Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds has made a number of disturbing claims about the 911 attacks, but perhaps the most disconcerting is her oft-repeated statement that the US authorities have covered up an entire organizational layer within al-Qaeda.
In the documentary, Kill The Messenger, Sibel says:
“They haven’t mentioned anybody who actually is connected to Al Qaida, in mid or higher level.”
Similarly, Sibel often says:
“And I would like to give an analogy – if you take the War on Drugs, imagine if they only went after street dealers and they refused to investigate the mid-level dealers or the drug lords. This is very similar.”
As we approach another 911 anniversary, it’s time we learnt:
- Who are these mid and high-level al-Qaida operatives?
- What role did they play in planning 911?
- What operational support did they provide?
- Why they are still roaming free today?
- Why did the US authorities continually exclude key participants from the official narrative?
Sibel Edmonds is the most gagged woman in US history making it a little it difficult for us, the public, to have a detailed understanding of everything she knows about al-Qaida and the 911 attacks, but she has given interviews and written a number of great articles and letters which enable us to put some of the pieces together.
Immediately after the release of the 911 Commission report, Sibel wrote an open letter to Thomas Kean and the Commission in which she chided the 911 Commission panel for ignoring important issues related to the attacks, and she also made public some of her closed-door testimony to the 911 Commission.
For example, in that letter, Sibel identified specific warnings from April 2001 that:
“1) Osama bin Laden was planning a major terrorist attack in the United States targeting four or five major cities;
- the attack was going to involve airplanes;
- some of the individuals in charge of carrying out this attack were already in place in the United States;
- the attack was going to be carried out soon, in a few months.”
As we all know, this information was not included in the Commission report, and was barely mentioned in the US media even though it was confirmed in the Chicago Tribune and FBI Director Robert Mueller was surprised that he wasn’t asked about it by the 911 Commission. In fact, according to Sibel,
“(A)fter 9/11 the agents and the translators were told to “keep quiet” regarding this issue.”
More importantly, for today’s purposes, I want to focus on this statement from the same letter:
“The public has still not been told of the intentional obstruction of intelligence. The public has not been told that certain information, despite its relevance to terrorist activities, is not shared with counterterrorism units. This was true prior to 9/11, and it remains true today. If counterintelligence receives information about terrorism that implicates certain nations, semi-legit organizations or the politically powerful in this country, then that information is not shared with counterterrorism, regardless of the consequences. In certain cases, frustrated FBI agents have cited “direct pressure by the State Department.” The Department of Justice Inspector General received detailed evidence regarding this issue. I provided your investigators with an account of this issue, the names of other witnesses willing to corroborate this, and the names of U.S. officials involved in these transactions and activities.”
In order to understand this, we need to understand a little bit about how the FBI operates. ‘Counterintelligence’ (CI) is essentially a monitoring organization which routinely investigates various groups – such as embassies, and groups like AIPAC and the American Turkish Council (ATC) – which might be involved in criminal activity, or otherwise might be able to provide valuable information. If and when CI comes across evidence of criminality, they are supposed to forward that information and evidence to other divisions of the FBI which have the authority, and responsibility, to act on the information and arrest the guilty parties. Typically the cases will be forwarded to, for example, Public Corruption, or Narcotics, or in this case, Counter Terrorism (CT).
As Sibel indicates, prior to 911, the State Department put pressure on people at FBI HQ to block the transfer of certain cases to the actionable divisions within the FBI. Outrageously, even immediately after 911, the State Department continued to refuse CI permission to pass significant information to Counter-terrorism that was directly relevant to the 911 attacks. In other words, while the Bush administration was rushing through the PATRIOT ACT, rounding up thousands of ‘suspects’ and gutting the Constitution, the State Department was protecting many of the key participants in the mass murder on 9/11 in order to protect ‘sensitive diplomatic relations.’
Here’s Sibel describing the cover-up:
“What occurred with the 911 related investigation – be it the FBI, or the Department of Defense, or the Department of State, or the CIA or the Pentagon – they choose to basically publicize the deal at the hijacker level – and completely went about covering up certain entities that they had DIRECT evidence, DOCUMENTED evidence of the support networks – be it the financial support networks, or communications, or obtaining visas – they have not touched those individuals. Those individuals are still roaming free! Today!”
And here’s Sibel again, making the same point:
“I will give you an analogy, okay? Say if we decided to have a “war on drugs,” but said in the beginning, “right, we’re only going to go after the young black guys on the street level…” But we decided never to go after the middle levels, let alone the top levels…
It’s like this with the so-called war on terror. We go for the Attas and Hamdis – but never touch the guys on the top.”
Which people are Sibel talking about?
Sibel is talking about three different, though often over-lapping, groups of:
a) Those who were directly involved in planning and/or facilitating the 911 attacks,
b) Those who knowingly, specifically, intentionally provided and facilitated ‘indirect’ support functions for the attacks
c) Those who support and finance al-Qaeda generally.
Let’s begin at the highest level. In Sibel’s “THE HIGHJACKING OF A NATION – Part 1” she quotes Senator Bob Graham’s numerous statements that Saudi Arabia’s support for some of the 911 hijackers has been hidden in the redacted 27 pages of the congressional inquiry’s final report into 911. Sibel notes:
“What Graham is trying to establish in his book and previous public statements in this regard, and doing so under state imposed ‘secrecy and classification’, is that the classification and cover up of those 27 pages is not about protecting ‘U.S. national security, methods of intelligence collection, or ongoing investigations,’ but to protect certain U.S. allies. Meaning, our government put the interests of certain foreign nations and their U.S. beneficiaries far above its own people and their interests. While Saudi Arabia has been specifically pointed to by Graham, other countries involved have yet to be identified.” (emphasis mine)
In various other interviews and articles, Sibel gives us some clues as to which ‘other countries’ she is pointing to. For example, in this 2006 interview, Sibel says
We’re not just talking about – as they say – Saudi Arabia and Egypt – but they have glossed over the involvement of certain entities within other countries – such as Turkey, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan – many Central Asian countries.
They have absolutely covered up the involvement of certain entities – it’s not necessarily only governmental – from these other countries – Central Asia – they call it “Sensitive Diplomatic Relations’ – you know they are putting (military) bases there.
Please note that not only is the US establishing military bases in these countries, these countries are generally:
- Major customers for US military hardware
- US ‘allies’
- Anti-democracy, anti-freedom, police states
- Major players in the heroin trade
- Supporters of various terrorist activity
Sibel describes the US’ hypocrisy (if that’s the correct descriptor), particularly as it relates to Turkey, in The Highjacking of a Nation: Part 2:
“Curiously enough, despite these highly publicized reports and acknowledgments of Turkey’s role in these activities (Ed: nuclear black market, heroin trafficking, illegal arms sales), Turkey continues to receive billions of dollars of aid and assistance annually from the United States. With (Turkey’s) highly placed co-conspirators and connections within the Pentagon, State Department and U.S. Congress, Turkey never has to fear potential sanctions or meaningful scrutiny; just like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The criminal Turkish networks continue their global criminal activities right under the nose of their protector, the United States, and neither the catastrophe falling upon the U.S. on September Eleven, nor their direct and indirect role and ties to this terrorist attack, diminish their role and participation in the shady worlds of narcotics, money laundering and illegal arms transfer.
The ‘respectable’ Turkish companies established and operate bases in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and other similar former Soviet states. Many of these front companies, disguised under construction and tourism entities, have received millions of dollars in grants from the U.S. government, allocated to them by the U.S. congress, to establish and operate criminal networks throughout the region; among their networking partners are Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Albanian Mafia. While the U.S. government painted Islamic charity organizations as the main financial source for Al Qaeda terrorists, it was hard at work trying to cover up the terrorists’ main financial source: narcotics and illegal arms sales. Why?” (emphasis mine)
In summary, certain US allies protect a bunch of organizations which support al Qaeda and the Taliban. Despite this, these organizations, and their host countries, are protected by the US government under the guise of protecting ‘sensitive diplomatic relations’ and “protecting certain foreign business relations.”
When Sibel first began claiming publicly that the US was covering up the role of certain allies in 911, her claims sounded so outrageous that she was largely dismissed. In 2007 it has become accepted fact. For example, when Presidential hopeful Barack Obama states that Pakistan, a US ally, is protecting Osama bin Laden, there is no about about whether this is true or not, only what to do about it. Similarly, Senator Bob Graham says in his book: “It was as if the President’s loyalty lay more with Saudi Arabia than with America’s safety.”
Some Specific Examples of Hiding the Culprits
In this section, I’ll take a look at some examples of organizations and individuals that were believed by the FBI to have played roles in 911 but have escaped any accountability.
American Turkish Council (ATC)
The ATC is a mini-AIPAC – a lobbying group where Turkey’s business and military leaders interface with America’s finest; current politicians from both parties, CEOs from the Military Industrial Complex (MIC), and former high-level officials acting as lobbyists. The ATC was being monitored by FBI counterintelligence (as well as CIA counterintelligence (Brewster Jennings)) and much of the information that Sibel learned is believed to have come from the surveillance of the ATC. Sibel says that the ATC is essentially a front organization for various criminal activity – ranging from nuclear black market, heroin trafficking and illegal arms sales – and was being “monitored in a 9/11 investigation.”
Despite the ATC’s role in all of this criminal activity, it is demonstrably untouchable and is alive and well today. In fact, Sibel goes as far as to say that the ATC is basically a representative arm of the U.S. government, lobbyists, foreign agents, and the MIC. It’s not a surprise, therefore, that the ATC has some type of informal ‘protected’ status, and that the FBI can’t act on any of the information uncovered in any of the counter-intelligence operations.
Melek Can Dickerson
Dickerson joined the FBI in October 2001 as a Turkish translator. She had previously worked at the ATC and two other organizations that were the targets of FBI counterintelligence. Almost immediately, Dickerson began engaging in various espionage activities including attempting to recruit Sibel and other translators into the espionage ring, intentionally covering up FBI evidence which implicated her friends at the ATC and elsewhere, stealing documents and leaking them to her friends, and falsifying “top-secret documents related to 9/11 detainees” in an attempt to falsely exonerate her guilty associates.
Sibel’s claims regarding Dickerson were investigated and validated by the FBI. Remarkably, Dickerson was allowed to keep her Top Secret clearance, and was allowed to continue translating Top Secret information regarding her friends and associates, including 911 investigations, for another 6 months until she fled the US.
Top Targets of 911 Investigation
Melek Can Dickerson and her husband, USAF Major Doug Dickerson, offered to introduce Sibel to some of their friends, including two Turkish guys who belonged to the ATC and worked out of the Turkish embassy in DC. According to Sibel, “These two people were the top targets of our investigation!”
For one reason or other, these two (and maybe more) “top targets” of the 911 investigation were allowed to leave the US in mid-2002 without ever having even been interviewed. Prior to Robert Mueller’s testimony at the 911 Commission, Sibel prepared a list of questions for the Commissioners to ask Mueller including:
“Director Mueller, is it true that several top targets of FBI investigations, related to support networks of terrorist activities, were allowed to leave the United States, months after the 9-11 attacks, without ever being questioned? Why?”
That question remains unanswered.
“Blueprints, pictures and building material for skyscrapers”
Another case that was apparently ignored by the US authorities was a mid-2001 wiretap that Sibel translated of a prisoner who had been arrested on narcotics charges. The FBI agents suspected that he might be involved in terrorism-related activity and wiretapped his phone calls from prison. In one phone call, this individual organized for blueprints, photos & details of the building material of the World Trade Center to be sent to (presumably) the authors of the 911 atacks who were hiding in a remote border location somewhere in the Middle East. The wiretap also “revealed illegal activities in obtaining visas from certain embassies in the Middle East through network contacts and bribery.”
Immediately after 911, another wiretap captured this same individual congratulating an associate on the successful attack.
Who was this individual? Who did he phone to deliver the blueprints? Was he a mastermind of 911? Was he acting on his own initiative? If not, at whose behest (and why was he doing from jail?)? Who was he congratulating? We don’t know the answer to any of these questions.
In fact, in July 2002, FBI Director Robert Mueller “maintained… that the 19 al-Qaida hijackers operated independently in the U.S. and were an isolated case” telling the joint congressional 911 inquiry:
“As far as we know, the (hijackers) contacted no known terrorist sympathizers in the United States,”
Mueller was effectively lying (although he may have technically given himself wiggle-room). As Sibel said, the US authorities
“completely went about covering up certain entities that they had DIRECT evidence, DOCUMENTED evidence of the support networks – be it the financial support networks, or communications, or obtaining visas… They have absolutely covered up the involvement of certain entities – it’s not necessarily only governmental – from these other countries”
Of course, it’s not just Mueller who knows what Sibel knows. I’ll finish with two more quotes. The first is from an interview with Chris Deliso
Deliso: You think they [the government] know who they are, the top guys, and where?
Sibel: Oh yeah, they know.
Deliso: So why don’t they get them?
Sibel: It’s like I told you before – this would upset “certain foreign relations.” But it would also expose certain of our elected officials, who have significant connections with high-level drugs- and weapons-smuggling – and thus with the criminal underground, even with the terrorists themselves.
And finally, in Kill The Messenger, Sibel says:
“I am not the only one who knows about this. Too many people know this!
The fraudulent 9/11 Commissioners, every single one of them knows about my case and the details, and the names, and all the specifics.
Several people within the U.S Congress do know.
Everybody in the FBI, involved, they know!
Everybody in Department of Justice, they know!
My goal has been exposing the criminal activities: money laundering, narcotic activities, and nuclear black market, converging with terrorist activities.
Put out the tapes, put out the wiretaps! Put out those documents! Put out the truth! The truth is going to hurt them, the truth is going to set me free!
Everybody knows except us.
It’s time we knew.
Let Sibel Edmonds Speak
Call Embarrass Waxman. Demand public open hearings:
DC phone: (202) 225-3976
LA phone: 323 651-1040
Capitol switchboard phone: 800-828-0498
(crossposted at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak
let me know if you want to be added to my email list which announces whenever I have a new Sibel-related post. Subject: ‘Sibel email list’)