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.

I don't think the VP had the plug pulled, but acted to keep the information private. I heard yesterday that Rummy would allow the AD members to talk to the committee in private, due to national security issues. Since the gov. is still doing some sort of data-mining, various groups would file all sorts of lawsuits, etc. if it was known that some of the information was on private citizens (90 day window).

So, if the Gov. would allow the AD team to talk in private, then I don't think there is any "cover-up". Remember, if the committee issues subpoenas, the AD team would testify, then any "cover-up" would be blown. Also, most of the information by Shaffer and others has already been given to the public. Only one not heard from is Dr. Pricer.

If sources and methods are going to end up being revealed, I don't have a problem with this being done in private, mainly because if exposed in public, the current methods may not be as effective and more people may die.

I am not completely sold that this is what's going on but for the moment I'll give Bush and others the benefit of the doubt.

Since the 9/11 Commission was able to have months and months of mostly open hearings into all matters regarding intelligence and covert operations, I see very little reason why Able Danger, which relied on open sources and is said to not contain anything that would hurt national security, should not be similarly discussed in open hearings.

Some testimony may well be better suited to closed hearings, and that will be determined as questions are submitted, not determined in advance to the simple questions like:

1) Was Atta identified pre 9/11.

2) If yes, who was told about it/him and what was done.

There is no way that the answer to those two most pressing questions endangers national security. And since the AD guys have been on the airwaves for months now talking about these matters, I really don't see the problem.

Certainly the administration has my support and benefit of the doubt, but it's time they get out in front of an issue and play offense instead of their usual defense.

Another point is that during the 9/11 hearings, Condi had to give hours and hours of open testimony. So I tend to agree with you that at least your two questions and another one should be addressed in open session, that is:

3. Why didn't the 9/11 commission, which was very open, investigate further the statements from the AD team. What did they do with the information presented to them.

In the next few days, I can see that Spector and others will talk to the administration and try to get some answers and what is the next step. The hearings have only been suspended to allow reopening at a later date.

I hope that the administration does start playing offense and move this forward.

I cannot believe the President would be involved in a cover-up to save someone from legal prosecution. Especially in matters of National Security. It goes against what I believe to be the essence of his character.

The more I read, the more I think about it, I am convinced there may be several subplots to this we are not aware of.

My gut feeling is that this ties in with some stories we have posted about over the summer, how I do not know.

I have to go back and read the old articles and try to pull out some common threads. If I have time, I need to work on a timeline putting these stories together.

Heads should have rolled... 3,000 innocents paid the price.... the same target was attacked before... reports of airliners to be used as bombs since 1995... an informant in the PI's spills the beans ...and still nothing is done? This was the bigggest intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor... You sure as hell shouldn't trust the same folks again.

You sure as hell shouldn't trust the same folks again.

It's not an issue of trusting anyone for me. It was an issue of failed leadership and focus from the top down combined with a system that both by structure and laws was bound to fail, particularly from a non-state based threat.

Now if Weldon is going to show that someone deliberately stuffed and destroyed intelligence about training camps, illegal funding, plots, networks and otherwise prevented this threat from becoming part of the national dialog and focus of leadership, then that's a story. But right now all I have heard is that data mining uncovered Atta's name. Zaid said at the hearing that there was no information that would have led anyone to believe that criminal activity was taking place or that specific terrorist activities were being planned. How is that anything but a failure from the top to set priorities, failure of imagination of the possibilities and more evidence of the problem with the so called wall?

Finally, while I put enormous blame on Clinton, I think Weldon talking about his discovery of Able Danger in 1999 and how they had information that the CIA didn't is more damning evidence than what he's now chasing. How many in Congress detected and worked to overcome the wall and the disjointed intelligence operations they both funded and oversaw? How many articulated the threat we were up against?

Some tried to "articulate" but managment did not listen or take the threats seriously. The initial possibility of an airliner attack was known approximately six years before it happened. The agency with the primary responsibilty for counter terrorism is known for it's inablility to think "outside the box"... personally having worked "with" that agency I don't have much confidence things have changed.

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