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.
Weldon: The American govt belongs to the American people! It doesn't belong to the lawyer sitting there, it doesn't belong to Rumsfeld.
Yes! Go Weldon!
thanks.
Has anyone kept track of the exact timeline. Testimony today stated that Atta hadn't been in the US before a certain date but other sources have said he was. Smith supposedly said he got information from a researcher out of California.
What's the deal about this picture?
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003349.htm
When was the photo taken?
Going to Savage now.
It's either real old or she got a makeover. More info coming out on this stuff all the time.
That was confusing to me today as well. Was Atta id'd as being in the country and part of that cell pre 9/11 or not.
Conflicting reporting on this matter. One of the witnesses today said he wanted to correct something that was incorrect in the media. (I felt like telling him none of us would live that long. LOL)
Anyway, he said that Atta was not ID'd as being part of a cell in the US pre 9/11. That's contrary to what I've heard Weldon himself say (I think) and he's as close to this as anyone.
I found an error. The article cited as the source for the information that the CIA was monitoring Atta's apartment doesn't mention the CIA at all. So we can't credit that story.
I had my post 520 pulled. It was misleading.
Haha! That would not be good! No personal AD for you, I hope.
I didn't think the Telegraph article was meant to refer to the CIA info (but you are right it doesn't mention the CIA at all). In fact that part of the story was just left hanging without any references.
I wouldn't discard it completely. It may be part of the non-official Congress report. I guess it wouldn't do to publicly admit that the CIA had been operating on the territory of an allied nation (Gerrmany). But so far we have no confirmation.
Bingo! It's a no lose situation for Biden.
"The data was destroyed in 2000. But the program continued and there was a briefing to the Joint Chief of Staffs in 1/01 and again in the spring of '01."
Hmmm... If the data was ordered destroyed in 2000, that probably pulled the plug on them operationally. I wonder if they were just hanging on, performing dog and pony briefs for the brass, begging for funding to become a full blown program.
Many unanswered questions here.
LOL. Drive safe.
Most interesting, enchante.
bbl
"If it's true that the Able Danger information had to be destroyed under the 90 day rule and Regulations as passed by Executive Order and/or Congress, then shame on them."
The personal privacy issue doesn't fall along party lines. So it is pretty hard to hang the 90 day rule on one side.
I remember that Enigma was classified for 50 years. And it was crucial to winning in Europe. Likewise breaking Japanese codes.
So hopefully we are able to keep secrets today, when so much depends on same.
I think AD was experimental. They didn't have credibility, or authorization to act on the gathered intelligence, in the timeframes being discussed.
I hope we now have super strength AD, plus authority to act on the info.
And further, I would like it better still if we could keep our yaps shut.
So at this stage I don't know if Weldon is a good guy, or an idiot. Same for the rest of them.
For now, I go with Rumsfeld. He thinks it should be quiet. Me too.
Cspan supposedly will be running a repeat of the hearings, tonight at 10 something, according to one of Savage's callers.
I don't see it listed there yet myself, though cspan2 will be running it tomorrow at 5:54 am.
And cspan3 will be running it tonight at 7:40, in just a short while.
My recollection of the testimony is that Atta was identified as connected to the Brooklyn cell by Able Danger. However, one witness took pains to clarify that Able Danger had not identified Atta as being in the U.S. before 2000. Gotta check the transcript.
"And it is indisputable, imo, that the PR machine for the White House is simply horrible."
Nothing against the man personally, but Scott McClellan doesn't look like the best White House spokesperson that could be found.
Maybe they use him, to make GWB look sharp by comparison, as far as the spoken word. But Ari Fleischman was so much better at it.
Must all be part of a grande scheme, or something way above my pay grade.
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