DIA pressures 9/11 whistleblower ABLE DANGER

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=13224

DIA pressures 9/11 whistleblower

ISN SECURITY WATCH (21/10/05) - A vocal Republican congressman is calling for a new investigation into what he says is a “witch-hunt” by defense chiefs against a 9/11 intelligence whistleblower, and has threatened to resign from Congress if the matter is ignored.

Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania told the US House of Representatives on Wednesday that officials at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) were embarked on “an attempt to prevent the American people from knowing the facts about how we could have prevented” the 11 September 2001 attacks.

To do so, he said, they were engaged in “a grand effort to destroy the reputation” of the whistleblower, retired US Army Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Shaffer. Weldon said the military wanted to “create scandalous accusations <...> to take away his health care benefits for his two kids because he is telling the truth.”

Shaffer has been stripped of his security clearance and placed on administrative leave by the DIA, while the agency investigates allegations about some US$160 worth of disputed expenses and charges that he received a commendation to which he was not entitled. Weldon said the agency was preparing to fire Shaffer, who worked there as a civilian after retiring from the uniformed military.

In June, the outspoken congressman made public Shaffer’s account of how a highly classified Pentagon data-mining project he worked on, codenamed Able Danger, identified the ringleaders of the 9/11 terror attacks as being linked to al-Qaida more than a year before they hijacked four planes and crashed them into US landmarks, killing nearly 3,000 people.

more

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=13224


Curt Weldon's House floor speech on ABLE DANGER


ABLE DANGER FAILURE -- (House of Representatives - October 19, 2005)
GPO's PDF
---
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Reichert). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is recognized for 60 minutes.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk to our colleagues and through our colleagues to the American people about an issue that troubles me greatly.

I have been in this institution 19 years, and during those 19 years I have been on the Committee on Armed Services. Currently, I am the vice chairman of that committee and chairman of the subcommittee that oversees the purchase of our weapons systems. In the past I have chaired the research subcommittee. I have chaired the readiness subcommittee, and I have spent every available hour of my time working to make sure that our military troops were properly protected and have the proper equipment and training.

I am a strong supporter of our military. Whether it was in the last 2 years of the Reagan administration, the four years of the Bush administration, the 8 years of the Clinton administration, or the current administration of President George W. Bush, I have been a strong supporter of our military. I am a strong supporter of President Bush. I campaigned for him. I am a strong supporter of Secretary Rumsfeld. I say all of that, Mr. Speaker, because tonight I rise to express my absolute outrage and disgust with what is happening in our defense intelligence agencies.

Mr. Speaker, back in 1999 when I was Chair of the defense research subcommittee, the Army was doing cutting-edge work on a new type of technology to allow us to understand and predict emerging transnational terrorist threats. That technology was being done at several locations, but was being led by our Special Forces Command. The work that they were doing was unprecedented. And because of what I saw there, I supported the development of a national capability of a collaborative center that the CIA would just not accept.

In fact, in November 4 of 1999, 2 years before 9/11, in a meeting in my office with the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Deputy Director of the CIA, Deputy Director of the FBI, we presented a nine-page proposal to create a national collaborative center. When we finished the brief, the CIA said we did not need that capability, and so before 9/11 we did not have it.

When President Bush came in after a year of research, he announced the formation of the Terrorism Threat Integration Center, exactly what I had proposed in 1999. Today it is known as the NCTC, the National Counterterrorism Center. But, Mr. Speaker, what troubles me is not the fact that we did not take those steps.

What troubles me is that I now have learned in the last 4 months that one of the tasks that was being done in 1999 and 2000 was a top-secret program organized at the request of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, carried out by the general in charge of our Special Forces Command, a very elite unit focusing on information regarding al Qaeda. It was a military language effort to allow us to identify the key cells of al Qaeda around the world and to give the military the capability to plan actions against those cells so they could not attack us as they did in 1993 at the Trade Center, at the Khobar Towers, the U.S.S. Cole attack, and the African embassy bombings.

What I did not know, Mr. Speaker, up until June of this year, was that that secret program called Able Danger actually identified the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda in January and February of 2000, over 1 year before 9/11 every happened. In addition, I learned that not only did we identify the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda, but we identified Mohamed Atta as one of the members of that Brooklyn cell along with three other terrorists who were the leadership of the 9/11 attack.

I have also learned, Mr. Speaker, that in September of 2000, again, over 1 year before 9/11, that Able Danger team attempted on three separate occasions to provide information to the FBI about the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda, and on three separate occasions they were denied by lawyers in the previous administration to transfer that information.

Mr. Speaker, this past Sunday on ``Meet the Press,'' Louis Freeh, FBI Director at the time, was interviewed by Tim Russert. The first question to Louis Freeh was in regard to the FBI's ability to ferret out the terrorists. Louis Freeh's response, which can be obtained by anyone in this country as a part of the official record, was, Well, Tim, we are now finding out that a top-secret program of the military called Able Danger actually identified the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda and Mohammed Atta over a year before 9/11.

And what Louis Freeh said, Mr. Speaker, is that that kind of actionable data could have allowed us to prevent the hijackings that occurred on September 11.

So now we know, Mr. Speaker, that military intelligence officers working in a program authorized by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the general in charge of Special Forces Command, identified Mohammed Atta and three terrorists a year before 9/11, tried to transfer that information to the FBI were denied; and the FBI Director has now said publicly if he would have had that information, the FBI could have used it to perhaps prevent the hijackings that struck the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the plane that landed in Pennsylvania and perhaps saved 3,000 lives and changed the course of world history.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight because we have been trying to get the story out about Able Danger and what really happened. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, I have to rise tonight to tell you that as bad as this story is, and as bad as it is that the data was not transferred to the FBI, and as bad as it is that the 9/11 Commission totally ignored this entire story and referred to it as historically insignificant even though it was authorized by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, even though Louis Freeh has now said it could have provided information to prevent the attack against us, the 9/11 Commission ignored it. Not because the commissioners ignored it, but because someone at the staff level on the

9/11 Commission staff decided for whatever reason that they did not want to pursue the Abel Danger story.

Mr. Speaker, in August and September I met with the military officials involved with Abel Danger and one by one they told their story, until, Mr. Speaker, leaders in the Defense Intelligence Agency, including the deputy director, decided they do not want the story told. I think because they perhaps are fearful of being embarrassed and humiliated.

So what direction had they taken, Mr. Speaker?

They have gagged the military officers. They have prevented them from talking to any Member of Congress. They have prevented them from talking to the media. And the Defense Intelligence Agency has began a process to destroy the career and the life of Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer.

Now, it might be easy for us to ignore this, Mr. Speaker. We all have busy careers and worry about reelections every 2 years and worry about our own families and our jobs. But I cannot do that in this case and neither can this body, and neither can the other body. You see, Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer took an oath to defend our Constitution. He took the words ``duty, honor, country'' seriously and devoted 23 years of his life in four deployed intelligence operations of our military to protect America.

During the time he served our country, he has received the Bronze Star, an award that does not come easily, for showing acts of courage, leadership, and bravery in the course of his activities.




He has received public commendations from previous directors of the Defense Intelligence Agency, including General Patrick Hughes, including generals at Special Forces Command, and including Admiral Wilson of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He has received dozens of letters and commendations for his work. The laudatory comments I reviewed in his files are unbelievable.

But, you see, Mr. Speaker, there is a problem. The Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency was in a meeting with Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer almost a year before 9/11, and Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer showed him a disk in his office with information about al Qaeda and Mohammed Atta, and the Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency stopped the briefing and said, you cannot show me that. I do not want to see it. It might contain information I cannot look at.

Now, Tony Shaffer was not in the room alone, Mr. Speaker. There were other people, and we know their names. So we have witnesses. Now, the Deputy Director has denied that meeting and denied he was there and denied this particular story, but the fact is he knows that we are going to pursue it.

So what has happened to Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, Mr. Speaker? The Defense Intelligence Agency has lifted his security clearance. One day before he was to testify before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, in uniform, they permanently removed his security clearance. And now our Defense Intelligence Agency has told Colonel Shaffer's lawyer that they plan to seek a permanent removal of his pay and his health care benefits for him and his two children. Why, Mr. Speaker? Because Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, like Commander Scott Philpot of the Navy, like J. D. Smith, and like a host of other Able Danger employees, has told the truth.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I sat here in the 1990s and I sat here during the 9/11 investigation and watched a ridiculous situation develop with Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser under President Clinton. He walked into the National Archives before he was to testify before the 9/11 Commission looking through documents. He took documents out of the archives and stuffed them in his socks and pants so that no one would see them as he left the National Archives. Now, that is a felony, tampering with Federal documents and removing classified information regarding our security and information that the 9/11 commission needed to see.

Sandy Berger initially lied about it. He said he did not do it. Then he admitted it, and he was given a punishment. And, oh, by the way, his security clearance was temporarily lifted, but he will get it back again, for lying, for stealing, and for committing an act of outrage against our country's security. Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, a Bronze Star 23-year military veteran, simply told the truth and now his life is being ruined.

His career is ended. He is no longer in military intelligence. They have taken his security clearance, and they are about to destroy him as a person. They are about to deny him the basic health care and the salary that he has earned, and they are doing it in this way. This is outrageous. It is evil. They do not want to fire Tony because they also do not want him to talk to the media. So by suspending him and removing his pay and his health care, they hurt him bad, but he cannot talk because he is under suspension and his lawyer has advised him that to talk to the media, to talk to Members of Congress, even when he is not being paid, would cause him further problems and totally prevent him from ever having this gross problem reversed. Mr. Speaker, this is outrageous. Mr. Speaker, this is not America.

Over my 19 years in Congress, I have led 40 delegations to the former Soviet Union. I have sat in the face of the Soviet Communists and confronted them on full transparency. I sat at the table with President Lukashenko of Belarus, who has been called by our Secretary of State the last dictator in Europe. I took both delegations to North Korea, Mr. Speaker, and sat across the table from Kim Gye Gwan and I told him we abhor the way they treat their people, the way they lie about what is happening, and the way they distort information.

Mr. Speaker, I took three delegations to Libya to meet with Qadhafi, and I told him that we are absolutely outraged at what Libya did in helping complete the Lockerbie bombing and the bombing of the Berlin nightclub.

You know, Mr. Speaker, I never thought I would have to take the floor of this Chamber and make the same statements about the Defense Intelligence Agency. As a supporter of the President, as a supporter of the military, Mr. Speaker, if we allow this to go forward, then we send the signal to every man and woman wearing a uniform that if you tell the truth, you will be destroyed if a career bureaucrat above you does not like what you are saying. If you tell the truth, we will take your health care benefits away from your kids. If you tell

the truth, we will ruin you.

Mr. Speaker, this is not America. Mr. Speaker, this is not what I have been told by Secretary Rumsfeld that we are doing with our troops in protecting them, in giving them the best equipment and the best training. This is not what I spend hours in committee hearings on. This sends the wrong signal to America's troops. It tells them, do not be honest. Do not respect the fact that you have to be truthful. If there is somebody that the truth offends, then you better be silent.

Mr. Speaker, I have today asked for an independent investigation of the Defense Intelligence Agency and their efforts at destroying Tony Shaffer's life. This is outrageous, Mr. Speaker. They trumped up charges against him. They said while he was overseas in Afghanistan, forward deployed, that he forwarded cell phone calls from his official phone to his personal phone; and when they checked that out, it ran up a cost to the taxpayers of about $60. The second verbal charge they gave him was that he went to a course at the Army War College and he got reimbursed for his travel, his mileage and tolls, 100-some dollars. And they said he received a commendation for which he was not entitled, even though it was signed by his commanding officer and the acting Secretary of the Army.

But they went beyond that, Mr. Speaker. They went beyond that with this man. They said he had $2,000 of debt, personal debt. Well, I would like to have every Pentagon employee tomorrow, I would like to have the senior leadership show us what debt they have in the Defense Intelligence Agency so we can make that public.

They even went to this length, Mr. Speaker: the Defense Intelligence Agency wrote in an official document that Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer stole public property. A serious charge. Well, when you check what that public property was, it was an assortment of pens, government pens. But what they did not say in the Defense Intelligence report was that he took those pens when he was 15 years of age and was with his father when he was on assignment at one of our embassy outposts. He took the pens to give to other students at the school when he was 15 years of age. And by the way, Mr. Speaker, it was Tony Shaffer himself who admitted to that thievery when he applied for his security clearance. So the Defense Intelligence Agency knew that during his entire career of 23 years, but they put that in the document against him.

This is a scandal, Mr. Speaker. It is an outrage. It is a travesty. Everyone that worked with Tony Shaffer, the Navy officers, the private citizens have all said the same thing. This is a scandal to get Tony Shaffer because he has told the truth.

Now, this Defense Intelligence Agency and this Deputy Director had the audacity to have their legal counsel send Tony Shaffer's lawyer a letter on September 23. I cannot put that letter in the RECORD because it is privileged information, but it will eventually come out. But in that letter, in the second to last paragraph, the legal counsel for the Defense Intelligence Agency says to Mr. Shaffer's lawyer, he cannot receive any more classified information from the Defense Intelligence Agency because I checked and his security clearances have all been removed. Therefore, he is not allowed to look at anything that is secret or confidential.

Now, that is a letter sent by the general counsel of the DIA on September 23 of this year. Two weeks later, Mr. Speaker, to show the stupidity of the Defense Intelligence Agency, they send seven packages to Mr. Shaffer's lawyer

GPO's PDF
of his personal belongings, which the Deputy Director of the DIA told my staff 3 months ago did not exist any more. And in those seven boxes, Mr. Speaker, were five classified memos. The Defense Intelligence Agency sent five classified memos to Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, which they told him on September 23 he was not allowed to have access to.
Mr. Speaker, that is a felony; and I have asked the Inspector General and the legal officials to investigate and prosecute the Defense Intelligence officials who sent five classified documents through the mail or by hand delivery to Tony Shaffer.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, the Defense Intelligence Agency, in its absolute total stupidity, included in those boxes $500 worth of Federal property, including a multi-hundred dollar GPS system owned by the Federal Government, which they sent to Tony Shaffer, I guess to keep. They also sent, Mr. Speaker, 25 pens, brand new, and marked on them is ``Property of the U.S. Government.'' The Defense Intelligence Agency, in its absolute utter stupidity, sent Tony Shaffer Federal property which they accused him of taking when he was 15 years of age.

Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong here. There is a bureaucracy in the Defense Intelligence Agency that is out of control. They want to destroy the reputation of a 23-year military officer, Bronze Star recipient, hero of our country, with two kids because people in defense intelligence are embarrassed at what is going to come out.

And what is going to come out, Mr. Speaker? Well, we are going to find out, Mr. Speaker, that that unit, Able Danger , not only identified Mohammed Atta before 9/11, not only did they try to pass that information to the FBI, not only was that large data destroyed in the summer of 2000, but now, Mr. Speaker, I can add a new dimension to this whole story. Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I met with another Able Danger official. I was not aware of this official's knowledge because he does not live within the Beltway.

This official, Mr. Speaker, has impeccable credentials. I cannot reveal his name today. I will to any Member of this body, any of our colleagues that want to come to me, I will tell you privately who this official is, and you will agree with me when I tell you his name that he has impeccable credentials. This official yesterday, Mr. Speaker, in a meeting in my office, told me that he has never been talked to by the Pentagon. He has never been talked to by the Defense Intelligence Agency in their supposed investigation. He has never been talked to by the 9/11 Commission staff in their investigation; yet this official had a leadership position in Able Danger .

This official told me that there is a separate cache of information collected from over 20 Federal agencies in 1999 and 2000 on Able Danger that still may exist. Now, the Pentagon has told us all this material was destroyed, and now I have a senior official telling me there is a second pot of information that may well still exist.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5117269

VIDEO - Republican Congressman Alleges 9/11 Cover-up by Pentagon
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001941.htm

[jarnocan]

1. wow-kick

I really hope more of the truth comes out. One other thing I did not know ubtil recently about the 911 Commission likely many others did- I missed it somehow- was that 911 co.'s Thomas Kean has OIL Business and big $ ties to the Saudis, including many of the unscrupulous characters also linked to the Bush's.

[Quakerfriend]

4. and ties to Osama's brother!

[lovuian]

9. He was on the plane that Aschcroft shipped out under

the No Flight order!!! BINGO!!!

Aschcroft let the Terrorist go and they knew it!!!

[CottonBear]

2. Holy cow! A separate cache of Able Danger info is out there somewhere...

This speech is amazing. How did I miss this story? There is so much happening all at once. Things seem to be coming together (like a vise grip.)

Is it Fitzmas yet? I'm nervous and excited and worried all at the same time.

BTW, was the "data miner" specialist who was profiled in Vanity Fair magazine the same man who worked for Able Danger? I can't remember his name right off the bat. He had a shady background and worked out of his ultra-secure home computer lab.

[seemslikeadream]

8. Almost CottonBear, Merry Fitzmas to you

It's beginning to look a lot like Fitzmas
Everywhere you go.
Who's gonna do five-or-ten?
We're thinking once again
Of handcuffs and of orange jumpsuits aglow.
It's beginning to look a lot like Fitzmas
Indictments on every score
But the prettiest sight to see
Is the scowl on Darth Cheney
At the slammer's front door.

A warrant or writ, a subpoena that fits
Is the wish of Barney and Ben;
The thought of Turdblossom hung up like a possum
Is the hope of Janice and Jen;
And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for court to start again.

It's beginning to look a lot like Fitzmas
Everywhere you go.
There's an defendant who doesn't want to tell;
One in the White House as well --
The felony kind that doesn't mind the law!
It's beginning to look a lot like Fitzmas
Soon the bells will start
And the thing that will make them ring
Is the indictment that we sing,
Right within our hearts!

crispini

[IChing]

13. It proves Einstein correct

[Roland99]

3. It's pretty easy for everyone to see what is *really* going on here...

Weldon is doing this somewhat to tarnish the name of the Clinton administration but what he doesn't understand is that the DIA and the Pentagon had, by that time, already been infiltrated by PNACers and their ilk.

That much is very obvious by the fact that this story is going nowhere in the MSM and that nothing is being done at the highest levels in the current administration to bring this to the forefront to further slam the Clinton administration (and Democrats in general in order to gain a political edge in the upcoming '06 elections.)

No, the current powers-that-be are just as much as part of the cover-up of Able Danger and the smearing of Anthony Shaffer as those directly involved.

Sickening.

[Roland99]

6. Information on Gen. Patrick Hughes (former Dir. of the DIA)

Lieutenant General Patrick M. Hughes, USA
February 1996 - July 1999
http://www.dia.mil/history/histories/Directors/bio_hughes.html

General Hughes faced critical challenges in the area of terrorism in his first year as Director. In the wake of a terrorist bombing of US barracks at Khobar Towers on 25 June 1996 that left 24 dead and 500 wounded, DIA re-examined its counter-terrorism capability. Former DIA Director, Lieutenant General James Clapper, USAF (Ret), was selected as participant on the Khobar Towers Bomb Blast Assessment Team.

In March 1996, General Hughes produced the first of his "Purple Books" A Primer on the Future Threat, 1996-2010, which were extremely well received by policymakers, the Intelligence Community, and the warfighter. A product he conceived while he was the J-2, it provided DIA’s perspective of the future threat and was designed to stimulated discussion on the challenges facing US interests. It was published in three additional editions in 1997, 1998, and 1999.

Interesting....

Rumsfeld targets 'future threats'
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040224-113731-3670r.htm

"Rumsfeld's War" (Regnery Publishing Inc.), the new book by Rowan Scarborough, defense and national security reporter for The Washington Times, details the defense secretary's determination to transform the military.

<...>

Waiting for the new president at the Pentagon was a classified, 160-page report on future threats stretching to the year 2020. The secret report was prepared for the Clinton administration by analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's own CIA in miniature, which sends agents around the world to collect information.

The DIA report, compiled in 1999, still is used actively today by Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration with the required security clearance. I obtained a copy of the report, called "A Primer on the Future Threat" and stamped SECRET.

(predictions on Iran, North Korea, China, etc. follow)

<...>

"While the message is sobering, my intent in preparing this primer is not to instill fear or foreboding," Army Lt. Gen. Patrick M. Hughes, then DIA director, wrote in a foreword to the secret report. "Rather, I hope that by identifying and discussing in realistic terms the emerging threat environment, such knowledge will help leadership better understand and prepare for it."

Former Gen. Patrick Hughes is now President of PMH Enterprises LLC. The following article shows a list of 300 military-industrial complex contracts that are in close proximity to what they call "Rumsfeld's Mystery Operations" which includes the Carlyle Group:
http://cryptome.org/rummy-op2.htm

A bit of a stretch it would seem, though.


Hmm...the more I read on Hughes, it would seem that instead of him being a part of the PNAC problem that his work was taken and twisted to fit the "Bush Doctrine".

Look at this speech of his in 2001:

http://www.wfs.org/hughes.htm

There are some clear issues embedded in the post-mortem of all previous attacks: What was known beforehand that might have been indicative of the impending attack? What sort of warning could have been given that might have mitigated the attack or even led to its preclusion? What could have been done that wasn’t and why? What can we do to reduce the level of terrorist success to zero? What else should we do to protect ourselves? What should we do now with limited resources and options we have at hand?

In order for citizens to fully answer these questions we need information that is not resident in the public domain. On the friendly side, details are classified or restricted for good intelligence and security reasons, especially the fact that terrorists will learn from any information that is made public and from our knowledge of their actions, if that information is compromised. On the side of those who attack us, everything depends on secrecy. Indeed the central feature of virtually every failure by terrorists is that their operational secrecy was somehow compromised, their efforts were detected and action was taken to interdict them. Every terrorist success is dependent on successful secrecy and on the failure of those who either note or know some piece of information but fail to act on it or fail to be motivated to act. This feature of the problem – secrecy on all sides – complicates not only action against terrorists, but also action to warn against impending terrorism.

There is no easy answer for this conundrum. Secrecy is a necessary element of the fight against those who rely on secrecy to do the work of terrorism. The solution cannot be to lay bare all that is known on either side.

In this atmosphere of secrecy, an informed and alert citizenry would seem to be the best defense against any untoward circumstances, especially those that relate to terrorism. The dilemma is that the "alert citizen" is essentially uncontrolled and can over-react or under-react according to many variables, including bias and misconception. To add another element of complexity to the problem, an increase in information about impending terrorism, especially in the form of warning, begins to loose its credibility if the terror event does not occur. This "Chicken Little" syndrome is already present in our society; the terrorists know it and are taking advantage of it. In their view, they own the clock, and the timing of the next event, as long as their preparation remains secret, is up to them.

*** or *** perhaps they've since co-opted and corrupted him??

http://www.fas.org/irp/nro/commission/foreword.htm

The National Commission for the Review of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is one of several Commissions that have been chartered in recent years to review the various intelligence and security institutions charged with maintaining the national security of the United States. The Commission's review is significant because the NRO provides unique intelligence capabilities that are vital to maintaining our national security.

This formerly secret spy agency develops, acquires and operates the most sophisticated satellite reconnaissance systems in the world. These satellites play a crucial role in protecting U.S. national security interests at home and around the world.

However, since the end of the Cold War, NRO programs previously viewed as vital to the nation's survival have become immersed in much of the normal governmental process. As a result, they no longer enjoy the personal involvement of the President or his senior advisors.

NRO program budgets, along with other intelligence program budgets, have been constrained and modernization has been delayed for several years. This circumstance has taken its toll on national reconnaissance capabilities. Moreover, this trend comes at a time when the plethora of threats facing the United States has never been more complex. Additionally, the proliferation of commercial imaging technologies and other public sources of information are providing our adversaries with unprecedented insight within our national borders, as well as into our overseas activities.

Patrick Hughes is a signatory to this NRO.

Also a signatory was William Schneider, Jr. Look at this:

http://www.house.gov/hasc/testimony/105thcongress/BMThreat.htm

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
of the
REPORT
of the
COMMISSION TO ASSESS
THE BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT
TO THE UNITED STATES

July 15, 1998

Pursuant to Public Law 201
104th Congress

Members of
The Commission To Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat
to the United States were nominated by the
Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives,
the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate and the
Minority Leaders of the U.S. Senate and the
U.S. House of Representatives

The Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, Chairman
Dr. Barry M. Blechman
General Lee Butler, USAF (Ret.)
Dr. Richard L. Garwin
Dr. William R. Graham
Dr. William Schneider, Jr.
General Larry D. Welch, USAF (Ret.)
Dr. Paul D. Wolfowitz
The Honorable R. James Woolsey
and appointed by the
Director of Central Intelligence

[goforit]

5. The winds of truth are upon us !!...Stand tall to protect them!!!!

God bless all the innocent victims that lay prey
to little boys who play childish games!!!!

[StrafingMoose]

7. The FBI had ample information to act upon

They simply stiffled their own investigations about Moussaoui among others and also were told to back off from the bin Ladens and WAMY (trough field order 199I-WF-213589 ). It's weird that Weldon doesn't want to talk about the FBI's handling of pre 9/11 investigations and openly praises the 9/11 Commission (even still does). Seems like he wants Jamie Gorelick's head on a silver platter.

I call Red Herring on this one (Louis Freeh mention), altough I hope Weldon will do good on this.

[Gregorian]

10. This link shows that Mo. Atta AND his father were in US AND FBI knew it.

I heard this guy on a talk show last night and it blew me away.

Not only were both of them here, but they were caught on video in a pharmacy. They were also faxing, to of all places, New Jersey.

Bush knew. Bush ignored. Bush let it happen. Bush is a traitor, along with everyone else in the PNAC gang.


http://www.madcowprod.com/08232005.html

[spooked911]

11. that's just part of it!

[Gregorian]

12. I know.

It just seems that with this kind of evidence, heads should have been rolling a long time ago. Not some phoney 9/11 commission that hit and ran. I mean, they weren't even under oath. It's all too much.

Where does it all go from here?

[Mandate My Ass]

14. Weldon story is morphing yet again

More Here:

Yet those who’d followed the saga closely seemed unable to get a handle on it either. Initially, right wingers gleefully anticipated another round of pin-the-blame-on-the-donkey. Weldon, they assumed, would establish beyond a doubt that Clinton was at fault for September 11th. Later, those on the left predicted vindication for Richard Clarke, who testified that the Cheney Terrorism Task Force never met once prior to 9/11 despite significant threats. It was all over the place.

An unrelated event began to bring the big picture into focus. This was the conspicuously low-key announcement on September 28th that the Pentagon would fund full production of the V-22 Osprey. It coincidentally came down the same day the second Able Danger public hearing was to convene, yet was inexplicably cancelled, never to be rescheduled again.

Was the whole affair a daring game of brinksmanship in which the Pentagon blinked first?

One day after the announcement was made, during a celebratory press conference at the Boeing plant in Ridley Township, the Delaware County Daily Times quoted Weldon as saying, “I get criticized sometimes for being outrageous, but…I’m a street fighter and I’ll do whatever it takes to win."

From the outset, the Bush Jr. administration had been every bit as opposed the Osprey as his father’s had been. Before he was inaugurated in 2001, a member of Bush’s transition team, speaking strictly on condition of anonymity, said the Osprey was one of five programs slated for significant scaling down or axing altogether.

If the Weldon-Specter duo was formerly engaged in a game of chicken with the Pentagon, as Rumsfeld’s defensive maneuvers strongly indicate, they are now engaged in a game of suicide chess. The object of the game, as the name indicates, is to be left without a move. A stalemate is a win.

During the Able Danger hearing, former prosecutor Specter grilled William Dugan, Acting Assistant for Intelligence Oversight regarding Mohammed Atta’s status as a U.S. person while raising the possibility of amending Posse Comitatus as a remedy for the DoD's former predicament. Specter’s questions, irrelevant and misleading, accomplished the amazing feat of promoting the Pentagon’s fictions, while simultaneously striking an adversarial pose. The implication is that Atta, a foreigner with an expired tourist visa, slipped through an ultra-liberal loophole enacted to protect Vietnam-era hippie war protestors from government harassment.


http://www.allspinzone.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1531

[tanyev]

17. Oh, wow.

Weldon knows the truth but he's just using it to blackmail the Pentagon into approving one of his pet projects? Mind blowing.

[mod mom]

15. I couldn't believe Lou Dobbs covered Able Danger + Weldon on his show last

week.

[paulthompson]

16. Able Danger timeline I've made here

read this is you really want to understand Able Danger:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&before_9/11=ableDanger

[Octafish]

18. Thanks, paulthompson! Outstanding work.

There's nothing like the facts to put things in perspective.

Seeing the story laid out makes clear there's a secret government that is accountable to no one in government. They work for the same turdballs as the Bush Mafia.

Here's a nice overview from WSWS:

Why were the terrorists shielded?

US military intelligence identified four 9/11 hijackers in 2000

By Patrick Martin
10 August 2005

A top-secret military intelligence unit identified four of the 9/11 suicide hijackers as Al Qaeda operatives, including two of the pilots, more than a year before the September 11 terrorist attacks, a front-page report in the New York Times revealed Tuesday.

SNIP...

Jehl’s report confirms what has been widely reported overseas but long covered up by the Bush administration and the American media: Mohammed Atta, believed to be the operational leader of the 9/11 attacks, was under US intelligence surveillance even before he came to the United States in 2000. How Atta was able to enter and re-enter the country on multiple occasions over the next year, enroll in flight school, and use credit cards and bank accounts in his real name, despite being a known Al Qaeda operative, has never been explained.

Weldon first revealed the existence of the military intelligence program, code-named Able Danger, in an interview with the Norristown Times-Herald, a newspaper in his suburban Philadelphia district, on June 19. He followed this up with a little-noticed speech to the House of Representatives on June 27. It was not until the issue was raised by Government Security News, a publication that specializes in reporting on the US homeland security apparatus, that it was taken up by the major media.

The Times interviewed the former military intelligence agent at Weldon’s congressional office. By his account, Able Danger was set up in 1999 to conduct data mining from publicly accessible databases, cross-referencing with information from US agencies like the Immigration and Naturalization Service and with classified intelligence information. This technique pinpointed the names of Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, the pilots who flew hijacked jets into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center, as well as Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhdar, two of the five men who hijacked an American Airlines jet and crashed it into the Pentagon.

Had this information been widely circulated in 2000 or 2001, the September 11 attacks, which took the lives of 3,000 innocent people, could have been prevented. But the Times article states: “In the summer of 2000, the military team, known as Able Danger, prepared a chart that included visa photographs of the four men and recommended to the military’s Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation... The recommendation was rejected and the information was not shared...”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/aug2005/atta-a10.shtml

WSWS was onto BushCo from September 2001. That's almost as long as, well, lots of DUers, including you and seemslikeadream. Thanks for the info, Paul.