Celebrating 9/11 at the FBI

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | 2/11/04 | Paul Sperry

[kattracks]

When linguist Sibel Dinez Edmonds showed up for her first day of work at the FBI, a week after the 9-11 attacks, she expected to find a somber atmosphere. Instead, she was offered cookies filled with dates from party bowls set out in the room where other Middle Eastern linguists with top-secret security clearance translate terror-related communications.

She knew the dessert is customarily served in the Middle East at weddings, births and other celebrations, and asked what the happy occasion was. To her shock, she was told the Arab linguists were celebrating the terrorist attacks on America, as if they were some joyous event. Right in front of her supervisor, one translator cheered:

"It's about time they got a taste of what they've been giving the Middle East."

She found out later that it was her supervisor's wife who helped organize the office party there at the bureau's Washington field office, just four blocks from the J. Edgar Hoover Building.

"This guy's wife brought the date-filled cookies for the celebration," Edmonds, 33, recalled.

At the time, the supervisor, Mike Feghali, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Beirut, was in charge of the FBI's Turkish and Farsi desks.

But he's been promoted since then, and now also runs the all-important Arabic desk, which is key to intercepting the next al-Qaida plot.

It gets worse.

The language service squad is the front line in the FBI's war on terrorism, collecting all foreign language tips, information and terrorist threats to homeland security. Agents act on what the squad translates and reports. The sooner they get the information, the sooner they can thwart terrorist attacks. Investigators had missed clues to both the 2001 and 1993 World Trade Center attacks because they were buried in a backlog of untranslated wiretaps and documents in Arabic.

Despite the backlog, Feghali told Edmonds and other translators to just let the work pile higher, according to Edmonds. Why? Money. She says Feghali, who has recruited family and friends to work with him at the high-paying language unit, argued that Congress would approve an even bigger budget for it if they could continue to show big backlogs.

"We were told to take long breaks, to slow down translations, and to simply say 'no' to those field agents calling us to beg for speedy translations so that they could go on with their investigations and interrogations of those they had detained," said Edmonds, who was fired without specified cause by the FBI after she reported breaches in security, mistranslations and potential espionage by Middle Eastern colleagues.

She claims Feghali actually tampered with her work to slow her down.

"My supervisor went as far as getting into my work computer and deleting almost completed work so that I had to go back and start all over again," she said.

Edmonds, a Turkish-American who is not a practicing Muslim, made the allegations last month in a 9-page letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

She also claims that Feghali threatened to sue the bureau for racial discrimination, but dropped the suit once the bureau promoted him, says Edmonds and other sources. The FBI, which like the army suffers from a severe shortage of Arabic translators, instated a bureau-wide Muslim-sensitivity training program after 9-11.

Reached by phone at his Maryland home, Feghali was brusque and refused to talk about the allegations.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss this thing, OK?" he said before abruptly hanging up.

The spokesperson for the FBI's Washington field office, Debbie Weierman, did not return repeated phone calls.

Feghali, who holds several foreign language degrees, has been an FBI language specialist for several years. He was a key translator in the government's case against al-Qaida operatives charged in the U.S. embassy bombing in Kenya, and even testified in court.

Sources say he is planning to move back to Lebanon.

A key player in the 9-11 plot and the likely pilot of United Airlines Flight 93, the suicide plane that crashed apparently en route to the U.S. Capitol, was Ziad Samir Jarrah, a Lebanese.

Edmonds has also complained about Feghali and other Middle Eastern translators to the Justice Department inspector general.

And on Wednesday, she is scheduled to give a detailed briefing to members of the 9-11 commission in a secure room here.

She claims terrorist "investigations are being compromised," and has demanded an independent probe of the FBI's language department.

"If there were, and are, persons within the language department that either intentionally prevented translation because of their agendas, or persons who were, and are, not qualified to properly translate, it is likely that terrorist communications prior to 9-11 were missed; and it is likely that current and future terrorist communications will likewise be missed," Edmonds wrote Justice's Inspector General Glenn A. Fine in a Jan. 5 letter. "I have alleged, and the FBI has confirmed (to Senate investigators), that there are in fact such persons in the language department."

Fine still has not released the findings of his internal probe, even though Edmonds first filed her complaint with his office almost two years ago. Speaking for Fine, Justice official Carol Ochoa said the investigation is "still ongoing."

"We are working hard to complete it expeditiously," she said in a Jan. 6 letter to Edmonds.

Paul Sperry, formerly of Investor's Business Daily, is Washington bureau chief of WorldNetDaily.com and author of the new book "Crude Politics."

---

Mr. Sperry, formerly of Investor's Business Daily, is Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.com.

[Modernman]

If this is accurate, we need an immediate push for native-born American Arabic translators.

There were about 2 dozen Jews born in Arabic countries who applied to work as translators. The FBI turned them down because they refused to renounce their Israeli citizenship. Ain't bureaucracy grand?

[tuckrdout]

Why not utilize people in the USA who are already trained in those languages: Missionaries....

[Rocky Mountain High]

Edmonds should have excused herself, gone home and come back with a camcorder.

[Donna Lee Nardo]

Ping...

[FierceDraka]

A line from South Park when the boys were discussing anti-American "Americans":

"If you're not gonna root for the home team, then get the hell out of the stadium!"

Pretty much sums up my sentiment toward these Arab "Americans".

[ladyjane]

You're suggesting having Israelis doing the translating would be better than arabs? Don't you think it would be best for American citizens to do our translating? If we don't have enough citizens to do it then we should train them - fast.

[OXENinFLA]

This sucks

[international american]

How would Sperry get this info??

[Modernman]

You're suggesting having Israelis doing the translating would be better than arabs?

Sure, they're dual citizens of both the US and a friendly nation (under US law, it's perfectly legal to be both a citizen of the US and Israel). There is no issue as to whether they will have conflicting interests, since the US and Israel have the same interests when it comes to terrorism.

Don't you think it would be best for American citizens to do our translating? If we don't have enough citizens to do it then we should train them - fast.

Ideally, yes. However, there are very few American citizens who speak Arabic who are not originally from an unfriendly nation. It takes about 4 years of training for a person to become fluent enough to translate Arabic to English. I agree there should be a lot more government-funded Arabic language programs. However, until we get to that point, we've got to work with what we've got. Refusing to hire someone to serve as a translator just because they are dual citizens of the US and a highly friendly country is just foolish.

[aculeus]

Bump.

[JustPiper]

I am sickened and stunned beyond words! Cindy please post a link to this thread, please?

[Quix]

HIDEOUS.

HIDEOUS.

HIDEOUS.

We have met the enemy and he is us.

IDIOTS.
IDIOTS.
IDIOTS.

The assylum is clearly ruled by the inmates.

God help us all.

I hope some serious heads roll over this.

Please keep us posted.

[joesnuffy]

The Saudis are still touted as our good friends
Yassir Arafat & PLO given hundreds of millions of US taxpayer dollars
The borders remain wide open-illegal aliens & terrorists granted unlimited access
Drug cartels use illegal aliens to disburse meth into the heartland of America
Palestinians drench the road-map with the blood of Israeli children
1st and 2nd amendments in jeopardy
Muslims building mosques Islamic centers and buy up huge tracts of rural America for their
'summer camps'
Pilots remain unarmed while "Transportation Security" and "Homeland Defense" deliberately drag their feet...(meanwhile al qaeda threatens eve more attacks using commercial and cargo aircraft)

[happygrl]

I second your emotions and your sentiments.

"God help us all" is right.

Political correctness, which is at the root of this insanity, will lead to the death of more Americans.

[SierraWasp]

Thanks for bringing me to this thread. I sure looks like we're just begging for another 9-11 style attack. I had no idea it was this bad. Your sentiment about political correctness being life threatening is "dead on!"

[tubavil]

Mueller, THE FBI DIRECTOR, LUNCHES WITH THE TERRORISTS!!!

That his agency aids and abets them is no surprise.

[tubavil]

Beyond levels of incompetence normally associated with the fbi, their well established pattern belies darker motives.

---

Rabbis' threat to sue FBI reflects outrage at L.A. shooting

RACHEL POMERANCE

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

NEW YORK -- A group of rabbis is threatening to sue the FBI unless it calls the shooting at Los Angeles' International Airport a terrorist act.

Although mainstream Jewish groups are distancing themselves from such a move -- the head of the Anti-Defamation League called it "absurd" -- the sentiment of the suit reflects widespread Jewish outrage over the FBI's reluctance to brand the incident a terrorist act.

On July 4, an Egyptian national, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, fired at El Al's ticket counter at LAX, murdering two and injuring three before being killed by El Al security officials.

The FBI's failure to call it a terrorist act "violates" its own guidelines on defining terror, Rabbi Avi Weiss of New York told reporters atop the steps to the FBI's headquarters in Manhattan last week.

It also follows an FBI pattern to avoid labeling terrorist acts as such for political reasons and puts American lives at risk in the war on terror, said Weiss, the national president of Amcha -- The Coalition for Jewish Concerns.

He said a lawsuit by Amcha rabbis against the FBI could be filed within the next two weeks.

The lawsuit could be based on the grounds that the FBI failed to protect U.S. citizens, Amcha officials said.

A self-proclaimed "non-establishment" group, Amcha has often been out front of more mainstream Jewish organizations with its activist -- and some say extremist -- approach.

While Israel was quick to call the act terrorism, the FBI is waiting until there is "clear evidence indicating motive or until the investigation is concluded" before labeling the incident, said Matt McLaughlin, an FBI spokesman in Los Angeles.

The FBI's position has not changed despite increased Jewish pressure since the incident occurred.

The FBI employs the definition of terror devised by the Code of Federal Regulations, which characterizes it as the "unlawful use of force and violence" to further "social or political objectives," according to Cheryl Mimura, an FBI spokeswoman in L.A.

"Duh!" said Weiss, repeating and pointing to the headline of the lead editorial in the national Jewish weekly, the Forward, that day.

"Enough dithering. What happened at Los Angeles International Airport July 4 is not a tough call. Not unless you don't want to know the answer," its editors charged.

In addition to widespread denunciation in the Jewish media, the New York Post also carried an editorial attacking the FBI's stance.

"Law enforcement should not jump to conclusions, but this head-in-the-clouds approach is ridiculous," wrote analyst Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia-based think tank.

Echoing the words of Jewish activists, Pipes called the case reminiscent of past FBI missteps.

In one example, he cites the 1994 Brooklyn Bridge shooting of a van full of Chasidic boys by a Lebanese taxi driver that resulted in the death of 16-year-old Ari Halberstam.

The FBI called it "road rage" until in 2000, after years of lobbying by the victim's mother, the bureau reclassifed it as terrorism.

"These expressions of denial obstruct effective counterterrorism," Pipes wrote.

Had the FBI begun investigating previous terror attacks as such, America might be better equipped in fighting the war on terror, Weiss said.

Classifying the case as terrorism would raise the level of the investigation, Weiss said.

For example, El Sayyad Nosair, the man convicted for killing Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1990, was later found to have ties to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Because the murder was investigated as a homicide, Arab documents containing information about that plot went untranslated until after the bombing, according to Amcha.

When the FBI says they can't find a motive, "excuse me, but what planet do they live on?" asked Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Its failure to conduct the investigation as a suspected terrorist incident -- which could then be downgraded -- raises questions about how seriously the FBI is investigating the case, said Clawson.

For Jewish organizational leaders, the July 4 shooting at El Al was surely terrorism. And they are anxious for the FBI to see it as such.

It "has all the ingredients of what I consider" terrorism, said Shula Bahat, associate executive director of the American Jewish Committee.

"Infused with hate toward a specific people," Hadayet had the ideology of terror, borne out of an Egyptian culture which breeds a "vicious anti-Semitism," Bahat said.

For its part, the AJCommittee will continue to press the FBI on this case, as it did with the Halberstam case, she said.

Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said the shooting was "clearly an act of terror."

And the FBI's "reluctance to use that labeling is troubling," he said.

But more critical than characterizing the incident is why the FBI has not yet produced results from its investigation, he said.

"The longer this goes on, the more questions it raises."

According to Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, the FBI's failure to label the act terror is "even more baffling" than in previous cases, given America's current war on terror.

"I don't think it's politics," said Foxman, who said he contacted the FBI director last week and is waiting for a response.

Still, he said, the Amcha lawsuit is "equally" as "absurd" as the FBI's inaction.

The FBI is "not an enemy," but an "ally," Foxman said.

"This is a disagreement in a technical definition. For any element of the Jewish community to sue is disproportionate and absurd," he said, echoing the views of others in the community.

[antonia]

Search google for " arab translation FBI Sibel Edmonds" ~ and pull up this:
http://www.google.com/search?q=+arab+translation+FBI+Sibel+Edmonds&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=70&sa=N

Then you may find this also:

March 22, 2002: Translator Sibel Edmonds later claims that she is fired by the FBI on this day after repeatedly raising suspicions about a coworker and her alleged connections to an unnamed foreign official and an unnamed foreign organization. Both Edmonds and the coworker, Can Dickerson, were hired as translators in late September 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Edmonds claims that Dickerson failed to translate sensitive information concerning the foreign official and organization, did not inform the FBI that she once worked for the organization (which is under investigation), and had "unreported contacts" with the foreign official, who has now left the country. When Edmonds failed to agree to work as a spy for this organization, Dickerson told her that her lack of cooperation could put her family in danger. Both Edmonds and Dickerson are ethnically Turkish, but no one has claimed that Turkey was involved. After her boss and others in the FBI failed to respond to her complaints, she wrote to the Justice Department's inspector general's office in March: "Investigations are being compromised. Incorrect or misleading translations are being sent to agents in the field. Translations are being blocked and circumvented." She claims she was fired for her whistleblowing, and is suing. Both the FBI and some US Senators later agree that there is merit to Edmonds's claims, and are investigating the matter. A second FBI whistleblower, John Cole, also claims to know of security lapses in the screening and hiring of FBI translators. [Washington Post, 6/19/02, Cox News, 8/14/02] In October 2002, at the request of FBI Director Mueller, Attorney General Ashcroft asks a judge to throw out Edmonds's lawsuit against the Justice Department. He says he is applying the state secrets privilege in order "to protect the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States.March 22, 2002

[Fledermaus]

Just the FBI? I've lost ALL respect of ANY government bureau, agency, bureaucrat and worker (even the janitors) regardless of whether a Dem or Republican is in charge.

It's all crap and wasted money.

Wake Up America! These pinheads from the top down to your local dog catcher are useless, corrupt and morons.

[kcvl]

Re: Is War Justified?
From: Mike Feghali
Remote Name: 203.164.20.179


Comments
Yes, I too believe that war is justified if there is a just cause. Justice should be sought for the terrible loss of life that occurred in NYC. However, what scares me the most is the terrorist attacks that occur daily towards our various media streams. The propaganda war that is waged from the ever military-filtered CNN and co. is realy enough to make you puke. Nationalism is centered on pride and pride on the 'fear of man' or 'saving face'. I urge you to stop this flag-waving and anthem singing nonsense and concentrate on bringing purpetrators to justice.

The rest of the world is not interested in the so-caled 'leader of the free-world' getting revenge.

I also urge you to read between the lines and research the "School of America" (http://www.soaw.org) or perhaps read a different slant on the atrocities committed by both sides.

Yes, war and justice is biblical, but so is seeking the truth and not turning a blind eye to reality.

Really hoping that you people get the picture one day.

Finally, ask yourself the question: FOR FLAG, FAITH OR FOSSIL FUEL?