Have you read about "Classified Woman"?

- Guest Blogged by David Swanson

[Ed Note: The BRAD BLOG ^[1] has been reporting on the remarkable story of Sibel Edmonds since the darkest days of 2005 ^[2] and in nearly 100 articles since then ^[3].
Once described by the ACLU as the "the most gagged person in the
history of the United States of America", the Iranian-born former FBI
translator fought to blow the whistle on traitorous deception and
cover-up inside the FBI, blackmail inside the U.S. Congress and
startling allegations of espionage and nuclear secrets sold to U.S.
enemies on the foreign black market by some of our nation's highest
ranking officials.

In 2007, after the Supreme Court had refused to hear her case
thanks to the Bush Administration's persistent use of the so-called
"State Secrets Privilege," legendary "Pentagon Papers" whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg told The BRAD BLOG ^[4] her allegations were "far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers" on the heels of her exclusive announcement on these pages ^[5] that she would break her gag order to tell all to any major U.S. media outlet who would allow her a platform to do so.

Even though CBS' 60 Minutes had covered her story in
2002 when she was not allowed to speak, they showed no interest once she
promised to do so anyway, leading Ellsberg to guest blog here decrying
the American media as "complicit in cover-up" ^[6]. It took the UK's Sunday Times (a Rupert Murdoch property!) to finally break some of her most explosive allegations ^[7] publicly in 2008, which outed CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson would describe as "stunning" ^[8].

Now, after waiting more than 340 days ^[11]
for the FBI's pre-clearance review of her memoir --- they are supposed
to do so within 30 days --- Edmonds has decided to release her own
story, in full, without their prior approval or redactions. We've now
got our own copy of her new book, Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story ^[12],
but our colleague, author and activist David Swanson has happily beaten
us to reading it in full and has generously offered us his own review
which follows below. - BF]

Sibel Edmonds' new book, Classified Woman ^[13], is like an FBI file on the FBI, only without the incompetence.

The experiences she recounts resemble K.'s trip to the castle, as
told by Franz Kafka, only without the pleasantness and humanity.

I've read a million reviews of nonfiction books about our government
that referred to them as "page-turners" and "gripping dramas," but I had
never read a book that actually fit that description until now...

The F.B.I., the Justice Department, the White House, the Congress,
the courts, the media, and the nonprofit industrial complex put Sibel
Edmonds through hell. This book is her triumph over it all, and part of
her contribution toward fixing the problems she uncovered and lived
through.

Edmonds took a job as a translator at the FBI shortly after 9-11.
She considered it her duty. Her goal was to prevent any more terrorist
attacks. That's where her thinking was at the time, although it has now
changed dramatically. It's rarely the people who sign up for a
paycheck and healthcare who end up resisting or blowing a whistle.

Edmonds found at the FBI translation unit almost entirely two types
of people. The first group was corrupt sociopaths, foreign spies, cheats
and schemers indifferent to or working against U.S. national security.
The second group was fearful bureaucrats unwilling to make waves. The
ordinary competent person with good intentions who risks their job to
"say something if you see something" is the rarest commodity. Hence the
elite category that Edmonds found herself almost alone in:
whistleblowers.

Reams of documents and audio files from before 9-11 had never been
translated. Many more had never been competently or honestly
translated. One afternoon in October 2001, Edmonds was asked to
translate verbatim an audio file from July 2001 that had only been
translated in summary form. She discovered that it contained a
discussion of skyscraper construction, and in a section from September
12th a celebration of a successful mission. There was also discussion
of possible future attacks. Edmonds was eager to inform the agents
involved, but her supervisor Mike Feghali immediately put a halt to the
project.

Two other translators, Behrooz Sarshar and Amin (no last name given),
told Edmonds this was typical. They told her about an Iranian
informant, a former head of SAVAK, the Iranian "intelligence" agency,
who had been hired by the FBI in the early 1990s. He had warned these
two interpreters in person in April 2001 of Osama bin Laden planning
attacks on U.S. cities with airplanes, and had warned that some of the
plotters were already in the United States. Sarshar and Amin had
submitted a report marked VERY URGENT to Special Agent in Charge Thomas
Frields, to no apparent effect. In the end of June they'd again met
with the same informant and interpreted for FBI agents meeting with him.
He'd emphatically warned that the attack would come within the next
two months and urged them to tell the White House and the CIA. But the
FBI agents, when pressed on this, told their interpreters that Frields
was obliged to report everything, so the White House and other agencies
no doubt already knew.

One has to wonder what U.S. public opinion would make of an Iranian having tried to prevent 9-11.

Next, a French translator named Mariana informed Edmonds that in late
June 2001, French intelligence had contacted the FBI with a warning of
the upcoming attacks by airplanes. The French even provided names of
suspects. The translator had been sent to France, and believed her
report had made it to both FBI headquarters and the White House.

Edmonds translated other materials that involved the selling of U.S.
nuclear information to foreigners and spotted a connection to a previous
case involving the purchase of such information. The FBI, under
pressure from the State Department, Edmonds writes, prevented her from
notifying the FBI field offices involved. Edmonds has testified in a court deposition ^[14],
naming as part of a broad criminal conspiracy Representatives Dennis
Hastert, Dan Burton, Roy Blunt, Bob Livingston, Stephen Solarz, and Tom
Lantos, and the following high-ranking U.S. government officials:
Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and Marc Grossman.

When Edmonds was hired, she was the only fully qualified Turkish
translator, and this remained the case. In November 2001, a woman named
Melek Can Dickerson (referred to as "Jan") was hired. She did not
score well on the English proficiency test, and so was not qualified to
sign off on translations, as Edmonds was. Melek's husband Doug
Dickerson worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency under the
procurement logistics division at the Pentagon dealing with Turkey and
Central Asia, and for the Office of Special Plans overseeing Central
Asian policy. This couple attempted to recruit Edmonds and her husband
into the American Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American
Associations, offering large financial benefits. But these were
organizations that the FBI was monitoring. Edmonds reported the
Dickersons' proposal to Feghali, who dismissed it.

Then Edmonds discovered that Jan Dickerson had been forging her
(Edmonds') signature on translations, with Feghali's approval. Then
Edmonds' colleagues told her about Jan taking files out of other
translators' desks and carrying them out of the building. Dickerson
attempted to control the translation of all material from particular
individuals. Dennis Saccher, who was above Feghali, discovered that Jan
was marking every communication from one important person as being not
important for translation. Saccher attempted to address the matter but
was shut down by Feghali, by another supervisor named Stephanie Bryan,
and by the head of "counterintelligence" for the FBI who said that the
Pentagon, White House, State Department, and Congress would not allow an
investigation.

Had Edmonds understood the truth of that statement, it might have
saved her years of frustration and stress, but it would have denied us
the bulk of the revelations in her book. Dickerson threatened Edmonds'
life and those of her family. Edmonds lost her job, her reputation, her
friends, and contact with most of her family members. She watched
Congress cave in to the President. She watched the government protect
the Dickersons by allowing them to flee the country. She listened to
Congressman Henry Waxman and others in 2005 and 2006 promise a full
investigation if the Democrats won a majority, a promise that was
immediately broken when the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007.
Edmonds was smeared in the media, and her story widely ignored when media outlets got parts of it right ^[15].
The Justice Department claimed "States Secrets" and maneuvered for a
cooperative judge (Reggie Walton) to have cases filed by Edmonds
dismissed. The government classified as secret all materials related to
Edmonds' case including what was already public. The Justice
Department issued a gag order to the entire Congress.

And Congress bent over and shouted "Thank you, sir, may I have another?"

As less confrontational approaches failed, Edmonds became increasingly an activist ^[16]
and an independent media participant and creator. Her story and others
she was familiar with were rejected and avoided by the 9-11 Commission.
She worked with angry 9-11 widows and with other whistleblowers to
expose the failures of that commission. Disgusted with whistleblower
support groups that only offered to help her when she was in the news
and never when she needed help most desperately, Edmonds started her own
group, made up of whistleblowers, called the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition ^[17]. She started her own website called Boiling Frogs Post ^[18].

When an unclassified version of a report on Edmonds' case by the
Justice Department's Inspector General was finally released, it
vindicated her.

Edmonds has received awards and recognition ^[19].
Her story has been supported (with rhetoric, not action) by Congress
members and backed up by journalists. It appears in this forthcoming film ^[20].

Coleen Rowley, another FBI whistleblower, one who was honored as a Time
magazine person of the year along with two others, told me: "What I
find so remarkable is Sibel's persistence in trying every avenue and
possible outlet in trying to get the truth out. When going up the chain
of command in the executive branch and Inspector General internal
mechanisms for investigating fraud, waste, and abuse went nowhere, she
sought judicial remedy by filing lawsuits only to be improperly gagged
by 'state secrecy privilege'. Along the way she also sought
congressional assistance, testified to the 9-11 Commission, and engaged
with various media and other non-governmental organizations. It's
somewhat ironic that Sibel herself demonstrated such enormous energy and
passion throughout this decade quite the opposite of the 'boiling frog'
idiom she uses for her website as a warning to others. If her book can
inspire readers to summon even 1/100th of the determination and resolve
she has modeled, there's hope for us!"

Yet, thus far, no branch of our government has lifted its little
finger to fix the problem of secrecy and the corruption it breeds, which
Edmonds argues has grown far worse under President Obama. That's why this book should be spread far and wide ^[21],
and read aloud to our misrepresentatives in Congress if necessary.
This book is a masterpiece that reveals both the details and the broader
pattern of corruption and unaccountability in Washington, D.C. Edmonds
has not exposed bad apples, but a rotten barrel of toxic waste that
will sooner or later infect us all --- not just the whistleblowers like
Sibel and the thousands of people in our government who see something
and dare not say something for fear that we will not have their back.

Let's have their back.

David Swanson's books include War Is A Lie ^[22]. He blogs at http://davidswanson.org ^[23] and http://warisacrime.org ^[24] and works for the online activist organization http://rootsaction.org ^[25]. He hosts Talk Nation Radio ^[26].