Posted on 09/20/2005 9:08:30 PM PDT by bobsunshine
Able Danger: Pentagon Spikes Witnesses While Shaffer Reveals New Source
The New York Times reports this evening that the Pentagon has blocked its military witnesses from testifying on Able Danger at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings tomorrow. Senator Arlen Specter registered his surprise but plans on holding the hearings anyway (h/t: AJ Strata):
The Pentagon said today that it had blocked a group of military officers and intelligence analysts from testifying at an open Congressional hearing about a highly classified military intelligence program that, the officers have said, identified a ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks as a potential terrorist more than a year before the attacks.
The announcement came a day before the officers and intelligence analysts had been scheduled to testify about the program, known as Able Danger, at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee. ...
Mr. Specter said his staff had talked to all five of the potential witnesses and found that "credibility has been established" for all of them.
"There are quite a few credible people who are prepared to testify that Mohamed Atta was identified long before 9/11," he said. "Now maybe there's more than one Mohamed Atta. Or maybe there's some mistake. But that's what we're trying to find out."
The Pentagon might think that withdrawing its witnesses will keep Able Danger from breaking wide open, but they will find themselves sorely mistaken. This only demonstrates that the program found something that the Pentagon still wants hidden. If that includes a finding that their program not only found Atta and other AQ terrorists over a year before the attacks, but also predicted the USS Cole attack three weeks before it happened, and that the Pentagon shut down the program anyway, eighteen Senators will want to know why.
In fact, the withdrawal of the witnesses clearly shows that the story has substance and isn't a case of mistaken identity. Had this just been an identification of a second Mohammed Atta, as Specter postulates, the Pentagon should have no problem putting its witnesses on the stand. Nothing about a mistaken identity would create a classification problem for the hearing tomorrow.
QT Monster has a transcript from tonight's interview of LTC Tony Shaffer on the Jerry Doyle radio show. Shaffer says Donald Rumsfeld himself gave the order to stop the witnesses from appearing at the Judiciary Committee hearing:
JD: Well, when you say DoD, where's this coming from at DoD? Is this instructions to DoD from higher ups? Is this people in DoD who are afraid of what information gets out? I mean who is the person who's making this happen? AS: What I will tell you is I was told by 2 DoD officials today directly that it is their understanding that the Secretary of Defense directed that we not testify tomorrow. That is my understanding.
However, Shaffer says that former Major Eric Kleinstadt, now a civilian contractor, will still testify at the panel. Kleinstadt received the orders to destroy the Able Danger database. Specter's insistence that the hearings go forward probably hinges on Kleinstadt's ability to testify to the information that got destroyed, who ordered its destruction, and why. From that point, the committee could unravel an entire command sequence that will uncover how Able Danger got missed by the 9/11 Commission.
Another interesting fact got mentioned in Shaffer's interview. He spoke about a Dr. Eileen Pricer. One of the more mysterious potential sources of the Able Danger story involved a female PhD that could corroborate Shaffer and Phillpott, the woman who actually developed the Atta identification in the first place. I Googled Eileen Pricer and got just one hit -- but it's a doozy.
It turns out that Dr. Pricer testified before a closed session of Congressional subcommittee on national security exactly one month after 9/11. That testimony isn't available, but Rep. Christopher Shays mentions her on the record in the next day's public testimony:
Mr. Shays. In a briefing we had yesterday, we had Eileen Pricer, who argues that we don't have the data we need because we don't take all the public data that is available and mix it with the security data. And just taking public data, using, you know, computer systems that are high-speed and able to digest, you know, literally floors' worth of material, she can take relationships that are seven times removed, seven units removed, and when she does that, she ends up with relationships to the bin Laden group where she sees the purchase of chemicals, the sending of students to universities. You wouldn't see it if you isolated it there, but if that unit is connected to that unit, which is connected to that unit, which is connected to that unit, you then see the relationship. So we don't know ultimately the authenticity of how she does it, but when she does it, she comes up with the kind of answer that you have just asked, which is a little unsettling. Unsettling? Christopher Shays described Able Danger thirty-one days after the 9/11 attacks. What else did Eileen Pricer tell the Congressional subcommittee on national security on October 11, 2001? Did Pricer tell Shays that the information no longer existed but did at one time?
Senator Specter should invite Christopher Shays to have a seat on the witness bench, and he should also start issuing subpoenas for the witnesses that the Pentagon wants to silence. We need answers, and we need to know that our country will fight terrorism with every tool at its disposal.
Answer: I believe implicity that they id'd Atta on a chart. I can't corrobate them completely because I didn't myself see his picture and name on a chart but when they say they saw his name, I believe them.
Specter: I have a report. You feel strongly about this matter that you feel every night when you go to bed you believe if the program had not shut down, that 9/11 could have been prevented.
Answer: Not completely accurate. I do go to bed every night thinking we could have prevented something and assisted the United States some way.
Goodness you are good at taking notes. I missed the beginning of the hearing and others need your summaries.
Finally Sessions up.
time to haul in rummy under oath and turn up the heat. this stinks.
You got your wish...Jeff Sessions up!
Gentry was the name of who told him to delete the documents?
But it was a LAW???
Wayne Coleman was Sec of Defense at the time.
Sessions: AR-31-10 was the culprit that got you into this and required a deletion or do you think the deletions were not necessary under the regulations?
Answer: I made the deletions. I was ordered by whoever wrote the regulations and I understand the regulations were written before the internet (open source info). I could have forgotten to delete it but I would have been in violation of the regulation.
Sessions: One minute you get in trouble for following regulations and then in trouble for not following. You consulted lawyers about the regulations and they todl you you had to follow the regulation. Who was secretary of Defense? It wasn't Rumsfeld?
Answer: No. (Couldn't hear who it was).
Sessions: From your perspective, do you feel the regulation should be modified to allow this kind of activity and it wouldn't adversely impact our view that military shouldn't be involved in intel in the US?
Answer: I can't give you an answer.
Finally Sessions Question: Who was Sec of Defense at the time? Answer: William Cohen
Sessions establishing that Rumsfeld NOT at Pentagon at the time of this...
Shoudl we all go to the live thread?
William Cohen
That's a shorter thread you linked; let's encourage them to come over here.
I knew something wasn't correct about that! lol!
That's OK!
Yeah, but Rummy is blocking witnesses now.
That's a problem.
Nope I moved to this thread from the live thread you are doing a better job.
This witness keeps stressing it was the ARMY that gave the order from their rules...
Waco?
I am confused. Was their an order to destroy documents or was it simply a RULE that this guy followed. If he wasn't told by a person..then were they others told by a person.
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