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WE MAY OWE THEM A BIG APOLOGY (And other selections from NRO RE: Able Danger)
NRO ^ | 8-14-05 | John Podhoretz

Posted on 08/14/2005 6:10:27 PM PDT by Stellar Dendrite

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Can someone comment on this?
1 posted on 08/14/2005 6:10:28 PM PDT by Stellar Dendrite
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To: Callahan; Peach; Cosmo

ping


2 posted on 08/14/2005 6:11:12 PM PDT by Stellar Dendrite (The presence of "peace" is the absence of opposition to socialism -- Marx)
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To: Stellar Dendrite

Podhoretz things he knows more than he does. Go visit Captains Quarters blog.com


3 posted on 08/14/2005 6:12:00 PM PDT by the Real fifi
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To: Stellar Dendrite

unless Weldon totally invented this, totally made it up - it warrants further investigation. if this story is to get more traction, there will have to be more "revelations" and details forthcoming.


4 posted on 08/14/2005 6:12:25 PM PDT by oceanview
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To: Stellar Dendrite

Sounds like someone who has received his talking points and has been told to kill the story and discredit Weldon.


5 posted on 08/14/2005 6:13:28 PM PDT by jimbo123
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To: oceanview

This guy seems to be trying too hard to condemn weldon and this whole issue. The question is why?


6 posted on 08/14/2005 6:13:33 PM PDT by Stellar Dendrite (The presence of "peace" is the absence of opposition to socialism -- Marx)
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To: Stellar Dendrite

This should be added to the mix:


NO APOLOGY, BUT A DEMAND FOR FACTS [Andy McCarthy]
I don’t think an apology is or will be owed to the 9/11 Commission. Most of us who have asked questions about the Able Danger controversy were careful to note that nothing untoward had been proved yet. But the Commission has a dubious track record, having closed ranks around Jamie Gorelick when it was obvious that she had a blatant conflict of interest, having whitewashed the significance of “the wall” to pre-9/11 intelligence failure, and having gone out of its way – in the absence of any meaningful investigation – to deny Iraq/Qaeda ties. It was – and it remains – sensible to ask questions here, and the Commission’s initial reaction last week only gave more cause for concern.

Remember, the Commissioners who spoke out said initially that there was no way the Commission had been told about U.S. officials making an Atta identification prior to 9/11, and acknowledged that if the Commission had been told such a thing it would have been a big deal, requiring further inquiry. Within 72 hours, they had changed their tune, saying: what do you know, we did hear such a thing, but we decided the U.S. naval intelligence officer who told us about it was not reliable, and that the program he cited to us was not historically significant.

The Commission’s new memo is indeed an impressive piece of rebuttal, but it’s not a show-stopper. Two things – if only two things – are clear. First, Rep. Weldon has some answering to do. If he has answers, he should provide them promptly.

On this score, it is noteworthy that he is not on his own in these startling allegations. He has said he is in contact with knowledgeable witnesses who are in a position to testify. Further, the New York Times’ account last Thursday reported that both Weldon “and a former defense intelligence official who was interviewed on Monday have said that the Able Danger team sought but failed in the summer of 2000 to persuade the military's Special Operations Command, in Tampa, Fla., to pass on to the Federal Bureau of Investigation the information they had gathered about Mr. Atta and the three other men.” (Emphasis added.) It’s high time for these sources to come forward and explain themselves.

Second, as noted above, in their initial public denials last week, Commission members opined that evidence of an Atta identification would have been significant if the Commission had learned about it. It turns out the Commission did learn about such evidence (viz., the naval intelligence officer’s account) but was not persuaded by it. Well, that’s why God made footnotes. If, as the Commissioners concede, government awareness of Atta was a highly important topic, and if, as the new memo indicates, there were good reasons to be skeptical about the naval officer’s version of events, the simple solution was to mention his allegation in a footnote and knock it down with the rebutting information.

The Commission's task, as the first sentence of its final report reflects, was to submit a report for the government and the country's consideration. It was fine for the Commission to make judgments about the weight of the evidence as long as it was comprehensively reporting what the evidence was. It was not fine to withhold conflicting evidence on significant topics so that others would not know there was an alternative to be considered. There are hundreds of footnotes in the report, some of which are, in fact, efforts to explain how the Commission resolved conflicting evidence on various topics. There is no good reason not to have handled the naval officer’s claims this way – so that Congress could have asked follow-up questions and Weldon and others could have come forward with their conflicting contentions a year ago.
Posted at 04:54 PM


7 posted on 08/14/2005 6:14:38 PM PDT by Cosmo (Liberalism is for girls)
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To: Stellar Dendrite
It looks like we overreacted bigtime.

All along, we've been assuming that Weldon has the goods. But where did HE get this stuff from? What's his evidence?

Maybe in our rush to blame it all on Clinton and Gorelick we just agreed with something that's simply too good to be true because we WANTED it to be true?

I have no special knowledge, but I'm saying this looks like Weldon (who some here were proposing should run for president based on this alone!) is stretching the truth to sell books.

I hope he's got the goods to back this up, or he's made us all look like asses.

8 posted on 08/14/2005 6:14:46 PM PDT by Darkwolf377 ("The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they'll be when you kill them."-Wm. Clayton)
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To: Darkwolf377

Nothing to see here. Move right along. Weldon is just trying to sell books, right?


9 posted on 08/14/2005 6:15:42 PM PDT by jimbo123
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To: Cosmo

Who IS this John Podhoretz guy? I know hes a reporter for the NY Post and Fox contributor...he also wrote "Bush Country".


10 posted on 08/14/2005 6:16:00 PM PDT by Stellar Dendrite (The presence of "peace" is the absence of opposition to socialism -- Marx)
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To: Cosmo

I still have to wonder why Able Danger was just ignored--wouldn't it be in the "comprehensive" 9-11 Commission report because of what it IS (in relation to our country's investigative mechanisms working on terrorism), even if it's to say that nothing was found?


11 posted on 08/14/2005 6:16:25 PM PDT by Darkwolf377 ("The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they'll be when you kill them."-Wm. Clayton)
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To: Stellar Dendrite

Via Time magazine...

In a particularly dramatic scene in Weldon’s book, Countdown to Terror, the Pennsylvania Republican described personally handing to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Steve Hadley, just after Sept. 11, an Able Danger chart produced in 1999 identifying Atta. But Weldon told TIME he’s no longer certain Atta’s name was on that original document. The congressman says he handed Hadley his only copy. Still, last week he referred reporters to a recently reconstructed version of the chart in his office where, among dozens of names and photos of terrorists from around the world, there was a color mug shot of Mohammad Atta, circled in black marker.

Pentagon officials are playing down any controversy. They say they can find nothing produced by the Able Danger program, which involved fewer than half a dozen intelligence analysts, mentioning Atta’s name. A senior Pentagon official briefed on the program told TIME, “This is much ado about nothing.” a source close to the former 9/11 commission aides who chased down the story last week said they had been led to believe the Pentagon would issue a statement along these lines on Friday. But as of Sunday, this had not occurred. "We have been working with the 9/11 public discourse project to gain more clarity into this issue," said a Pentagon spokeswoman, Air Force Lieut. Col. Ellen Krenke. "Clearly there was information that was developed through this program, but it is unclear what was provided to the 9/11 Commission." Krenke said she did not know about any statement planned that would say no information had been developed about Atta before the Sept. 11 attacks.

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003255.htm


12 posted on 08/14/2005 6:16:26 PM PDT by NathanBookman (Will this hurt Bush's re-election chances?)
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To: jimbo123

I guess I should type "We want it to be true so it IS true"? I thought that's what DUmmies did, while we relied on facts.


13 posted on 08/14/2005 6:17:45 PM PDT by Darkwolf377 ("The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they'll be when you kill them."-Wm. Clayton)
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To: NathanBookman
"A senior Pentagon official briefed on the program told TIME, “This is much ado about nothing.” a source close to the former 9/11 commission aides who chased down the story last week said they had been led to believe the Pentagon would issue a statement along these lines on Friday. But as of Sunday, this had not occurred."
14 posted on 08/14/2005 6:18:21 PM PDT by jimbo123
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To: Darkwolf377

its too soon to draw that conclusion.

if the story is true, and if this DoD team wants this story out, they had better start leaking some hard facts, its the only way.


15 posted on 08/14/2005 6:18:27 PM PDT by oceanview
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To: oceanview
unless Weldon totally invented this, totally made it up - it warrants further investigation.

The 'rats make sh*t up day in and day out, and then demand investigations....bring it on!

16 posted on 08/14/2005 6:19:12 PM PDT by ErnBatavia
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To: jimbo123

Totally agreed.


17 posted on 08/14/2005 6:19:15 PM PDT by Stellar Dendrite (The presence of "peace" is the absence of opposition to socialism -- Marx)
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To: Darkwolf377

I guess I am the one who is urging a Weldon White House bid! LOL! :)


18 posted on 08/14/2005 6:19:41 PM PDT by Perdogg
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To: Darkwolf377
I hope he's got the goods to back this up, or he's made us all look like asses

I don't think so.

IF the issues are as Podhoretz says, than this only affects the issues regarding the 9-11 Commission (whether or not it supressed the Able Danger information). It does not affect the issues regarding Gorelick's (and Shnell's?) precence in that commission (which blatantly comprimised it, in most of our opinions), and it in no way affects the revelations about The Wall and its part in spiking the investigations that had the 9-11 terrorists on the tips of our fingers a year out.

19 posted on 08/14/2005 6:19:53 PM PDT by atomicpossum (Replies should be as pedantic as possible. I love that so much.)
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To: Stellar Dendrite

John Podhoretz is the son of Norman Podhoretz, the founder of the neo-conservative movement. He's a Washington insider who worked in the George Bush Senior Administration.


20 posted on 08/14/2005 6:20:00 PM PDT by Luke21
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