Pentagon Destroys Papers Regarding 9/11

[Makalakumu]

Holy Cow! I wonder where this will go!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9342936/

WASHINGTON - A Pentagon employee was ordered to destroy documents that identified Mohamed Atta as a terrorist two years before the 2001 attacks, a congressman said Thursday.
The employee is prepared to testify next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee and was expected to identify the person who ordered him to destroy the large volume of documents, said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa.

Weldon declined to identify the employee, citing confidentiality matters. Weldon described the documents as “2.5 terabytes” — as much as one-fourth of all the printed materials in the Library of Congress, he added.

2.5 terabytes!!!!!!!!!??????

 

[Tgace]

The pentagon shreds documents by the TON.....

Id have to see some evidence of a cover up before I fly the conspiracy flag. Anyway, who would this protect at this point?

 

[Makalakumu]

Id have to see some evidence of a cover up before I fly the conspiracy flag. Anyway, who would this protect at this point?

Well, that is the question. According to the article, the 911 commission disavowed it, but now that is turning up to be untrue...Why?

I did a search on Able Danger and turned up some interesting stuff.

 

[Tgace]

From what Ive read so far its not that its "untrue" but that some pentagon employees now seem to remember Attas name coming up. Which may be true, but a lot of names probably "came up". This goes back a few administrations too does it not?

 

[Makalakumu]

This goes back a few administrations too does it not?

Yup, it does. Nonetheless, the story is interesting. There isn't much that one can discuss at this point. More information has to come out.

 

[michaeledward]

The scuttlebut at this point is that military would not share the information found by the ABLE DANGER with the Clinton administration. Certainly, that can't be good for the 'Blame Clinton' crowd.

 

[Tgace]

Thats not what Ive read....
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05226/553271.stm

Able Danger was a military intelligence unit set up by Special Operations Command in 1999. A year before the 9/11 attacks, Able Danger identified hijack leader Mohamed Atta and the other members of his cell. But Clinton administration officials stopped them -- three times -- from sharing this information with the FBI.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ollienorth/on20050819.shtml

Unfortunately for the Sept. 11 Commission, Able Danger isn't the only embarrassing recent revelation. Newly declassified documents obtained by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act show that in the summer of 1996, intelligence analysts at the State Department warned the Clinton administration that Osama bin Laden's "prolonged stay in Afghanistan -- where hundreds of 'Arab mujahidin' receive terrorist training and key extremist leaders often congregate -- could prove more dangerous to U.S. interests in the long run than his three-year liaison with Khartoum." A year earlier the Clinton administration rejected a Sudanese offer to have bin Laden detained.

And then there is the strange case of Clinton National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger -- who earlier this year plead guilty to removing and destroying classified documents from the National Archives pertaining to terror threats on U.S. soil. The crimes were committed as Mr. Berger was preparing to testify before the Sept. 11 Commission.

 

[Tgace]

Maybe we should rename this thread "How the President Blew it".

 

[michaeledward]

No comment on the first article ... again, I heard something different than what is reported in that article .. we'll have to see what happens ... (I suppose having the documents destroyed makes that a bit more difficult, eh?)

Concerning the second ... the claim that Sudanese officials offering to turn over bin Laden to the CIA has been pretty widely discredited at this point, hasn't it? The 'Sudanese Official' has about as much credibility as Chalabi .... lots of talk, but no Weapons, in the end.

 

[Tgace]

If we want to take the conspiracy route....

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ollienorth/on20050819.shtml

However, it’s not as if the FBI was dependent on the Pentagon for advance intelligence regarding the 9/11 plot. “The FBI has had access to this information since at least 1997,” one former FBI counterterrorism agent told us in comments published in our March 11, 2002 cover story. “There’s got to be more to this than we can see — high-level people whose careers are at stake, and don’t want the truth coming out.... What agenda is someone following? Obviously, people had to know — there had to be people who knew this information was being circulated. People like [the Black Tuesday terrorists] don’t just move in and out of the country undetected. If somebody in D.C. is taking this information and burying it — and it’s very easy to control things from D.C. — then this problem goes much, much deeper.... It’s terrible to think this, but this must have been allowed to happen as part of some other agenda.”

For years, Democratic politicians and partisans have upbraided President Bush for ignoring an August 6, 2001 intelligence brief predicting al-Qaeda attacks in the United States. The Able Danger disclosures are now being used by GOP-aligned activists to implicate the Clinton administration in similar fashion. In this manner, outrage is kept divided along neatly partisan lines, instead of coalescing into a nonpartisan demand for full accountability from everyone in our bipartisan ruling Establishment.

 

[michaeledward]

Representative Weldon (R - PA) sure shows up in a lot of the stories about this, always claiming the same thing . . . 'Jamie Garelick'.

And Representative Weldon is jockeying for the Chair of the Armed Services Committee?

And Representative Weldon seems to want to publish 'Tom Clancy'-like books based on his shadowy involvement with 'Ali', an Iranian arms dealer.

And then, Representative Weldon often repeats the completely discredited story of all the 'W's being removed from White House keyboards.

Ollie North ... yeah. Do we still Hang traitors in this country?

Do you really suppose the Pentagon is playing dumb to protect the Clinton Administration? Now that would require a tin-foil-cap, don't you think?

 

[Tgace]

W. Clark was a Clinton man all the way,as were others...the higher up the chian the more political.

 

[michaeledward]

Wesley Clark was, if I am not mistaken, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe in 1998. Do you suppose from overseeing the Baltics, he could have his hands in this small little intelligence group at the Pentagon?

Please ... keep right on telling us how much the military respected the Clinton administration ... there is not enough humor in the country right now.

 

[Ping898]

You know, most classified documents have a destroy date on them, usually date is only 6 mons to a few years after whatever report is issued. It could just be a coincidence that the time had run out on those docs and they were supposed to be destroyed. Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anything that said they singled out these documents in particular to be destroyed based upon what information was in them.

 

[Tgace]

And no Politicans of any stripe were told? That could have been used against Clinton at so many turns if the military was "out to get Clinton". Aint buying it. Yeah Clark was European Commander, you think he lived in a tent in Germany the whole time? This wasnt so secret if attorneys are sueing to keep the data quiet. Generals of his height arent prone to be left in the dark....

 

[Tgace]

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19218

The Wall Between Agencies
On August 15, 2005, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, the first member of Able Danger to speak publicly about his role with the operation, told the press about Able Danger’s findings and detailed the policies that caused the crucial intelligence to go unheeded. Shaffer acknowledged that Able Danger had been actively monitoring Atta and tried to arrange a series of meetings in 2000 with the Washington field office of the FBI to share its information. Shaffer also noted that military lawyers intervened and canceled the meetings, citing, according to Shaffer, fear of controversy “if Able Danger was portrayed as a military operation that had violated the privacy of civilians who were legally in the United States.” At the root of this fear was a clearly defined prohibition against inter-agency intelligence sharing in terror investigations. This prohibition, commonly referred to as the “Wall” blocking such communications, had its roots in the first term of the Clinton administration.

In 1995, while America’s intelligence agencies were still investigating the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center (a time at which the sharing of intelligence to prevent future attacks should have been the highest priority), Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick was calling for increased separation between intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, and the halting of intelligence sharing. In her 1995 memo to then-FBI Director Louis Freeh and U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White, titled “Instructions on Separation of Certain Foreign Counterintelligence and Criminal Investigations,” Gorelick wrote the following:

 

[michaeledward]

You know, all these articles you are linking to ... aside from being on websites busy advertising Rush Limbaugh material ... keep repeating the Prague accusation.

Also monitoring terrorist activities at this time, including the movements of Atta, was the Czech Republic. It has been reported that Czech officials had observed Atta traveling to Prague on three separate occasions. On his first visit, on May 30 of 2000, Atta flew to Prague but, upon arrival, was not permitted to leave the airport because he had failed to secure a visa. On his second trip, on June 2, 2000, Atta arrived in Prague by bus, and was monitored and photographed by the Czech intelligence agency – the Security Information Service (BIS). Three days later, a large but undisclosed sum of money was transferred into Atta’s personal bank accounts

Yes, It has been reported that Atta traveled to Prague. It also has been proven to be completely impossible for that to happen. The only person who was still making that claim was Vice President Cheney.

This certainly brings some doubt on the other claims made in these articles.

I just love the fact that the military so loves Bill Clinton that they are now trying to protect him by shreading documents. That makes so much more sense than just covering their own ***.

 

[Tgace]

How about addressing the information instead of the source? I could care less about Prauge, what politician said what, the website it came from etc. Whats important is that the information wasnt shared, and brought to court to be sure it wasnt shared by lawyers from the administration. How about addressing that?

 

[michaeledward]

Gee ... I thought I was addressing what the article said.

The article, in the third paragraph, repeats discredited information concerning the meeting of Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague.

That meeting never took place.

Why should any of the other information in the story be viewed with any more credibility?

The article also tells us 'Military Lawyers' intervened ... not Adminsitration Laywers. So, no doubt these were General Clark's personal attorneys doing Clinton a favor.

Good Grief.

What Liberal Media?

 

[Loki]

Definitely keeping tabs on this story! If anyone sees follow-ups, please post!