vanity fair sibel

i just re-read sibel's VF article and a couple of things jumped out at me, or i'd forgotten, or they have new relevance or some such (which happens just about every time i re-read an interview or article about her story - hopefully the story is becoming more apparent).

here are the interesting bits:

Melek’s husband, Douglas, a U.S. Air Force major who had spent several years as a military attaché in the Turkish capital of Ankara, did most of the talking, Matthew recalls. “He was pretty outspoken, pretty outgoing about meeting his wife in Turkey, and about his job. He was in weapons procurement.”

i'm not sure i remembered that he was in ankara in the weapons biz. are weapons procurers ever corrupt?

Sibel also recalled hearing wiretaps indicating that Turkish Embassy targets frequently spoke to staff members at the A.T.C.... But the wiretaps suggested to her that the Washington office of the A.T.C. was being used as a front for criminal activity.

One counter-intelligence official familiar with Edmonds’s case has told Vanity Fair that the F.B.I. opened an investigation into covert activities by Turkish nationals in the late 1990’s. That inquiry found evidence, mainly via wiretaps, of attempts to corrupt senior American politicians in at least two major cities—Washington and Chicago. Toward the end of 2001, Edmonds was asked to translate some of the thousands of calls that had been recorded by this operation, some dating back to 1997.

i've never really understood the chicago connection. i know hastert is based there - but is that all?

also, there are many sibel-doubters out there who wonder how a part-time newbie could have possibly uncovered all of this nefarious behaviour. we have to remember that a lot of the translating she was doing was from the archives, and she was being directed by an ongoing investigation. that is, she wasnt listening to random phone calls in real-time, she was being told by her FBI field officer 'hey - we think this guy is a criminal, please translate these conversations from the archive' - and apparently the agent's hunches were correct. it's not that Sibel 'uncovered' anything per se - she's no different from really from, say, a junior auditor on the Enron account who is asked to take a detailed look into the transactions of a suspicious caymans company by her manager who already suspected there was something amiss there.

(the recorded coversation) was explosive; what sounded like attempts to bribe elected members of Congress, both Democrat and Republican. “There was pressure within the bureau for a special prosecutor to be appointed and take the case on, “the official says. Instead, his colleagues were told to alter the thrust of their investigation – away from elected politicians and toward appointed officials. “This is the reason why Ashcroft reacted to Sibel in such an extreme fashion,” he says “It was to keep this from coming out.”

wow - i'd never noticed that one. this is interesting because sibel has specifically noted that there were some elected and some career people involved over a long time - which probably led to Grossman's outing. interestingly, she's only started mentioning Grossman in the past few months - why did she withhold that till now? part of the answer, i think, is that she told me that the vagaries of her gag order allowed her to point to certain information once it was out in public. her outing of grossman to deliso came shortly after xymphora's post speculating that Grossman was involved. I wonder if that was the trigger for her. probably not - but something triggered her.

In her secure testimony, Edmonds disclosed some of what she recalled hearing. In all, says a source who was present, she managed to listen to more than 40 of the Chicago recordings supplied by (Agent) Robertz. Many involved an F.B.I. target at the city’s large Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American Associates.
Some of the calls reportedly contained what sounded like references to large scale drug shipments and other crimes.

again, it's not that Sibel stumbled across all this stuff inadvertently (as per my enron example above), the agent rightly suspected that some turkish speaking people were involved in certain crimes, so he asked the fbi's only turkish translator to translate the conversations. As it turns out, the agent was correct in his suspicions, and there was necessarily a turkish translator in the loop. it happened to be sibel.

(btw - thanks to everyone who has emailed in the last couple of days. keep it coming. i might be slow in responding. sorry)