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Able Danger disclosure raises serious questions
As you may recall, the highly politicized 9 – 11 Commission spent several months investigating the events that led to the deadly terrorist attacks that took place on September 11, 2001. When the Commission finally published its report, it basically concluded that while there were intelligence and law enforcement lapses by both the Clinton and Bush administrations, no one could have prevented the attacks. But that conclusion could change if the claims about Able Danger are verified. According to Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer, had the 9 –11 Commission thoroughly investigated the findings of Able Danger, the commission report would have focused on the legal obstacles put in place by the Clinton Administration that prevented the FBI, the CIA, and apparently the US military intelligence from exchanging information that could possibly have prevented the deaths of over 3,000 people. Shaffer, who says he is risking his career by coming forward, disclosed that he and a naval officer briefed members of the Commission on Able Danger. According to Shaffer, the commissioners were told that more than a year before the attacks Able Danger had linked Mohamed Atta, the leader of the 9 – 11 attack, and three other 9 – 11 hijackers to a terrorist cell in New York. In addition, Shaffer informed the commissioners that when he tried to get the information turned over to the FBI, military lawyers stopped the effort because of concerns over the legality of the military conducting a domestic surveillance operation. Despite these disclosures the commission decided not to investigate Able Danger and left the information out of their final report. In fact, when the story about Able Danger first broke, the commission chairman, Gov. Thomas Kean and the vice-chairman, Rep. Lee Hamilton, both denied that the commission had received any information about Able Danger. But after the New York Times reported that the commission had been briefed on two different occasions by Shaffer and the naval officer, Kean and Hamilton admitted that members of the Commission knew about Able Danger but chose to not to include it in the Commission’s report. Defense officials in Washington have identified the naval officer as Capt. Scott Phillpott who has so far declined to comment. The fact that the chairman and vice-chairman would attempt to mislead the public about the Commission’s knowledge of the Able Danger information is more than a little troubling. Such denials give substantial credence to those that believe the Commission deliberately engaged in a cover up of information vital to understanding the full scope of the security lapses that allowed the attacks to succeed. Many people believe these security lapses were the result of legal barriers that were created between various federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies by 9 – 11 Commission member Jamie Gorelick while she served as Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton Administration. Gorelick had created internal legal barriers, now referred to as “the Wall”, which kept the FBI, the CIA, and apparently the U.S. military from exchanging information related to domestic intelligence. That is why the FBI never informed the CIA about the reports from field agents who had raised suspicions about the 9 – 11 terrorists taking lessons to learn how to take off and fly a jet liner but not how to land one. Critics of the Commission contend that the problems created by “the Wall” were never fully investigated and that instead of being a member of the 9 – 11 Commission, Gorelick should have been called as a witness. In addition, there may be other information in Able Danger that could have significant ramifications in regard to the war in Iraq. Specifically, there is speculation that Able Danger links the 9 – 11 hijackers and Osama bin Laden to Iraq. Apparently, Able Danger supports information from the Czech Republic’s intelligence service that Atta meet with the Iraqi ambassador at the Prague airport on April 9, 2001. The CIA and the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) dispute the Czech intelligence report. Even so, Czech intelligence informed the U.S. about this meeting shortly after the 9 – 11 attacks. In addition, other intelligence documents indicate that two of the four terrorists that piloted the hijacked airliners were in Germany from late 2000 to early 2001. It was during that time that German authorities arrested two Iraqi agents on charges of spying. One of the hijacker pilots, Ziad Jarrah, left Germany the same week that the Germans arrested the Iraqi agents. Reporting on the arrests, the Paris-based Islamic newspaper al-Watan al-Arabi linked Iraq to radical Islamic groups and Osama bin Laden. The paper reported that the Iraqi agents were part of an Iraqi operation to form a network of terrorist alliances to strike US interests. This information is also not in the Commission’s report. Obviously, had the 9 – 11 Commission concluded that the Able Danger information linking the hijackers with Iraq was accurate, the war in Iraq would have been completely vindicated. If the Able Danger information proves to be accurate, the fact that it is not even mentioned will seriously undermine the 9 – 11 Commission report and could discredit the Commission. It will then be very evident to the American public that the 9 – 11 Commission was compromised from the beginning by politics. Gary Palmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.
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