enthalpy

Tuesday, April 13, 2004


Where does the government spend the billions of tax dollars it collects from all of us? Obviously not on translators for anti-terrorism intelligence.
A former FBI director has said the agency couldn't afford as many Arabic translators as it needed before September 11.

Louis Freeh told the commission investigating the September 11 attacks that the FBI had asked to hire Arabic and Persian speakers at a higher rate than the salary scale stipulated, which was low or mid-entry level clerical or adminstrative positions.

Mr Freeh said the salary restrictions came on top of staffing problems which stemmed from a recruitment freeze of almost two years in the first half of the 1990s.

Two messages intercepted from suspected al Qa'eda members on September 10, 2001 said: "Tomorrow is zero hour," and "The match begins tomorrow."

They were only translated on September 11 and given to policy-makers on September 12.
It's good to know that they went ahead and paid for the overtime to get the message translated on 9/12. That would have driven them crazy not knowing what it said. That's the kind of thing that would haunt you.



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