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.
Stop FReep mailing yourself! You'll go blind or grow hair on yer palms!
Dont mean michelle's pic. I mean the picture that was taken by some researcher out in California of Atta. Where was the pic taken and when?
"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."
Good points Truth_Seeker!
"Why was data collected and not transferred to ef-bee-eye."
Can you spell W-A-L-L?
Yep.
You made good points in 557, btw.
I think these underhanded tricks of trying to close the hearings, then putting a gag on Schaffer, et al-- was a political miscalculation and has only served to put more energy behind those who wish to find the truth.
Cspan3 now re-runnning today's hearing.
book mark
book mark
Busted by one of the best.
Made it home thanks Peach.
Mark Zaid saying "We have never heard that what Sandy Berger did was related to this."
Just speculation here, but if Rummy ordered them not to testify, I have to think he knew the media would be all over this story now, demanding answers..........
VERY interesting speculation on your part!
Do you understand this isn't anything like Japanese codes or Enigma? This is all open sourced information and no one who has seen it thinks any of it is classified.
"I don't like what I'm hearing. My respect for Rumsfeld and Bush is gonna slide if they don't demand or at least allow substantial testimonies to be given."
On 9/20/2001 Bush indicated that some of the War on Terror would be secret.
If this fell into that category, would you still feel entitled to have the full scoop?
Let's try a scenario:
--AD was a developmental, experimental datamining activity.
--They had no established credibility for findings, and no authority to act on same.
--It broke some laws.
--It was phased out, in favor of different programs.
--In retrospect, after 9/11/2001 it turned out AD was able to highlight important suspects.
--The 9/11/2001 Commission kept quiet about it, since they didn't want to give away our abilities, in this area.
--For reasons not understood by me, Weldon and the others feel compelled to break it into the open.
--Rumsfeld wants it quiet.
--truth_seeker sees no compelling "need to know" by general public (including curious freepers).
Bump for later read. Thanks for linking that article.
"Do you understand this isn't anything like Japanese codes or Enigma? This is all open sourced information and no one who has seen it thinks any of it is classified."
Of course I understand the difference.
I heard somebody discuss it. He said although the components of gathered intelligence may be unclassified, the synthesis of same can become classified.
And I also posit that had we kept it perfectly secret, like we successfully did Enigma and Japanese code breaks, it might have been useful.
But is sure is not, now. Go back and review every word of Bush's 9/20/2001 speech, wherein he said part of the War on Terror would be secret.
Fighting terror is a bigger goal, than embarrassing Bill or Hillary Clinton, although reading FR most days one wouldn't reach that conclusion.
Finally, obviously the 9/11 Commission was horrible. It was a political show. So I cannot understand what Weldon expects to advance, by making this public.
His 15 minutes?
I trust Bush and Rumsfeld, more than I do Weldon. I have nothing against him, but if he is truly onto something worthwhile, he could have taken it up privately with Rumsfeld, etc.
What happened to TIA?
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