Ducking & Dodging As Able Danger Hearings Loom

Of all the possible gambits to play as next week's Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the Able Danger scandal approach, the 9/11 "Omission" chose last week to play the most bizarre, summarized best by the old adage, "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride":

Former members of the September 11 commission on Wednesday dismissed assertions that a Pentagon intelligence unit identified lead hijacker Mohamed Atta as an member of al-Qaida long before the 2001 attacks. ...

[Commission co-chair Thomas] Kean said the recollections of the intelligence officers cannot be verified by any document.

"Bluntly, it just didn't happen and that's the conclusion of all 10 of us," said a former commissioner, ex-Senator Slade Gorton, R-WA.

Yes, the man who used to be one of my state's U.S. Senators. Imagine my pride.

My gut reaction to such a blanket and garishly false assertion is bewilderment more than anything else. There are six eyewitnesses who have attested on the record that "it" did happen, "it" being the identification of Mohammed Atta and other 9/11 hijackers as potential al-Qaeda terrorists over a year before the deadly terrorist attacks. As Strata-Sphere further explains, the Pentagon, which was initially as skittish as Kean, Gorton & Co., has since conceded that there is a great deal of evidence corroborating the Able Danger claims (via CQ):

The [Pentagon] ha[s] reports with suspected AQ terrorists’ names. They have charts and pictures of suspected AQ terrorists. They have the data mining SW system and records of the data sources used to identify these possible AQ terrorists (the data itself was destroyed since it contained information on US citizens as well as the terrorists). The DoD has records that Able Danger did try and set up the meetings with the FBI. They have a final report from January 2001 of the format, scope and content Able Danger described having in the Spring of 2000.

I would think that in the face of all this hitting the fan in direct contradiction to a final report that obviously reflected nothing more than a deliberate tailoring of the "facts" to a pre-determined (i.e. pro-Clinton/anti-Bush) conclusion - and the wholesale discarding of the remaining facts that couldn't be so tailored - the "omissioners" would be at the very least a bit more circumspect and non-commital in their public utterances. You know, like "No comment."

On the other hand, perhaps this helps explain it (also via Stata-Sphere and CQ)

The Pentagon is pressuring the Senate Judiciary Committee to close to the public next week's hearings on a former secret military intelligence unit called "Able Danger," two congressional sources have confirmed to FOX News.

Witnesses from the Pentagon are expected to testify at that hearing; that's why they want it classified. FOX News has learned that committee Chairman Arlen Specter's office is vigorously resisting the request.

If those hearings are kept from the public, anything else that would prove "inconvenient" for the Pentagon and the 9/11 Commission would never see the light of day. And that could be quite "discomfiting" indeed:

[Congressman Curt] Weldon said a former Army officer will testify next week that he was also ordered to destroy data that included reference to Atta.

"In the summer of 2000, he was ordered and, or, he would go to jail if he didn't comply," the Pennsylvania Republican said. "He was ordered to destroy 2.5 terabytes of data specific to Able Danger, the Brooklyn [terror] cell and Mohammad Atta. He will name the person who ordered him to destroy that material."

Other witnesses will include an FBI agent who will testify that she set up three meetings in 2000 between the FBI's Washington field office and the Able Danger, but each was cancelled at the last minute, Weldon said.

Now why was this former Army officer ordered to do such a thing? At the time even the USS Cole attack hadn't taken place yet. There wasn't yet anything to cover up - nothing with massive consequences, anyway. And that, of course, changed for good four years ago.

If I were to hazard a guess, I would suggest pre-emptive CYA. Whether it was at the direction of the Clinton White House or its DOJ or simply the military not wanting to be caught in the backdraft in the aftermath of a terrorist attack they knew had to be coming and weren't being allowed to do their utmost to try and prevent. Destroying Able Danger databases would reduce their exposure to the testimony of whatever AD personnel couldn't be intimidated into silence, who could then presumably be discredited at the bureaucracy's leisure.

Concealing that testimony from the public would accomplish something even better from the standpoint of the coverup - effectively muzzling Colonel Tony Shaffer, Captain Scott Phillpott, civilian contractor J. D. Smith and witnesses four through six, while leaving them open to public savaging for their courage in coming forward with the truth.

That is, it seems to me, clearly what the 9/11 "omissioners" are counting on, and why "Snarlin' Arlen" must keep these hearings open, so that a final accounting of blame for 9/11 can at last be properly administered.

Or, to put it "bluntly," "Eight years trumps eight months."