Posted on 08/10/2005 5:43:03 AM PDT by OESY
...Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), the No. 2 man on both the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, revealed that an elite military-intelligence unit known as Able Danger identified Atta and three other hijackers as likely members of a terror cell in this country as early as 1999.
The spies wanted to turn the info over to the FBI in 2000, Weldon said, "so they could bring that cell in and take out the terrorists."
He claimed Pentagon lawyers rejected the recommendation because they mistakenly believed that since Atta and the others were in the country legally on visas, they could not be investigated.
In fact, U.S. law bars such intelligence investigations only of American citizens and immigrant "green card" holders — but visa-holders such as Atta and the other hijackers are fair game. ...
Another reason for the Pentagon lawyers' actions, Weldon said, was a pre-Sept. 11 barrier that prevented the FBI and U.S. spy agencies from sharing intelligence — a practice the 9/11 commission criticized last year in its final report.
Jamie Gorelick, a deputy attorney general under former President Bill Clinton and a commission member, codified the separation between investigative and intelligence agencies in a 1995 memo.
Weldon first made his allegations in an unnoticed floor speech in June.
The issue heated up Monday after a story ran in the bimonthly Government Security News, which covers national-security matters....
But Weldon suggested Able Danger's explosive findings had been hidden from commission members.
"Let's put the intelligence folks under oath and let them be cross-examined. And let's put the staffers on the 9/11 commission under oath and let those under oath tell what information they gave," Weldon said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Please affix the appropriate stickit to this portrait.
From Neal Boortz:
9/11 HIJACKERS KNOWN IN ADVANCE
Republican Congressman Curt Weldon from Pennsylvania has made the explosive allegation that more than a year before the attacks on 9/11, Clinton administration intelligence officials knew who four of the hijackers were, including ringleader Mohammed Atta. So why wasn't anything done?
Because information wasn't allowed to be shared between federal agencies, thanks to 9/11 commissioner and former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick (not pronounced the way it's spelled.) She instituted rules that forbade sharing of intelligence between, for instance, the CIA and the FBI. She was reportedly hired at the insistence of The Hildabeast. Thank you Hillary Clinton.
Here's what Weldon told the New York Times. He says a military group, called 'Able Danger' had identified the four terrorists, knew they were trouble and said the FBI should know about it. They were rejected, because of Gorelick's rules. Since the Islamic hijackers had legitimate visas, Able Danger's recommendation was turned down. A quote from Weldon: "In fact, I'll tell you how stupid it was, they put stickies on the faces of Mohammed Atta on the chart that the military intelligence unit had completed and they said you can't talk to Atta because he's here." Curt Weldon say he got the info from some of the agents in the Able Danger unit.
If true, and there's no reason to believe it isn't, this is yet another example of how the debacle of 9/11 should be laid at the feet of the Clinton administration. No president did more to ignore the mounting threat of Islamic terrorism than did Bill Clinton, and 3,000 people paid for his policies with their lives.
The 9/11 Commission is coming back to investigate this one. We'll be watching.
America's Most Wanted Traitor
Able Danger, the 9/11 Commission & the Strange (But Now Explainable) Actions of Sandy Berger
By Sean Osborne, Senior Analyst & Military Affairs Expert
& Douglas J. Hagmann,Director
10 August 2005: Hey America… do you remember the strange actions of President Clinton’s national security adviser Sandy Berger during the 9/11 Commission investigation when he removed highly classified terrorism documents that should have been turned over to that independent commission? Did you ever wonder what Berger was attempting to hide and even more importantly, why? Did you also wonder why, even though he committed a felony, he received nothing more than a slap on the wrist while various political and intelligence officials played down his actions, wanting them to disappear as quickly as possible? It appears that we just might have discovered the answers to these and other troubling questions: Able Danger.
Able Danger is the code name of a secret team of U.S. Army military intelligence operatives created in 1999 under a directive signed by General Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to assemble information about al Qaeda networks around the world. In mid-2000, the Able Danger team discovered the existence of the key 9/11 terror cell of Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawar al-Hamzi inside the U.S. and recommended to their military superiors that the FBI be called in to “take out that cell,” according to Representative Curt Weldon, the Pennsylvania House member and vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. That information was presented in the summer of 2000 in the form of a chart complete with photographs of the terrorists to the Pentagon's Special Operations Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida. Our intelligence was dead-on accurate, but was not acted upon a full year before the 9/11 attacks.
In fact, Representative Weldon said Able Danger members had recommended that the information they uncovered be shared with the FBI, but the idea was rejected and they “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.”
Despite the findings of Able Danger, absolutely no action was pursued to take out the cell during the weeks leading up to the 2000 presidential election, said Weldon. The reason? Mohammed Atta possessed a “green card” at the time. Under the rules of the Clinton Justice Department, lawyers working for Special Operations decided that anyone holding a green card had to be granted essentially the same legal protections as any U.S. citizen. They did not want to recommend that the FBI go after someone holding a green card, Weldon told his House colleagues on June 27, 2005 during a speech, known as a “special order,” which he delivered on the House floor. Defense Department lawyers were also said to be reluctant to suggest a bold action by FBI agents after the bureau’s disastrous 1993 strike against the Branch Davidian religious cult in Waco, Texas.
Read Curt Weldon’s June 27, 2005 Testimony
This week, Representative Weldon and a former defense intelligence official said they had spoken with three Able Danger team members, all still working in the government, including two in the military, and that they were consistent in asserting that Mohammed Atta's affiliation with a Qaeda terrorism cell in the United States was known within the Defense Department by mid-2000 but was not acted upon. Further and after the fact, the 9-11 Commission was reportedly never told about Able Danger or its findings.
Enter Sandy Berger – During the 9/11 Commission
While the investigation by the 9/11 Commission was in progress, Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, who served as Clinton's national security adviser for all of President's Clinton’s second term, was caught removing documents from the national Archives – the very same documents that should have been turned over to the independent commission probing the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. Berger ultimately admitted to intentionally taking and destroying various classified documents relating to terrorism collected under the Clinton administration. Berger and his lawyer said on July 19, 2004 that he knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket, pants and socks, and also “inadvertently” took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio. Those documents reportedly included an assessment of America's terror vulnerabilities at airports, something very relevant to Able Danger’s findings and key to the 9/11 attacks. What Sandy Berger did was a felony, yet was allowed a generous plea agreement of a fine and a three-year suspension of his security clearance.
Under the prism of Able Danger, we are now able to make sense out of the previously curious actions of Sandy Berger.
Able Danger & the Saga of the 9/11 Commission; Warren Commission Redux
According to Weldon, staff members of the 9/11 Commission were briefed on the findings of the Able Danger intelligence unit within the Special Operations Command and about the specific recommendation to break up the Mohammed Atta cell, yet those members reportedly decided not to brief the commission’s members on those matters. Why not?
Clearer now is the conflict of interest of having Jamie Gorelick, the Assistant Attorney General under Bill Clinton serving on the 9/11 Commission. Ms. Gorelick worked directly for Janet Reno and was directly involved in matters that were under review by the 9/11 Commission.
Remember the reason the findings of Able Danger were not acted upon? In his testimony before the 9/11 Commission, Attorney General John Ashcroft stated the following:
"In 1995, the Justice Department embraced flawed legal reasoning, imposing a series of restrictions on the FBI that went beyond what the law required," he said. "The 1995 Guidelines and the procedures developed around them imposed draconian barriers to communications between the law enforcement and intelligence communities. The wall left intelligence agents afraid to talk with criminal prosecutors or agents. In 1995, the Justice Department designed a system destined to fail."
Continuing his testimony, Ashcroft stated:
"Somebody built this wall.” Ashcroft added: "The basic architecture for the wall . . . was contained in a classified memorandum entitled 'Instructions on Separation of Certain Foreign Counterintelligence and Criminal Investigations. Full disclosure compels me to inform you that its author is a member of this Commission."
Ashcroft was referring to Jamie Gorelick, who served as Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton Administration as well as general counsel at the Department of Defense. Both jobs put her at the very center of the former administration's anti-terrorism efforts. Consequently, her actions, as well as those of her superiors, were the subject of review by the very commission on which she is a member. Most assuredly, that is a huge conflict of interest. In her position at the Justice Department, Gorelick wrote a memo that provides a picture of the role she played setting policy for intelligence gathering and sharing during the Clinton Administration. The memo stemmed from the Justice Department's prosecution of the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
Gorelick wrote in 1995:
“During the course of those investigations, 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." We believe that it is prudent to establish a set of instructions that will clearly separate the counterintelligence investigation from the more limited, but continued, criminal investigations. These procedures, which go beyond what is legally required, will prevent any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance that FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) is being used to avoid procedural safeguards which would apply in a criminal investigation."
And therein is the framework for the legal conundrum faced by Able Danger, and why Atta and his minions were free to hijack 4 airliners on 9/11.
just saw Coleman on FoxNews - and the question was asked very forcefullywhether this was the info that Sandy Burglar was after....
I personally would like more answers to just what did the Clinton Administration know and when did it know it....remember when Hillary tryed to blame Bush for knowing and not saying...talk about calling the kettle black....and the Sandy Berger thing, I have emailed my two Senators, Santorum and Specter...nothing....course I expected nothing when I sent them...
I think we as Americans need answers on all of this stuff...after all, the Queen of Smarts plans on running for President....I want to know what she knew and when did she know it, she was the other half of the presidency then, she knew things that the president didn't even know (remember when she became pregant, bill found out in the newspapers) so she should be drilled on these matters, I want reports, phone records, adoption papers, high school records, college records, business records from Rose Law Firm, I want birth certificates on all three of them....whats good for the goose is good for the gander, don't ya think?
Truly said with the caviat that she was just one traitor among a cabal of traitors otherwise known as the whole Clinton administration. All of whom should be hung as such.
Coleman just stated on Fox that all this info was provided to the 9/11 investigation committee, and that key 'aides' to the investigation never passed the info OR the calls from those willing to testify, along to the committee members.
The has such a Hillry smell about it. Didn't the military have to get have "legal" clearance before they could take action?
Would someone please help an old Freeper with an old memory?:
1. Who were the co presidents during 1999 and 2000?
2. Who was the drugged out Lesbian Attorney General during this time who was more interested in evil White Male Christians with legal guns?
3. Who was the Vice President during this time, who invented the internet?
4. Who was Jamie Gorelick, and what was her political party?
5. Who was the guy who later stuffed his trousers with illegal and beyond top secret material? What was his cabinet position in 1999=2000?
That is exactly, 100%, correct!
QUESTION: Why didn't the 9-11 Commission address this "revelation"...I saw no such mention of "Abel-Baker" in the report?
This is superb data.
Please post it as separate thread so it will not get lost in the other thread.
Great stuff. Where is it from?
According to Weldon...high ranking staff/members kept it from the whole commission......I think he was referring to the Gorelick cabal on the commission....
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