with one of the FBI’s “high value” targets - she was threatened.
After exhausting all appeals through her own chain of command, Ms. Edmonds approached the two Department of Justice agencies with oversight of the FBI and sent faxes to Sens. Chuck Grassley and Patrick Leahy on the Judiciary Committee. The next day, she was called in for a polygraph. According to a DOJ inspector general’s report, the test found that “she was not deceptive in her answers.”
But two weeks later, Ms. Edmonds was fired. Her home computer was seized. Her family in Turkey was visited by police and threatened with arrest if they did not submit to questioning about an unspecified “intelligence matter.”
When Ms. Edmonds’ attorney sued to obtain the documents related to her firing, Attorney General John Ashcroft imposed the state-secrets gag order. Since then, she has been subjected to another federal order, which not only silenced her but retroactively classified the statements she eventually made before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the 9/11 commission.
Passionate in her convictions, Ms. Edmonds has sometimes alienated her own supporters and ridden roughshod over critics who questioned her assumptions. But despite her shortcomings in making her case and the legitimate criticism that she may be overreaching in some of her conclusions, Ms. Edmonds comes across as credible. Her claims are specific and fact-based, and they can be documented in detail. There is presumably an existing FBI file that could demonstrate the accuracy of many of her charges.
Her allegations are not insignificant. Among them: Ms. Edmonds claims that a former top State Department official was a person of interest to the FBI and had his phone tapped by the bureau in 2001 and 2002. Because of his senior-level position, this man had access to classified information of the highest sensitivity from the CIA, NSA and Pentagon, in addition to his own State Department.
Ms. Edmonds alleges to have heard evidence linking him to bribery from an ATC contact, to his intervening with the FBI to halt the interrogation of four Turkish and Pakistani intelligence operatives, and helping seed U.S. nuclear facilities with Turkish and Israeli Ph.D. students who in turn sold nuclear secrets abroad, primarily to Pakistan. The accused, who emphatically denies Ms. Edmonds’ charges, is now a senior executive at a Washington lobbying firm.
A low-level contractor might seem poorly positioned to expose major breaches of national security, but the FBI translators’ pool, riddled with corruption and nepotism, was key to keeping these secrets from surfacing. Ms. Edmonds’ claims that the section was infiltrated by translators who should never have received security clearances and who were deliberately failing to translate incriminating material are supported by the Justice Department inspector general investigation and by an FBI internal investigation, which concluded that she had been fired after making “valid complaints.”
Ms. Edmonds’ revelations have attracted corroboration in the form of anonymous letters apparently written by FBI employees. There have been frequent reports of FBI field agents being frustrated by the premature closure of cases dealing with foreign spying, particularly when those cases involve Israel, and the State Department has frequently intervened to shut down investigations based on “sensitive foreign diplomatic relations.”
Curiously, the state-secrets gag order binding Ms. Edmonds, while put in place by DOJ in 2002, was not requested by the FBI but by the State Department and Pentagon - which employed individuals she identified as being involved in criminal activities. If her allegations are frivolous, that order would scarcely seem necessary. Under the Bush administration, the security gag order has been invoked to cover up incompetence or illegality, not to protect national security.
Both Mr. Grassley and Mr. Leahy - a Republican and a Democrat, who interviewed her at length in 2002 - attest to Ms. Edmonds’ believability. The Department of Justice inspector general investigation into her claims about the translations unit and an internal FBI review confirmed most of her allegations. Former FBI senior counterintelligence officer John Cole has independently confirmed her report of the presence of Pakistani intelligence service penetrations within the FBI translators’ pool.
Ms. Edmonds wasn’t angling to become a media darling. She would have preferred to testify under oath before a congressional committee that could offer legal protection and subpoena documents and witnesses to support her case. She claims that a number of FBI agents would be willing to testify, though she has not named them.
Prior to 2006, Rep. Henry Waxman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee allegedly promised Ms. Edmonds that if the Democrats gained control of Congress, he would order hearings into her charges. But following the Democratic sweep, he has been less forthcoming. It is suspected that Mr. Waxman fears that the revelations might open a Pandora’s box, damaging Republicans and Democrats alike.
Ms. Edmonds’ critics maintain that she saw only a small part of the picture in a highly compartmentalized working environment, that she was privy to only a fragment of a large operation to penetrate and disrupt the groups that have been stealing U.S. weapons technology. She could not have known operational details of what the FBI was doing and why.
That criticism is serious and must be addressed. If Ms. Edmonds was indeed seeing only part of a counterintelligence sting operation to entrap a nuclear network like that of A.Q. Khan, the government could now reveal as much in general terms, since any operation that might have been running in 2002 has long since wound down.
Regarding her access to operational information, Ms. Edmonds’ critics clearly do not understand the intimate relationship that develops between FBI and CIA officers and their translators. Operations run against a foreign target in languages other than English require an intensive collaboration between field officers and translators. The translators are invariably brought into the loop because it is up to them to guide the officers seeking to understand what the target, who frequently is double talking or attempting to conceal his meaning, is actually saying.
That said, it should be conceded that Ms. Edmonds might sometimes have seen only a piece of the story, and those claims based on her own interpretation should be regarded with caution.
Still, Sibel Edmonds makes a number of accusations about specific criminal behavior that appear to be extraordinary but are credible enough to warrant official investigation. Her allegations are documentable; an existing FBI file should determine whether they are accurate.
It’s true that she probably knows only part of the story, but if that part is correct, Congress and the Justice Department should have no higher priority. Nothing deserves more attention than the possibility of ongoing national-security failures and the proliferation of nuclear weapons with the connivance of corrupt senior government officials.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is a partner in Cannistraro Associates, an international security consultancy. This essay was adapted from a longer version that appears on the Web site of The American Conservative magazine.
© 2008 The Dallas Morning News, Inc.
It is fairly clear why the government is muzzling Siebel Edmonds: the embarrassment from the system-wide corruption would cause a general revulsion in a time when the public is needed to go along with the program.
As with all crimes of Corruption, “Follow the Money”.
Who is getting Rich? Which companies are collecting Billions because of the corruption?
Exactly. FOLLOW THE MONEY. Who’s getting rich off the wars and the loose accounting during ‘wartime’ emergencies?
Ask the classic questions: Who has:
(1) Means (2) Motive (3) Opportunity (4) Experience (5) Character
which would allow or assist a person in these matters.
Which leaves a short list, and the “Enemies” of America are not the only names on that short list. The best position from which to deal drugs, or to attack America, or to undermine America, are from WITHIN.
Undermining would include failure to act upon strong wearnings before 911 from many agencies, here and abroad; selling out our strategic nuclear knowledge; destroying Constitutional rights; terrorizing own people of our own country; and silencing the truth by resisting investigations, by gag orders, losing documents, destroying emails, etc.
Osama bin Laden was (oh yeah, he’s dead, Benazir said, another story that the U.S. media carefully avoided mentioning…www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIO8B6fpFSQ six minutes in) a great friend of the USA compared to the people who work from within.
P.S. That link to the interview by Interviewer Sir David Frost with Benazir Bhutto was obtained, by a Google search, “Benazir Bhutto Osama bin Laden David Frost November” or any such combination; and you can choose from among many sources.
WHY IS AIPAC NOT MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE??????????????????????? THEY ARE CENTRAL TO THIS CASE. ATC IS A MINIAIPAC AND SOME OF ITS MEMBERS SIT ON THE SAME BOARD.
Y’know…IF the media were of the same ilk as the investigative reporters that used to be featured in books, t.v. and movies–this WOULD NOT BE A SECRET! But, I guess that’s the reason you don’t see investigative reporters as heroes in books, t.v. or movies anymore, huh?
Ask yourself why “state secrets” should even be possible in a democracy? How can you have an informed public if the government is allowed to have secrets?
How can we direct our public servants to take care of the public good if we cannot know what they’re doing?
The very idea that this is a “free” country is belied by the assumption that government can keep secrets.
And when a whistle blower wants to talk about corruption and TREASON at the highest levels of government, and she is threatened and silenced by that very same government, how can anyone still believe that we live in a democracy?
http://letsibeledmondsspeak.blogspot.com/2007/11/sibel-edmonds-case-untellable-story-of.html
greenerthanthou:
(yeah…you probably are)
i SO agree and have been making the same kinds of arguments for years!
beyond the fact that 95% of “state secrets” are no doubt crimes or embarrassing screw-ups, i believe i have as much right to the data i am, in one way or another, paying for as, say, katherine harris or sonny bono (RIP).
okay, okay: keep the names of covert agents secret. we can have the discussion as to THEIR need, legitimacy, and benefit some other day.
That Sibel Edmonds was even mentioned in an MSM news article is incredible. Go on over to The Dallas Morning News (link at top of article) and give them some love! E-mail them and tell them how great they are for bringing this story to you! Reward them for doing the right thing.
Then go on over to Liberty’ link above. Get informed. Sibel’s story MUST be told. And Waxman needs to keep his promise to Sibel and bring more hearings on what she knows. There is TREASON at every step along the way. And it is bipartisan. Heads should roll for this. Scream bloody murder to ALL of your Congress Critters. Toll free number: 1-800-828-0498. Just ask for your reps and you will be connected. Waxman should be on the top of your list.
Edmonds’ critics claim she only saw a small part of the total picture. If so, it means there is an awful lot of treason in the military and the government that we do not know about.
If she lies why censor what she says? Let the lice that infest the head of our government tell their side of the story.
Good on the Dallas Morning News for being the first to publish this critical issue. We should all take Rebel Farmer’s advice and let our contresscritters know that we can’t take this crap anymore. Unfortunately, with the dual Israeli-US citizen now the US Attorney General Michael Mukasey, I will bet that all investigations will be abandoned. Amerika is a far different country these grim days. And for some late night fun, check out this link on the almost criminal number of dual citizens running our country… http://www.viewzone.com/dualcitizen.html
The incompetence of the Washington dung heap must be far greater than even we suspect. Washington is out of control.
When will the system disintegrate? The complexity of the lies and the speed of change cannot coexist. Look for Uncle Sam to drop his pants soon.
To answer the rhetorical question, “Why is her story being covered up?” let us recap the timeline of events.
Sibel Edmonds is hired nine days after 9/11 attacks, and joins a pool of translators working on a backlog of intercepted communications for the FBI. She works there six months. During that period, Ms. Edmonds discovers a pattern of suspicious improprieties suggesting Turkish intelligence sometimes fronts for the Israeli Mossad, or for the Pakistani ISI, helping them penetrate and compromise US espionage and national security agencies.
The fact that this clandestine collaborative relationship may also involve drugs, black market arms sales, international money laundering, shielding terrorist informants, bribing members of Congress, and even trafficking in US nuclear secrets (some major crimes, possibly involving turncoat Americans holding high State Department or intelligence positions) is all very juicy and newsworthy, but may not really be the biggest issue.
Fruitlessly working her way up the chain of internal FBI command authority, Sibel eventually contacts higher ups in the Department of Justice with oversight responsibility, along with Senators Grassley and Leahy. She passes a polygraph. She gets fired anyway, sues, and is stonewalled. Ms. Edmonds eventually provides statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee and the 911 Commission, only to have her statements later classified retroactively.
The basis for asserting state secrets privilege was the “serious damage” that an investigation might do “to the foreign policy and national security of the United States.” As former CIA agent Philip Giraldi and the Dallas Morning News now rather blandly double source the heart of the matter in their accounts republished by here by CD, “Former senior FBI counterintelligence officer John Cole has independently confirmed her report of the presence of Pakistani intelligence service penetrations within the FBI translators pool.”
Okay ladies and gennlimens, boys and girls, let’s sit back, take a deep breath, and squint real hard to see what might be writ large between the lines.
Just what translator pool was being used by Team Bush to continuously monitor all that ever increasing electronic chatter between Osama from his cave in the Hindu Kush, and Mohammed Atta and his stateside hijack teams, during the summer and early fall of 2001 immediately preceding the 9/11 attacks?
Be a little careful how, when, and where you ask that question. It’s essentially the same one that cost Daniel Pearl his head.
And that’s why the mainstream media won’t cover this story.
Bill from Saginaw
I thought Rep. Henry Waxman was going to go after corruption in Washington, DC once the Dems got back in power. What happened?
I guess it’s not the same video, but here’s a link for one in which Benazir Bhutto says that Osama Bin Ladin was murdered, while the source where I got the link said that she says this at 2:14, which is why I don’t think it’s the same video as the one lwfrey provided a link or url for further above; and I just checked and the url is still valid, so just copy, paste, and load it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnychOXj9Tg
Actually, I guess it may be from the same media footage, for the info. for the video I am providing the link for says:
“Aired on 2nd November 2007, David Frost the presenter did not challenge her on her assertion (2:14) that Bin Laden was murdered, so maybe he was and the West has not announced it.”
They’re both with Frost, so ….
BUT, the point of this post is not the above; it’s only to say that Giraldi’s article is an excellent, and it’s not about tracking the money trail in order to find the guilty parties, but about the need for the claims that Sibel Edmonds has greatly provided need to be thoroughly and honestly investigated, that this is of the HIGHEST PRIORITY today.
He’s right, and it’s very much like she said a couple of years ago, of not earlier, when she wrote an honest apology to anti-war activists who supported her truthtelling or, and as Frank Serpico likes to refer to it, lamplighting, while calling on her to join the anti-Iraq war movement. She was honest and very right about her need to turn these activists down, for as long as WE do not thoroughly pursue the trail she has strongly exposed a critical portion of, then FORGET anti-war’ism; it’s NOT going to work!
Giraldi is NOT kidding in saying that this is of the [’HIGHEST PRIORITY’].
And this also applies with respect to the 9-11 Truth Movement; it’s critical, if this valid movement is to achieve success, some day, for …, as per immediately above. Open up this top priority investigation, fully, and this will consequentially lead to success for the 9-11 truthers.
It’s TRAGIC that the anti-war movement has NOT YET CLUED INTO the urgency of this. And NO ONE in the anti-war side should be without having read two or three articles by Sibel Edmonds.
I’ve read several of her excellent and top-important articles for four or five years now, so I’m very familiar with what she says; although I picked up information from Giraldi’s article and which was news to me. I haven’t read [all] of her articles though, and maybe she does include everything he says.
Took me NO time to realise that what she says is of topmost priority, but when people prefer to be DEAF or DUMB, then there’s either awfully little or else nothing we who LISTEN can do. I could do something, but only with people I personally communicate with in face-to-face terms. Over the Internet, it’s too easy for people to easily disregard what you say; but when you’re “in their faces”, then face-to-face provides its beneficial influence.
WATCH: Many in the anti-war movement will too likely remain ASLEEP on this topmost urgent matter; deaf and dumb, or else in denial.
Mike Corbeil — You’ve got it right on target, and we need to be unwaivering.
Michael C. Ruppert’s “Crossing the Rubicon” supplies the sharp tip of the sword to kill or at least dismember the beast.
We must use their own published factual record against them, in the organized and dis-passionate manner of a detective investigating and solving the crime. Motive, means and opportunity — and Occum’s Razor, to simplify the spun manure so carefully built up as layers of walls to our understanding.
Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
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See the film “Sibel Edmonds- Kill the Messenger”, banned in the U.S., but posted here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1991080575212848283
“I thought Rep. Henry Waxman was going to go after corruption in Washington, DC once the Dems got back in power. What happened?”
Answer: because Waxman is aware that as soon as one thread of this mess starts becoming unraveled, the whole can of worms would have to be opened and the tenacles of complicity reach far and wide - both for the Dems and the GOP. The stolen elections of ‘00 (Supreme Court) & ‘04, 9/11, the bogus “War on Terra”, the subversion of the Constitution, and all the rest would be exposed for what they are: enormous criminal activities to facilitate the oligarchic take-over of the US and ultimately, the world.
The implications would be so bad that it would probably cause revolution in the US; at the very least the US public would no longer trust anyone in positions of power for a very long time. So, who would the people turn to for leadership at that point?
Quite a disaster for the politicos to try to keep from occuring. So far, they’ve done a good job of it.
State Secret == Criminal Activity.
“Under the Bush administration, the security gag order has been invoked to cover up incompetence or illegality, not to protect national security.”
Speaking of “cover-ups”….. since Nov.? 2005 Bush stopped publicizing how much money the government is printing and now he is shutting us out from knowing anything about what’s going on with trade and monetary policies and practices.
“Due to budgetary constraints, the Economic Indicators service (http://www.economicindicators.gov) will be discontinued effective March 1, 2008.
Economic Indicators.gov is brought to you by the Economics and Statistics Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Our mission is to provide timely access to the daily releases of key economic indicators from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the U.S. Census Bureau.”
http://www.economicindicators.gov/
Not exactly on point, but I always wonder how people in Sibel’s position continue to make a living without a job. I am not in any way criticizing her; on the contrary, I honor her for her courage to come forward as much as she has in light of the real danger to her life and that of her family. The most basic question is: where does her money to live originate and how does it get into her hands to pay for food, shelter and clothing, as well as travel expenses, etc. Anyone know? I am very curious. This may be one of the greatest issues for whistleblowers: how do I continue to live in the U.S. or anywhere else without a job and in fear for my life?
peace,
st john
St John: I would suspect Ms. Edmonds lives rather frugally considering her employment situation. Most speaking engagements have an honorarium as does tv interviews. Perhaps she does have employment of some sort… or receives funding from supporters. This is all speculation mind you.