Free Republic

A report commissioned in mid-1999 by Rep. Curt Weldon (R) looks into possible Chinese front companies in the US seeking technology for the Chinese military. Dr. Eileen Preisser and Michael Maloof are commissioned to make the report. Dr. Preisser, who runs the Information Dominance Center at the US Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) and will later become closely tied to Able Danger, uses LIWA's data mining capabilities to search unclassified information. According to Maloof, their results show Chinese front companies in the US posing as US corporations that acquire technology from US defense contractors. When the study is completed...

AHMED HIKMAT SHAKIR IS A shadowy figure who provided logistical assistance to one, maybe two, of the 9/11 hijackers. Years before, he had received a phone call from the Jersey City, New Jersey, safehouse of the plotters who would soon, in February 1993, park a truck bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center. The safehouse was the apartment of Musab Yasin, brother of Abdul Rahman Yasin, who scorched his own leg while mixing the chemicals for the 1993 bomb.When Shakir was arrested shortly after the 9/11 attacks, his "pocket litter," in the parlance of the investigators, included contact...

CHOOSE A NAME FOR THIS LATEST CLINTON SCANDAL-- How about "WALLGATE" or "TREASONGATE"?

"...In April, CNSNews.com staff writer Scott Wheeler reported that a senior U.S. government official and three other sources claimed that the 1995 memo written by Jamie Gorelick, who served as the Clinton Justice Department’s deputy attorney general from 1994 to 1997, created "a roadblock" to the investigation of illegal Chinese donations to the Democratic National Committee. But the picture is much bigger than that. The Gorelick memo, which blocked intelligence agents from sharing information that could have halted the September 11 hijacking plot, was only the mortar in a much larger maze of bureaucratic walls whose creation Gorelick personally oversaw..."

"...So it's my clear belief that the wall itself developed this culture which restrained in a substantial way the exchange of information in the intelligence and law enforcement communities. The Bellows report, which was part of some recommendations following the Wen Ho Lee case, indicated that it was part of the culture at the FBI that if one made a mistake and shared information that was later deemed to be inappropriate, it was called a career- ender, so that the risk of a person sharing information improperly was at least known in the culture of the law enforcement community to...

According to The New York Times (8 July 2003): "the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks said today that its work was being hampered by the failure of executive branch agencies, especially the Pentagon and the Justice Department, to respond quickly to requests for documents and testimony." Several alternative media have joined the bandwagon. George W. Bush is accused of obstructing the investigation...Former Jersey governor Thomas Kean, the commission's chairman is presented as an honest and uncompromising individual, who is courageously confronting the US government: "Without greater cooperation, Kean said, ''we cannot do the job we are supposed...

"...It was a deeply rewarding experience to work with highly capable colleagues and for such distinguished and thoughtful commissioners. Our commission sessions had long and occasionally heated discussion, but it was always productive and the commissioners themselves were devoted to achieving bipartisanship and unanimity. They understood very well that their impact would be greatest if they were unanimous..."

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission), an independent, bipartisan commission created by congressional legislation...is chartered to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks...

...The former intelligence official said the first Able Danger report identified all four men as members of a "Brooklyn" cell, and was produced within two months after Mr. Atta arrived in the United States. The former intelligence official said he was among a group that briefed Mr. Zelikow and at least three other members of the Sept. 11 commission staff about Able Danger when they visited the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in October 2003...

In September 2000, one year before the Al Qaeda attacks of 9/11, a U.S. Army military intelligence program, known as “Able Danger,” identified a terrorist cell based in Brooklyn, NY, one of whose members was 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta, and recommended to their military superiors that the FBI be called in to “take out that cell,” according to Rep. Curt Weldon, a longtime Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who is currently vice chairman of both the House Homeland Security and House Armed Services Committees...

...We do know that Able Danger made their report about four of the attackers in 2000. We do know the report was submitted and the request for action was denied. We do know the Gorelick policy ‘wall’ was in effect at the time. We do know Clinton was President and Dick Clark was terrorism guru. We do know 9-11 commission staffers were briefed on these events and 9-11 commissioners were not...

<p>WASHINGTON — Condoleezza Rice isn't the only one with a lot riding on her appearance Thursday before the Sept. 11 commission.</p> <p>If panel members appear politically motivated in their questioning of the national security adviser, it could raise questions about their credibility — and the findings in their final report this summer.</p>

Public interest groups are demanding the immediate resignation of the director of the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, just as the commission prepares to hold high-profile hearings this week with senior officials from the Bush and Clinton administrations. The 9-11 Family Steering Committee and 9-11 Citizens Watch, two separate groups, are demanding the resignation of Philip Zelikow, executive director of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, after information surfaced over the weekend that he participated in Bush administration briefings prior to Sept. 11 on the threat al Qaeda posed to the country. "We...