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
"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?"
From the beginning - when we were struggling with getting the UN onboard - the dems have said that Bush had no reason to go into Iraq .. because Iraq had no connection to 9/11.
Since the dems made these statements from the beginning .. I suspect they knew about Able Danger at that time, and just did what they always do when they don't like the truth .. THEY LIED. This lie about "no connection between Iraq and 9/11" was just to keep Bush from going to war with Iraq.
France, Germany and Russia were totally against going into Iraq for their own monetary reasons .. and since the liberals love those leaders - more than their own country - they were willing to try to sabotage our getting approval from the UN .. hoping this would stop us from going to war with Iraq.
Bush defied them and went to war anyway .. and thus began the constant drumbeat of negative stuff about Iraq .. and it continues today. The democrats need to pay a very hefty price for this concocted "no connection" garbage.
And now that a chemical manufacturing facility has been found in Iraq - with chemicals present - the dems need to pay a very hefty price for their constant "no WMD", besides the insinuation that we only went to Iraq for that reason .. which is false.
Well .. the rumors it was about the Millinium bomber who was caught at the Candian border. They claimed at the time that it was their terror policies which caused the guy to be stopped - but it was really a savy customs agent who used her cop skills to nab the guy.
I never did buy that because it was already known the Clinton's terror policy didn't have anything to do with it. But .. the moment I heard about this group - Able Danger - and the fact that they exposed a connection between between Iraq and Atta .. I knew that was what Berger was after.
This was a full year before 9/11 - and there was no doubt it was the Clinton admin - not the Bush admin who had blown it.
"That is the job of the FBI, which was not privy to the information."
True and according to the article:
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.
If "Able Danger repeatedly requested that the FBI be told", them that makes me wonder if the FBI were told 'informly'..
I'm still kinda wondering if the documents Berger shredded or lost might have had the name "Atta" on them ..??
I'd bet yes, and wouldn't doubt Clinton gave Burglar an 'atta boy' for getting the 'job' done.
"... wouldn't doubt Clinton gave Burglar an 'atta boy' for getting the 'job' done."
LOL! I wouldn't doubt it either.
No you didn't. The article itself refers to him as Senator Weldon.
This is the first report that I've seent that acknowledges that another Rep. (Shays of Conn.) is backing Weldon. But that part of the report is from a few days ago..seems lots are backpedaling. Waiting to see how this unfolds before I commit any more.
BLITZER: Secretary Cohen, let's switch gears for a moment.
There was a story that came out, Congressman Curt Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania, suggesting that a year before 9/11 there was a secret special operations unit at the Pentagon when you were defense secretary that learned all about Mohammed Atta and three of the other hijackers but were told by Pentagon lawyers, you can't tell the FBI about them because that would violate their rights -- Mohammed Atta and the others -- since they were here in the United States legally.
Listen to what Congressman Weldon said:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. CURT WELDON (R-PA): Lawyers within the administration told the special forces folks three times, you cannot share this information with the FBI. They even put stickies over top of the face of Mohammed Atta, saying they're here legally. They have green cards. You can't give anything to the FBI.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Do you know anything about this? You were the defense secretary.
COHEN: I'm not aware of any such identification of Mohammed Atta.
I would say that if they did have this special report that we have to consider that it was before 9/11. And before 9/11 we had a lot of restrictions imposed by law upon the Pentagon, the executive branch, in terms of sharing information on people who were in this country. So that changed after 9/11.
But prior to that time, we -- I'll give you one example. Back in 1997, 1998 the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted to propose that we create a special command for the United States to deal with this emerging scourge of terrorism. And right away it was shot down saying this violates (inaudible) you're now going to get the military involved in domestic law enforcement.
And so there were a number of restrictions that may very well have been a comment or recommendation coming out of a lawyer to someone in the Pentagon. I was not aware of it, but it's altogether possible.
BLITZER: Did you know about this unit called Able Danger, these special operations forces that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Hugh Shelton, had created?
COHEN: I'm not -- I don't have a recollection specifically of that.
I certainly know that there were a number of special forces that were set up to gather information. I don't recall receiving that particular report, though.
BLITZER: But you do recall that there were prohibitions on the U.S. military informing the FBI of potential threats out there? Because that sounds pretty outrageous to the average person out there.
COHEN: I'm not sure there was a prohibition against that. All I'm saying -- there were a number of prohibitions in terms of what information the CIA could share with the FBI and the FBI with the CIA, what the Pentagon could do, what our military could do in terms of enforcing or using military forces to protect the country domestically.
All that has been changed now by 9/11, but prior to that there were a number of restrictions. This may have been one of them. I'm not familiar with it.
DID YOU SEE OR HEAR OF THIS? PLEASE PASS THIS ON IF POSSIBLE...MY MODEM SERVICE IS SPOTTY....
COHEN MUST NOT HAVE GOTTEN THE LIBERAL TALKING POINTS HUH?
JEDI.
Yeah, a lot of them are backpeddling .. claiming that Weldon doesn't have any documentation and all his "sources" are unnamed [no mention of the 15 boxes of data which the commission never looked at] - even though Weldon claims to have 12 people within the Pentagon to verify everything he's saying.
And .. this is supposed to prove the rest of the report is somehow faulty ..??
What would Machiavelli suggest we do?
Send forth the political avenging angles to: FBI, NSA, CIA, DoD, Intelligence Committees, Justice and drive the guilty into the darkness.
As President he can reach down into these bureaucracies and grab the guilty by the back of the neck and tell them to "GTFO right now. Stand in the parking lot. We'll call you back when we need you." LOL
Genghis Khan would have beheaded these failures on 9-12-01
No, not necessarily.
But an author that makes a mistake that big with an editor that lets the error through just naturally makes you wonder where else the fact checking fell down. It could be that the rest of the article if perfectly true and accurate. But I didn't read it because I lost trust in the author. There is more than enough stuff to read to fill 10 days every 24 hours so I pick and choose carefully.
Has anyone noticed that the 500+ page 9/11 COMMISION REPORT - Does not have an index...
Yeah, okay. It's pretty obvious where this is headed - - blame the "staffers". Certainly, some of the staffers were complicit in the whitewash/coverup attempt, but NO WAY did those scumbags Richard ben Veniste and Jamie Gorelick not know EXACTLY what was deliberately being withheld from the other commissioners and from the report.
(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.)
That's THREE times in one short story that the author insinuated that Weldon was a Senator. Forget the old "typo" excuse.
Really lame....
Well .. my own personal theory is that Gorelick ran the staff, and Gorelick had an agenda already in place for the "report". Even if the staff had given her the information .. it still was a choice not to put it into the report.
I really believe Gorelick was on the commission for this exact purpose .. to stop the information about Atta becoming known .. because that put a link between Iraq + Atta = 9/11.
Gorelick kept it out of the report and Berger stole all the copies of memos with the name "Atta" or "Able Danger".
They figured they were covered .. but when Berger got arrested and Weldon wrote his book .. the whole mess was out in the open for people to see.
These New York Time, Time Magazine accounts are not put into print but the give cover to their organizations, should this issue of ABLE DANGER take on critical mass. But what these publications reveal are minimal by nature of their political persuasions grafted to the Clinton administration. They will do everything in their power to cover for their democrat likeminded liberals.
The most one can say for Hamilton is that he was willfully ignorant. More likely, he is part of the problem. Keane is probalby culpable also.
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