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Ex-FBI worker challenges 9/11 `lie'
Claims U.S. had warnings of airplane attacks

White House adviser's statements `not accurate'


TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON-When Condoleezza Rice takes her seat before the independent 9/11
commission here Thursday her assignment will be nothing short of halting the
most serious assault yet on the credibility of U.S. President George W.
Bush.

Sitting in the hearing room as Rice testifies will be a 33-year-old former
FBI translator who may yet hold the key to the question now engulfing this
nation - did an indifferent Bush administration ignore specific warnings
that Al Qaeda was about to launch horrific attacks in the United States on
Sept. 11, 2001?

While allegations brought by former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke
have swung the tide against the Bush White House in recent weeks, Sibel
Edmonds delivered her own broadside against her government in private,
during more than three hours of testimony to investigators for the 9/11
panel on Feb. 11.

Edmonds, who was hired as a translator by the FBI nine days after the
attacks, told the investigative panel she has seen and handled intelligence
documents and cables that show Rice, the national security adviser, is wrong
when she says there was no advance warning of air attacks on U.S. soil.

She saw intelligence documents that pointed to the use of aircraft against
skyscrapers in major U.S. cities.

"We had various information from various sources and investigations," she
said in an interview yesterday.

"In terms of specific cities? Yes. It was not only New York and Washington,
D.C. There were four or five cities specifically named.

"There were specific activities known. Domestic institutions were being
targeted and airplanes were going to be used. That was known. Now, did it
say Sept. 11, 8:30 in the morning? I am not aware of such information. Did
it say it was going to crash the planes in the building? I am not privy to
that information.

"But there was specific information on the use of airplanes. There were
people issuing orders and information on people already in place in this
country months before Sept. 11."

She said she is not passing on hearsay, but information on specific
documents, the names of witnesses, the names of FBI agents and other
information so investigators can rely "not on my word," but on the documents
themselves. Most of them were dated April and May, 2001, she said. She has
previously provided such information to congressional investigators.

Edmonds, a Turkish-born U.S. citizen, said she was "appalled" by Rice's
public statements, delivered in a number of television interviews, that
there was no information indicating planes would be used on domestic
targets.

Had Rice indicated that she did not know, Edmonds may have given her the
benefit of the doubt.

"Then I would say maybe the FBI did not take the information to her, maybe
she didn't know," Edmonds said.

"But she's is saying `we' did not know, including herself, her advisers and
the FBI. That statement is not accurate. I've never really been diplomatic
in life. It's a lie and a lie is a lie."

An Aug. 6, 2001, daily intelligence briefing prepared for Bush indicated Al
Qaeda might have been planning to hijack airplanes, a point the White House
has not disputed.

Rice has maintained there was no specific information in the briefing that
would indicate the planes could have been used for suicide missions against
U.S. targets, a point that critics have always questioned.

On the CBS program 60 Minutes eight days ago, she said everything pointed to
"an attack abroad."

In an opinion piece for the Washington Post published last month, Rice
wrote: "Despite what some have suggested, we received no intelligence that
terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as
missiles.

"Some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack planes to try and
free U.S.-held terrorists."

Yesterday, two major U.S. newspapers ran front-page stories that gave
further credence to the testimony of Clarke.

The New York Times published an exhaustive study of anti-terrorism efforts
by the Bush White House during the summer of 2001, concluding that vigilance
may have peaked in early July that summer, followed by "a scattered and
inconsistent" effort in the weeks before Sept. 11.

The Washington Post, in a series of interviews with former administration
officials and congressional investigators, found broad support for Clarke's
claim that the White House reacted slowly to warnings of the attacks.

The paper also reviewed declassified testimony given by Clarke in 2002 in
front of congressional investigators and found no clear evidence of
contradictions in his later testimony.

Also yesterday, the chair of the commission investigating the attacks said
the White House would vet its final report "line-by-line," a review Thomas
Kean said he was surprised to learn was required by law.

Vice-chair Lee Hamilton, in a joint appearance on NBC's Meet the Press with
Kean, said the commission will abide by the law but will not allow the White
House to "distort" the report.

Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, and Hamilton, a former
Democratic congressman from Indiana, are to submit their final report in
late July.

"I've been surprised by some of the things we've found," Kean said.

It is impossible to corroborate Edmonds' statements, but she knows there
have been attempts to discredit her. She knows whistle-blowers are often
dismissed "as kooks or nutcases" and she shares that opinion regarding some
others who make unsubstantiated claims or promulgate conspiracy theories.

She is also embroiled in a legal battle with U.S. Attorney-General John
Ashcroft over her dismissal from the FBI. But she says she cannot be written
off as a disgruntled ex-employee because she was making allegations about
slipshod procedures within the FBI before she fired.

Edmonds has filed a lawsuit against the department, saying she was fired
after she raised security concerns within the FBI. The justice department's
internal inspector-general is investigating her claim she was fired in
reprisal for her allegations about shoddy transcriptions, unqualified
translators and a potential security breach.

"She is a spectacular woman," said Edmonds' New York lawyer Eric Seiff.

"If I am being fooled here, then I am being fooled big time. She comes
across as wonderfully straight with me in all our dealings."

Bush, after months of refusals, succumbed to public pressure and allowed
Rice's public testimony this week.

--
"We must create a <economic> crisis in order to ensure that there is no
alternative to a smaller government." - Bush - Imprimus Magazine 1995.

"We seek to remove resources from the control of the state, thereby starving
it." - International Society for Individual Liberty - NeoCon Libertarian.

"Throughout his term, Bush has implied tax cuts would starve the government,
paying for themselves by causing budget deficits that, in turn, would place
heavy pressure on Congress to lower spending." - Jeff Lemieux - Senior
Economist - Progressive Policy Institute.

"They have an agenda which is to starve the government of revenue. But in
order to get it through, they keep on having to pretend that the tax cuts
are affordable, and so they've been suppressing the likely cost of
everything, including the war on terror." - Paul Krugman - Economist.