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WASHINGTON-When Condoleezza Rice takes her seat before the independent
9/11commission 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.
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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.
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