Louis Freeh on Able Danger: What is to be done?
By John Batchelor Posted in User Blogs — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Louis Freeh talks with me tonight re his declaration that the 9/11 Commission deserves an incomplete grade for its investigation of the mysterious Able Danger program at the DoD.
From the Freeh op-ed in the WSJ Thursday November 17: "The facts relating to Able Danger finally started to be reported in mid-August. U.S. Army Col. Anthony Shaffer, a veteran intelligence officer, publicly revealed that the Able Danger team had identified Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers by mid-2000 but were prevented by military lawyers from giving this information to the FBI. One week later, Navy Capt. Scott J. Phillpot, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who managed the program for the Pentagon's Special Operations Command, confirmed "Atta was identified by Able Danger by January-February of 2000."
Freeh is not an idle observer: he was FBI boss for all the timeline of Able Danger and up to the attack on 9/11; and that he has questions is a loud problem for everyone in the Clinton Administration, in the Bush Administration. Freeh lays out a chronology from the summer of 2003 to the summer of 2005 that supports his judgment. Several critical authorities - U.S. Army Col. Anthony Shaffer Schaeffer, Navy Capt. Scott J. Phillpot, representatives Curt Weldon and Dan Burton, Senator Arlen Specter - do not believe the 9/11 Commission has solved the missing Able Danger documents and the famous missing chart.
In sharp response, two 9/11 Commissioners in today's WSJ letters, Senator Slade Gorton and Timothy Roemer, dispute the Freeh opinion by listing what the 9/11 commissioners can document of their arguably swift examination of Able Danger material before the commission issued its report in the summer, 2004. None of the details laid out by messers Simpson and Roemer go to solving the puzzle of their missing documents; instead the commissioners concentrate on the paper trail of the commission's notes and assertions.
I will ask Louis Freeh what is to be done. How to solve the missing in action trove of Able Danger? Who can solve it? Who has the authority to bring in and question exhaustively the Able Danger team, the 9/11 commissioners and staff who are still responsible for the record, the lawmakers who are now driving the inquiry? Simply, who can tell the story correctly, convincingly, evidentially?
Ask yourself about Able Danger's lessons learned: if there is evidence today of the names of the men who plan to attack the United States with WMD, what confidence do we have that it will get to the teams that can stop them?
Regret nature of show business: he missed the appointment and his exec wrote later to resked
waiting on date/time
Able Danger remains choice topic: John Fund will join me to discuss with Mr. Freeh, who is now a vip at MBNA.
Just reading the unfolding story about "Able Danger" is a nauseating review of the whole lead-in to the 9/11 Disaster. As is said, "Hind sight should be 20/20"; it seems that every effort is being made to cloud the current revelations that U.S. Representative Weldon is presenting. Much like an onion, there are layers upon layers of deceit and misdirection being committed by many folks; most it seems are Liberal Democrats.
It is amazing that former FBI Director Louis Freeh has stated that he and the FBI knew absolutely nothing about an "Able Danger" operation. He further stated that if they had known anything about what is now being reported about Able Danger and the hijacker implications, they might have prevented the 9/11 Disaster.
Can you possibly now understand the extreme consternation by the Liberal Establishment?
I listened to the whole thing and Freeh was never on.