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Able Danger: Pentagon Spikes Witnesses While Shaffer Reveals New Source
Captains Quarters ^ | September 20, 2005 | Captain Ed

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.


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 911; 911commission; abledanger; atta; coverup; eileenpricer; gorelickwall; pricer; sept11; shays; whitewash
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241 posted on 09/21/2005 8:35:47 AM PDT by The Mayor ( Pray as if everything depends on God; work as if everything depends on you.)
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To: oceanview

properly collected info should have been disclosed but this guy doesn't know if it was properly collected.


242 posted on 09/21/2005 8:35:55 AM PDT by RummyChick
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To: RummyChick

I was against classification before I was for it. Where's John Kerry?


243 posted on 09/21/2005 8:36:03 AM PDT by auboy
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To: fqued

Arlen is a little po'd at this guy.


244 posted on 09/21/2005 8:36:07 AM PDT by Protect the Bill of Rights
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To: Wristpin

Good point.

I was being optimistic.


245 posted on 09/21/2005 8:36:09 AM PDT by nuffsenuff
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To: krunkygirl
Here's a direct link to CPAN3's web stream

http://play.rbn.com/play.asx?url=cspan/cspan/wmlive/cspan3v.asf&proto=mms?mswmext=.asx
246 posted on 09/21/2005 8:36:18 AM PDT by McGruff (Woof!!)
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To: Wristpin
Rummie testifying this afternoon in front of some committee, maybe someone will ask a question and he can deny knowledge.
247 posted on 09/21/2005 8:36:20 AM PDT by dts32041 ( Robin Hood, stealing from the government and giving back to tax payer. Where is he today?)
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To: krunkygirl

http://www.cspan.org/

(Scroll down for links.)


248 posted on 09/21/2005 8:36:25 AM PDT by maggief (No 'luffs)
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To: Peach

This would be instructive to the leftist idiots who keep screaming that their civil rights are being violated. If they were interested in the truth.


249 posted on 09/21/2005 8:36:35 AM PDT by popdonnelly
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To: auboy

Kerry is on Span 2 bloviating about Roberts.


250 posted on 09/21/2005 8:36:49 AM PDT by defconw (ALLEN IN 08+Levin for Senate!)
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To: dts32041

You win, but I'm doing mine with a brain tumor, so there.


251 posted on 09/21/2005 8:36:59 AM PDT by fqued (You don't have to fight every fight, you don't have to win every battle.)
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To: dts32041

Specter: We may have more hearings. Secretary of Defense is coming in to brief us at 4:00 (on something else, I think). With the testimony we've heard today, if the DOD heard info about Atta and a cell, wasn't it a mistake not to turn it over to the FBI?

Dugan: If the info was collectible under rules, they can retain it and disseminate it and that would be lawful.

Specter: SHould it have been disclosed.

Dugan: Yes. If properly collected.

Specter: Was it properly collected.

Dugan: I don't know. I haven't heard from the army. I understand why they aren't testifying.

Specter: Why was the decision made not to retain it.

Dugan: Because the 90 day period had run and hadn't made a collectibility determination within the 90 days.

Specter: Since you're the only rep from DOD, we can only ask you to make a determination whether DOD had info about an AQ cell and Atta. Was there a reason under posse comitatus they couldn't disclose to the FBI and was it a mistake to disclose and perhaps prevent 9/11.

Dugan: Did we have info that id'd Atta. I've heard the testimony here but I don't know.


252 posted on 09/21/2005 8:37:18 AM PDT by Peach (South Carolina is praying for our Gulf coast citizens.)
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To: krunkygirl

This might coincide with when the Berger heist BECAME PUBLIC. According to Berger's attorney, the heist was leaked and his client had been cooperating.


253 posted on 09/21/2005 8:37:18 AM PDT by Sacajaweau (God Bless Our Troops!!)
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To: Congressman Billybob
Thanks for that info CBB.

L

254 posted on 09/21/2005 8:37:50 AM PDT by Lurker (Reality cannot be changed by wishful thinking, good intentions, or legislation.)
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To: dts32041

Specter: Well, we want you to find out. I understand that you were sent over in a limited capacity with perhaps the calculation that you didn't have this information and if you would undertake the task of finding out the answers, the committee would appreciate it.


255 posted on 09/21/2005 8:38:13 AM PDT by Peach (South Carolina is praying for our Gulf coast citizens.)
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To: defconw

Sorry I asked. :-)


256 posted on 09/21/2005 8:38:17 AM PDT by auboy
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To: Peach

Specter is making it clear that the right person from the DOD is not there.


257 posted on 09/21/2005 8:38:19 AM PDT by RDTF
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To: justshutupandtakeit
Ooooo, the dreaded 900 files of myth strike again. Those files have created more and stopped more than a hundred armies. There is nothing of importance in them in reality. But don't let that stop you from answering all questions and solving all mysteries.

Oh really? Then why were they such a problem?

Why did the (R)'s become emasculated suddenly after taking over control of Congress?

Why were the Impeachment Members like Henry Hyde and David Schippers told "You could have video tape of Bill Clinton raping and murdering a woman, and we STILL would not find him guilty!" by Trentt Lott and the OTHER (R)'s?

Pray tell...since you are living up to your handle...just WHY is X-42 more Teflon than Reagan?

258 posted on 09/21/2005 8:38:54 AM PDT by Itzlzha ("The avalanche has already started...it is too late for the pebbles to vote")
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To: Peach

Specter let him have it, didn't he?

I liked it.


259 posted on 09/21/2005 8:38:56 AM PDT by nuffsenuff
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To: auboy

Kerry had the nerve to refer to Roberts as an empty shell, good thing he is muted and I am reading the captions.


260 posted on 09/21/2005 8:39:30 AM PDT by defconw (ALLEN IN 08+Levin for Senate!)
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