Posted on 08/10/2005 7:14:22 AM PDT by YaYa123
(CBS/AP) Sept. 11 ringleader Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers were identified by defense intelligence officials more than a year before the attacks, but information about possible al Qaeda connections never was sent to law enforcement, Rep. Curt Weldon said Tuesday.
The 9/11 Commission will investigate the claim. Commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton said that Weldon's information warrants a review. Hamilton says the commission "did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of surveillance of Mohammed Atta or of his cell."
Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said the hijackers were identified in 1999 by a classified military intelligence unit known as “Able Danger,” which determined they could be members of an al Qaeda cell.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Thank you so much for including that article on this thread, YaYa.
The only thing missing that I heard Weldon mention is that two FBI men told him that the reluctance seemed to stem, at least in part, from what happened at Ruby Ridge.
Neither Weldon nor I were able to fully understand that particular excuse. LOL
Rush is going to discuss this next segment!
I almost clapped and danced when Rush said he would get to this next. Maybe someone will start a Rush thread
CBS is the only big three network covering this story. It's no surpise to see it on Fox, but it is good to see the CBS may be willing to cover other angles. What if a coupld of them started to cover the earlier Cindy Sheehan quotes from her 10 minute visit with President Bush one year ago. We would think the snowball had melted.
From Rush:
Rush reads AP take on this, which by omission, implies the Pentagon intentionally withheld the Able Danger information from the 9-ll Commission. Rush explains, as the AP didn't, that Jamie Gorelick's "Wall" prevented the pentagon from passing the info along.
Then Rush describes the New York Times as also blaming the Pentagon.
Neither AP or the NYT made mention of why the pentagon didn't share it's information, protecting Jamie Gorelick.
Rush is nailing this by reminding us how quickly the US knew about Atta so quickly after 9-11...by the next day in fact, info on Atta was made public. It's obvious, isn't it, this quickly dessiminated information came from Able Danger files.
Rush goes on to discuss Curt Weldon's appearance with Wolf Blitzer yesterday on CNN. How odd....I can't find the Blitzer CNN transcript from yesterday.
Thanks for the ping, McGruff. I'm listening.
I LOVE FOXNews replacing ABC Radio news on Atlanta's WGST Radio,
Catherine Harriage reports staffers from the 9-11 Commission are heading to the National Archives to check their notes to see if they were briefed on Atta from Able Danger. HAHAHH LOL! We have to hope their notes weren't Bergerized!
Turn on those surveillance cameras, folks, in case they find anything that Sandy Bergler missed.
Snort.
Who in the h*** picked Gorelick to be on the commission? Conspirators or fools? No other answer will do.
Jamie Gorelick job description: Just sit in the Justice Department and protect the Clintons at any cost - even if the cost is a few thousand people dying in a terrorist attack. That wall was put up to keep the intelligence community from feeding info on Clinton and Clinton friends to the Justice Department. Pure and simple. That was the reason. Hillary can live with this but can we?
You should call it "Stop No Evil.jpg"
"BLITZER: Welcome back. There's word today of a top-secret military intelligence unit that identified four of the future 9-11 hijackers more than a year before they struck.
That intelligence unit reportedly named ringleader Mohammad Atta and three others as likely members of an al Qaeda cell operating in the United States. That intelligence was not shared with the FBI and never showed up in the report by the 9-11 Commission.
The information all included in the "New York Times" today, comes in part from Congressman Curt Weldon, a Republican on the Arms Services Committee, from Pennsylvania. He's joining us now, live from Capitol Hill.
This is pretty shocking material, Congressman. You got it from a former DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, official. Is that right?
REP. CURT WELDON (R), PENNSYLVANIA: Well, More than one. I've got about a dozen that I've been working with and Wolf, this goes back to '99 and 2000, when as the chairman of the Defense Research Subcommittee, I was pushing money in for the increasing use of data collaboration and data mining.
The prototype for that was being used by special forces command in the Army on this project called Able Danger. Now, I wasn't aware of the specifics of what they did until two weeks after 9-11, when they brought me a chart that I took down to the White House and gave to Steve Hadley, that actually showed al Qaeda cells, including...
BLITZER: Steve Hadley was then the president's deputy national security advisor.
WELDON: Exactly.
BLITZER: He's now the national security advisor.
WELDON: I gave the chart to him. He took it. He said, "where did you get this?" I said, "this is the process I tried to push the CIA to move into for the past two years and they refused."
When I published my book this year, which had been very critical of some of the folks of the CIA, I went back to get the copy of that chart and my friends in defense intelligence who are still there, came back and said "we didn't tell you the whole story, Congressman. We actually identified..."
BLITZER: I'm going to interrupt for a second, Congressman Weldon. What's most shocking here is that if in fact elements of the DIA -- officials at the Defense Intelligence Agency were tracking Mohammad Atta and three of the other future hijackers, they decided they couldn't share this information with the FBI because what? They were -- these guys were in the United States legally and it would be inappropriate to let the FBI know to watch what they were doing?
WELDON: What we now know is that lawyers within the administration -- we don't know whether they were DOD lawyers or White House lawyers -- lawyers within the administration told the special forces folks three times, you cannot share this information with the FBI.
They even put stickies over top of the faces of Mohammad Atta, saying they're here legally. They have green cards. You can't give anything to the FBI. The second reason they gave them was, we're concerned about the political fall-out that occurred after Waco. So, we don't want special forces command giving information of that type to the FBI. That stopped it dead in its track.
BLITZER: That's one shocking element of this story. The other shocking element of this story, is that the 9-11 Commission, which was supposedly reviewing every aspect of the build-up to what happened on 9-11, they say they never knew about this.
Al Felzenberg, the former September -- 9-11 Commission spokesman, tells the "New York Times" today, "they [the 9-11 Commission staffers] all say that they were not told anything about a Brooklyn cell. They were told about the Pentagon operation. They were not told about the Brooklyn cell. They said that if the briefers had mentioned anything that startling, it would have gotten their attention." The Brooklyn cell, referring to Mohammad Atta and his cohorts.
WELDON: Wolf, I have a solution for that. Let's put the intelligence folks under oath and let them be cross-examined and let's put the staffers on the 9-11 Commission under oath and let those under oath tell what information they gave.
The intelligence officials I've been talking to and it's well more than one, have told me they identified the cell and they mention Mohammad Atta. That's not one person, that's several people. The question the American people deserve to have answered is: Why did the 9-11 Commission staff decide this wasn't worth pursuing?
I've talked to two commissioners. Democrat Tim Roemer, a good friend of mine; John Lehman, Republican, good friend of mine. Over the past two months, each of them separately told me they were never briefed on Able Danger.
How could the 9/11 commissioners never be briefed on a secret task force that was designed by the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Shelton and carried out by General Schumacher (ph). To me, that's just unexplainable.
BLITZER: Well, there's a lot of unexplained questions right now that cry out for answers on all of these fronts. Congressman Curt Weldon, unfortunately we're out of time, but thanks so much for joining us.
WELDON: My pleasure. My pleasure, Wolf. Thank you.
BLITZER: Congressman Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania."
Including the commissioners?
Be sure and remind me or someone, to capture today's CNN transcript from Wolf Blitzer's interview with RNC Chair Ken Mehlman.
Mehlman called Blitzer on CNN running the NARAL ad they know to be false, and Blitzer responded something about, "CNN bends over backwards to air ads from all political sides and all political organizations." (Yeah Wolf, you bend so far over backwards, you got your nose up your butt! )
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/index.html
Oh FGS, Woolfie, that was hardly the point. The point is that the whole thing is a big fat lie, not which side it comes from. Thanks for the Weldon transcript, btw.
Mark Levin continues to astound me. Look what he was writing about, over a year ago.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1461127/posts
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