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Topic: Prior knowledge. Destruction of Evidence? High Crimes and Misdemeanors? (Read 972 times) |
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Hermit
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Prior knowledge. Destruction of Evidence? High Crimes and Misdemeanors?
« on: 2005-11-10 09:32:20 » |
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Thread transferred from: Suggestion Box:Reputation Notes:2:Reply #28 to prevent topic spamming.
Able Danger
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Able Danger was a small, highly classified U.S. Army intelligence program under the command of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC). It was created as a result of a directive in early October 1999 by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hugh Shelton, to USASOC to develop a campaign plan against transnational terrorism, "specifically al-Qaida." According to claims made by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and confirmed by four others, Able Danger had identified the 9/11 attack leader, Mohamed Atta, and three other 9/11 hijackers as possible members of an al Qaeda cell operating in the United States by mid-2000, more than a year before the attack. Data mining has been cited as the method by which this information was found. The claim appears to contradict the official conclusion of the 9/11 Commission that American intelligence agencies had not identified Atta as a terrorist prior to the attack. This has resulted in a political controversy that has begun to damage the credibility of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission.
A major work follows. With the exception of italicised text, which is mine, what follows is a precis off the wikipedia site. The thrust is that "Weldon asserted that an Able Danger chart produced in 1999 identifying 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi had been presented to then-Deputy National Security Advisor Jim Steinberg. Weldon went on to claim that he had personally presented the chart to then-Deputy National Security Advisor Steve Hadley in 2001 days after the 9/11 attacks." Numerous others, including commissioned officers have confirmed not only this, but the fact that the CIA and later the DIA acted to block the release of this information. Tony Gentry, general counsel of the Army Intelligence and Security Command ordered the actual project data deleted. The question is, if not for a massive coverup, then why. The DoD admitted that they have found three other witnesses in addition to Shaffer and Philpott who confirm Able Danger had produced a chart that "either mentioned Atta by name as an al-Qaida operative [and/or] showed his photograph." Four of the five remember the photo on the chart. The fifth remembers only Atta being cited by name. The Pentagon describes the witnesses as "credible" but did not rule out the possibility that their recollections were faulty. The article finishesFormer Army Major Erik Kleinsmith, former head of the Pentagon's Land Warfare Analysis Department, testified that he was instructed to destroy data and documents related to Able Danger in May and June of 2000. The instruction came from a top Pentagon lawyer. He testified, "I go to bed every night and other members of our team do as well [thinking] that if [Able Danger] had not been shut down that we would have at least been able to prevent something or assist the United States in some way. Could we have prevented 9/11? I could never speculate to that extent."
The above is very solid. There is no doubt about provenance, and cross-substantiation by serious people is present. What follows is less so. I certainly recommend the proverbial "pinch of salt." Nevertheless, the first item appears worthy of (at least) further investigation.
A further interesting work, strongly suggesting that the Isaeli government was fully aware of the attacks - and notified the US government at the last moment but still prior to the attacks is available here.
http://www.antiwar.com/rep2/MemorandumtotheCommissionandSelectCommitteesbold.pdf
I personally find the graphic chronospatial analysis starting at page 163 devastatingly compelling.
A further sequence of files relating to the "Israeli Art Students" may be found here.
http://www.antiwar.com/israeli-files.php
It would seem that nobody in the US government consider's this case sufficiently compelling to risk offending the "jewish vote" or it is considered of so little importance not to be woth debunking*. Or something. In any case, like the DIA, CIA and FBI anomolies this investigation seems to be dead in the water. Strange how many investigations around 911 have ended up that way.
)But that something beyond the wikipedia report happened is confirmed by this H'aretz article: http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=75266&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
Fascinating.
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Prior knowledge. Destruction of Evidence? High Crimes and Misdemeanors?
« Reply #1 on: 2005-11-11 14:39:06 » |
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Official: Attack on Cole foreseen
Source: The State
Author: Eric Rosenberg, Hearst Newspapers
Dated: 2005-11-10
WASHINGTON - A senior Republican congressman said Wednesday that the Pentagon's Able Danger intelligence program had detected preparations for the terrorist attack on the USS Cole but that American military leaders failed to act on the warnings.
Citing information provided to him by Navy Capt. Scott Philpott, the former manager of the Able Danger project, Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., said that two weeks before the Oct. 12, 2000, attack - and then again two days before - the intelligence unit uncovered evidence of a plot against an unnamed U.S. target in Yemen.
"They saw information that led them to unequivocally understand that something was going to happen in the port at Yemen involving an American entity," said Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
"Two days before the attack, they were jumping up and down because they knew something was going to happen ... at the port of Aden," Weldon told a Capitol Hill news conference.
Philpott passed the information up his chain of command at the U.S. Special Operations Command based in Tampa, Fla., Weldon said, adding: "We don't know where the information went to or what they did with it."
At the time of the attack, the USS Cole was operating under the aegis of the U.S. Central Command, which has responsibility for American forces in the Middle East.
Navy Ens. Joe Vermette, a spokesman for Tampa, Fla.-based U.S. Central Command, referred questions about Weldon's allegation to the U.S. Special Operations Command. Telephone calls to that unit's headquarters were not returned.
Suicide terrorists attacked the USS Cole, a 505-foot, $1 billion destroyer and one of the Navy's most modern ships, while it was moored and refueling in Aden harbor.
A small boat loaded with explosives pulled alongside the ship and detonated, tearing a hole in the side of ship, 40 feet wide and 40 feet high. The blast killed 17 sailors and injured 39 others.
The Pentagon's Able Danger program, which operated episodically from 1999 through early 2001 and is now disbanded, used sophisticated computer algorithms to scour both classified and public databases in an effort to uncover links among suspected terrorists.
Weldon has previously claimed that the Able Danger unit identified four of the 19 Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists more than a year before the strikes - including apparent ring leader Mohamed Atta - but was prevented from sharing information with the Department of Justice by military lawyers.
Philpott, along with other former members of the now-defunct Able Danger program, has been barred by the Pentagon from testifying publicly before Congress about the intelligence unit.
In discussing an investigation into the USS Cole attack, then-Defense Secretary William Cohen said on Jan. 9, 2001, that there had been general intelligence warnings about possible attacks in the region but that the information wasn't specific.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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