9/11 hijackers discovered by super-spies

In this post I said that it looked like Janet Reno, Clinton's Attorney General, and Jamie Gorelick, Clinton's head attorney at DOD and member of the 9/11 commission, had set us up for 9/11. Now comes Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer to confirm that view. Now I understand the timing and political significance of Clinton's statement yesterday that he would have ordered a hit on Osama bin Laden if only the intelligence agencies had told him that bin Laden was a threat. Clinton knew that the Able Danger program and his operatives' ignoring the information that Able danger unearthed would be political dynamite. So, yesterday, Clinton struck first. He laid down a little Osama bin Laden smoke screen to leave the impression that he, well, he just didn't know. The CIA and the FBI just couldn't prove anything so the poor ol' president's hands were tied. Ever notice that George Bush's hands don't seem to be tied?

Colonel Shaffer confirms that Able Danger had identified Mohammed Atta and 3 other of the 9/11 hijackers as a terror cell by midyear 2000 and were frantic to get the information to the FBI. Pentagon lawyers (Gorelick) stopped them, however, going so far as to cancel 3 meetings that the Able Danger staff had set up with the FBI. Rep. Curt Weldon has been taking a lot of flack for several days over his insistence that the government knew that Atta was dangerous and failed to act. More and more people in the blogosphere have been edging away from Weldon after the 9/11 commission reported that the Able Danger story was uncorroborated by any evidence and "not historically significant". Now, it would appear that Rep. Weldon is vindicated by a man who is still employed by the DOD, and in fact believes he has been punished for his contact with the 9/11 commission in 2003. Shaffer believes that his military career is over as a result of his going public with this information.

"I do believe the 9/11 commission should have done that job: figuring out what went wrong with Able Danger."

"This was a good news story because, before 9/11, you had an element of the military - our unit - which was actually out looking for Al Qaeda," he continued. "I can't believe the 9/11 commission would somehow believe that the historical value was not relevant."

Our ultra-modern, govern by polls, politically correct, CYA-at-all-times, plausible deniability, its-always-the-other-guy's-fault politics of the day got 3000 innocent American civilians killed and will probably get more killed before we really learn.

Others on this story:
John Podhoretz: And that, once again, brings us back to...Jamie Gorelick. 9/11 Commissioner. And the architect of the growing "wall" -- the same "wall" that the 9/11 Commission all but ignored, surely in deference to its walking-conflict-of-interest commissioner Gorelick.

Captain Ed: The Commission has a big problem now. As long as Weldon's sources remained anonymous, they could easily dismiss them as a figment of Weldon's imagination or worse, phantoms created to help him sell a book. Now we have at least one American officer risking his career to tell the public what we should have already known about 9/11, and what the Commission failed to tell us.

Laura Rosen: ...(Col. Shaffer) "explaining to the 9/11 commission staff what Able Danger had accomplished was "like showing a wristwatch to a pig."

Glenn Reynolds: But doesn't this advance the story?

John at Powerline: This is great. Now we can begin the process of getting to the bottom of this story. Col. Shaffer is prepared to take on the Sept. 11 commission.

The Strata-Sphere: I strongly urge people to go back to the 9-11 commission report and realize how much of it is now irrelevant, tossed out the window on these revelations.

Macsmind: "Shaffer told Spencer that one reason that Able Danger got denied permission to brief the FBI on their findings was that there was a fear not just among Pentagon lawyers but among Special Ops command that if things went badly with any FBI operation to take out the al Qaeda cells they had identified, it would be "another Waco."

Flopping Aces: Something in this story smell's fishy, too many things add up for it to be a hair brained scheme by Weldon. The one big fact that makes me believe in this story is Sandy Bergers burglary. We still do not know why he took what he took, but it sure does make sense, considered along with the timeline, to consider he took documents that pertain to this Atta intelligence.

A Blog for All: Most of the the Able Danger debunking effort seems to be an ad hominem attack on Curt Weldon and an attempt to deflect attention from the bigger picture.

Junk Yard Blog: WELDON PREPARES TO PUT UP RATHER THAN SHUT UP

Right Wing Nuthouse: But if the 9/11 Commission staff is lying, don’t you think that’s something we should know? It worries me that the staffers may have pulled a "Sandy Berger" and sanitized Commission records when they were in the National Archives last week.

Point Five: The Commission, who either did or did not hear of Atta, has been accused of either covering up, discounting, ignoring, or never having heard of Atta, by Curt Weldon, who may or may not have seen Atta’s name, and may or may not be accusing the Commission of dereliction.

Dr. Sanity: ABLE DANGER STILL LIVES

TAGS: 9/11, Jamie Gorelick, Janet Reno, 9/11 Commission, Mohammed Atta, hijackers, incompetence, Able-Danger, Curt Weldon