Sept. 11 Panel Explores Claims About Hijacker(Atta 911)

Washington Post ^ | Friday, August 12, 2005 | Dan Eggen

[Anti-Bubba182]

Staff members of the Sept. 11 commission are investigating allegations by a GOP congressman that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta had been identified as a potential threat by a highly classified Defense Department program a year or more before the attacks occurred.

Commission officials confirmed a report in yesterday's New York Times that two staff members interviewed a uniformed military officer, who alleged in July 2004 that a secret program called "Able Danger" had identified Atta as a potential terrorist threat in 1999 or early 2000....."

"....Panel investigators viewed the claim as unlikely..."

"..Weldon recently published a book...Many of the allegations are based on information from a source discounted by the CIA as a fabricator."

[roses of sharon]

Of course the so-called commission wanted to protect Clinton, and damage Bush.

Who cares besides those who know that, and who knows that but us? And we will be the only ones who know it, as usual.

Better to spend our efforts destroying each reporter and their bosses, reputation by reputation, brick by brick, until they are dead.

[popdonnelly]

At the time, I could not understand why the CIA was so intent on killing this story. I still don't understand it.

[Lancey Howard]

Staff members of the Sept. 11 commission are investigating allegations by a GOP congressman....

That's a joke, right?
Congress should be investigating the "9/11 Commission" and its staffers. I believe that the omission of the "Able Danger" intelligence from the commission's report was deliberate and malicious. With national security at stake, this commission can no longer be dismissed as just a mischievous laughingstock - - it may have conducted itself in a criminal manner.

[Lancey Howard]

The commissioners were the face of the "9/11 Commission", and we can name them all. But I believe that it is indeed now time to get a little bit more info on the staffers. How many staffers were there? How were they chosen? Did each commissioner choose his/her own staff? Who were these people?

[fantom]

it should be looked into. maybe it's nothing. but. i recall seeing a vidio tapes of atta at the airport , shortly after the strike. who he was-his status-were he went to school-where he lived-his deep intrest in modern dance. someone had all of this info before the attack. thats all i'm saying. it can't hurt to look. it may help either way. i'm not interested in hunting down the usual suspects, our future is bigger than any of them. lets learn.

[kcvl]

the former Deputy AG in New York Attorney General Spitzer’s office, Dietrich Snell, who joined the 9/11 Commission staff as a ‘team leader’, investigates what Lance exposes as one of the big unanswered questions surrounding the attacks—why was the indictment (under Snell’s own ’96 prosecution) and ‘hunt’ for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged 9/11 mastermind (now in CIA custody), kept secret for over eighteen months? When Lance was interviewed by Snell in New York on March 15th Lance asked the conflicted 9/11 Commission staffer this simple question. Not surprisingly, he was rebuffed as Snell calmly cited national security and continued with his interview.

[Enchante]

Bingo, just as in the blatant conflict-of-interest that Jamie Gorelicker had in serving on the 9/11 Commission:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1120560/posts

[BoBToMatoE]

Yup. You can bet the comPost is going to try to discredit the story. Why? Because it would be the beginning of the end for them.

[FReethesheeples]

9/11 Staffers investigating their own incompetance. Hah!

[Enchante]

"The official and Weldon have also said Pentagon lawyers blocked the sharing of information on the suspected cell with the FBI or other agencies"

WHO are the unnamed "Pentagon lawyers" who blocked this?? Did the White House and/or the Dept. of Justice have any role in setting the policies and procedures being utilized by these anonymous "Pentagon lawyers"????

Note that Jamie Gorelick had been GENERAL COUNSEL for the DOD early in the Clinton administration (before she went over to run Justice for Janet Reno): did Gorelick establish any policies and procedures at the DOD that persisted through the end of the Clinton years??? She wrote the infamous "Wall" memo at Justice in March 1995 -- she might have done a similar move at DOD while she was there???

Also, note that Dan Marcus, who became General Counsel for the 9/11 Commission, was "Senior Counsel" for the Clinton White House in 1998-99 and then went over to Justice to become Associate Attorney General -- did Marcus review, establish, and/or re-affirm any policies/procedures that DOD attorneys were still working under in 2000???

It appears that both Gorelick and Marcus might have worked directly on policies and issues that could have affected how DOD lawyers would have handled the "Able Danger" issue -- the public needs to know whether these unnamed "Pentagon lawyers" ever met with Gorelick and/or Marcus, ever received any memoranda from either of them, etc. It would be HUGE if Gorelick and/or Marcus should turn out to have had any verifiable role in affecting the "Able Danger" issue!!!

[nopardons]

Well, we know that it was lawyers, who told Clinton, when he was offered bin Laden, THREE DIFFERENT TIMES, that he couldn't take him. Did that come from Justice, the Pentagon, or DOD ?

[YaYa123]

You wrote, If it turns out to be true that we could have, and indeed should have, arrested four of the terrorists involved in 9/11 but didn't and that fact was covered up by the 9/11 commission, or staffers of the 9/11 commission, than this story is not nothing. I heard Congressman Weldon today say that he has two intelligence officers related to 'Able Danger' willing to testify under oath that this is the case"

I think staffer Alvin C. Felzenberg's changing stories this week, has already proven a Commission cover-up did occur. And sydbas, the cover-up was only necessary because, as you said,"we could have, and indeed should have, arrested four of the terrorists" before they pulled off 9-ll.

[STARWISE]

With all the reviewing that the 911 Commission members will be doing to "check" their committee notes in the Archives, there better be an abundance of professional Archive staff to watch for diversions, sticky hands and floppy pants.

= = = = = = = = = =

Atta Intelligence Omitted From Report

(snip)

"According to Pentagon documents, the information was not shared because of concerns about pursuing information on "U.S. persons," a legal term that includes U.S. citizens as well as foreigners legally admitted to the country."

(snip)

"Staff members now are searching documents in the National Archives to look for notes from the meeting in Afghanistan and any other possible references to Atta and Able Danger, Felzenberg said. Felzenberg sought to minimize the significance of the new information. 'Even if it were valid, it would've joined the lists of dozens of other instances where information was not shared,' Felzenberg said. "There was a major problem with intelligence sharing."

=================================================

The brave and self-sacrificing Founders of this country presumed the people who would inhabit the halls of power and governance of this land would maintain standards of honor and responsibility . they have to be thrashing in their graves. Shakespeare had a clue: kill all the lawyers (not literally, of course).

[Lancey Howard]

The problem is, the Archives staff can't be trusted, either. When the last Archives director got tipped that the FBI was looking at Berger, guess what he did? Answer: The scumbag jumped on the phone and called.... Bruce Lindsey.

[beyond the sea]

Lee Hamilton, Jamie Gorelick, and so many more are gate keepers. They all deserve to be hung.......... after the appropriate trial of course.

[beyond the sea]

Staff members of the Sept. 11 commission are investigating allegations by a GOP congressman

Of course he had to immediately be identified as "a GOP congressman".(Barf)

[beyond the sea]

The NY elite political orgs (MSM), run this country, and have for 40 years.

Right.......... but try for at least 80 years. The old media is just the propaganda arm of the powerful, the arm that keeps the people ignorant of the powerful's real actions. Old media still lives and rules, and as much as we all are proud of the growth of the new media, the old media still dominates over most American voters and citizens!

[lentulusgracchus]

....terrorists may have mole in White House, or informants in Secret Service, FBI, FAA or CIA (M)

Whooaaaaaaaa!!

Oh, man, that's all we need -- a liberal mole feeding intel to an Arabic-speaking Aldrich Ames.

[popdonnelly]

I think that once the CIA has taken a position on these subjects, it starts to discard evidence that doesn't fit in with that position. And we already know there are some peculiar folks working at the CIA.