Posted on 09/23/2005 9:02:53 AM PDT by slowhand520
ABLE DANGER [Kathryn Jean Lopez] In from Specter's committee office: Washington, D.C.--Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, will hold a second hearing on Operation Able Danger on October 5, 2005.
In the initial hearing held on September 21, 2005, the Department of Defense refused to produce five key witnesses relating to the identification of 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. The Department of Defense has now changed their position and will make the witnesses available in a public hearing. The Committee will focus on obtaining corroborating evidence as to what occurred with the pre-9/11 charts and information which were allegedly destroyed by order of DoD personnel.
staying tuned
Thanks for the ping.
Ummm.
Very, very interesting.
Zactly! The libs and their MSM have finally broken the camel's back ... much more to come! Time for some really big bags of popcorn.
Thanks, I did know of that one, but I was thinking also that (1) there still may be higher-ups involved, and (2) did any Clintonista political appointees have any knowledge, any role, etc., and (3) there's such a huge gap between what a few of us here on FR know and what gets out into the MSM in any kind of major story. Let's hope the stuff really hits the fan now.....
Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson was in Command of the DIA during this period. They also suppressed info that could have prevented the USS Cole attack. From my research:
Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, wrote to all DIA personnel this week to explain the protest resignation of a DIA analyst in October. The analyst, Kie Fallis, quit the day after the USS Cole was attacked by suicide bombers in Aden, Yemen. Mr. Fallis charged that a report he had written on the threat of a terrorist attack in Yemen was suppressed by senior DIA officials.Mr. Fallis also uncovered terrorist info related to 9/11:Mr. Fallis' resignation letter stated that he had "significant analytic differences" with DIA superiors over a terrorist threat assessment produced in June.
U.S. intelligence officials said there were warnings, but they arrived too late. The National Security Agency issued a report shortly after the Cole was bombed warning of attacks in the region —too late to be useful.
Adm. Wilson said he asked the Pentagon inspector general (IG) to investigate Mr. Fallis' charges. In an awkwardly worded statement, the three-star admiral said on Wednesday the IG "found no evidence to support the public perception that information warning of an attack on Cole was suppressed, ignored or even available in DIA." What about the private perception?
The admiral's statement drew smirks from several intelligence officials. It relied on a dodge often used by intelligence analysts to dismiss unwelcome information. Saying there is "no evidence" —like that presented to a court of law — is often used to mask the fact there is lots of intelligence to the contrary that spooks would rather not talk about in public.
One piece of the puzzle that Mr. Fallis uncovered was an intelligence report about a secret meeting of al Qaeda terrorists in a condominium complex in Malaysia in January 2000.Now...the MSM keeps citing defense lawyers as the culprit...however...Information obtained after September 11 identified two of them as Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who would be on American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon. They met with a former Malaysian army captain, Yazi Sufaat, described by Malaysian authorities as a key link in Southeast Asia for al Qaeda, who later would be tied to the bombing of the Cole.
What alarmed U.S. intelligence at the time was that Malaysian security officials traced the men to the Iranian Embassy there, where they spent the night.
Shaffer says he was trying to broker a connection between SOCOM and the FBI. Shaffer told Spencer that one reason that Able Danger got denied permission to brief the FBI on their findings was that there was a fear not just among Pentagon lawyers but among Special Ops command that if things went badly with any FBI operation to take out the al Qaeda cells they had identified, it would be “another Waco." [There's the Waco comment]VADM Wilson was a Three Star General.Spencer says, “He didn’t blame the DoD lawyers so much, but the command” (for blocking the team from sharing their findings with the FBI). “Not Schoomaker…. It rose to the level of a 2-star, 3-star general,” who he didn’t name...
"The MSM and the Dems are busily digging up as much dirt as possible on these witnesses."
You betcha. Soon to be front page news in the New York Times.
W needs to slam the libs by appointing the MOST CONSERVATIVE, pro-life judge he can think of the minute Roberts is confirmed. I don't care if this person is male or female, black or blue, he/she just has to be solidly pro-Constitution, pro-life.
I am sick of the games the libs are playing and the nastiness they continuously display toward our Commander in Chief during a war.
I hope Cheney and Rove have decided to make it a hurricane-free week. lol
I can't believe that Rummy would forbid testimony just to CYA. He's a big boy, he's willing to take his lumps.
My money is on the fact that they've had to move to protect other investigations that may be revealed with discussion of AD and 'the chart.'
W isn't subject to too many whims, I doubt he'd start triangulating this late in the game, on this important an issue.
But what do I know? ;-)
Pinz
I heard that Sandy Burglar still holds a security clearance.
How is this possible and why would he need one, anyway?
Unless of course they trash Bush.
The NSC's Millennium After Action Review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 — with luck playing a major role. Among the many vulnerabilities in homeland defenses identified, the Justice Department's surveillance and FISA operations were specifically criticized for their glaring weaknesses. It is clear from the review that actions taken in the Millennium Period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government.
In March 2000, the review warns the prior Administration of a substantial al Qaeda network and affiliated foreign terrorist presence within the U.S., capable of supporting additional terrorist attacks here. [My note: AD info?]
Furthermore, fully seventeen months before the September 11 attacks, the review recommends disrupting the al Qaeda network and terrorist presence here using immigration violations, minor criminal infractions, and tougher visa and border controls.
It falls directly into the AD timeline. In that same post, I note that what Sandy Berger stole was the versions of the after action report:
The missing copies, according to Breuer and their author, Richard A. Clarke, the counterterrorism chief in the Clinton administration and early in President Bush's administration, were versions of after-action reports recommending changes following threats of terrorism as 1999 turned to 2000. Clarke said he prepared about two dozen ideas for countering terrorist threats. The recommendations were circulated among Cabinet agencies, and various versions of the memo contained additions and refinements, Clarke said last night.
Therefore, they were never provided to the Commission, as evidenced by the Commission Report footnotes (#769):
46. NSC email, Clarke to Kerrick,“Timeline,”Aug. 19, 1998; Samuel Berger interview (Jan. 14, 2004). We did not find documentation on the after-action review mentioned by Berger. On Vice Chairman Joseph Ralston’s mission in Pakistan, see William Cohen interview (Feb. 5, 2004). For speculation on tipping off the Taliban, see, e.g., Richard Clarke interview (Dec. 18, 2003).And to what does footnote (46) refer? On p. 117, Chapter 4, we find this:
Later on August 20, Navy vessels in the Arabian Sea fired their cruise missiles. Though most of them hit their intended targets, neither Bin Ladin nor any other terrorist leader was killed. Berger told us that an after-action review by Director Tenet concluded that the strikes had killed 20–30 people in the camps but probably missed Bin Ladin by a few hours. Since the missiles headed for Afghanistan had had to cross Pakistan, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was sent to meet with Pakistan’s army chief of staff to assure him the missiles were not coming from India. Officials in Washington speculated that one or another Pakistani official might have sent a warning to the Taliban or Bin Ladin. (46)How about that? How many times have we heard Clinton say that he missed Bin Ladin by just a few hours? Yet the after-action report is missing, so the Commission relied on Sandy Berger's testimony.
Then the Clarke/Kerrick memo peaked my interest and I found this (#784):
Clarke was nervous about such a mission because he continued to fear that Bin Ladin might leave for someplace less accessible. He wrote Deputy National Security Advisor Donald Kerrick that one reliable source reported Bin Ladin's having met with Iraqi officials, who "may have offered him asylum." Other intelligence sources said that some Taliban leaders, though not Mullah Omar, had urged Bin Ladin to go to Iraq. If Bin Ladin actually moved to Iraq, wrote Clarke, his network would be at Saddam Hussein's service, and it would be "virtually impossible" to find him. Better to get Bin Ladin in Afghanistan, Clarke declared.IMHO, Kerry and crew could not afford to have this info come out before the election.
LOL, I was visualizing as I was reading this and then "Thighs" popped out at me!
thanks, that's helpful, but I'd still want to know who Wilson talked to behind the scenes, whether he was getting advice or instructions from anyone else, etc. Shaffer is providing key info, obviously, but he surely doesn't know everything that transpired "above his pay grade"....
I heard (at different times) both Leaky and Specter ranting about their anger at the DoD blocking the testimony. Specter sounded very serious about investigating this Able Danger business. Leaky did, too. I have a feeling that some Clintonista generals were blocking this, and that Rummy (and Bush?) finally got involved in over-riding those who were protecting ....???
Are you saying Rummy did a head fake on the media?
The DOD probably worked out a deal with Specter's people on the subject of questions so there will be absolutely no questions about the technological operations of the Able Danger unit. The DIA/CIA need to conceal the details of the data processing technology they use to identify likely terrorists. You won't hear any military people talking about the methods they used to identify Atta.
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