US 'knew' air attack coming

2004-04-02 14:30

London - US officials knew months before September 11, 2001 that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network was planning to use aircraft to carry out a terrorist attack, a former FBI translator has alleged.

Sibel Edmonds told the Independent newspaper, in an interview published on Friday, that a claim by US President George W Bush's national security advisor Condoleezza Rice that there had been no such warnings was "an outrageous lie".

The former translator with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation said that she had discussed her claims during a three-hour closed-door session with a US commission looking into the September 11 attacks.

"There was general information about the time frame, about methods to be used - but not specifically about how they would be used - and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks," Edmonds said.

Skyscrapers

"There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities - with skyscrapers."

The 33-year-old Turkish-American translator said that, based on documents she had seen during her time with the FBI, after September 11, it was "impossible" that US intelligence officials had no forewarning of the attacks.

In a significant about-face, Bush agreed on Tuesday to let Rice testify before the independent bipartisan commission looking into September 11 attacks, in which three airliners were hijacked and flown into the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania.

Tried to silence her

The Independent reported that the White House had sought to silence Edmonds and had obtained a gagging order from a court.

Edmonds emerged as a whistle-blower in July last year when, on the CBS television network, she alleged that FBI officials deliberately slowed down the translation of September 11-related documents to make it appear that the department was sorely understaffed.

Edmonds was among many language experts who had responded to appeals for translators in the days following September 11. She was tasked with translating documents and recordings from FBI wire taps.

From the documents she saw, she told The Independent, it was clear that there was sufficient information in spring and summer of 2001 to indicate that an attack was being planned.

"President Bush said they had no specific information about September 11 and that is accurate but only because he said September 11," Edmonds told the Independent.

There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away.

- AFP