Over the next several days, you’re going to be seeing the name Sibel Edmonds come up. In fact, I’d not be surprised to see it come up in Rice’s testimony to the 9/11 commission next Thursday. In fact, I have to wonder if that’s why the Democrats are so hot on getting her back in to testify. You’ll see why I say that as we proceed.
Who is she?
Well, Edmonds in October 2002 appeared on 60 Minutes and leveled several rather sensational criticisms of the FBI’s translation department, where she’d worked until she got fired. She claimed, for example, that her supervisor had told her to translate intercepted documents slowly, if at all, so that the agency’s budget would be increased. As such, she claimed, vital intel was lost. This would have occurred in the late 90’s under Bill Clinton’s presidency.
She went on to claim that many of her co-workers were not only incompetent, but that one, a Melek “Can” (Jan) Dickerson, had tried to recruit Edmonds to a terrorist front organization, had deliberately failed to translate important documents, so as to prevent the discovery of their import, and that this same co-worker, threatened to kill Edmonds and her family. This charge seems to have some serious credibility issues… Dickerson’s husband is U.S. Air Force Maj. Douglas Dickerson.
Appsrently this wasn’t large enough to attract any attention to Edmonds, so she went on to claim that she was offered a substantial raise and a full time job in order to not go public that she had been asked by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to retranslate and adjust the translations of [terrorist] subject intercepts that had been received before September 11, 2001 by the FBI and CIA.
More recently… January, I think, Edmonds gave an interview to Gail Sheehy. In that interview, she repeated these allegations, and the went on to add some verbiage about how she’d be telling her tale about her supervisors and co-workers to the 9/11 commission.
Apparently now on a roll she want on to level new charges, saying that when she reported the earlier mentioned threat against her and her family to the FBI’s executive assistant director, that the director (Dale Watson, at the time I think) asked Turkey to interrogate Edmonds’ sister, who was in Intsanbul at the time.
The FBI fired Edmonds in 2002, and she responded by suing them… In February of 2004. The lawsuit case is still pending as this is written.
Now of course the link here, the reason why this is going to come up, is the Democrats are looking for something / anything they can use to wedge the idea that President Bush knew about 9/11 in advance, under the carpet. Which in turn is why I suggest this will come up at the Commission on Thursday.
I’ve seen several people question why, given such explosive charges, this woman’s name hasn’t been all over the papers, and the TV.
The reason you’ve not heard much about this woman is simple… The woman is a nut, and even the leftist press can’t make this pig fly. As usual, their ‘rock solid’ evidence is questionable at best; Edmonds is simpy not credible. I personally think she has strong personal motivations to discredit those who fired her, that have nothing to do with National Security, 9/11 or anything but her job performance. Beyond that, there seems to be some questions about her mental stability in many quarters.
That point aside, there’s the issue of why she’s only bringing this lawsuit now… Literally years after the event, and why she would wait until an election cycle.
Then, too, there’s the idea that all of this went down during the Clinton administration, and so if the Democrats are hoping to hang anything on Mr. Bush, this tactic will backfire.
Tags: BitsBlog
