Atta files destroyed by Pentagon

The Washington Times ^ | 9-22-25 | Bill Gertz

[stan_sipple]

Pentagon lawyers during the Clinton administration ordered the destruction of intelligence reports that identified September 11 leader Mohamed Atta months before the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, according to congressional testimony yesterday. A lawyer for two Pentagon whistleblowers also told the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday that the Defense Intelligence Agency last year destroyed files on the Army's computer data-mining program known as Able Danger to avoid disclosing the information.

[Al Gator]

Before this gets out of hand, everyone here is forgetting the Rummy may be in "charge" of the military bureaucracy, but he's not IN CHARGE of it.

Nixon didn't control the plumbers, Hirohito didn't control his generals.

Bureaucrats have an agenda all their very own, and often it makes no sense to anyone except other bureaucrats.

Like the rest of the country, you got red and blue paper pushers inside the Pentagon, all jockeying for position. This whole thing may well be a CYA op that got out of control because of a turf war or some other sort of back biting.

Yea, its Bush's Pentagon, I don't he or anyone in his admin knows what's up. Nor did Clinton, Nor did 41, nor Reagan and on and on.

[LS]

I just told you why. There was clearly evidence tying Atta to 1990s-era attacks that would make it COMPLETELY OBVIOUS that the evil Clintons knew all about this guy and al-Qaeda LOOOONNNNGGGG before 9/11. Physician, heal tyself. The Dems are in deep in this. They thought they got away with it . . . but didn't.

[Lancey Howard]

(The following was posted by TVenn on another Able Danger thread:)

Mark Zaid is the executive director of the James Madison Project.

http://www.jamesmadisonproject.org/advisoryboard.html

Advisory Board

Roger Charles
David Kahn
John D. Podesta
Thomas M. Susman, Esq.

---

Roger Charles and John Podesta are two of the lowest forms of life on the planet.

[bobsunshine]

My understanding is that the AD Program was shutdown in 2000. Data destroyed in 2000. Data destroyed in 2004 was from Lt. Col. Shaffer, the copies he had. Follows that if the lawyers wanted the data destroyed in 2000, because of the 90 day rule, any copies they found, whenever, would be destroyed.

[Piranha]

Not at all. What is unclear about my comments?

[kevao]

But I believe I heard Specter specifically ask the Pentagon lawyer whether foreigners here on student or tourist visas would meet their definition of a U.S. citizen (or, U.S. person, as you put it). They answer was, no.

[MEGoody]

Sounds like some big time CYA going on. Some heads need to roll.

[Fawn]

Too much mercury in the brain?

[LS]

Wrongo. We do know that Clinton

1) refused, on THREE separate occasions, to take or kill OBL;

2) that his justice department SPECIFICALLY forbade the CIA and the FBI from talking to each other specifically about al-Qaeda;

3) that his justice department spent 90% of its time on that horrible, evil criminal, Bill Gates;

4) that Clinton, according to everyone who ever worked with him (including St. Clark) on terrorism, wanted NOTHING TO DO with stopping AQ;

5) that he only met twice in one year with his CIA director---I submit to you he did this to DELIBERATELY avoid having to confront these matters.

In short, the man has gone from being a disgrace to a potential criminal. I want to know what he's hiding, and how you can look in a mirror knowing this.

[eyespysomething]

Ah, it was copies of what had already been destroyed which were destroyed in 2004. Thanks for the clarification. Is that from testimony, or from where?

[Fawn]

I would think that they CLinton Admin destroyed Atta's stuff becuase Atta was linked with OSAMA which CLINTON did NOT WANT TO TOUCH. Atta's information probably gave CLinton a reason to get Osama....and Clinton didn't want Osama.

[nuconvert]

"the House and Senate majorities have increased"

I wouldn't count on a majority next time around.

I agree with Dick Morris. Pres. Bush made a big mistake picking Clinton up after he left office. He was a man whose legacy was in the toilet, until his image was polished up by Bush. Now, he's turning around and biting Bush in the butt. And his newly polished image is a big help to Hillary.

[JewishRighter]

"he was directed by Pentagon lawyers to delete 2? terabytes of computer data -- the equivalent of one-quarter of the information in the Library of Congress -- on Able Danger in May or June 2000 because of legal concerns about information on U.S. citizens."

This seems to be the key quote. Pentagon lawyers (ie: pencil necked geeks operating under 8 years of Clintoonian social experimentation and PC indoctrination) were told to do this in May or June 2000 (ie: while the dress spotter was still holding court). Pretty clearly has Clinton/Garelick fuzz all over it.

[ravingnutter]

I just remembered something {a duh moment} when I saw Madeline Albright's name in the post above yours and you mentioned Condi:

Rice was trained by Josef Korbel at the University of Denver. An exiled Czech diplomat, he had a clear eye and a tough mind. Incidentally, he was the father of Madeleine Albright.

National Review

Could this have been why her name came up? After all, that is public information.

[Yaelle]

What is so scary about this is that our government is supposed to be BY the people and FOR the people, and apparently our representatives and their appointees seem to think that keeping us in the dark is "for our own good." Or care too much for their own reputations. This transcends party lines, obviously. I am not partisan when it comes to protecting our citizens from outside terrorists: I don't care who has undertaken what appears to be some kind of corruption - I want them to get theirs. I want the truth and I CAN handle it.

[untrained skeptic]

The Chinese stole a lot of very important military technology from the US during the Clinton administration.

People around Clinton took the fall for receiving illegal campaign contributions from the Chinese government.

Clinton surounded himself with corrupt people. It's quite possible that this was shut down by one of them to cover their tracks.

Why would the Defense Intelligence Agency destroy the remaining records? It sounds like keeping those records, some of which included intelligence on US citizens was in violation of the law.

It's not clear if those copies were supposed to exist, or if they were someone's insurance policy.

"I don't see what the Bush administration would have to gain by this either."

Without knowing who gave the order to destroy the documents and their reason, it's hard to say that the bush administration ordered them destroyed. The information is a bit weak to know what happened.

[popdonnelly]

Gillman, I don't have anything to do with the DU. What's your beef?

[JewishRighter]

However, you cannot ignore the impact of that administration's gross neglect of the problem of terrorism and OBL in particular. The culture of the Clinton presidency was rotten to the core with handcuffing every useful practice that might have stopped 9/11 from happening. That's why you end up with this kind of self-defeating policies of destroying enourmous goldmines of valuable data that connected the dots.

[Piranha]

Popdonnely, I don't have anything to do with the DU either. What's your beef with me?

[ravingnutter]

In a detailed recounting of a face-to-face confrontation with his then commanding officer, Major General Rod Isler, now retired, Shaffer described how the then deputy director of operations at the Defense Intelligence Agency essentially pulled the plug on his involvement with Able Danger.

Tony Shaffer Interview