[whelan costen]

wow interesting interview, and very interesting website. Thanks for posting this.

[Spanky]

Go to this thread: <br /> <a href="http://www.vivelecanada.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?forum=12&showtopic=12582">http://www.vivelecanada.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?forum=12&showtopic=12582</a><br /> in the Security, Defense, Military forum for posts with links to 2 recent stories by investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker which corroborate Sibel Edmond's testimony about FBI coverups of terrorist connections to drug smuggling operations which also involve prominent US politicians.

[Spanky]

Excerpts from another recent Sibel Edmonds interview.<br /> <br /> SH = Interviewer Scott Horton<br /> SE = Sibel Edmonds<br /> <br /> SH: We know already there were problems with some of your colleagues in the translation department which we will discuss in more detail later. Now the big story, why I brought you back on the show, is that finally a reporter has come from across the ocean to dig into this story. And it seems he's unearthed quite a bit from others in government who have had a chance to hear your whole story behind closed doors.<br /> <br /> SE: I'm so glad you pointed out the fact that David Rose came from England and spent four or five months on this story, while for three – three and a half years nobody here, at least from the main press, has bothered to do so. And David worked diligently on this story and interviewed many officials in the FBI and from the Congress and basically put out this 11 page story. I'm very thankful to David and to Vanity Fair to a degree.<br /> <br /> SH: It seems from this article that the reason he was so successful in being able to dig up all these the facts is that from the very beginning you have gone through all the proper channels, you told your story to all the people who should have had it told to them. So basically what David Rose did was follow you around and got anonymous leaks from the people you have been allowed to tell your story to in secret, right?<br /> <br /> SE: See, this is why I love interviews with you Scott because you are right on the facts. Great. You are absolutely correct, because I testified several times before various representatives and senators in the summer of 2002, and gave them my testimony and as you know, two senators, Grassley and Senator Leahy. They came out three years ago, publicly they said the FBI, during their meetings with the Senate confirmed all my allegations and denied none – and in fact Senator Grassley said "she is very credible" because even the FBI management have corroborated all her stories and all her reports. And he pointed out that he was going to turn the department upside down and get to the bottom of this issue and here, three years later nobody has even touched it.<br /> <br /> I have several gag orders. In fact, based on the research that my attorneys, the ACLU, has conducted, I am the most gagged person in United States history, believe me or not – someone who worked for six months as a language specialist at the FBI. As you know, they gagged the Congress in May 2004. The Department of Justice issued a gag order, and ordered the senators to pull off everything from their Web sites, and not to comment on anything that has to do with my case. The inspector general's report was gagged and completely classified. They issued the state-secrets privilege for the second time when the 9/11 family members attorneys subpoenaed my deposition, they came out and invoked this gag order. So there has been so many gag orders, and some of it so ridiculous that basically they are gagging even my existence. And as you pointed out, I've provided this information to the Congress, to the 9/11 commission – all tape-recorded – to the inspector general's office, and the Department of Justice. If today you were to call the Congress and ask them, they would say it's under investigation; well it's been for three and a half years. How can it be under investigation for three and a half years, with all these gag orders, and we have not gotten to the bottom of this thing, and these criminals have not faced prosecution in this country?<br /> <br /> SH What sort of criminal investigation should we expect from the FBI on this matter when they are the ones to be investigated?<br /> <br /> SE: That's exactly the problem. If you're in some company or in other places and you come across these criminal activities, who would you report it to? You would report it to the Department of Justice and the FBI. But what happens when you come across these criminal activities – and find out through the Department of Justice and the FBI and the fact they are blocking it from being investigated, then who do you go to? I have been asking this question, and that's why I started this court case three years ago (which is being gagged and stopped – they are fighting it ferociously) is so that maybe through the court system, we can subpoena witnesses and bring out these documents so I can give them to the American public and say "here are these documents."<br /> <br /> SNIP<br /> <br /> SH: Sibel, let's see if we can figure out why they [the government] are going to such lengths to keep you quiet. Can you tell me, what is the American Turkish Council – let me rephrase that, can you tell me what the American Turkish Council is?<br /> <br /> SE: Well sure, it's on the Web site. They are this lobbying organization for Turkish business and relationship between U.S. and Turkey. It's exactly like AIPAC<br /> <br /> SH: Oh good, exactly like AIPAC!<br /> <br /> SE: Exactly. In fact, they have so many crossovers, if you look at their members you will see many that are members of both organizations. And if you look at the people who are in the management and are in charge of these lobbying groups, you come across the same names, which is very interesting.<br /> <br /> SH: That is very interesting. In fact, my next guest after you will be Bob Dreyfuss about the AIPAC spy scandal and something that occurred to me last night as I read the Vanity Fair piece An Inconvenient Patriot about you, was that some of the things I read about in there, and we'll try to get to some of this a little bit later, were about "unnamed Department of State and Department of Defense employees," which made me wonder whether perhaps your case is tied in with the AIPAC spy scandal case in any way.<br /> <br /> SE: Absolutely. And I cannot go into any details – and maybe some other investigative journalist from across the ocean will come here and do the rest of this article – as article part two. But even the AIPAC spy scandal, as far as I'm reading today, is just touching the surface of it. It's going only to a certain degree. It doesn't go high enough, in what it involves and how far it goes, and that's as far, and the best – as far as I can explain.<br /> <br /> SH: Thank you very much for that, and we'll see what we can make of it. Can I ask you how you first learned of the American Turkish Council?<br /> <br /> SE: Oh, no, you can't.<br /> <br /> SH: That's classified. Well, according to this article, which is written everybody by David Rose, it's in the current issue of Vanity Fair magazine. It's called "An Inconvenient Patriot." And I'm going to go ahead, because the states-secrets privilege has not been invoked against me so far – I don't think. David Rose says in this article – he basically talked to the congressional staffers who have debriefed you. And what they say, is while you were translating intercepts for the FBI you overheard American Turkish Council employees discussing criminal activity among both Republicans and Democrats, and even including the Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis Hastert. Can you cough or sneeze or blink twice or anything for me?<br /> <br /> SE: All I can tell you is that the sources that David Rose interviewed – they were the people that were present during the investigation of the Congress and their meetings with the FBI, so I am sure that it was not based on hearsay that they made these comments. I am sure that they based it on the wiretap recordings they heard and the documents. So they didn't just come and say this is what it was without having all those documents and files from the FBI to go over, and I guess their statements were based on the evidence that was presented to them both by the inspector general's office – Glenn Fine briefed the Congress – because as you know the IG report was classified, but they briefed the Congress. So I guess they relied on the documents from the inspector general's office and the FBI to make those statements. I guess that was the case.<br /> <br /> SH: So this just doesn't come from you but from the official investigations of your accusations as well?<br /> <br /> SE: That's what I would assume because if these are Congressional sources who were in these investigations, and also David Rose spoke with certain FBI officials who were part of these files and case investigations within the FBI – they would not make comments on what they think it is but they would provide facts, that is my assumption. Otherwise, Vanity Fair would not print it.<br /> <br /> SH: The article quotes one unnamed official as saying, "This is the reason why Ashcroft reacted to Sibel in such an extreme fashion. It was to keep this from coming out."<br /> <br /> SE: Uh, when you say "this," I don't know. If you go to my CBS 60 Minutes transcript of October 2002 – even though they chose to broadcast mostly the administrative problems and issues – I had one statement there that said that this involved people, officials, well-recognized names in the Department of State, Department of Defense, and certain elected officials. So I believe the source is also quoted somewhere else talking about the fact that in the late '90s they were going to have a special prosecutor to uncover these criminal activities and corruption, including the politicians – this is in the article. But later, after the administration changed, they decided to cool it and not do anything with it, so they stopped the investigation and they went against the initial decision of having a special prosecutor trying and indicting these criminals in the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the Congress.<br /> <br /> SNIP<br /> <br /> SH: Well, and then when he found out about the new arrangement where Melek Can Dickerson was assigned all of the important stuff, and you were assigned all of the unimportant stuff, he had you go back and retranslate and take a look at some of the things that she had marked "not pertinent" right?<br /> <br /> SE: Correct. He asked me and another language specialist to go over all those pieces of communication that were stamped "not pertinent to be translated" by Dickerson, – and some of them were really long conversations pieces – but to go back and translate them, and find out whether or not the information there was pertinent.<br /> <br /> SH: And did you find that she had mostly been correct in marking things "not pertinent"?<br /> <br /> SE: No, just the opposite. Just through our first batch, the first 10 or 12 communications that had been blocked we came across extremely important, pertinent – information that had to do with illegal activities between certain foreign elements and certain agencies in the United States.<br /> <br /> SH: And for reporting all of this to your superiors, you are the one who was punished.<br /> <br /> SE: Initially, actually, they wanted to give me a raise and a promotion. In return, they asked me to just leave it alone and not report it further up to the headquarters. And that's how it worked within the FBI's language division. There were things like that happening all the time. After I insisted that this needed to be investigated and went higher up, they started threatening me and retaliating against me. They busted into my home and confiscated my home computer – my husband's home computer – and they forced me to take a polygraph, and then later they fired me.<br /> <br /> SH: Also it says in the Vanity Fair article that Melek Can Dickerson actually threatened you.<br /> <br /> SE: Correct, that occurred in January 2002.<br /> <br /> SH: If I remember correctly the quote was something to the effect of "Why are you doing this? You could be putting your family back in Turkey in danger."<br /> <br /> SE: That's correct.<br /> <br /> SH: Did anything ever come of this threat?<br /> <br /> SE: Well yes… I really don't feel like going through that, because that is really hard for me to speak about because my family's life has changed. They had to come to the U.S. They had to apply for political asylum, in fact, the Congress helped them to apply for political asylum based on documents they received from Turkey that had various threats in it. But that is not the point I want to make as far as the country goes, and that's why I usually tell people that I don't think the issue here is about whistleblowing, being fired, being wronged – that is not the most important issue here. The most important issue is: What were these criminal activities, and why instead of pursuing these our government chooses to cover it up and actually issue classification and gag orders so the American public will not know about what is going on within these agencies within their government – and even within the Congress? That is my focus point, and I have been trying – it is what I have written and have said in my interviews – to steer away from the fact that yes, I was fired, yes I was wronged, and they retaliated against me, and how they ruined my life – which is all true. But this is not where I want to focus, and this is not where I want the country to focus, this is not where I want the Congress to focus. I'm not saying, "Look, they did wrong to me, and this is not fair." I'm saying, "I came forward because criminal activities are taking place – have been taking place – some of them since 1997." Some of these activities are 100 percent related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, and they are giving this illusion that they are pursuing these cases, but they are not. If the case touches upon certain countries or certain high level people, certain sensitive relations, then they don't. But, on the other hand, they go and talk about lower-level criminal activity that boils down to people like Atta and Hamdi.<br /> <br /> Interview posted in full at www.antiwar.com. See:<br /> <a href="http://www.antiwar.com/orig/horton.php?articleid=7032">Sibel Edmonds Interview</a>