'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities..."

[Q]

'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes'

Whistleblower the White House wants to silence speaks to The Independent

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington

02 April 2004

A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.

She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie".

Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".

She told The Independent yesterday: "I gave details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=507514

[seventhson]

1. This is IT!!! Read this: it confirms this hero's story!

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/Hatfield-R-091901/hatfield-r-091901.html


Why would Osama bin Laden want to kill Dubya, his former business partner?
By James Hatfield


Editor's note: In light of last week's horrific events and the Bush administration's reaction to them, we are reprising the following from the last column Jim Hatfield wrote for Online Journal prior to his tragic death on July 18:

July 3, 2001—

....


German intelligence services have stated that bin Laden is covertly financing neo-Nazi skinhead groups throughout Europe to launch another terrorist attack at a high-profile American target—his first since the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen last October.

According to counter-terrorism experts quoted in Germany's largest newspaper, the attack on Dubya might be a James Bond-like aerial strike in the form of remote-controlled airplanes packed with plastic explosives.


Hatfield was suicided two weeks later.

I wonder why?

This should be investigated by the 9-11 commission

[Andy_Stephenson]

3. This specifically...

"the attack on Dubya might be a James Bond-like aerial strike in the form of remote-controlled airplanes packed with plastic explosives."


Didn't the WH say Bush was the target? How would they know?

[Spoon]

2. I don't understand how she could say that the US "knew" and

can call people liers when she didn't even get hired to translate the documents until 9/13/01. Yes, we had the info, but it doesn't mean anything if you don't know what it says. Her account is confusing. A strong case can be made for not having nearly enough translators, though.

[The Night Owl]

4. Wrong! Edmonds was hired to check the accuracy of previous translations...

The previous translations Edmonds was hired to check revealed that the government had enough to know that terrorists were planning to use planes as weapons.

[realdeal22k]

5. Does she have copies or some others to back up her story?

Maybe Kerry can summons up the documents under some Senate privilege clause? Does he have enough clout in the Senate to examine the documents?