Live 9/11 Commission Thread [testifying today Freeh, Reno, Ashcroft]

April 13, 2004 | Vanity

[Peach]

9/11 Commission. Now on C-Span.

Chairman Thomas Kean has asked the audience to refrain from clapping.

Louie Freeh, former FBI director, up at 9:30.

Business matters being taken care of now by the Commission.

[Fedora]

Pincus has written about Montes, thought I don't know if he wrote that particular piece of information about her being scheduled to go over to Tenet's office, which I haven't yet been able to locate. There's a pdf file with an archive of articles on Montes here:

The Ana Belen Montes Case

There are articles by Pincus on pages 40 and 46. Also, if you go to pages 35-36, there's a Miami Herald September 29, 2001 article which indicates Montes was a DIA liaison to the CIA on Cuban affairs. So even if she wasn't a CIA agent per se, she had contacts in the Agency--I'm guessing they'd be personnel in the Cuban section of the Western Hemisphere Division, which no doubt Lake was well acquainted with given Lake's long history of fellow travelling with Castro's agents. I suspect Lake must be one of the guys close to the center of the spider web of Clinton's 5th column within the Agency. From the articles I'm reading, it's also pretty evident Montes had allies in the pro-Castro lobby in Congress, which would include Kerry as well as Chris Dodd, among others.

[Fedora]

Great minds think alike!--I was about to post some stuff on Gellman right after I finished my reply to your other post I was just typing :) Here's a few which supplement what you've already posted:

About Barton Gellman (includes links to Gellman's recent articles)

Results of Google search on "Barton + Gellman + Walter + Pincus"

David Kay Rebukes Washington Post Coverage

Gellman vs. Kay, Continued

[robomurph]

Great work. I've only seen bits and pieces of this because haven't been able to keep up with this long commission thread.

Is there any way you could strip this out into a separate thread illustrating these connections? I may seem like "inside baseball" to most, but I find the behind the scenes relationships fascinating.

It could be "Six Degrees of Washington":

[Fedora]

Thanks! A couple of people have expressed an interest in a separate thread, so I think I will start one later if someone doesn't beat me to it, and I will ping you if I do.

[piasa]

OK, I found it. It wasn't Gelman who wrote that article on Montes- it was Gertz. No mention of how the selection process works.

1999 late : (EVIDENCE ESTABLISHES MONTES TO BE A CUBAN MOLE : DIA BLOCKS MONTES' SELECTION TO MOVE TO CIA DIRECTOR TENET'S NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL) DIA senior intelligence analyst Ana Belen Montes originally came under suspicion of being a spy for Cuba's communist government in 1994. However, DIA and FBI counterspies could not prove she was engaging in espionage and Montes continued passing secrets to Havana until she was discovered in late 1999. ... Montes was placed under surveillance in late 1999 and at one point was selected to work for CIA Director George J. Tenet's National Intelligence Council. The DIA blocked Montes' move by freezing all transfers. - "DIA fears Cuban mole aided Russia, China," by Bill Gertz, washtimes, 2/1/2003

[piasa]

1990s late : (CUBA SHARES INTELLIGENCE INFO ON US MILITARY WITH SADDAM HUSSEIN'S IRAQ AS PART OF COVERT OIL DEAL) ... Cuban intelligence, which is known to have extensive "coverage" of U.S. military bases, supplied information to Saddam's intelligence service on the movement of troops and other military activities. The intelligence ties are believed to be an offshoot of Cuba's covert oil-purchasing arrangement with Iraq under Saddam. Those deals have been under way since the late 1990s and involve oil tankers that were sent to Mexico. The oil then was pumped from the tankers to smaller boats for delivery to Cuba. ....- "Iraq-Cuba axis (Gertz News!)," by Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, 01.23.04

[Fedora]

Thanks. Maybe some of Gertz's other articles on the case or the court transcripts will have something about the selection process.