Newsweek 2004: Bush in 2001 Ended Op. CATCHER'S MITT, to catch AQ in US!

[Dems Will Win]

THE REAL PATH TO 9-11



In 2004, Newsweek reported that in early 2001, Bush had ended Operation Catcher's Mitt, set up to apprehend al-Queda members who made it onto US soil. The ending of this program, the total lack of interest in al-Queda and the fact that neo-con generals Tommy Franks and Geoffrey Lambert never told Clarke and Clinton in 2000 about the Able Danger info--that Atta and the gang was on US soil--is the REAL reason why 9-11 happened. With the forgotten Newsweek article on Catcher's Mitt, we see that in early 2001 Bush actually ENDED THE OPERATION THAT WAS CREATED TO CATCH AL-QUEDA IN AMERICA--AND NEVER EVEN TOLD RICHARD CLARKE!

I repeat, Clarke was not even told that Operation Catcher's Mitt had been canceled.

So first, the neo-con generals in the DoD in charge of the SOCOM DIA agents covered up the fact that Atta was in the US, then once in power the neo-cons ended the program to roll up AQ altogether. The whole time, Richard Clarke was deliberately kep in the dark, using the phony legal excuse for Able Danger that Atta was a "US Person", while using the excuse of "departmental reorganization" for not telling Clarke in 2001 that Operation Catcher's Mitt had ended.

The neo-con conspirator generals and lawyers even had the DIA Agents put yellow stickypads over Atta's face on the al-Queda chart so the FBI agents they were meeting with would not see a possible "US Person".

This is the REAL Path To 9-11.

Wouldn't you know? The neo-cons did it.

Clearly they let it happen by not telling the man in charge of counter-terror that terrorists were in America! Then when they had Osama cornered in Tora Bora, Bush and again Franks LET HIM GO. Are you starting to see a criminal pattern here? It's called treason...

NEWSWEEK: In the Months Before 9/11, Justice Department Curtailed Highly Classified Program to Monitor Al Qaeda Suspects in the U.S.

Sunday March 21, 2004 10:51 am ET

They Came in There With Their Agenda and Al Qaeda was not on it,' Says Former Counterterrorism Chief Clarke of Bush Administration


NEW YORK, March 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Newsweek has learned that in the months before 9/11, the U.S. Justice Department curtailed a highly classified program called "Catcher's Mitt" to monitor Al Qaeda suspects in the United States, after a federal judge severely chastised the FBI for improperly seeking permission to wiretap terrorists. During the Bush administration's first few months in office, Attorney General John Ashcroft downgraded terrorism as a priority, choosing to place more emphasis on drug trafficking and gun violence, report Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff and Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas in the March 29 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, March 22).

Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism chief of the national-security staff, tells Newsweek that at an April 2001 top-level meeting to discuss terrorism, his effort to focus on Al Qaeda was rebuffed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. According to Clarke, Wolfowitz said, "Who cares about a little terrorist in Afghanistan?" The real threat, Wolfowitz insisted, was state-sponsored terrorism orchestrated by Saddam Hussein.

In the meeting, says Clarke, Wolfowitz cited the writings of Laurie Mylroie, a controversial academic who had written a book advancing an elaborate conspiracy theory that Saddam was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Clarke says he tried to refute Wolfowitz. "We've investigated that five ways to Friday, and nobody believes that," Clarke recalls saying. "It was Al Qaeda. It wasn't Saddam." A spokesman for Wolfowitz describes Clarke's account as a "fabrication." Wolfowitz always regarded Al Qaeda as "a major threat," says this official.

Clarke tells Newsweek that the day after 9/11, President Bush wanted the FBI and CIA to hunt for any evidence that pointed to Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein. Clarke recalls that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was also looking for a justification to bomb Iraq. Soon after the 9/11 attacks, Rumsfeld was arguing at a cabinet meeting that Afghanistan, home of Osama bin Laden's terrorist camps, did not offer "enough good targets." "We should do Iraq," Rumsfeld urged.

Six days after the president's request, Clarke says, he turned in a classified memo concluding that there was no evidence of Iraqi complicity in 9/11-nor any relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The memo, says Clarke, was buried by an administration that was determined to get Iraq, sooner or later. In his new book, "Against All Enemies," Clarke portrays the Bush White House as indifferent to the Qaeda threat before 9/11, then obsessed with punishing Iraq, regardless of the what the evidence showed about Saddam's Qaeda ties, or lack of them.

MORE:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040401142034/http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040321/nysu007a_1.html

Here now is the Able Danger agent Tony Shaffer in the most revealing interview to date (Government Security News):

Able Danger Agents Who Were Ordered to Put Yellow Post-its OVer Atta's Face on Chart, Clarke and Clinton Stopped From Knowing

GSN:
Who was the commander at the time? General Pete Schoomaker?

SHAFFER:
This never got to the commander. This got to the operations officer level and, as I recall, it was General Lambert, the J3 special operations command. I believe it was at that level where this decision was stopped.

GSN:
This is below the level of General Schoomaker.

SHAFFER:
I'm confident that General Schoomaker was never told of this.

GSN:
So the information gets blocked, basically because of these legal objections. What's the reaction from you and your Able Danger colleagues? Here you are working hard to get the information together, which you consider very important, and you're being prevented from sharing it with the FBI by the SOCOM lawyers.

...

SHAFFER:
Once the four star went away, it was pretty much like the world closing around us. There was no political will to continue this at that point in time. Plus, my direct leadership: Colonel York and General Harding had moved on as well.

Therefore, I had a new chain of command above me. They were very risk adverse. This operation, as with other operations which were very high risk / high gain, some of which are still ongoing -- seemed to not be appreciated by the incoming leadership.

At one point in time, the then Director of Operations had me come in and brief him on a series of operations. This was February /March 2001. This general said, "I want you to explain to me every one of your operations in detail." So, I started going through the laundry list of each operation and describing it to him.

From moment one, it was a bad conversation. It was like, "Well, I don't agree. Well, I don't agree. Well, I don't agree." So, he basically was saying all the operational focus that I had been required to focus on by the previous leadership, by Colonel Harding, was not something he wanted to pursue. No matter how much common sense, no matter how much reason I tried to use with him, it seemed to be an emotional issue with him.

GSN:
Did you take that as his personal philosophy or was that somehow reflective of a larger administration view?

SHAFFER:
I can't answer that question because some of these operations were driven by the Office of Secretary of Defense. They were telling him that we needed to do them. It was tasking from that level, plus in this case, from General Schoomaker.

GSN:
How do you explain his objections to your various activities?

SHAFFER:
I can only speak to the facts. His opinion was, "That's not part of your job." As he walked through things, he kept saying, "I don't see this as your job. This should be done by someone else."

I tried to explain to him how that's not their job. We're human intelligence. This is just an aspect of human intelligence. He disagreed with me. It came to the point where we brought up Able Danger, where I was explaining the operation to him -- as you know it now, plus more -- and he looked at me and he said "Well, Tony, that's not your job."

I said, "Well, sir, with all due respect, this is an important operation focused on the global Al Qaeda target," and he said, "You're not hearing me, Tony. This is not your job."

...

GSN:
What was the name of the general who said "No, this is not your job."

SHAFFER:
General Rod Isler.

GSN:
He sounds like a bit of a heavy in the story.

...



READ MORE DUers! ABOUT HOW EXECUTIVE NEO-CON DIRECTOR ZELLIKOW ON THE 9-11 COMMISSION COVERED UP ABLE DANGER:

http://www.gsnmagazine.com/sep_05/shaffer_interview.html

Here is JusticeWatch debunking the U.S Person "Wall" excuse that was used to block and destroy the Atta info:

The "Wall." The "wall" metaphor is shorthand for the recognition that separate authorities govern law enforcement and foreign intelligence investigations targeted against Americans. These authorities, designed to prevent a recurrence of domestic spying by the FBI and CIA, always recognized that international terrorism was both a law enforcement and intelligence matter. Contrary to the repeated mischaracterization by the Attorney General and others, the law never prohibited sharing information between law enforcement and intelligence communities; to the contrary, it expressly provided for such sharing. While the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was interpreted to mean that prosecutors could not direct foreign intelligence wiretaps, as opposed to criminal wiretaps, the 9/11 failures had nothing whatsoever to do with the inability of prosecutors to direct such surveillance.

http://www.watchingjustice.org/reports/article.php?docId=207

And Roger Cressey, Clarke's Deputy, said on MSNBC--when asked by a Jersey Girl--that Clarke and thus Clinton were never told by Generals Franks, Lambert or Isler that Atta had been Id'ed as al-Queda on US soil.

BREITWEISER: If I could just jump in--if I could just jump in for a second, I particularly would like to ask Roger directly if he had known about this operation. Clearly, he and Richard Clarke were in a position at the time that this operation would have been put in place to know of such a thing.

And, Roger, I`m just wondering, did you know this?

CRESSEY: No, not at all. This was not shared with the National Security Council staff.

(CROSSTALK)

CRESSEY: And, Kristen, let me say that, if this information is correct, the real--the central issue is, why was it not shared with the counterterrorism policy community?

(CROSSTALK)

CRESSEY: Because that was where this could be acted upon.

GREGORY: Let me just interject for a second.

Roger, why wouldn`t that be something that would be shared with you when you were doing that kind of work at the time?

BREITWEISER: Right.

CRESSEY: If this was an internal DOD effort and it was being done by SOCOM, then it would be up to the Pentagon itself to determine what came into the policy-making realm.

(CROSSTALK)

CRESSEY: And, if this is accurate, then this is a case where it wasn`t shared.

GREGORY: Right.

(CROSSTALK)

GREGORY: Kristen, isn`t--isn`t--isn`t the sad truth about all of this, as Roger points out, there are so many clear, glaring examples of information not being shared from the left to the right hand of the government, that this would be just another incredibly sad and devastating example of that, or do you think this is something completely unique?

BREITWEISER: You know, David, I think this takes the threshold beyond another mishap.

You`ve got situations with the CIA failing to give information to the FBI. You have testimony from FBI agents saying that everything that possibly could have gone wrong went wrong. I think we`ve passed the point of this being an institutional failure. These were failures on behalf of certain individuals.

It is startling to me to think that, if this operation did in fact occur, that someone with Roger Cressey`s credentials in his position didn`t know about it. I would like to know what level of secrecy this operation was carried out under.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8925092/

PLEASE RECOMMEND IF YOU WANT TO GET OUT THE TRUTH ON THIS SPECIAL DAY! SHOW THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY AND HIGH SCHOOLERS!

[bonito]

1. Kick

[ProgressiveEconomist]

9. Kick

[Cobalt Violet]

2. Kick.

[speedoo]

3. K&R

Honored to be #5.

Thanks.

[AndyA]

4. The buck stops on President Bush's desk. Whether he admits it or not.

When he took the Oath of Office, he accepted responsibility. The buck stops on Bush's desk. BUSH IS RESPONSIBLE FOR 9/11, whether by inaction, laziness, or vacation, he is responsible. The blood of the people killed on 9/11/01 is on George W. Bush's hands.

[ellenfl]

5. kicked. eom

[ProgressiveEconomist]

6. K&R--Great find!

[Coexist]

7. knr

with great pleasure.

[autorank]

8. This should send the media on a rampage, wait it was 9/2004. What happened

Amazing, thank you. This is such crap. We've ignored this issue at our extreme peril. Tonight's ABC travesty is the ultimate in insanity, yet it's taking place.

It's a tragedy. K&R Get this one around.

[Dems Will Win]

11. kick

[Gabi Hayes]

10. k

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