The Gorelick Wall & Sandy Berger, Update XIV

Another person has come forward to tell the world that yes, Atta was identified before 9/11 by US intelligence:

A third person has now come forward to verify claims made by a military intelligence unit that a year before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, it had information showing that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta and other terrorists were identified as being in the United States.

J.D. Smith, a defense contractor who claims he worked on the technical side of the unit, code-named “Able Danger”, told reporters Friday that he helped gather open-source information, reported on government spending and helped generate charts associated with the unit’s work. Able Danger was set up in the 1990s to track Al Qaeda activity worldwide.

“I am absolutely positive that he [Atta] was on our chart among other pictures and ties that we were doing mainly based upon [terror] cells in New York City,” Smith said.

Smith said data was gathered from a variety of sources, including about 30 or 40 individuals. He said they all had strong Middle Eastern connections and were paid for their information. Smith said Able Danger’s photo of Atta was obtained from overseas.

Now you have to wonder why the DoD cannot come up with any documentation about this group. Was everything destroyed? I kinda doubt that since the Military and Government likes to keep everything around for a long long time. The Captain is thinking along the same lines:

This further confirmation puts more pressure on the Pentagon to either come up with specific data that discounts this testimony or a better explanation for the disappearance of Able Danger’s data.

An interesting tidbit in the above article is this:

Smith claims that one way the unit came to know Atta was through Rahman. Smith said Able Danger used data mining techniques ? publicly available information ? to look at mosques and religious ties and it was, in part, through the investigation of Rahman that Atta?s name surfaced.

Which confirms AJ Strata’s suspicion’s.

Another interesting sidenote to Rahman is that Abdul Rahman Yasin was connected to the Blind Shiekh. Yasin was the man who mixed the chemicals for the bomb used in the first WTC bombing. Of course the FBI let him go after questioning and he fled to….wanna guess? Iraq.

Captain Ed:

This, however, leaves even more questions on the table for the FBI and the Department of Justice. If the Army could go through open-source data and draw lines from the Blind Sheikh to other terrorists, especially in the US, why didn’t the FBI try that? After all, Rahman had already been convicted of terrorism, allowing law enforcement and/or intelligence to investigate Rahman to their heart’s content. Did the FBI, either in its law enforcement or counterintelligence units, ever try to follow up on Rahman’s other contacts after the successful prosecution by Mary Jo White’s team? If not, why not?

Another head scratcher. Rahman had already been tried and convicted of the first attack on the WTC and it seems that no one followed up on his contacts, except for Able Danger.

Curt Weldon is banking pretty much his whole career on this story:

Rep. Curt Weldon predicted yesterday that members of the 9/11 Commission would have “egg all over their face[s]” when the truth comes out about briefings they received on an elite group of military intelligence analysts code named Able Danger.

“The 9/11 Commission is trying to spin this because they’re embarrassed at what’s coming out,” Weldon told the Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” morning show.

“In two weeks with two staffers, I’ve uncovered more in this regard than they did with 80 staffers and $15 million of taxpayers’ money!”

The Pennsylvania Republican said the truth would come out in hearings planned for this fall:

“This information will ultimately end up in a hearing. Senator Specter is preparing a hearing in the judiciary committee. I talked to Speaker Hastert yesterday on the House side. We will bring people in under oath, and they will swear and they will answer the questions.”

Which either means he will go down in flames or become a hero, which future is in store for him remains to be seen but he also say’s that more witnesses are forthcoming:

Weldon added that at least five people on the federal payroll will testify under oath about the validity of the Able Danger intelligence

And it appears these witnesses are giving the DoD headaches:

?Some folks in DoD I don?t think are too happy with this information coming forward for whatever reason, and lot of folks who have this information are considering very carefully how they bring themselves forward,? Shaffer tells federalnewsradio.com and WFED, which are part of the WTOP Radio Network.

The Congressional Hearing on Able Danger is starting to look more and more likely:

Though no date has been set for any hearings, Specter sent a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller on Wednesday asking the agency to provide to the committee ?all information and documents it has in connection with Able Danger, Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer, Captain Scott Philpott or any other persons having any connections with Project Able Danger, including, but not limited to, e-mail communication, notes, phone message slips, memos or any other supporting documentation.?

Specter also asked Mueller to make available FBI agent Xanthig Mangum to meet with his staff. Mangum is reported to have corresponded in 2000 with Shaffer, who helped run Able Danger?s mission and has offered to testify on its findings, about scheduling a meeting between Able Danger and FBI staffs. No meeting ever took place.

So LTC Shaffer has obviously told Weldon and Specter that he corresponded with a FBI agent in an attempt to set up meetings between the two groups. These documents could end up being VERY valuable.

When the team running “Able Danger” wanted to get the FBI and Special Operations to collaborate to track the Muslim extremists, Shaffer claims, attorneys in the Pentagon ultimately killed the project.

“I know who the lawyers are and have turned (the names) over to the committee,” he said. The Reserve officer hopes the legal paper trail will reveal why “Able Danger” was cut short.

“(The committee) needs to get the lawyers’ notes,” he said.

Big news here. Also makes you wonder why the DoD has not come up with any documentation yet.

“If I could have one (set of) documents, I would ask for the lawyers’ notes,” he said.

In Specter’s letter to the FBI director, the chairman requested Mangum’s correspondence with Shaffer, who attempted to arrange meetings at the FBI, according to the letter. The document request asks for “e-mail communication, notes, phone message slips, memos or any other supporting documentation” relevant to “Able Danger.”

But then this bombshell about the letter Specter has written:

After reading the letter Thursday, Shaffer said the text was at odds with what he told the committee.

“They got it wrong,” he said.

Shaffer claimed he directed the committee to ask for information from an agency other than the FBI, which he refused to identify for The Times Herald.

“This (request) isn’t going to get (the committee) the information they’re looking for,” he said.

Shaffer is scheduled to meet with the committee today, he said.

Agency other then the FBI…wonder who that could be?

Check out QT’s Monster’s Place, JunkYard Blog, A Blog For All, Isn’t It Rich, & Sister Toldjah for more.

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