Well, I told you that!
Read this post again.
I feel like a voice in the wilderness on this one. I've been harping about this speech Weldon gave on the House Floor, June 27th, 2005, and how he sounded like some "mad genius" when he described how he came to know (or pre-know), the process that would become NOAH.
Now Time Magazine brings this senerio:
"In a particularly dramatic scene in Weldon’s book, Countdown to Terror, the Pennsylvania Republican described personally handing to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Steve Hadley, just after Sept. 11, an Able Danger chart produced in 1999 identifying Atta. But Weldon told TIME he’s no longer certain Atta’s name was on that original document. The congressman says he handed Hadley his only copy. Still, last week he referred reporters to a recently reconstructed version of the chart in his office where, among dozens of names and photos of terrorists from around the world, there was a color mug shot of Mohammad Atta, circled in black marker."
Yes, this "meeting" Weldon had with Hadley, occured right after some folks from the AIDC "just happen" to bring him a chart. Again, his words:
"Mr. Speaker, September 11 touched all of us; 3,700 of us were wiped
out. Two weeks after 9/11, my friends from the Army's Information
Dominance Center in cooperation with special ops brought me a chart.
This chart, Mr. Speaker, this chart. Two weeks after
9/11, I took the basic information in this chart down to the White
House. I had asked for a meeting with Steve Hadley, who at that time
was Deputy National Security Advisor. The chart was smaller. It was 2
feet by 3 feet, but the same information was in the center.
Steve Hadley looked at the chart and said, Congressman, where did you
get that chart from? I said, I got it from the military. I said, This
is the process; this is the result of the process that I was pitching
since 1999 to our government to implement, but the CIA kept saying we
do not need it.
Steve Hadley said, Congressman, I am going to take this chart, and I
am going to show it to the man. The man that he meant, Mr. Speaker, was
the President of the United States. I said, Mr. Hadley, you mean you
have not seen something like this before from the CIA, this chart of al
Qaeda worldwide and in the U.S.? And he said, No, Congressman. So I
gave him the chart.
Now, Mr. Speaker, what is interesting in this chart of al Qaeda, and
you cannot see this from a distance, but right here in the center is
the name of the leader of the New York cell. And that name is very
familiar to the people of America. That name is Mohammed Atta, the
leader of the 9/11 attack against us. So prior to 9/11, this military
system that the CIA said we did not need and could not do actually gave
us the information that identified Mohammed Atta's cell in New York.
And with Mohammed Atta they identified two of the other terrorists with
them."
Now according to Time, he isn't sure Atta was on the chart, and the chart he was holding up was in fact a "copy" of the chart that nobody else had seen...
........Really....
Mr. Weldon... let me ask you.....was there ever a chart to start with?
Or was this whole deal just a elaborate scheme to make "your" pet program LOOK like the end all to intelligence gathering? Is that what this week has been about?
...Mr. Weldon?
You have some 'splaning to do.
I don't know what people expected. From the get-go there was no proof of Weldon's Wanderings, yet everyone except for yours truly and a few others, didn't leap.
I know that what caused the majority of the conservative blogsphere to leap was a repressed anger over the 911 Commission,
"Those dirty rats!".....
It's not that people weren't warned, they were...- "Curt's got a book coming out....he's been down this road before......"
My email box overflowed this week....."Come on Mac, This is a fact.....Atta was on the Chart! Best of all it happened during Billy's watch!"...
However, the truth is, now "buck up"
.... Rep. Weldon took you for a ride.
At least John Podhoretz at the Corner recognizes it:
"A day or two ago, I posted a note of caution about the Able Danger scandal, and that note of caution has now turned into a full-fledged symphony -- and some of us on the Right who have been making a big stink about this may have been had."
Yeah, that's an understatement.
Sure, you can yell and scream about the Comission all you want, conflicts of interest and "Sandy Pants", but the fact remains there wasn't any indication that the 9/11 hijackers were known before 9/11. That's what the story was about this past week and that's what goes by the wayside now.
Mr. Weldon has done a great harm and should be called to account. I take his ride very personally.
The good folks in intelligence can be faulted for a lot. There were a lot of goofs, and blame to go around, but come on folks, let's be a little more "careful" next time. Don't let the passion over one thing cloud you're judgement over other things...
Also...
Intel 101: Lesson 2:
If it looks like a bat, flies like a bat, and especially if it flies during a August Moon -
it's most likely a moonbat.
Party affiliation notwithstanding.
I'm moving on.....
Anyone seen Mr. Wilson lately?
UPDATE: Just got a email page from a bud.
Jim Geraghty over at NRO is reporting that apparently there is a Mike Kelly who interviewed a member of the fabled (I use the term loosely) Able Danger Team.
(sigh...)
Let's see....
"For a year before the 9/11 attacks, the Wayne Inn was home to Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaida mastermind behind the hijacking plot that killed almost 3,000 people...
A former member of the military intelligence team told me in an interview that it had enough data to raise suspicions. "But we were blocked from passing it to the FBI."
The connect-the-dots tracking by the team was so good that it even knew Atta conducted meetings with the three future hijackers. One of those meetings took place at the Wayne Inn. That's how close all this was - to us and to being solved, if only the information had been passed up the line to FBI agents or even to local cops.
The story begins a year before the attacks. A top-secret team of Pentagon military counter-terror computer sleuths, who worked for a special operations commando group, was well into a project to monitor al-Qaida operations.
The 11-person group called itself "Project Able Danger." Think of them as a super-secret Delta Force or SEAL team. But instead of guns, they relied on advanced math training as their key weapons. And instead of traditional spying methods or bust-down-the-door commando tactics, the Able Danger group booted up a set of high-speed, super-computers and collected vast amounts of data."
...The connect-the-dots tracking by the team was so good that it even knew Atta conducted meetings with the three future hijackers. One of those meetings took place at the Wayne Inn. That's how close all this was - to us and to being solved, if only the information had been passed up the line to FBI agents or even to local cops."
Oh, For crying out loud!!
I already explained that there wasn't no special prohibition in this or any other case. When Army Intelligence is conducting a "Police Intelligence Investigations" or PIO, the rules are already written (Army Intelligence Field Manual -2) for desminination of intel on civilians.
Sheesh!
Will someone do me a favor and round up these "super-secret" ex-team members? I would love to hear these guys/gals for myself.
"Super Secret......my a**!
Cripes!
This sounds like a dime-store novel, with a nickle script.
"Like a Super-secret Delta Force"
.........yeah, and who was in charge? Chuck Norris?
The next thing you know someone is going to put Atta at Graceland jamming with Elvis and Betty Boop!
Ready for more? Here's the "cliff hanger":
"Perhaps just as alarming, even the Able Danger team understood its limits. When lawyers blocked Able Danger's request to approach the FBI, the team simply went back to its work and kept quiet - even after the 9/11 attacks occurred.
Why? If the Able Danger team was so concerned about U.S. security, why didn't it approach Congress or even the press to sound an alarm?
When I posed that question in my interview with the Able Danger team member, he fell silent. Listening on a speaker phone, a congressional staffer interrupted: "Have you ever seen what happens to whistleblowers?"
Again, the Able Danger member had no answer."
Geraghty, says this guy, Mike Kelly is a long time journalist and sounds credible....
Ok, prove it!!
Produce the "super agents", phone records, sign in sheet at the "Waynn Inn", or something, anything
All this stuff is fine sounding, but without "PROOF" it's worthless.
Alas, the longer this farse of Weldon's is allowed to go unchallenged, I'm afraid the worse this is going to get.
Either Weldon or somebody produces these "super-secret" agents to talk for themselves, or everbody just shuts the hell up.
Somebody-get-me-a-TALL-glass-of-Kool-Aid
Quick!
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