Posted on 09/15/2005 11:34:36 AM PDT by bw17
Sept. 11 commission rejects Atta claim
DEVLIN BARRETT Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Former members of the Sept. 11 commission on Wednesday dismissed assertions that a Pentagon intelligence unit identified lead hijacker Mohamed Atta as an member of al-Qaida long before the 2001 attacks.
The ex-commissioners also criticized the government for not putting in place changes recommended last year in homeland security and emergency response. They pointed most notably to the failure to improve communication systems, which they said might have saved lives after Hurricane Katrina.
Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., had accused the commission of ignoring intelligence about Atta while it investigated the attacks. The commission's former chairman, Thomas Kean, said there was no evidence anyone in the government knew about Atta before Sept. 11, 2001.
Two military officers, Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott, claimed a classified military intelligence unit, known as "Able Danger," identified Atta before the attacks. Shaffer has said three other hijackers were identified, too.
Kean said the recollections of the intelligence officers cannot be verified by any document.
"Bluntly, it just didn't happen and that's the conclusion of all 10 of us," said a former commissioner, ex-Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash.
Pentagon officials said this month that they could find no documents to back up the claims.
According to Weldon, members of "Able Danger" identified Atta and three other hijackers in 1999 as potential members of a terrorist cell in New York City. Weldon said Pentagon lawyers rejected the unit's recommendation that the information be turned over to the FBI in 2000.
Weldon's spokesman, John Tomaszewski, said no commissioners have met with anyone from Able Danger "yet they choose to speak with some form of certainty without firsthand knowledge."
There's been commission after commission as long as I can remember and all there for is ass covering.
Slade Gorton should be tested for the Alzheimer's gene.
I am p*-o* that so much money was spent on the first go-round. Their work was no less bipartisan than anything churned out by the Congress Critters. No mas!
YOU SAID..."Weldon's spokesman is absolutely right. I hope they have a copy of that chart with Atta's name on it, because I'd like to see Gordon, Gorelick, ben Veniste, Kean and others choke on the darn thing."
PAGING STEPHEN HADLEY....
Please report to the press room, and bring your copy of the CHART... the one Weldon gave you two weeks after 9-11.
Thank you
Missing Able Danger 'Atta' Chart in 2002 Video
"..A third of the way through his May 23, 2002 address on data fusion techniques, the video shows Rep. Weldon unfurling a copy of the now missing document and displaying it to the Heritage audience.
"This is the unclassified chart that was done by the Special Forces Command briefing center one year before 9/11," he explains. "It is the complete architecture of al Qaeda and pan-Islamic extremism. It gives all the linkages. It gives all the capabilities. . . ."
Though Weldon never mentions Able Danger or Atta by name - and the video never zooms in on the chart to the point where Atta's photo is identifiable - it's clear from Weldon comments that the chart is the same one currently being sought..."
Hadley Should be able to verify what Weldon gave him.
They have some nerve pointing fingers. Trying to divert attention from their failures, I would say.
Basically, the lot of them said it didn't happen because they had no documentary proof, no chart...
and because it conflicts with their other premises and conclusions. (Great logic, eh?)
The follow-up from FoxNews (at which point they all proceeded to go into their extreme-buffoon mode):
'But since we know that the Able-Danger documentation was destroyed,
how can you base your conclusion on the absence of documentation???'(paraphrase)
sandy berger haberdashery feint (the specs, not the pants or the socks) by Mia T, 8.23.05 (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE) WHY DID BILL CLINTON IGNORE TERRORISM? Was it simply the constraints of his liberal mindset, or was it something even more threatening to our national security? by Mia T, 8.18.05 (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE) thanx to jla and Wolverine for the audio
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