Replies

Everyone -- there's a fascinating video of Curt Weldon giving a speech on May 23, 2002 at the Heritage Foundation. It confirms that he has been talking about issues related to ABLE DANGER long before he wrote a book, so people who dismiss him as merely hawking his book are just smear artists (no surprise there). It could be very important for the info he presents on all that he tried to get the Clinton administration and intel agencies to do pre-2001. Sounds like they had AMPLE warning that they needed to be utilizing the kind of data-mining represented by ABLE DANGER. He presents a large chart, the 'unclassified' version of what he says was produced in SOCOM. He doesn't mention ABLE DANGER by name in the part I listened to (though it's clear he's referring to what we now know as A.D.), but I had to stop at around 33 min. (looks like the entire video is 1 hr. 20 minutes long). There's a lot of interesting info on how he tried from 1997-2000, repeatedly, to get all the intel agencies working together on data-mining or what he called 'fusion' of data for doing searches on high-priority tasks. He gives an example of an UNCLASSIFIED item, an interview published in an Italian paper in August 2000, more than a year before 9/11, in which an Al Qaeda leader (he doesn't say which one) is quoted saying that AL QAEDA WAS TRAINING KAMIKAZE PILOTS!!! Another example of what might have been known before 9/11 -- but apparently the FBI and CIA intel people refuse to utilize ANY non-classified sources..... don't know if that's because they feel they can't afford the time, or they just don't think there's anything reliable outside of their little world.... I find it incredible that supposed professional intel experts would think that all relevant info on terrorists comes ONLY in classified material -- I think it's obvious that lots and lots of bits and pieces surface in various media reporting, interviews, etc.

Anyway, I'll try to watch all of this video when I have more time, but if anyone gets to it and wants to report, here's the link:

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Events/2002archive.cfm

FWIW I just transcribed part of the Q&A session (and posted excerpts of it on my page at http://FreedomKeys.com/slimeball.htm ):

(The chart of the Al-Qaeda organization -- done one year before 9/11 -- is in the 33rd minute).

at 57:38
"When people like Peter Lightner started to blow the whistle on the transfer of technology to China in the mid-'90s, and said, 'This is wrong; my reports are being changed.' What was the response? It was to isolate him, to basically come down hard. I know; I was a member of the Cox Committee and for 7 months sat behind closed doors with the FBI and the CIA and saw all the evidence. Individual people, that instead of being praised for their work, even though it might have run counter to what the ultimate policy objective was, they're not being paid to all the time support a policy objective. They're being paid by the taxpayers to give us objective analysis as professionals. And when the policy makers reach down and attempt to get the analysts to sanitize their analysis, as the CIA did in the 1995 NIE, 95-19, which was the assessment of the threat to our national security, and when the CIA briefer came over in a classified room, and gave me the brief, David Osias, and I said, "This is ridiculous," it was because in my opinion, and I won't be able (inaudible) if it was agreed to by the CIA, that the analysis, in fact, had been basically watered down so it would support the President's decision that year to veto our defense authorization bill. That whole process ... is an example of the lack of integrity that can occur within the intelligence community. ... [intelligence analysts] have to have the confidence that, when they make a judgment or an assessment, that they're not going to have their head chopped off. I could give you a litany of people who had their heads chopped off ... who did the politically incorrect thing when they were doing their job as best they could professionally and in the end paid the price because they basically, crossed hairs with elected politicians who didn't like what they had to say.

[...]

at 1:09:14
"We've allowed the technology transfer to places like China, where they have massive high-speed computers as a result of some presidential decisions on exports back in '96, that they didn't have prior to that. You know, originally we were told those high-performance computers in the 8-10,000M top range and above would only go to their academic institutions. Well, surprise, surprise! Where do we find them today? At their weapons labs! Helping them miniaturize their nuclear warheads. Helping them develop a whole new element of the PLA, focusing on cyber-warfare."
-- Rep. Curt Weldon, speaking before the Heritage Foundation, May 23, 2002, recorded here:
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Events/2002archive.cfm