Classified Woman - The Sibel Edmonds Story: A Memoir | Government Corruption Whistleblower

The New American ^ | 12 December 2012 | William F. Jasper

[VitacoreVision]

Classified Woman - The Sibel Edmonds Story: A Memoir
Sibel Edmonds, 2012

U.S. government translator — and whistleblower — Sibel Edmonds found evidence of corruption at the highest levels of government--and suffered for it.

Sibel Edmonds' "Classified Woman"


The New American
12 December 2012


Imagine that you have a Top Secret clearance and are privy to some of our country's most sensitive national security information. In that capacity, you discover that some of the highest elected and appointed political leaders in the land are engaged in espionage and treason, accepting bribes and selling weapons and information (including nuclear weapons secrets) to foreign powers, including our enemies. Moreover, you learn that some of your co-workers are in league with these conspirators, covering up the evidence trail and misdirecting those tasked with preventing such security breaches.

Shocked at the blatant betrayals you have discovered, you do the right thing and report this to your superiors. It’s not only the morally right thing to do; you are duty-bound, oath-bound to do no less. Agency policy and federal law require you to do no less. Having done your duty, you expect that higher-ups in the chain of command will do theirs. But time passes and nothing changes. You press the matter with superiors only to be told not to “rock the boat.” But with so much at stake, you refuse to simply drop the issue and allow treason to continue unchallenged. Some colleagues are sympathetic but warn you that you are pursuing a futile course that will only bring retaliation, harassment, and even danger to you and your family. Undaunted, and with no other option, you jump rank and take the matter to the top of your agency. Action is swift, but not what you had expected. Instead of investigating and prosecuting the spies and traitors, it is you who are subjected to investigation, surveillance, harassment, threats, and intimidation.

The scenario sketched above does not even begin to describe the real-life, upside-down Twilight Zone experience of Sibel Edmonds. In her book Classified Woman: A Memoir, Edmonds recounts the incredible story of her efforts, for more than a decade, to warn her adopted country of imminent perils, only to be slapped down, harassed, smeared, and threatened. To prevent her explosive testimony from seeing the light of day, President George W. Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the rarely used (until recently) “state secrets privilege” to gag not only Edmonds, but also committees of Congress that were investigating her case, as well as the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General and the FBI’s own Office of Professional Review.

Answering the Call to Duty

Three days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Sibel Edmonds received a call from FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. It was a desperate appeal for her to come to work for the bureau as a linguist, translating documents and audio recordings. The FBI was being inundated with new data, on top of an enormous backlog of thousands of files that had been long overdue for translation. The bureau implored Edmonds, who is of Turkish extraction and had grown up in Turkey and Iran, to assist them with her linguistic skills.

Sibel Edmonds, who is an American citizen by choice, had lived under oppressive dictatorships and had also experienced the chaos of revolution and the horror of daily terrorist attacks on civilian populations. Her adopted homeland was under attack, and she felt obligated to defend it. “Our country could use my help,” she writes. “How could I say no?”

She threw herself wholeheartedly into her new vocation. Very soon after starting as a translator at the FBI’s Washington Field Office, Edmonds distinguished herself for proficiency and professionalism. Soon she was in demand from the FBI’s offices in other parts of the country, all of which were struggling with overloads of documents and recordings to be translated and suspects to be interviewed — which also required the services of translators. She received glowing evaluations. At the same time, she also ruffled feathers. One of the first people she ran afoul of was her boss, Mike Feghali, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Lebanon, who was in charge of the FBI’s Turkic and Farsi translators. Their initial friction resulted from Feghali’s insistence that Edmonds slow down and be less efficient. He wanted the logjam to get worse, not better, to help his appeals for a larger budget, more translators, more resources, and better perks.

Sibel Edmonds recounts one conversation in which Feghali told her:

Some may consider what happened on 9/11 terrible, but we, the translators, see it as a cause to celebrate. Look at these cookies my wife baked yesterday; see, we are still celebrating the attack; this is our customary celebration cookie. Have some.

Edmonds was outraged and nauseated by his venal and avaricious attitude. Feghali also hired relatives and friends who were incompetent and unqualified. But his bureaucratic empire-building ambitions and nepotism were minor problems compared to even more serious national security issues. Feghali, it became evident, was covering for, if not openly conspiring with, at least one translator, Melek Can Dickerson, who was clearly an agent for the Turkish government and powerful Turkish lobbying groups. Melek Dickerson’s husband, Air Force Major Douglas Dickerson, held a security clearance above Top Secret and was involved in military contracts with Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries, including Turkey.

Treachery and Treason

Edmonds became alarmed when she came across files with important national security information that Melek Dickerson had stamped “Not Pertinent.” The files, therefore, had not been translated and passed on to the appropriate FBI agents for action.

In November 2001, her second month at the bureau, Sibel and her husband, Matthew Edmonds, received a surprise visit at their Alexandria, Virginia, home from the Dickersons. Major Dickerson, whom they had not previously met, transparently attempted to recruit them both as agents for Turkey. He mentioned his close ties to the American Turkish Council (ATC), the Assembly of American Turkish Associations (AATA), and a specific ATC operative, a “Colonel ____.” Sibel Edmonds was flabbergasted, since the ATC, the AATA, and this particular Turkish colonel were targets of interest in the intelligence she monitored for FBI Special Agent Dennis Saccher, who was in charge of the bureau’s Turkish counterintelligence. Dickerson boasted about the political connections of his Turkish “friends” and their ability to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. government contracts every year for Turkish companies. The Dickersons were profiting handsomely from these connections and said they expected to retire early and live in Turkey.

The Turkish connection to international terrorism (including al-Qaeda), drug trafficking, illegal arms trafficking, money laundering, and the nuclear black market is no secret; public-source information on it is plentiful. But Sibel Edmonds had seen intelligence about this strategic NATO “ally” that was far more troubling than any published reports.

“Turkish criminal networks consist mainly of respectable-looking businessmen (some of whom are among the top international CEOs), high-ranking military officers, diplomats, politicians and scholars,” she notes. “Their U.S. counterparts are equally respected and recognized: high-level bureaucrats within the State Department and Pentagon, elected officials, or combination of the two, who now have set up their own companies, NGOs and lobbying groups.”

She continues, in Classified Woman:

Curiously, despite highly publicized reports and acknowledgements of Turkey’s role in narcotics, the nuclear black market, terrorism and money laundering, Turkey continues to receive billions in aid and assistance annually from the United States. With its highly placed co-conspirators and connections within the Pentagon, the State Department and NATO, Turkey need never fear sanctions or meaningful scrutiny.

Turkey and the newly absorbed NATO-EU countries of the former Soviet Union, along with the “stan” sister republics of Central Asia, became key incubating, training, and transit points for al-Qaeda and other jihadist terror groups.

Shooting the Messenger

Edmonds reported the Dickersons’ recruitment effort to her superiors. Nothing happened. Edmonds refused to back off. The government retaliated by leaking her name to the press — in a derogatory way of course. This not only violated her privacy, smeared her character, and broke federal law, but also endangered her life and the lives of her family members. She persisted, nevertheless, taking her case all the way to the top of the FBI, to the DOJ Inspector General, to Congress, the courts, and, finally, the major media, alternative media, and the blogosphere. Every step of the way she hit roadblocks, threats, and intimidation. The Turkish press and Turkish government branded her a “traitor,” subject to arrest, if she returned to her native land. Her relatives in Turkey were threatened and ceased all communication with her. Friends, relatives, and co-workers in the United States also abandoned her. Her phone and her e-mail account were tapped. FBI agents trailed her continuously.

When these efforts failed to derail her, the government tried the “nuclear option,” the state secrets privilege. Everything about Sibel Edmonds would be declared “classified,” a state secret. This was used to block release of the DOJ inspector general report, Edmonds’ FOIA file requests, congressional inquiries, and Edmonds’ deposition in the Motley-Rice 9/11 Families civil suit. In blocking her deposition, the government absurdly held that it would endanger national security for Edmonds to answer questions such as: When and where were you born? Where did you go to school? What languages do you speak? In what capacity have you been employed by the United States government?

“If when I was born — my birthday — is considered state secrets and classified,” Edmonds logically asks, “then how can I use my driver’s license? If where I was born — my birthplace — is considered state secrets and classified, then how can I use my passport? Does it mean I can no longer leave this country, because showing my passport to officials constitutes a breach of security?”

In May 2004, the Ashcroft Justice Department had her congressional briefings “retroactively classified” and forced members of Congress to remove documents they had posted on their websites. This has nothing to do with protecting national security, but everything to do with protecting corruption, conspiracy, and treason in government. She thus became “the most classified woman in United States history.”

Naming Names

The preposterousness of the government’s position is palpable. This is an effort not to protect legitimate state secrets, but to protect criminality that has prospered in secrecy for far too long. Sibel Edmonds is decidedly non-partisan in her scorn; she shows equal disdain for Republicans and Democrats who sell out their country and betray their oaths of office. She names names. Among the key players in Congress on the Turkish payroll whom she calls out: former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), former House Speaker Bob Livingston (R-La.), former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Reps. Stephen Solarz (D-N.Y.), Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.).

She points out that the executive branch treachery she encountered extended from the Clinton administration through the Bush administration — and continues into the Obama White House. Other prominent villains in this story include U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, Bush Department of Defense Undersecretary Douglas Feith, former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Marc Grossman, FBI Director Robert Mueller, FBI Deputy Assistant Director Tim Caruso, and FBI Special Agent in Charge Thomas Frields.

Classified Woman is a blood-boiling exposé that reads like a Robert Ludlum spy thriller. But this is not fiction, and the protagonist is not a macho Jason Bourne action hero. She is a petite, five-foot-three-inch woman of incredible courage and, seemingly, indomitable will who has stood toe-to-toe against forces of evil that have caused many other would-be patriots to wilt or cut and run. Her story is one of real-life heroism, and it is still being written. She continues to fight the good fight as founder/director of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition and as editor of BoilingFrogsPost.com.

Unfortunately, most of Edmonds’ contributing editors at BoilingFrogs are decidedly left of center, and their anti-globalist, anti-war, anti-police-state arguments and analyses tend to range from the “progressive” to the Marxoid. However, when she went public and came under attack, it wasn’t Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh who came to her defense; it was the anti-Bush Left that rallied to her aid. In fact, the faux conservatives at FOX, National Review, and the radio talk show universe alternately ignored and attacked her; they were busy cheerleading George W. Bush’s unconstitutional wars abroad and his unconstitutional police-state measures at home. Sympathetic coverage for Edmonds from alternative media on the Right has been woefully lacking, with a few exceptions.

In April 2011, Sibel Edmonds submitted her manuscript for Classified Woman to the FBI for review, as required by terms of her employment agreement. Under that agreement, the FBI has 30 days to approve and/or require deletions and revisions. After waiting over 340 days with no response from the bureau, Edmonds took the path that few others have taken; she published anyway. However, with every publisher afraid to touch it, she was forced to publish it on her own. She knows that any day now the Obama administration, which has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined, may come after her. And they may also scoop up all copies of the book and prohibit any future publication of it. So, get your copy now at www.ClassifiedWoman.com while it is still available. And then contact your representative and senators in Washington and demand that they stop the stonewalling, censorship, and coverup on this important case.


Related articles:

2008 - Shooting the Messenger

Sibel Edmonds has the inside scoop on terrorism from her days working as an FBI translator.

2008 - Is Former Speaker Hastert's New Lobbyist Job a Turkish Payoff?

Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds predicted that former House speaker Dennis Hastert would end up as a lobbyist for Turkey.

2009 - No Change in Obama Administration Links with Terrorism

Whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator, is testifying on a vast criminal conspiracy linking high-ranking U.S. government officials such as Marc Grossman to Eurasian and Middle Eastern espionage activity in the United States.

[marktwain]

I was lost when the writer called the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “unconstitutional”. They were approved of by Congress, and are therefore more constitutional than the wars against the barbary pirates.

[VitacoreVision]

===Quote===
I was lost when the writer called the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “unconstitutional”.

---

The Iraq invasion was to enforce UN Resolutions created by the United Nations.

The writer is anti-United Nations.

[annieokie]

Bookmarked. Wow, she has truly stated what we are up against. She sees no difference between the R's and D's, I don't either anymore.

Suspected such for a long time, just did not want to admit it. Boehner changed my mind, they are all Republicrats.

[robowombat]

An interesting note on how much Turkey does spend on creating a favorable image. New Orleans is not a major center for Moslems in the US but the following article gushes over what is obviously a pretty pricey white propaganda operation by Turkey:

Turkish Cultural Center in Metairie promotes dialogue, communication
Published: Wednesday, May 11, 2011, 7:30 AM
By The Times-Picayune

DANIEL ERATH/THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

“I’m very interested in other countries, but my knowledge of Turkey was limited at the time,” said Conrad, a resident of Algiers Point and a history instructor at Delgado Community College. “After going to the center just one time, I was overwhelmed by the hospitality of the Turkish people, their culture and their food.”

Conrad was so fascinated that he became a volunteer at the center. And last year, he went on one of the center’s 10 annual trips to Turkey.
The Turkish Cultural Center, operated by the Atlas Foundation, is located at 3435 West Esplanade Ave., Metairie. It is a nonprofit organization established in New Orleans in 2002 by the Turkish-American community and other volunteers.

There is also a chapter in Baton Rouge.

“The mission of the Atlas Foundation is to establish a relationship between cultures and communities,” said Hamaza Akmermer, a member of the Atlas advisory board. “We try to do this by sharing Turkey’s heritage of tolerance and understanding.”
Yonus Celik, outreach coordinator for the Atlas Foundation, said there are approximately 300 Turkish families living in the metropolitan New Orleans area.

In November, the Foundation holds an annual Friendship Dinner. Last year’s dinner drew more than 200 people.
“It was amazing to see the people who attended the dinner,” Conrad said. “There were Catholic priests and rabbis there, as well as other men and women from all backgrounds in attendance.”
The center holds a number of activities throughout the year, including family picnics, Turkish language classes, cooking classes, art shows and multicultural panel discussions about cultures and faiths.
The center also has had guest speakers, including retired Judge Sol Gothard ,whose topic was ‘The Torah/Talmud’s Role as the Basis of the U.S. Constitution’ and David Welker, special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans division. Welker discussed crime issues.

In New Orleans, the Turkish Cultural Center and Trinity Episcopal Church sponsors a program called “Standing Together,” which as aimed at bringing Christians and Muslims together to discuss current events.

The Atlas Foundation also organizes yearly trips to Turkey.
“We want to bring people from different cultures together,” said Mehmet Cihan, a native of Turkey. He is also a doctoral student at Tulane University and a volunteer at the Turkish Cultural Center. “We want to serve this country (United States) and share our values. At the center, we care about the person, not with the person’s religion or skin color.”
New Orleans resident Earl Luetzelschwab is a member of the Atlas Foundation advisory board.

“The Turkish Cultural Center was established for everyone,” Luetzelschwab said. “The center is doing a good job of helping people learn about Turkey and its culture, while also bringing together people from other cultures.”
“We want to promote dialogue,” Cihan added. “When we can do this, we can remove the conflict and help close the gap that can exist between people.”
For more information about the Turkish Cultural Center and the Atlas Foundation, email info@atlaslouisiana.org or visit www.atlaslouisiana.org.

By Earl Hodges, Contributing writer
Email Earl Hodges at earlhodges@msn.com

[robowombat]

The New American is the JB house organ. To it a declaration of war is only valid if it is the formal declaration passed by both houses of Congress and in the classic format of say the US Declaration of War on the Japanese Empire in 1941. The basis for the congressional resolution for the launch of Iraqi Freedom was Iraq's defiance of various UN Resolutions. To the JB this is treasonous as it is subordinating the United States to a unconstitutional international entity. They see it as another step to end US independence and blend the United States into some sort of ‘global governance’ regime. I wish I was as confident that this was just foilhat nonsense as I was say 20 years ago.

[robowombat]

It goes far deeper than that. Since at least the end of the Cold War Washington has morphed into something like the Grant Administration on steroids. It is difficult to estimate the depth and scope of corruption and hidden hand manipulation. The rot has grown exponentially with the ability of general and flag officers to routinely become corporate VP’s directly after retiring along with the emergence of the highly politicized ‘Senior Executive Service’ structure. These people represent the linkages between the upper levels of the influence peddling K Street lobbyist law firms and the professional fixers such as Kissinger and Baker and a host of former cabinet level or senatorial types. The traditional lobbying and influence peddling activities that have been around since the Washington administration have transformed themselves into something truly huge and ramifying into every corner of government where money can be made or an opportunity for political patronage can be found. I know this sounds hysteric but the depth and breadth of corrupt practice and manipulation is so great as to be unfathomable. Ask yourself one question as you read this, why has no one except fringe players like Dennis Kucinich tried to force the Treasury and the Fed to explain what did happen in 2008 and how TARP got transformed into a bank bailout and subsidy program with virtually no discussion and no established parameters. That is just one of the bigger ‘Beltway Secrets’. Washington today is akin to Jay Gould and the Gold Corner every day of every week.

[Theoria]

Sibel is a well know ‘truther’. How you define truther is up to you.

[VitacoreVision]

The FBI wants to silence her because she knows classified information. She knows things the government doesn’t want us to know.

That makes me interested.

[annieokie]

That was good and I shudder to think about it, yet I think about it all the time. There is no stopping this Monster.

When we think we have made some headway, in getting something stopped, we say yippeeeeee, we did it. Not SO., for they have come up with a more sinister mode to continue on with their madness. It's not until years later we find out we have been screwed again.

Billy Graham years ago said the Government is like an Octapus with many tentacles. Which is by design, so that no one entity takes the blame and all cover for the other. Not our fault, look over there.

Example right now: Benghazigate....Fiscal Cliff...Obamacare...make the fiasco so large, continue to throw more and more confusion in our way until we give up. Mission Accomplished. Peons will settle down now and get on with the task of paying what they tell us to pay.

There is no way to stop any of this, never will be.

[robowombat]

politics and venality have always been conjoined in our history. Even at the founding of the Republic there was plenty of shady dealings . The following book is a detailed biography of one noted profiteer , William Bingham, Senator from Pennsylvania .and President pro tempore of the United States Senate;
The Golden Voyage: The Life and Times of William Bingham, 1752-1804 , by
Robert C. Alberts, The level of corruption in US politics in the 19th century is proverbial and a good look at it can be gained from another book, ‘The Era of Good Stealings’ by Mark Summers. The difference is that even after the War Between the States the reach of government was still quite limited and while tax payers were defrauded and abused by politicians and government at every level it had a very limited impact unless one was an Indian. What seems to have happened is that the era of global war and the Cold War forced some sort of social discipline onto government and business and these two players did do more than just pay hypocritical lip service to a sort of social contract. The end of the Cold War released American corporate and political leaders from this implicit bargain that while they ruled and profited the actions of government and the economy were in some way tempered with a degree of public spiritedness. The absence of this enforced discipline has returned the culture to what it was before. Unfortunately the reach and impact of government is now truly extensive and profound so that the endless manipulation and corrupt practices by capital, labor and government have a real negative impact. No one in the public culture will discuss the consequences of a general loosening of standards of the permitted. Rank and file Americans only note the brute impact of a decadent and increasingly dysfunctional public culture. The cause of these impacts is not widely understood.

[annieokie]

Thank you, that is very interesting. Very depressing subject, but one that needs to be enlightened. We are not in control, only to the extent of what Gov't allows us to be, when they allow it in their own good time.

I heard a man tell of his conversation with a man from China. He asked the China man what it was like not to be Free.

Oh but we are as free as you in America. We can come and go, do anything we want to do as long as we "obey" the laws and rules. (One caveat:Other than leaving the country I suppose)

That China man is so right. As long as we "OBEY" the rules and "laws", we too are free in America.

Now isn't that something to think on?

[apocalypto]

I plan to read it.

[robowombat]

Not new thinking. My father’s maxim was ‘obey the laws and pay your taxes and you can be or do pretty much anything you want to be or do.’ Unfortunately the politicization of daily life is starting to make the US something like the USSR where the rule was you could only act in ways and do things that were officially government permitted. A very big difference. The anti-smoking laws were curiously , the first step towards an ‘officially permitted activity and behavior ‘ regime.

[annieokie]

The anti-smoking laws were curiously , the first step towards an ‘officially permitted activity and behavior ‘ regime.""""......

So True, and more to come.

We have been and are living under a delusion of freedom and independence.....

Sure brings to mind: "Ours is not to reason why Ours is but to do and die."... Lord Tennyson