The Gorelick Wall & Able Danger, Update XVIII

Apparently Curt Weldon stated on a radio interview tonight that the staffer who kept the Able Danger information from the 9/11 Commission was one Dietrich Dieter Snell….a big bombshell.

More to follow, wanted to get this out quickly

UPDATE 1905hrs PST

Apparently it was during the Victoria Taft Show, AM 860 KPAM.

UPDATE 1907hrs PST

Got most of the interview, check it out here. Listening to it now.

UPDATE 1915hrs PST

More on Snell from an interview with Peter Lance, author of Cover Up : What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War on Terror:

FP: Do you remember Dietrich Dieter Snell, the AUSA who was the co-prosecutor on the Bojinka case. Well, an FBI #302 memo from 3/7/96 on my website shows that he was a direct party to all of the Scarpa-Yousef intelligence on TWA #800. Yet in early April, 2004 when forensic investigators Angela Clemente and Dr. Stephen Dresch, presented these #302’s to the 9/11 Commission, not a word of any of this showed up in their final report published in late July, 2004. The report nominated for The National Book Award.

Understand the significance of this. Here is evidence from the FBI’s own files of al Qaeda involvement in the second biggest act of terror in U.S. history and the 9/11 Commission — lead by investigators like Dieter Snell, flushes it all.

Furthermore, Snell took all of the evidence from Col. Mendoza in the Philippines, which I presented following my testimony to the Commission in March, 2004 — evidence which sets the genesis of the plot with Yousef and KSM in the fall of 1994 and he reduced it all to a end note at the end the book pushing the genesis of the plot FORWARD to 1996 and claiming that KSM had acted alone and that only recently had he joined al Qaeda.

My authority was Col. Rodolfo Mendoza, the man who interrogated Abdul Hakim Murad for 67 days. I sent the 9/11 Commission a transcript of my interview with the colonel in March, 2002, the video tape of the interview and multiple declassified PNP memos showing that all of the Yousef-KSM Manila plots 9n 1995-95 — Bojinka, the plot to kill the Pope and the plot executed on 9/11 — were funded directly by OBL via his brother in law.

But Dietrich Snell’s source for the genesis of the plote in 1996 — two years later — in which an alleged lone KSM came up with the plan — was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed himself.

To me this is like quoting David Berkowitz on the origin of his first Son of Sam murder.

In other parts of the 9/11 Report in which KSM is quoted, they note that his handlers paraphrased Churchill in reference to KSM and stated that much of his testimony is accompanied by “a bodyguard of lies.”

But Dietrich Snell had the last word.

UPDATE 1920hrs PST

Curt Weldon say’s during the interview he has another witness who identified Atta by NAME prior to 9/11

UPDATE 2009hrs PST

Listened to the Victoria Taft interview and didn’t hear anything about Snell. Good interview tho. Apparently he said it during the Dom Giordano show as reported on Free Republic:

Curt Weldon was just on the Dom Giordano radio show again this evening (~8:15 – 8:30), and he was on fire. From memory, here are some of the points he emphasized, along with some things he said were new:

1. Curt recently met and spoke with John Lehman, and Lehman told Weldon to keep after the Able Danger angle, because “if you don’t, nobody else will”.

2. Weldon praised other Congressman and Senators for staying interested and helping to get the ball rolling on the investigation. Specifically, Weldon mentioned Sensenbrenner, Specter, Biden, along with some others.

3. Curt discussed the debriefing of Scott Philpot (sp?) in July 2004 by Gorelick staffer Dietrich Snell, and how Snell apparently spiked the whole thing. Lehman and the other commissioners (at least SOME of the other commissioners) were left totally in the dark about the existence and importance of the Able Danger program and the information that it had turned up prior to 9/11.

4. Curt again mentioned the bizaree tale of Gorelick calling his office from her vacation in Boston and telling Weldon’s Chief of Staff to “tell the Congressman that I did nothing wrong”. Tonight Weldon revealed that Gorelick had ALSO called Specter’s office TWICE and made exactly the same claim – – “I did nothing wrong”. Curt said it was extremely puzzling since nobody had accused Gorelick of anything. Curt implied that what these calls did was raise serious suspicions about Gorelick (and her staffer, Snell). Curt said that the 9/11 Commission needed to be investigated!

5. In the week before the Cole attack, the Navy was warned TWICE to keep ships out of the Yemen harbor where the Cole was attacked. Able Danger had turned up information that indicated that a terrorist attack on Navy vessels in that area were imminent. The warnings were apparently ignored, and American sailors died.

6. Weldon has found a SEVENTH witness of “impeccable credentials” who ran a separate Able danger program. He will testify that Mohammed Atta was identified by name prior to the 9/11 attacks. He did not mention the witness’s name, but he told Dom, “You will know who he is”.

7. Curt was most disgusted at the treatment that Tony Shaeffer (sp?) is getting at the hands of the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency). The DIA has revoked Shaeffer’s security clearance and told him that they were cutting him and his family off from all benefits, etc. They have hung him out to dry, and Weldon is absolutely livid. Shaeffer was fired. Part of the excuse used for firing him was his handing out government pens to his school classmates when he was 15 years old. I think Tony’s father had gotten the pens while working at an embassy somewhere (?). Following the DIA’s telling Shaeffer to take a hike, they sent him back several boxes of personal stuff, and whaddaya know? – – those boxes were loaded with CLASSIFIED letters and documents (some of which belonged to another DIA officer!), a GPS system, and….. 25 government pens. (You can tell that Curt’s head is about to explode as he relates all this.)

8. Curt Weldon is a pitbull on this. He again said that if Congress refuses to get to the bottom of this scandal, then he will resign because he would no longer want to be a part of an institution which would cover up the facts behind the murder of 3,000 American citizens. Curt said again that by the time this is all over, “Watergate will look like a Sunday school picnic”.

9. Weldon urged everybody in Dom’s audience to contact their Senators and Congressmen relentlessly. (In a funny aside, Curt said to contact Specter “even if you don’t like him”.)

10. Most of Weldon’s disgust was reserved for the DIA and the tactics that that organization is using to intimidate people and cover up their own disgraceful malfeasance. He said that one guy, a guy who is now Deputy Director at the DIA, was in a meeting years ago where Able Danger information was being revealed and the guy threw up his hands and said, “I don’t want to hear this, I can’t hear this”, at which point he left the room! Curt thinks that the coverup is being orchestrated primarily to protect a bunch of suits like that guy who failed miserably at their duties and who, by their incomptence and negligence, allowed the unecessary mass murder of 3,000 citizens.

Okay, that’s enough for now. It’s tough to drive and listen and try to remember everything. As I think of more things that Curt mentioned, I’ll add them to the thread. Weldon was on a roll, talking non-stop, and Dom Giordano, to his credit, let Curt go on and on without interruption. It was truly great radio.

Here’s a bit more about Mr. Snell:

Terrorist told of plan to crash into CIA’s HQ

Two years ago, federal prosecutors turned down a cooperation offer from a terrorist who claimed he was part of a well-financed 1995 plot to crash an airplane into the CIA headquarters.

Abdul Hakim Murad said he got his pilot’s license after training at several American flight schools, including one that is now under scrutiny in the terror investigation. Murad was convicted in 1996 for his role in a highly choreographed scheme to blow up 12 U.S.-bound jetliners flying out of Southeast Asia.

The Pakistani-born man said that in addition to the jetliner bomb plot, he and his co-conspirators were looking into using his flying skills to crash an aircraft into the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.

“It was not something that we focused on. It was something that he said,” recalled Dietrich Snell, the ex-prosecutor who convicted Murad. “We took seriously what he was telling us, but what we were focused on was the plot to blow up the 12 airliners.”

U.S. Attorney Said No Deal

Snell, who left office in 1998, did not recall Murad coming forward to offer information in return for leniency in sentencing. But court papers and two sources familiar with the situation confirm that Murad did try to cooperate with Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White’s office. He was turned down, the sources said.

It’s not clear whether Murad’s claims of a plan to fly a jet into the CIA buildings have any ties to the Sept. 11 attack on America. Murad gave investigators information that both resembles and bears no resemblance to the Sept. 11 attack.

His plan to blow up jetliners collapsed when bomb-making chemicals that he and his co-conspirator, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, were mixing caught on fire inside a Manila apartment.

Murad was captured in January 1994 in Manila, where he told Philippine interrogators about a plot he called “bojinka,” or “big sound.” In that scheme, he, Yousef and at least 10 others planned to get off the planes at stops along the planes’ routes. The bombs would be detonated by timers in sequence over the Pacific, and none of the terrorists would be killed.

Got Pilot Training Upstate

“The whole crux of bojinka was to have timed explosions and the operatives to be off the flights and escaping,” Snell said. “That’s a fundamental difference between what happened two weeks ago at the World Trade Center and bojinka.”

But there are similarities. Snell recalled that Murad told investigators about the suicide mission to crash a plane into the CIA building. “I remember him saying he thought about maybe getting a small plane or somehow get access to a small plane and crash it into the CIA,” Snell said, adding, “There was never any mention of hijacking.” And Murad noted that he got his commercial pilot’s license after training at several U.S. flight schools, including ones in upstate Schenectady and North Carolina.

Last week, FBI agents showed up at the same Schenectady flight school, asking questions about a student who trained there. And several of the suspected hijackers are believed to have studied at flight schools around the U.S.

Snell said he has no way to know whether Murad could have provided investigators with information that would be relevant to the probe of the Sept. 11 attack. “I think it’s pretty unlikely, but I don’t know,” he said. “I’d be guessing like everyone else.”

UPDATE 10/21 0754hrs PST

Ed Morrissey has a good post up detailing some of the inner workings of the DIA:

After the DIA has decided to run a smear campaign on LTC Tony Shaffer and to destroy his credibility, apparently for his revelations about Able Danger, the credibility of the agency itself has come under serious question. A CQ reader wishing to remain anonymous but with personal knowledge of the situation the Defense Intelligence Agency sends this description of the senior leadership at the agency:

Deputy Director of DIA is Mark Ewing. He won’t be in that position for very long, seeing as how he recently put in his paperwork to resign. This action comes after he had a spat with the outgoing director, Admiral Lowell Jacoby, the subject of which is not clear … there is the recent revelation that Ewing may very well have pulled a three-monkeys trick (see/hear/speak no evil) when presented with the findings of Able Danger. As the senior leadership exodus at DIA continues (see below) Ewing would have been the last one standing and facing the music. He would like to flee the intelligence community completely but that is apparently not possible: through a curious set of administrative circumstances he has ample government service time under his belt, but cannot retire and collect his pension (details require a long explanation). If anyone needs to panic it is Ewing.

[…]The deputy director of intelligence (head of the analysis office) is Earl Sheck. Sheck was one of the first cronies Jacoby brought over from ONI. As the keeper of the analytical resources at DIA, the odds that Sheck also knew something about Able Danger are pretty good. Able Danger was a SOCOM/LIWA show, but if they were using tools from Orion (also have contracts at DIA) and working CT issues, inevitably they would have talked to relevant offices in DIA, if nothing else than to bounce ideas off of each other or to request additional intel support. DIA’s CT mission is run by the J2, but to think that Sheck would not be aware to some extent is inconceivable. Sheck is also rumored to have one foot out the door.

An intelligence agency, full of cronies who all botched their respective roles during the decades preceding and years after September 11th, thought they could handily weather the Able Danger storm. When it became clear that the ship was about to capsize, they all couldn’t move fast enough for the life rafts. Not like they would have much to worry about given the tendency to not punish intelligence officers for negligence, but then the DIA isn’t the CIA, and military officers (like Jacoby) have the UCMJ to worry about.

Curt

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