Posted on 09/20/2005 6:25:39 PM PDT by 4mor3
September 20, 2005 Pentagon Blocks Testimony at Senate Hearing on Terrorist By PHILIP SHENON WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 - 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.
Bryan Whitman, a Defense Department spokesman, said in a statement that open testimony about the program "would not be appropriate - we have expressed our security concerns and believe it is simply not possible to discuss Able Danger in any great detail in an open public forum." He offered no other detail on the Pentagon's reasoning in blocking the testimony.
Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the committee, said he was surprised by the Pentagon's decision because "so much of this has already been in the public domain, and I think that the American people need to know what happened here."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"And the wierd thing is it happened on Clinton's watch and Bush could get so much mileage out of this if the truth came out."
Only if Bush is 100% clean on this. Which I doubt based on the outcome.
Writing to my congressman now...........
bttt
"but still, if the program occurred under clinton's pentagon - what's wrong with outing it?
or is the real issue that - its still going on?"
Intersting possibility. More likely the issue is what happened between 1/20/01 (or whenever the Innaguration was) and 9/11/01.
Irrespective of what happens tomorrow, you can tell many things already by Specter's comment on witness credibility. One thing is that a nice handful of journalists already appreciate that a Pulitzer awaits the one the breaks this open. Don't think only Woodstein. Think Sy Hersch, David Halberstam, and others. You only need a handful of journalists to be interested, hardly the MSM as a group. Ambitious, young journalists know that if they work on a story like this, really work it, no matter how the zeitgeist changes temporarily, a Pulitzer awaits. In addition, Weldom is a mad dog, and will throw some of his own bones to journalists that also bring him new bits. No reason to get gloomy now.
This is all part of Bush's "Can't we all get along -- and let the Democrats win" program. The "cabal" sure has him by the short hairs.
"we heard that a few days ago - 2.5T is not that big for a data warehouse. it was destroyed because alot of it was likely obtained illegally. but so what, so were the Pentagon Papers. the hearing should be about the results, not the means of acquisition."
Yeah, my thoughts too. But when the MSM is on your side, you can say anything and it passes.
If Able Danger is effectively snuffed out, the days of believing we are a self governing republic are gone and everything the government black-ops conspiracy theorists warned us about are true. The last person believing we are free please turn off the lights when you leave.
"Probably because it goes far deeper and higher-up than we think?"
And that makes me ask, the AD team knows where it goes and they ain't telling, why?
It will sink both of the Clintons. So, it will never see the light of day.
yeh- but they fought like hell to get PDB's declassified as well as other Presidential notes....
I don't think the DOD can prevent anyone from testifying, they can simply block the testimony from being given in an open session of a Congressional hearing. If there is security concerns, I don't have much of a problem with this because the meat of the story will be leaked anyway
who are they going to tell? this was the chance. they could leak the information - but to who? and how would they substantiate it?
if sources and methods are going to end up being revealed, especially those which we are still using, then I don't have a problem with this mainly because we MIGHT get those people killed or those methods may not be as effective.....
Another thing. People can be disappeared, but documents rarely are. Whatever was gathered in the past is in someone's possession, in some form; no group works on a project for a significant for years of his/her life, and then destroys everything on orders. Someone's got terrabytes in the drawer, and I think Weldon thinks this is the case. This is why he is so comfortable in talking the way he has. If he was document-less he wouldn't have his neck out this far; c'mon he's a pol too. Terrabytes in a drawer; the time is just not right to deliver them to anyone in authority - that's my guess.
Can't they be compelled to testify 'behind closed doors'?
Does anyone have a comprehensive list of the appropriate phone numbers.
"As long as they are Democrats on the Committee it won't accomplish anything to hold closed hearings."
It would appear that some prominent Repubs are in on this covering up as well.
I'll take the truth over partisanship on issues like this. Stakes are too high to be petty when it's obvious that both parties share blame.
Congress has subpeona power and you can either take the 5th or testify, anything else gets you a contempt of Congress handed down to you
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