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Clinton Administration Ignored Warnings

ANAV

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I've been away for a little bit and it's been a while since I have posted. But I am amazed that there has not been a thread concerning "Able Danger." Military Intelligence approached the administration three times in September of 2000 with information on an terror cell in the United States. Atta, the ringleader of 9/11, was even identified by name. But because terrorism was not a high priority in the Clinton administration, they were turned away and forbid the information from being passed along to the FBI.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/8/12/111547.shtml

The then deputy Attorney General, Jamie Gorelick, is the one who erected the "wall" which prevented the military intelligence from being shared with the FBI. This is the same Gorelick who was a member of the 9/11 Commission. "Able Danger" was not mentioned in the commissions report. I smell a cover-up.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/8/12/94856.shtml

But what puzzles me is that it was both Democrats and Republicans on the commission. How much did each side know? And was the information in "Able Danger" past on to the Bush administration? Those are a couple of questions that need answered.
 
Not only that but Clinton was offered Bin Laden on a silver platter by the Sundanese government and he refused becasue he was to busy getting BJs from Monica in the oval office...........
 
Navy Pride said:
...Clinton was offered Bin Laden on a silver platter by the Sundanese government...
Bullshit once again. Double check this and you'll see that the story has grown in your telling.

Excerpts from a joint statement from Commission leaders Thomas H. Kean (R) and Lee H. Hamilton (D)

On October 21, 2003, Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, two senior Commission staff members, and a representative of the executive branch, met at Bagram Base, Afghanistan, with three individuals doing intelligence work for the Department of Defense. One of the men, in recounting information about al Qaeda’s activities in Afghanistan before 9/11, referred to a DOD program known as ABLE DANGER. He said this program was now closed, but urged Commission staff to get the files on this program and review them, as he thought the Commission would find information about al Qaeda and Bin Ladin that had been developed before the 9/11 attack. He also complained that Congress, particularly the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), had effectively ended a human intelligence network he considered valuable.
As with their other meetings, Commission staff promptly prepared a memorandum for the record. That memorandum, prepared at the time, does not record any mention of Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers, or any suggestion that their identities were known to anyone at DOD before 9/11. Nor do any of the three Commission staffers who participated in the interview, or the executive branch lawyer, recall hearing any such allegation.

While still in Afghanistan, Dr. Zelikow called back to the Commission headquarters in Washington and requested that staff immediately draft a document request seeking information from DOD on ABLE DANGER. The staff had also heard about ABLE DANGER in another context, related to broader military planning involving possible operations against al Qaeda before 9/11.
In November 2003, shortly after the staff delegation had returned to the United States, two document requests related to ABLE DANGER were finalized and sent to DOD. One, sent on November 6, asked, among other things, for any planning order or analogous documents about military operations related to al Qaeda and Afghanistan issued from the beginning of 1998 to September 20, 2001, and any reports, memoranda, or briefings by or for either the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the Commanding General of the U.S. Special Operations Command in connection with such planning, specifically including material related to ABLE DANGER. The other, sent on November 25, treated ABLE DANGER as a possible intelligence program and asked for all documents and files associated with “DIA’s program ‘ABLE DANGER’” from the beginning of 1998 through September 20, 2001.
In February 2004, DOD provided documents responding to these requests. Some were turned over to the Commission and remain in Commission files. Others were available for staff review in a DOD reading room. Commission staff reviewed the documents. Four former staff members have again, this week, reviewed those documents turned over to the Commission, which are held in the Commission’s archived files. Staff who reviewed the documents held in the DOD reading room made notes summarizing each of them. Those notes are also in the Commission archives and have also been reviewed this week.
The records discuss a set of plans, beginning in 1999, for ABLE DANGER, which involved expanding knowledge about the al Qaeda network. Some documents include diagrams of terrorist networks. None of the documents turned over to the Commission mention Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers. Nor do any of the staff notes on documents reviewed in the DOD reading room indicate that Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers were mentioned in any of those documents.
A senior staff member also made verbal inquiries to the HPSCI and CIA staff for any information regarding the ABLE DANGER operation. Neither organization produced any documents about the operation, or displayed any knowledge of it.
In 2004, Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) and his staff contacted the Commission to call the Commission’s attention to the Congressman’s critique of the U.S. intelligence community. No mention was made in these conversations of a claim that Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers had been identified by DOD employees before 9/11.

In early July 2004, the Commission’s point of contact at DOD called the Commission’s attention to the existence of a U.S. Navy officer employed at DOD who was seeking to be interviewed by Commission staff in connection with a data mining project on which he had worked. The DOD point of contact indicated that the prospective witness was claiming that the project had linked Atta to an al Qaeda cell located in New York in the 1999-2000 time frame. Shortly after receiving this information, the Commission staff’s front office assigned two staff members with knowledge of the 9/11 plot and the ABLE DANGER operation to interview the witness at one of the Commission’s Washington, D.C. offices.
On July 12, 2004, as the drafting and editing process for the Report was coming to an end (the Report was released on July 22, and editing continued to occur through July 17), a senior staff member, Dieter Snell, accompanied by another staff member, met with the officer at one of the Commission’s Washington, D.C. offices. A representative of the DOD also attended the interview.
According to the memorandum for the record on this meeting, prepared the next day by Mr. Snell, the officer said that ABLE DANGER included work on “link analysis,” mapping links among various people involved in terrorist networks. According to this record, the officer recalled seeing the name and photo of Mohamed Atta on an “analyst notebook chart” assembled by another officer (who he said had retired and was now working as a DOD contractor).
The officer being interviewed said he saw this material only briefly, that the relevant material dated from February through April 2000, and that it showed Mohamed Atta to be a member of an al Qaeda cell located in Brooklyn. The officer complained that this information and information about other alleged members of a Brooklyn cell had been soon afterward deleted from the document (“redacted”) because DOD lawyers were concerned about the propriety of DOD intelligence efforts that might be focused inside the United States. The officer referred to these as “posse comitatus” restrictions. Believing the law was being wrongly interpreted, he said he had complained about these restrictions up his chain of command in the U.S. Special Operations Command, to no avail.
The officer then described the remainder of his work on link analysis efforts, until he was eventually transferred to other work. The officer complained about how these methods were being used by the Defense Intelligence Agency, and mentioned other concerns about U.S. officials and foreign governments.
At the time of the officer’s interview, the Commission knew that, according to travel and immigration records, Atta first obtained a U.S. visa on May 18, 2000, and first arrived in the United States (at Newark) on June 3, 2000. Atta joined up with Marwan al-Shehhi. They spent little time in the New York area, traveling later in June to Oklahoma and then to Florida, where they were enrolled in flight school by early July.
The interviewee had no documentary evidence and said he had only seen the document briefly some years earlier. He could not describe what information had led to this supposed Atta identification. Nor could the interviewee recall, when questioned, any details about how he thought a link to Atta could have been made by this DOD program in 2000 or any time before 9/11. The Department of Defense documents had mentioned nothing about Atta, nor had anyone come forward between September 2001 and July 2004 with any similar information. Weighing this with the information about Atta’s actual activities, the negligible information available about Atta to other U.S. government agencies and the German government before 9/11, and the interviewer’s assessment of the interviewee’s knowledge and credibility, the Commission staff concluded that the officer’s account was not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the report or further investigation.
We have seen press accounts alleging that a DOD link analysis had tied Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi (who had arrived in the U.S. shortly before Atta on May 29) to two other future hijackers, Hazmi al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, in 1999-2000. No such claim was made to the Commission by any witness. Moreover, all evidence that was available to the Commission indicates that Hazmi and Mihdhar were never on the East coast until 2001 and that these two pairs of future hijackers had no direct contact with each other until June 2001.
 
Navy Pride said:
Not only that but Clinton was offered Bin Laden on a silver platter by the Sundanese government and he refused becasue he was to busy getting BJs from Monica in the oval office...........

I don't mind someone posting their opinions and debating, but outright lies have to be challenged.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
Bullshit once again. Double check this and you'll see that the story has grown in your telling.

Excerpts from a joint statement from Commission leaders Thomas H. Kean (R) and Lee H. Hamilton (D)

On October 21, 2003, Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, two senior Commission staff members, and a representative of the executive branch, met at Bagram Base, Afghanistan, with three individuals doing intelligence work for the Department of Defense. One of the men, in recounting information about al Qaeda’s activities in Afghanistan before 9/11, referred to a DOD program known as ABLE DANGER. He said this program was now closed, but urged Commission staff to get the files on this program and review them, as he thought the Commission would find information about al Qaeda and Bin Ladin that had been developed before the 9/11 attack. He also complained that Congress, particularly the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), had effectively ended a human intelligence network he considered valuable.
As with their other meetings, Commission staff promptly prepared a memorandum for the record. That memorandum, prepared at the time, does not record any mention of Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers, or any suggestion that their identities were known to anyone at DOD before 9/11. Nor do any of the three Commission staffers who participated in the interview, or the executive branch lawyer, recall hearing any such allegation.

While still in Afghanistan, Dr. Zelikow called back to the Commission headquarters in Washington and requested that staff immediately draft a document request seeking information from DOD on ABLE DANGER. The staff had also heard about ABLE DANGER in another context, related to broader military planning involving possible operations against al Qaeda before 9/11.
In November 2003, shortly after the staff delegation had returned to the United States, two document requests related to ABLE DANGER were finalized and sent to DOD. One, sent on November 6, asked, among other things, for any planning order or analogous documents about military operations related to al Qaeda and Afghanistan issued from the beginning of 1998 to September 20, 2001, and any reports, memoranda, or briefings by or for either the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the Commanding General of the U.S. Special Operations Command in connection with such planning, specifically including material related to ABLE DANGER. The other, sent on November 25, treated ABLE DANGER as a possible intelligence program and asked for all documents and files associated with “DIA’s program ‘ABLE DANGER’” from the beginning of 1998 through September 20, 2001.
In February 2004, DOD provided documents responding to these requests. Some were turned over to the Commission and remain in Commission files. Others were available for staff review in a DOD reading room. Commission staff reviewed the documents. Four former staff members have again, this week, reviewed those documents turned over to the Commission, which are held in the Commission’s archived files. Staff who reviewed the documents held in the DOD reading room made notes summarizing each of them. Those notes are also in the Commission archives and have also been reviewed this week.
The records discuss a set of plans, beginning in 1999, for ABLE DANGER, which involved expanding knowledge about the al Qaeda network. Some documents include diagrams of terrorist networks. None of the documents turned over to the Commission mention Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers. Nor do any of the staff notes on documents reviewed in the DOD reading room indicate that Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers were mentioned in any of those documents.
A senior staff member also made verbal inquiries to the HPSCI and CIA staff for any information regarding the ABLE DANGER operation. Neither organization produced any documents about the operation, or displayed any knowledge of it.
In 2004, Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) and his staff contacted the Commission to call the Commission’s attention to the Congressman’s critique of the U.S. intelligence community. No mention was made in these conversations of a claim that Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers had been identified by DOD employees before 9/11.

In early July 2004, the Commission’s point of contact at DOD called the Commission’s attention to the existence of a U.S. Navy officer employed at DOD who was seeking to be interviewed by Commission staff in connection with a data mining project on which he had worked. The DOD point of contact indicated that the prospective witness was claiming that the project had linked Atta to an al Qaeda cell located in New York in the 1999-2000 time frame. Shortly after receiving this information, the Commission staff’s front office assigned two staff members with knowledge of the 9/11 plot and the ABLE DANGER operation to interview the witness at one of the Commission’s Washington, D.C. offices.
On July 12, 2004, as the drafting and editing process for the Report was coming to an end (the Report was released on July 22, and editing continued to occur through July 17), a senior staff member, Dieter Snell, accompanied by another staff member, met with the officer at one of the Commission’s Washington, D.C. offices. A representative of the DOD also attended the interview.
According to the memorandum for the record on this meeting, prepared the next day by Mr. Snell, the officer said that ABLE DANGER included work on “link analysis,” mapping links among various people involved in terrorist networks. According to this record, the officer recalled seeing the name and photo of Mohamed Atta on an “analyst notebook chart” assembled by another officer (who he said had retired and was now working as a DOD contractor).
The officer being interviewed said he saw this material only briefly, that the relevant material dated from February through April 2000, and that it showed Mohamed Atta to be a member of an al Qaeda cell located in Brooklyn. The officer complained that this information and information about other alleged members of a Brooklyn cell had been soon afterward deleted from the document (“redacted”) because DOD lawyers were concerned about the propriety of DOD intelligence efforts that might be focused inside the United States. The officer referred to these as “posse comitatus” restrictions. Believing the law was being wrongly interpreted, he said he had complained about these restrictions up his chain of command in the U.S. Special Operations Command, to no avail.
The officer then described the remainder of his work on link analysis efforts, until he was eventually transferred to other work. The officer complained about how these methods were being used by the Defense Intelligence Agency, and mentioned other concerns about U.S. officials and foreign governments.
At the time of the officer’s interview, the Commission knew that, according to travel and immigration records, Atta first obtained a U.S. visa on May 18, 2000, and first arrived in the United States (at Newark) on June 3, 2000. Atta joined up with Marwan al-Shehhi. They spent little time in the New York area, traveling later in June to Oklahoma and then to Florida, where they were enrolled in flight school by early July.
The interviewee had no documentary evidence and said he had only seen the document briefly some years earlier. He could not describe what information had led to this supposed Atta identification. Nor could the interviewee recall, when questioned, any details about how he thought a link to Atta could have been made by this DOD program in 2000 or any time before 9/11. The Department of Defense documents had mentioned nothing about Atta, nor had anyone come forward between September 2001 and July 2004 with any similar information. Weighing this with the information about Atta’s actual activities, the negligible information available about Atta to other U.S. government agencies and the German government before 9/11, and the interviewer’s assessment of the interviewee’s knowledge and credibility, the Commission staff concluded that the officer’s account was not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the report or further investigation.
We have seen press accounts alleging that a DOD link analysis had tied Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi (who had arrived in the U.S. shortly before Atta on May 29) to two other future hijackers, Hazmi al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, in 1999-2000. No such claim was made to the Commission by any witness. Moreover, all evidence that was available to the Commission indicates that Hazmi and Mihdhar were never on the East coast until 2001 and that these two pairs of future hijackers had no direct contact with each other until June 2001.

What did Clinton do after the first bombing of the World Trade Center? After 2 of our embassies were destroyed in Africa? After the attack on the USS Cole?
NOTHING.
 
Originally posted by Navy Pride:
Not only that but Clinton was offered Bin Laden on a silver platter by the Sundanese government and he refused becasue he was to busy getting BJs from Monica in the oval office...........

Maybe we should have a Congressional Hearing on Clinton's role
in Bush's war. And have everyone involved give there testimony.

gorrell8dv.png
 
MiamiFlorida said:
What did Clinton do after the first bombing of the World Trade Center? After 2 of our embassies were destroyed in Africa? After the attack on the USS Cole?
NOTHING.
Is this supposed to be related to something I was talking about?
 
From the 9-11 Commission Report
7. The CIA official who held one-on-one discussions with Erwa said that Erwa never offered to expel Bin Ladin to the United States or render him to another country. Mark interview (May 12, 2004). For Carney's instructions and the lack of a U.S. indictment, see Timothy Carney interview (Dec. 4, 2003). On the indictment issue and the supposed Sudanese offer to give up Bin Ladin, see Samuel Berger interview (Jan. 14, 2004).
In early May 1996, the CIA received intelligence that Bin Ladin might be leaving Sudan.Though this reporting was described as "very spotty," it would have been passed along to the DCI's office because of high concern about Bin Ladin at the time. But it did not lead to plans for a U.S. operation to snatch Bin Ladin, because there was no indictment against him. Ron interview (Mar. 18, 2004); Frank interview (Mar. 18, 2004). It appears, however, that if another country had been willing to imprison Bin Ladin, the CIA might have tried to work out a scenario for apprehending him. CIA cable, May 8, 1996.The Sudanese government did not notify the United States that Bin Ladin had left the country until about two days after his departure. DOS cable, Nairobi 07020, "Sudan: Foreign Minister on Developments," May 21, 1996.
President Clinton, in a February 2002 speech to the Long Island Association, said that the United States did not accept a Sudanese offer and take Bin Ladin because there was no indictment. President Clinton speech to the Long Island Association, Feb. 15, 2002 (videotape of speech). But the President told us that he had "misspoken" and was, wrongly, recounting a number of press stories he had read. After reviewing this matter in preparation for his Commission meeting, President Clinton told us that Sudan never offered to turn Bin Ladin over to the United States. President Clinton meeting (Apr. 8, 2004). Berger told us that he saw no chance that Sudan would have handed Bin Ladin over and also noted that in 1996, the U.S. government still did not know of any al Qaeda attacks on U.S. citizens. Samuel Berger interview (Jan. 14, 2004).
Alleged Sudanese offers to cooperate on counterterrorism have been the subject of much recent controversy. After repeatedly demanding that Sudan stop supporting terrorist groups, in 1993 the U.S. government designated the country a state sponsor of terrorism. Diplomatic discussions continued but had little impact on Sudanese support for terrorism or on other issues, such as human rights. In the fall of 1995, the United States conducted a Sudan policy review and, supported by a vocal segment of Congress, the White House sought to pressure and isolate the Sudanese. Susan Rice interview (Jan. 9, 2004).
After Bin Ladin left Sudan in May 1996, some State Department officials, including Ambassador Carney, criticized the NSC's hard-line policy, which he felt provided no "carrots" for Sudanese moderates to cooperate on counterterrorism. He also faulted the NSC for not reopening the U.S. embassy in Khartoum (closed in early 1996) when security concerns there were reevaluated. State's Sudan desk officer agreed, noting that the embassy was an excellent vehicle for gathering information on terrorists.According to one State official, NSC policymakers' views were too firmly set to engage and test the Sudanese on counterterrorism.Timothy Carney interview (Dec. 4, 2003); David Shinn interview (Aug. 29, 2003); Stephen Schwartz interview (Dec. 30, 2003).
But supporters of the tough line, such as the NSC's Susan Rice, argued that any conciliatory statements from Khartoum belied its unhelpful actions. For example, she noted, though Sudan did eventually expel Bin Ladin, his al Qaeda network retained a presence in the country. Susan Rice interview (Jan. 9, 2004). In addition, the CIA's Africa Division, whose operatives had engaged the Sudanese on counterterrorism in early 1996, would conclude that "there is no indication that Sudanese involvement with terrorism has decreased in the past year."They saw the Sudanese gestures toward cooperating as "tactical retreats" aimed at deceiving Washington in hopes of having sanctions removed. CIA memo,Walter to Acting DCI, "Africa Division's Recommendations Regarding Sudan," Dec. 17, 1996.The CIA official who ran the Sudanese portfolio and met with the Sudanese on numerous occasions told us the Sudanese were not going to deliver, and the perceived moderates "were just flat-out lying." Mark interview (May 12, 2004).
In February 1997, the Sudanese sent letters to President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright, extending an invitation for a U.S. counterterrorism inspection mission to visit Sudan.The Sudanese also used private U.S. citizens to pass along offers to cooperate. Mansoor Ijaz interview (May 7, 2004); Janet McElligot interview (Oct. 20, 2003). But these offers were dismissed because the NSC viewed Sudan as all talk and little action. U.S. officials also feared that the Sudanese would exploit any positive American responses, including trips to the region by U.S. officials, for their own political purposes. See Joint Inquiry interview of David Williams, June 26, 2002.Today, Sudan is still listed as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Everyone will have to decide for themselves who they think has more credibility. We have the word of a government sponsor of international terrorism who harbored UbL and aQ vs the word of an American CIA agent.
If you're willing to trust Saddam Hussein why not go ahead and trust Erwa?

Then in the second instance, it is a private US citizen NOT the Sudanese govt.

So to repeat the canard that the Sudanese govt offered up UbL is to say that you think a govt who harbored UbL and aQ is more trustworthy than an American CIA agent.
 
MiamiFlorida said:
What did Clinton do after the first bombing of the World Trade Center? After 2 of our embassies were destroyed in Africa? After the attack on the USS Cole?
NOTHING.

Were those somehow related to the "ignored" warnings?
 
Clinton did lament not taking out bin Laden when he had the chance.

He outlines his role in the handling of bin Laden in an April 2004 transcript.

He "said that his admission to a Long Island business group two years ago that he turned down Sudan's offer to arrest Osama bin Laden was "inappropriate,"

Transcript

Snipped for Copyright purposes...

"So we tried to be quite aggressive with them. We got - uh - well, Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, then he went to Sudan.

And we'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with them again.

They released him. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America.

So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan."


Actually in August of 1996 bin Laden delivered this declaration of war against the 'Infidels' (America) to all of his Muslim brethren.... So he pleads with someone else to take him.

Declaration

It's quite lengthy.

This is another posting of the transcript, complete with the audio of Bills statement, after which, who I believe is Hilary, explains their actions.

Link With Audio
 
rotten.com/library/bio/crime/terrorists/osama-bin-laden said:
Mar 1996 The Government of Sudan offers Osama bin Laden to U.S. custody. The United States refuses.
Aug 1996 Declares war against the United States. CIA fact sheet.


I believe Clinton did nothing wrong, it was 6 months AFTER the releasing of Bin Laden that he declared war against the United States.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
Bullshit once again. Double check this and you'll see that the story has grown in your telling.

Excerpts from a joint statement from Commission leaders Thomas H. Kean (R) and Lee H. Hamilton (D)

On October 21, 2003, Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, two senior Commission staff members, and a representative of the executive branch, met at Bagram Base, Afghanistan, with three individuals doing intelligence work for the Department of Defense. One of the men, in recounting information about al Qaeda’s activities in Afghanistan before 9/11, referred to a DOD program known as ABLE DANGER. He said this program was now closed, but urged Commission staff to get the files on this program and review them, as he thought the Commission would find information about al Qaeda and Bin Ladin that had been developed before the 9/11 attack. He also complained that Congress, particularly the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), had effectively ended a human intelligence network he considered valuable.
As with their other meetings, Commission staff promptly prepared a memorandum for the record. That memorandum, prepared at the time, does not record any mention of Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers, or any suggestion that their identities were known to anyone at DOD before 9/11. Nor do any of the three Commission staffers who participated in the interview, or the executive branch lawyer, recall hearing any such allegation.

While still in Afghanistan, Dr. Zelikow called back to the Commission headquarters in Washington and requested that staff immediately draft a document request seeking information from DOD on ABLE DANGER. The staff had also heard about ABLE DANGER in another context, related to broader military planning involving possible operations against al Qaeda before 9/11.
In November 2003, shortly after the staff delegation had returned to the United States, two document requests related to ABLE DANGER were finalized and sent to DOD. One, sent on November 6, asked, among other things, for any planning order or analogous documents about military operations related to al Qaeda and Afghanistan issued from the beginning of 1998 to September 20, 2001, and any reports, memoranda, or briefings by or for either the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the Commanding General of the U.S. Special Operations Command in connection with such planning, specifically including material related to ABLE DANGER. The other, sent on November 25, treated ABLE DANGER as a possible intelligence program and asked for all documents and files associated with “DIA’s program ‘ABLE DANGER’” from the beginning of 1998 through September 20, 2001.
In February 2004, DOD provided documents responding to these requests. Some were turned over to the Commission and remain in Commission files. Others were available for staff review in a DOD reading room. Commission staff reviewed the documents. Four former staff members have again, this week, reviewed those documents turned over to the Commission, which are held in the Commission’s archived files. Staff who reviewed the documents held in the DOD reading room made notes summarizing each of them. Those notes are also in the Commission archives and have also been reviewed this week.
The records discuss a set of plans, beginning in 1999, for ABLE DANGER, which involved expanding knowledge about the al Qaeda network. Some documents include diagrams of terrorist networks. None of the documents turned over to the Commission mention Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers. Nor do any of the staff notes on documents reviewed in the DOD reading room indicate that Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers were mentioned in any of those documents.
A senior staff member also made verbal inquiries to the HPSCI and CIA staff for any information regarding the ABLE DANGER operation. Neither organization produced any documents about the operation, or displayed any knowledge of it.
In 2004, Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) and his staff contacted the Commission to call the Commission’s attention to the Congressman’s critique of the U.S. intelligence community. No mention was made in these conversations of a claim that Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers had been identified by DOD employees before 9/11.

In early July 2004, the Commission’s point of contact at DOD called the Commission’s attention to the existence of a U.S. Navy officer employed at DOD who was seeking to be interviewed by Commission staff in connection with a data mining project on which he had worked. The DOD point of contact indicated that the prospective witness was claiming that the project had linked Atta to an al Qaeda cell located in New York in the 1999-2000 time frame. Shortly after receiving this information, the Commission staff’s front office assigned two staff members with knowledge of the 9/11 plot and the ABLE DANGER operation to interview the witness at one of the Commission’s Washington, D.C. offices.
On July 12, 2004, as the drafting and editing process for the Report was coming to an end (the Report was released on July 22, and editing continued to occur through July 17), a senior staff member, Dieter Snell, accompanied by another staff member, met with the officer at one of the Commission’s Washington, D.C. offices. A representative of the DOD also attended the interview.
According to the memorandum for the record on this meeting, prepared the next day by Mr. Snell, the officer said that ABLE DANGER included work on “link analysis,” mapping links among various people involved in terrorist networks. According to this record, the officer recalled seeing the name and photo of Mohamed Atta on an “analyst notebook chart” assembled by another officer (who he said had retired and was now working as a DOD contractor).
The officer being interviewed said he saw this material only briefly, that the relevant material dated from February through April 2000, and that it showed Mohamed Atta to be a member of an al Qaeda cell located in Brooklyn. The officer complained that this information and information about other alleged members of a Brooklyn cell had been soon afterward deleted from the document (“redacted”) because DOD lawyers were concerned about the propriety of DOD intelligence efforts that might be focused inside the United States. The officer referred to these as “posse comitatus” restrictions. Believing the law was being wrongly interpreted, he said he had complained about these restrictions up his chain of command in the U.S. Special Operations Command, to no avail.
The officer then described the remainder of his work on link analysis efforts, until he was eventually transferred to other work. The officer complained about how these methods were being used by the Defense Intelligence Agency, and mentioned other concerns about U.S. officials and foreign governments.
At the time of the officer’s interview, the Commission knew that, according to travel and immigration records, Atta first obtained a U.S. visa on May 18, 2000, and first arrived in the United States (at Newark) on June 3, 2000. Atta joined up with Marwan al-Shehhi. They spent little time in the New York area, traveling later in June to Oklahoma and then to Florida, where they were enrolled in flight school by early July.
The interviewee had no documentary evidence and said he had only seen the document briefly some years earlier. He could not describe what information had led to this supposed Atta identification. Nor could the interviewee recall, when questioned, any details about how he thought a link to Atta could have been made by this DOD program in 2000 or any time before 9/11. The Department of Defense documents had mentioned nothing about Atta, nor had anyone come forward between September 2001 and July 2004 with any similar information. Weighing this with the information about Atta’s actual activities, the negligible information available about Atta to other U.S. government agencies and the German government before 9/11, and the interviewer’s assessment of the interviewee’s knowledge and credibility, the Commission staff concluded that the officer’s account was not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the report or further investigation.
We have seen press accounts alleging that a DOD link analysis had tied Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi (who had arrived in the U.S. shortly before Atta on May 29) to two other future hijackers, Hazmi al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, in 1999-2000. No such claim was made to the Commission by any witness. Moreover, all evidence that was available to the Commission indicates that Hazmi and Mihdhar were never on the East coast until 2001 and that these two pairs of future hijackers had no direct contact with each other until June 2001.

This has nothing to do with what I was talking about..........Clinton was offered Bin Laden in 1996.

http://www.infowars.com/saved pages/Prior_Knowledge/Clinton_let_bin_laden.htm


Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize
Sudan offered up the terrorist and data on his network. The then-president and his advisors didn't respond.


By MANSOOR IJAZ
President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates, including one as late as last year.
 
I suppose the bombing of the Trade Center and USS Cole wasn't enough "acctionable intelligence" to go to war or perhaps he was too busy bonking an intern in the oval office to care.
 
Napoleon's Nightingale said:
I suppose the bombing of the Trade Center and USS Cole wasn't enough "acctionable intelligence" to go to war or perhaps he was too busy bonking an intern in the oval office to care.

Seems like a good time to put this up again...from an earlier post of mine...

I think Clinton was wrong for not doing enough to fight terrorism....
He let small acts of terrorism go by, which led the terrorists to
get bigger nads and go further, Clinton still did nothing, the
terrorist acts got larger, still nothing...

In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed...the intention was
not to kill 6 people...it was to take down the whole damn thing!...
Problem was, it was poorly scripted by the terrorists and its
objective wasn't acheived. If it did, there would have been NO
extra hour for the building collapse; it would have been immediate
(seeing how it would've taken out the foundation).There would
have been hardly any time to evacuate, and the death toll would
have EASILY reached tens of thousands...thousands MORE if the
tower fell in a certain direction.

So the "during his watch" is inadequate...Clinton doesn't get
hammered by most on the left SIMPLY because the PLAN DIDN'T WORK RIGHT.

Agreed?
 
Don't get me wrong, I believe when it comes to terrorists we've got to let the Right deal with them. They're the only ones harsh enough to deal with such threats, but as far as domestic issues, I'd go with a Democratic President.

This is the link of events: Republicans mess something up, Democrats yell at the Republicans instead of offering a solution to the problem. The problem gets worse, the Republicans are blammed, the Democrats bath in their glorious achievement til their foundation is pulled away by the Republicans who have evidence of the Democrats doing absoluetly nothing.

------Rinse and Repeat----
That's why I'm Anti-Partisan ^_^
 
Navy Pride said:
This has nothing to do with what I was talking about.
No, it doesn't. I should have made that more clear, perhaps by putting the two items in separate posts. It refers to the subject of the thread.

Navy Pride said:
.........Clinton was offered Bin Laden in 1996.

http://www.infowars.com/saved%20pages/Prior_Knowledge/Clinton_let_bin_laden.htm


Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize
Sudan offered up the terrorist and data on his network. The then-president and his advisors didn't respond.


By MANSOOR IJAZ
President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates, including one as late as last year.
This is addressed by the 9-11 commission's report that I already quoted:

The CIA official who ran the Sudanese portfolio and met with the Sudanese on numerous occasions told us the Sudanese were not going to deliver, and the perceived moderates "were just flat-out lying." Mark interview (May 12, 2004).
In February 1997, the Sudanese sent letters to President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright, extending an invitation for a U.S. counterterrorism inspection mission to visit Sudan. The Sudanese also used private U.S. citizens to pass along offers to cooperate. Mansoor Ijaz interview (May 7, 2004); Janet McElligot interview (Oct. 20, 2003). But these offers were dismissed because the NSC viewed Sudan as all talk and little action. U.S. officials also feared that the Sudanese would exploit any positive American responses, including trips to the region by U.S. officials, for their own political purposes. See Joint Inquiry interview of David Williams, June 26, 2002.Today, Sudan is still listed as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Basically, it was a bullshit offer from known liars trying to wheedle concession out of the US.
 
VTA said:
Clinton did lament not taking out bin Laden when he had the chance.

He outlines his role in the handling of bin Laden in an April 2004 transcript.
This is addressed by the 9-11 commission's report:

President Clinton, in a February 2002 speech to the Long Island Association, said that the United States did not accept a Sudanese offer and take Bin Ladin because there was no indictment. President Clinton speech to the Long Island Association, Feb. 15, 2002 (videotape of speech). But the President told us that he had "misspoken" and was, wrongly, recounting a number of press stories he had read. After reviewing this matter in preparation for his Commission meeting, President Clinton told us that Sudan never offered to turn Bin Ladin over to the United States. President Clinton meeting (Apr. 8, 2004). Berger told us that he saw no chance that Sudan would have handed Bin Ladin over and also noted that in 1996, the U.S. government still did not know of any al Qaeda attacks on U.S. citizens. Samuel Berger interview (Jan. 14, 2004).

 
Simon W. Moon said:
This is addressed by the 9-11 commission's report:

President Clinton, in a February 2002 speech to the Long Island Association, said that the United States did not accept a Sudanese offer and take Bin Ladin because there was no indictment. President Clinton speech to the Long Island Association, Feb. 15, 2002 (videotape of speech). But the President told us that he had "misspoken" and was, wrongly, recounting a number of press stories he had read. After reviewing this matter in preparation for his Commission meeting, President Clinton told us that Sudan never offered to turn Bin Ladin over to the United States. President Clinton meeting (Apr. 8, 2004). Berger told us that he saw no chance that Sudan would have handed Bin Ladin over and also noted that in 1996, the U.S. government still did not know of any al Qaeda attacks on U.S. citizens. Samuel Berger interview (Jan. 14, 2004).


It's been my understanding from what I've read that Berger was something of an obstacle when it came to getting bin Laden.
 
cnredd said:
Seems like a good time to put this up again...from an earlier post of mine...

I think Clinton was wrong for not doing enough to fight terrorism....
He let small acts of terrorism go by, which led the terrorists to
get bigger nads and go further, Clinton still did nothing, the
terrorist acts got larger, still nothing...

In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed...the intention was
not to kill 6 people...it was to take down the whole damn thing!...
Problem was, it was poorly scripted by the terrorists and its
objective wasn't acheived. If it did, there would have been NO
extra hour for the building collapse; it would have been immediate
(seeing how it would've taken out the foundation).There would
have been hardly any time to evacuate, and the death toll would
have EASILY reached tens of thousands...thousands MORE if the
tower fell in a certain direction.

So the "during his watch" is inadequate...Clinton doesn't get
hammered by most on the left SIMPLY because the PLAN DIDN'T WORK RIGHT.

Agreed?

Not agreed. It was an act of terrorism amoung a long line which Clinton NEVER responded to. All of this happened before Bush's presidency and what did he do? NOTHING. 3000 people had to die on american soil because they're too busy playing politics and taking month long vacations to care. I don't penalyze them because "the PLAN DIDNT WORK" I do it because they made no response to an act of war and because it wasn't prevented.
 
Napoleon's Nightingale said:
Not agreed. It was an act of terrorism amoung a long line which Clinton NEVER responded to. All of this happened before Bush's presidency and what did he do? NOTHING. 3000 people had to die on american soil because they're too busy playing politics and taking month long vacations to care. I don't penalyze them because "the PLAN DIDNT WORK" I do it because they made no response to an act of war and because it wasn't prevented.

http://www.infowars.com/saved page..._bin_laden.htm


Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize
Sudan offered up the terrorist and data on his network. The then-president and his advisors didn't respond.


By MANSOOR IJAZ
President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates, including one as late as last year.
Navy Pride is online now Reply With Quote

Come on. quit spinning address this
 
Navy Pride said:
Come on. quit spinning address this

Why would Clinton just let a known terrorist just take a walk? That doesn't make any sense. The only answer I've seen is that he was too busy getting a BJ, but c'mon, a BJ only takes 10 mins (maybe 20 for a good one) so that can't be the explanation.
 
Navy Pride said:
Come on. quit spinning address this

I penalyze Clinton for doing nothing after it happened and I penalyze Bush for doing nothing after taking office. It took the deaths of 3000 americans on american soil for any president to act. I criticize Bush because this attack could have been prevented by invading Afghanistan before this happened on the basis that they attacked 2 American embassies, the USS Cole, and the World Trade centers in 98 and because they knew about Mohammad Atta and did nothing. Why did it take such large scale death and destructiong for Bush to act especially considering the attacks which occured in the Clinton presidency???
 
Napoleon's Nightingale said:
I penalyze Clinton for doing nothing after it happened and I penalyze Bush for doing nothing after taking office. It took the deaths of 3000 americans on american soil for any president to act. I criticize Bush because this attack could have been prevented by invading Afghanistan before this happened on the basis that they attacked 2 American embassies, the USS Cole, and the World Trade centers in 98 and because they knew about Mohammad Atta and did nothing. Why did it take such large scale death and destructiong for Bush to act especially considering the attacks which occured in the Clinton presidency???
I really dont blame either president. The US government had been complacent for a good long time in it's approach to terrorism. The American people were quite comfortable with this approach as long as it was not in their (our) backyard. Now that it has been in our "backyard" our approach is more aggressive.......as it should have been years ago but we just didn't want to deal with it.

The only issue I have is with the 911 commission report. I see it as purposefully incomplete and splits hairs with words to maintain a sense of ill-advised neutrality. Of course extreme leftists don't see it that way as they attempt to spin everything in the report with a "all Bush's fault theme - but thats for another thread.

an example is:
From page 110 9/11 report:
Sudan's minister of defense, Faith Erwa, has claimed that Sudan had offered to hand over Bin Laden to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. U.S. Ambassador Timothy Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Ladin. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding.

If there was no legal basis for indictment (BS IMO) - then why go to the trouble to request expulsion?
Translation: We know he's a real dangerous bad guy but we don't want to deal with the legal crap so let someone else handle it
 
wrath said:
I really dont blame either president. The US government had been complacent for a good long time in it's approach to terrorism. The American people were quite comfortable with this approach as long as it was not in their (our) backyard. Now that it has been in our "backyard" our approach is more aggressive.......as it should have been years ago but we just didn't want to deal with it.

The only issue I have is with the 911 commission report. I see it as purposefully incomplete and splits hairs with words to maintain a sense of ill-advised neutrality. Of course extreme leftists don't see it that way as they attempt to spin everything in the report with a "all Bush's fault theme - but thats for another thread.

an example is:
From page 110 9/11 report:
Sudan's minister of defense, Faith Erwa, has claimed that Sudan had offered to hand over Bin Laden to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. U.S. Ambassador Timothy Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Ladin. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding.

If there was no legal basis for indictment (BS IMO) - then why go to the trouble to request expulsion?
Translation: We know he's a real dangerous bad guy but we don't want to deal with the legal crap so let someone else handle it

Not in our backyard??? The World Trade Centers were bombed in 98 and the government knew who was responsible. I criticize that complacency!!! It's ridiculous..when people are bombing your builings, ships, and embassies it's ridiculous, irresponsible, and inexcusible to just ignore them. If it was China commiting those actions our government certainly wouldn't have ignored it. Why go to the trouble to request expulsion??? Because the government knew he was part of the very group which blew up our embassies, set a bomb off at the WTC, and blew up our embassies.
 
Last edited:
Napoleon's Nightingale said:
Not in our backyard??? The World Trade Centers were bombed in 98 and the government knew who was responsible. I criticize that complacency!!! It's ridiculous..when people are bombing your builings, ships, and embassies it's ridiculous, irresponsible, and inexcusible to just ignore them. If it was China commiting those actions our government certainly wouldn't have ignored it.
I agree that it was/is ridiculous. My point is Clinton did not want to risk political suicide by actively hunting down terrorists that have no government/country attached to them. It took the WTC and pentagon attacks to make Americans realize that turning a blind eye just wasn't going to cut it anymore. Look at the **** storm Bush is dealing with now. Clinton certainly did not have the balls for this and at that time neither did most of us.

Of course, China would have been different. China cannot melt back into the shadow of another country after carrying out an attack. They would have no choice but to answer for their actions. Terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda dont have to do this. Rats and roaches prefer it dark for a good reason.
 
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