Posted on 08/12/2005 4:40:56 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob
Enough has come out about the failure of the 9/11 Commission to include critical information about Mohammed Atta and other 9/11 attackers, to suggest a new Commission to investigate the original Commission. The cure may not be that drastic, but it is that important.
In short, a special Army intelligence operation known as “Able Danger” identified Atta and four of his accomplices, and identified Al-Qaeda cells in Hamburg and Brooklyn and elsewhere, a year before the 9/11 attacks. They offered then to share that information with law enforcement agencies including the FBI.
Those offers were cut off by Clinton Administration attorneys and based that refusal on the “wall of separation” memo written by Jamie Gorelick, then a deputy under Attorney General Janet Reno. By the time 9/11 staffers received multiple briefings on Able Danger’s findings and efforts, Ms. Gorelick had become a member of that Commission.
All details now known, and some reasonable speculation on why Ms. Gorelick wrote that memo, and why the Administration wanted to prevent prosecutors from receiving information from intelligence agencies, is well covered in an article by my colleague, Gregory Borse. His title is, “Gorelick 'MemoGate': It Just Got Worse,” and is here: http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=16201
I deal here with two aspects not addressed by Greg -- the fascinating nature of the research done by Able Danger, and the solution Congress can apply to this festering problem.
“Open Source” means using sources that are out in public. It seems like a contradiction in terms that highly secret information can be derived from documents, articles, speeches, radio and TV broadcasts made in public, in front of God and everybody, as they say hereabouts.
Imagine a jigsaw puzzle with no picture on the box, you don’t know how many pieces there are, the pieces are each hidden in a pile of other pieces that aren’t part of the puzzle, and the pieces are anywhere in the world and written in languages from English to German to Farsi. For a fictional (but accurate) depiction of this process, rent and review an excellent movie, “Three Days of the Condor,” starring Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway.
Or use this real example. Three decades ago, I attended a speech by Isaac Asimov at Johns Hopkins University. I still remember one particular aspect of Dr. Asimov’s talk. He said, “Japanese or German spies during WW II could have discovered America’s most secret scientific project, using information the federal government required to be published.”
Here is Dr. Asimov’s thinking: 1. Analog Science Fiction & Fact has gone through several changes of name and control, but has always carried articles based on sound science. (Think the accurate science of Arthur Clarke’s “2001" series, rather than the bad science of George Lucas’ “Star Wars.” There is no air in space for Ti fighters to bank against, nor to transmit any sound of exploding Death Stars or planets. But I digress.)
2. As a result, many of America’s “hard” scientists subscribe to Analog. 3. The Post Office required every magazine with a second-class mailing permit to recount, once a year, the circulation of its paid subscriptions. 4. Therefore, Analog published information showong a statistical bulge, a “rat in the snake,” a group of scientists appearing first in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and then in Los Alamos, New Mexico. 5. Since there was no new university or other private employer who hired these scientists, this had to indicate some type of government-sponsored scientific research.
So it was. This “open source” investigation, with some common sense employed, would have led a spy to the location of the Manhattan Project, which developed the first atomic bomb.
Now, we turn to the solution to this 9/11 Commission problem. It is a normal duty of Congress to exercise oversight concerning all federal agencies. The Commission is/was a federal agency. Its failures concerning the Able Danger research is a very focused inquiry. Therefore, an appropriate Committee of Congress should and can convene an inquiry to get to the bottom of this problem.
How fast can Congress act? Well, it ginned up a hearing on steroid use in baseball on 30-days’ notice. It seems to me that the 9/11 failure is slightly more important than that. So start your steroid clocks now. Let’s see if Congress can get Jamie Gorelick on camera and under oath within 30 days. Let the “9/11 9/11" hearings begin.
About the Author: John Armor is a First Amendment attorney and author who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
can this be initiated? see above.....
what about federal employees being 'exempt'.. ?
I've been thinking about Jack throughout this whole Able Danger eruption.
I think everybody should demand a return authorization for their copy of the report- and cash refunded - until some relevant omitted data is put back in.
Thank you for all of your well reasoned responses. Some are asking about the publication of photographs within hours of the attacks. Seems reasonable, and any insight is greatly appreciated.
Go Pats
Great stuff, John. We must burn the phone lines with our demands of new hearings ---- real hearings this time.
Including the President, if I'm not mistaken.
I'm sick and tired of these unelected special investigation commissions that are set up to do the jobs congressmen and senators are supposed to do themselves. This commission in particular really rubs me the wrong way. It seems to have been designed from the begining to conceal information rather than reveal it.
I saw that too. I tell ya, either they're all in cahoots, or Jaime give the best BJs in D.C.
Thanks for an excellent column Congressman.
I remember that during the cold war a scientist working in the US revealed a hitherto unknown nuclear waste accident in the Soviet Union (resulting in an accidental nuclear explosion) using open sources and articles published by Soviet biologists in scientific journals.
Regarding the 911 Commission and the "wall" there is plenty of material in FR archives to show that the "barrier" was erected at about the same time Clinton (and Mrs Clinton) started to entertain John Huang and other Chinese lobbyists. However, this is another scandal the Congress was not able to unearth - how likely is it that they will admit to failing in their duties?
From what I've heard, 9/11 Commission staffers never recorded or made transcripts of their interviews. Kind of hard to tell what was said in those interviews without a recording or transcripts. What kind of investigation is conducted without recording or transcribing interviews to allow an acccurate record for follow up?
Department of Redundancy Department.
Is it true that Jamie Gorelick was the gate keeper of intelligence reports fed to the Committee? (I read it somewhere on the web but don't remember the source.)
I had not read that, but it could well be true. Gorelick's job for the Clintons, in every position she's held in the federal government, seems to have been to protect the Clintons and their interests, and to hide any bad information to the contrary.
John / Billybob
Well done. I missed this article Friday (camping with the family) and caught the link on another thread. As I posted there, that the 9-11 Commission had 4 stories in 4 days speaks volumes to me. That the presstitutes in the MSM have been virtually silent also is quite telling. Otherwise, they would pump Weldon up only to later trash him in a most public way. Thus, methinks this one is not going away without some sparks flying...
What are you smoking?
Indeed. The timing is likely not coincidental...
What are you smoking?
You're replying to a post made four days ago, where I pointed out, quite correctly, that Isaac Asimov was primarily a science fiction writet....and YOU are asking "what I'm smoking"????
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