Posted on 01/07/2004 4:43:49 AM PST by Diogenesis
Arab translators cheered Sept. 11 [.... while the FBI kept the FBI free of Jews]
By Paul Sperry
WASHINGTON – In a shocking revelation, an FBI whistleblower claims some
Arab-Americans translating Arabic intercepts for the FBI spoke approvingly
of the terrorist attacks on America more than two years ago.
Former FBI translator Sibel D. Edmonds says translators of Middle Eastern
origin working for the FBI's Washington field office maintain an
"us"-versus-"them" attitude that's so strong it may be compromising al-Qaida
investigations.
She cited examples of mistranslations and security breaches within the FBI's
language division, where translators with Top Secret clearance interpret
sensitive terror-related information for agents.
"The issues and problems within the FBI's translation units range from
security failures to questions of loyalty to competence of translation personnel
to systemic problems within their low-to-mid-level management practices,"
Edmonds said.
She made the explosive charges Monday in a letter to the National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, an independent
panel investigating the 9-11 attacks and U.S. intelligence leading up to them.
WorldNetDaily has obtained a copy of the 9-page letter.
Edmonds, a translator who worked closely with FBI counterterrorism and
counterintelligence agents at an office within blocks of the Washington field
office, said she overheard some translators express sympathy for the 9-11
terrorist attacks.
"During my work with the bureau, I was seriously taken aback by what I
heard and witnessed within the translation department," she said. "There
were those who openly divided the fronts as 'Us' – the Middle-Easterners who
shared certain views – and 'Them' – the Americans who were the outsiders
[whose] arrogance was now 'leading to their own destruction.'"
Not long after the attacks, Edmonds said one translator said: "It is about time
that they get a taste of what they have been giving to the rest of the Middle
East."
She says the remark was made in front of the unit supervisor, also of Middle
Eastern origin.
"These comments were neither rare nor made in a whisper," Edmonds said.
"They were open and loud."
She says such attitudes call into question "the integrity and accuracy" of
information Arabic translators are feeding agents.
Edmonds says agents who don't speak Arabic have no way of knowing
whether the information they receive from translators is tainted.
"They simply have to trust the information given to them by translators," she
said, "and based on that, decide to act or not act."
Decisions to release terrorist suspects taken into custody are also based on
translations of interviews with those suspects, she argues.
Remarkably, agents don't even have direct security access to the translation
unit, Edmonds says. They have to be escorted into the area by translators.
She says she caught a Turkish translator intentionally blocking intelligence
from being translated by labeling it as "not pertinent." The translator also
intentionally mistranslated documents and other information, she says. And
she alleges the same linguist, Melek Can Dickerson, was granted security
clearance by the FBI despite ties to targets of FBI investigations.
After she brought the alleged breaches to the attention of her supervisors,
Edmonds was fired by the FBI. Her termination letter does not state a reason.
Edmonds filed a lawsuit, but Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI
Director Robert Mueller got a federal judge to block it by asserting the
extremely rare claim of "State Secret Privilege."
And her lawyers say Justice's inspector general is slow-walking an internal
review of her case, even though the office has criticized the FBI for security
lapses in recent reports, some related to the language program. In fact, a Nov.
15, 2002, IG report states: "A language specialist was dismissed for
unauthorized contacts with foreign officials and intelligence officers, receipts
of things of value from them and lack of candor in his convoluted and
contradictory responses to questions about his contacts."
Most of Edmonds' charges have been confirmed by Sen. Charles Grassley,
R-Iowa, and other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who have
quizzed the FBI about her case. Edmonds sent a copy of her 9-page letter to
Grassley, one of the FBI's biggest critics on the Hill.
The FBI blamed the security lapses on a chronic shortage of Arabic translators,
which has forced it to hire mostly immigrants from the Middle East, which
makes background checks more difficult.
The Washington field office did not return repeated phone calls seeking
comment.
But the chief of the FBI's language section, Margaret Gullota, has insisted in
congressional testimony that the FBI hasn't loosened its standards in recruiting
Arabic-speaking translators since 9-11.
Edmonds isn't the only one complaining, though.
John Cole, program manager for the FBI foreign intelligence investigations
covering India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, told Congress about what he
believed to be a security lapse regarding the screening and hiring of
translators.
And Donald Lavey, who worked in counterterrorism for 20 years at the FBI,
recalled loyalty issues with a former Arab translator in the FBI's Detroit office.
He said wiretap translations by Mideast-born agents should have a "second
opinion," because their backgrounds may "prejudice" their interpretation and
analysis.
Both he and Edmonds note that translators often exclude large sections of
Arabic dialogue as irrelevant to the investigation, when in fact, they may be
relevant.
"There are thousands of translated documents/information and documents
that were labeled as 'not pertinent to be translated' by certain translators
before and after Sept. 11, that need to, and have to, be retranslated and
re-examined," Edmonds wrote in her letter.
Also, she says some Arab-American translators, including a supervisor,
threatened to sue the FBI for discrimination after complaints were filed
against them.
"In one case, a certain individual ended up getting a supervisory position,
even though initially he was refused due to his questionable past,
incompetence and fraudulent invoices" for expenses, Edmonds said. She
declined to reveal his name.
Edmonds says she is working with some families of 9-11 victims to lobby the
9-11 Commission to investigate the Arabic translation department at the FBI.
It is so funny, at my place of employment (non-government) security (one single individual) got orders to double check our electronic badges as we enter the building to see if we are actually the person that is wearing the badge. In the past 3 weeks security got orders to check all briefcases, ladies purses, etc.. I say that it is funny because we have quite a number of ME that work for this company, in this building and at various other buildings. Who knows who is their enemy jihadist co-worker in America with their own electronic badge to enter and exit the building as they wish and what could have been planted already?
Maybe they were fans of Harry Browne, or were just quoting the Libertarian Party position papers printed on the morning of September 11th.
I have a strong gut feeling (backed by nothing really) that post-9/11 the FBI drew strongly and deliberately from the DC Metro Arabic community. Since the DC area is America's host to most of the Isalmist organizations and their proxies (e.g. CAIR, WAMY, etc), I would speculate that many of the "clearable" applicants might in fact have other sympathies, latent or not (e.g., the huge Dar al Hijra mosque in Falls Church is a seething hotbed of Wahabbism).
It's inconceivable that your daughter and her friend didn't get immediate offer letters. They are exactly the types that the FBI should have been hiring, not these Islamist 5th Column plants.
If one is taught from a dictionary that might be true. But that's not the way most training is done.
If a translator saw a phrase like "light in the loafers", it would make no logical sense in context and if translated literally. So one is more likely to ask a colleague "what does this mean, it makes no sense."
If a person is trained and understands 95 percent of the language, then oddities and colloquialisms are going to stand out and require further analysis. Even native speakers encounter this in their own language (e.g. "metrosexual" or any known hip-hop lyrics).
Sorry, they were fans of pedomooohammed, and were quoting the "islam is a religion of peace" talking points that karl rove issued.
How nice to hear you say so while American blood is being spilled to bring freedom to the very people you call 'terrorists.' Take your bigotry elsewhere.
She says such attitudes call into question "the integrity and accuracy" of information Arabic translators are feeding agents.
This is a deceptive and self-serving statement if I have ever seen one.
It seems their "standards" before 9-11 were abominable. The point is, or should be, what are they doing to correct the situation and then hire loyal, reliable translators. My guess is the real answer is "nothing".
Darn if we could only remove the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment!
PC hiring is going to kill a lot of Americans.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.