Posted on 08/12/2005 6:54:48 AM PDT by CyberAnt
(CNSNews.com) -- Members of the 9/11 commission apparently left some key information out of their "comprehensive" report on the terror attacks - because their own staffers didn't tell them about it.
Press reports said commission staffers are now planning to retrieve their notes from the National Archives to find out if they overlooked important information. (They did, one U.S. senator says.)
The staffers are looking for information about a secret U.S. military unit called Able Danger. That military unit learned -- one year before the 9/11 attacks -- that a terror cell including Mohammed Atta and three other future 9/11 hijackers was operating in the United States.
Information about the terror cell was not handed over to the FBI, although Able Danger repeatedly requested that the FBI be told. Sen. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) says Pentagon lawyers in the Clinton administration refused to tell the FBI, because the four terrorists were in the country legally.
Because the Clinton administration barred U.S. intelligence agencies from sharing information with the FBI, Pentagon lawyers reportedly argued that information on the legal residents could not be shared with the FBI.
Thursday's New York Times reported that 9/11 commission staffers were told that Able Danger had identified a terror cell in the country - a full ten days before the 9/11 commission issued its final report on the terror attacks.
Sen. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) told Fox News on Wednesday that commission staffers were briefed at least once on Able Danger, but he does not believe that panel members were told about it.
"Why weren't they briefed? Was there some deliberate attempt at the staff level of the 9/11 commission to steer the commissioners away from Able Danger because of where it might lead?" Weldon said on Fox News Wednesday.
Weldon also told Fox that some commission staffers did not return phone calls from members of the Able Danger military unit.
Thursday's New York Times reported that Weldon has just sent a letter to commission members, in which he "criticized the panel in scathing terms, saying that its 'refusal to investigate Able Danger after being notified of its existence, and its recent efforts to feign ignorance of the project while blaming others for supposedly withholding information on it, brings shame on the commissioners, and is evocative of the worst tendencies in the federal government that the commission worked to expose.'"
'Hats off to Weldon'
Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, told Fox & Friends on Thursday that "Able Danger and what they learned" is a "huge deal."
"We will learn that we should have known about [the Sept. 11 attacks] and that we could have prevented it," he said.
"And hats off to Curt Weldon," Shays said, for directing the media's attention to critical information that other government agencies and the 9/11 commission apparently had no interest in pursuing. (Weldon, in a show-and-tell on the Senate floor in June 2005, explained that Able Danger had identified the four suspected terrorists in 1999.)
Said Shays, "Bottom line is -- we had a defense organization that knew about this [terror] cell... they knew about these guys; they knew about four of the 19 hijackers."
Lee Hamilton, the 9/11 commission's co-chair, told Fox News on Wednesday, "The Sept. 11 commission did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of surveillance of Mohammed Atta or of his cell. Had we learned of it, obviously it would've been a major focus of our investigation."
In another development, a group of Sept. 11 widows that demanded a probe of the events leading up to 9/11 issued a statement saying it is disappointed to learn that the commission's final report is "incomplete and illusory."
Copyright © 1998-2005 CNSNews.com - Cybercast News Service
Don't believe the jerk!
Hamilton is the grandfatherly, reassuring figure the government pulls out when they need a "believable" liar.
Remember Reverand John Danforth and The Waco Report. LOL!
Remember The Warren Report. It's all bull.
Lee Hamilton, the 9/11 commission's co-chair, told Fox News on Wednesday, "The Sept. 11 commission did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of surveillance of Mohammed Atta or of his cell. Had we learned of it, obviously it would've been a major focus of our investigation."
Oh, obviously Lee.
You lying sack of cat excrement.
Apparently even Krauthammer disavowed it!!!
What a bunch.
A little more.
If the commission staffers didn't bother to look into Able Danger, then their notes aren't going to be worth much.
And while the Commission was at it, why didn't they send someone to Prague to talk to the people involved in the report of the Mohammed Atta/al-Ani meeting?
There does seem to be a huge investment on the part of some people in keeping 9/11 and Iraq separate? Why? So what if there was a link? Is this something the American public is not supposed to know?
There's some information about the motivations of the government participants before and after 9/11 that's missing here. I'd sure like to know.
"which the dems wanted to keep hidden so they could continue to pillory the Bush admin with the "no connection" between Atta and Iraq mantra."
The Dems need to get hammered on this until they stop using these events for their own political purposes.
"I have no idea why anyone is willing to believe Weldon."
Okay, but having heard some of the pronouncements out of the 9/11 Commission in the last few days, and reading about some of the things that were left out of their findings, I don't believe some of what they say, either.
I recall, however, that there was a substantial effort by some of the Commisssion and their friends in the media to put the blame on the Bush Administration, and Condoleeza Rice in particular.
You have to be a little suspicious of any article with an error this big. I'm sure Weldon is flattered but methinks unless PA has 3 Senators then Weldon is a Congressman not a Senator.
It was the 'staffers' who got the briefing. It was up to the staffers to inform the principles.
Yes, indeed. But do we really know yet that they didn't?
Somewhere, someone is busy beginning a best-seller.
Thanks for the ping!
Well .. the staffers must have informed somebody because Hamilton has now confessed that he was briefed.
Did I say Weldon was a Senator ..??
I don't believe I would say that .. because I know he's a member of Armed Services and Homeland Security in the House.
They "need to get hammered on this" and the other issue of NO WMD which they always use .. especially since the other day our guys found a huge chemical plant with active chemicals in it. I've been waiting for the Pentagon to tell us what was in those containers and what the stuff could be used for.
We had an idea that Bergers theft of papers from the archives most likely had to do with Clinton and 911. It is more obvious now. The media will continue to give him and his PIAPS witch a pass however. Amazing that they haven't found a way to blame Bush yet, but I imagine they will sooner or later.
I was surprised to hear Charles Krauthammer doing the same thing today.
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