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Celebrating 9/11 at the FBI
FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | 2/11/04 | Paul Sperry

Posted on 02/11/2004 12:39:45 AM PST by 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.


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: espionage; fbi; jihadinamerica; linguists; paulsperry; sibel; sibeldinezedmonds; translators; whistleblower
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1 posted on 02/11/2004 12:39:48 AM PST by kattracks
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To: kattracks
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.

There has to be an explanation for this behavior. I wonder if the Director has ever gone on record with an answer?

2 posted on 02/11/2004 12:50:25 AM PST by leadpenny (- Vietnam Vet Not Fonda Kerry -)
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To: kattracks
It's about freaking time! I recall the stories of Muslim agents in the FBI refusing to uphold their oath to the Bureau and report on suspected terrorists in U.S. mosques...and the Bureau promoted them!

I've long since lost respect for the FBI. This article only helps to cement my already-low view of the agency.
3 posted on 02/11/2004 1:11:28 AM PST by Prime Choice (I'm pro-choice. I just think the "choice" should be made *before* having sex.)
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To: kattracks
Let's kick ass.

Perfect!
4 posted on 02/11/2004 1:12:30 AM PST by Stallone (Guess who Al Qaeda wants to be President?)
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To: kattracks
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.

...??? Surely this is illegal, given that the lives of agents in the field almost certainly depend on said work being completed in an expeditious manner...?

5 posted on 02/11/2004 1:13:34 AM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle ("The Clintons have damaged our country. They have done it together, in unison." -- Peggy Noonan)
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To: Dog; Miss Marple; Howlin; JeanS; Mo1
Does anyone know anything about Edmonds? Just because someone says something to a Congressional committee does not make it true or the person trustworthy. If she is correct, this is frightening stuff she's saying.
6 posted on 02/11/2004 1:24:26 AM PST by kayak (Have you prayed for our President and our troops today?)
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To: kattracks
It's true! The foxes are actually guarding the hen house.
7 posted on 02/11/2004 2:14:05 AM PST by Paleo Conservative (Do not remove this tag under penalty of law.)
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To: kattracks
I've got to print this article out and show it to my dad. It's well-known in his field that the FBI didn't have a decent computer system until nearly the year 2000, as the former director "didn't believe in computers", but THIS... this is just beyond incompetence. This is criminal.

You let people like THIS into the USA and give them high-ranking government security jobs? I'm appalled.
8 posted on 02/11/2004 2:43:45 AM PST by KangarooJacqui (I heard the news today - oh, boy....bartender, make mine a triple, wouldya?)
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To: kayak
I agree. It stands to reason that after 9/11 the FBI would have taken a second look at translators. I am not running off half-cocked until I know more about this person, since these are very serious charges.
9 posted on 02/11/2004 3:01:37 AM PST by Miss Marple
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To: Miss Marple
Just ran a quick google search on Sibel Dinez Edmonds and absolutely nothing showed. Anyone have other sources?
10 posted on 02/11/2004 3:07:22 AM PST by Elkiejg (Clintons and Democrats have ruined America)
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To: Miss Marple
Based on my experience with translators, it's very believable. I was at a conference with Arabic and other mostly foreign-born linguists where one interpreter said essentially that he had massaged his translation of what the crazy blind sheik in the first WTC bombing trial had said. He then told us that he apologized to the sheik (who was found guilty) for not being able to "help" him more. And the group applauded this quite enthusiastically.

I think this woman is very, very brave for being willing to testify.
11 posted on 02/11/2004 3:16:25 AM PST by livius
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To: livius
If this is accurate, we need an immediate push for native-born American Arabic translators. This is one thing I think we could agree for which federal money should be spent.
12 posted on 02/11/2004 3:29:46 AM PST by Miss Marple
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To: Miss Marple
Christian American born Arabic translators. There are several million of them in the U.S.
13 posted on 02/11/2004 3:46:11 AM PST by metesky ("Brethren, leave us go amongst them." Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton - Ward Bond- The Searchers)
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To: JustPiper
ping
14 posted on 02/11/2004 3:49:41 AM PST by Klickitat
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Yehuda; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; ...
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

At least the FBI had their hiring priorities straight.

FBI: Jews need not apply for Arabic linguist jobs

15 posted on 02/11/2004 5:13:55 AM PST by SJackson (Visit http://www.JewPoint.blogspot.com)
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To: SJackson
Another source familiar with the interviewing process says the FBI was concerned that many of the applicants were ''too close to Israel,'' and might lack the objectivity to accurately translate the Arabic recordings and writings of Muslim terrorist suspects under investigation.

Always the same canard, no matter what we do... ***sigh***... :(

16 posted on 02/11/2004 5:17:16 AM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle ("The Clintons have damaged our country. They have done it together, in unison." -- Peggy Noonan)
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To: Prime Choice
I lost respect for the FBI, and the BATF baby killers after the Davidian seige at Waco.
17 posted on 02/11/2004 5:23:42 AM PST by Destructor
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To: kattracks
The FBI is a TOTAL disgrace.
18 posted on 02/11/2004 5:52:26 AM PST by Doc Savage
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To: kattracks
We need an IMMEDIATE,Manhattan project style, effort to train non Arab, non Muslim, US citizens in Arabic as well as Pashto, and Farsi. Intelligence will WIN OR LOSE this war.
19 posted on 02/11/2004 6:03:25 AM PST by Kozak (Anti Shahada: " There is no God named Allah, and Muhammed is his False Prophet")
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To: Doc Savage
Can I just say that I enjoyed the holy living heck out of your novels, back in the days of my misspent youth...? :)
20 posted on 02/11/2004 6:03:54 AM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle ("The Clintons have damaged our country. They have done it together, in unison." -- Peggy Noonan)
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