WHAT is the deal with Able Danger and Curt Weldon?

[burythehatchet]

Initially I believed this was another cynical ploy to blame Clinton. But the hotter this thing gets, another article here, the more curious I become as to what the motive is. Weldon, a typical rethug, is not doing this to get to the truth. What is the setup?

btw, this from a yahoo poster

by: caribbeandiver69 09/16/05 07:05 am
Msg: 16839 of 16856
3 recommendations

Weldon himself said the following at the Heritage Foundation in May of 2002. Also note, Weldon had the chart with the information he claimed was erased. This is 8 months after 9/11.

And now he claims it was erased 2yrs and 8 months before he showed it. WTF?

Also note cons. The paragraph next to the last says BUSH ADMIN WAS BRIEFED BY THE OUT GOING CLINTON ADMIN ABOUT ABLE DANGER.

This means that bush knew about the possibilities of terror attacks. AND BUSH DID NOTHING.

"A copy of the Able Danger chart that identified lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta as a terrorist operating inside the U.S. a year before the 9/11 attacks is clearly visible in a video of a 2002 speech by delivered by Rep. Curt Weldon to the Heritage Foundation."

""A third of the way through his May 23, 2002 address on data fusion techniques, the video shows Rep. Weldon unfurling a copy of the now missing document and displaying it to the Heritage audience.

"This is the unclassified chart that was done by the Special Forces Command briefing center one year before 9/11," he explains. "It is the complete architecture of al Qaeda and pan-Islamic extremism. It gives all the linkages. It gives all the capabilities. . . ."

Though Weldon never mentions Able Danger or Atta by name - and the video never zooms in on the chart to the point where Atta's photo is identifiable - it's clear from Weldon comments that the chart is the same one currently being sought.

Since the Able Danger story broke three weeks ago, the Pennsylvania Republican has repeatedly insisted that he gave a copy of the chart shortly after the 9/11 attacks to then-Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley.

In the 2002 speech, Weldon told the same story in greater detail, standing beside a copy of what he said he gave Hadley.

"I went to the White House. I don't mean to embarrass this guy cause he's a good friend of mine. But I took a mini version of this chart in Nov. <2001> and I turned it over to him - Steve Hadley, who works directly for Condi Rice."

Weldon said Hadley was stunned after viewing the Al Qaeda-Atta document.

"This is unbelievable - where'd you get this?" he wanted to know.

After being told that the chart was prepared by military intelligence a year before the 9/11 attacks, Hadley said, according to Weldon, "I've got to show this to the man" - apparently referring to President Bush.

In the same speech, Rep. Weldon also revealed that then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh Shelton received a briefing on the Able Danger chart in the closing weeks of the Clinton administration.

To view Rep. Weldon's entire 2002 speech to the Heritage Foundation, go to: http://www.heritage.org/Press/Events/2002archive.cfm He displays the al Qaeda-Atta chart approximately 34 minutes into the presentation.""

[seemslikeadream]

1. Zelikow NEVER told the 9/11 Commission about ABLE DANGER

Shoomaker NEVER told Clinton

Able Danger is a Pandora's Box that will blow up in the RW's face.
Re-open the 9/11 investigation? BRING IT ON! Here's why:

So the responsibility for stopping DIA program Able Danger, which had Identified Atta and 3 other hijackers and linked them to 56 other al-Queda terrorists overseas, has been laid at the feet of Bill Clinton--except he and Richard Clarke were never told about it at all.

That's right. Bill Clinton was never told about Able Danger and the ID of Atta because Richard Clarke was never told about AD. How do I know? He never wrote about it in his book, nor did he testify about it's existence before the 9-11 Commission!

You see Richard Clarke was known for being obsessed with Osama Bin Laden and HE was the guy the neo-con moles did not want to find out about Atta and the gang. Schoomaker and the neo-cons knew telling the FBI would inform Clarke and then Mr. Laser Beam himself, President of the United State William Jefferson Clinton, would have gotten involved--and the Pearl Harbor-type attack would never take place (the neo-cons talked about the need for a Pearl Harbor-type attack before the PNAC Plan would be accepted by the American people--so when one presented itself, they let it happen).

General Pete Schoomaker, who were later heavily rewarded by the neo-cons in the Bush Administration, blocked the upward motion of the DIA information by having Shaffer and Philpott meet with Pentagon lawyers opinions--lawyers who were rubberstamping ridiculous legal opinions to carry out the neo-con plan. These certain people were neo-cons in the Clinton Administration, covertly carrying out the PNAC plan to let a Pearl Harbor-type attack occur so Iraq and 6 other countries could be invaded.


BUDDY BUDDY
http://www.gsnmagazine.com.nyud.net:8090/images/aug_05/atta.jpg
DO THE MATH

24 MINUTES

THERE MUST HAVE BEEN A MILITARY ORDER

http://www.bushflash.com/buddy.html



http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/24/124834/678


DIA Agents were ordered to put yellow Post-its over Atta's face and the face's of 3 other 9/11 terrorists

"We were directed to take those 3M yellow stickers and place them over the faces of Atta and the other terrorists and pretend they didn't exist," the intelligence officer told GSN."

Intel agents Michael Shaffer and Scott Philpott have confirmed Rep. Weldon's claims that a chart with Atta's face, soon the photos of 3 other members of the 9-11 terror team, were known to DIA team Able Danger by early 2000.

This diary will show that Pete Schoomaker and Philip Zelikow are two of the main Perpetraitors in this scandal, that they deliberately withheld information from the President of the United States that would have prevented 9/11, that they and their neo-con rulers Let It Happen On Purpose.

Of this there can no longer be any doubt.



MUST READ - RE: ABLE DANGER INFO
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4447706

Hopsicker: Able Danger Intel Exposed "Protected" Heroin Trafficking
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x149481


Able Danger: Short Time-line
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4441903

Was Able Danger Shut Down After It Detected Condi-PRC Spy Ring?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4494524



Senate May Hold Hearings on Able Danger, Info Sharing
Thursday, August 25, 2005


Able Danger (search) is the code name for a military-intelligence unit that apparently learned a year before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta (search) and other terrorists were already in the United States.

One of the central Able Danger claims — that military lawyers blocked the sharing of the Atta information from the FBI in the late summer and early fall of 2000 — will be a focus of the committee's if a hearing takes place, FOX News has confirmed.

Some analysts involved with Able Danger have recently gone public with their findings, saying they were discouraged from looking further into Atta, and their attempts to share their information with the FBI were thwarted, because Atta was a legal foreign visitor at the time.

"This story needs to be told. The American people need to be told what could have been done to prevent 3,000 people from losing their lives," said Rep. Curt Weldon (search), R-Pa.

Weldon drew attention to Able Danger by speaking about it on the House floor and publicly calling for the Sept. 11 commission to explain why the intelligence information wasn't detailed in its final report.

Some Able Danger analysts, including Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer (search) and Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott (search), claim that in October 2003, they told commission staffers of the presence of Al Qaeda operatives in the United States in 2000.


more
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,166800,00.html


Senate May Hold Hearings on Able Danger, Info Sharing
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1727804&mesg_id=1727804




Condi in Middle of Able Danger ‘Cover Up’"

Weldon is now saying that the Pentagon cover up of able danger “will shake the country to its roots."

...

If the claims made by the Able Danger participants and Rep. Weldon are confirmed, former National Security Adviser Rice and other Bush Administration officials will face a barrage of questions. First would likely be an inquiry into why the administration unceremoniously axed the Able Danger project in May of 2001.

During an August 20th interview on C-Span’s Washington Journal, Able Danger member Lt. Col. Schaffer posed a question of his own:

"The American public should ask themselves: Why would the leadership of DoD shut down, terminate, a project which was aimed at targeting al-Qaeda offensively? ...

"Why would they shut that down, four months before 9/11? That’s the big question right now, we have to ask that. I don’t know the answer to that question because I know my side of the story, I know that when a 2 star general got in my face and said, “I’m a 2 star general and you are not. You are to stop your support of Able Danger.” That’s what I know personally. But the question has to be: Who told him to do that? ...

"And why did the rest of the project, I’m talking about Special Operations Command and the Army portion of this, why was that terminated?

"Those are the questions that need to be asked."


more...

http://www.theinternationalpost.com/z30082005.html

Congressman Weldon -- Why now? Why ever?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4500623


Three more assert Pentagon knew of 9/11 ringleader By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three more people associated with a secret U.S. military intelligence team have asserted that the program identified September 11 ringleader Mohammed Atta as an Al Qaeda suspect inside the United States more than a year before the 2001 attacks, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

The Pentagon said a three-week review had turned up no documents to back up the assertion, but did not rule out that such documents relating to the classified operation had been destroyed.

Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott and Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer last month came forward with statements that a secret intelligence program code-named "Able Danger" had identified Atta, the lead hijacker in the attacks that killed 3,000 people, in early 2000. Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Curt Weldon (news, bio, voting record), vice chairman of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, also went public with the allegations.

Pat Downs, a senior policy analyst in the office of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, told reporters that as part of the review, the Pentagon interviewed 80 people.

Downs said that three more people, as well as Phillpott and Shaffer, recalled the existence of an intelligence chart identifying Atta by name. Four of the five recalled a photo of Atta accompanying the chart, Downs said.

Pentagon officials declined to identify the three by name, but said they were an analyst with the military's Special Operations Command, an analyst with the Land Information Warfare Assessment Center and a contractor who supported the center.

Downs said all five were considered "credible people."

But officials said an exhaustive search of tens of thousands of documents and electronic files related to Able Danger failed to find the chart or other documents corroborating the identification of Atta. Phillpott has said Atta was identified by Able Danger by January or February of 2000.

"We have not discovered that chart," Downs said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050901/pl_nm/security_attacks_pentagon_dc


Three more assert Pentagon knew of 9/11 ringleader
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1744982&mesg_id=1744982

[burythehatchet]

4. it is the simplest answer, after all it seems

a small group of Pentagon neocons knew what was going to go down, and they saw it as their entrance into dominating the world stage. They were going to make sure nothing was done to stop them, and they may have actually assisted them.

[Octafish]

14. No one told Oswald he was the patsy, either. Was Atta similarly used?

Back in 1963 New Orleans, ex-FBI Guy Bannister never let on to CIA-wannabe Lee Harvey Oswald what his future rold would be.



Today, we have yet more evidence of the Secret Government at "work." The better word is "treason."

From our wise cousins at Global Research.ca:

Able Danger adds twist to 9/11

9/11 Ringleader connected to secret Pentagon operation

by Dr. Daniele Ganser

EXCERPT...

For the past four years, we have been told by the administration of George Bush and by the official 9/11 Commission report of Chairman Thomas Kean and Executive Director Philip Zelikow that Egyptian extremist Mohammed Atta was the key player in the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. Atta, according to the Kean report, was the “tactical leader of the 9/11 plot”. He was the pilot who on that dreadful morning flew the first plane, American Airlines 11, into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York. It was Atta’s face, on television and in newspapers across the world, that became the symbol of Islamic terrorism. And it was Atta’s name - not the names of any of the 18 other hijackers allegedly lead by Atta on that day - that was cited by international security researchers. Atta was, as the Kean report stresses, “the tactical commander of the operation in the United States”. According to both the Bush administration and the official 9/11 Commission report, he was working on the orders of Osama Bin Laden who, from remote Afghanistan, controlled the entire operation.

Now, almost exactly four years after 9/11, the facts appear to have been turned upside down. We now learn that Atta was also connected to a top secret operation of the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in the US. According to Army reserve Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Shaffer, a top secret Pentagon project code-named Able Danger had identified Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers as members of an al-Qaida cell more than a year before the attacks.

Able Danger was an 18-month highly classified operation tasked, according to Shaffer, with “developing targeting information for al-Qaida on a global scale”, and used data-mining techniques to look for “patterns, associations, and linkages”. He said he himself had first encountered the names of the four hijackers in mid-2000.

SNIP...

If it is true that Zelikow declined to include the information on Able Danger in the Kean report, and if it is true, as Zelikow wrote, that Atta was the “tactical leader of the 9/11 plot”, and if it is furthermore true, as Schaffer publicly explained, that SOCOM protected Atta prior to his deadly attack on the US, which claimed 3,000 lives, then the account as provided by the official 9/11 report is discredited, and we are faced with a sea of lies and cover-ups.

Four years after 9/11, we are presented with facts that are diametrically opposed to the official narrative. While the biggest questions remain unanswered and there is a possibility that they will never be answered, the media would do well by the public to be diligent enough to keep the issue alive and not allow it to be swept under the rug in the face of confusion and complexity.

SOURCE:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20050827&articleId=867

Those familiar with what happened in Dallas 42 years ago will recognize the stench from Able Danger.

It smells like TREASON.

[Roland99]

2. The Pentagon employee says he was ordered to destroy, doesn't say he did.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050916/ap_on_go_co/sept11_hijackers


And, btw, here's a direct link to Weldon's presentation:
http://multimedia.heritage.org/content/lect020523a.ram

NetTransport works well for d'loading streaming video.

[leveymg]

3. What does everyone make of Weldon's latest: 2.5 tetra bytes ordered

erased from AD files two years before 9/11?

Is this an attempt to deflect Bush Admin. responsibility for ignoring and then shutting down AD in March 2001? Or, if Weldon is correct, is there a bigger picture that's emerging here about the scope and methods of the program?

Here's an alternative explanation. AD was not initially restricted to "open source" (non-classified)data. It was a program to develop methods of analyzing NSA intercepts so that useful intelligence could be processed in "real-time", and more efficiently collated from the vast amount of electronic data that the NSA and its allied intelligence agencies take in every day.

It is illegal for NSA to retain intercepts of communications of "US persons", US citizens, lawful permanent residents, and US-based companies and organizations. The intelligence community is required to obtain a FISA warrant if it wishes to retain information on US persons, otherwise the data is supposed to be destroyed after a period of time .

One way around this restriction is through international agreements with friendly foreign intelligence agencies. For decades, the NSA, British, Australian and New Zealand spy agencies have collaborated so that they share electronic intercepts on each others citizens. That program is called Echelon.

The other way that US intelligence has evaded this requirement to destroy warrantless intercepts on US persons is to develop really fast data processing systems and real-time algorithms that generate usable intelligence before the date the data must be destroyed.

Weldon claims that the Pentagon ordered that 2.5 tetra bytes of data --including the Atta data -- be destroyed two years before 9/11. Several things may have actually occurred:


1) all the project's data was destroyed;
2) none of the project's data was destroyed;
3) data that had already been mined of useful information was destroyed.

We know that the AD project continued until March 2001. That strongly indicates that 1) did not occur. Second, given the imperatives of military organizations, it is unlikely that the order was altogether ignored -- so, we can assume that 2) did not result. That leaves us with 3) as the most likely outcome -- this explains why copies of the chart showing Atta and the other "Brooklyn cell" members (the principle 9/11 hijackers) survived and got into Weldon's hands.

A number of conclusions can be drawn from this. Anyone want to take a crack at it?

[seemslikeadream]

5. Here's what Paul Thompson said about that

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1784181&mesg_id=1784181

paulthompson (1000+ posts) Thu Sep-15-05 06:55 PM
Response to Original message
26. Explaining 2.5 terrabytes
Do you all know what Able Danger was? It was a data mining program, kind of an early version of Total Information Awareness. Its goal was to go through massive amounts of publicly available databases and look for patterns. For instance, they apparently connected Atta to al-Qaeda by looking at records of people attending radical mosques and making connections on people attending mosques at the same time as known al-Qaeda members.

I'm assuming the 2.5 terrabytes is ALL the data Able Danger had collected in its couple years of existence. Apparently, the entire Able Danger database was wiped out (which meant their copies of large databases). Obviously, only a tiny fraction of this had anything to do with al-Qaeda.

Weldon may be a bit of a loon, but there are many whistleblowers in the Able Danger program coming out. Three by name so far, three anonymous, and apparently more coming forward all the time, like the guy mentioned in this article.

People at DU keep dismissing the Able Danger story due to the connection with Weldon, but I don't think it can be dismissed.

[drummo]

6. The whole issue is a joke.

Weldon is out of control because the FBI could not be informed by Able Danger about four 9/11 hijackers. But the funny thing is that the FBI already knew about two of those hijackers. They didn't need Able Danger to know that Hazmi and Midhar had something to do with al Qaeda.

Weldon also fails to explain exactly who in the FBI should have been informed about those 4 guys and then what should those FBI people have done with the info?
Other than the names did AD have anything useful? If so what?

We know that the problem for the FBI was not that there was noone who knew before 9/11 that Midhar and Hazmi were at an al Qaeda meeting in Malaysia in 2000. The problem for them was that the few people who started a search for those two in Aug, 2001 were INCOMPETENT and painfully slow. What the fuck could AD have done about that? Nothing.

[seemslikeadream]

7. Well I will side with Paul Thompson

since I know who he is and he did write 9/11 Timeline and was at the McKinney hearings that's him on the lower right.

And since I have NO idea who you are and what YOUR qualifactions are, I'll take a pass on your post. Where you an expert witness at the McKinney hearings, have you been an expert witness anywhere about anything?

Paul does post here by the way, if you want to ask him any questions.

I believe Richard Clarke includes Paul's book in the university class he teaches








The Terror Timeline : Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute: A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11--and America's Response (Paperback)

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project

[drummo]

8. Re: Well I will side with Paul Thompson

Where you an expert witness at the McKinney hearings, have you been an expert witness anywhere about anything?

No. But you don't think that only an "expert witness" can read and have common sense, do you?

Midhar and Hamzi were known by some in the FBI before 9/11. They also believed they were inside the US. And they didn't get it from AD but from a vigilant CIA analyst.
Noone, not even Paul disputed that.
And if you use the info about those two in the Aug of 2001 you can prevent 9/11 easily.

This way:

However, there was in fact a great deal of specific information that WAS available prior to 9/11 that probably could have been used to prevent the tragedy. A recent analysis by the Markle foundation, (working with data from a software company that received venture capital from a CIA-sponsored firm) demonstrates this point in a startling way:

"In late August 2001, Nawaq Alhamzi and Khalid Al-Midhar bought tickets to fly on American Airlines Flight 77 (which was flown into the Pentagon). They bought the tickets using their real names. Both names were then on a State Department/INS watch list called TIPOFF. Both men were sought by the FBI and CIA as suspected terrorists, in part because they had been observed at a terrorist meeting in Malaysia.
These two passenger names would have been exact matches when checked against the TIPOFF list. But that would only have been the first step. Further data checks could then have begun.
Checking for common addresses (address information is widely available, including on the internet), analysts would have discovered that Salem Al-Hazmi (who also bought a seat on American 77) used the same address as Nawaq Alhazmi. More importantly, they could have discovered that Mohamed Atta (American 11, North Tower of the World Trade Center) and Marwan Al-Shehhi (United 175, South Tower of the World Trade Center) used the same address as Khalid Al-Midhar.
Checking for identical frequent flier numbers, analysts would have discovered that Majed Moqed (American 77) used the same number as Al-Midhar.
With Mohamed Atta now also identified as a possible associate of the wanted terrorist, Al-Midhar, analysts could have added Atta's phone numbers (also publicly available information) to their checklist. By doing so they would have identified five other hijackers (Fayez Ahmed, Mohand Alshehri, Wail Alsheri, and Abdulaziz Alomari).
Closer to September 11, a further check of passenger lists against a more innocuous INS watch list (for expired visas) would have identified Ahmed Alghandi. Through him, the same sort of relatively simple correlations could have led to identifying the remaining hijackers, who boarded United 93 (which crashed in Pennsylvania)."
In addition, Al-Midhar and Nawaf Alhamzi, the two who were on the terrorist watch list, rented an apartment in San Diego under their own names and were listed, again under their own names, in the San Diego phone book while the FBI was searching for them.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but what is needed is better and more timely analysis. Simply piling up more raw data that is almost entirely irrelevant is not only not going to help. It may actually hurt the cause. As one FBI agent said privately of Ashcroft: "We're looking for a needle in a haystack here and he (Ashcroft) is just piling on more hay."

Al Gore, Freedom and Security
Sunday, 09 November 2003
Constitution Hall Washington, D.C.

Gore quoted Markle's "Protecting America's Freedom in the Information Age" report.
You can find it here:
http://www.markle.org/downloadable_assets/nstf_full.pdf

Illustration No 2: "Watch-Out Lists" and "Gates": A hypothetical Application ot the 9/11 Attacks
Page 28

So Able Danger or not Able Danger the FBI did have the necessary info to get the hijackers. They just did not use it effectively because there was noone at the top who would have "forced" them. Why?
You can find the answer to that in another Gore speech:

"And it was in this period of recklessly willful ignorance on the part of the attorney general that the CIA was also picking up unprecedented warnings that an attack on the United States by al Qaeda was imminent. In his famous phrase, George Tenet wrote that the system was "blinking red." It was in this context that the president himself was presented with a CIA report that carried a headline more alarming and more pointed than any I saw in eight years of six-days-a-week CIA briefings. The headline said, as many of you know, "Bin Laden determined to strike in the U.S."

The only warnings of this nature that remotely resembled the one given to George Bush that I recall was about the so-called millennium threats predicted for the end of the year 1999, and somewhat less specific warnings about the dangers that might face the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996. And in both cases, these warnings in the president's daily briefing were followed immediately, on the same day, by the beginning of urgent daily meetings in the White House of all the agencies and offices involved in preparing our nation to prevent the threatened attack.

By contrast, when President Bush received his fateful and historic warning of 9/11, he did not convene the National Security Council, did not bring together the FBI and CIA and other agencies with responsibility to protect the nation, and apparently did not even ask follow-up questions later about the warning.

The bipartisan 9/11 commission summarized, in its unanimous report, what happened. And I quote: "We have found no indication of any further discussion before September 11th between the president and his advisors about the possibility of a threat of al Qaeda attack in the United States," end quote."

Al Gore
Gaston Hall at Georgetown University
Monday, October 18, 2004

[seemslikeadream]

9. The issue for me is who (Zelikow) stopped the info

from reaching the 9/11 Commission and who (Shoomaker) stopped the info from reaching President Clinton.

That needs to be investigated.

I don't have a problem with anything you've posted and even if I did I wouldn't be so disrespectful and call it a joke.

[drummo]

13. Re: "The issue for me is who (Zelikow) stopped the info"

Actually what I called a joke was the suggestion by many that the AD info is somehow a smoking gun. You know, a "this is why 9/11 was not prevented" moment. And that is simply not true.

There are of course other questions Weldon&Co. have failed to answer which makes the story as it stand now pretty ridiculous.

1. If those AD guys knew that in 2000 some mysterious Pentagon lawyers did not allow the FBI to know about those four guys why didn't they try it again, for example after Bush became president? New lawyers came in. But based on what Weldon says you have to think AD tried once and then that was it for them. Why?

2.If AD thought the FBI should have known about this why didn't they try to contact the Secy of Defense directly? Or god forbid the President himself who then could have forwarded the info to the FBI, CIA etc? Who was the commander-in-chief? A Pentagon lawyer?

3.Which Pentagon lawyer would confuse a green card with a visa?

4.And most of all: since when do lawyers have the power to stop information sharing between various agencies? No lawyer has that right to do that under the law. They can give legal advice but that's it. They cannot issue orders.

[seemslikeadream]

16. I would like to see where that "smoking gun" allegation was made

I never read that anywhere nor have I ever said that. Please be more careful what you accuse me of.

The hearings start next Wednesday.

I guess we will see then, 12 government witnesses

[drummo]

18. It was not about you specifically.

But the way many presented this issue on DU and elsewhere.
Clearly, a lot of people think this is a big deal because they see it as the reason why 9/11 was not prevented. Why else would they care about it at all?

[seemslikeadream]

20. You are absolutely wrong about that

I have NEVER read that people think it was the reason 9/11 was not prevent. I think you are under the wrong impression. Maybe you should take the time to re read the links I provided.

Again the reason I care about it is because Zelikow and Shoomaker prevent the info from getting to President Clinton and the 9/11 Commission. WHY did they do that?


on edit:
I may have missed something, I do read an aweful lot. It was just not the impression I ever got.

[drummo]

23. Re: "You are absolutely wrong about that"

Well, you yourself would not think it's a big deal if it was not about preventing 9/11.
After all even if you are interested in why Clinton was not informed about this, that too comes down to the same issue: preventing 9/11.
Or you think that Clinton should have known about this just for the hell of it?
Obviously not. You think that Clinton should have been informed because he would have then mobilzed our law enforcement agencies to arrest Atta and the rest of the hijackers.

Now, you think that neocon moles inside the Clinton administration actually wanted a major terrorist attack against the US in order to pursue their agenda and that's why they blocked the info about Atta.
Whether that is true or not it still doesn't change the bottom line:
The reason why people -- including Weldon and you - think the AD story is important is because they think if the FBI had known about this cell prior to 9/11 the attacks could have been prevented.

[sattahipdeep]

28. Lost

for want of a horseshoe nail the shoe
was lost...for want of a shoe the horse was
lost...for want of a horse the war was lost...all
for the want of a horseshoe nail.



The three questioners: l to r, Michael Ruppert, Wayne Madsen and Ray McGovern.
(photo: Michael Kane)

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/072905_mckinney_911_briefing.shtml

[July]

10. Do I have this straight?

Weldon has made accusations but can produce no evidence for it? His explanation is that the evidence was destroyed?

[seemslikeadream]

11. He has evidence

He has the witnesses who will be tesifying next week

12 people, I believe

[Octafish]

12. What's so fucking funny?

Three thousand people died on September 11, 2001 because the crazy monkey selected pretzeldent sat on the information that would've prevented the attacks.

Even if Weldon's a puke, he's trying to get to the truth. His fellow pukes have turned on him, kicking him off his leadership posts over Able Danger.

From Wayne Madsen:

September 16, 2005 -- Showing their complete disregard for propriety, House Speaker Dennis ("Bulldoze New Orleans") Hastert named New York maniacal Representative Peter King as Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. King edged out Pennsylvania's Curt Weldon who is continuing to irritate Pentagon and GOP officials over his recent claims that the Pentagon destroyed 2.5 terabytes of information on Mohammed Atta and his "Al Qaeda" team collected by a covert Pentagon team code named Able Danger. Weldon has been angered by 911 Commission member former Republican Senator Slade Gorton of Washington who said that Able Danger never existed. The payback for Weldon was his being passed over as chairman of the highly-coveted Homeland Security Committee. Intelligence sources claim that Weldon has now earned himself a place on the neo-cons' "hit list."

King is no stranger to terrorism. He has been a longtime supporter of the Irish Republican Army and an apologist for its terrorist activities in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

SOURCE:

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

BTW: A hearty welcome to DU, drummo. A few words of advice: Be nice to seemslikeadream. That poster has been here working to kick out the Bush Mafia for four years.

[drummo]

15. I'm all for revealing the truth about

the frightening incompetence and ignorace of Bush and the neocons
but I don't trust Weldon and his story, in its current form, just doesn't make sense.
I want more info that either he has not been willing or able to reveal so far.

[seemslikeadream]

17. It appears you have not read the information in my previous post

[drummo]

22. Re:It appears you have not read the information in my previous post

I did.

And I have a few problems with it.

DIA Agents were ordered to put yellow Post-its over Atta's face and the face's of 3 other 9/11 terrorists

Who gave that order? Who could issue such an order at all? Certainly not a Pentagon lawyer. They cannot issue orders only opinions. Weldon did not name names. How can you and I know whether he tells the truth when he fails to name the people he accuses?

General Pete Schoomaker, who were later heavily rewarded by the neo-cons in the Bush Administration, blocked the upward motion of the DIA information by having Shaffer and Philpott meet with Pentagon lawyers opinions--lawyers who were rubberstamping ridiculous legal opinions to carry out the neo-con plan.

Again: who were those lawyers? What did they say? How on earth could that alone
prevent information sharing with the FBI? Lawyers' opinions are not orders. If
Shaffer and Philpott -- the two guys Weldon names as his sources -- thought that the info was so damn important and they also thought those lawyers were stupid why didn't they turn to the Secy of Defense or the President himself?

This diary will show that Pete Schoomaker and Philip Zelikow are two of the main Perpetraitors in this scandal, that they deliberately withheld information from the President of the United States that would have prevented 9/11

AD did not want to forward this info to the president at all. They wanted to forward it to the FBI. Weldon never said that anyone in the Pentagon "deliberately withheld information from the President".

saying they were discouraged from looking further into Atta

Discouraged? That's not the same as being ordered. The two are earth and sky.
And how could they be "discouraged" by a few lawyers when they knew their very job was to indentify suspected terrorists for preventing terror attacks?
Don't forget that Weldon presents the AD people as professionals who were doing magnificant job but the poor souls were blocked by "Pentagon lawyers" and that's why the FBI never learned about Atta etc. This is his story. And you cannot deny that it is full of holes.


As for the question about why Able Danger was killed in 2001, it's a legitimate issue.
But that's not the same as Weldon's story about some AD guys being discouraged or ordered by some mysterious all-powerful Pentagon lawyers, who otherwise did not have the power to issue orders but still could "block" info sharing with the FBI.

[pberq]

33. Importance of Weldon's hearing

To me the importance of what Weldon is doing is not so much the specifics of Able Danger, but instead keeping the investigation of 9/11 alive.

There are so many, many important issues about 9/11 that the Commission either passed over or did not address in any donclusive way. And this whitewash has been done with the complicity of the press.

But now, we have this Repub saying that the Commission failed to check into Able Danger. If he can catch them on this one, then we have hope in getting to the far more important issues. Examples include the insider trading on the mornig of 9/11 and the wargames that morning.

[Octafish]

26. Here's what it's all about: Fascistic Neocon Empire

It's most telling when we have to check the World Socialist Web Site to find an article and information that should lead the news in Corporate McPravda:

Relative of 9/11 victim: “The Bush administration is only concerned with empire, oil and corporate profits”

By Joanne Laurier
8 September 2005

Revelations in August that an American military unit, Able Danger, knew the identities of four September 11, 2001, hijackers as Al Qaeda operatives, including the alleged ringleader Mohammed Atta, more than a year before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and that this information was never passed on to the FBI, elicited outraged responses from the some of the families of the victims of the terrorist bombings.

SNIP...

Another 9/11 family member, Valerie Lucznikowska, 66, whose 37-year-old nephew worked on the 83rd floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center and died during the event, recently spoke to the WSWS.

Ms. Lucznikowska is the executive director of the Congress of International Modern Architects, whose governing board includes Ati Gropius Johansen, the daughter of renowned architect Walter Gropius.

She explained: “My nephew was told that people in the South Tower didn’t have to evacuate because the collapse of the North Tower was an accident. I believe that NORAD knew that the South Tower was going to be attacked before it went down. Think of what this means. Able Danger was not the first revelation. There were lots and lots of clues about the fact that the government had prior knowledge.

“It is not only September 11—the war in Iraq and now the catastrophe in New Orleans show time and again that the Bush administration is only concerned with empire, oil and corporate profits. We no longer have a government, because government implies some form of democracy. The last few days in Louisiana have made it clear how much of our resources are being used in the war. This administration has no interest in, no concern for and no connection to the population.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/inte-s08.shtml

The reason the fascistic nature of the US Government isn't covered by the Press Corpse? Six corporations own almost all the radio and TV stations in the United States. And that's where most of America gets their information -- not newspapers nor magazines nor books. These corporations like fascism. It's good for their bottom lines and their CEO's paycheck.

[seemslikeadream]

29. Hey I resemble that remark!

http://www.bartcop.com.nyud.net:8090/judith-miller-pail.jpg

[burythehatchet]

21. Even if Weldon's a puke, he's trying to get to the truth

this the part I'm having some difficulty with. I simply do not see how the repub establishment would even allow this info to get out. Given the stakes, they could do anything. My ligering suspicion is that this is a typical Rovian ploy to "manage the damage".

[Octafish]

24. Probably was trying to blame Clinton. It backfired.

The Able Danger story is the Secret Government exposed. Rove and the turds for whom he toads are plenty pissed this stuff got out. If it wasn't worrisome, why has Corporate McPravda dropped the subject like a hot potato?

Here it is, in a nutshell, from my friends, today's Wobblies...

 
WSWS : News & Analysis : North America

9/11 commission told of Atta cover-up

Intelligence officer goes public in Able Danger exposé

By Patrick Martin
19 August 2005

EXCERPT...

It is now clear that those who have rejected this account—including the World Socialist Web Site—have been proven right. The future hijackers were detected by US government agencies, including the CIA and military intelligence, yet nothing was done either to arrest them or disrupt their operations.

There is only one politically serious explanation of this now-indisputable fact: powerful forces within the US military/intelligence complex wanted a terrorist incident on US soil in order to create the needed shift in public opinion required to embark on a long-planned campaign of military intervention in Central Asia and the Middle East. Whether or not they knew the scale of the impending attacks and what the precise targets would be, they acted in such a way as to block the arrest of known terrorist operatives and allow them to carry out their plot.

Should this understanding begin to penetrate broad layers of working people in the United States, there will be an enormous public reaction against the intelligence services and the entire political establishment, which is complicit, in one way or another, in the cover-up and political exploitation of the events of 9/11. That explains the extraordinary timidity of the media coverage. Both right and “left” in the official political spectrum are handling the Able Danger revelation like a hand grenade thatcould go off in their faces.

Liberal publications like the New York Times, despite first bringing the story to wide public attention, have sought subsequently to downplay the revelations. The interview with Lt. Col. Shaffer, who is essentially abandoning his intelligence career by going public, is the kind of “scoop” that would normally rate banner front-page headlines. Instead, it was on the bottom of an inside page, and a follow-up story the next day was buried even deeper, on page 20.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/aug2005/able-a19.shtml

BFEE at work: There is only one politically serious explanation of this now-indisputable fact: powerful forces within the US military/intelligence complex wanted a terrorist incident on US soil in order to create the needed shift in public opinion required to embark on a long-planned campaign of military intervention in Central Asia and the Middle East. Whether or not they knew the scale of the impending attacks and what the precise targets would be, they acted in such a way as to block the arrest of known terrorist operatives and allow them to carry out their plot. Emphasis mine.

[burythehatchet]

30. that begs the question - why doesn't Weldon back off?

..if this backfired.

[Octafish]

31. Dunno. Ask the five Pentagon types who've corroborated the story.

Here's a good backgrounder from a PA paper:

Officials delve deeper into 'Able Danger'

By: KEITH PHUCAS, Times Herald Staff

NORRISTOWN - After nearly a month of searching for evidence of the data-mining operation, "Able Danger," the Pentagon has discovered three individuals who recall the defunct military intelligence program.

This brings the total to five individuals who recall either seeing Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta's picture or hearing his name mentioned during the 15-month-long Special Operations Command project.

However, the Defense Department still hasn't unearthed any documents related to the "Able Danger" operation, officials said at a Sept. 1 Pentagon briefing, and suggested that the data was purged from computer systems because it included information on "U.S. persons."

Officials also have not found a chart that four "Able Danger" co-workers said showed Atta's picture and his links to other terrorists prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.

SNIP...

But when Shaffer wanted to pull Special Operations together with the FBI to study Atta closer, he said Pentagon lawyers wouldn't allow it because some subjects of the operation were tagged as U.S. persons, and thus, eligible for protection from government surveillance.

CONTINUED...

http://www.timesherald.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15195991&BRD=1672&PAG=461&dept_id=33380&rfi=6

It's difficult to understand why people wouldn't want to get to the truth about Able Danger -- be they Dem or puke. Don't they want to know who really runs this country?

[seemslikeadream]

32. Just like Pandora's box

Closing it now ain't gonna do any good

[seemslikeadream]

19. A bit of clarification on the Weldon press conference Thursday

from a friend of mine:


I didn't see it all either, but yesterday I believe that Weldon had stated that he was relying on information given to him about the amount of data because he didn't understand the terms used.
Today I was able to record some of the briefing and here is some loosely transcribed sections relevant to what you had asked:



Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What was in that 3 hour briefing prepared for General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff in January 01 and where is that brief? Since it would still have existed even though the bulk of the data would have been destroyed in the summer of ‘00. What materials did Richard Shiffron discuss in a briefing that was held with Shaffer, Steve Cambone, and Admiral Wilson in the Doorhock (?) Galley briefing in the winter of ‘01? What was the Able Danger material discussed in that meeting?
And finally, and most importantly, why did the 9/11 Commission, charged by the Congress with my support, choose to ignore the work of Able Danger, and why did they not pursue the people I pursued over the last 35-40 days? That would have provided them the same information that I provided.
We today do not have a clear picture of what happened before 9/11, because this vacuum exists.
I’m offering no conspiracy theories, I’m not making any allegations. As a member of Congress, as the vice-chair of two security and arms committees, the Armed Services and Homeland Security, all I want is answers for the American people.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Was interesting to hear that Shaffer's security clearance was revoked (during which time he was promoted and still paid) and when he got it back he had e-mails missing. E-mails that he had discussed previous to the revocation.

Here is what was said regarding Rice:


Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: This is just off tangential but do you think this has something to do with, perhaps, do you feel like this might have anything to do with information that was discovered having to do with China?
CW: Well I know this because I was very heavily involved with the LEWA? What happened was, as the chairman of the R&D subcommittee, back in the late ‘90’s, and I was briefed on the information dominant centers of the services, with the armies being the LEWA, I was very supportive and I saw them doing amazing things. And I had a discussion with John Hamry, deputy Department of Defense, I said, “John you have to go and see what they are doing down there, it’s amazing”. He went down and John came back, and we had a discussion, and he said “you’re right, Congressman, this is amazing”. He tasked them to do a special briefing on Chinese proliferation. I was aware of that, and I was aware that when that briefing was done there were some very sensitive human person issues that had come up. Because the technology that China was acquiring through researchers that were here in our country, were in many cases at Stanford University and other universities in America. And because of that the 2 names surfaced that were reported in the press….Condaleeza Rice and Bill Perry. And I’m not saying that they did anything wrong, absolutely and unequivocally, they were simply associated with Stanford. And Stanford was one of the most significant schools where Chinese post-doctoral students and researchers were focusing on very, very specific technology for our military that was being used in sensitive military programs. There were other universities as well. When that information reached Congress, it caused an uproar. And you can imagine the pressure the army got because the army, in most peoples minds, are not supposed to be doing that. This is a prototype capability. At the time that was being done, there was an operation, there was an effort, and I understand the effort, to suppress that from coming out. And that was misread by some people as though there was an attempt to, to destroy data.
Sam Johnson, Congressman Johnson’s son, Dr. Bob Johnson, was working for Raytheon down in Texas, and special forces command was setting up a separate operation for data mining at Garland, TX, separate from the LEWA, partly because the army was getting cold feet because of the pressure they were realizing.
Dr. Bob Johnson told his father that the military was deliberately destroying data. Sam Johnson came to a number of members including Dan Burton, and as a chairman for the government oversight committee, Dan Burton subpoenaed documents and files. That caused a major uproar back and forth. And so that did contribute to the ending of the LEWA, and my understanding is, correct me if I’m wrong, but Richard Shiffron, was the individual who ordered the destruction or the stoppage of the LEWA, is that correct?
Richard Shiffron, the same lawyer that was in the same briefing as Cambone in the winter of ‘01, was the lawyer who caused the data mining at LEWA to stop.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

25. RIP John O'Neal...sigh

[sattahipdeep]

27. Is In-Q-Tel an updated Able Danger program?

In-Q-Tel, CIA's Venture Arm, Invests in Secrets

By Terence O'Hara

Monday, August 15, 2005; Page D01

"In my view the organization has been far more successful than I dreamed it would be,
" said Norman R. Augustine , who was recruited in 1998 by Krongard and George J. Tenet, who
then was director of central intelligence, to help set up In-Q-Tel.

"On a scale from one to 10, I would give it an 11," said A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard , the CIA's
former No. 3 official and a former investment banker. "It's done so well even Congress
is taking credit for it."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/14/AR2005081401108.html

[sattahipdeep]

34. A kick for the questioners.

:popcorn: