Able Danger, 9-11 Report, Gorelick, and so much more...

various FR links & stories | 08-12-05 | the heavy equipment guy

[STARWISE]

We need an independent prosecutor. I understand that Ken Starr is looking for work...

I do NOT believe Starr has the spine, appetite or constitution for such a job ... he's kinda wimpy, if you ask me. Patrick Fitzgerald would be just the kind of barracuda (and he MAY BE swimming with the sharks as we speak) who could handle something so huge and sweeping as a monster of an incestuous diabological scheme. Whoever gets to deal with this needs to be an absolute unremitting barrracude .. NO prisoners .. NO gimmes, and it needs to happen NOW.

backhoe: I haven't gone through all the links, so I don't know if you have this yet:

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

DoD LAWYERS TO BLAME FOR ABLE DANGER FIASCO

This is probably why a Congressional investigation is in order. Here we have the staff of the 9/11 Commission investigating themselves. And Congress should look into one particular Commission investigator, Deitrich Snell, who according to the NY Times story yesterday was the staff person who interviewed the Able Danger team member at Commission headquarters in July, 2004 – 10 days before the Commission’s Final Report was released:

Mr. Snell also prosecuted one of the Bojinka plot conspirators and turned down a deal with the terrorist:

Abdul Hakim Murad, a conspirator in the 1995 Bojinka plot with Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and others, was convicted in 1996 of his role in the Bojinka plot (see January 6, 1995). He is about to be sentenced for that crime. He offers to cooperate with federal prosecutors in return for a reduction in his sentence, but prosecutors turn down his offer.

Dietrich Snell, the prosecutor who convicted Murad, says after 9/11 that he doesn’t remember any such offer. But court papers and others familiar with the case later confirmed that Murad does offer to cooperate at this time. Snell claimed he only remembers hearing that Murad had described an intention to hijack a plane and fly it into CIA headquarters. However, in 1995 Murad had confessed to Philippine investigators that this would have been only one part of a larger plot to crash a number of airplanes into prominent US buildings, including the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a plot that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed later adjusts and turns into the 9/11 plot

You may recall that the Bojinka plot involved the blowing up of 11 US bound airplanes over the Pacific Ocean, in January of 1996. This is the plot KSM eagerly took to Osama Bin Laden for approval only to have OBL scale the attack down to what eventually turned out to be the 9/11 attack. The behavior of Mr. Snell in this case is eerily similar to what he did with the Able Danger information. In other words, Mr. Snell has experience in burying information that may have led to discovery of the 9/11 attack.

According to today’s Washington Post, we may hear something from the Commission today about Able Danger and why the staff failed to include the information in the Final Report.

= = = = = = = = = = =

Captains Quarters Blog:The Second Half of 9/11"

Over two weeks ago, I posted about the curious case of Mohammed Afroze, the al-Qaeda conspirator who confessed to masterminding a series of attacks on international targets for September 11, 2001, which intended to turn the AQ attack into global warfare. In my Daily Standard column today, I go into more depth about Afroze and his plans:

On the day after the failed July 21 bombings in London, an Indian court in Delhi sentenced Mohammed Afroze to seven years in prison for his participation in a wider plot which had been planned for September 11, 2001. Afroze led another al Qaeda cell which planned to use commercial airlines as missiles to destroy several international targets. The Islamist terrorists intended to send a global message through coordination with the attacks on America. Their plan failed when the terrorists lost their nerve and fled Heathrow.

Afroze and his compatriots from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Pakistan had planned on flying their Manchester-bound flights into the House of Commons and the Tower Bridge in London. Attacking Parliament would have sent a message to the British government about the continued sanctions on Iraq. Blowing up the Tower Bridge would kill a slew of British civilians, with the intent of terrorizing them into demanding a withdrawal of British troops from the Middle East and a halt to support of American actions in the region.

But Afroze had other targets as part of his plan--and these reveal something much deeper and broader than Galloway and the media wish to contemplate.

The other targets? Australia and India. The latter especially destroys the oft-repeated meme that al-Qaeda's primary motivation comes from Anglo-American occupation in Iraq, or their actions in the first Gulf War. Instead, the aborted attack plans of Afroze show that Osama bin Laden and his gang of terrorists intend on establishing a new Caliphate in Southwest Asia and North Africa, regaining the lands that once fell under Muslim control, and using control of oil to push for global domination.

Interestingly, especially in light of the Able Danger revelations this week, the 9/11 Commission never mentions Mohammed Afroze even a single time, despite his key role in attempting to provide the international half of the attacks on 9/11. The nature of these targets shows that AQ didn't target America exclusively and should have provided at least some context for their consideration. Like Able Danger, however, they either ignored it or deliberately omitted it as not fitting within the predetermined conclusions they desperately wanted to reach.

Nor has the media provided any coverage of Afroze. The paltry mention his case received came almost exclusively from the international press corps, notably the Times of India and the Times of London. Americans once again find themselves underinformed of the facts of 9/11 despite the vast amount of money, time, and attention spent on supposedly "connecting the dots" after the fact. This willful ignorance on the part of those commissioned to keep us informed should once again demonstrate that the media has aligned itself to certain narratives and have proven unreliable in the main to report facts that do not fit them.

This continues to make life dangerous for Americans and free people around the world. If the media cannot truly depict the issues surrounding global Islamofascist terror, the ignorance they promote about its goals will result in a collapse of will to keep those goals from becoming reality.

[CyberAnt]

I believe you're correct!

[STARWISE]

Plenty of Dots (and Blame) to go Around

Captain V. is the nom de cyber-plume of a former intelligence officer who worked in a variety of intelligence disciplines and served at a number of different agencies in the US Intelligence Community. He is neither syndicated nor a member of a think tank (though wouldn’t that be sweet?). His opinions are his own.

On the odd chance that you haven’t been following the story: The Army undertook a data mining project called ABLE DANGER. The project identified and connected a variety of dots that pointed to Atta as a member of al-Qaida. Army squirreliness about sharing “intel” data with “law enforcement” or even other elements of the IC apparently stopped any potentially productive information sharing effort.

One gig (demerit) for the Army.

After a day or two, a fresh round of criticism emerged. Initially the target was the Army for allegedly keeping the ABLE DANGER findings from the 9/11 Commission, which claimed rightly that had this information been known prior to the conclusion of the Commission’s investigation, the “truth” about 9/11 might very well read differently.

We now know that this second round of criticism was misplaced. The 9/11 Commission now confesses that it did indeed know about the Atta connection discovered by ABLE DANGER, but apparently disregarded the Army’s findings because it didn’t jibe with all the other data they had collected on the topic.

When this kind of thinking is discovered by commissions investigating intelligence professionals, it is called a “lack of imagination” or “group think” or labeled a by-product of the ill-conceived consensus-building nature of how intelligence assessments are developed. Such thinking is held up by commissions as one of the many ills that affect the IC today, though apparently it isn’t a problem when conducted by commissions themselves.

Two gigs for the 9/11 Commission: one for ignoring the data and one for lying about it.

Like any good conspiracy theory, the motivations that led to the creation of the Gorelick “wall” – the policy that precluded effective sharing of data between intelligence and law enforcement - are varied and exciting to think about. However, the blame for this disconnect doesn’t rest solely on the shoulders of one former Clinton administration official who was really just throwing logs on a long-smoldering legal fire.

If we’re going to dump a truck load of blame, let’s spread it around more appropriately. There are two primary perpetrators that deserve our attention: the legal community that serves the intelligence community, and the intelligence professionals that don’t bother to understand the law.

The only time anyone in the IC tends to see an agency General Counsel (GC) is when something bad has happened and it is time to circle the wagons. Like any good lawyer should, each agency GC tends to interpret the law in a fashion that protects their client (the agency and its director), even if that decision could have serious consequences for the consumers that client is charged with serving. GCs are all about the letter of the law, not about the spirit.

One gig for GCs.

Intelligence officers receive briefings on legal issues that pertain to their work once a year. They are almost always done via computer-based training, and take about ten minutes to complete even after the post-lunch blahs. Every intelligence officer remembers just enough intelligence law to make them, and the way they do business, dangerous.

For example, everyone in military intelligence (like those that ran ABLE DANGER) will tell you, you can never collect anything on a “US Person” much less save that data for further analysis. Unfortunately, everyone is playing at being a TV lawyer. You wouldn’t try to defend yourself against a criminal charge because you are a faithful viewer of Law & Order, yet every day intelligence officers go about their business thinking that they’re Jack McCoy.

One gig for intelligence officers.

During peace time, when something goes horribly wrong in the military (e.g. a rash of fatal accidents), the affected service calls a halt to all non-essential activities and makes everyone sit down and figure out how to deal with the situation that caused the problems. This sort of safety ‘stand down’ is designed to make people realize that the problems being addressed are not flukes, but systemic and severely detrimental to the mission.

The IC could benefit by having its own ‘stand down’ to interpret (aggressively I hope) existing intelligence law, clarify ambiguities, debunk legal myths, and promulgate said interpretations to the IC workforce in easy to understand language. Most intelligence officers have a college degree or two, so a picture book isn’t necessary, but narrative examples would be helpful.

If we’re going to operate our intelligence apparatus as a “community” then community standards need to be put in place. The sooner everyone understands and operates under the same rules, the sooner we can remove the self-imposed road blocks that could adversely impact our ability to defeat the next terrorist attack.

[NonValueAdded]

I heard that call. He ended up getting comped a free year of Rush 24x7 and Rush told him he could find the necessary background material posted there after 6 PM. I don't know about you but I was shouting at the radio that he could find out all he needed to on Free Republic and a lot sooner too!

[Southack]

"Two gigs for the 9/11 Commission: one for ignoring the data and one for lying about it."

Captain V's advice is valid for all non-compromised intel agencies and government commissions.

However, Captain V's advice is invalid for those commissions and intel agencies that are *actively* subverting the U.S.

For the 9/11 Congressional Commission, for instance, not only was it caught lying that it "didn't know" about Able Danger, but it was caught lying that it was only 2 Military Intel agents whose Able Danger information was disregarded "because it didn't align with any other data."

Because not only did the 2 military intel officers tell the 9/11 Commission about the 4 known (prior to 9/11 via Able Danger) hijackers, but Richard Clarke himself told the 9/11 Commission that the FBI knew of 2 of the 19 9/11 hijackers operating in the U.S. prior to 9/11/2001.

So the 9/11 Commission LIED about "not knowing," lied about why they dismissed the intel from the 2 officers, and then lied again about Richard Clarke's ***public*** testimony to their Congressional panel!

Gorelick knew. The 9/11 Commission knew. They tried to spike hijacker revelation from the 2 different sources (Richard Clarke and the intel officers).

That's not innocent behavior. That's not merely a procedural problem or an institutional problem or groupthink.

That's active subversion.

And it's active subversion that just adds to the subversion hoisted upon us via the Gorelick Wall.

Lets also not forget all of the public leaks that our intel agencies keep springing.

Lets remember that National Security Advisor Berger was caught shredding classified documents.

Lets remember that Valerie Plame was actively scheming to bring down our President by rigging up left-wing-insider "intel" gathering in Niger.

Lets remember that our intel agencies tried to trick our President into using the French-forged Niger WMD documents.

This is all treason. This is WHY our intel agencies are being cleaned up by Porter Goss and John Negroponte, and it is why the Left is scrambling and screaming thusly.

[backhoe]

More info coming in:

 Gorelick memo; Mary Jo White response (see pdf copies) -- There is some good stuff on the site. CHECK THIS OUT

 Congressional Record on the 9/11 Commission Hearings where Senator Cornyn brings up the conflicts in Gorelick's statements on the memo.

 FBI CHECKING OUT SOUBRA --- CLICK

 

 WND on Rush: "Media Absent on 9/11 Scandal - an Absolute Joke..." -- Apparently, FReepers, Rush, the Internet and alternative media will have to chase this story down and publicly humiliate the people elected to represent us - not themselves - until they reveal why they covered up such damning evidence...

 Authorities also knew about another cell prior to 9/11. Zacaria Soubra's name popped up in a document linked by DFU here (post #6):

 Atta had a fake passport...info here (#12).

 Source

 

 "Sandy Berger's Sentencing Postponed" Going easy on him, or waiting for the other shoe to drop? -- I know this is a month old story, but recent events regarding AbleDanger-gate might shed some new light on it.

[oceanview]

do you see anyone from the administration speaking about this, escalating the calls for investigations? the so-called republican members of the 9-11 commission were obviously part of the coverup. why?

as Rush said today - both parties have a hand in protecting the "political class" from blame.

[backhoe]

 Atta Boy, Democrats

[prognostigaator]

bump to the top

[RobFromGa]

bttt

[backhoe]

Thanks for the bump- I just got my old dog out of surgery ( teeth and a growth on her head ) and am not able to give much time to nuturing this post beyond adding new links. I'll drop in as time permits.

[Southack]

"the so-called republican members of the 9-11 commission were obviously part of the coverup. why?"

Nope. Gorelick put herself in charge of filtering the information and conclusions that the 9/11 Commission saw and made.

Where the GOP got hosed was when the Democrats put Gorelick in charge of their side, from which Gorelick was able to snow everyone else because she had so much FIRSTHAND knowledge.

...and the GOP got bamboozled into letting the Democrats pick their own staff for the 9/11 Commission because the ENTIRE MAINSTREAM NEWS MEDIA was making such a big deal about the panel being fair, non-partisan, and unbiased.

In short, the subversives in our midsts have been able to get away with so much treason for so long because of the ever-willing, sycophantic (to the Left) news media...

...made possible because the balance of political power is so narrow.

Pause

Which means that we get to counter the subversives only to the degree that we expand our partisan national power and that we expand our blogging audience.

Which is to say, the war is bigger than just Iraq, Afghanistan, and places unmentioned abroad. There is also a Home Front, and we are fighting this war here.

[Enchante]

Here's another one that has been entirely ignored by the 9/11 Commission and the MSM, as far as I can tell -- there's less and less reason to believe that the 9/11 Commission was anything but a whitewash for the political convenience of both parties. I think the Democrats were desperate to divert attention from the Clinton years, and the Rs on the commission generally obliged in order to try to minimize the bloodbath over the ridiculous Richard Clarke stuff, etc.:

---

Another Detail The 9/11 Commission Seems To Have Missed

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/005200.php#comments

....[excerpt of Captain Quarters Blog thread, there's lots more stuff there]:

The most serious report contained information that Iraq and Osama bin Ladin were working together. German authorities were surprised by the arrest of the two Iraqi agents and the discovery of Iraqi intelligence activities in several German cities. German authorities, acting on CIA recommendations, had been focused on monitoring the activities of Islamic groups linked to bin Ladin. They discovered the two Iraqi agents by chance and uncovered what they considered to be serious indications of cooperation between Iraq and bin Ladin. The matter was considered so important that a special team of CIA and FBI agents was sent to Germany to interrogate the two Iraqi spies.

Not one word of this gets addressed in the final Commission report, as far as I can tell. The report contains thirty-one references to arrests, most of them for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Zacarias Moussaoui, but none of them mention any German arrests of Iraqi spies in Germany for March 2001. It isn't as if the 9/11 Commission considered Al-Watan al-Arabi an unreliable source, either; they used it as a reference for an editorial by Saudi Prince Bandar.

The CIA apparently knew something about this; why didn't it come out during the hearings? This looks like a very strange coincidence, that the Germans found such an extensive Iraqi espionage ring within their borders at the same time that al-Qaeda planned its largest and most complicated attack on Western interests ever. That attack required extraordinary coordination and planning, with a large amount of resourcing. The attacks before and since have all been suicide or hit-and-run affairs, on a much smaller scale and with much more modest ambitions.

This information was published contemporaneously in March 2001 and was in the public domain. If anyone brought it to the Commission's attention, no evidence of it exists in the report. Presumably, such public information would have been addressed in the report even if it turned out to be mistaken had anyone bothered to look at it -- or if the Commission could explain it away in favor of their "no operational connection" analysis between Iraq and 9/11.

In March 2001, the CIA suspected that the Iraqis had allied themselves with Islamist extremists to carry out attacks on American interests, and as a result the Germans discovered exactly that -- right where the planning for 9/11 took place. Did this information get the Able Danger treatment as well? (h/t: CQ reader Tom M.)

Addendum: It's worth noting that syndicated columnist Amir Taheri considered Al-Watan Al-Arabi to be a pro-Saddam weekly.

[Enchante]

There are loads of links and pieces of info here that look very important to the subject of all that's been ignored by the 9/11 Commission, but it's going to be a huge project to get through it all and see all the things that the 9/11 Commission report does not begin to touch upon:

http://www.papadoc.net/WoW/ConnectionbetweenAlQuedaandSaddam.htm

[EagleUSA]

-- there's less and less reason to believe that the 9/11 Commission was anything but a whitewash for the political convenience of both parties.
------
And we are supposed to TRUST THESE POLITICIANS with our lives, the lives of our children and our country. Barf bucket please.

[oceanview]

I just find it hard to believe that the republicans on the comittee were that dumb. I have respect for Ashcroft at least, pointing to Gorelick in his testimony.

we missed a golden opportunity to tag clinton's stewardship of the nations military, intelligence, and law enforcement apparatus with the blame for 9/11 - where it belongs. instead, his wife stands a chance at returning to the white house as president. if that isn't a monumental political screw-up, I don't know what is.

[Southack]

You can only move so far, so fast against a universally hostile news media.

If the press was neutral, then yes, we missed a golden opportunity.

But the media bias has only delayed their day of reckoning. The facts are coming in, and GOP Congressman Curt Weldon deserves kudos in this matter (for exposing the 9/11 panel lies), as does GOP bigwig Ashcroft (who exposed the Gorelick Wall).

Moreover, with the elections over, this can't be spun as a partisan stunt so easily. The Radical Left is very boxed in right now. They've made many crucial errors, and say what you will about the GOP, but the GOP is well-positioned to clean house.

[JustDoItAlways]

Don't you think this will eventually become a MAJOR issue.

If you think this through to its natural ending, it sounds like Able Danger had nailed the main al-qaeda cell which carried out 9/11 and were PREVENTED from picking them up or sharing the intel.

9/11 could have been stopped easily.

This is not the result of a screw-up or someone failing to connect the dots, but an amazingly bad error in policy.

9/11 could have been stopped.

Shouldn't this have been the main finding of the 9/11 Commission. The issue is not just why wasn't it mentioned in the report but why wasn't it the key finding.

[Stellar Dendrite]

Something odd is going on. Able danger is not on Drudgereport.

What gives?

[backhoe]

 The Able Danger/Atta story. A lot like Atta meeting with Iraqi intelligence?  

Spanish intelligence found evidence that Algerians Khaled Madani and Moussa Laouar provided false passports to Mohamed Atta and his associate Ramzi bin al-Shibh.

Source

 Baathist Fingerprints

-- the Prague connection --

 Source

 There is also the case of Abu Zubayr, an officer in Saddam's secret police --

 Source

 

 Michael Ledeen: Intelligence? You Kidding Me? James Jesus Angleton on “Able Danger.”

hattip: ravingnutter