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.
If Mr. terrorist comes in contact with a US Person, there are 13 exceptions which can be made to keep the information. But even then, I think they have 90 days to decide some legal issues and if the issues aren't decided (as it seems was the case in this matter) or if the issues don't fall within the parameters of the 13 exceptions, then the information has to be destroyed.
Congress wants/needs to make this more difficult because otherwise some of the blame turns right around and points a big fat finger right in their direction.
They make these ridiculous laws and make it nearly impossible for covert agents to do their jobs.
Joanelle Bryant's testimony is of course very relevant and should have been hard to discount. If it is true Atta was certainly in the US before the official timeline. However, since AD was closed down in May - June 2000, and Ms Bryant saw Atta in April/May 2000 it would have been just on the edge for AD to have caught Atta in the US (unless he hadn't been in the country for much longer than that).
I feel that the fact that AD had him pinpointed even outside the US strengthens their case. And it also puts a lie to the "multiple Atta theory". That "theory" has been discussed and discounted previously here on FR. (Can be found among the AD threads.)
I fully agree with you on the question of false passports. I am greatful for the reference to the Spanish connection, but even without that it seems ludicrous to discount the possibility that Atta and other AQ operators used false identities to travel in and out of the US. Also, Mark Steyn wrote about the bus trips between Canada and the US - no checks at all. So it would have been easy to fly into Canada on a false passport (less stringent checks than the US) and then take a bus across the border.
And anyway, pre-911 2001 it was all too easy to get hold of a false passport - and I'm not sure it has changed all that much since. Here is a "cute" story about Belgian passport forgery: How to Fake a Passport
Good going, Rod! Specter today said we want answers and the American people are going to want answers. My sense is this isn't going to die.
But for once I'd like to see the administration get out in front of the issue and play offense instead of constantly playing defense, which they don't do particularly well.
I was hoping that "the Wall" was defunct. It's ridiculous. You have to make a determination of the significance of the data within 90 days, or delete it? That's crazy, for intelligence gathering purposes.
That's interesting and I'm sure you're right about the acid being poured on the computers.
Still, to the average observer, it sounds like a cover-up of a massive problem and the administration needs to assign a point person to deal with the facts before the media goes off on the wrong tangents altogether.
Under the Secretary of Defense, and in accordance with approved policies of USCIB, the Director of NSA shall be responsible for accomplishing the mission of NSA.
That was the objection from the Pentagon:
Hours after Lt. Col. Shaffer revealed that he'd been muzzled, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman told the New York Times that open testimony on Able Danger "would not be appropriate."
I think these hearing were for show...a rope-a-dope to get this back into the news cycle. The MSM is going to do exactly what we expect them to...start foaming at the mouth over the "stall tactics", the folks at DU are already. I would expect there will be a few more Dem Senators that will be demanding hearings now, where they had no interest before. Given what we at FR know about the AD timeline, in the end, it's all going to come back to bite the Dems in the butt just in time for the next election.
No, I don't think you are misreading the situation - unfortunately.
Search for posts by An.American.Expatriate. He has experience of MI and has explained the issues (and the Alice in Wonderland world of the legal rules limiting intelligence gathering) in some previous posts.
LOL. I don't get that dancing with snakes thing either.
I've heard it explained that the president reveres the office of the presidency so much that he's trying to elevate Clinton.
If that is the truth, he's only shown the world that even corrupt impeached traitors can be president and still sought after by the media and treated like a rock star. This is NOT a good example to set for the rest of the world.
I'd like to think we treat our corrupt politicians with shunning instead of elevating them to the status of rock star.
Exactly. I'd be careful about wikipedia, anyone can post and alter information that's there. I imagine topics like this would get worked over by any number of individuals for all sorts of reasons.
See this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer
"Wikipedia is an online open-content collaborative encyclopedia, that is, a voluntary association of individuals and groups who are developing a common resource of human knowledge. The structure of the project allows anyone with an Internet connection and World Wide Web browser to alter its content."
"The CIA also starts monitoring Atta while he is living at this apartment, and does not tell Germany of the surveillance."
First time I've heard of the CIA monitoring the Hamburg cell.
Well, if you found out that's true, then disregard my post about wikipedia, at least in this case!
Just what we want.
A perfect Rovian storm.
Under the Secretary of Defense, and in accordance with approved policies of USCIB, the Director of NSA shall be responsible for accomplishing the mission of NSA.
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