Civilian Control

23 September 2005



Pentagon Prevents 9/11 Testimony before Senate Judiciary Committee

The Senate Judiciary Committee is investigating an arcane Al Qaeda-related intelligence operation run by a military group named “Able Danger.” According to some involved, Able Danger identified Mohammed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers as members of Al Qaeda in early 2000 (other say in 1999). The Defense Department has ordered some witnesses not to appear before the committee for “security” reasons. There is no greater threat to American security that the military rejecting civilian control -- not a pair of hurricanes, not four plane loads of terrorists.

“That looks to me like it may be obstruction of the committee's activities, something we will have to determine,” according to Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) chairman of the committee. “The American people are entitled to some answers. It is not a matter of attaching blame. It is a matter of correcting errors so that we don't have a repetition of 9/11.” If an intelligence team did uncover this information, it still may not have stopped the murders. But as the chairman said, “Had that information been shared with the FBI, which was trying to get it, 9/11 might have been prevented.” One should point out the Judiciary Committee does not have supervisory jurisdiction over the Department of Defense.

Over at the Pentagon, a building which was actually hit by one of the hijacked planes, the tone is different. Defense Secretary Fieldmarshal Donald von Rumsfeld told the press that he considered Able Danger to be classified and that he wouldn’t let his people testify in an open hearing. “We have to obey the laws with respect to security classifications,” he said. And that’s plausible. Except he then sent acting assistant to the secretary for intelligence oversight, William Dugan (everyone has “acting” in his title these days – Senate confirmation as per the constitution is really just too much work), to say nothing at length to the committee. Either something can be talked about in the open or it can’t.

The issue gets a bit dicier for the Clinton (not Bush) White House when one takes into consideration the testimony on Wednesday of Erik Kleinsmith, formerly a defense intelligence analyst. He worked with Able Danger in 1999 and 2000 and testified that in April of 2000, his work was “severely restricted and ultimately shut down due to intelligence oversight concerns.” As part of that shutdown, Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) contends that hundreds of documents were destroyed – according to him, “2.5 terabytes” got shredded or deleted. Estimates are that the Library of Congress’ printed section holds 20 terabytes (a terabyte is 1 trillion bytes of information, or 1,000 gigabytes).

What was shredded and why? Was 9/11 Commissioner and ex-Senator Slade Gorton (R-WA) telling the truth when he said, Able Danger “just didn’t happen and that’s the conclusion of all 10 of us.”? Or was Congressman Weldon right when he responded, “It’s absolutely unbelievable that a commission would say this program just didn’t exist.”? One doesn’t want to suggest a conspiracy of any sort – usually conspiracy theories are just too complicated to be workable. But the American people were attacked, and they deserve to know how it happened and what could have been done to prevent it so it doesn’t happen again. Perhaps, Fieldmarshal von Rumsfeld should have a look at just who runs the country – it’s in the first three words of the constitution “We the People.”


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
Produced using Fedora Linux.

Home

Google
WWW Kensington Review







Amazon Honor System Click Here to Pay Learn More