FBI sacks translator who reported on pro-terrorist colleagues

Center for Security Policy ^ | Feb. 16, 2004 | CSP

[FairOpinion]

The FBI has sacked a linguist who blew the whistle on some colleagues who cheered the 9/11 terrorist attacks and reportedly sabotaged translations crucial to ongoing terrorism investigations.

The report is the latest instance of high-level political correctness within the FBI, where senior officials have been pandering to Islamist fringe elements who are tied to terrorist groups.

Investigative reporter Paul Sperry reports, “Middle Eastern linguists with top-secret security clearance” at the FBI celebrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States and shouted: “It's about time they got a taste of what they've been giving the Middle East.”

Sperry reports that when FBI linguist Sibel Dinez Edmonds reported the incident and other “breaches in security, mistranslations and potential espionage by Middle Eastern colleagues,” she was fired “without specified cause.”

Edmonds’s supervisor, “a naturalized U.S. citizen from Beirut” reportedly told his employees “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.”

Edmonds is said to have detailed these allegations further in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee last month.

The Center for Security Policy has warned repeatedly over the last year and a half that the failure of the FBI to acknowledge the nature of certain Islamist groups and individuals, in order not to appear “insensitive," would jeopardize the Bureau's ability to protect against potential terrorist threats.

[FairOpinion]

What's wrong with this picture?!

Here is the article they refer to:
Celebrating 9/11 at the FBI by Paul Sperry

[af_vet_1981]

Investigative reporter Paul Sperry reports, “Middle Eastern linguists with top-secret security clearance” at the FBI celebrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States and shouted: “It's about time they got a taste of what they've been giving the Middle East.” Sperry reports that when FBI linguist Sibel Dinez Edmonds reported the incident and other “breaches in security, mistranslations and potential espionage by Middle Eastern colleagues,” she was fired “without specified cause.” Edmonds’s supervisor, “a naturalized U.S. citizen from Beirut” reportedly told his employees “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.”

Treason

[oceanview]

can this possibly be happening, with no visibility further up the chain of command? it just seems too unbelievable.

[FairOpinion]

Those should be not only fired, but jailed.

[weegee]

I wouldn't put it out of the question. A Pakistani employee of the city of Houston was caught sending just such an email. He wasn't terminated over it though (he was fired for using his work account to solict other employees for sex for pay).

[demnomo]

Why hasn't this sacked person been on any of the mainstream media outlets with her story?

You'd think that the leftist press would jump on this one just to make the Bush Administration look bad.

Are the media types worried about being criticized by those terrorist-supporting, race-card-sporting CAIR and AMI groups? This is really shocking and scary if true...

[John Beresford Tipton]

"The FBI has sacked a linguist"

This article is obviously a false and malicious slander on great public servants.
Why, the FBI is under the supervision of one John Ashcroft, who, when he is not going after glass manufacturers, hemp food additive manufacturers, and reviewing porn films, has been such a strong defender of our country that he has said that with him in charge, we don't even need to worry about a Bill of Rights.

And he works for a Texan, who, at least going by his election year rhetoric, would leave no stone unturned to defend our borders, and has dispatched a few million of his compesinos over the border to check it out.

[Donna Lee Nardo]

bookmarking articles...

[GeronL]

are we suppose to blame Bush? or Tenet??

[GatorGirl]

I don't think this makes the Bush Administration look bad in the liberal media's eyes--they fully sympathize with the terrorist supporters who did all these things and they probably think the FBI did the right thing!

Of course this is completely ridiculous, but sadly believable.

[FreedomCalls]

It's been here.

[Tennessean4Bush]

are we suppose to blame Bush? or Tenet??

Tenet is CIA. FBI is Mueller.

[oceanview]

Tenet doesn't run the FBI.

I wish Rush or someone would pick this story up, it sounds insane.

[risk]

[Bogey78O]

Ashcroft heads Justice not FBI.

[FairOpinion]

And notice the Senate is not investigating this one. Apparently the whistle blower sent a report to the Senate Judiciary Committee:

"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."

The FBI not only didn't discipline, but PROMOTED the offender, who should be called a saboteur -- he actually deleted people's work to slow them down. From the Sperry article (see link in my post 1):

"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."

[GeronL]

Facts don't matter!!!

blame Cheney!! blame Rove!! Condi too! =o)

[FreedomCalls]

Why hasn't this sacked person been on any of the mainstream media outlets with her story?

She has already been on 60 Minutes. Is that not mainstream enough?

[Theresawithanh]

Oooh, good rant! Too bad you missed the fact that Ashcroft doesn't head the FBI.

[FairOpinion]

Sure, everything is Bush's fault.

The point is that over the years -- the Cliton years -- and probabaly even before that, the liberals succeeded in totally emasculating the intel services, focusing on political correctness, instead of doing a job. That is the real reason they missed the signs of 9-11 coming, and even after 9-11, they were more interested in doing sensitivity training, than catching terrorists.

THIS HAS GOT TO STOP.

BUT you also can't fire everyone at the bureau. But I think the head of the FBI better do a shake up, if not, he needs to go. Same about the CIA.