Sep 21 2005
Able Danger, Hearings Open Thread, 09/21/05
Here is the open thread I promised for those fortunate to track the Senate hearings in real time. The lovely webmistress will be checking in throughout the day to moderate comments – so keep it clean and keep it civil please. Your comments will not be posted immediately initially.
AJStrata
Able Danger – It was a Great Summer Story
Trust me, it’s going away, and the pressure to do so is coming from the TOP of the food chain – the very top.
Summer’s over, the story is done.
Sorry, I disagree, you can’t unscramble an egg.
You haven’t seen a blogswarm like the one that will be unleashed if there is an attempt at a coverup.
By the way, OT, anyone know how Judith Miller, the First Amendment heroine, is making out?
I can’t find on TV however i’m listening (Weldon is on Fire)
http://www.c-span.org/watch/cspan3_rm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS3
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Honestly, there was not that much new information at the hearing. Shaffer’s radio interview last night had more news and info in it.
I have posted a summary of the high points of the hearings today at
Dr. Sanity if anyone is interested.
First off, I’m suprised that there has not been more interest in this hearing. It obviously did not go off as expected, or as those of us interested in the Able Danger investigation wished it would have, but sometimes we can learn from what is not said, as well as from what was said.
I saw John Podhoretz over at National Review say that he thought the Pentagon was preserving sources and methodoligy by not allowing their employees to meet with the Senate. I think the work of both Senators Specter and Sessions casts doubt upon that assumption. Not only that, but I think the hard, prosecutorial questioning by Sessions and Specter proves that the Pentagon buraucracy (not to mention the 9/11 Commission) are remaining close-lipped for reasons having nothing to do with National Security. I only wonder what those reasons could be. I honestly cannot see what the Pentagon gains by taking the line they currently are.
Dr. Sanity has a good summary of events. A few key revelations:
– Atta was not identified as being physically in the US, only that he was linked to the Brooklyn cell.
– It is unknown if it was DOD lawyers that stopped the meetings between Able Danger and the FBI.
– AD purchased photo of Atta from a California contractor, and this conflicts with either the 9/11 Commission report or a statement made by someone associated with 9/11 Commission.
– LTC Shaffer’s security clearance officially removed Monday night (less than 48 hours before hearing).
One of Weldon’s complaints was what happenned to the data that Able Danger collected. It was apparently destroyed but references were made to it in January and March of 2001 and Shaffer’s own personal copy of the data he had were destroyed in April of 2004 which would have been after the 9/11 Commission knew about Able Danger existing.
LtC Shaffer’s lawyer specifically said during the Able Danger hearing that Atta wasn’t physically identified as being in the US, but was tied to the Brooklyn cell. Let’s assume that Able Danger was aware in 1999-2000 that at least one Al qaeda linked cell was operating in the US .
How could this conflict with the 9/11 Commission report?
Gorelick ‘wall’ memo cites :
… significant counterintelligence information has been developed related to the activities and plans of agents of foreign powers operating in this country and overseas, including previously unknown connections between separate terrorist groups.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/report/2004/1995_gorelick_memo.pdf
Exactly which ‘foreign powers’ were operating in ‘this country’ and what were the ‘connections between them and the separate(previously unlinked) terrorist groups in March of 1995?
SPECULATION ALERT! – SPECULATION ALERT!
The Oklahoma bombing happenned in April of 1995. Could the data that Able Danger have collected if reanalyzed reveal a foreign link to to the Oklahoma City bombing confirming the Jayna Davis theory?
http://www.jaynadavis.com
What is interesting is the Pentagon did not say the AD people couldn’t testify, just couldn’t do it in public. Could that mean there is a follow on program to AD that could be compromised?
Spector handled himself well. Even Biden honored us with his presence. I found interesting that Richard Shiffrin and Cambone were briefed early in March 01. AD was a Proof of concept (POC) Project. The 90 day rule Collectivity determination was the basis for the destruction of the data. Gen Schoomaker should be called to testify. Wonder if there are any other Unclassified open source data in JD’s car trunk?
Interesting link on Cambone……..
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views04/0520-03.htm
…. Stephen Cambone, a conservative defense intellectual appointed to the new post of undersecretary of intelligence. Cambone is universally despised by the officer corps for his arrogant, abrasive and dictatorial style and regarded as the personal symbol of Rumsfeldism. A former senior Pentagon official told me of a conversation with a three-star general, who remarked: “If we were being overrun by the enemy and I had only one bullet left, I’d use it on Cambone.”
Cambone set about cutting the CIA and the state department out of the war on terror, but he had no knowledge of special ops. For this the rarefied civilian relied on the gruff soldier – a melding of “ignorance and recklessness”, as a military intelligence source told me…..
I noticed the left wing bloggers were commenting on AD and that Rumsfeld’s nec-cons are the ones who did not tell the FBI? The spin has started. This is high stakes poker!
Liontooth,
I’ll go with the OCB if we could also tie Sandy Berger into the plot. Lets put Judy Miller and Plame in the mix too.
Seriously, I don’t know what to believe anymore. The more i dig, the more I dislike what I see. The Aviation Schoo;s, Visas, phone records, Taxi Drivers, jeez, it is almost like a Clancey Novel.
I think I will come to mu own conclusions and not depend o the Govt. to tell me what happened. Either way, I will never know the truth. Crap.
Curt Weldon claims that he gave an Able Danger chart to the White House two weeks after 9-11. Weldon’s aid says that M. Atta’s picture was on the chart. Weldon reportedly claims that he does not remember if Atta was on the chart or not.
If the White House wanted to publicize Able Danger, they could have. But they chose not to and may have a good reason.
Some have speculated that the Able Danger information tends to support Laurie Mylroie’s belief that Atta was an agent of Iraq and that he met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague.
This could have helped Bush to justify his decision to attack Iraq, yet Bush did not embrace this theory of Iraqi complicity in 9-11.
Let us speculate, for the sake of argument, that Atta was an Iraqi agent. Why wouldn’t Bush tell?
Bush might not tell if it would tip off Atta’s American collaborators .
It may be that these people are being watched.
It could be that the Pentagon destroyed the Able Danger data but contractors gave the same thing to the FBI.
The contractors might be free to provide information to the FBI.
There are all sorts of possibilities.
But I notice that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are not exactly giving Weldon a hand here. I trust their judgement, not Weldon’s.
Curious about why Rep Curt Weldon would not be trusted? What specifically has he done to deserve distrust? Please no quotes from Time magazine.
Pierre Legrand
Pierre, are you asking me?
I don’t trust someone who would betray classified intelligence and give it a partisan spin just to embarrass the Democrats. This annoys the Democrats for no good reason. There were people from both parties on the 9-11 Commission. I don’t think that this information was made clear to them by Shaffer. If they knew about it, both sides probably suppressed it for reasons of national security.
Neither Clinton people nor Bush people aided or abetted 9-11 and people who talk like this are dividing the country during a war.
I don’t trust someone who does not seem to have the support of the Administration on this issue. I think people like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld will know more than Weldon.
I don’t trust someone who would not accept a classified briefing instead of an open hearing for a classified matter.
I took a look at Weldon’s ridiculous book and thought he was a total goof-ball.
I don’t trust someone whose “press conferences” seem to be appearing on communist/terrorist-supporting sites like Global Research.
The far left just loves Weldon’s revelations and uses it to claim that Bush knew about 9-11 and that it was a Neocon plot.
I don’t trust someone who would smear high CIA officials in his book, when these people cannot respont because of security concerns.
I don’t trust someone who meets with enemy agents when the CIA tells him not to.
Simply by telling about the existence of a classified program he has tipped off our terrorist enemies that we tracked M. Atta for a long time. Anyone associated with Atta now knows that he may be under investigation.
I think Weldon and Shaffer should be in a lot of trouble.