< -back part 3
Claim Atta Was Named Debated
Security Chief Denies Getting Chart Identifying
Hijacker
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 24, 2005; A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/23/AR2005092301863.html
National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley
yesterday denied receiving a Defense Department chart that
allegedly identified lead terrorist Mohamed Atta before the
September 11, 2001, attacks, dealing a blow to claims by a
Republican congressman that have caused a political uproar in
recent weeks.
Rep. Curt Weldon (Pa.) wrote in his book,
"Countdown to Terror," earlier this year that he provided a chart
to Hadley produced in 1999 by the Pentagon's "Able Danger" program,
a secret effort to identify terrorists using publicly available
data. Weldon said the chart identified Atta in connection with a
Brooklyn, N.Y., terrorist cell...
...Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, Navy
Capt. Scott Philpott and three civilians affiliated with Able
Danger have told Pentagon investigators that they recalled seeing
either Atta's name or photograph before September 11, 2001. But no
other evidence has emerged to support the claims. Pentagon
investigators say they interviewed about 75 others affiliated with
Able Danger, none of whom recalled an identification of Atta or
other hijackers.
Shaffer has conceded that he based his
recollection on the memories of others, and the Pentagon says he
had contact with the now defunct 18-month project for a total of 27
days. Shaffer's security clearance was formally revoked on Monday
for a series of unrelated violations, including allegations that he
exaggerated his past actions to obtain a service medal, according
to his attorney, Mark S. Zaid.
Shaffer denies the allegations and was entitled to
the medal, Zaid said yesterday..."
NOTE: Stephen Hadley is close to PNAC-affiliated
Neocons:
http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=436
"...From July 2000 to January 2001, Stephen
Cambone [was] Staff Director for the Commission to Assess United
States National Security Space Management and
Organization.
In January 2001, NIPP (National Institute for
Public Policy) President Keith Payne led a team that produced the
study "Rationale and Requirements for Nuclear Forces and Arms
Control".
Among the study team participants had been:
Stephen Hadley, Stephen Cambone, James Woolsey, and Keith Payne who
served on the Nuclear Deterrence Advisory
Panel..."
[ Edited Sat Sept 24 2005, 03:40PM
]
Re: "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax
or Truth?
freedomfiles, Tue September 27 2005,
03:18AM
THE POLITICAL BACKGROUND OF "ABLE DANGER"
?
In a previous reply in this thread, I stated my
suspicions that "Able Danger" is a fabrication created to ensure
the Pentagon will be able to be active in domestic surveillance,
and to ease restrictions on sharing intelligence with civil
agencies such as the FBI.
The new "Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil
Support" also seems to contain exactly these objectives
:
Military Expands Homeland Efforts
Pentagon to Share Data With Civilian
Agencies
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 6, 2005; A01
Complete article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/05/AR2005070501669_pf.html
A new Pentagon strategy for securing the U.S.
homeland calls for expanded U.S. military activity not only in the
air and sea -- where the armed forces have historically guarded
approaches to the country -- but also on the ground and in other
less traditional, potentially more problematic areas such as
intelligence sharing with civilian law
enforcement.
The strategy is outlined in a 40-page document,
approved last month, that marks the Pentagon's first attempt since
the attacks of September 11, 2001, to present a comprehensive plan
for defending the U.S. homeland.
Department of Defense Releases the Strategy for
Homeland Defense and Civil Support
June 30, 2005
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2005/nr20050630-3843.html
A PDF version of the strategy is available
at:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2005/d20050630homeland.pdf
"The role of the military within domestic American
society, both by law and by history, has been carefully
constrained, and there is nothing in our strategy that would move
away from that historic principle," said Paul McHale, the
Pentagon's assistant secretary for homeland
defense.
Still, some of the provisions appear likely to
draw concern from civil liberties groups that have warned against a
growing military involvement in homeland missions and an erosion of
long-established barriers to military surveillance and combat
operations in the United States.
The document acknowledges, for instance, plans to
team military intelligence analysts with civilian law enforcement
to identify and track suspected terrorists.
Over the years, the (Posse Comitatus) law has come
to reflect a more general reluctance to involve the military in
domestic law enforcement, although its provisions have been amended
from time to time to allow some exceptions, including a military
role in putting down insurrections, in assisting in drug
interdiction work, and in providing equipment, training and
advice.
Along with civil liberties groups, many senior
Pentagon officials have tended to be wary of seeing troops operate
on U.S. soil. Military commanders argue that their personnel are
not specifically trained in domestic security, and they worry that
homeland tasks could lead to serious political
problems.
In the area of intelligence, the strategy speaks
of developing "a cadre" of Pentagon terrorism specialists and of
deploying "a number of them" to "interagency centers" for homeland
defense and counterterrorism -- a reference to new teaming
arrangements with the FBI and other domestic law enforcement
agencies.
The document notes that this represents a
significant departure from the Cold War when Pentagon analysts
worked mostly with the State Department and the intelligence
community to combat the Soviet Union.
"The move toward a domestic intelligence
capability by the military is troubling," said Gene Healy, a senior
editor at the Cato Institute, a nonprofit libertarian policy
research group in Washington.
"The last time the military got heavily involved
in domestic surveillance, during the Vietnam War era, military
intelligence kept thousands of files on Americans guilty of nothing
more than opposing the war," Healy said. "I don't think we want to
go down that road again."
[ Edited Tue Sept 27 2005, 03:23AM
]
Re: "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax
or Truth?
PerpetualYnquisitive, Wed Sept 28 2005,
03:58PM
Atta known to Pentagon before
9/11
By John Crewdson and Andrew Zajac Washington
Bureau
Four years after the nation's deadliest terror
attack, evidence is accumulating that a super-secret Pentagon
intelligence unit identified the organizer of the September 11
hijackings, Mohamed Atta, as an Al Qaeda operative months before he
entered the U.S.
The many investigations of September 11, 2001,
have turned up a half-dozen instances in which government agencies
possessed information that might have led investigators to some
part of the terrorist plot, although in most cases not in time to
stop it.
But none of those leads likely would have taken
them directly to Atta, the Egyptian architecture student who moved
to the U.S. from Germany to take flying lessons and later served as
Al Qaeda's U.S. field commander for the attacks.
Had the FBI been alerted to what the Pentagon
purportedly knew in early 2000, Atta's name could have been put on
a list that would have tagged him as someone to be watched the
moment he stepped off a plane in Newark, N.J., in June of that
year.
Physical and electronic surveillance of Atta, who
lived openly in Florida for more than a year, and who acquired a
driver's license and even an FAA pilot's license in his true name,
might well have made it possible for the FBI to expose the
September 11 plot before the fact.
Atta is presumed to have been at the controls of
American Airlines Flight 11 when it struck the north tower of the
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
The FBI has reviewed the voluminous records of its
extensive September 11 investigation and can find no mention of
Atta before Sept. 11, a senior FBI official said. If the Pentagon
knew about Atta in 2000 and failed to tell the FBI, the official
said, "It could be a problem."
Anthony Shaffer, a civilian Pentagon employee,
says he was asked in the summer of 2000 by a Navy captain, Scott
Phillpott, to arrange a meeting between the FBI and representatives
of the Pentagon intelligence program, code-named
Able/Danger.
But he said the meeting was canceled after
Pentagon lawyers concluded that information on suspected Al Qaeda
operatives with ties to the U.S. might violate Pentagon
prohibitions on retaining information on "U.S. persons," a term
that includes U.S. citizens and permanent resident
aliens.
Full article:
http://tinyurl.com/7bygb
Re: "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax
or Truth?
ewing2001, Thu Sept 29 2005,
03:47AM
Yarkas aka Dahdah -the european Atta
-"surveillance" connection
...once again a bogus 9/11 trial only convicted a
'trail master', possibly even working as an informant for european
or US Intel to fake recruit alleged terror idiots and now ending up
as yet another scapegoat.
The real story is, that Yarkas prepared a case for
the european sequel of the bogus war on terrorism.
What also noone reported, is that Yarkas was
observed by european intel and -police for years and each time they
saw 'Atta' together with him, it shows, that also an european
pendant of "Able Danger" was in charge to cover-up and lay the
groundwork for fake profiles of the official plotline of
9/11.
Both Yarkas and Atta had nothing to do with the
military operation of 9/11. A cover-up of a plotline is still part
of a plotline.
more here:
http://tinyurl.com/8pmup
http://web.archive.org/web/20040604020341/http://www.globalfreepress.com/article.pl?sid=03/09/29/0347236&mode=thread
Mohammed Atta - Slips Under Radar of 6
Countries?
By Ewing2001
September 28, 2004
Spain Convicts Suspected Al-Qaida Leader Over
9/11
http://nyjtimes.com/Stories/2005/SpainConvictsAlQaeda9-11Leader.htm
Sept 28, 2005
(VOA) Spain's High Court has convicted a suspected
al-Qaida cell leader of conspiracy in the plotting of the September
11, 2001 attacks on the United States in Europe's biggest terror
trial.
The court sentenced Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas to
27 years in prison. Prosecutors say he arranged a meeting in Spain
of key planners of the attacks in July, 2001. Two other suspects
were acquitted of charges related to the
attacks..."
[ Edited Thu Sept 29 2005, 03:49AM
]
Re: "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax
or Truth?
valis, Fri Sept 30 2005, 01:51AM
I think the important story here is
this:
Able Danger" Found Mohammed Atta Connection to
Rahman's Network at El Farouq Mosque in Brooklyn
(CIA)
...During the CIA's Jihad, Al-Farooq Mosque &
the Alkifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn were Rahman's key bases of
operation and a springboard for "the string of jihad offices that
had been set up across America with the help of Saudi and American
intelligence."
cheers
- valis
[ Edited Fri September 30 2005,
01:53AM ]
Re: "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax
or Truth?
PerpetualYnquisitive, Fri September 30 2005,
03:06PM
'Able Danger' Officer's Clearance
Revoked
By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press Writer Fri
September 30, 4:13 AM ET
WASHINGTON - An officer who has claimed that a
classified military unit identified four September 11 hijackers
before the 2001 attacks is facing
Pentagon accusations of breaking numerous rules,
allegations his lawyer suggests are aimed at undermining his
credibility.
The alleged infractions by Army Lt. Col. Anthony
Shaffer, 42, include obtaining a service medal under false
pretenses, improperly flashing military identification while drunk
and stealing pens, according to military paperwork shown by his
attorney to The Associated Press.
Shaffer was one of the first to publicly link
September 11 leader Mohamed Atta to the unit code-named Able
Danger. Shaffer was one of five witnesses the Pentagon ordered not
to appear September 21 before the Senate Judiciary Committee to
discuss the unit's findings.
The military revoked Shaffer's top security
clearance this month, a day before he was supposed to testify to a
congressional committee.
Mark Zaid, Shaffer's attorney, said the Pentagon
started looking into Shaffer's security clearance about the time in
2003 he met in
Afghanistan with staff members of the bipartisan
commission that studied the September 11 attacks and told them
about Able Danger.
Full article:
http://tinyurl.com/dqzps
Re: "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax
or Truth?
PerpetualYnquisitive, Sun Oct 02 2005,
11:52PM
Pentagon charges Army officer
KIMBERLY HEFLING
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - An officer who has claimed that a
classified military unit identified four September 11 hijackers
before the 2001 attacks is facing Pentagon accusations of breaking
numerous rules, charges his lawyer says are aimed at hurting his
credibility.
The alleged infractions by Army Lt. Col. Anthony
Shaffer, 42, include obtaining a service medal under false
pretenses, improperly flashing military identification while drunk
and stealing pens, according to paperwork from the Pentagon's
Defense Intelligence Agency shown by his attorney to The Associated
Press.
Shaffer was one of the first to publicly link
Sept. 11 leader Mohamed Atta to the unit code-named Able Danger.
Shaffer was one of five witnesses the Pentagon ordered not to
appear Sept. 21 before the Senate Judiciary
Committee.
The military revoked Shaffer's top security
clearance this month, a day before he was supposed to testify to a
congressional committee.
Mark Zaid, Shaffer's attorney, said he can't prove
the Pentagon went after Shaffer because he's a whistleblower, but
"all the timing associated with the clearance issue has been
suspiciously coincidental."
Citing concerns with the privacy act, a Defense
Intelligence Agency spokesman declined to release any information
on Shaffer.
http://tinyurl.com/ctksl
2nd Lawmaker Credits Secret Intelligence
Program
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: October 1, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - A second Republican member
of Congress has said that Stephen Hadley, who was then the deputy
national security adviser, was given a chart shortly after the
September 11 attacks that showed information collected about Al
Qaeda before the attacks by a secret military intelligence program
called Able Danger.
The account was provided by Representative Dan
Burton of Indiana, who said in an interview that on Sept. 25, 2001,
he attended a meeting with Mr. Hadley in the White House along with
Representative Curt Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania. Mr. Weldon
has said that he gave Mr. Hadley such a chart at the meeting, but
the White House had refused to comment on Mr. Weldon's
account.
Told about Mr. Burton's account, a spokesman for
Mr. Hadley, who is now the national security adviser, confirmed for
the first time last week that Mr. Hadley recalled seeing such a
chart in that time period. But the spokesman, Frederick Jones, said
that Mr. Hadley did not recall whether he saw it during a meeting
with Mr. Weldon, and that a search of National Security Council
files had failed to produce such a chart.
Full article:
http://tinyurl.com/cwc4z
Inside the Ring
By Bill Gertz and Rowan
Scarborough
September 30, 2005
Atta's photo
Congressional investigators looking into the
Special Operations Command data-mining activity known as Able
Danger are trying to find a woman in California who first came up
with a supposed photograph of September 11 terrorist leader Mohamed
Atta months before the deadly suicide attacks.
The woman worked for a security contractor that
obtained the photo of Atta and other Islamist militants through
surveillance of a mosque, said Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania
Republican who has been looking into the matter.
"There were five cells of al Qaeda that were
identified [by Able Danger], including the Brooklyn cell," Mr.
Weldon told us.
http://tinyurl.com/b95rq bottom of
page,
continues here:
http://tinyurl.com/9rp5c
[ Edited Sun Oct 02 2005, 11:57PM
]
Re: "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax
or Truth?
PerpetualYnquisitive, Sat Oct 08 2005,
09:56PM
Weldon confirms Able Danger predicted Cole
attack
I have a renewed respect for Congressman Weldon.
It looks like not even the risk of losing a brand new $20 billion
defense contract for his district can keep him quiet about Able
Danger.
This video from Fox News Weekend Live, via QT
Monster, says it all.
On October 7th, Weldon sent Rumsfeld a letter that
reads in part:
You know as well as I that inside the Beltway,
there is a time-honored tradition of smearing the accuser rather
than answering the charge. That method is now apparently being
employed in your department, and while it may be a familiar way of
doing business in Washington, it is no less
disappointing.
More significantly, Weldon then went on to tell
Fox News viewers:
Catherine Herridge: Final question sir, we've made
much of the fact that members of Able Danger claim that they
identified Atta a year before the attacks, but not many people
realize that the same project using similar data was able to
identify a threat in Yemen a few months before the USS Cole was
attacked. Do you believe that this is highly
significant?
Curt Weldon: Absolutely, and the 9/11 Commission
to call Able Danger historically insignificant is outrageous. It's
going to come out eventually, Catherine, that we'll see that Able
Danger not only knew about Mohamed Atta and the Brooklyn Cell one
year before 9/11, but two weeks before the attack on the Cole, in
fact, two days before the attack on the Cole, they saw an increase
of activity that led them to say to the senior leadership in the
Pentagon at that time, in the Clinton administration, there's
something going to happen in Yemen and we better be on high alert,
but it was discounted. That story has yet to be told to the
American people. Another Able Danger successful activity that was
thwarted.
http://tinyurl.com/9vj7s
Link to video at the link above.
Now I'm really going to puke on my gnu slade
shoes. Next Weldon will be trying to convince the world that
operation Fable Deranger predicted the Bali bombings, the Madrid
bombings and the London Tube bombings. !ill
Re: "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax
or Truth?
ewing2001, Fri Oct 14 2005,
11:53PM
Where are answers to the 9/11 commission
hoax?
http://thereporter.com/letters/ci_3117046
10/14/2005
"...Why were we not made aware of this by the 9/11
Commission? Why did Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger,
who plead guilty this year to destroying classified documents from
the National Archives pertaining to terror threats on U.S. soil,
commit this crime just before testifying before the 9/11
commission? Were copies of the documents shredded by Berger ever
placed before the commission? Did the commission choose not to hear
from Able Danger officers because of Jamie Gorelick? Where the
commissioners aware of the State Department's 1996 warnings to
Clinton about bin Laden and his lack of action?
Now we know the 9/11 Commission was a political
whitewash and we still need real answers...
...The 9/11 Commission Report needs to be moved to
the fiction section of the library. Clinton and Bush need to
address the troubling issues of omission...
Re: "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax
or Truth?
ewing2001, Wed Oct 19 2005,
12:15AM
Paul Thompson put up a Able Danger timeline this
week:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/searchResults.jsp?events=on&dosearch=Updates&project=911_project&periodlastchanged=October+2005
And here's just the Able Danger related
ones:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&before_9/11=ableDanger
Re: "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax
or Truth?
PerpetualYnquisitive, Wed Oct 19 2005,
01:40AM
Data-mining offensive in the
works
By Patience Wait
GCN Staff
Able Providence could follow Army’s Able
Danger pilot
A draft proposal floating behind closed doors
would reconstitute and improve upon a former Army data-mining
program called Able Danger.
Able Providence, as the new program has been
dubbed, would establish “robust open-source harvesting
capabilities” to give military and law enforcement agencies
the information to take the initiative in the war on
terrorism—that is, to be able to plan and execute offensive
measures—in addition to continued defensive
actions.
In addition, the program would be driven by a
presumption that use of weapons of mass destruction within the
United States is possible. As a result, Able Providence would need
to detect, track and target terrorists as they move from location
to location and reorganize their cells.
As one part of the new data-mining effort, the
proposal suggests using information about terrorist financing and
the Islamist system worldwide to identify
correlations.
The proposal, which GCN has seen, would place the
Able Providence project within the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence, with the Defense Department having joint
oversight responsibilities.
A first-year budget of a little more than $26
million would cover the cost of a director drawn from the Senior
Executive Service, a deputy director from SES (or a brigadier
general), five planners, software and hardware, and office
space.
To Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), vice chairman of the
House Armed Forces and Homeland Security committees, the idea of
implementing a robust data mining program targeting publicly
available information is a no-brainer.
“This is what the business community uses.
This is what the political community does,” Weldon said in an
interview before a Senate committee hearing on Able Danger last
month. “You’re getting the same information any
corporation can get in America.”
But there are complex legal and practical
considerations, such as privacy concerns, data retention policies
and the possibility of errors in the information, that dog
proposals such as this.
One example is Able Danger, the predecessor
program, a pilot data- mining project run in 1999 and 2000 under
the auspices of the Army Special Operations Command and the Land
Information Warfare Activity.
Heated debate
There has been heated debate since the
summer—and at least one hearing so far—over whether
Able Danger identified one of the September 11 hijackers, Mohammed
Atta, a year before the attack.
But according to an individual associated with
Able Danger who now works in the private sector, the program was
intended to search publicly available information for useful data
to answer a number of specific questions of military interest, not
just possible terrorist activities. The source asked not to be
identified because of concerns about possible
retaliation.
Full article:
http://tinyurl.com/9z4ke
This just reinforces my thinking that 'Fable
Deranger' is a dog and pony show that will lead to demands that the
U.S. Military be allowed to 'legally' maintain databases of
information on American citizens.
Re: "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax
or Truth?
PerpetualYnquisitive, Fri Oct 21 2005,
12:03AM
Congressman wants new Able Danger
probe
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- A vocal House
Republican is calling for a new probe into what he says is a
"witch-hunt" by defense officials against a September 11
intelligence whistleblower.
Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Penn., told United Press
International that officials at the Defense Intelligence Agency, or
DIA, had "conducted a deliberate campaign of character
assassination" against the whistleblower, retired U.S. Army Lt.
Col. Anthony Shaffer.
Shaffer has said that a highly classified Pentagon
data-mining project he worked on, codenamed Able Danger, identified
the ringleaders of the Sept. 11 terror attacks as linked to
al-Qaida more than a year before they hijacked four planes and
crashed them, killing nearly 3,000 people.
Weldon told UPI he had written to the Department
of Defense inspector general to ask for "an immediate formal
inquiry, with people testifying under oath," into what he called "a
clear witch-hunt" against Shaffer, who has been on administrative
leave while minor allegations about some expenses are
investigated.
Weldon's move comes after Shaffer said that boxes
of his personal effects, returned to him by the DIA earlier this
month, contained both government property and classified
documents.
"Sending classified material through the mail is a
felony, and much more serious than any of these minor, trumped up
charges against (Shaffer)," he said, adding that "I want the
appropriate persons held accountable."
Weldon said that the DIA had now taken steps to
fire Shaffer. "It's outrageous and scandalous," he
said.
A DIA spokesman had no immediate
comment.
http://tinyurl.com/a7enb
Re: "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax
or Truth?
PerpetualYnquisitive, Fri Oct 21 2005,
12:32AM
ABLE DANGER FAILURE -- (House of Representatives -
October 19, 2005)
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Reichert). Under the
Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is recognized for 60
minutes.
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise
tonight to talk to our colleagues and through our colleagues to the
American people about an issue that troubles me
greatly.
I have been in this institution 19 years, and
during those 19 years I have been on the Committee on Armed
Services. Currently, I am the vice chairman of that committee and
chairman of the subcommittee that oversees the purchase of our
weapons systems. In the past I have chaired the research
subcommittee. I have chaired the readiness subcommittee, and I have
spent every available hour of my time working to make sure that our
military troops were properly protected and have the proper
equipment and training.
I am a strong supporter of our military. Whether
it was in the last 2 years of the Reagan administration, the four
years of the Bush administration, the 8 years of the Clinton
administration, or the current administration of President George
W. Bush, I have been a strong supporter of our military. I am a
strong supporter of President Bush. I campaigned for him. I am a
strong supporter of Secretary Rumsfeld. I say all of that, Mr.
Speaker, because tonight I rise to express my absolute outrage and
disgust with what is happening in our defense intelligence
agencies.
Mr. Speaker, back in 1999 when I was Chair of the
defense research subcommittee, the Army was doing cutting-edge work
on a new type of technology to allow us to understand and predict
emerging transnational terrorist threats. That technology was being
done at several locations, but was being led by our Special Forces
Command. The work that they were doing was unprecedented. And
because of what I saw there, I supported the development of a
national capability of a collaborative center that the CIA would
just not accept.
In fact, in November 4 of 1999, 2 years before
9/11, in a meeting in my office with the Deputy Secretary of
Defense, Deputy Director of the CIA, Deputy Director of the FBI, we
presented a nine-page proposal to create a national collaborative
center. When we finished the brief, the CIA said we did not need
that capability, and so before 9/11 we did not have
it.
When President Bush came in after a year of
research, he announced the formation of the Terrorism Threat
Integration Center, exactly what I had proposed in 1999. Today it
is known as the NCTC, the National Counterterrorism Center. But,
Mr. Speaker, what troubles me is not the fact that we did not take
those steps.
What troubles me is that I now have learned in the
last 4 months that one of the tasks that was being done in 1999 and
2000 was a top-secret program organized at the request of the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, carried out by the general
in charge of our Special Forces Command, a very elite unit focusing
on information regarding al Qaeda. It was a military language
effort to allow us to identify the key cells of al Qaeda around the
world and to give the military the capability to plan actions
against those cells so they could not attack us as they did in 1993
at the Trade Center, at the Khobar Towers, the U.S.S. Cole attack,
and the African embassy bombings.
What I did not know, Mr. Speaker, up until June of
this year, was that that secret program called Able Danger actually
identified the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda in January and February of
2000, over 1 year before 9/11 every happened. In addition, I
learned that not only did we identify the Brooklyn cell of al
Qaeda, but we identified Mohamed Atta as one of the members of that
Brooklyn cell along with three other terrorists who were the
leadership of the 9/11 attack.
I have also learned, Mr. Speaker, that in
September of 2000, again, over 1 year before 9/11, that Able Danger
team attempted on three separate occasions to provide information
to the FBI about the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda, and on three
separate occasions they were denied by lawyers in the previous
administration to transfer that information.
Mr. Speaker, this past Sunday on ``Meet the
Press,'' Louis Freeh, FBI Director at the time, was interviewed by
Tim Russert. The first question to Louis Freeh was in regard to the
FBI's ability to ferret out the terrorists. Louis Freeh's response,
which can be obtained by anyone in this country as a part of the
official record, was, Well, Tim, we are now finding out that a
top-secret program of the military called Able Danger actually
identified the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda and Mohammed Atta over a
year before 9/11.
And what Louis Freeh said, Mr. Speaker, is that
that kind of actionable data could have allowed us to prevent the
hijackings that occurred on September 11.
So now we know, Mr. Speaker, that military
intelligence officers working in a program authorized by the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the general in charge of
Special Forces Command, identified Mohammed Atta and three
terrorists a year before 9/11, tried to transfer that information
to the FBI were denied; and the FBI Director has now said publicly
if he would have had that information, the FBI could have used it
to perhaps prevent the hijackings that struck the World Trade
Center, the Pentagon, and the plane that landed in Pennsylvania and
perhaps saved 3,000 lives and changed the course of world
history.
Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight because we have been
trying to get the story out about Able Danger and what really
happened. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, I have to rise tonight to
tell you that as bad as this story is, and as bad as it is that the
data was not transferred to the FBI, and as bad as it is that the
9/11 Commission totally ignored this entire story and referred to
it as historically insignificant even though it was authorized by
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, even though Louis Freeh
has now said it could have provided information to prevent the
attack against us, the 9/11 Commission ignored it. Not because the
commissioners ignored it, but because someone at the staff level on
the
9/11 Commission staff decided for whatever reason
that they did not want to pursue the Abel Danger
story.
Mr. Speaker, in August and September I met with
the military officials involved with Abel Danger and one by one
they told their story, until, Mr. Speaker, leaders in the Defense
Intelligence Agency, including the deputy director, decided they do
not want the story told. I think because they perhaps are fearful
of being embarrassed and humiliated.
So what direction had they taken, Mr.
Speaker?
They have gagged the military officers. They have
prevented them from talking to any Member of Congress. They have
prevented them from talking to the media. And the Defense
Intelligence Agency has began a process to destroy the career and
the life of Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer.
Now, it might be easy for us to ignore this, Mr.
Speaker. We all have busy careers and worry about reelections every
2 years and worry about our own families and our jobs. But I cannot
do that in this case and neither can this body, and neither can the
other body. You see, Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer took an oath to
defend our Constitution. He took the words ``duty, honor, country''
seriously and devoted 23 years of his life in four deployed
intelligence operations of our military to protect
America.
During the time he served our country, he has
received the Bronze Star, an award that does not come easily, for
showing acts of courage, leadership, and bravery in the course of
his activities.
[Time: 20:30]
He has received public commendations from previous
directors of the Defense Intelligence Agency, including General
Patrick Hughes, including generals at Special Forces Command, and
including Admiral Wilson of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He has
received dozens of letters and commendations for his work. The
laudatory comments I reviewed in his files are
unbelievable.
But, you see, Mr. Speaker, there is a problem. The
Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency was in a meeting
with Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer almost a year before 9/11, and
Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer showed him a disk in his office with
information about al Qaeda and Mohammed Atta, and the Deputy
Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency stopped the briefing
and said, you cannot show me that. I do not want to see it. It
might contain information I cannot look at.
Now, Tony Shaffer was not in the room alone, Mr.
Speaker. There were other people, and we know their names. So we
have witnesses. Now, the Deputy Director has denied that meeting
and denied he was there and denied this particular story, but the
fact is he knows that we are going to pursue it.
So what has happened to Lieutenant Colonel
Shaffer, Mr. Speaker? The Defense Intelligence Agency has lifted
his security clearance. One day before he was to testify before the
Senate Committee on the Judiciary, in uniform, they permanently
removed his security clearance. And now our Defense Intelligence
Agency has told Colonel Shaffer's lawyer that they plan to seek a
permanent removal of his pay and his health care benefits for him
and his two children. Why, Mr. Speaker? Because Lieutenant Colonel
Shaffer, like Commander Scott Philpot of the Navy, like J. D.
Smith, and like a host of other Able Danger employees, has told the
truth.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I sat here in the 1990s and I
sat here during the 9/11 investigation and watched a ridiculous
situation develop with Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser
under President Clinton. He walked into the National Archives
before he was to testify before the 9/11 Commission looking through
documents. He took documents out of the archives and stuffed them
in his socks and pants so that no one would see them as he left the
National Archives. Now, that is a felony, tampering with Federal
documents and removing classified information regarding our
security and information that the 9/11 commission needed to
see.
Sandy Berger initially lied about it. He said he
did not do it. Then he admitted it, and he was given a punishment.
And, oh, by the way, his security clearance was temporarily lifted,
but he will get it back again, for lying, for stealing, and for
committing an act of outrage against our country's security.
Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, a Bronze Star 23-year military veteran,
simply told the truth and now his life is being
ruined.
His career is ended. He is no longer in military
intelligence. They have taken his security clearance, and they are
about to destroy him as a person. They are about to deny him the
basic health care and the salary that he has earned, and they are
doing it in this way. This is outrageous. It is evil. They do not
want to fire Tony because they also do not want him to talk to the
media. So by suspending him and removing his pay and his health
care, they hurt him bad, but he cannot talk because he is under
suspension and his lawyer has advised him that to talk to the
media, to talk to Members of Congress, even when he is not being
paid, would cause him further problems and totally prevent him from
ever having this gross problem reversed. Mr. Speaker, this is
outrageous. Mr. Speaker, this is not America.
Over my 19 years in Congress, I have led 40
delegations to the former Soviet Union. I have sat in the face of
the Soviet Communists and confronted them on full transparency. I
sat at the table with President Lukashenko of Belarus, who has been
called by our Secretary of State the last dictator in Europe. I
took both delegations to North Korea, Mr. Speaker, and sat across
the table from Kim Gye Gwan and I told him we abhor the way they
treat their people, the way they lie about what is happening, and
the way they distort information.
Mr. Speaker, I took three delegations to Libya to
meet with Qadhafi, and I told him that we are absolutely outraged
at what Libya did in helping complete the Lockerbie bombing and the
bombing of the Berlin nightclub.
You know, Mr. Speaker, I never thought I would
have to take the floor of this Chamber and make the same statements
about the Defense Intelligence Agency. As a supporter of the
President, as a supporter of the military, Mr. Speaker, if we allow
this to go forward, then we send the signal to every man and woman
wearing a uniform that if you tell the truth, you will be destroyed
if a career bureaucrat above you does not like what you are saying.
If you tell the truth, we will take your health care benefits away
from your kids. If you tell the truth, we will ruin
you.
Mr. Speaker, this is not America. Mr. Speaker,
this is not what I have been told by Secretary Rumsfeld that we are
doing with our troops in protecting them, in giving them the best
equipment and the best training. This is not what I spend hours in
committee hearings on. This sends the wrong signal to America's
troops. It tells them, do not be honest. Do not respect the fact
that you have to be truthful. If there is somebody that the truth
offends, then you better be silent.
Mr. Speaker, I have today asked for an independent
investigation of the Defense Intelligence Agency and their efforts
at destroying Tony Shaffer's life. This is outrageous, Mr. Speaker.
They trumped up charges against him. They said while he was
overseas in Afghanistan, forward deployed, that he forwarded cell
phone calls from his official phone to his personal phone; and when
they checked that out, it ran up a cost to the taxpayers of about
$60. The second verbal charge they gave him was that he went to a
course at the Army War College and he got reimbursed for his
travel, his mileage and tolls, 100-some dollars. And they said he
received a commendation for which he was not entitled, even though
it was signed by his commanding officer and the acting Secretary of
the Army.
But they went beyond that, Mr. Speaker. They went
beyond that with this man. They said he had $2,000 of debt,
personal debt. Well, I would like to have every Pentagon employee
tomorrow, I would like to have the senior leadership show us what
debt they have in the Defense Intelligence Agency so we can make
that public.
They even went to this length, Mr. Speaker: the
Defense Intelligence Agency wrote in an official document that
Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer stole public property. A serious charge.
Well, when you check what that public property was, it was an
assortment of pens, government pens. But what they did not say in
the Defense Intelligence report was that he took those pens when he
was 15 years of age and was with his father when he was on
assignment at one of our embassy outposts. He took the pens to give
to other students at the school when he was 15 years of age. And by
the way, Mr. Speaker, it was Tony Shaffer himself who admitted to
that thievery when he applied for his security clearance. So the
Defense Intelligence Agency knew that during his entire career of
23 years, but they put that in the document against
him.
This is a scandal, Mr. Speaker. It is an outrage.
It is a travesty. Everyone that worked with Tony Shaffer, the Navy
officers, the private citizens have all said the same thing. This
is a scandal to get Tony Shaffer because he has told the
truth.
Now, this Defense Intelligence Agency and this
Deputy Director had the audacity to have their legal counsel send
Tony Shaffer's lawyer a letter on September 23. I cannot put that
letter in the RECORD because it is privileged information, but it
will eventually come out. But in that letter, in the second to last
paragraph, the legal counsel for the Defense Intelligence Agency
says to Mr. Shaffer's lawyer, he cannot receive any more classified
information from the Defense Intelligence Agency because I checked
and his security clearances have all been removed. Therefore, he is
not allowed to look at anything that is secret or
confidential.
Now, that is a letter sent by the general counsel
of the DIA on September 23 of this year. Two weeks later, Mr.
Speaker, to show the stupidity of the Defense Intelligence Agency,
they send seven packages to Mr. Shaffer's lawyer of his personal
belongings, which the Deputy Director of the DIA told my staff 3
months ago did not exist any more. And in those seven boxes, Mr.
Speaker, were five classified memos. The Defense Intelligence
Agency sent five classified memos to Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer,
which they told him on September 23 he was not allowed to have
access to.
Mr. Speaker, that is a felony; and I have asked
the Inspector General and the legal officials to investigate and
prosecute the Defense Intelligence officials who sent five
classified documents through the mail or by hand delivery to Tony
Shaffer.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, the Defense Intelligence
Agency, in its absolute total stupidity, included in those boxes
$500 worth of Federal property, including a multi-hundred dollar
GPS system owned by the Federal Government, which they sent to Tony
Shaffer, I guess to keep. They also sent, Mr. Speaker, 25 pens,
brand new, and marked on them is ``Property of the U.S.
Government.'' The Defense Intelligence Agency, in its absolute
utter stupidity, sent Tony Shaffer Federal property which they
accused him of taking when he was 15 years of age.
Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong
here. There is a bureaucracy in the Defense Intelligence Agency
that is out of control. They want to destroy the reputation of a
23-year military officer, Bronze Star recipient, hero of our
country, with two kids because people in defense intelligence are
embarrassed at what is going to come out.
And what is going to come out, Mr. Speaker? Well,
we are going to find out, Mr. Speaker, that that unit, Able Danger,
not only identified Mohammed Atta before 9/11, not only did they
try to pass that information to the FBI, not only was that large
data destroyed in the summer of 2000, but now, Mr. Speaker, I can
add a new dimension to this whole story. Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I
met with another Able Danger official. I was not aware of this
official's knowledge because he does not live within the
Beltway.
This official, Mr. Speaker, has impeccable
credentials. I cannot reveal his name today. I will to any Member
of this body, any of our colleagues that want to come to me, I will
tell you privately who this official is, and you will agree with me
when I tell you his name that he has impeccable credentials. This
official yesterday, Mr. Speaker, in a meeting in my office, told me
that he has never been talked to by the Pentagon. He has never been
talked to by the Defense Intelligence Agency in their supposed
investigation. He has never been talked to by the 9/11 Commission
staff in their investigation; yet this official had a leadership
position in Able Danger.
This official told me that there is a separate
cache of information collected from over 20 Federal agencies in
1999 and 2000 on Able Danger that still may exist. Now, the
Pentagon has told us all this material was destroyed, and now I
have a senior official telling me there is a second pot of
information that may well still exist.
http://tinyurl.com/bdtqz
Now, that is a letter sent by the general counsel
of the DIA on September 23 of this year. Two weeks later, Mr.
Speaker, to show the stupidity of the Defense Intelligence Agency,
they send seven packages to Mr. Shaffer's lawyer of his personal
belongings, which the Deputy Director of the DIA told my staff 3
months ago did not exist any more. And in those seven boxes, Mr.
Speaker, were five classified memos. The Defense Intelligence
Agency sent five classified memos to Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer,
which they told him on September 23 he was not allowed to have
access to.
Mr. Speaker, that is a felony; and I have asked
the Inspector General and the legal officials to investigate and
prosecute the Defense Intelligence officials who sent five
classified documents through the mail or by hand delivery to Tony
Shaffer.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, the Defense Intelligence
Agency, in its absolute total stupidity, included in those boxes
$500 worth of Federal property, including a multi-hundred dollar
GPS system owned by the Federal Government, which they sent to Tony
Shaffer, I guess to keep. They also sent, Mr. Speaker, 25 pens,
brand new, and marked on them is ``Property of the U.S.
Government.'' The Defense Intelligence Agency, in its absolute
utter stupidity, sent Tony Shaffer Federal property which they
accused him of taking when he was 15 years of age.
Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong
here. There is a bureaucracy in the Defense Intelligence Agency
that is out of control. They want to destroy the reputation of a
23-year military officer, Bronze Star recipient, hero of our
country, with two kids because people in defense intelligence are
embarrassed at what is going to come out.
And what is going to come out, Mr. Speaker? Well,
we are going to find out, Mr. Speaker, that that unit, Able Danger,
not only identified Mohammed Atta before 9/11, not only did they
try to pass that information to the FBI, not only was that large
data destroyed in the summer of 2000, but now, Mr. Speaker, I can
add a new dimension to this whole story. Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I
met with another Able Danger official. I was not aware of this
official's knowledge because he does not live within the
Beltway.
This official, Mr. Speaker, has impeccable
credentials. I cannot reveal his name today. I will to any Member
of this body, any of our colleagues that want to come to me, I will
tell you privately who this official is, and you will agree with me
when I tell you his name that he has impeccable credentials. This
official yesterday, Mr. Speaker, in a meeting in my office, told me
that he has never been talked to by the Pentagon. He has never been
talked to by the Defense Intelligence Agency in their supposed
investigation. He has never been talked to by the 9/11 Commission
staff in their investigation; yet this official had a leadership
position in Able Danger.
This official told me that there is a separate
cache of information collected from over 20 Federal agencies in
1999 and 2000 on Able Danger that still may exist. Now, the
Pentagon has told us all this material was destroyed, and now I
have a senior official telling me there is a second pot of
information that may well still exist.
Furthermore, at the hearing over in the Senate
Committee on the Judiciary, when Senator Specter asked why this
data was destroyed, the witness who destroyed the data said, well,
I was told that we could not keep this data for more than 90 days
because it might involve information that contains U.S. persons, so
we had to destroy it.
[Time: 20:45]
Well, I found out that is not the story. The
reason the data was destroyed was because Special Forces Command
asked the Army for that data and within a matter of days, that data
was destroyed so the Army would not pass it to Special Forces
Command. Yet there still is, was and I hope still is a massive pot
of data.
But furthermore, that official that I talked to
yesterday will also say that there was no 90-day requirement, as
was testified before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He said
on a regular basis they kept information from Able Danger data
mining for months and months and months. In fact, he will say he
had a discussion with a lawyer in DOD named Schiffren who told him
do not worry about it, just fill out a document, sign your name
that you need it, put it in the box, and you can keep it as long as
you want.
Mr. Speaker, that is entirely contradictory to
what the Defense Intelligence Agency has been telling us, to what
DOD has been telling us. Now we have someone who is willing to come
forward and say that 90-day period is not real, they kept Able
Danger information for months and months and
months.
Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong
here. A sitting President of the United States resigned his
position because he tried to cover up a third-rate burglary when
some low-level operatives from the Republican committee to reelect
him broke into the Democrat headquarters in Washington, D.C. No one
was killed. No money was stolen. No State secrets were stolen. It
was a third-rate burglary, but it caused the resignation of
President Richard Nixon.
Mr. Speaker, we are talking about the deaths of
3,000 Americans.
Mr. Speaker, we are talking about 2.5 terabytes of
data about al Qaeda. That is equal to one-fourth of all of the
printed material in the Library of Congress.
Mr. Speaker, we are talking about Mohammed Atta
and three of the terrorists that attacked us on
9/11.
Mr. Speaker, we are talking about military
intelligence officers, including an Annapolis graduate who will
command one of our destroyers in January of 2006 who risked his
entire career to state on the record I will swear until I die that
I saw Mohammed Atta's face every day starting in January of 2000, a
year and a half before 9/11.
Mr. Speaker, this is not somebody off the street,
this is a graduate of Annapolis, a 23-year Naval officer who will
command one of our destroyers in January who is agreeing with
Lieutenant Shaffer. We have three other people who have testified
under oath that they saw the same photograph, and the person I met
yesterday will testify that he had the name of a Mohammed Atta
before 9/11 but not the face.
Mr. Speaker, this is not some third-rate burglary
coverup. This is not some Watergate incident. This is an attempt to
prevent the American people from knowing the facts about how we
could have prevented 9/11 and people are covering it up today. They
are ruining the career of a military officer to do it and we cannot
let it stand. I do not care whether you are Democrat or Republican,
you cannot let a lieutenant colonel's career be ruined because of
some bureaucrat in the Defense Intelligence Agency. If we let that
happen, then no one who wears the uniform will ever feel protected
because we will have let them down. Anyone who wears the uniform of
this country who is serving today expects us to back him or her up
and that is not happening. We are seeing lying,
distortion.
Mr. Speaker, do you know, Wolf Blitzer on CNN told
my staff that a Department of Defense employee told him that
Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer was having an affair with one of my
employees. How low can we go, Mr. Speaker? How low can we go to
allow this Defense Department to try to ruin the reputation and the
personal life of a lieutenant colonel with a Bronze Star? To Wolf
Blitzer, Mr. Speaker.
We need to know the name of that defense official
who told Wolf Blitzer who told my staff, and he is not the only
one. I have other media people who will come forward in this grand
effort to destroy the reputation of a uniformed military officer,
to create scandalous accusations. He does not even know my staff,
to accuse him of stealing pens when he was 15, to take away his
health care benefits for his two kids because he is telling the
truth.
What do we stand for if not the truth? Is it more
important that we be politically correct? Is it more important that
I not rock the boat because my party is in the White House, because
I campaigned for Bush, and support Don Rumsfeld. Is that more
important? If that is more important, I do not want to be here. I
will leave. I will leave my post, but I will not do it until we get
justice for this man and for these people who the 9/11 Commission
called historically insignificant.
Mr. Speaker, there is something wrong inside the
Beltway.
Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong
when a military officer risks his life in Afghanistan time and
again, embedded with our troops under
[Page: H8982] GPO's PDF
an assumed name with a false beard and a false
identity, forward deployed with our troops, gets castigated, gets
ridiculed, gets some low life scum at the Pentagon spreading
malicious lies about this individual, and then say to his lawyer,
we are going to take away his health care benefits, we are going to
take away his salary.
Mr. Speaker, if we allow this to stand as
Democrats and Republicans, then none of us deserve to be here. When
we all go overseas and meet the troops, we tell them how proud we
are of them. We provide funding for them. We give them training and
take care of their families. What we are allowing to happen right
now is the Defense Intelligence Agency to ruin the career and the
life of a man who spent 23 years protecting his Nation. If
Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer was telling this story alone in a
vacuum, that would be one thing. But he has been corroborated over
and over again. I have met with at least 10 people who fully
corroborate what Tony Shaffer says. Those meetings with the FBI,
the FBI employee still works there and she told the Senate
Committee on the Judiciary, I set those meetings up with the FBI to
transfer information about al Qaeda and Able Danger. So she is
still there and she testified.
What we have here, I am convinced of this now, is
an aggressive attempt by CIA management to cover up their own
shortcomings in not being able to do what the Able Danger team did:
They identified Mohammed Atta and the al Qaeda cell of Brooklyn 1
year before Ð9/11. But even before that, as the story unfolds,
you are going to hear the story that they also identified the
threat to the USS Cole 2 weeks before the attack, and 2 days before
the attack were screaming not to let the USS Cole come into the
harbor at Yemen because they knew something was about to
happen.
Mr. Speaker, bad news never comes easy; but in a
democracy, the bad news has to come out so we can make sure it does
not happen again.
Mr. Speaker, this whole thing started, not to
embarrass anyone, this whole thing started because none of us knew
that Mohammed Atta was identified before 9/11. It started because
this Congress, this body in particular, tried to establish what is
now in place back in 1999, a national collaborative center, but the
CIA said we did not need it. The American people deserve
to
have the answers here. They deserve to know why
3,000 people died. They deserve to know what we could have done and
should have done to better prepare ourselves and to work to prepare
for the next incident. The American people need to know where those
multiple terabytes of data is. Is it still being used? We know in
January of 2001, General Shelton was given a 3-hour briefing on
Able Danger. So even if they destroyed the data back in the summer
of 2000, in January of 2001 there was enough material to give
General Shelton, Commander of the Joint Chiefs, a 3-hour
briefing.
Mr. Speaker, there is something here. I am not a
conspiracy theorist, but there is something desperately wrong, Mr.
Speaker. There is something outrageous at work here. This is not a
third-rate burglary of a political campaign headquarters. This
involved what is right now the covering up of information that led
to the deaths of 3,000 people, changed the course of history, led
to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and has disrupted our
country, our economy and people's lives.
Mr. Speaker, we could ignore this. I cannot. If it
means I have to resign from this body, I will resign. I will not
allow, after 19 years in this body and as a vice chairman of the
Committee on Armed Services, bureaucrats in the Defense
Intelligence Agency to concoct stories, to talk about the theft of
pens when this lieutenant colonel was 15 years old, to talk about
this man's personal debt of $2,000. I would hate to check the
indebtedness of Members of Congress. I know mine is more than
$2,000.
Mr. Speaker, this is not America. I had a group of
college students down from Drexel University. There were about 20
of them, including representative students from eight other
nations. We talked about this. Of course we have talked about all
of the problem countries in the world. We talk about our values as
a Nation, the need for a democracy to have people involved, to have
transparency, to have people who respect the rule of law and the
Constitution.
How do I tell them that is what is working here,
Mr. Speaker, when the Pentagon says that these people who simply
want to tell the truth are not allowed? They are saying it is for
classified purposes, yet the DOD lawyer on the Senate side there is
nothing classified about any of the information. It is not about
classified programs. I would be the last to want to see anything
classified revealed. I have seen many, many instances where I have
been given sensitive information that only a few people in the
Congress and the country had. I would never reveal it. It is not
about that. This is not about the DIA, this is not about the CIA,
this is about CYA. It is about CYA by bureaucrats in the Defense
Intelligence Agency and possibly some political operatives that do
not want the facts to come out about Able Danger and the
information that the Able Danger team put together. And in the
process, they are going to destroy a man, a man who has been
recognized by his country, who has a family, and who simply wants
to do the right thing.
Mr. Speaker, I hated to take the floor tonight,
but I did not know what else to do. We have committees of Congress
working on this. I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr.
Wolf), chairman of the FBI Appropriation Committee on Oversight. He
is as outraged as I am. I want to thank the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), who is looking at this, and the
gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter). The Committee on Armed
Services has a full-time staffer assigned to get to the facts of
this. I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. King),
chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, because he is
looking at this. I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan
(Chairman Hoekstra) and the Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence. He has met with Tony Shaffer and has offered to get
more information. I want to thank my colleagues on the other side
of the aisle for standing up and beginning to ask questions, and I
want to thank Senator Specter and Senator Biden, who attended a
Committee on the Judiciary hearing and expressed their outrage. I
want to thank Senator Sessions, Senator Kyl, and Senator Grassley,
who were all there. In fact, Senator Grassley called it a
coverup.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell you the number of
Members who have come to me and said this is unacceptable. I would
hope that as a result of what we have heard tonight every Member of
Congress will ask for an inquiry. The gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms.
McKinney) wrote a letter to the chairman of the Committee on Armed
Services asking for an investigation. We have from Republicans to
Democrats, left to right, conservatives to liberals. What is
happening here is unacceptable. It is unimaginable. It is
un-American. All over the world tonight, young Americans are
wearing our uniforms. They are doing a great job. They make us all
proud when we travel overseas. They make us proud because of the
pride they have. When I talk to them, they say I am glad to be
doing what I am doing. I am doing the right thing for our country.
I will go any place the Commander in Chief sends me. Whether I am
in Afghanistan or Iraq, they will tell me that.
[Time: 21:00]
Whether we are in Kosovo or Somalia, they will
tell us that. Whether we are at Hurricane Katrina, whether we are
at Hurricane Andrew, or whether we are out in California, the
earthquake, or the Midwestern floods, our troops are all the same.
They respect our country. They respect our Constitution. If we
allow this travesty to continue, Mr. Speaker, then we have let all
of those people down for some nameless, faceless bureaucrat who is
fearful that the information will finally come to light, that the
DIA just did not get it.
Back in 1999 and 2000, they did not have a clue.
They had millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, and
could not do what a 20-member team did in being able to identify
Mohammed Atta before the 9/11 attacks. DIA does not want that to
come out, Mr. Speaker. They do not want that to come out. Heaven
forbid the Defense Intelligence Agency, with hundreds of millions
of dollars, would have a 20-member team do what they could not do
because they were using new technology and new software. They do
not want that to come out. That is why that Deputy Director, when
he was at that meeting, said, I do not want to see this. Do not
show it to me. And that is why today that Deputy Director is trying
to ruin the career of Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer.
The only way to resolve this, Mr. Speaker, is to
have a full independent investigation by the Inspector General of
the Pentagon. I have asked Secretary Rumsfeld today to do that. I
would ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in
that request. Let the independent inspector for the Pentagon go in,
not DIA. DIA cannot investigate itself. It does not have the
capability to do that. It does not have the integrity to do that.
Let the Inspector General do the investigation and while that is
being done, protect Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer. He does not deserve
to have his career ruined or destroyed for telling the
truth.
And while we are at it, Mr. Speaker, if DIA is
going to continue to press this ridiculous set of facts, then as I
said earlier, I want DIA prosecuted for the five felonies they
committed in sending classified documents to a person that 2 weeks
earlier they said was incapable of receiving classified
information. And if this continues, I want DIA held responsible for
illegally transferring $500 of public assets to a person, that in
the process of sending that stuff to him, DIA committed fraud
against the taxpayers. I want them held accountable: DIA's
stupidity; DIA's incompetence.
We have a new nominee for the head of DIA, and I
am going to ask every Senator to fully explore each of these issues
before that person is confirmed. I will meet with every Senator
personally and go over all of this information. And I would
encourage the Senators and the House Members to interview the other
people who worked with Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer and to get their
assessments of what is going on there. They will all tell them the
same thing: Shaffer is being abused and used as a scapegoat. If
they can ruin Shaffer, they can silence the story.
http://tinyurl.com/b4pts
Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong
when a military officer risks his life in Afghanistan time and
again, embedded with our troops under an assumed name with a false
beard and a false identity, forward deployed with our troops, gets
castigated, gets ridiculed, gets some low life scum at the Pentagon
spreading malicious lies about this individual, and then say to his
lawyer, we are going to take away his health care benefits, we are
going to take away his salary.
Mr. Speaker, if we allow this to stand as
Democrats and Republicans, then none of us deserve to be here. When
we all go overseas and meet the troops, we tell them how proud we
are of them. We provide funding for them. We give them training and
take care of their families. What we are allowing to happen right
now is the Defense Intelligence Agency to ruin the career and the
life of a man who spent 23 years protecting his Nation. If
Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer was telling this story alone in a
vacuum, that would be one thing. But he has been corroborated over
and over again. I have met with at least 10 people who fully
corroborate what Tony Shaffer says. Those meetings with the FBI,
the FBI employee still works there and she told the Senate
Committee on the Judiciary, I set those meetings up with the FBI to
transfer information about al Qaeda and Able Danger. So she is
still there and she testified.
What we have here, I am convinced of this now, is
an aggressive attempt by CIA management to cover up their own
shortcomings in not being able to do what the Able Danger team did:
They identified Mohammed Atta and the al Qaeda cell of Brooklyn 1
year before Ð9/11. But even before that, as the story unfolds,
you are going to hear the story that they also identified the
threat to the USS Cole 2 weeks before the attack, and 2 days before
the attack were screaming not to let the USS Cole come into the
harbor at Yemen because they knew something was about to
happen.
Mr. Speaker, bad news never comes easy; but in a
democracy, the bad news has to come out so we can make sure it does
not happen again.
Mr. Speaker, this whole thing started, not to
embarrass anyone, this whole thing started because none of us knew
that Mohammed Atta was identified before 9/11. It started because
this Congress, this body in particular, tried to establish what is
now in place back in 1999, a national collaborative center, but the
CIA said we did not need it. The American people deserve
to
have the answers here. They deserve to know why
3,000 people died. They deserve to know what we could have done and
should have done to better prepare ourselves and to work to prepare
for the next incident. The American people need to know where those
multiple terabytes of data is. Is it still being used? We know in
January of 2001, General Shelton was given a 3-hour briefing on
Able Danger. So even if they destroyed the data back in the summer
of 2000, in January of 2001 there was enough material to give
General Shelton, Commander of the Joint Chiefs, a 3-hour
briefing.
Mr. Speaker, there is something here. I am not a
conspiracy theorist, but there is something desperately wrong, Mr.
Speaker. There is something outrageous at work here. This is not a
third-rate burglary of a political campaign headquarters. This
involved what is right now the covering up of information that led
to the deaths of 3,000 people, changed the course of history, led
to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and has disrupted our
country, our economy and people's lives.
Mr. Speaker, we could ignore this. I cannot. If it
means I have to resign from this body, I will resign. I will not
allow, after 19 years in this body and as a vice chairman of the
Committee on Armed Services, bureaucrats in the Defense
Intelligence Agency to concoct stories, to talk about the theft of
pens when this lieutenant colonel was 15 years old, to talk about
this man's personal debt of $2,000. I would hate to check the
indebtedness of Members of Congress. I know mine is more than
$2,000.
Mr. Speaker, this is not America. I had a group of
college students down from Drexel University. There were about 20
of them, including representative students from eight other
nations. We talked about this. Of course we have talked about all
of the problem countries in the world. We talk about our values as
a Nation, the need for a democracy to have people involved, to have
transparency, to have people who respect the rule of law and the
Constitution.
How do I tell them that is what is working here,
Mr. Speaker, when the Pentagon says that these people who simply
want to tell the truth are not allowed? They are saying it is for
classified purposes, yet the DOD lawyer on the Senate side there is
nothing classified about any of the information. It is not about
classified programs. I would be the last to want to see anything
classified revealed. I have seen many, many instances where I have
been given sensitive information that only a few people in the
Congress and the country had. I would never reveal it. It is not
about that. This is not about the DIA, this is not about the CIA,
this is about CYA. It is about CYA by bureaucrats in the Defense
Intelligence Agency and possibly some political operatives that do
not want the facts to come out about Able Danger and the
information that the Able Danger team put together. And in the
process, they are going to destroy a man, a man who has been
recognized by his country, who has a family, and who simply wants
to do the right thing.
Mr. Speaker, I hated to take the floor tonight,
but I did not know what else to do. We have committees of Congress
working on this. I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr.
Wolf), chairman of the FBI Appropriation Committee on Oversight. He
is as outraged as I am. I want to thank the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), who is looking at this, and the
gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter). The Committee on Armed
Services has a full-time staffer assigned to get to the facts of
this. I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. King),
chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, because he is
looking at this. I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan
(Chairman Hoekstra) and the Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence. He has met with Tony Shaffer and has offered to get
more information. I want to thank my colleagues on the other side
of the aisle for standing up and beginning to ask questions, and I
want to thank Senator Specter and Senator Biden, who attended a
Committee on the Judiciary hearing and expressed their outrage. I
want to thank Senator Sessions, Senator Kyl, and Senator Grassley,
who were all there. In fact, Senator Grassley called it a
coverup.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell you the number of
Members who have come to me and said this is unacceptable. I would
hope that as a result of what we have heard tonight every Member of
Congress will ask for an inquiry. The gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms.
McKinney) wrote a letter to the chairman of the Committee on Armed
Services asking for an investigation. We have from Republicans to
Democrats, left to right, conservatives to liberals. What is
happening here is unacceptable. It is unimaginable. It is
un-American. All over the world tonight, young Americans are
wearing our uniforms. They are doing a great job. They make us all
proud when we travel overseas. They make us proud because of the
pride they have. When I talk to them, they say I am glad to be
doing what I am doing. I am doing the right thing for our country.
I will go any place the Commander in Chief sends me. Whether I am
in Afghanistan or Iraq, they will tell me that.
[Time: 21:00]
Whether we are in Kosovo or Somalia, they will
tell us that. Whether we are at Hurricane Katrina, whether we are
at Hurricane Andrew, or whether we are out in California, the
earthquake, or the Midwestern floods, our troops are all the same.
They respect our country. They respect our Constitution. If we
allow this travesty to continue, Mr. Speaker, then we have let all
of those people down for some nameless, faceless bureaucrat who is
fearful that the information will finally come to light, that the
DIA just did not get it.
Back in 1999 and 2000, they did not have a clue.
They had millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, and
could not do what a 20-member team did in being able to identify
Mohammed Atta before the 9/11 attacks. DIA does not want that to
come out, Mr. Speaker. They do not want that to come out. Heaven
forbid the Defense Intelligence Agency, with hundreds of millions
of dollars, would have a 20-member team do what they could not do
because they were using new technology and new software. They do
not want that to come out. That is why that Deputy Director, when
he was at that meeting, said, I do not want to see this. Do not
show it to me. And that is why today that Deputy Director is trying
to ruin the career of Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer.
The only way to resolve this, Mr. Speaker, is to
have a full independent investigation by the Inspector General of
the Pentagon. I have asked Secretary Rumsfeld today to do that. I
would ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in
that request. Let the independent inspector for the Pentagon go in,
not DIA. DIA cannot investigate itself. It does not have the
capability to do that. It does not have the integrity to do that.
Let the Inspector General do the investigation and while that is
being done, protect Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer. He does not deserve
to have his career ruined or destroyed for telling the
truth.
And while we are at it, Mr. Speaker, if DIA is
going to continue to press this ridiculous set of facts, then as I
said earlier, I want DIA prosecuted for the five felonies they
committed in sending classified documents to a person that 2 weeks
earlier they said was incapable of receiving classified
information. And if this continues, I want DIA held responsible for
illegally transferring $500 of public assets to a person, that in
the process of sending that stuff to him, DIA committed fraud
against the taxpayers. I want them held accountable: DIA's
stupidity; DIA's incompetence.
We have a new nominee for the head of DIA, and I
am going to ask every Senator to fully explore each of these issues
before that person is confirmed. I will meet with every Senator
personally and go over all of this information. And I would
encourage the Senators and the House Members to interview the other
people who worked with Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer and to get their
assessments of what is going on there. They will all tell them the
same thing: Shaffer is being abused and used as a scapegoat. If
they can ruin Shaffer, they can silence the story.
It cannot happen, Mr. Speaker. We cannot let it.
That is not what America is about. That is not what we say to our
enlisted personnel when they sign up for duty. That is not what we
say when we pass our defense bills every year.
This man is being maligned and mistreated. He is
being harassed. The most scurrilous accusations, totally unfounded,
have been given to the American media; and I will name names, and I
will ask for an investigation of the people who made those
statements to these media people because it all needs to be put on
the record.
And as someone tomorrow who will chair another
hearing on our defense oversight to try to get the best value for
the dollars for our military, I ask all of our colleagues, Mr.
Speaker, on both sides of the aisle to join us. This is not
Republicans or Democrats. It is about what is fundamental to this
country. I would ask our constituents across America we represent
to join us, to express their outrage, to e-mail, make phone calls,
write letters to the Secretary of Defense, the President of the
United States, to Members of Congress to simply let the story be
told. Let the Able Danger story finally come out to the American
people. Let them understand what really happened. Let Scott
Philpott talk. Let Tony Shaffer talk. Let the others who have been
silenced have a chance to tell their story to Congress and openly
to the American people. In the end, the country will be
stronger.
http://tinyurl.com/djxr6
Back in 1999 and 2000, they did not have a clue.
They had millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, and
could not do what a 20-member team did in being able to identify
Mohammed Atta before the 9/11 attacks. DIA does not want that to
come out, Mr. Speaker. They do not want that to come out. Heaven
forbid the Defense Intelligence Agency, with hundreds of millions
of dollars, would have a 20-member team do what they could not do
because they were using new technology and new software. They do
not want that to come out. That is why that Deputy Director, when
he was at that meeting, said, I do not want to see this. Do not
show it to me. And that is why today that Deputy Director is trying
to ruin the career of Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer.
The only way to resolve this, Mr. Speaker, is to
have a full independent investigation by the Inspector General of
the Pentagon. I have asked Secretary Rumsfeld today to do that. I
would ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in
that request. Let the independent inspector for the Pentagon go in,
not DIA. DIA cannot investigate itself. It does not have the
capability to do that. It does not have the integrity to do that.
Let the Inspector General do the investigation and while that is
being done, protect Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer. He does not deserve
to have his career ruined or destroyed for telling the
truth.
And while we are at it, Mr. Speaker, if DIA is
going to continue to press this ridiculous set of facts, then as I
said earlier, I want DIA prosecuted for the five felonies they
committed in sending classified documents to a person that 2 weeks
earlier they said was incapable of receiving classified
information. And if this continues, I want DIA held responsible for
illegally transferring $500 of public assets to a person, that in
the process of sending that stuff to him, DIA committed fraud
against the taxpayers. I want them held accountable: DIA's
stupidity; DIA's incompetence.
We have a new nominee for the head of DIA, and I
am going to ask every Senator to fully explore each of these issues
before that person is confirmed. I will meet with every Senator
personally and go over all of this information. And I would
encourage the Senators and the House Members to interview the other
people who worked with Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer and to get their
assessments of what is going on there. They will all tell them the
same thing: Shaffer is being abused and used as a scapegoat. If
they can ruin Shaffer, they can silence the story.
It cannot happen, Mr. Speaker. We cannot let it.
That is not what America is about. That is not what we say to our
enlisted personnel when they sign up for duty. That is not what we
say when we pass our defense bills every year.
This man is being maligned and mistreated. He is
being harassed. The most scurrilous accusations, totally unfounded,
have been given to the American media; and I will name names, and I
will ask for an investigation of the people who made those
statements to these media people because it all needs to be put on
the record.
And as someone tomorrow who will chair another
hearing on our defense oversight to try to get the best value for
the dollars for our military, I ask all of our colleagues, Mr.
Speaker, on both sides of the aisle to join us. This is not
Republicans or Democrats. It is about what is fundamental to this
country. I would ask our constituents across America we represent
to join us, to express their outrage, to e-mail, make phone calls,
write letters to the Secretary of Defense, the President of the
United States, to Members of Congress to simply let the story be
told. Let the Able Danger story finally come out to the American
people. Let them understand what really happened. Let Scott
Philpott talk. Let Tony Shaffer talk. Let the others who have been
silenced have a chance to tell their story to Congress and openly
to the American people. In the end, the country will be
stronger.
http://tinyurl.com/dfcfa
Weldon certainly gets my vote for "Salesman" of
the Year. With a pitch like this, How could anyone in
brain-Washing-ton D.C. not buy his product? ;)
Re: "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax
or Truth?
PerpetualYnquisitive, Tue Oct 25 2005,
02:54AM
Able Danger Cover Up Continues
October 24, 2005 10:04 AM EST
By Sher Zieve – Appearing on the Laura
Ingraham Radio program Monday, Rep Curt Weldon (R-Il) said that the
smear campaign and cover-up is continuing, in regards to Abel
Danger Intel. Weldon advised that Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, who has
a gag-order placed on him by the Pentagon, DIA and DoD, is being
summarily vilified by these government agencies.
Weldon said: “This is something I expect
from Kim Jong Il of North Korea.”
At least 7 former Able Danger team members have
volunteered to testify before Congress that former Clinton
Administration officials were warned ahead of time of both the USS
Cole bombing and of Mohammed Atta’s presence in the US a year
before 9/11/2001. These individuals have also been placed under
gag-orders and are not allowed to speak to any Senate Committees or
the media.
http://tinyurl.com/7nr44
Re: "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax
or Truth?
PerpetualYnquisitive, Wed Oct 26 2005,
12:38AM
"Able Danger" as Public Service.
When Rep. Curt Weldon started tugging on the loose
string called Able Danger, he expected to find an oversight by the
9/11 Commission. Surely the Commission would regard the
identification of Mohamed Atta al-Sayed as an Al Qaeda operative,
within the United States, prior to 9/11, as significant and would
be eager to clear up the omission.
The Commission has denied that anyone ever told
them that Atta or other hijackers were identified by DOD employees
prior to 9/11. The Able Danger documents they reviewed, they claim,
mention Al Qaeda and show charts, but none of the stuff they saw
mentions Atta.
So why has it been so difficult for an
investigative commission charged with getting to the truth about
the events of 9/11, that has powers of subpoena, had such trouble
finding out the Atta revelations when Weldon, who is not on the
commission has no problem producing witnesses, including
corroborative witnesses, to back up these
statements;
ONE
"What I did not know, Mr. Speaker, up until June
of this year, was that that secret program called Able Danger
actually identified the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda in January and
February of 2000, over 1 year before 9/11 every happened. In
addition, I learned that not only did we identify the Brooklyn cell
of al Qaeda, but we identified Mohamed Atta as one of the members
of that Brooklyn cell along with three other terrorists who were
the leadership of the 9/11 attack."
TWO
"The Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence
Agency was in a meeting with Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer almost a
year before 9/11, and Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer showed him a disk
in his office with information about al Qaeda and Mohammed Atta,
and the Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency stopped
the briefing and said, you cannot show me that. I do not want to
see it. It might contain information I cannot look
at.
Now, Tony Shaffer was not in the room alone, Mr.
Speaker. There were other people, and we know their names. So we
have witnesses. Now, the Deputy Director has denied that meeting
and denied he was there and denied this particular story, but the
fact is he knows that we are going to pursue it."
Full article:
http://tinyurl.com/cjufl
Able Danger warned of attack on USS
Cole
NORRISTOWN - Senior Pentagon officials were warned
not to let the USS Cole dock in Yemen two days before terrorists
attacked the ship five years ago killing 17 sailors, according to
Congressman Curt Weldon, who said the crucial intelligence was
gleaned from the former secret defense operation, "Able
Danger."
Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services
Committee, revealed the information in a House speech last
Wednesday evening that blasted the Defense Intelligence Agency's
(DIA) attempts to discredit Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer,
a DIA employee who worked as a liaison with the "Able Danger"
team.
In June, Shaffer told The Times Herald during an
interview on Capitol Hill that the now-defunct data mining
operation had linked Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta to an al-Qaida
cell in Brooklyn in 2000 - more than a year before the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks.
The military's Special Operations Command ran the
high-tech dragnet that searched for terrorist linkages. The
terrorist associations were mapped out on large charts, according
to Shaffer and other of "Able Danger" colleagues, during the
program that operated between 1999 and 2001.
However, following Shaffer's attempts to broker an
arrangement that would draw the FBI into the operation, the program
was shut down.
Weldon and Shaffer believe "Able Danger"
intelligence may have disrupted - or even prevented - the Sept. 11
attacks if it had continued.
In August, Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott and James D.
Smith, a defense contractor, corroborated Shaffer's
story.
On Wednesday, Weldon again criticized the Pentagon
for dragging its feet in its probe of the defense program's
history, and continued his criticism of the CIA, which he said
tried to protect its own intelligence turf from other government
intelligence agencies.
"What we have here, I am convinced of this now, is
an aggressive attempt by CIA management to cover up their own
shortcomings in not being able to do what the Able Danger team
did," he said.
Besides claiming to identifying Atta from a grainy
photograph prior to Sept. 11, the intelligence team also tried to
warn the Pentagon not to allow the USS Cole to make a refueling
stop in Yemen five years ago, Weldon said.
On Oct. 12, 2000, a small boat loaded with
explosives rammed into the side of the USS Cole as the ship
refueled in port at Aden, killing the 17 Navy
personnel.
"(Able Danger members) also identified the threat
to the USS Cole two weeks before the attack, and two days before
the attack were screaming not to let the (ship) come into the
harbor at Yemen, because they knew something was going to happen,"
he said.
The "Able Danger" group operated at the Army's
former Land Information Warfare Center (LIWA), in Ft. Belvoir, Va.
After LIWA's intelligence gathering capability impressed Weldon, he
tried to pitch the idea of a collaborative intelligence center to
the CIA in 1999, but was rebuffed.
Also in his speech, Weldon accused the DIA of
trying to smear Shaffer rather than come clean on why "Able Danger"
was shut down.
Shaffer, who was awarded a Bronze Star for his
service in Afghanistan, had his top-secret security clearance
suspended in 2004 allegedly because of disputes over travel
expenses and phone bills.
But his supporters suggest Shaffer is being made a
scapegoat for going public with the "Able Danger" revelations in
August.
Two days before he was set to testify about the
program before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 21, the
Reserve officer's secret clearance was revoked, and the Defense
Department barred him, Phillpott and Smith from testifying at the
hearing.
Also in August, Pentagon officials told reporters
at a press conference that "Able Danger" data had been deleted from
computers. A former Army intelligence officer, Erik Kleinsmith,
confirmed this at the Judiciary Committee hearing, testifying he
was ordered to destroy information.
During the life of the program, the operation's
team members created charts linking terrorists. However, during the
recent investigation, none have been found.
The Pentagon, which claimed it is restricted from
retaining intelligence on United States citizens and foreign
residents living in the U.S., so-called "U.S. persons," for more
than 90 days.
Full article:
http://tinyurl.com/9kcyn
Re: "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax
or Truth?
PerpetualYnquisitive, Wed Oct 26 2005,
10:46PM
[excerpt]
Congressman Curt Weldon claims a secret Pentagon
project known as Able Danger identified Mohammed Atta as a member
of a New York-based al Qaeda cell a year before the September 11th
terrorist attacks. There was no mention of Able Danger in the
commission's report on 9/11. I'm joined now by former Senator Slade
Gorton, a member of the 9/11 Commission. Good to have you here,
but, in fact was Able Danger omitted from your initial 9/11
Commission report with a purpose?
SLADE GORTON, FORMER 9/11 COMMISSIONER: No, Able
Danger was omitted -- omitted from our report because it didn't
have anything to do with 9/11. We learned about Able Danger from
Colonel Shaffer, who briefed four of our staffers on it in Kabul,
Afghanistan eight or nine months before our report came out. We
immediately followed up on it, and we got all of the Able Danger
materials from the Department of Defense, and they had nothing to
do with Mohammed Atta or with any of the other conspirators. So
Able Danger was -- got very interesting. It didn't identify
Mohammed Atta a year beforehand. Unfortunately, no one identified
Mohammed Atta beforehand. Able Danger was simply irrelevant to our
report, and still is.
DOBBS: Irrelevant, you say, and at the same time,
you're saying that Colonel -- Lieutenant Colonel Terry (sic)
Shaffer, Congressman Curt Weldon have their facts entirely wrong.
Is that correct?
GORTON: No, not entirely wrong. Colonel Shaffer
told us about Able Danger. And he was the first person who did so.
He also claimed later that he told us about Mohammed Atta. He
didn't do that. We had four people in on that meeting, all of whom
were fascinated by Mohammed Atta, who of course at that point we
knew to be the leader of the conspirators. He was never
mentioned.
Congressman Weldon said he turned over Mohammed
Atta's name to Steve -- to Steve -- what's his name -- the deputy
head of the National Security Agency in the White House. He didn't
do so. He never told us about it. He never told his own
congressional investigating committee about it. Never mentioned it
until he got to his book about three or four months ago.
Unfortunately, he's just mistaken. He may have talked about some of
the elements of 9/11, but they didn't include Mohammed
Atta.
DOBBS: Congressman Weldon, as you know, has called
for an investigation. I take it you feel that that's unnecessary at
this point?
GORTON: Oh, no. That investigation has already
taken place. It's taken place by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
That investigation will report, I hope, within the next week, and
it will agree with the 9/11 Commission.
DOBBS: The fact that the intelligence community
has not followed up on the recommendations that you and the rest of
the commission put forward, and you focus greatly on the FBI. Do
you have any sense that there is going to be a movement toward
fulfilling the recommendations, the remaining recommendations of
the commission?
GORTON: Well, let's divide it. Congress did a very
good job in creating a new direction of national intelligence and a
National Counterterrorism Center. We had more faith in the FBI I
think at the time in which we reported a year ago, because we
really liked Bob Mueller and what he was trying to do. But he's
being defeated by the FBI itself, which just won't change its
culture to provide the kind of activity on internal security here
in the United States that we think is necessary. We're very
troubled by that.
DOBBS: Senator Slade Gorton, we thank you for
being here as we continue to follow this story and to follow the
recommendations that are followed and not followed by the
administration. We thank you for being here.
CNN transcript, near bottom of this page:
http://tinyurl.com/d9nhj
said ...
Note to 'my e-pping Tom', I posted another link,
quick, better add it to your diary.
Re: "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax
or Truth?
PerpetualYnquisitive, Thu Oct 27 2005,
04:43PM
NEXT PART 5
Able Danger part
1
Able Danger
part 2
Able Danger part
3
Able Danger part
4
Able Danger part
5
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