Posted on 08/16/2005 8:12:52 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - An Army intelligence officer says his unit was blocked in 2000 and 2001 from giving the FBI information about a U.S.-based terrorist cell that included Mohamed Atta, the future leader of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer said the small intelligence unit, called "Able Danger," had identified Atta and three of the other future Sept. 11 hijackers as al-Qaida members by mid-2000. He said military lawyers stopped the unit from sharing the information with the FBI.
The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks left the Able Danger claims out of its official report.
In an interview with Fox News Channel and The New York Times, Shaffer said the panel was not given all the information his team had gathered.
"I'm told confidently by the person who did move the material over that the 9/11 commission received two briefcase-size containers of documents," Shaffer said in the interview, part of which was aired by Fox News Tuesday night. "I can tell you for a fact that would not be ... one-20th of the information that Able Danger consisted of during the time we spent."
Rep. Curt Weldon (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, has said the Sept. 11 commission did not adequately investigate the claim that four of the hijackers had been identified more than a year before the attacks.
Former commission chairman Thomas Kean and vice chairman Lee Hamilton said last week that the military official who made the claim had no documentation to back it up.
Shaffer rejected that remark. "Leaving a project targeting al-Qaida as a global threat a year before we were attacked by al-Qaida is equivalent to having an investigation of Pearl Harbor and leaving somehow out the Japanese," he said.
The word is out!!!!!
It will be fun to see how the MSM tries to discredit this, and which Republicans help them.
Well, dagnabbit, they should have sidestepped their superiors and taken this straight to President Bush, just like Cindy Sheehan.
Death , Dishonor, Destruction
Clintoon's 3D Legacy?
GORELICK GATE: Developing... Thx Backhoe!
FR Archives Search Results for Gorelick Wall
John Bachelor just said, "The Clinton administration, what did they know and when did they know it?" He also just asked, "What was in those socks?"
PLEASE not another 'gate' suffix... its sooooooo PLAYED OUT!
BUMP!!
That's what I want to know. I want to know if this ties into Sandy's little Raid of documents.
The AP? Am I dreaming or has the MSM weighed in??
Nobody from us asked Gorelick to go gating.
Maybe someone has finally figured out how to fix the blame without it getting all over himself too.
I was shocked to learn Able-Danger was a Special Forces unit. There have been major additions since I was in during the sixties.
2000-2001= BUSH'S FAULT. . .WARNING: AP
You bet. Heads up. This issue is one that can cost the Dems dearly...and I suggest that they will do anything in an attempt to "keep the ball in 'W's' court. *S*
Have a great week. V/r DK
The MSM will try to spin this to make it look like it's equally the fault of Clinton and Bush, but the public won't buy that because the policy was developed by Gorelick and the Clintonistas. Bush was still getting his team up and running in the first half of 2001 and working on Senate confirmations and high-level policy. Issues such as how the lawyers operate at the Pentagon wouldn't have hit the radar screen yet for Bush or Rumsfeld. This is another part of the Clinton Disaster, along with massive Chinese espionage activity, nuclear secrets sold to China, loss of 40% of our Army divisions....on and on endlessly.
bureaucracy will eventually choke itself
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