More on 9/11 He said, I didn't hear!

[Felix The Assassin]

More stuff that really heats Felixs backside.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...%2f11-lawmaker

US knew of al Qaeda cell long before 9/11 -lawmaker
Tue Aug 9, 2005 10:19 PM ET
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By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. military intelligence team identified four September 11 hijackers, including ringleader Mohammed Atta, as likely members of an al Qaeda cell in the United States over a year before the 2001 attacks, a former team member and a Republican congressman said on Tuesday.

The classified eight-member team, code-named "Able Danger," produced a chart with photographs of Atta and three other hijackers in 2000 and unsuccessfully sought to pass the information on to the FBI.

Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican who is vice chairman of both the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said the information was provided to the staff of the September 11 commission but some commissioners were never briefed on the material.

The panel's 2004 final report examining the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington contained no information suggesting that the U.S. government knew the hijackers were operating inside the United States as early as 2000.

Lee Hamilton, the commission's former vice chairman, said panel staff interviewed "Able Danger" members in Afghanistan in October 2003 and later reviewed documents on the operation supplied on request by the Bush administration.

"Neither in the documents nor in the conversations was there any mention of a Mohammed Atta or his cell," Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, told Reuters in an interview. "There was no mention of Mohammed Atta and no mention of any military surveillance of him."

The former military intelligence official insists he personally told September 11 commission staff members about Atta in Afghanistan, and offered to supply them with documents upon his return to the United States, only to be rebuffed.

COMMISSION REVIEWING DOCUMENTS

Former September 11 commission spokesman Al Felzenberg said on Tuesday that the panel's former staff would review internal memos and other documents to make sure information about Atta was not overlooked.

"We will know by the end of the week whether we missed something," Felzenberg said.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he was unaware of the intelligence information.

"Able Danger," now disbanded, was a small classified military operation engaged in data-mining analysis of "open source" information including media reports and public records through the use of massively powerful computer systems.

Both Weldon and the former military official, who spoke to Reuters in the congressman's office, are actively encouraging intelligence officials to consider a resumption of the activity, which could mean as much as $30 million in new business for defense and intelligence contractors.

The former military official said his unit recommended that information identifying Atta and fellow hijackers Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi as part of an al Qaeda cell they called "Brooklyn" be forwarded to the FBI.

"They were in the country at least a year before 9/11," said the former military intelligence official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information.

But government lawyers advised the military's Special Operations Command, which oversaw "Able Danger," not to forward the information apparently because the four were in the United States legally on visas and should not be subject to a military operation.

"We don't know whether the lawyers were with the DOD or the White House. All we know is that (the Able Danger members) were stopped," said Weldon.

Weldon said he may ask for a formal inquiry into the issue after Congress returns from its August recess.

[Ziroc]

Idiot is selling a book too. It's all about the $$$$


Reminds me of the talk shows with "planet X will destroy earth in 3 years... BUT BUY MY BOOK to get all the gory details..."

Bah...

[Zebodog]

There's always someone, somewhere willing to make personal profit off of other peoples suffering.

[John D Harris]

So what if MI the CIA FBI or any of the other alphabit soup orginzations that make up the watch dogs of this or any other nation knew there where bad guys around. (Guess what sports fans? They know there are STILL bad guys around EVEN now.) Until the bad guys break a law and do something that will get them arrested, they can belong to any group they want. This kind of story only gives confort to the hypocrital intestinal waste sucking SOB's that like to monday morning quarterback but NEVER get off their collective rear ends and join in playing the game. They only want to tell the people doing the job how they are doing it wrong but sure as "Hale" is hot wouldn't ever do a damn thing to help. It's the same bunch of pencil "manhood" bedwetters that scream and complain about the Patriot Act, which is designed to do the very thing they saying should have been done. Too bad they are spending so much time crying, and screaming for a diaper change, instead of investing even a minium amount of time into solving a problem.

So what do the "THEY KNEW" crowd want to see done? (And don't give me this fire somebody crap, that won't solve the problem, it will just make the bedwetters feel good.) If you fire the people in charge so what. You've still left IN PLACE the reasons there wasn't any action taken even if they knew the Hijackers were here. (remember boys and girls you don't like the patriot act, or any other thing that might have made it possible to stop the hijackers.) You can't do a damn thing until the bad guys break a law. So you are back where you started from, no change! No problem solving! Just some meaningless back-patting of piss ant crybabies. So the "Hale" what! Big whoppty doo.

[Khazadman Risen]

But Atta and the others were known members of a terrorist organization (Al Qaeda). They could have been investigated, and deported if nothing was turned up. But the thing is, the Army was not allowed to notify the FBI about what Able Danger had found. And this was at a time when the Clinton crew were attempting to bribe the Taliban into kicking out OBL and his band of not so merry men.

[John D Harris]

Well as much as I'd like to blame the SOB former President Clinton, there is still the problem of preceived turf that exsisted amoung gov't agencies/employees. "Hale" the President can't even give a speach without a "poop load" of agencies giving their ok to what he says. Imagine that a bunch of gov't employees having to give the ok to their BOSS as to what he can and can't say! Not to mention the gov't lawyers that have to go over everything with a fine tooth comb. Changing of people didn't make the problem go away, the change of policy after 9/11 will in time, if we have the testostrone producing glands to stick with it. If we back off now our great grand children will HAVE to pray to Mecca, not have the choice of praying to Mecca or not as we now do.

Lordy Lordy Lordy, we got folks crying about mistreatment of low-life sacks of horse manure held in Gitmo. People that follow a leader that clearly said they see no distinction between civilains and military, uniformed and non uniformed, women and children. People that seek to (as in that is their GOAL) kill innocent people. There is not one single shread of evidence that the USA has targeted civilains with the purpose of killing the innocent, there has been some accidents, some weapons aimed at the wrong targets. Yet there are people that can't see the differance between intentionally targeting innocent civilains and accidents/miss-targets/missed shots.

The problem is WAR was declared on us in 1996 and we ignored it. We thought oh, so what, so this sheep humper declares war on us what is he going to do. Well, we found out what he is willing to do. Never forget this words: "We love death the USA loves life. That is the differance between us." UBL to a reporter while running from the US military somewhere in Afghanistan.

[Morgeruat]

From the Pentagon

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/050822/1/3uexl.html

A Pentagon review has so far found no evidence that a secret intelligence operation identified Mohammad Atta as a member of a US-based Al-Qaeda cell before the September 11, 2001 attacks, a spokesman said. Representative Curt Weldon and Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer have charged that Atta and three other September 11 hijackers were identified as early as mid-2000 through a data-mining program codenamed "Able Danger." But Lawrence DiRita, a Pentagon spokesman, said a review of materials related to Able Danger has so far turned up no evidence that it identified Atta, the reputed leader of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon... "What we have found are mostly sort of general reference to terrorist cells that people were generally aware of," DiRita told reporters. "But nothing that would seem to corroborate specifically what congressman Weldon and Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer recall, although as you know they don't have what they said they saw. That makes it a little more difficult," he said. Weldon and Shaffer have said Atta and three other future hijackers appeared as members of a Brooklyn-based Al-Qaeda cell on a chart that was presented by Able Danger to the US Special Operations Command in early to mid 2000. They said the group had recommended the information be shared with the FBI, but that the command's lawyers rejected that course of action. If true, it would have been the first time Atta was known to have been identified by the US intelligence community as an Al-Qaeda member before the September 11 attacks. Providing Atta's name to the FBI might have helped disrupt the attack, according to Weldon. Neither Weldon nor Shaffer have been able to produce a copy of the chart itself, however. Shaffer acknowledged in an interview published Saturday by the Washington Post that his allegations about the chart were based on the recollections of a navy officer and an unidentified civilian official affiliated with Able Danger. He said that after the September 11 attacks, the civilian employee showed him a chart from 2000 that had the names of Atta and three other hijackers. Navy Captain Scott Phillpott, whose recollections Shaffer also said he relied on, told a presidential commission investigating the September 11 attacks in July 2004 that he remembered seeing Atta's name on an Able Danger chart in the spring of 2000.

[Timber Loftis]

So long as they keep us busy wondering who to blame for failing to predict the future 4 years ago, they have won -- because we are forgetting to analyze who to blame for current mistakes and lies occurring this very instance.

[John D Harris]

Nat.Geo. had a very good show on 9/11: "Inside 9/11", if you know anything about Nat.Geo. you know they care about the facts, and look at the facts with the cold analytical eyes of scientists, they don't care where, when, how, or why the facts came about only that they are. Nat.Geo. has probibly the highest standards of verifcation known to man. Far higher then most reporters, and other media. Nat.Geo. has a reputation and wants to keep it, (It's called pride a concept that is rarely in use anymore.) so they make sure what they say is as right as can humanly posible be verified. According to Nat. Geo. McDill AFB, home of Central Command (the US miltary Command that is in charge of US interests in the Middle East.) had information on Atta and several others of the Hi-jackers. But since they were civilians, McDill couldn't pass on Military Intel. US Military can't gather and pass on intel about civilians. At the Time that was Illegal. Times have changed, the military can now pass that kind of intel on to the FBI and local law enforcement!!!!

T.L. when was the last Classified meeting you were in? What is your security clearance? What is your policy making qualifcations? Do you hold an elected office, or any other office that would give you access to the intel and current relevant info that the people who's job it is to make policy use to make the policy? You don't have to agree with the policy, that's what makes the USA such a wonderful place. As for me when faced with the choice of beleiving somebody that has not been in any Classified meetings, holds no Security Clearance, has no policy making qualifcations, or access to the intel. vs. those that do. I'll choose those that do, but hey that's just me.

FDR didn't know about Pearl Harbor ahead of time, Oswalt was the lone shooter, G.H. Bush didn't fly to Iran, the Knights Templar/Free Masons/Hildiburg Group(or what ever they are called)/CFR/Illumi aren't incharge of what happens in this world. There are no little green men secreted away on any military bases. Like it or not GWB made or at least gave the orders to one of the best military moves ever, a classic military move used by every sucessful military leader in history: Dictate the fight, fight at the time & place of your choosing, not your enemy's choosing. Or as an old fighter pilot said "Fight your fight, not your enemies fight, if your are in a P-47 you don't try to turn with a FW-190, you make him try to roll with you, there's nothing in the air that can roll with a P-47." We have brave military men and women 4,000 miles from home being killed and killing the radical sacks of horse manure over there. Instead of the radical sacks of horse manure killing civilians on the streets of Chicago. So you can put that in your mistakes pipe and smoke it.

[Lucern]

There are much deeper and more accurate sources than National Geographic. They just aren't commercial. NatGeo is a popularized, simplified version of a host of less accessible journals. There are thousands of publications that offer much more information on anything that NatGeo does (unless they have some sort of exclusive with someone who wants a spotlight). NatGeo gives you the tiny sliver that they think will sell magazines and simplifies it. They do a better job than most commercial ventures, but that's because they probably have a kind of peer review. Not all magazines have that, but NatGeo isn't really trying to keep up with the news last I checked - just the parts they feel they can provide. Check the databases of the local (well connected) libraries for deeper analysis. I don't mean the shelves - I mean the databases of peer reviewed journals written by and for professionals (not to say the shelves won't have anything lol).

That's really more of a side note than a commentary on McDill or classified info. Classified information is fine and dandy for internal (administrative or organizational actions) and external (the results of spying/investigation). The holders of classified information certainly aren't guaranteeing the veracity of the information they hold nor their telling of it. How can we know?

Like it or not GWB made or at least gave the orders to one of the best military moves ever, a classic military move used by every sucessful military leader in historyictate the fight, fight at the time & place of your choosing, not your enemy's choosing.

Indeed. To be fair though, bin Laden did that too. Most terrorists do that. Many unsuccessful leaders did that too. Hannibal anyone?

Instead of the radical sacks of horse manure killing civilians on the streets of Chicago.

There's no evidence of that. I hope it's true, but it's quite possibly not true. It's the instead part that's iffy. We know killing is going on. We also know from every single conflict that attacks are reciprocated. There is that rare thing called peace where one or both sides agree that they're losing the will to hit and be hit back, at least for a time. You can kill terrorists; they're clearly not great soldiers. You can also create and inspire them. It's not the killing that ends conflicts. It's the persuasion by one side of the other that they've either got no chance or that they've got more to lose than to gain. Radicals aren't the easiest to persuade, so we'll have to 'aim' at the rest of society. That is to say, if anything will resolve the two major conflicts America is mired in, it's going to be the building of infrastructure that silences the apparently common view of the 'crusading Westerner'. Maybe nobody will mention that we tore a lot of that down on the way in.

[ 08-26-2005, 01:00 PM: Message edited by: Lucern ]