Posted on 10/09/2004 7:17:32 AM PDT by Calpernia
OLEAN -- Somewhat lost in all the media mist over who won last week's initial debate in the presidential election is a stinging John Kerry reference to late September news that I thought would draw much more play and citizen attention than it did. It should have triggered a public furor.
Three days before the Kerry-Bush face-off in Miami, the Justice Department released a classified summary of a frightening report by that agency's Inspector General. The bad news literally sent a chill down my spine.
The IG investigation discovered that 123,000 hours of eavesdropped recordings related to possible terrorist plans since the Sept. 11 attacks are still sitting around the FBI -- yet to be listened to, yet to be translated.
Not only that, but "computer problems" in the FBI's notorious Fred Flintstone software and hard drives have systematically erased many apparent al-Qaeda recordings before FBI agents and linguists could get to them. In other words, limited computer storage capacity in the sluggish FBI system has automatically resulted in the obliteration of older material to make room for new. Same thing happens on my creaky old tube.
Kerry's rebuke -- a verbal drive-by shooting in the Miami debate -- came on the heels of a statement by President Bush to the effect that his administration "has to be right" 100 percent of the time, while "the enemy only has to be right once." The Democratic challenger shot back that "we now learn the FBI has over 100,000 hours" of potential terrorism tapes that are unlistened to.
"On one of those tapes may be the enemy being right just once," warned Kerry.
Bush, on split screen, screwed up his face in a there-you-go-again look, but dodged the issue throughout, devoting the rest of the blabbering match to his Kerry-is-a-flip-flopper mantra. The president's spinners, of course, never mentioned it.
This is scary stuff.
On Sept. 10, 2001 -- the day before the infamous attack that changed all our lives -- the National Security Agency intercepted from its worldwide listening posts provocative messages like "Tomorrow is zero hour" and "The match is about to begin."
They were in Arabic and other Middle Eastern languages.
They were not translated until several days after the 9/11 attacks.
At the time, the FBI had about 880 translators -- far too few of them capable of translating the several Muslim-usage languages we now associate with terrorism. The FBI started advertising online for anyone who could speak Arabic, Farsi, Pashtun and several other languages.
Astonishing starting salaries were offered. At least one FBI linguist already on board complained loudly that the quick, new hires were leaving the bureau open to the threat of internal espionage.
She was fired for her temerity, and the FBI's assessment of her observations is still classified. I was hoping Kerry would blurt out something about that rancid situation to the scowling Bush.
Congress and the White House quickly coughed up another $48 million to hire linguists fluent in these difficult and very nuanced tongues. The number of translators now employed by the FBI is slightly more than 1,200. If one does the math, it's still a mind-boggling and horrific proposition.
Even at maximum efficiency, it still means each translator would have about 100 hours of tapes to wade through just in listening to this immense pile of recordings. Then it would take even more time to complete intelligent translations of them.
Even if the FBI's antiquated computers can be quickly upgraded, counting for coffee breaks, other non-terrorist workload, vacations, sick time, down time, medical and pregnancy leave, report writing, case officer briefing, tape restoration time, reduced workweek time, etc., you're looking at an FBI that is about a year behind in translating conversations the Pentagon and White House may need to know about yesterday. And that's counting on 100 percent maximum concentration in a task that is deadly go-to-sleep boring.
The material from the NSA is still cascading in, of course, from intercepted phone calls, e-mails, voice mails, bugged conversations, confiscated documents, electronically surveilled faxes, Project Echelon listening post recordings, wiretapped discussions and human intelligence recordings and reports.
Much of the undeciphered material was garnered right here in the United States under surveillance warrants issued here.
But all the intercepts are useless unless deciphered.
The FBI can't even figure out how to prioritize the work.
And the IG's summary is only the tip of a much broader classified report. If they're telling us the above, think what they aren't telling us.
Members of the House and Senate who have been briefed on the matter have told The New York Times and other papers the picture is even worse than portrayed in the IG report.
How bad is it? Well, the official FBI policy is that all potential al-Qaeda intercepts get reviewed within half a day of reception. The IG went through more than 800 intercepts and found that in at least 36 percent of those, that strict deadline was missed. In about 50 of the reviewed al-Qaeda conversations, it took at least a month to translate them.
And keep in mind, these untranslated, unlistened to, suspicious foreign language intercepts are but a small part of the Matterhorn of material collected.
For all languages, the IG said almost half-a-million hours of audio tapes remain ignored. Who knows what our enemies said in English or French?
Congress is starting to pay attention to this dangerous gap in performance.
President Bush should.
The complacent American public probably won't give it a second thought.
"Simply put, we need to refrain from using Arabs to do the job, as their allegiances are more likely to be toward those we investigate, than would be any American born person.
We need people to do this with last names like Smith and Jones."
That's a great idea. Trouble is that we have almost no Smiths and Jones folks who speak Arabic or any of the dialects of it spoken in that part of the world. You see, we don't think we need to learn second languages here, so we don't teach them.
I agree with you that it's dangerous to use some people to translate for us. That does not solve the problem, however, of it taking several years before someone who does not now speak the language can adequately translate tapes of the spoken word.
Seems to me like we need that right now. But even Jewish speakers of Arabic have been denied jobs doing this translation. Seems we don't trust anyone who speaks Arabic. That's too bad, because we need those translators.
>>>>but since Sandy Berger was caught stealing documents relating to this communication
Now now. Let's share blame evenly here. Berger is not the only one that steals, alters or destroys documents. Seems to be common practice.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1209454/posts?page=187#187
(snip)
a. On 9 April 1992, the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, in response to a protest by other members of the Select Committee, told the Select Committee members that "all copies" would be destroyed. This statement was made in the presence of the undersigned and of the Staff Chief Counsel who offered no protest.
b. Later on 9 April 1992, the Staff Director, Frances Zwenig, an attorney, repeated and insured the execution of Senator Kerry's order for the destruction of the Staff intelligence briefing text. I personally delivered to Mr. Barry Valentine, the Security Manager for SRB-78, the original printed version of the intelligence briefing text. I also verified that the original was destroyed by shredding in the Office of Senate Security on 10 April 1992, along with 14 copies.
(snip)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1209454/posts?page=189#189
(snip)
i. Senator Kerry's remarks prompted follow-up investigations (See paragraphs 4 through 9 of the attachment) and inquiries that established that a copy of the text was not deposited in the Office of Senate Security until the afternoon of 16 April. The Staff Director has admitted that on the afternoon of 16 April, after receiving a copy of a memorandum from Senator Bob Smith to Senator Kerry in which Senator Smith outlined his concerns about the destruction of documents, she obtained a copy of the intelligence briefing text from the office of Senator McCain and took it to the Office of Senate Security. Office of Senate Security personnel confirmed that the Staff Director gave them an envelope, marked "Eyes Only," to be placed in her personal file. The Staff Director has admitted that the envelope contained the copy of the intelligence briefing text that she obtained from the office of Senator McCain.
(snip)
>>>That's a great idea. Trouble is that we have almost no Smiths and Jones folks who speak Arabic or any of the dialects of it spoken in that part of the world.
Actually, we do. Problem is, they have been turned down for the job. The EOE, PC nonesense is looking for Middle Eastern Decent.
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