"Able Danger" as Public Service.

[reprehensor]

When Rep. Curt Weldon started tugging on the loose string called Able Danger, he expected to find an oversight by the 9/11 Commission. Surely the Commission would regard the identification of Mohamed Atta al-Sayed as an Al Qaeda operative, within the United States, prior to 9/11, as significant and would be eager to clear up the omission.

Not so.

The Commission has denied that anyone ever told them that Atta or other hijackers were identified by DOD employees prior to 9/11. The Able Danger documents they reviewed, they claim, mention Al Qaeda and show charts, but none of the stuff they saw mentions Atta.

So why has it been so difficult for an investigative commission charged with getting to the truth about the events of 9/11, that has powers of subpoena, had such trouble finding out the Atta revelations when Weldon, who is not on the commission has no problem producing witnesses, including corroborative witnesses, to back up these statements;

ONE

"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."

TWO

"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."

From: ABLE DANGER FAILURE—House of Representatives – October 19, 2005

If Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer and others are just making things up, then why has the DIA and DOD gagged him and others, and specifically set out to destroy Shaffer’s career?

"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."

From: ABLE DANGER FAILURE
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Now, if Weldon’s antics raise suspicions, that’s fair enough. Vice President Cheney is currently in the media crosshairs as the person who may have initially revealed Valerie Plame as a CIA NOC. This after months and months of buck passing and what looks like perjury by a good chunk of the current Republican administration.

Then there are always the Downing St. Memos which reveal that British Intel had determined that “intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” to invade Iraq by US Intel.

So I can see where the skepticism is coming from. I can see how you might think that Weldon is blowing smoke up our collective asses, hoping to spray the previous administration with some 9/11 blame.

I would be right there with you except for the fact that the 9/11 Commission has done a poor job kicking over all the rocks to expose the events that resulted in 9/11.

The 9/11 Commission’s final report was issued in the summer of 2004, and drew scrutiny immediately following its publication. Among the first to criticize the report was Sibel Edmonds, who, with the determined aid of the Jersey Girls and the advisory committee of 9/11 families, (who literally dragged Edmonds before the Commission), was able to testify to the Commission.

Her testimony, which was wide-ranging, specific and highly damaging to the current adminstration according to many reports, (most recently a long piece in Vanity Fair), was entirely omitted. She is referred to only anecdotally in the report...

hyperlinks and more text:
http://www.nowpublic.com/node/21477