Text of Sept. 11 Commission Testimony
"The record of that hearing, by the way, including staff statements, is available on our Web site, www.911commission.gov."
Condi's testimony is available in PDF format on the official site. And a possible explanation of why we don't read more about Sibel Edmonds is offered from the WaPo:
Sept. 11 Allegations Lost in Translation
The sensational story of Sibel Edmonds illuminates the world of difference between the international online media and the U.S. press. (...)
Edmonds's story has been almost uniformly ignored in the U.S. daily press. Her allegations have been detailed in the online magazine Salon and several liberal sites are playing them up. The Independent's story was mentioned briefly on Monday in Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing blog on washingtonpost.com. Tim Russert briefly quizzed the Republican and Democratic heads of the 9/11 commission about Edmonds during Sunday's "Meet the Press" program on NBC. Former Clinton White House aide Paul Begala mentioned it last week on CNN's "Crossfire." But the only U.S. newspaper to give Edmonds any extended coverage was the Washington Times. In January, a page-one New York Observer article on Edmonds's complaints about lax security in the FBI's translation office did not include the allegations that first appeared in the Independent.
Clearly, what we have here are two different standards of journalism: one American, one nearly global. The question is where does this difference come from?
One possible explanation is that the heart of Edmonds's story remains unconfirmed. Edmonds did work as a translator for the FBI for six months after the Sept. 11 attacks, but she was fired from her post for unspecified reasons. The documents that she says will corroborate her story have not yet surfaced and may not exist.
Next week's hearings (Freeh and Mueller):
The Commission will hold its tenth public hearing on Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community April 13-14, 2004, in Washington, DC.
More on the Jersey Girls (see Tom Schaller's post below), who are responsible for the existence of these hearings.
9/11 Widows Skillfully Applied the Power of a Question: Why?
Kristen Breitweiser was at home in Middletown, N.J., cleaning out closets. Patty Casazza of Colts Neck was dashing to the dry cleaners. Lorie Van Auken of East Brunswick was headed out to do grocery shopping. Her neighbor Mindy Kleinberg had just packed her children off to school.
Then came word, Tuesday morning, that President Bush had agreed to allow his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to testify publicly about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. All at once, the cellphones started ringing and the e-mail started flying and "the Jersey girls," as the four women are known in Washington, were getting credit for chalking up another victory in the nation's capital.
I remind myself and everyone else that the 9/11 final report is far more important than the testimony today.