TERRORISM: FBI Still Faces Intelligence Lag Post 9/11, page 1

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Topic started on 28-9-2004 @ 09:19 AM by lmgnyc

Although addressing the government's lacking translation capabilities has been a top priority for the Bush administration in its campaign against terrorism, the goal of quick and accurate message translation is far from being achieved. According to the declassified portion of a Justice Department report released yesterday, the F.B.I. still has over 120,000 hours of potentially revealing terrorism-related recordings that have yet to be translated. This represents 20% of all material recorded in languages associated with terrorists. Additional linguists were brought on in the wake of September 11th which should have alleviated workload issues, however the report points to management and efficiency problems that prevented the linguists from doing their duties.

To compound the problem, the Justice Department noted that the F.B.I. has yet to replace many of it's outdated computed systems, although it has repeatedly been called upon to do so. These outdated systems led to untranslated Al Qaeda recordings to be systematically deleted due to limited storage capacity.

www.nytimes.com
F.B.I. Said to Lag on Translations of Terror Tapes
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: September 28, 2004

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 - Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks, more than 120,000 hours of potentially valuable terrorism-related recordings have not yet been translated by linguists at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and computer problems may have led the bureau to systematically erase some Qaeda recordings, according to a declassified summary of a Justice Department investigation that was released on Monday.

The report, released in edited form by Glenn A. Fine, the department's inspector general, found that the F.B.I. still lacked the capacity to translate all the terrorism-related material from wiretaps and other intelligence sources and that the influx of new material has outpaced the bureau's resources.

Overhauling the government's translation capabilities has been a top priority for the Bush administration in its campaign against terrorism. Qaeda messages, saying "Tomorrow is zero hour" and "The match is about to begin," were intercepted by the National Security Agency on Sept. 10, 2001, but not translated until days later, underscoring the urgency of the problem.

The inspector general's report on the F.B.I., the lead agency for combating domestic terrorism, said the bureau faced "significant management challenges" in providing quick and accurate translations.

The report offered the most comprehensive assessment to date of the F.B.I.'s problems in deciphering hundreds of thousands of intercepted phone calls, conversations, e-mail messages, documents and other material that could include information about terrorist plots and foreign intelligence matters. It revealed problems not only in translating material quickly, but also in ranking the work and in ensuring that hundreds of newly hired linguists were providing accurate translations. While linguists are supposed to undergo periodic proficiency exams under F.B.I. policy, that requirement was often ignored last year, the inspector general found in the publicly released summary of its investigation. Most of the report remains classified.

Congressional officials who have been briefed recently by the F.B.I. on the translation issue said the report offered a much bleaker assessment than the bureau has acknowledged, and leading senators from both parties denounced what they described as foot-dragging in fixing the problem.

"What good is taping thousands of hours of conversations of intelligence targets in foreign languages if we cannot translate promptly, securely, accurately and efficiently?" asked Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. "The Justice Department's translation mess has become a chronic problem that has obvious implications for our national security."

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

It has been three years since 9/11 and a vital component necessary to make us safer from terrorism is still in disarray. The importance of translating this information cannot be any more evident in the fact that messages from Al Qaeda were received on September 10th that said "Tomorrow is zero hour" and "The match is about to begin," which would have raised major red flags that something big was going to go down on 9/11. Getting to this information in a timely manner should be paramount to the "war on terror." The "war on terror" has to be won on the intelligence front before it can be won on the battlefield.

I don't think that the problems are endemic to the FBI, either. With George Tenet resigning from the CIA in June of this year amid claims of mismanagement , I wonder how the disarray was allowed to continue for so long after 9/11 if this was a priority to the Bush administration. The fact that the intelligence community is still mismanaged, disorganized and still using outdated technology is very troubling and I'm not sure how this fits in with Bush's claims that the intelligence community is stronger.

[edit on 28-9-2004 by Nerdling]

reply posted on 28-9-2004 @ 11:08 AM by torque

I think the FBI had more than it could handle. It should be law enforcement, not intel. Isn't Tom Ridge the Homeland Security Bigwig? Seems like figuring out their chatter should be number one since it's obvious they're not really spending a lot of time on the airport security or borders. It's really disgraceful considering that these are the words right out of the horses mouths just sitting there waiting to tell us something. It'll be pretty bad if something else big happens and it turns out it was all right there in front of us this whole time. I'd like to think it's a trick to make the terrorists believe they can speak freely and we're so far behind we can never catch them, but unfortunately I believe that we're this bad off. Disgraceful.

reply posted on 28-9-2004 @ 11:41 AM by SomewhereinBetween

Overhauling the government's translation capabilities has been a top priority for the Bush administration in its campaign against terrorism. Qaeda messages, saying "Tomorrow is zero hour" and "The match is about to begin," were intercepted by the National Security Agency on Sept. 10, 2001, but not translated until days later, underscoring the urgency of the problem.

This certainly corroborates Sibel Edmonds' story. With 123,000 backlog tapes awaiting translation, it is safe to assume that another "zero hour" can slip through the cracks.

reply posted on 28-9-2004 @ 02:21 PM by lmgnyc

What happened to Sibel Edmonds was incredible--and there is so much evidence to corroborate her story. It is just so amazing to me that important--vital-- information that could lead us to terrorists could be just sitting there on tape and no one is listening to it. I just don't understand it.

And to add insult to injury, her lawsuit was dismissed because of "security issues." ugh.

Still, the question I have is that this intelligence issues were known even back in 2002--if this was a priority, why wasn't anything done about it?

reply posted on 28-9-2004 @ 02:35 PM by RANT

Originally posted by lmgnyc
Still, the question I have is that this intelligence issues were known even back in 2002--if this was a priority, why wasn't anything done about it?

Our governemnt had other priorities. Bush is trying to tell us he's made us safer by invading and occupying Iraq while not only shunning many of the 9/11 findings but ignoring Intelligence we do have.

Tapes since 9/11 not being analyzed is indefensible. Not doing X-ray imaging on airline freight is beyond stupid (though certainly more cost effective for the industry).