Able Danger hearing sets intelligence officers at odds

[reprehensor]

Able Danger hearing sets intelligence officers at odds

The Pentagon's top intelligence official clashed repeatedly Wednesday with former operatives of the clandestine Able Danger program over how much the government knew about al-Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Much of the testimony focused on whether hijacking mastermind Mohammed Atta had been identified long before the tragedy.

In a rare public display of bitter disputes within the close-knit military intelligence community, three members of a computer data-mining initiative code-named "Able Danger" told Congress that the Sept. 11 attacks might have been prevented if law-enforcement agencies had acted on the information about al-Qaeda they unearthed.

snip

"There's been no investigation!" Weldon said. "There's been no analysis by the 9/11 commission or anyone else."

Continued at link.

-----------------------------------------

Despite the Commission's protests, A.D. was more than just an idea, Zelikow did meet with A.D. operatives, and it's looking like the CIA had a hand in pulling the plug on A.D., maybe other alphabet agencies helped squash it, too.

In case you didn't know... Zelikow's hand-picked staffers designed, tailored, omitted information that the actual 'Commission' members saw. So it's no suprise that the Commission came up with the virtually useless "Final Report".

And now it's recorded in Congressional testimony. The 9/11 Commission couldn't have produced the "full and accurate" depiction of the events of 9/11 that they promised, because they never had "full and accurate" information to begin with.

[babylonsister]

1. Wow. I hope someone is paying attention to this. This admin

is complicit in the deaths of all those people, nevermind Al Quaeda.

[pberq]

2. Why Able Danger was not in the 9/11 Commission Report

"It did not fit with the story we wanted to tell"

http://www.abledangerblog.com/

From page 41 of Shaffer's written testimony:


During the briefing, Congressman Weldon asked Russ Caso, his chief of staff, to call the 9/11 commission and find out if they (the 9/11 commission) had ever heard of ABLE DANGER. Mr. Caso left the room and called Chris Cojm at the 9/11 Discourse Project and asked him if they had ever "heard of something called ABLE DANGER". Chris quickly checked and told Russ "Yes - we heard of it" - Russ then asked him why they did not put it in their final report - Cojm's answer was this "It did not fit with the story we wanted to tell". Russ came back in and told Congressman Weldon and me of the comment. Both Congressman Weldon and I could not hide our astonished looks at hearing the news. This was the beginning of the investigation as to why ABLE DANGER information was not examined or included in the 9/11 report that has brought us to where we are today.

[Norquist Nemesis]

3. Is Weldon still trying to pin it on Clinton through Gorelich?

I want the whole truth to come out, but I also want to see officials held accountable. If Clinton knew, I'm confident that the Bush administration would have been fully informed about during transition. Bottom line, it happened on Bush's watch. Maybe Dick should have been a little quicker in getting his ducks in a row to meet about terrorism.

[pberq]

4. Please! This is NOT about pinning it on Clinton!

Fellow DUers: this is much deeper.

Pleae read this thread about Weldon and Able Danger, with special attention to the posts by seemslikeadream and flyarm:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x426561


And see this thread on yesterday's hearing:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x430652

[reprehensor]

6. He's a Republican.

He'll try to spin it as a Dem issue without supervision.

Fortunately, Rep. Cynthia McKinney is there to keep an eye on him, and also, Kucinich is closely following this issue.

Zelikow is hiding something.

[pberq]

8. I still say this is NOT a partisan issue.

If you read the posts by seemslikeadream and flyarm in the thread I posted above, you will see this is much bigger. This article in today's Hill gives a hint in Weldon's statement that maybe BOTH administrations don't want to know.

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/021606/news8.html

Weldon invokes Watergate in Able Danger hearing
By Roxana Tiron

In the first open hearing about the existence of an intelligence cell that may have identified the ringleaders of the Sept. 11 attacks a year before they happened, lawmakers sat back and let Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) run the show.

. . .

The Pennsylvania congressman grew visibly frustrated with the Pentagon officials at the hearing when he believed the information he received from Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, did not jibe with information he had received from participants in the program.

. . .

"I do not understand - it is frustrating to me," he added. "I am not going to stop here. President Nixon had to resign over a third-rate burglary," while 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Maybe neither administration wants to know what happened," Weldon said. "Maybe I am offending everyone."

[reprehensor]

9. Clue train.

I know. I'm saying... after listening to Weldon on other topics... unsupervised he will attempt to pin it on Clinton exlusively. He is, personally, very partisan.

That's why I have posted here and in many other places asking for Dem participation.

Otay?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/10/25/13223/557

Capisce?

http://www.gnn.tv/B10118

[pberq]

5. Cambone made many misleading statements at hearing

See this for details:

http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/1345

. . .Cambone is doing his CYA in his opening statemment by describing his investigation last year. Not being an eye witness to events this is window dressing and irrelevant. They looked and did not find much. But we all know they did not look everywhere (Garland for example) and much was destroyed. . .


. . .Cambone claims it was the LIWA Intelligence Oversight Officer who determined that the Able Danger data had to be destroyed (I guess along with the China study data). I seriously doubt that. The data was the property of a SOCOM general and no oversight officer is going to destroy a general’s data without telling him. Is Cambone being spun or is he doing the spinning?

(more at link)

[reprehensor]

7. Audio from the hearing...

http://qtmonster.typepad.com/qt_monsters_place/2006/02/audio_of_able_d.html