| Donate $25 for two DVDs of the Cryptome collection of files from June 1996 to the present |
|
13 December 2005
|
|
[Congressional Record: November 18, 2005 (House)]
[Page H11029-H11031]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr18no05-188]
ABLE DANGER
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I include material regarding
Able Danger for the Record:
House of Representatives,
Washington, DC, November 9, 2005.
Hon. Donald Rumsfeld,
Secretary, Department of Defense, The Pentagon, Washington,
DC.
Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: We the undersigned are formally
requesting that you allow former participants in the
intelligence program known as Able Danger to testify in an
open hearing before the United States Congress. Until this
point, congressional efforts to investigate Able Danger have
been obstructed by Department of Defense insistence that
certain individuals with knowledge of Able Danger be
prevented from freely and frankly testifying in an open
hearing. We realize that you do not question Congress's
authority to maintain effective oversight of executive branch
agencies, including your department. It is our understanding
that your objection instead derives from concern that
classified information could be improperly exposed in an open
hearing. We of course would never support any activity that
might compromise sensitive information involving national
security. However, we firmly believe that testimony from the
appropriate individuals in an open hearing on Able Danger
would not only fail to jeopardize national security, but
would in fact enhance it over the long term. This is due to
our abiding belief that America can only better prepare
itself against future attacks if it understands the full
scope of its past failures to do so.
On September 21, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary
conducted a hearing on Able Danger which Bill Dugan, Acting
Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
Oversight, certified did not reveal any classified
information. Congressman Curt Weldon's testimony at that
hearing was largely based on the information that has been
given to him by Able Danger participants barred from open
testimony by DOD. Their testimony would therefore closely
mirror that of Congressman Weldon, who did not reveal
classified information. Therefore we are at a loss as to how
the testimony of Able Danger participants would jeopardize
classified information. Much of what they would present has
already been revealed. Further refusal to allow Able Danger
participants to testify in an open congressional hearing can
only lead us to conclude that the Department of Defense is
uncomfortable with the prospect of Members of Congress
questioning these individuals about the circumstances
surrounding Able Danger. This would suggest not a concern for
national security, but rather an attempt to prevent
potentially embarrassing facts from coming to light. Such a
consideration would of course be an unacceptable
justification for the refusal of a congressional request.
Sincerely,
Curt Weldon,
John P. Murtha.
[List of names from Weldon's web site]
Republican (144)
1. Curt Weldon (R-PA)
2. David L. Hobson, (R-OH)
3. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
4. Joel Hefley (R-CO)
5. Todd Russell Platts (R-PA)
6. Tom Davis (R-VA)
7. Michael G. Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
8. Charles W. Dent (R-PA)
9. Jim Ramstad (R-MN)
10. Mark Souder (R-IN)
11. Phil English (R-PA)
12. Michael McCaul (R-TX)
13. Sam Johnson (R-TX)
14. Christopher Shays (R-CT)
15. Walter B. Jones (R-NC)
16. Charles H. Taylor (R-NC)
17. John L. Mica (R-FL)
18. John T. Doolittle (R-CA)
19. Jeff Miller (R-FL)
20. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD)
21. Nathan Deal (R-GA)
22. Joe Wilson (R-SC)
23. Donald A. Manzullo (R-IL)
24. Charles W. Boustany, Jr. (R-LA)
25. Ralph M. Hall (R-TX)
26. John E. Peterson (R-PA)
27. Ron Paul (R-TX)
28. Jerry Weller (R-IL)
29. Michael N. Castle (R-DE)
30. Geoff Davis (R-KY)
31. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ)
32. Cliff Stearns (R-FL)
33. Fred Upton (R-MI)
34. Rob Simmons (R-CT)
35. Rodney P. Frelinghuysen (R-NJ)
36. Henry Bonilla (R-TX)
37. Virgil H. Goode, Jr. (R-VA)
38. Howard Coble (R-NC)
39. Jim Gibbons (R-NV)
40. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY)
41. Dan Burton (R-IN)
42. Joseph R.Pitts (R-PA)
43. Jim Gerlach (R-PA)
44. Trent Franks (R-AZ)
45. Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
46. Ellen Gallegly (R-CA)
47. Don Sherwood (R-PA)
48. Zach Wamp (R-TN)
49. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD)
50. Chris Smith (R-NJ)
51. Frank Wolf (R-VA)
52. Chris Chocola (R-IN)
53. Bobby Jindal (R-LA)
54. Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
55. Mark Kirk (R-IL)
56. Ron Lewis (R-KY)
57. Rob Aderholt (R-AL)
58. Randy J. Forbes (R-VA)
59. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA)
60. John Boozman (R-AR)
61. Frank A. LoBiondo (R-NJ)
62. John E. Sweeney (R-NY)
63. Michael R. Turner (R-OH)
64. Dennis R. Rehberg (R-MT-At Large)
65. Tom Osborne (R-NE)
66. Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
67. Pete Sessions (R-TX)
68. John Linder (R-GA)
69. Todd W. Akin (R-MO)
70. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)
71. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
72. Phil Gingrey (R-GA)
73. Robin Hayes (R-NC)
74. John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN)
75. Bob Inglis (R-SC)
76. Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
77. Lee Terry (R-NE)
78. Dave Weldon (R-FL)
79. Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT)
80. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL)
81. Melissa Hart (R-PA)
82. John Sullivan (R-OK)
83. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
84. Adam H. Putnam (R-FL)
85. Don Young (R-AK-At Large)
86. Peter King (R-NY)
87. Daniel E. Lungren (R-CA)
88. Michael T. McCaul (R-TX)
89. Katherine Harris (R-FL)
90. John Hostettler (R-IN)
91. Paul E. Gillmor (R-OH)
92. Roy Blunt (R-MO)
93. Michael Simpson (R-ID)
94. Tom Price (R-GA)
95. Charlie Norwood (R-GA)
96. Michael Bilirakis (R-FL)
97. Spencer Bachus (R-AL)
98. Henry E. Brown, Jr. (R-SC)
99. Thomas G. Tancredo (R-CO)
100. Terry Everett (R-AL)
101. Robert Ney (R-OH)
102. Ed Whitfield (R-KY)
103. Wally Herger (R-CA)
104. Mark Foley (R-FL)
105. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)
106. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA)
107. Mike Rogers (R-MI)
108. John J. H. “Joe” Schwarz (R-MI)
109. Jon C. Porter (R-NV)
110. Kay Granger (R-TX)
111. Greg Walden (R-OR)
112. Mary Bono (R-CA)
113. Anne Northup (R-KY)
114. John Kline (R-MN)
115. Frank D. Lucas (R-OK)
116. Candice S. Miller (R-MI)
117. William Jenkins (R-TN)
118. Patrick McHenry (R-NC)
119. Sue W. Kelly (R-NY)
120. Mike Pence (R-IN)
121. Kenny Hulshof (R-MO)
122. Cathy McMorris (R-WA)
123. Ralph Regula (R-OH)
124. John Carter (R-TX)
125. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI)
126. James Leach (R-IA)
127. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ)
128. Bill Shuster (R-PA)
129. John McHugh (R-NY)
130. Tim Murphy (R-PA)
131. Barbara Cubin (R-WY-at large)
132. Michael Conaway (R-TX)
133. Chris Cannon (R-UT)
134. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
135. Jim Ryun (R-KS)
136. Jeb Bradley (R-NH)
137. Steven C. LaTourette (R-OH)
138. Ander Crenshaw (R-FL)
139. Bill Young (R-FL)
140. Melissa Bean (D-IL)
141. Jack Kingston (R-GA)
142. Ed Royce (R-CA)
143. Tom Cole (R-OK)
144. Patrick Tiberi (R-OH)
Democrats (101)
145. John Murtha, John P. (D-PA)
146. Ike Skelton (D-MO)
147. Jim Cooper (D-TN)
148. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA)
149. Solomon Ortiz (D-TX)
150. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX)
151. Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX)
152. Joe Baca (D-CA)
153. Bob Etheridge (D-NC)
154. James R. Langevin (D-RI)
155. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX)
156. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY)
157. Ed Pastor (D-AZ)
158. Eliot Engel (D-NY)
159. Loretta T. Sanchez (D-CA)
160. Linda T. Sanchez (D-CA)
161. Mike McIntyre (D-NC)
162. Louise McIntosh Slaughter (D-NY)
163. Corrine Brown (D-FL)
164. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
165. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA)
166. Sam Farr (D-CA)
167. Chet Edwards (D-TX)
168. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ)
169. Nita M. Lowey (D-NY)
170. Neil Abercrombie (D –HI)
171. Steny H. Hoyer (D-MD)
172. Gwen Moore (D-WI)
173. Madeline Z. Bordallo (D-GU)
174. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY)
175. Nick J. Rahall, II (D-WV)
176. Robert Brady (D-PA)
177. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA)
178. Mike Doyle (D-PA)
179. Tim Holden (D-PA)
180. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC)
181. Dale E. Kildee (D-MI)
182. James E. Clyburn (D-SC)
183. Steve Israel (D-NY)
184. Harold Ford (D-TN)
185. John Larson (D-CT)
186. Eni Faleomavaega (D-AS)
187. Ken Meek (D-FL)
188. John Dingell (D-MI)
189. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
190. Rush Holt (D-NJ)
191. Vernon J. Ehlers (D-MI)
192. Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL)
193. Martin Olav Sabo (D-MN)
194. Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA)
195. David Wu (D-OR)
196. Grace F. Napolitano (D-CA)
197. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)
198. Ruben HinoJosa (D-TX)
199. John M. Spratt, Jr. (D-SC)
200. Norman D. Dicks (D-WA)
201. Edward Markey (D-MA)
202. Jane Harman (D-CA)
203. Peter DeFazio (D-OR)
204. Bart Stupak (D-MI)
205. Susan A. Davis (D-CA)
206. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
207. Hilda Solis (D-CA)
208. Gene Green (D-TX)
209. Martin T. Meehan (D-MA)
210. Marion Berry (D-AR)
211. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY)
212. James P. Moran (D-VA)
213. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD)
214. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
215. John Lewis (D-GA)
216. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA)
217. Chaka Fattah (D-PA)
218. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX)
219. Lane Evans (D-IL)
220. Shelley Berkley (D-NV)
221. Bill Delahunt (D-MA)
222. Rick Larsen (D-WA)
223. Robert E. (Bud) Cramer, Jr. (D-AL)
224. Gene Taylor (D-MS)
225. Allyson Y. Schwartz (D-PA)
226. Richard E. Neal (D-MA)
227. Al Green (D-TX)
228. Robert Wexler (D-FL)
229. John T. Salazar (D-CO)
230. Michael Capuano (D-MA)
231. Mike Thompson (D-CA)
232. Collin Peterson (D-MN)
233. Joseph Crowley (D-NY)
234. Robert Andrews (D-NJ)
235. Mark Udall (D-CO)
236. George Miller (D-CA)
237. Adam Smith (D-WA)
238. Michael Honda (D-CA)
239. Anthony Weiner (D-NY)
240. Steven R. Rothman (D-NJ)
241. Bennie Thompson (D-MS)
242. Jerry Costello (D-IL)
243. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ)
244. Allen Boyd (D-FL)
Independent (1)
245. Bernard Sanders (VT-at large)
[[Page H11030]]
____
Why Did the 9/11 Commission Ignore `Able Danger'?
(By Louis Freeh)
It was interesting to hear from the 9/11 Commission again
on Tuesday. This self-perpetuating and privately funded group
of lobbyists and lawyers has recently opined on hurricanes,
nuclear weapons, the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel and even the New
York subway system. Now it offers yet another ``report card''
on the progress of the FBI and CIA in the war against
terrorism, along with its ``back-seat'' take and some further
unsolicited narrative about how things ought to be on the
``front lines.''
Yet this is also a good time for the country to make some
assessments of the 9/11 Commission itself. Recent revelation
from the military intelligence operation code-named, ``Able
Danger'' have cast light on a missed opportunity that could
have potentially prevented 9/11. Specifically, Able Danger
concluded in February 2000 that military experts had
identified Mohamed Atta by name (and maybe by photograph) as
an al Qaeda agent operating in the U.S. Subsequently,
military officers assigned to Able Danger were prevented from
sharing this critical information with FBI agents, even
though appointments had been made to do so. Why?
There are other questions that need answers. Was Able
Danger intelligence provided to the 9/11 Commission prior to
the finalization of its report, and, if so, why was it not
explored? In sum, what did the 9/11 commissioners and their
staff know about Able Danger and when did they know it?
The Able Danger intelligence, if confirmed, is undoubtedly
the most relevant fact of the entire post 9/11 inquiry. Even
the most junior investigator would immediately know that the
name and photo ID of Atta in 2000 is precisely the kind of
tactical intelligence the FBI has many times employed to
prevent attacks and arrest terrorists. Yet the 9/11
Commission inexplicably concluded that it ``was not
historically significant.'' This astounding conclusion--in
combination with the failure to investigate Able Danger and
incorporate it into its findings--raises serious challenges
to the commission's credibility and, if the facts prove out,
might just render the commission historically insignificant
itself.
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. Phillpott, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who
managed the program for the Pentagon's Special Operations
Command, confirmed ``Atta was iden- tified by Able Danger by
January-February of 2000.''
On Aug. 18, 2005, the Pentagon initially stated that ``a
probe'' had found nothing to back up Col. Shaffer's claims.
Two weeks later, however, Defense Department officials
acknowledged that its ``inquiry'' had found ``three more
people who recall seeing an intelligence briefing slide that
identified the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks a year before
the hijackings and terrorist strikes.'' These same officials
also stated that ``documents and electronic files created by
. . . Able Danger were destroyed under standing orders that
limit the military's use of intelligence gathered about
people in the United States.'' Then, in September 2005, the
Pentagon doubled back and blocked several military officers
from testifying at an open Congressional hearing about the
Able Danger program.
Two members of Congress, Curt Weldon and Dan Burton, have
also publicly stated that shortly after 9/11 attacks they
provided then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley
with a ``chart'' containing preattack information collected
by Able danger about al Qaeda. a spokesperson for the White
House has confirmed that Mr. Hadley ``recalled seeing such a
chart in that time period but . . . did not recall whether he
saw it during a meeting . . . and that a search of National
Security Council files had failed to produce such a chart.''
Thomas Kean, the chairman of the 9/11 Commission, reacted
to Able Danger with the standard Washington PR approach. He
lashed out at the Bush administration and demanded that the
Pentagon conduct an ``investigation'' to evaluate the
``credibility'' of Col. Shaffer and Capt. Phillpott--rather
than demand a substantive investigation into what failed in
the first place. This from a former New Jersey governor who,
along with other commissioners, routinely appeared in public
espousing his own conclusions about 9/11 long before the
commission's inquiry was completed and long before all the
facts were in! This while dismissing out of hand the major
conflicts of interest on the commission itself about
obstructions to information-sharing within the intelligence
community.
Nevertheless, the final 9/11 commission report, released on
July 22, 2004, concluded that ``American intelligence
agencies were unaware of Mr. Atta until the day of the
attacks.'' This now looks to be embarrassingly wrong. Yet
amazingly, commission leaders acknowledged on Aug. 12 that
their staff in fact met with a Navy officer 10 days before
releasing the report, who ``asserted that a highly classified
intelligence operation, Able Danger, had identified Mohammed
Atta to be a member of an al Qaeda cell located in
Brooklyn.'' (Capt. Phillpott says he briefed them in July
2004.) The commission's statement goes on to say that the
staff determined that ``the officer's account was not
sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the report or
further investigation,'' and that the intelligence
operation ``did not turn out to be historically
significant,'' despite substantial corroboration from
other seasoned intelligence officers.
This dismissive and apparently unsupported conclusion would
have us believe that a key piece of evidence was summarily
rejected in less than 10 days without serious investigation.
The commission, at the very least, should have interviewed
the 80 members of Able Danger, as the Pentagon did, five of
whom say they saw ``the chart.'' But this would have required
admitting that the late-breaking news was inconveniently
raised. So it was grossly neglected and branded as
significant. Such a half-baked conclusion, drawn in only 10
days without any real investigation, simply ignores what
looks like substantial direct evidence to the contrary coming
from our own trained military intelligence officers.
No wonder the 9/11 families were outraged by these
revelations and called for a ``new'' commission to
investigate. ``I'm angry that my son's death could have been
prevented,'' seethed Diane Horning, whose son Matthew was
killed at the World Trade Center. On Aug. 17, 2005, a
coalition of family members known as the September 11
Advocates rightly blasted 9/11 Commission leaders Mr. Kean
and Lee Hamilton for pooh-poohing Able Danger's findings as
not ``historically significant.'' Advocate Mindy Kleinberg
aptly notes, ``They [the 9/11 Commission] somehow made a
determination that this was not important enough. To me, that
says somebody there is not using good judgment. And if I'm
questioning the judgment of this one case, what other things
might they have missed?'' This is a stinging indictment of
the commission by the 9/11 families.
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen
Specter, has led the way in cleaning up the 9/11 Commission's
unfinished business. Amid a very full plate of
responsibilities, he conducted a hearing after noting that
Col. Shaffer and Capt. Phillpott ``appear to have
credibility.'' Himself and former prosecutor, Mr. Specter
noted: ``If M? Atta and other 9/11 terrorists were identified
before the attacks, it would be a very serious breach not to
have that information passed along . . . we ought to get to
the bottom of it.'' Indeed we should. The 9/11 Commission
gets an ``I'' grade incomplete--for its dereliction regarding
Able Danger. The Joint Intelligence Committee should
reconvene and, in addition to Able Danger team members, we
should have the 9/11 commissioners appear as witnesses so the
families can hear their explanation why this doesn't matter.
____
Sent: Friday, November 11, 2005 9:21 AM
To: curtpa07
Subject: USS COLE
Our son Kenneth was the 1st killed on the USS Cole when it
was attacked. Every since President Bush came into office
I've been trying to get a meeting with him and the 17
families and the White House will not even acknowledge. I've
been saying things like you are now saying ever since the
attacked happened and NO one in government will talk to us.
The FBI has lied to us on several facts and my own
Congressmen will do anything for me except a meeting with the
President. President Clinton did nothing to go after those
that attacked the Cole and if he had of they would have
uncovered numerous signs out there about what was going to
happen on 9/11. We sure would like to talk to you.
John Clodfelter.
____
Sent: Friday, November 11, 2005 9:21 PM
To: curtpa07
Subject: Able Danger--9/11 Family Member
Dear Congressman Weldon: I write again to thank you for all
you are doing to uncover the ``Able Danger'' story. I lost my
brother Pete on 9/11, and over the last 4 years I have done
what I could to educate myself on the ``how's, why's and
who's'' of 9/11. I attended the Commission hearings both in
Washington, D.C. and New York City, and to be frank . . . I
thought the Commission was a farce. They may have reached
recommendations that may prove worthy, but the agenda of some
was all too obvious. I have felt from the beginning that
certain Commissioners sat on the wrong side of the table, so
to speak. Now that you have uncovered Able Danger, I want
them all to sit as witnesses before Congress. Just who knew
what and who decided these most important findings to be
``historically insignificant,'' are questions that must be
answered.
The loss of Pete on 9/11 is something I deal with every
moment, of every day. Now that we are 2 weeks from what
would've been his 47th birthday (one he shared with my
sister, Kathy), a week away from Thanksgiving, 5 weeks from
his favorite day of the year--Christmas . . . well, the
heartache of his murder is felt a bit deeper.
On a personal note, Pete's death on 9/11 was one tragedy
from that day, but it is not the only one. What his murder
has done to our family is quite another. There is no way to
explain how those terrorists ruined more than one life that
day and there is no way to express my anger at how life for
us will never again be the same. We struggle to find joy, we
find it difficult to accomplish what once were ordinary tasks
. . . but we do, and thanks to our faith. I also believe we
do because of public servants like you. Decent
[[Page H11031]]
elected officials who actually serve the public instead of
themselves. You have my family's backing and full support and
we pray to GOD that more and more elected officials join you
in your fight to expose Able Danger and in your fight to keep
our Nation safe and secure, so no other family has to endure
what we did on 9/11, and what we continue to endure since
because of the acts of hate filled cowards.
Thank you again Congressman Weldon and God bless! Please
keep up the good fight on Able Danger!
You remain in our thought & prayers, as does our President
and our Brave Troops!
Sincerely,
A proud American,
John P. Owens,
Loving brother of Peter J. Owens, Jr.
____________________
[Congressional Record: November 8, 2005 (House)]
[Page H10012-H10013]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr08no05-130]
STONEWALLING CONGRESS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fortenberry). Under a previous order of
the House, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me thank
my friend and colleague for allowing me to take this 5-minute special
order before his 1 hour. I will be brief, but I rise for an issue of
severe concern to me, Mr. Speaker.
As someone who has spent 19 years working on defense and security
issues in this Congress and currently serves as the vice chairman of
the Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, I have to report
to my colleagues continuing efforts to try to find out what happened
before 9/11 and, unfortunately, have to report that we are being
stonewalled. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I cannot use any other term but the
appearance of a cover-up.
Just a few moments ago, I questioned one of the cochairs of the 9/11
Commission, Lee Hamilton, why the Commission has not yet responded to a
letter that I sent to them on August 10 of this year, which I will
enter into the Record at this point.
August 10, 2005.
Hon. Thomas H. Kean, Chairman,
Hon. Lee H. Hamilton, Vice Chairman,
9/11 Public Discourse Project, One DuPont Circle, NW.,
Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Kean and Vice Chairman Hamilton: I am
contacting you to discuss an important issue that concerns
the terrible events of September 11, 2001, and our country's
efforts to ensure that such a calamity is never again allowed
to occur. Your bipartisan work on The National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States shed light on much
that was unclear in the minds of the American people
regarding what happened that fateful day, however there
appears to be more to the story than the public has been
told. I bring this before you because of my respect for you
both, and for the 9-11 Commission's service to America.
Almost seven years ago, the National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 1999 established the Advisory Panel to
Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving
Weapons of Mass Destruction, otherwise known as the Gilmore
Commission. The Gilmore Commission reached many of the same
conclusions as your panel, and in December of 2000 called for
the creation of a ``National Office for Combating
Terrorism.'' I mention this because prior to 9/11, Congress
was aware of many of the institutional obstacles to
preventing a terrorist attack, and was actively attempting to
address them. I know this because I authored the language
establishing the Gilmore Commission.
In the 1990's, as chairman of the congressional
subcommittee that oversaw research and development for the
Department of Defense, I paid special attention to the
activities of the Army's Land Information Warfare Activity
(LIWA) at Ft. Belvoir. During that time, I led a bipartisan
delegation of Members of Congress to Vienna, Austria to meet
with members of the Russian parliament, or Duma. Before
leaving, I received a brief from the CIA on a Serbian
individual that would be attending the meeting. The CIA
provided me with a single paragraph of information. On the
other hand, representatives of LIWA gave me five pages of far
more in-depth analysis. This was cause for concern, but my
debriefing with the CIA and FBI following the trip was cause
for outright alarm: neither had ever heard of LIWA or the
data mining capability it possessed.
As a result of experiences such as these, I introduced
language into three successive Defense Authorization bills
calling for the creation of an intelligence fusion center
which I called NOAH, or National Operations and Analysis Hub.
The NOAH concept is certainly familiar now, and is one of
several recommendations made by your commission that has a
basis in earlier acts of Congress. Despite my repeated
efforts to establish NOAH, the CIA insisted that it would not
be practical. Fortunately, this bureaucratic intransigence
was overcome when Congress and President Bush acted in 2003
to create the Terrorism Threat Integration Center (now the
National Counterterrorism Center). Unfortunately, it took the
deaths of 3,000 people to bring us to the point where we
could make this happen. Now, I am confident that under the
able leadership of John Negroponte, the days of toleration
for intelligence agencies that refuse to share information
with each other are behind us.
The 9-11 Commission produced a book-length account of its
findings, that the American people might educate themselves
on the challenges facing our national effort to resist and
defeat terrorism. Though under different circumstances, I
eventually decided to do the same. I recently published a
book critical of our intelligence agencies because even after
9/11, they were not getting the message. After failing to win
the bureaucratic battle inside the Beltway, I decided to take
my case to the American people.
In recent years, a reliable source that I refer to as
``Ali'' began providing me with detailed inside information
on Iran's role in supporting terror and undermining the
United States' global effort to eradicate it. I have
forwarded literally hundreds of pages of information from Ali
to the CIA, FBI, and DIA, as well as the appropriate
congressional oversight committees. The response from our
intelligence agencies has been
[[Page H10013]]
underwhelming, to put it mildly. Worse, I have documented
occasions where the CIA has outright lied to me. While the
mid-level bureaucrats at Langley may not be interested in
what I have to say, their new boss is. Porter Goss has all of
the information I have gathered, and I know he is ready to do
what it takes to challenge the circle-the-wagons culture of
the CIA. And Pete Hoekstra, the chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee, is energized as well. Director Goss
and Chairman Hoekstra are both outstanding leaders that know
each other well from their work together in the House of
Representatives, and I will continue to strongly support
their efforts at reform.
All of this background leads to the reason I am writing to
you today. Yesterday the national news media began in-depth
coverage of a story that is not new. In fact, I have been
talking about it for some time. From 1998 to 2001, Army
Intelligence and Special Operations Command spearheaded an
effort called Able Danger that was intended to map out al
Qaeda. According to individuals that were part of the
project, Able Danger identified Mohammed Atta as a terrorist
threat before 9/11. Team members believed that the Atta cell
in Brooklyn should be subject to closer scrutiny, but
somewhere along the food chain of Administration bureaucrats
and lawyers, a decision was made in late 2000 against passing
the information to the FBI. These details are understandably
of great interest to the American people, thus the recent
media frenzy. However I have spoken on this topic for some
time, in the House Armed Services and Homeland Security
Committees, on the floor of the House on June 27, 2005, and
at various speaking engagements.
The impetus for this letter is my extreme disappointment in
the recent, and false, claim of the 9-11 Commission staff
that the Commission was never given access to any information
on Able Danger. The 9-11 Commission staff received not one
but two briefings on Able Danger from former team members,
yet did not pursue the matter. Furthermore, commissioners
never returned calls from a defense intelligence official
that had made contact with them to discuss this issue as a
follow on to a previous meeting.
In retrospect, it appears that my own suggestions to the
Commission might have directed investigators in the direction
of Able Danger, had they been heeded. I personally reached
out to members of the Commission several times with
information on the need for a national collaborative
capability, of which Able Danger was a prototype. In the
context of those discussions, I referenced LIWA and the work
it had been doing prior to 9/11. My chief of staff physically
handed a package containing this information to one of the
commissioners at your Commission's appearance on April 13,
2004 in the Hart Senate Office Building. I have spoken with
Governor Kean by phone on this subject, and my office
delivered a package with this information to the 9-11
Commission staff via courier. When the Commission briefed
Congress with their findings on July 22, 2004, I asked the
very first question in exasperation: ``Why didn't you let
Members of Congress who were involved in these issues testify
before, or meet with, the Commission?''
The 9-11 Commission took a very high-profile role in
critiquing intelligence agencies that refused to listen to
outside information. The commissioners very publicly
expressed their disapproval of agencies and departments that
would not entertain ideas that did not originate in-house.
Therefore it is no small irony that the Commission would in
the end prove to be guilty of the very same offense when
information of potentially critical importance was brought to
its attention. The Commission's refusal to investigate Able
Danger after being notified of its existence, and its recent
efforts to feign ignorance of the project while blaming
others for supposedly withholding information on it, brings
shame on the commissioners, and is evocative of the worst
tendencies in the federal government that the Commission
worked to expose.
Questions remain to be answered. The first: What lawyers in
the Department of Defense made the decision in late 2000 not
to pass the information from Able Danger to the FBI? And
second: Why did the 9-11 Commission staff not find it
necessary to pass this information to the Commissioners, and
why did the 9-11 Commission staff not request full
documentation of Able Danger from the team member that
volunteered the information?
Answering these questions is the work of the commissioners
now, and fear of tarnishing the Commission's legacy cannot be
allowed to override the truth. The American people are
counting on you not to ``go native'' by succumbing to the
very temptations your Commission was assembled to indict. In
the meantime, I have shared all that I know on this topic
with the congressional committee chairmen that have oversight
over the Department of Defense, the CIA, the FBI, and the
rest of our intelligence gathering and analyzing agencies.
You can rest assured that Congress will share your interest
in how it is that this critical information is only now
seeing the light of day.
Sincerely,
Curt Weldon,
Member of Congress.
This letter asks significant questions about a Top Secret
intelligence unit in the military that identified Mohammed Atta and
three associates in a Brooklyn cell 1 year before 9/11.
Mr. Speaker, these individuals are still in the military, and they
have offered to testify publicly, but this administration is gagging
them. This administration is not allowing these military officers to
speak, and in fact, the Defense Intelligence Agency is in the midst of
destroying the career of a 23-year Bronze Star recipient, a lieutenant
colonel in the Army, for doing one thing, for telling the truth.
Mr. Speaker, there are bureaucrats in this administration, in the
previous administration who do not want the story of Able Danger to
come forward. Even though this secret intelligence unit was ordered by
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, carried out by Special
Forces Command, and we now know had information 2 days before the
attack on the Cole that could have prevented 17 sailors from losing
their lives; and in January of 2000, identified Mohammed Atta and, in
September of 2000, tried to transfer that information to the FBI on
three occasions.
In fact, Mr. Speaker, the 9/11 Commission did not mention Able Danger
at all. When they were asked about it by the New York Times in August
of this year, they said, Well, it was historically insignificant.
Mr. Speaker, Louis Freeh, the FBI Director during the time of 9/11,
was interviewed on national news by Tim Russert on ``Meet the Press'' 2
weeks ago, and when he was asked about his role in the information on
9/11, he said, Well, you know, if we would have had the information
from the Able Danger team, and I quote, ``that is the kind of tactical
intelligence that would have made a difference in stopping the
hijacking.'' Louis Freeh says it could have stopped the hijacking, and
the 9/11 Commission now says it is historically insignificant.
Mr. Speaker, there is something wrong in the Beltway. Tomorrow, at
12:30 in the House gallery, I will unveil additional new information on
Able Danger. I will unveil an enhanced set of investigations because,
Mr. Speaker, in the end, the families of the 3,000 victims, the
families of the 17 sailors, the people in this country deserve to know
the truth.
What happened before 9/11? Why is information being held in secret?
Why are military officers being gagged? Why can the truth not be told?
Mr. Speaker, we must in this body demand the truth publicly.
____________________
[Congressional Record: October 19, 2005 (House)]
[Page H8979-H8983]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr19oc05-122]
ABLE DANGER FAILURE
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Reichert). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon)
is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk to
our colleagues and through our colleagues to the American people about
an issue that troubles me greatly.
I have been in this institution 19 years, and during those 19 years I
have been on the Committee on Armed Services. Currently, I am the vice
chairman of that committee and chairman of the subcommittee that
oversees the purchase of our weapons systems. In the past I have
chaired the research subcommittee. I have chaired the readiness
subcommittee, and I have spent every available hour of my time working
to make sure that our military troops were properly protected and have
the proper equipment and training.
I am a strong supporter of our military. Whether it was in the last 2
years of the Reagan administration, the four years of the Bush
administration, the 8 years of the Clinton administration, or the
current administration of President George W. Bush, I have been a
strong supporter of our military. I am a strong supporter of President
Bush. I campaigned for him. I am a strong supporter of Secretary
Rumsfeld. I say all of that, Mr. Speaker, because tonight I rise to
express my absolute outrage and disgust with what is happening in our
defense intelligence agencies.
Mr. Speaker, back in 1999 when I was Chair of the defense research
subcommittee, the Army was doing cutting-edge work on a new type of
technology to allow us to understand and predict emerging transnational
terrorist threats. That technology was being done at several locations,
but was being led by our Special Forces Command. The work that they
were doing was unprecedented. And because of what I saw there, I
supported the development of a national capability of a collaborative
center that the CIA would just not accept.
In fact, in November 4 of 1999, 2 years before 9/11, in a meeting in
my office with the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Deputy Director of the
CIA, Deputy Director of the FBI, we presented a nine-page proposal to
create a national collaborative center. When we finished the brief, the
CIA said we did not need that capability, and so before 9/11 we did not
have it.
When President Bush came in after a year of research, he announced
the formation of the Terrorism Threat Integration Center, exactly what
I had proposed in 1999. Today it is known as the NCTC, the National
Counterterrorism Center. But, Mr. Speaker, what troubles me is not the
fact that we did not take those steps.
What troubles me is that I now have learned in the last 4 months that
one of the tasks that was being done in 1999 and 2000 was a top-secret
program organized at the request of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, carried out by the general in charge of our Special Forces
Command, a very elite unit focusing on information regarding al Qaeda.
It was a military language effort to allow us to identify the key cells
of al Qaeda around the world and to give the military the capability to
plan actions against those cells so they could not attack us as they
did in 1993 at the Trade Center, at the Khobar Towers, the U.S.S. Cole
attack, and the African embassy bombings.
What I did not know, Mr. Speaker, up until June of this year, was
that that secret program called Able Danger actually identified the
Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda in January and February of 2000, over 1 year
before 9/11 every happened. In addition, I learned that not only did we
identify the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda, but we identified Mohamed Atta
as one of the members of that Brooklyn cell along with three other
terrorists who were the leadership of the 9/11 attack.
I have also learned, Mr. Speaker, that in September of 2000, again,
over 1 year before 9/11, that Able Danger team attempted on three
separate occasions to provide information to the FBI about the Brooklyn
cell of al Qaeda, and on three separate occasions they were denied by
lawyers in the previous administration to transfer that information.
Mr. Speaker, this past Sunday on ``Meet the Press,'' Louis Freeh, FBI
Director at the time, was interviewed by Tim Russert. The first
question to Louis Freeh was in regard to the FBI's ability to ferret
out the terrorists. Louis Freeh's response, which can be obtained by
anyone in this country as a part of the official record, was, Well,
Tim, we are now finding out that a top-secret program of the military
called Able Danger actually identified the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda
and Mohammed Atta over a year before 9/11.
And what Louis Freeh said, Mr. Speaker, is that that kind of
actionable data could have allowed us to prevent the hijackings that
occurred on September 11.
So now we know, Mr. Speaker, that military intelligence officers
working in a program authorized by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, the general in charge of Special Forces Command, identified
Mohammed Atta and three terrorists a year before 9/11, tried to
transfer that information to the FBI were denied; and the FBI Director
has now said publicly if he would have had that information, the FBI
could have used it to perhaps prevent the hijackings that struck the
World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the plane that landed in
Pennsylvania and perhaps saved 3,000 lives and changed the course of
world history.
Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight because we have been trying to get the
story out about Able Danger and what really happened. Unfortunately,
Mr. Speaker, I have to rise tonight to tell you that as bad as this
story is, and as bad as it is that the data was not transferred to the
FBI, and as bad as it is that the 9/11 Commission totally ignored this
entire story and referred to it as historically insignificant even
though it was authorized by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
even though Louis Freeh has now said it could have provided information
to prevent the attack against us, the 9/11 Commission ignored it. Not
because the commissioners ignored it, but because someone at the staff
level on the 9/11 Commission staff decided for whatever reason that
they did not want to pursue the Abel Danger story.
Mr. Speaker, in August and September I met with the military
officials involved with Abel Danger and one by one they told their
story, until, Mr. Speaker, leaders in the Defense Intelligence Agency,
including the deputy director, decided they do not want the story told.
I think because they perhaps are fearful of being embarrassed and
humiliated.
So what direction had they taken, Mr. Speaker?
They have gagged the military officers. They have prevented them from
talking to any Member of Congress. They have prevented them from
talking to the media. And the Defense Intelligence Agency has began a
process to destroy the career and the life of Lieutenant Colonel
Anthony Shaffer.
Now, it might be easy for us to ignore this, Mr. Speaker. We all have
busy careers and worry about reelections every 2 years and worry about
our own families and our jobs. But I cannot do that in this case and
neither can this body, and neither can the other body. You see,
Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer took an oath to defend our Constitution. He
took the words ``duty, honor, country'' seriously and devoted 23 years
of his life in four deployed intelligence operations of our military to
protect America.
During the time he served our country, he has received the Bronze
Star, an award that does not come easily, for showing acts of courage,
leadership, and bravery in the course of his activities.
[[Page H8980]]
{time} 2030
He has received public commendations from previous directors of the
Defense Intelligence Agency, including General Patrick Hughes,
including generals at Special Forces Command, and including Admiral
Wilson of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He has received dozens of
letters and commendations for his work. The laudatory comments I
reviewed in his files are unbelievable.
But, you see, Mr. Speaker, there is a problem. The Deputy Director of
the Defense Intelligence Agency was in a meeting with Lieutenant
Colonel Shaffer almost a year before 9/11, and Lieutenant Colonel
Shaffer showed him a disk in his office with information about al Qaeda
and Mohammed Atta, and the Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence
Agency stopped the briefing and said, you cannot show me that. I do not
want to see it. It might contain information I cannot look at.
Now, Tony Shaffer was not in the room alone, Mr. Speaker. There were
other people, and we know their names. So we have witnesses. Now, the
Deputy Director has denied that meeting and denied he was there and
denied this particular story, but the fact is he knows that we are
going to pursue it.
So what has happened to Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, Mr. Speaker? The
Defense Intelligence Agency has lifted his security clearance. One day
before he was to testify before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary,
in uniform, they permanently removed his security clearance. And now
our Defense Intelligence Agency has told Colonel Shaffer's lawyer that
they plan to seek a permanent removal of his pay and his health care
benefits for him and his two children. Why, Mr. Speaker? Because
Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, like Commander Scott Philpot of the Navy,
like J. D. Smith, and like a host of other Able Danger employees, has
told the truth.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I sat here in the 1990s and I sat here during the
9/11 investigation and watched a ridiculous situation develop with
Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser under President Clinton. He
walked into the National Archives before he was to testify before the
9/11 Commission looking through documents. He took documents out of the
archives and stuffed them in his socks and pants so that no one would
see them as he left the National Archives. Now, that is a felony,
tampering with Federal documents and removing classified information
regarding our security and information that the 9/11 commission needed
to see.
Sandy Berger initially lied about it. He said he did not do it. Then
he admitted it, and he was given a punishment. And, oh, by the way, his
security clearance was temporarily lifted, but he will get it back
again, for lying, for stealing, and for committing an act of outrage
against our country's security. Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, a Bronze
Star 23-year military veteran, simply told the truth and now his life
is being ruined.
His career is ended. He is no longer in military intelligence. They
have taken his security clearance, and they are about to destroy him as
a person. They are about to deny him the basic health care and the
salary that he has earned, and they are doing it in this way. This is
outrageous. It is evil. They do not want to fire Tony because they also
do not want him to talk to the media. So by suspending him and removing
his pay and his health care, they hurt him bad, but he cannot talk
because he is under suspension and his lawyer has advised him that to
talk to the media, to talk to Members of Congress, even when he is not
being paid, would cause him further problems and totally prevent him
from ever having this gross problem reversed. Mr. Speaker, this is
outrageous. Mr. Speaker, this is not America.
Over my 19 years in Congress, I have led 40 delegations to the former
Soviet Union. I have sat in the face of the Soviet Communists and
confronted them on full transparency. I sat at the table with President
Lukashenko of Belarus, who has been called by our Secretary of State
the last dictator in Europe. I took both delegations to North Korea,
Mr. Speaker, and sat across the table from Kim Gye Gwan and I told him
we abhor the way they treat their people, the way they lie about what
is happening, and the way they distort information.
Mr. Speaker, I took three delegations to Libya to meet with Qadhafi,
and I told him that we are absolutely outraged at what Libya did in
helping complete the Lockerbie bombing and the bombing of the Berlin
nightclub.
You know, Mr. Speaker, I never thought I would have to take the floor
of this Chamber and make the same statements about the Defense
Intelligence Agency. As a supporter of the President, as a supporter of
the military, Mr. Speaker, if we allow this to go forward, then we send
the signal to every man and woman wearing a uniform that if you tell
the truth, you will be destroyed if a career bureaucrat above you does
not like what you are saying. If you tell the truth, we will take your
health care benefits away from your kids. If you tell the truth, we
will ruin you.
Mr. Speaker, this is not America. Mr. Speaker, this is not what I
have been told by Secretary Rumsfeld that we are doing with our troops
in protecting them, in giving them the best equipment and the best
training. This is not what I spend hours in committee hearings on. This
sends the wrong signal to America's troops. It tells them, do not be
honest. Do not respect the fact that you have to be truthful. If there
is somebody that the truth offends, then you better be silent.
Mr. Speaker, I have today asked for an independent investigation of
the Defense Intelligence Agency and their efforts at destroying Tony
Shaffer's life. This is outrageous, Mr. Speaker. They trumped up
charges against him. They said while he was overseas in Afghanistan,
forward deployed, that he forwarded cell phone calls from his official
phone to his personal phone; and when they checked that out, it ran up
a cost to the taxpayers of about $60. The second verbal charge they
gave him was that he went to a course at the Army War College and he
got reimbursed for his travel, his mileage and tolls, 100-some dollars.
And they said he received a commendation for which he was not entitled,
even though it was signed by his commanding officer and the acting
Secretary of the Army.
But they went beyond that, Mr. Speaker. They went beyond that with
this man. They said he had $2,000 of debt, personal debt. Well, I would
like to have every Pentagon employee tomorrow, I would like to have the
senior leadership show us what debt they have in the Defense
Intelligence Agency so we can make that public.
They even went to this length, Mr. Speaker: the Defense Intelligence
Agency wrote in an official document that Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer
stole public property. A serious charge. Well, when you check what that
public property was, it was an assortment of pens, government pens. But
what they did not say in the Defense Intelligence report was that he
took those pens when he was 15 years of age and was with his father
when he was on assignment at one of our embassy outposts. He took the
pens to give to other students at the school when he was 15 years of
age. And by the way, Mr. Speaker, it was Tony Shaffer himself who
admitted to that thievery when he applied for his security clearance.
So the Defense Intelligence Agency knew that during his entire career
of 23 years, but they put that in the document against him.
This is a scandal, Mr. Speaker. It is an outrage. It is a travesty.
Everyone that worked with Tony Shaffer, the Navy officers, the private
citizens have all said the same thing. This is a scandal to get Tony
Shaffer because he has told the truth.
Now, this Defense Intelligence Agency and this Deputy Director had
the audacity to have their legal counsel send Tony Shaffer's lawyer a
letter on September 23. I cannot put that letter in the Record because
it is privileged information, but it will eventually come out. But in
that letter, in the second to last paragraph, the legal counsel for the
Defense Intelligence Agency says to Mr. Shaffer's lawyer, he cannot
receive any more classified information from the Defense Intelligence
Agency because I checked and his security clearances have all been
removed. Therefore, he is not allowed to look at anything that is
secret or confidential.
Now, that is a letter sent by the general counsel of the DIA on
September 23 of this year. Two weeks later, Mr. Speaker, to show the
stupidity of the Defense Intelligence Agency, they send seven packages
to Mr. Shaffer's lawyer
[[Page H8981]]
of his personal belongings, which the Deputy Director of the DIA told
my staff 3 months ago did not exist any more. And in those seven boxes,
Mr. Speaker, were five classified memos. The Defense Intelligence
Agency sent five classified memos to Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, which
they told him on September 23 he was not allowed to have access to.
Mr. Speaker, that is a felony; and I have asked the Inspector General
and the legal officials to investigate and prosecute the Defense
Intelligence officials who sent five classified documents through the
mail or by hand delivery to Tony Shaffer.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, the Defense Intelligence Agency, in its
absolute total stupidity, included in those boxes $500 worth of Federal
property, including a multi-hundred dollar GPS system owned by the
Federal Government, which they sent to Tony Shaffer, I guess to keep.
They also sent, Mr. Speaker, 25 pens, brand new, and marked on them is
``Property of the U.S. Government.'' The Defense Intelligence Agency,
in its absolute utter stupidity, sent Tony Shaffer Federal property
which they accused him of taking when he was 15 years of age.
Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong here. There is a
bureaucracy in the Defense Intelligence Agency that is out of control.
They want to destroy the reputation of a 23-year military officer,
Bronze Star recipient, hero of our country, with two kids because
people in defense intelligence are embarrassed at what is going to come
out.
And what is going to come out, Mr. Speaker? Well, we are going to
find out, Mr. Speaker, that that unit, Able Danger, not only identified
Mohammed Atta before 9/11, not only did they try to pass that
information to the FBI, not only was that large data destroyed in the
summer of 2000, but now, Mr. Speaker, I can add a new dimension to this
whole story. Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I met with another Able Danger
official. I was not aware of this official's knowledge because he does
not live within the Beltway.
This official, Mr. Speaker, has impeccable credentials. I cannot
reveal his name today. I will to any Member of this body, any of our
colleagues that want to come to me, I will tell you privately who this
official is, and you will agree with me when I tell you his name that
he has impeccable credentials. This official yesterday, Mr. Speaker, in
a meeting in my office, told me that he has never been talked to by the
Pentagon. He has never been talked to by the Defense Intelligence
Agency in their supposed investigation. He has never been talked to by
the 9/11 Commission staff in their investigation; yet this official had
a leadership position in Able Danger.
This official told me that there is a separate cache of information
collected from over 20 Federal agencies in 1999 and 2000 on Able Danger
that still may exist. Now, the Pentagon has told us all this material
was destroyed, and now I have a senior official telling me there is a
second pot of information that may well still exist.
Furthermore, at the hearing over in the Senate Committee on the
Judiciary, when Senator Specter asked why this data was destroyed, the
witness who destroyed the data said, well, I was told that we could not
keep this data for more than 90 days because it might involve
information that contains U.S. persons, so we had to destroy it.
{time} 2045
Well, I found out that is not the story. The reason the data was
destroyed was because Special Forces Command asked the Army for that
data and within a matter of days, that data was destroyed so the Army
would not pass it to Special Forces Command. Yet there still is, was
and I hope still is a massive pot of data.
But furthermore, that official that I talked to yesterday will also
say that there was no 90-day requirement, as was testified before the
Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He said on a regular basis they kept
information from Able Danger data mining for months and months and
months. In fact, he will say he had a discussion with a lawyer in DOD
named Schiffren who told him do not worry about it, just fill out a
document, sign your name that you need it, put it in the box, and you
can keep it as long as you want.
Mr. Speaker, that is entirely contradictory to what the Defense
Intelligence Agency has been telling us, to what DOD has been telling
us. Now we have someone who is willing to come forward and say that 90-
day period is not real, they kept Able Danger information for months
and months and months.
Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong here. A sitting
President of the United States resigned his position because he tried
to cover up a third-rate burglary when some low-level operatives from
the Republican committee to reelect him broke into the Democrat
headquarters in Washington, D.C. No one was killed. No money was
stolen. No State secrets were stolen. It was a third-rate burglary, but
it caused the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
Mr. Speaker, we are talking about the deaths of 3,000 Americans.
Mr. Speaker, we are talking about 2.5 terabytes of data about al
Qaeda. That is equal to one-fourth of all of the printed material in
the Library of Congress.
Mr. Speaker, we are talking about Mohammed Atta and three of the
terrorists that attacked us on 9/11.
Mr. Speaker, we are talking about military intelligence officers,
including an Annapolis graduate who will command one of our destroyers
in January of 2006 who risked his entire career to state on the record
I will swear until I die that I saw Mohammed Atta's face every day
starting in January of 2000, a year and a half before 9/11.
Mr. Speaker, this is not somebody off the street, this is a graduate
of Annapolis, a 23-year Naval officer who will command one of our
destroyers in January who is agreeing with Lieutenant Shaffer. We have
three other people who have testified under oath that they saw the same
photograph, and the person I met yesterday will testify that he had the
name of a Mohammed Atta before 9/11 but not the face.
Mr. Speaker, this is not some third-rate burglary coverup. This is
not some Watergate incident. This is an attempt to prevent the American
people from knowing the facts about how we could have prevented 9/11
and people are covering it up today. They are ruining the career of a
military officer to do it and we cannot let it stand. I do not care
whether you are Democrat or Republican, you cannot let a lieutenant
colonel's career be ruined because of some bureaucrat in the Defense
Intelligence Agency. If we let that happen, then no one who wears the
uniform will ever feel protected because we will have let them down.
Anyone who wears the uniform of this country who is serving today
expects us to back him or her up and that is not happening. We are
seeing lying, distortion.
Mr. Speaker, do you know, Wolf Blitzer on CNN told my staff that a
Department of Defense employee told him that Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer
was having an affair with one of my employees. How low can we go, Mr.
Speaker? How low can we go to allow this Defense Department to try to
ruin the reputation and the personal life of a lieutenant colonel with
a Bronze Star? To Wolf Blitzer, Mr. Speaker.
We need to know the name of that defense official who told Wolf
Blitzer who told my staff, and he is not the only one. I have other
media people who will come forward in this grand effort to destroy the
reputation of a uniformed military officer, to create scandalous
accusations. He does not even know my staff, to accuse him of stealing
pens when he was 15, to take away his health care benefits for his two
kids because he is telling the truth.
What do we stand for if not the truth? Is it more important that we
be politically correct? Is it more important that I not rock the boat
because my party is in the White House, because I campaigned for Bush,
and support Don Rumsfeld. Is that more important? If that is more
important, I do not want to be here. I will leave. I will leave my
post, but I will not do it until we get justice for this man and for
these people who the 9/11 Commission called historically insignificant.
Mr. Speaker, there is something wrong inside the Beltway.
Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong when a military
officer risks his life in Afghanistan time and again, embedded with our
troops under
[[Page H8982]]
an assumed name with a false beard and a false identity, forward
deployed with our troops, gets castigated, gets ridiculed, gets some
low life scum at the Pentagon spreading malicious lies about this
individual, and then say to his lawyer, we are going to take away his
health care benefits, we are going to take away his salary.
Mr. Speaker, if we allow this to stand as Democrats and Republicans,
then none of us deserve to be here. When we all go overseas and meet
the troops, we tell them how proud we are of them. We provide funding
for them. We give them training and take care of their families. What
we are allowing to happen right now is the Defense Intelligence Agency
to ruin the career and the life of a man who spent 23 years protecting
his Nation. If Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer was telling this story alone
in a vacuum, that would be one thing. But he has been corroborated over
and over again. I have met with at least 10 people who fully
corroborate what Tony Shaffer says. Those meetings with the FBI, the
FBI employee still works there and she told the Senate Committee on the
Judiciary, I set those meetings up with the FBI to transfer information
about al Qaeda and Able Danger. So she is still there and she
testified.
What we have here, I am convinced of this now, is an aggressive
attempt by CIA management to cover up their own shortcomings in not
being able to do what the Able Danger team did: They identified
Mohammed Atta and the al Qaeda cell of Brooklyn 1 year before
9/11. But even before that, as the story unfolds, you are going to hear
the story that they also identified the threat to the USS Cole 2 weeks
before the attack, and 2 days before the attack were screaming not to
let the USS Cole come into the harbor at Yemen because they knew
something was about to happen.
Mr. Speaker, bad news never comes easy; but in a democracy, the bad
news has to come out so we can make sure it does not happen again.
Mr. Speaker, this whole thing started, not to embarrass anyone, this
whole thing started because none of us knew that Mohammed Atta was
identified before 9/11. It started because this Congress, this body in
particular, tried to establish what is now in place back in 1999, a
national collaborative center, but the CIA said we did not need it. The
American people deserve to have the answers here. They deserve to know
why 3,000 people died. They deserve to know what we could have done and
should have done to better prepare ourselves and to work to prepare for
the next incident. The American people need to know where those
multiple terabytes of data is. Is it still being used? We know in
January of 2001, General Shelton was given a 3-hour briefing on Able
Danger. So even if they destroyed the data back in the summer of 2000,
in January of 2001 there was enough material to give General Shelton,
Commander of the Joint Chiefs, a 3-hour briefing.
Mr. Speaker, there is something here. I am not a conspiracy theorist,
but there is something desperately wrong, Mr. Speaker. There is
something outrageous at work here. This is not a third-rate burglary of
a political campaign headquarters. This involved what is right now the
covering up of information that led to the deaths of 3,000 people,
changed the course of history, led to the invasion of Iraq and
Afghanistan, and has disrupted our country, our economy and people's
lives.
Mr. Speaker, we could ignore this. I cannot. If it means I have to
resign from this body, I will resign. I will not allow, after 19 years
in this body and as a vice chairman of the Committee on Armed Services,
bureaucrats in the Defense Intelligence Agency to concoct stories, to
talk about the theft of pens when this lieutenant colonel was 15 years
old, to talk about this man's personal debt of $2,000. I would hate to
check the indebtedness of Members of Congress. I know mine is more than
$2,000.
Mr. Speaker, this is not America. I had a group of college students
down from Drexel University. There were about 20 of them, including
representative students from eight other nations. We talked about this.
Of course we have talked about all of the problem countries in the
world. We talk about our values as a Nation, the need for a democracy
to have people involved, to have transparency, to have people who
respect the rule of law and the Constitution.
How do I tell them that is what is working here, Mr. Speaker, when
the Pentagon says that these people who simply want to tell the truth
are not allowed? They are saying it is for classified purposes, yet the
DOD lawyer on the Senate side there is nothing classified about any of
the information. It is not about classified programs. I would be the
last to want to see anything classified revealed. I have seen many,
many instances where I have been given sensitive information that only
a few people in the Congress and the country had. I would never reveal
it. It is not about that. This is not about the DIA, this is not about
the CIA, this is about CYA. It is about CYA by bureaucrats in the
Defense Intelligence Agency and possibly some political operatives that
do not want the facts to come out about Able Danger and the information
that the Able Danger team put together. And in the process, they are
going to destroy a man, a man who has been recognized by his country,
who has a family, and who simply wants to do the right thing.
Mr. Speaker, I hated to take the floor tonight, but I did not know
what else to do. We have committees of Congress working on this. I want
to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), chairman of the FBI
Appropriation Committee on Oversight. He is as outraged as I am. I want
to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), who is
looking at this, and the gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter).
The Committee on Armed Services has a full-time staffer assigned to get
to the facts of this. I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr.
King), chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, because he is
looking at this. I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Chairman
Hoekstra) and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He has
met with Tony Shaffer and has offered to get more information. I want
to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for standing up
and beginning to ask questions, and I want to thank Senator Specter and
Senator Biden, who attended a Committee on the Judiciary hearing and
expressed their outrage. I want to thank Senator Sessions, Senator Kyl,
and Senator Grassley, who were all there. In fact, Senator Grassley
called it a coverup.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell you the number of Members who have come to
me and said this is unacceptable. I would hope that as a result of what
we have heard tonight every Member of Congress will ask for an inquiry.
The gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. McKinney) wrote a letter to the
chairman of the Committee on Armed Services asking for an
investigation. We have from Republicans to Democrats, left to right,
conservatives to liberals. What is happening here is unacceptable. It
is unimaginable. It is un-American. All over the world tonight, young
Americans are wearing our uniforms. They are doing a great job. They
make us all proud when we travel overseas. They make us proud because
of the pride they have. When I talk to them, they say I am glad to be
doing what I am doing. I am doing the right thing for our country. I
will go any place the Commander in Chief sends me. Whether I am in
Afghanistan or Iraq, they will tell me that.
{time} 2100
Whether we are in Kosovo or Somalia, they will tell us that. Whether
we are at Hurricane Katrina, whether we are at Hurricane Andrew, or
whether we are out in California, the earthquake, or the Midwestern
floods, our troops are all the same. They respect our country. They
respect our Constitution. If we allow this travesty to continue, Mr.
Speaker, then we have let all of those people down for some nameless,
faceless bureaucrat who is fearful that the information will finally
come to light, that the DIA just did not get it.
Back in 1999 and 2000, they did not have a clue. They had millions of
dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, and could not do what a 20-
member team did in being able to identify Mohammed Atta before the 9/11
attacks. DIA does not want that to come out, Mr. Speaker. They do not
want that to come out. Heaven forbid the Defense Intelligence Agency,
with hundreds of millions of dollars, would have a 20-member team do
what they could not
[[Page H8983]]
do because they were using new technology and new software. They do not
want that to come out. That is why that Deputy Director, when he was at
that meeting, said, I do not want to see this. Do not show it to me.
And that is why today that Deputy Director is trying to ruin the career
of Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer.
The only way to resolve this, Mr. Speaker, is to have a full
independent investigation by the Inspector General of the Pentagon. I
have asked Secretary Rumsfeld today to do that. I would ask my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in that request. Let
the independent inspector for the Pentagon go in, not DIA. DIA cannot
investigate itself. It does not have the capability to do that. It does
not have the integrity to do that. Let the Inspector General do the
investigation and while that is being done, protect Lieutenant Colonel
Shaffer. He does not deserve to have his career ruined or destroyed for
telling the truth.
And while we are at it, Mr. Speaker, if DIA is going to continue to
press this ridiculous set of facts, then as I said earlier, I want DIA
prosecuted for the five felonies they committed in sending classified
documents to a person that 2 weeks earlier they said was incapable of
receiving classified information. And if this continues, I want DIA
held responsible for illegally transferring $500 of public assets to a
person, that in the process of sending that stuff to him, DIA committed
fraud against the taxpayers. I want them held accountable: DIA's
stupidity; DIA's incompetence.
We have a new nominee for the head of DIA, and I am going to ask
every Senator to fully explore each of these issues before that person
is confirmed. I will meet with every Senator personally and go over all
of this information. And I would encourage the Senators and the House
Members to interview the other people who worked with Lieutenant
Colonel Shaffer and to get their assessments of what is going on there.
They will all tell them the same thing: Shaffer is being abused and
used as a scapegoat. If they can ruin Shaffer, they can silence the
story.
It cannot happen, Mr. Speaker. We cannot let it. That is not what
America is about. That is not what we say to our enlisted personnel
when they sign up for duty. That is not what we say when we pass our
defense bills every year.
This man is being maligned and mistreated. He is being harassed. The
most scurrilous accusations, totally unfounded, have been given to the
American media; and I will name names, and I will ask for an
investigation of the people who made those statements to these media
people because it all needs to be put on the record.
And as someone tomorrow who will chair another hearing on our defense
oversight to try to get the best value for the dollars for our
military, I ask all of our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, on both sides of
the aisle to join us. This is not Republicans or Democrats. It is about
what is fundamental to this country. I would ask our constituents
across America we represent to join us, to express their outrage, to e-
mail, make phone calls, write letters to the Secretary of Defense, the
President of the United States, to Members of Congress to simply let
the story be told. Let the Able Danger story finally come out to the
American people. Let them understand what really happened. Let Scott
Philpott talk. Let Tony Shaffer talk. Let the others who have been
silenced have a chance to tell their story to Congress and openly to
the American people. In the end, the country will be stronger.
____________________
[Congressional Record: October 6, 2005 (House)]
[Page H8728-H8729]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr06oc05-194]
DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY USING FALSE CLAIMS TO SILENCE COLONEL
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is
recognized for half the remaining time until midnight.
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I rise this evening for
this short Special Order to express my personal outrage regarding the
treatment of some brave military personnel who simply are trying to
tell the truth.
Madam Speaker, over the past 3 months, I have outlined for our
colleagues evidence that came from military officers that we had
knowledge of Mohammed Atta and al Qaeda prior to September 11 and the
attack against us in New York City. This information came about from a
top secret program known as ``Able Danger'' which was a program that
was developed by Special Forces Command as a planning process to deal
with al Qaeda cells.
The military officers involved with this program identified 5
specific cells around the world, one of which was a Brooklyn cell, and
this Brooklyn cell, one year before 9/11; in fact, in January and
February of 2000, actually identified Mohammed Atta, 3 of the other
terrorists that were involved in the 9/11 attack, and identified this
in a chart that was produced as a part of their planning process.
Furthermore, Madam Speaker, these military officers have testified,
and will testify under oath, that in September of 2000, one year before
September 11, they made 3 attempts to transfer information regarding
the Brooklyn cell and Mohammed Atta to the FBI. An FBI employee has
again agreed to testify under oath that she arranged the 3 meetings and
agreed to set up for the FBI the opportunity to receive this data. All
3 meetings were canceled by lawyers within the previous administration,
the Clinton administration.
We still do not know who gave the ultimate order or why those
meetings were canceled, but we do know that in September of 2000,
attempts to transfer information regarding al Qaeda, the Brooklyn cell,
and Mohammed Atta were thwarted.
This information was presented to the 9/11 Commission in an effort to
provide a clear and concise analysis of what happened prior to 9/11. On
2 separate occasions, a Lieutenant Colonel from the Army, Anthony
Shaffer and a commander from the Navy, Scott Philpott, offered to
provide information to the 9/11 Commission that they, in fact, were
involved with Able Danger and that they identified Mohammed Atta prior
to 9/11.
Colonel Shaffer, who was promoted during the past year, during a time
in which his security clearance had been temporarily lifted by the
Defense Intelligence Agency, has been the subject of gross and
outrageous harassment. I have been on the Committee on Armed Services
for 19 years, and my job as a member of that committee has been to
support our military personnel when they are assigned overseas or when
they are at home during their training and other operations. As I
mentioned to Secretary Rumsfeld in a hearing last Thursday, a full
committee hearing, I have supported every major reform that he has put
forth over the past several years regarding our military, the way our
military operates, and the way the Pentagon is organized.
Madam Speaker, Secretary Rumsfeld has repeatedly told us that his top
priority is the morale and the welfare of our troops. The commander of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both the recent and now the current Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, repeatedly tell us their top priority is
the protection of our military personnel in uniform. And now, we find
out that Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, a Bronze Star recipient,
23-year veteran of military intelligence, serving in Afghanistan,
embedded with our troops in harm's way, has had gross distortions and
absolute outrageous claims made against him publicly by the Defense
Intelligence Agency as a way to silence him.
{time} 2345
Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer has been prohibited from talking to
Members of Congress. He has been stopped from testifying before the
Senate Judiciary Committee in spite of the fact that five senators from
both parties were present at a hearing 2 weeks ago. Lieutenant Shaffer
was in the room. Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer was in the room, yet he was
not permitted to testify. His lawyer, in fact, made statements for him.
But in an attempt to totally discredit Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, in
an attempt to try to diminish his credibility before the American
people and the Congress, the Defense Intelligence Agency has resorted
to a new set of lows in terms of the credibility of our American
military. And no, Madam Speaker, I do not think this action by the
Defense Intelligence Agency has been brought forward by uniformed
military personnel. It has been brought forward by the bureaucrats, the
sort of bureaucrats who linger from one administration to the other and
who have the embarrassment of having to understand what Lieutenant
Colonel Shaffer and commander Scott Philpott did in warning us,
attempting to warn us about the 9/11 attacks.
The Defense Intelligence Agency, 1 day before Lieutenant Colonel
Shaffer was to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee,
permanently pulled his security clearance, and the reasons they gave,
Madam Speaker, were outrageous. They are scandalous. They said that he
had forwarded phone calls on his cell phone while being deployed in
Afghanistan for a total cost of approximately $67. They said that he
had received mileage and toll fees improperly for attending a military
conference at Fort Dix, New Jersey, which anyone in this body would say
he was eligible to attend. $341. They said that he, in fact, received
an award for which he was not entitled, even though his superior
officers nominated him for that award. But in one of the most
despicable acts I have ever seen a Federal agency involve itself in in
19 years, they said on the record that Lieutenant Colonel Anthony
Shaffer stole pens from the U.S. government.
Now, what they did not say, Madam Speaker, was that Lieutenant
Colonel Shaffer, when he was 15 or 16 years old, as the son of an
officer assigned to one of our embassies, admitted to stealing some
pens which he gave to some disadvantaged people. Now, clearly, when he
was 15 or 16, he was not working for the military. He was not a
military intelligence officer. He was yet to take his lie detector test
for admission into that category, and he admitted all of this. But in
this current effort to try to discredit Lieutenant Colonel Anthony
Shaffer, the Defense Intelligence Agency went to the outrageous length
of publicly acknowledging that Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer had stolen
pens and failing to mention how old he was when the theft took place,
that he publicly admitted himself before being employed by the
military.
Madam Speaker, we have a major problem in America. Sandy Berger, our
National Security Advisor, stole documents from the National Archives,
stole documents and put them in his clothing and took them out because
they would incriminate him and President Clinton about what they knew
before 9/11. He stole them. He placed them inside of his coat, in his
pants, in his shoes, and he took those documents out of the National
Archives because he did not want the 9/11 Commission to see what was in
there. When he was caught, and finally brought to justice, his security
clearance was lifted for 3 years.
Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer simply told the truth and because
Defense intelligence bureaucrats are unhappy about being embarrassed
they have removed his security clearance permanently. Is that what
America is about, Madam Speaker? Is it about protecting a national
security advisor who steals classified documents from the archives of
the United States about what happened before 9/11 and gets a 3-year
lift of his clearance, and a uniformed military officer who simply
tells the truth has his security clearance permanently lifted?
Madam Speaker, if we do not right this wrong that will send and is
sending a signal to every uniformed officer in America, if you tell the
truth and if that truth embarrasses a bureaucrat or a political
appointee, you are more expendable than the civilian officer, and
[[Page H8729]]
that cannot stand. We must do better. Anthony Shaffer deserves justice.
____________________
[Congressional Record: September 21, 2005 (Digest)]
[Page D942-D945]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr21se05-1]
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
[[Page D942]]
Daily Digest
Senate
[Excerpt]
INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION SHARING
Committee on the Judiciary: Committee held a hearing to examine the
operations of Able Danger, a small highly-classified United States Army
intelligence unit that searched for al Qaeda terrorists, and the status
of intelligence information sharing between the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Department of Defense, receiving testimony from
Representative Curt Weldon; William R. Dugan, Jr., Acting Assistant to
the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Oversight; Gary M. Bald,
Executive Assistant Director, National Security Branch, Federal Bureau
of Investigation, Department of Justice; Mark S. Zaid, Krieger and
Zaid, PLLC, Washington, D.C.; and Erik Kleinsmith, Lockheed Martin,
Newington, Virginia, former Major, USA, Chief of Intelligence, Land
Information Warfare Activity.
Hearing recessed subject to the call.
_____________
Hearing testimony:
http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=1606
| Captions by Associated Press | |
![[Image]](able-danger2-01.jpg)
Representative Curt Weldon, R-Pa., testifies on "Able Danger" and intelligence sharing prior to the Sept. 11 attacks before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2005. James Smith, second from left, and Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, center, listen in the background, Both men were ordered by the Pentagon not to testify. A staff member holds an Al-Qaeda organizational chart at right. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) |
![[Image]](able-danger2-02.jpg)
Representative Curt Weldon, R-Pa., testifies on "Able Danger" and intelligence sharing prior to the Sept. 11 attacks before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2005. James Smith, second from right, and Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, right, listen in the background, Both men were ordered by the Pentagon not to testify. Al-Qaeda organizational charts stand in the foreground. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) |
![[Image]](able-danger2-03.jpg)
James Smith, left, and Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer listen during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2005, on "Able Danger" and intelligence information sharing prior to the Sept. 11 attacks. Both men were ordered by the Pentagon not to testify. An Al-Qaeda organizational chart stands in the foreground. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) |
![[Image]](able-danger2-04.jpg)
Former Army Maj. Erik Kleinsmith testifies he was ordered to destroy documents relating "Able Danger" and intelligence sharing prior to the Sept. 11 attacks during an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2005. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) |
http://curtweldon.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=36967
TRANSCRIPT: SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE HEARING ON ABLE DANGER/INTELLIGENCE
INFORMATION SHARING
WASHINGTON, Sep 21 - Congressman Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), vice chairman
of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, testified before
the Senate Judiciary Committee on intelligence sharing issues, and Able Danger
- a Department of Defense planning effort to identify and target the linkages
and relationships of Al-Qaeda worldwide. Below is a FULL TRANSCRIPT of the
hearing:
U.S. SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE HOLDS A HEARING ON ABLE DANGER/INTELLIGENCE
INFORMATION SHARING
SEPTEMBER 21, 2005
SPEAKERS: U.S. SENATOR ARLEN SPECTER (R-PA); CHAIRMAN U.S. SENATOR ORRIN
G. HATCH (R-UT); U.S. SENATOR CHARLES E. GRASSLEY (R-IA); U.S. SENATOR JON
KYL (R-AZ); U.S. SENATOR MIKE DEWINE (R-OH); U.S. SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS (R-AL);
U.S. SENATOR LINDSEY O. GRAHAM (R-SC); U.S. SENATOR JOHN CORNYN (R-TX); U.S.
SENATOR SAM BROWNBACK (R-KS); U.S. SENATOR TOM COBURN (R-OK); U.S. SENATOR
PATRICK J. LEAHY (D-VT); RANKING MEMBER U.S. SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY (D-MA);
U.S. SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR. (D-DE); U.S. SENATOR HERBERT KOHL (D-WI);
U.S. SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA); U.S. SENATOR RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD (D-WI);
U.S. SENATOR CHARLES E. SCHUMER (D-NY); U.S. SENATOR RICHARD J. DURBIN (D-IL)
WITNESSES: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE CURT WELDON (R-PA);
MARK ZAID, ATTORNEY FOR SEVERAL ABLE DANGER TEAM MEMBERS; ERIK KLEINSMITH,
FORMER ARMY MAJOR AND CHIEF OF INTELLIGENCE, LAND INFORMATION WARFARE ANALYSIS;
GARY BALD, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF THE FBI FOR COUNTERTERRORISM AND
COUNTERINTELLIGENCE;
WILLIAM DUGAN, ASSISTANT TO THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INTELLIGENCE OVERSIGHT
[*] SPECTER: The Judiciary Committee will now proceed to a hearing on a project
known as Able Danger.
There has been extensive publicity in the media about this program known
as Able Danger, with representations that the Department of Defense had
information about an Al Qaida cell, including the identification of Mohammed
Atta substantially prior to 9/11, and that arrangements which had been made
preliminarily to turn over the information to the FBI were not carried out
because of concern by the Department of Defense that there might be a violation
of the Posse Comitatus Act.
That is a statute which was enacted shortly after the Civil War which prevents
the United States military from being engaged in law enforcement activities.
If the Posse Comitatus Act precluded this information from being turned over
by the Department of Defense to the FBI, then that is a matter which may
require amendments to the act, and that is a matter for the Judiciary Committee
-- squarely within our jurisdiction. The oversight of the FBI also is a matter
squarely within the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee so that the committee
is concerned about what happens here.
There have been some allegations of destruction of records. There has been
a question raised as to whether the name Mohammed Atta is the Mohammed Atta
-- some saying that it's a common name -- and the circumstances relating
to the identification of the Al Qaida cell if, in fact, that happened; and
alleged charts with the name of Mohammed Atta and a picture all are questions
to be resolved.
For the record, I will now introduce without objection a letter which I wrote
to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld dated September 8, 2005. There have been
extensive discussions between my staff and staff from the Department of Defense.
And I was surprised to find that the Department of Defense has ordered five
key witnesses not to testify: some in the military, some civilian working
for the Department of Defense. That looks to me as if it may be obstruction
of the committee's activity, something we will have to determine. There have
been repeated requests for documents. They were delivered, I'm advised, last
night at 5 o'clock, and they were in a secure room, Senate 407, some 500
pages, so there's not been any opportunity to review those documents for
whatever light that they may bear upon this hearing.
There has been a contention raised by Department of Defense that the department
is concerned about classified information. This committee is zealous in its
protection of classified information, something that I've had personal extensive
contact with in my capacity as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee
of the 104th Congress.
I conferred with Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Intelligence Committee,
and our staffs have coordinated so that we will be advised of whatever the
Senate Intelligence Committee knows so that we have the benefit of the work
of both staffs.
SPECTER: As a precautionary matter, the committee has conferred with the
Office of Legal Counsel on the issue of classified information, and I would,
without objection, put into the record the advice from the Office of Legal
Counsel, which takes the form of a memorandum from my general counsel, Carolyn
Short, to me, specifying the advice which she had received orally from the
Office of Legal Counsel. It was put in writing under their procedure on a
request by Senator Leahy and myself in writing.
I will put a copy of the letter from Senator Leahy and me to the Office of
Legal Counsel and put into the record this memorandum from the Office of
Legal Counsel.
The essence of the situation on classified information is that the Office
of Legal Counsel advised that I should state -- and then I do -- at the opening
of this hearing that we are not seeking the disclosure of classified information
and that I'm instructing the witnesses not to disclose any classified
information.
The legal counsel further advised that I should instruct the witnesses that
if there is classified information that they wish to present to the committee,
that they so inform the committee in order that, at the conclusion of the
public hearing, the committee can make the decision about whether to go into
closed session.
We have a representative from the Department of Defense here today, Mr. William
Dugan, who is acting assistant to the secretary of defense for intelligence
oversight, Department of Defense. And legal counsel has made the suggestion
that the DOD representative in the audience at the hearing should feel free
to raise objections to staff when appropriate.
Well, I would go beyond that and say that if someone from the Department
of Defense who was here has an objection, they can state it publicly prior
to the time any risk arises of the disclosure of classified information.
And the committee will take into account what is raised to make a determination.
And we will err on the side of caution to be sure that there is no classified
information.
Our lead witness is Congressman Curt Weldon, who has key positions on the
House of Representatives' Armed Services Committee and on subcommittees dealing
with intelligence. Congressman Weldon has made a very expansive study of
this matter. I've known him personally for 25 years or more since the days
when he was mayor of Marcus Hook and in the House of Representatives, having
been elected there in 1986.
My knowledge of Congressman Weldon is to give me the utmost confidence in
his thoroughness and his integrity and his objectivity.
And on the issue of the classified information, in discussing this matter
with Congressman Weldon, he assured me and the committee that classified
information was not involved here.
May the record show he's nodding that in a few minutes he will be testifying
about his knowledge of that and the reasons why he said, as reported to me
in our discussions in advance of this hearing, that if it had been classified,
they would have had to have been a formal order of destruction.
Again, the record can show he's nodding that he will testify to that.
Well, that is a very, very brief statement of overview.
Terrorism remains the number one problem in the United States today.
Notwithstanding all of the other problems we have, it is the number one problem.
And this country is still recoiling from the events of 9/11, 2001, more than
four years ago. This country will be recoiling from those events for a very,
very long time: really indefinitely and perhaps permanently.
SPECTER: And if there is some change legislatively which needs to be undertaken
in the Posse Comitatus Act, it is the duty of this committee to move ahead
and to find out what went wrong here, if something, in fact, did go wrong.
And it is my hope that we will have cooperation yet from the Department of
Defense on these important matters.
It is not a matter of attaching blame, it is a matter of correcting any errors
so that we don't have a repetition of 9/11. And if there is intelligence
information available, it ought to be shared and known to the authorities
who can act on it, like the FBI and the CIA and the other intelligence agencies.
This is practically a Delaware Valley affair at this moment. We've been joined
by Senator Biden, whom I yield to now for any opening statement he may care
to make.
BIDEN: Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Apologize for being a few minutes late.
I'm here for two reasons.
One, my high regard for the congressman. He's, over the years and the last
nine months, shared information with me. Some of it seemed prescient. And
it turns out that a number of the things he said I was unaware of have turned
out to be the case.
And I thought this morning we were going to be able to get to the bottom
of some of this. I know, as you know better than I do, that the congressman
is a loyal American first, but a very staunch Republican, and has no political
agenda here, other than trying to figure out what we knew and didn't know,
and why we didn't know it.
And my staff indicates to me that representatives from the Department of
Defense have confirmed that an internal investigation identified on five
Able Danger team members who claimed they'd either seen a picture of Atta
or had seen his name in the chart prepared in '99 by the Able Danger team.
And the Defense investigation found these sources to be credible, but didn't
uncover the chart itself.
Defense officials have said that documents associated with the project have
been destroyed in accordance with regulations regarding collection, dissemination
and destruction procedures for intelligence gathering on people inside the
United States.
And so I thought we were going to get a chance to clear some of it up this
morning.
For the life of me, I don't understand why -- as I understand it -- I stand
corrected if I'm wrong -- but I understand the witnesses we assumed we were
going to get to hear from from the Defense Department have been pulled, and
may be or may not be in the room, but have been instructed that they cannot
testify.
I think that's a big mistake, and I am sorry that is the case.
But I know the chairman over the many years we've been friends and worked
together seldom takes "no" for an answer when we have a right to hear certain
things. And so I hope we will pursue that.
But in the meantime I'm anxious to hear -- to be very blunt about it -- I
have heard -- I've had the opportunity to travel with the congressman. He
and I went to Iraq on Memorial Day with a number of his bipartisan group
he led from the House. We had a chance to talk about a lot of this.
So I'm going to stop -- I have a few minutes left, but stop now because I
am supposed to co-host the king of Jordan with my colleague Senator Lugar
in the Foreign Relations Committee, and he's going to be talking to us about
Iraq and a few other things.
So I'm going to stay as long as I can, but hope we can get to the bottom
of this and hope we can prevail upon the Defense Department to change its
mind. I've heard no good reason for the change.
But I thank you, and I welcome the congressman.
SPECTER: Thank you very much, Senator Biden.
Senator Leahy, the ranking member, is scheduled to speak shortly on the floor
on the nomination of Judge Roberts for chief justice or he would be here,
as he attends very faithfully.
We've been joined by Senator Kyl, who chairs the Subcommittee on Terrorism.
Senator Kyl, would you care to make any opening remarks?
KYL: Mr. Chairman, first of all, welcome to my colleague Curt Weldon. We
came into the House of Representatives together, oh, a few years ago.
And I've appreciated the effort that he's put in to trying to get to the
bottom of this matter and the fact that he's had a lot to do with bringing
it to our attention.
And commend you for the effort here to also get to the bottom of it and hold
these hearings. I know that we're going to have a lot of work to do in the
future to bring all of the folks here and, in the meantime, subscribe to
your notion that we need to do a little bit more work on the whole issue
of Posse Comitatus, so that we can address that as well.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SPECTER: Thank you very much, Senator Kyl.
For the record, as to Congressman Weldon's background and work in this phase
(ph), it ought to be noted that he is vice chairman of the House Armed Services
Committee and chairs the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee. He served
six years as chairman of the Military, Research and Development Subcommittee.
And he's also vice chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. So he's been
very deeply involved in these issues.
Our practice, Congressman Weldon, is to set the time at five minutes even
for members of the House or for senators. But, knowing what you have to say,
we're going to set the clock at 15 minutes. And, to the extent you can testify
about this very complex situation within that time would be fine. And if
it takes a little longer, we want you to have an opportunity to develop the
factual issues as fully as you can.
Thank you for coming and we look forward to your testimony.
WELDON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And let me thank my friends Joe Biden and Jon Kyl for also showing up for
this hearing.
And I want to thank you for your willingness to listen to the facts of this
story and attempt to get to the bottom of it.
And I will be brief. I wrote my statement down, which I don't usually do,
to stay in compliance with your time limitation, Mr. Chairman.
I have a number of documents that I'll make available to the committee and
will enter into the record. If the chairman would like, I have a full written
statement and a timeline, but I have some prepared comments I'd like to make
today.
I'd like to thank you and Ranking Member Leahy and the other members for
scheduling this hearing today. Mr. Chairman, I am dismayed and frustrated,
however, with the response of our government to information about the program
Able Danger.
The Defense Department has acknowledged that a program Able Danger existed
and operated during the 1999-2000 time period, authorized by the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and carried out by SOCOM with the help of the
Army.
DOD has stated publicly that five individuals -- including an Army lieutenant
colonel, recipient of the Bronze Star, who's in the room today; and a Navy
Annapolis graduate, ship commander -- have emphatically claimed that they
worked on or ran Able Danger and identified Mohammed Atta and three other
9/11 terrorists over one year prior to the trade center attacks.
These five individuals have told me, your staff and others that Able Danger
amassed significant amounts of data, primarily from open sources, about Al
Qaida operations worldwide, and that this data continued to be use through
2001 in briefings prepared for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
and others.
These two brave military officers have risked their careers to come forward
to simply tell the truth and to help American fully understand all that happened
prior to 9/11 that had or might have had an impact on the most significant
attack ever against our country and our citizens.
These individuals have openly expressed their willingness to testify here
today without subpoenas, but have been silenced by the Pentagon. They have
been prevented from testifying, according to the Pentagon, due to concerns
regarding classified information; in spite, Mr. Chairman, of the Pentagon's
claims to members of the House Armed Services Committee two weeks ago that
the bulk of the data used by Able Danger was open source, which was why DOD
lawyers claim that no certificates were needed to certify the destruction
of massive amounts of data that had been collected.
Mr. Chairman, you can't have it both ways: It's either classified or it's
not. But what the Pentagon has done the last two weeks is they've contradicted
themselves.
Another former DOD official told me and your staff and was prepared to testify
today -- and he's in the room -- that he worked on the data collection and
analysis used to support Able Danger. He was prepared to state, as he told
us, that he had an Able Danger chart with Mohammed Atta identified on his
office wall at the Andrews Air Force Base until DOD Investigative Services
removed it. At risk to his current employment, he has told us, and is prepared
to testify under oath, in direct rebuttal to the claims of the 9/11
commissioners, that he was aware of the purchase of Mohammed Atta's photograph
from a California contractor, not from U.S. legal identity documents.
He was prepared to discuss the extensive amount of data collected and analyzed
about Al Qaida.
SPECTER: Whom are you referring to now, Congressman Weldon?
WELDON: I'm talking about J.D. (ph), right here. And he's in the room.
WELDON: He is prepared to discuss the extensive amount of data collected
and analyzed about Al Qaida, underscoring the fact that Able Danger was never
about one chart or one photograph but rather was and is about massive data
collected and assembled against what Madeleine Albright declared to be in
1999 an international terrorist organization.
He too has been silenced.
Another former DOD official will testify today that he was ordered to destroy
up to 2.4 terabytes of data. Now, I don't know what a terabyte of data is
so we contacted the Library of Congress. It's equal to one-fourth of all
the entire written collection that the Library of Congress maintains.
This information was amassed through Able Danger that could still be useful
today.
He will name the individual who ordered him to destroy that data and will
state for the record that the customer for that data, General Lambert of
SOCOM, was never consulted about that destruction and expressed his outrage
upon learning that the destruction had taken place.
An FBI employee that I identified, and has met with your committee staff,
was prepared to testify today that she arranged three meetings with the FBI
Washington field office in September of 2000 for the specific purpose of
transferring Al Qaida Brooklyn cell Able Danger information to the FBI for
their use.
In each instance, she has stated that meetings were canceled at the last
minute by DOD officials. She has not been allowed to testify publicly today.
The 9/11 Commission was created by Congress with my full support. I have
publicly championed many of their recommendations. On four separate occasions,
I attempted to brief the commission on specifics related to intelligence
problems, lack of intelligence collaboration, the NOAH concept, the national
operations analysis hub that I had pursued in '99 and 2000, and the work
of the LIWA on Able Danger.
Except for one five-minute telephone call with Tom Kean, I was unable to
meet with 9/11 commissioners and/or staff.
In fact, I had my chief of staff hand-deliver questions to be asked of George
Tenet and others to the commission on March the 24th of 2004, which I will
enter into the record. They were never used and the questions were never
asked.
It was, in fact, a member of the 9/11 Commission who encouraged me to pursue
the Able Danger story after I briefed him on June 29th of 2005. He informed
me that the 9/11 Commission staff had never briefed commission members on
Able Danger. He said that the facts had to be brought out.
When the 9/11 Commission first responded to questions about Able Danger,
they changed their story and spin three times in three days.
This is not what Congress intended.
All the people involved with Able Danger should have been interviewed by
the 9/11 Commission. Because Able Danger ceased to formally exist before
the administration came into office, I understand why there might have been
a lack of knowledge about the program and its operations.
In fact, when I first met with Steve Cambone -- and I'm the one who introduced
him to Tony Shaffer, who's here today -- he told me that he was at a significant
disadvantage; that I knew more about Able Danger than he did. But that is
not an excuse to not pursue the complete story of Able Danger.
In fact, Mr. Chairman, DOD never conducted an actual investigation, and this
came up in our Armed Services meeting two weeks ago. No oaths were given.
No subpoenas were issued. Rather, an informal inquiry was initiated.
A thorough review of Able Danger, its operations and data collected and analyzed
and recommendations for data transfer to other agencies could have and should
have been completed by more than one member of Congress using one staffer.
Instead, over the past three months I have witnessed denial, deception, threats
to DOD employees, character assassination and now silence.
This is not what our constituents want. It is unacceptable to the families
and friends of the victims of 9/11, and flies in the face of every ideal
upon which this country was founded.
Over the past six weeks, some have used the Able Danger story to make unfair
public allegations, to question the intentions or character of 9/11 commissioners
or to advance conspiracy theories. I have done none of this.
When I learned details of Able Danger in June, I talked to 9/11 commissioners
personally and staff. I delivered a comprehensive floor speech on June 27th
of 2005 and methodically briefed the House chairs of Armed Services,
Intelligence, Homeland Security and Justice Appropriations.
This story only became public, even though significant portions were first
reported in a Heritage Foundation speech that I gave -- still available online
-- on May 23rd, 2002, and a Computer World magazine story that ran on January
28, 2003, when Government Security News ran a story on August the 1st of
2005, followed by a front-page story in the New York Times on August the
2nd of 2005.
My goal now, Mr. Chairman, is the same as it was then: the full and complete
truth for the American people about the run-up to 9/11.
Many Americans lost family and friends on 9/11. Michael Horrocks was a neighbor
of mine in Pennsylvania. A former Navy pilot, graduate of Westchester, like
myself. He was at the controls of one of the planes on 9/11. He left behind
a wife and two kids.
We built a playground in his honor at his kids' school.
Ray Downey was a personal friend. As a New York deputy fire officer, he took
me through the garage of the trade center towers in 1993, the first time
bin Laden hit us. We worked together.
In fact, he gave me the idea for the creation of the Gilmore commission,
which I authored and added to the defense authorization bill in 1997.
On September 11th, 2001, he was the New York City Fire Department chief of
all rescue. The 343 firefighters, including Ray, who were all killed were
under Ray's command as he led the largest and most successful rescue effort
in the history of mankind.
I promised Michael's wife and kids and Ray's wife and kids and grandkids
that we would not stop until the day that we have learned all the facts about
9/11.
Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, that day has not yet arrived. We must do better.
SPECTER: Thank you very much.
WELDON: Mr. Chairman, I have significant material that I would put into the
record: data that I provided the 9/11 Commission, questions I gave them.
WELDON: I have packets that I gave them, my material on the NOAH process.
I can enter it all into the record. It's basically your call.
SPECTER: Without objections, all of those matters, documents, will be made
a part of the record.
Senator Biden, you said that you have other commitments. Can you wait for
five minutes for the first round? Or I'd be glad to yield to you if...
BIDEN: If you wouldn't mind, Mr. Chairman.
SPECTER: No, I'd be glad to.
BIDEN: What I'd like to suggest is, since the questions my staff and I had
prepared, quite frankly, weren't directed to Congressman Weldon, but to others
who we thought were going to be testifying, I'd like to submit for the record,
just so it's in the record, what I want to know from these other witnesses.
SPECTER: Without objection, you may do so.
BIDEN: There's a number of theories that are bouncing around, Curt, about
why would -- first of all, the timeline here. Able Danger was established
in September of '99, correct?
WELDON: It is a '98-'99 time frame, but officially '99.
BIDEN: When did it go out of business?
WELDON: As best we can tell, it ended in 2000, yet there was a briefing given
to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- a three-hour briefing --
in January of 2001, using material -- now, even though they claim they've
destroyed all the material, there obviously had to be material for the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs to be briefed.
And I just learned that Steve Cambone also was involved in a briefing with
the head of the DIA in March of 2001. I was not aware of that information
until last week.
One of your witnesses would have explained that here today.
BIDEN: Well, that's what I was hoping we'd be able to establish, is that
Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, who I understand is in the audience today, who's
under Rumsfeld's gag order, attempted to give this information as well to
the FBI in 2001.
WELDON: September 2000 he arranged three meetings. And the FBI person who
was going to testify but was silenced, was going to state that she knew the
purpose of the meetings.
BIDEN: And was anyone prepared to testify to the fact that there was a three-hour
briefing for General Shelton?
WELDON: Yes, Tony Shaffer would have done that.
BIDEN: And for the record, obviously, he was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs
at the time, right?
WELDON: Yes.
BIDEN: And then the March 2001 meeting, that briefing for Undersecretary
of Defense for Intelligence Steve Cambone, there was someone prepared to
confirm that today as well.
WELDON: My understanding, Mr. Cambone was not in his current position at
that time. He was a special assistant to Secretary Rumsfeld.
And the purpose of the brief, my understanding is, was not specifically for
Able Danger. It was a briefing on another classified program.
WELDON: But Able Danger came up, it was discussed, and it was discussed by
a lawyer who you had wanted to testify named Richard Schiefren (ph), by the
head of naval intelligence, Admiral Wilson, and I believe there was a third
person in the room -- is that it?
Just the two: Admiral Wilson, Richard Schiefren (ph), Steve Cambone and Able
Danger was discussed in March of 2001 at that meeting.
BIDEN: Next question: Why was Able Danger shut down?
WELDON: There were a combination of reasons.
They had done a profile of Chinese proliferation in 1999 that John Hamre
had asked for. I was aware of that presentation. And because it was massive
data mining that had not yet been vetted, a couple of very sensitive names
surfaced because they had been affiliated with Stanford University, where
many of the students that were doing this very, very specific research, very
sensitive to our country's security, were located.
And I think partly because of that, there was a wave of controversy. In fact,
in the House, the son of Congressman Sam Johnson was working for the Raytheon
Corporation. He went to his father and said, "Dad, they're destroying data."
Sam went to Dan Burton, who was chairman of the Government Operations Committee,
and Dan Burton subpoenaed documents that had been used in compiling the Chinese
proliferation information.
As a result of that, tremendous pressure was placed on the Army because this
was a prototype operation. And they shut down the Able Danger operation.
General Schoomaker was so enamored with this capability that he stood up
a separate operation in Garland, Texas, at a Raytheon facility, to try to
duplicate what had been done at the LIWA in the Army. And that lasted for
about a year, maybe slightly longer than a year.
So the Special Forces Command understood the significance of this data. And
as a result of the Chinese proliferation situation, I'm convinced that Able
Danger was shut down.
BIDEN: Is there sense of the, sort of -- when you get into this, the, sort
of, buzz that it was shut down because Able Danger exceeded its authority
and was dealing with targeting Americans that the Defense Department and
other were concerned would cause a real brouhaha?
There was even some press accounts that the now-secretary of state came up
on a list as being suspect somehow or something ridiculous.
I mean, what part did that play?
WELDON: It was a significant part. In fact...
SPECTER: Senator Biden, if you need a little more time, take it. You won't
be here for a second round so if you need a little more time proceed.
WELDON: In fact, that was a significant part. The secretary of state's name
did come up, along with the former secretary of defense, because they were
both affiliated with Stanford, where this research work was being done by
Chinese students that were here basically acquiring technology that was very
sensitive to our security.
But for them to say that somehow this information should have all been destroyed,
to me, is unacceptable because the military itself had said it was open-source
information. It's the same information the Republican and Democrat Party
used to target votes.
It's massive data you can buy in open sources, it's information you can get,
it's magazine subscriptions that you order, it's everything that's available
in the public domain.
Now, if there is a fact some classified information blended in with that,
then that needs to be dealt with, and there are processes to do that.
The Able Danger folks knew that there was the possibility of information
coming out about American nationals and they knew how to deal with that.
I don't understand for the life of me how that would justify destroying 2.5
terabytes of data and especially not in telling the customer before you're
going to do that, "I'm going to destroy all your data," if Madeleine Albright
has declared Al Qaida the top international terrorist organization in the
world, which she did.
And furthermore, for them to brief General Sheldon in January of 2001, meant
they didn't destroy all the information. So who decided to keep information
and what led to the fact that some of that information was kept for later
briefings?
So I don't accept the position.
And furthermore, what I would say is let them come and explain that publicly.
BIDEN: Well, that's the only point I'm trying to get at here. This is a bit
-- your assertions are not confusing. And, I mean, I'm inclined to accept
what the witnesses would have said based upon staff and based upon assertions
that have been made by you. You wouldn't be saying this with them sitting
behind you if these guys were ready to say what you said they're going to
say.
One of them, at this point, gagged or not, would say, "Hey, I wasn't going
to say that."
So it's pretty compelling. The part that, quite frankly, confuses the devil
out of me as I try to figure this out, Mr. Chairman, this started in the
Clinton administration. It morphed into or it leached into the beginning
of the Bush administration. It's not like there's an attempt to nail politically
anybody here.
I don't understand why -- it's not self-evident to me why the Defense Department
would be so, so focused on this not coming forward. I don't understand, quite
frankly, why the commission and Slade Gordon, if he was -- if, in fact, folks
were briefed, why they'd say no. It's absolutely -- I forget he has a very,
very strong statement saying...
WELDON: They were never briefed.
BIDEN: ... that they were never briefed and no one knew anything about this.
BIDEN: And I don't get why the cover-up. I don't get the purpose of the cover-up.
Is it to protect the Clinton administration, the Bush administration? Is
it to protect something that was going on that was illegal under the law?
I don't get it. I don't understand why people aren't just coming forward
and saying: Here's the deal. This is what happened.
I hope we can get to the bottom of this, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to be able to submit some questions in writing. I know when
I say submit the questions, I was going to ask the witnesses that are on
the record, where I'm confused, what I want certified, what I want spoken
to, anyway.
And I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your courtesy in allowing me, A, to go
first and to go over my four minutes of the time that was allotted.
And I thank the chairman in the House for being here.
SPECTER: Senator Biden, your questions will be made a part of the record
and directed to the witnesses to give you responses.
Congressman Weldon, you commented about threats and character assassination.
What did you mean as to the threats?
WELDON: Mr. Chairman, at least two of the five people that were going to
appear today were threatened with removal of their security clearances if
they continued to talk about this. This is...
SPECTER: Are you at liberty to identify who those two are?
WELDON: I will to you. I'd rather do it privately, since the Defense Department
has chosen not to allow anyone to testify. But I will provide that information
to the committee.
At least two of them. And one of them -- and I will state this publicly,
because it happened just on the eve of this hearing -- Lieutenant Colonel
Tony Shaffer had his security clearance officially removed the day before
this hearing was scheduled to be held -- not yesterday, but actually it would
have been Monday night. He was notified. His lawyer will come next and will
tell you that his security clearance was officially removed.
There's no doubt in my mind that that was caused by his cooperation.
SPECTER: How about the character assassination?
WELDON: There's been character assassination left and right. We had Larry
Di Rita, the spokesman for the Pentagon, question the memories of these military
people when they came out.
And I called Larry Di Rita on the phone. I said: How can you question an
Annapolis graduate who was the commander of one of our naval destroyers,
who risked his entire career after 23 years...
SPECTER: You're talking about Captain Philpott (ph).
WELDON: I'm talking about Captain Philpott (ph) -- to tell his story because
the 9/11 Commission characterized his work as historically insignificant.
How can you challenge his memory? Why don't you challenge the memories of
the other people who said this didn't occur? That to me was outrageous.
There are a number of other examples. I can provide a whole list of those,
a litany of those character assassinations and attempts to intimidate for
the committee.
SPECTER: Would you specify, again, why you've concluded that the information
was not classified based upon what DOD told you?
WELDON: At a private briefing that we had for members of the Armed Services
Committee two weeks ago, there were probably six members in the room, three
Republican, three Democrats, and all of our staff, the legal counsel for
the Pentagon when asked: What about the certification for the destruction...
SPECTER: Mr. Haynes (ph)?
WELDON: I don't know the name. I will get it for you. I don't recall the
name right now, but he was legal counsel.
He said there was no certificate needed if the information is not classified
or not used in compartmentalized work.
You can't claim that the information is not classified on one hand and then
come in today when all they're going to talk about is open sources...
SPECTER: A representation was made to you that this did not involve classified
information.
WELDON: Yes. To the Armed Services Committee members.
SPECTER: And is there a transcript of that record?
WELDON: No, there's not. It was an informal briefing.
Most of what the Pentagon did was informal. There were no minutes kept. There
were not witnesses put under oath. There were no subpoenas issued. It was
not an investigation. And that point was raised by the members of the Armed
Services Committee. It was not an investigation.
SPECTER: Since Captain Philpott (ph) has been precluded from testifying --
ordered not to testify -- I'd prefer to hear him, but in his absence, did
you discuss this matter with him or question him in detail?
WELDON: Yes. I questioned Captain Philpott (ph). He was the one who was so
incensed about what happened that he risked his entire naval career and came
out with a New York Times interview -- that I arranged -- and he said to
the reporter, with me there listening and witnessing, that he would risk
his entire career and life on the fact that in January and February of 2000
he identified absolutely Mohammed Atta as a part of the Brooklyn cell.
SPECTER: And with respect to Dr. Eileen Pricer, she too has been ordered
not to testify.
Had you discussed this matter in detail with her?
WELDON: I have discussed it with all the individuals. She, too, said that
there were materials that were produced that identified Mohammed Atta by
name and with a facial recognition that the 9/11 Commission said couldn't
have happened because there were no government ID documents.
But as you'll hear -- or you won't hear because J.D. (ph) won't be allowed
to testify -- but what he would have said is they purchased the photograph
of Mohammed Atta from a contractor in California.
Now, we came very close to identifying that contractor and we're still working
on it. We know people who knew the woman.
SPECTER: Who said that?
WELDON: One of the 9/11 commissioners -- I think it was Tim Roemer -- said
publicly that there was no way they could have had a photograph of Mohammed
Atta because there were no government records at the time that Able Danger
reported. But they didn't get it from government records. They got the
photography of Mohammed Atta by purchasing it from a source in California.
And the witness that was not allowed to testify today, who's sitting behind
me, would have stated that he was aware of that effort and how they got that
photograph.
SPECTER: What information do you have as to the allegation on destruction
of records?
WELDON: You're going to hear testimony today from another former federal
employee who, again, is risking his career -- he's a private contractor today
-- that he was ordered to destroy...
SPECTER: And his name is?
WELDON: His name is Erik Kleinsmith. He's on your witness list. And he will
testify that he was ordered to destroy all the Able Danger material, 2.5
terabytes, and he will name the person who ordered him to destroy that data.
And he was further told that if he didn't do it he would lose his job and
quite possibly might go to jail. He will also testify -- and you can ask
him this question -- but it's my understanding he'll testify that when he
met with General Lambert, who was the SOCOM official who was the customer
for this data, he had never been consulted prior to the destruction of this
data and when he found out he was livid.
For the life of me I don't understand how someone extraneous from that chain
of command could order destruction of data and not even inform the customer
of that data, the general at SOCOM, General Lambert.
SPECTER: Thank you, Congressman Weldon.
My red light went on during the middle of your last answer, so I will desist
now and turn to Senator Kyl.
KYL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think that most of the questions I have are actually for the lawyers who
are going to testify but I'm not sure what they can testify to so let me
ask you a couple of questions.
WELDON: I don't think Mark Zaid will be limited, John, so do whatever you
want.
KYL: I'm trying to now -- having served on the Intelligence Committee for
eight years, I can understand why their might be some nervousness about this,
so I'm going to try to put on a hat to be the most restrictive Devil's advocate
here and try to figure out why they might want to restrict this information.
For example, data-mining is known to be a method for intelligence collection
and it's just now beginning to be something that is utilized. And this was
one of the first significant uses of it as I understand it. That is a method
of intelligence gathering.
What do you know about the point that perhaps one of the reasons why they
don't want a lot of public testimony about this is that it might reveal
capabilities, methodology that might be relevant to, A, future intelligence
gathering and, B, might conceivably tip somebody off that they may or may
not have been the part of an investigation if it related to data-mining?
From all of your discussions of this, could that be part of the reason. And
if it is, why would that necessarily limit most of the things that you've
talked about here?
WELDON: Well, it wouldn't. It has been a reason given, and I share the
gentleman's concern for security. We served together on the Armed Services
Committee for a number of years. And as the vice chairman of the Armed Services
Committee, I would never do anything to reveal classified data. So that would
never be an intent of mine.
This information was largely open source. From 1999, I started pursuing the
prototype that the Army had developed at our (inaudible) facility at Fort
Belvoir. I was the oversight chairman of the committee that funded it.
I was enamored with their capability. And I saw tremendous potential. In
fact, I had experience in '99 -- that I'll go into but it would take some
time, if you want -- as to how I saw the CIA and the FBI did not have the
capability. I took a delegation of 10 members to Vienna to meet with five
Russians to find a common foundation in the Kosovo war.
WELDON: Before I left, the Russians told me they were bringing a Serb. I
called George Tenet at the CIA. I said can you run me a profile of this Serb?
He gave me two sentences.
I called the Army's information dominance center, which I had a good relationship
with. I said to the folks down there: Dr. Heath (ph) and Dr. Pricer, can
you run me a profile?
They unofficially gave me like eight or 10 pages. In fact, when I came back
from that trip, I got a call from the FBI and the CIA to debrief them on
what I knew about the Serbs.
And the CIA said, "Congressman." When I said, "Why is it so urgent," they
said, "We've been tasked by the State Department to brief our ambassador
negotiating the end of the war, and you met with this person. So we want
you to debrief our people."
So I had four agents in my office for two hours. And I gave them all that
I knew. And when I ended I said, "Now, you know where I got my data from?"
They said, "Well, you got it from the Russians."
I said, "No."
"Well, you got it from the Serb?"
I said, "No." I said, "Before I left America, I called the Army's information
dominance center. They ran me a profile and gave me eight to 10 pages of
open source information."
The FBI and the CIA said, "What's the Army's information dominance center?"
It was then that I developed the nine-page briefing called the NOAH, a national
operations and analysis hub. John Hamre agreed with my assessment that this
was critically important -- and it was developed by intelligence people;
not by me.
On November the 4th of 1999, two years before 9/11, I had the CIA, the FBI
and DOD in my office, at John Hamre's suggestion, to brief them on creating
what today exists -- the TTIC and now the NCTC.
And the CIA, again, in the brief said, "We don't need that. It's not necessary."
And so as a result, before 9/11, I felt I did not push hard enough against
the system to put into place a mechanism that today is in place that might
have helped us understand what was about to happen.
KYL: But there's nothing from your knowledge here that would prevent testimony
in general about what was done here?
WELDON: No. We would never get into specifics. Nothing in general.
KYL: Sure. OK. Just a second -- a little bit of time. The matter of Posse
Comitatus -- is it your belief that it was a significant factor in the decision
both to destroy the information and not to provide testimony here, that there
was a concern that perhaps they had gone too far in gathering information
about people who were legally in the United States and that they might not
have been authorized to do that and that might be one of the reasons for
their reluctance to testify, as well as the destruction of the...
WELDON: That might be a reason but, to me, that's absolutely unacceptable.
I mean, these are terrorists. If they are terrorists in the United States
and we were monitoring them or had information from open sources, then I
think our law enforcement community had a right to know that.
Our Republican and Democrat Parties transfer this information to I.D. voters.
It's called Vote Smart. We can use it for voter I.D. but we can't use it
to identify people in this country that are involved in terrorism?
I mean, cut me a break. There's something wrong with the system. And at a
minimum, we should have been able to discuss that. That's what we're all
about as policy-makers.
But to clamp down on this and to do it with such venom, to me, it's mysterious.
I don't understand it.
KYL: We'll get in more to that with the next panel. Thank you very much,
Representative Weldon.
SPECTER: Thank you, Senator Kyl.
Senator Grassley?
GRASSLEY: Mr. Chairman, because of my work with Katrina, I'm not going to
be able to stay here. So I've got a statement I want to put in the record.
SPECTER: Without objection, so ordered.
GRASSLEY: And I've got questions in writing for two witnesses. And I do have
something that I want to say at this point beyond that statement, and that
is to compliment the congressman for your work. And it's just so reminiscent
of everything I've run into, not just with the Defense Department, but
bureaucracy generally and maybe the Defense Department, to some extent, is
just a little bit worse than others.
But what you say you don't understand is that institutional disease that
we have that, if the information that you want out got out, people would
have egg on their face. And they're just going to try to wait you out.
And I hope that, Senator Specter, you won't let that happen.
Whatever it takes to get this information out needs to be gotten out, not
just to back up Congressman Weldon's work but, more importantly, just the
fact that Congress has to fulfill its constitutional responsibility of oversight.
I mean, we all want to brag about the legislating we're doing but, quite
frankly, in this day and age, I think we do a more responsible job for our
constituents what we do through congressional oversight to make sure that
these laws are faithfully executed and that money's spent according to
congressional intent -- and particularly now when we're in this war on terrorism.
We've got to get all the information out we can. You can't have somebody
hiding information from Congress under the ridiculous idea that we might
be compromising national security, when you and I can buy that very same
information.
GRASSLEY: And more importantly, what can be done in a closed session if it
can't be done in open session.
Really, what's at stake here is not, again -- Congressman Weldon, what's
at stake here is whether or not Congress is going to fulfill its constitutional
responsibility and whether or not we're going to let people that come up
here with a lot of ribbons and a lot of stars on their shoulders or political
appointees of the same department just embarrass us and get away with it.
And I know that you're not a senator that's going to be embarrassed. And
whatever I can do to help you, count on me helping you, because we must get
to the bottom of this.
Thank you for being a great American.
WELDON: Thank you.
SPECTER: Thank you, Senator Grassley. I don't often do this, but I associate
myself with your remarks.
(LAUGHTER)
Not that I don't often associate myself with your remarks, I just don't often
associate myself with any remarks.
But you and I came here during the same time, in the 1980 election, and you
have been fierce in oversight on whistleblowers with determination, and I've
joined you all the way. And you expressed it very well. I don't have to repeat
it.
Thank you.
And the questions that you have propounded for other witnesses will be made
a part of the record, and they will be submitted to the witnesses, and we
will get answers for you.
Congressman Weldon, you have testified that at one juncture there was an
effort made to turn over this information to the FBI. Could you amplify that
please?
WELDON: Yes. Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer was prepared to testify -- his lawyer
will testify today -- that he on three occasions set up meetings with the
FBI Washington field office.
The woman who set those meetings up is prepared to testify. Your staff has
met with her and they've interviewed her. And she also was prohibited from
testifying. But she knew the purpose of the meetings. The meetings were designed
to allow the special forces unit of Able Danger to transfer relevant information
they thought important to the FBI about the Brooklyn cell, which included
Mohammed Atta and three of the terrorists.
This information was largely gathered from open sources. On three separate
occasions in September of 2002, at the last minute lawyers -- I assume from
within DOD, and we still haven't determined who made the ultimate decision
-- but lawyers determined that those meetings could not take place and they
were shut down.
SPECTER: Congressman Weldon, had this information been called to the attention
of the national security adviser?
WELDON: Mr. Chairman, two weeks after 9/11, some of the folks at the Army's
LIWA, involved in Able Danger, came into my office and brought me a chart,
a chart that had Al Qaida linkages. And pan- Islamic terrorist threats I
think was the way the chart was categorized.
I took that chart immediately down to the White House and provided it to
Stephen Hadley, and I took with me Dan Burton, chairman of the Government
Operation Oversight Committee.
SPECTER: And when was that?
WELDON: That was two weeks after 9/11, so it would have been September the
25th. And I took it down immediately. As soon as I got it, I said, "I've
got to get this down to the White House."
Stephen Hadley's response to me was, "Where did you get this from, Congressman?"
I said, I got it from the Army's Information Dominance Center. I said this
is the process that's been used that I've been trying to convince the government
for three years to put into place that the CIA has refused to accept. Because
up until the establishment of the TTIC, the Terrorism Threat Integration
Center, the CIA was not using open-source information, which to me was a
disaster in itself for our national intelligence estimates.
And so I said to Mr. Hadley, I said, "This is a process they use to obtain
this information."
And he said to me -- and I remember this quote, it sticks out in my head
-- and I gave a speech at the Heritage Foundation a year later which is still
online, you can get a copy of it and listen to my speech as it was given
then -- that he said, "I've got to show this to the man."
And I said, "The man?"
He said, "Yes, the president of the United States."
So I gave him the chart. Now, some say, "Why didn't you keep a copy of the
chart?" Well, my goal there wasn't to keep a copy of a chart involving something
that just happened to destroy the lives of 3,000 people. I gave it to our
deputy national security adviser. And that information was information gleaned
from the work of Able Danger and the work being done by the team that wanted
to testify today.
SPECTER: The FBI agent you referred to a few moments ago was Xanthig Mangum?
WELDON: Yes.
SPECTER: Would you care to testify about those large charts you have here?
WELDON: Sure. If I could have my staff line them up on the side.
The first chart is actually a reproduced version of what was provided to
Stephen Hadley. I wanted to reproduce this and asked if it could be reproduced,
and this is what bothers me about the military saying the data was destroyed
and why I suggested that perhaps the hard drives and the servers from the
companies who did this work should be subpoenaed and brought in.
This is actually a chart of Al Qaida and the various cells around the world.
Much of this data -- most of it was obtained prior to 9/11 by the work of
Able Danger. This is the kind of work they did, the link analysis they did.
On this chart, as you see, there is an actual photograph of Mohammed Atta.
SPECTER: What does that depict, generally?
WELDON: It depicts the organizational and activity associations of Al Qaida
operatives that were involved in 9/11 and related events. Much of this data
was obtained before 9/11 from information that was gathered from the '93
attack, the individuals involved in that attack, the attack on the USS Cole,
the attack at the African embassies.
And what they did, they identified five key cells of Al Qaida worldwide,
one of which was the Brooklyn cell, and so they were gathering this information
and basically assembling it in the data- mining process in '99 and 2000.
When I went to Hadley, the chart that I gave him was an assemblage of that
information that they had, which was massive, and which you will hear in
a moment was equal to one-fourth of all the printed material in the Library
of Congress.
SPECTER: And who prepared the chart?
WELDON: The chart was prepared by a corporation, Orion Corporation, and my
understanding from your staff is that they were not totally forthcoming to
you. They told your staff initially they only produced two charts. When I
pulled out 12, because I have 12 charts that I kept on my own, your staff
went back to the lawyer for Orion, which is now owned by another security
firm.
My understanding -- and you can check with your staff -- is that they had
been delivered something like 20 charts, but the initial response of Orion
was they only produced two charts, and they only produced charts on white
backgrounds.
Well, I have charts in my possession that they produced with their name on
them, their insignia, their logo, that are in black, that are in green, all
kinds of charts in all kinds of colors.
WELDON: There were charts that dealt with Chinese proliferation, corruption
in Russia, corruption in Serbia, charts that dealt with drug cartels and
drug cells.
All of this work was done by Orion, so Orion was the corporation. And, in
fact, one of the witnesses, was an executive -- I believe the vice president
of Orion. Is that correct? He was the vice president of Orion?
(CROSSTALK)
WELDON: He was a senior officer at Orion Corporation and he was one of the
people scheduled to appear before you today.
The second chart, Mr. Chairman, is, for me, the most important. This is what
we have to have. This is Al Qaida today.
Now, I've been told by the military liaisons to the NCTC that our NCTC cannot
do this kind of massive data analysis and link chart analysis that has been
done by our information dominance centers.
So what I've been working with is the Army and the Navy in generating a next
generation capability called Able Providence. In fact, the Navy has even
supplied us the budget numbers and the line where they would want the money
submitted so that we could create this kind of additional capability.
This gives you a massive effort worldwide of what Al Qaida is doing.
Mr. Chairman, to win the war on terrorism -- it's not about classified
information. And when I try to convey to the CIA against a roadblock of their
mindset, which Senator Grassley referred to, they just didn't want to hear
it. They didn't want to use open sources of information.
And the bulk of the good information about terrorists, in fact, comes from
open-source information.
I'll be glad to provide charts for the committee so you have permanent records
of each.
SPECTER: Thank you. My red light went on during your answer.
Senator Kyl?
KYL: (OFF-MIKE) these charts, how they were prepared, when and by whom and
so on?
SPECTER: Senator Kyl raises a good point. Who prepared the charts? I'd ask
you that as the one.
KYL: Excuse me. Mr. Chairman, I think there might have been a miscommunication.
When you asked about "the chart," I immediately sensed a disconnect here.
I believe that Representative Weldon was talking about who prepared the charts
that were allegedly destroyed, or may, in fact, have
ne staffer working, my chief of staff, Russ Caso -- who's in the room, a
former Navy liaison for the U.S. Navy -- did yeoman's work in tracking down
all of these meetings and contacts.
And I brought in, again as a volunteer, Jim Woolsey. Jim Woolsey is a close
friend of mine. Jim Woolsey sat in on a number of meetings with these people
early on to make sure that I wasn't going off the deep end and to counsel
me to make sure that I wasn't jumping to conclusions.
And so I would like to thank both Russ Caso and Jim Woolsey publicly for
their outstanding cooperation in assisting this effort. This is not about
embarrassing anybody. It's about answering the questions of what happened
before 9/11.
Thank you.
SPECTER: Congressman Weldon, do you think that DOD acted in this matter --
if the allegations are true, the destruction of documents -- because of their
concern about violating Posse Comitatus?
WELDON: No, I don't believe that's their reason right now that they did that.
SPECTER: OK, thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Without objection, we will admit to the record the statement of Senator Leahy
who, as I announced earlier, was scheduled this morning to speak on the
nomination of Judge Roberts for chief justice; and, also without objection,
the letter from former Senator Slade Gorton to Senator Leahy and myself,
dated September 20th.
We now call on the second panel, Mark Zaid, Esquire, and Mr. Erik Kleinsmith.
Mr. Mark Zaid is the managing partner of the Washington law firm, Krieger
& Zaid, specializing in litigation; also the executive director of the
James Madison Project, a nonprofit organization which educates the public
on issues relating to intelligence; former board member of Public Policy
Law policy group of the International Law Students Association; a graduate
of Albany Law School, where he was associate editor of the "Law Review";
cum laude graduate of the University of Rochester.
Thank you for joining us, Mr. Zaid, and we look forward to your testimony.
ZAID: Thank you, Senator. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the committee,
thank you for this opportunity. I have my law partner, Roy Krieger, next
to me. I would respectfully ask for my full written statement to be placed
into the record.
SPECTER: Without objection, it will be made a part of the record.
into the record.
SPECTER: Without objection, it will be made part of the record.
ZAID: I'd like to first compliment Congressman Weldon. Were it not for his
tenacious efforts, we would not be here today. And this is a very important.
Unfortunately, I'm here as a surrogate speaker for several of the witnesses
that were scheduled to appear. And I put this testimony together hastily,
in a matter of a few hours yesterday.
As you said, I am a partner in the law firm of Krieger & Zaid. We primarily
handle national security issues. Most of our clients are within the covert
community in the military and the intelligence world.
In particularly, we represent Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, a civilian
employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency and a reserve officer in the
Army, and Mr. James Smith, a defense contractor formerly with the company
Orion Scientific Systems. Both men, as was heard, are sitting behind me and
were prepared to testify today. And both worked for or with what is now as
Able Danger.
I am here to impart at least some degree of knowledge of certain aspects
of Able Danger, what it accomplished, what it identified, and some crucial
questions surrounding it.
I have not had access to classified information on this. I haven't even had
access to the full scope of unclassified information. So my testimony is
not intended to provide a complete picture. I guarantee you I am only providing
a couple of facets of a multi-facet diamond. And to be sure, most of my testimony
is either hearsay, since I'm basing it on what I've been told by individuals
associated with Able Danger or through the government, except to the extent
that I participated in specific events.
My value, though, of the testimony does not come from the truth of the statements
but from the ability to use this as a stepping stone to go forward.
This is not a partisan issue. There's enough blame to go around. And I'm
confident once the whole story of Able Danger comes out, you're going to
see that much of the cover-up that we're now seeing occur, particular from
the Department of Defense, is probably more a typical Washington, D.C., what
we call CYA, than anything associated with the substantive work of Able Danger.
I want to make it clear, I am not waiving attorney-client privilege. I am
basing my statements on statements my clients have made publicly with third
parties or from other sources. Nothing, as you said, is classified.
I should say I have been involved with the Defense Department and DIA for
weeks of this case. Not once has any official in the department told me that
they were concerned that my clients were saying anything classified.
Let me tell you a little bit about Able Danger. And I will try not to repeat
anything that Congressman Weldon said. Formed in 1999, primarily working
through SOCOM and LIWA, as you heard, which supports INSCOM.
In the initial days, most of what they were doing was unclassified, and that's
what I am going to focus on.
There were the two phases, a first phase that went from '99 to mid- 2000,
and then mid-2000 into a little bit of 2001.
That first phase was primarily unclassified, particularly with respect to
Orion. And the second phase had much more to do with classified information,
which we are not going to discuss today.
In the simplest and most understandable terms, the aspects of Able Danger
that led to the infamous chart and charts to be created dealt with the searching,
compiling of open sources of publicly available information regarding specific
Al Qaida targets or tasks that were connected through associational links.
No classified information. No government databases.
The search and compilation efforts were primarily handled by the defense
contractors such as Mr. Smith, who didn't even know they were working with
Able Danger at the time. That information was then given to Able Danger,
and they were to use it for whatever planning purposes they perceived.
The starting points, as was said, '93 World Trade Center attack, '98 bombings,
the New York City plots, Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, known as the blind sheik.
They took those names, they plugged them into the systems, and created
associational links, like you see on the charts.
By that, I mean they looked for, who was the sheik associated with? Person
A. Who was person A associated with? Person B. And so on and so on. Think
of six degrees of Kevin Bacon. This was the six degrees of Sheik Rahman,
essentially.
Those links could have been nefarious; they could have been innocuous. Every
link on those charts had a drill-down capability. Those are from actual computer
programs. So if you clicked on a name, there would be supporting data underneath.
And what they would do is they would print out each of those charts and every
bit of underlying data and hand those over to the Able Danger team members
for them to use, as necessary. We heard about the attempts to go to the FBI,
and the preclusion of that. If a wall existed, whether due to Posse Comitatus
or some other regulations, that's a wall that this committee needs to explore,
fully within its jurisdiction, of course.
By the end of 2000, for a number of reasons, the documents were all destroyed,
not only by LIWA and those involved with Able Danger, which we will hear
a little bit more, but also with the Defense Intelligence Agency.
I want to clear up two misconceptions, though, that have been perpetrated
within the press to some extent. At no time did Able Danger identify Mohammed
Atta as being physically present in the United States. And no information
at the time that they obtained would have led anyone to believe that criminal
activity had taken place or that any specific terrorist activities were being
planned.
All they developed were associational links. It was impossible to tell,
particularly using the unclassified work that was being used at that time,
that those associations went anywhere further than that.
Let me just go through a couple of points as the time would end, Mr. Chairman.
SPECTER: Mr. Zaid, would you please summarize your testimony at this point?
ZAID: For one, as you heard, Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer did meet with the
staff of the commission in Afghanistan in 2003, provided over information.
They took that quite seriously.
ZAID: They tasked DOD to provide them information. Whatever DOD provided
them, and that's a question for DOD, whatever was in there, didn't indicate
or support what Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer had told them.
The issue that we have fought with the commission, though, is if they had
only gone back to Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer and asked him: How else can
we support your...
SPECTER: You are talking about the 9/11 Commission?
ZAID: Correct, sir. He could have identified for them the additional members
of the team or those who were working with them, Captain Philpott (ph), Mr.
Smith.
And at the time, if the commission had looked into this in early 2004, the
charts that had Mohammed Atta on it still existed. There was a chart in Mr.
Smith's office. There was the chart that still should have been in the Defense
Intelligence Agency because it wasn't destroyed within Lieutenant Colonel
Shaffer's files until the spring of 2004, the same with the charts that Mr.
Smith had which was about the same size.
You heard Congressman Weldon mention that Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer's clearance
was revoked. It was suspended shortly after it was made known that he had
testified or provided information to the 9/11 Commission. It was revoked
just two days ago. I have been authorized, and I am happy to go through any
details with respect to the security clearance revocation, what the allegations
were and what our responses were.
What I would like to submit in closing, the primary concern we should focus
on as far as not who to blame for the obvious disconnect that occurred with
respect to sharing information -- we know that problem existed, it still
does -- instead, the focus should be on identifying the current location
of the other several dozen possible terrorists that were on that Mohammed
Atta chart, as to whether or not they are planning to commit terrorist attacks
against the United States today as well as to reconstitute the successful
work initially started by Able Danger.
I applaud the committee's tenacity...
SPECTER: Mr. Zaid, are you just about finished?
ZAID: Got two sentences more, sir. I truly hope you will help educate the
country to the truth and ensure that the images of those associated with
Able Danger are not tarnished by governmental spin when they should, instead,
be awarded with the accolades they deserve for their patriotism.
Thank you for this opportunity. I will try my best to answer questions.
SPECTER: Thank you, Mr. Zaid.
Senator Kyl has other commitments, and I yield to him at this time.
KYL: Thank you very much.
At 10:45, I am supposed to be someplace else. I will just ask you one or
two quick questions.
Obviously, it would be better if we had the best evidence, the people who
were directly involved that could give us the first -- or their direct knowledge
of the facts.
As a lawyer, other than the matters relating to the revocation of the security
clearance with which you have been involved, do you have the first-hand knowledge
of any of these facts, the things that you have stated here, or are they
representations of what has been told to you by others?
ZAID: Unfortunately, Senator, they are representations of what I have been
told by others, several of the team members, those associated, those on the
Hill who have done investigations.
KYL: So the best evidence of that obviously comes from them.
ZAID: Absolutely.
KYL: We would need to hear from them.
ZAID: And all of them, as I understand, were willing to testify today.
KYL: I appreciate that very much, and I regret I have to go right now. But
I'll perhaps submit questions to you for the record.
ZAID: I'd be happy to address them.
KYL: Thank you all for being here.
SPECTER: Thanks, very much, Senator Kyl.
Our next witness is Mr. Erik Kleinsmith, a project manager for intelligence
analytical training of the Lockheed Martin Company; a very extensive resume
in intelligence activity; a number of commendations, including a meritorious
service medal, Army Commendation Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal,
and the National Defense Service Medal; had been a member of the United States
Army from 1988 to 2001, with the rank of major.
Thank you very much for joining us, Mr. Kleinsmith. I appreciate you coming
forward under difficult circumstances.
The floor is yours.
KLEINSMITH: As you said before, currently I'm an employee of Lockheed Martin
information and technology, although my employment with Lockheed Martin has
nothing to do with my involvement in Able Danger beyond my passion and continue
to do this work as a private citizen.
I do have an intelligence analysis training team of about 28 instructors.
Five of them are on the ground in Iraq today training intelligence analysis
with data-mining technology.
My primary customer is U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, to include
information dominance center and the information operations center and its
extensions. I also teach a counterterrorism analysis course for INSCOM.
From March of 1999 until February of 2001, I was active duty Army major and
chief of intelligence of the land information warfare activity. My branch
provided as a typical mission, analytical support to Army information operations,
but because of the data-mining capability that we possess in the information
dominance center, we routinely provided direct analytical support to several
combatant commands, as well as other customers.
And as Congressman Weldon alluded to earlier, one of our most prominent
operations was in support of a data-mining proof of concept demonstration
from our level, the assistant secretary of defense for Coates and control
communications and intelligence, or ASD C3I.
That was called JTAG project. That demonstrated how data-mining and intelligence
analysis could be conducted in the counterintelligence and technology protection
capacity.
Now, that project ran through the latter half of the 1999, and our results
were ultimately subpoenaed by Congressman Dan Burton's office, through the
House Reform Committee on November 16, 1999.
In December of 1999, we were approached by U.S. Special Operations Command
to support Able Danger.
I was an ISI in the same core team of analysts that worked the JTAG project.
Along with Dr. Eileen Pricer as the analytical lead, four of us conducted
data-mining analysis on the Al Qaida terrorist network, coordinating with
SOCOM and other organizations throughout that time.
In the months that followed, we were able to collect an immense amount of
data for analysis that allowed us to map Al Qaida as a worldwide threat with
a surprisingly significant presence within the United States.
In approximately April of 2000, from my recollections, our support to Able
Danger became severely restricted, and ultimate shut down due to intelligence
oversight concerns.
I was supported vigorously by both the LIWA and the INSCOM chain of command,
and we actively worked to overcome this shutdown the next several months.
In the midst of this shutdown, I, along with one of my analysts (inaudible)
were forced to destroy all data, charts and other analytical products that
we had not already passed on to SOCOM, related to Able Danger.
This destruction was dictated by and conducted in accordance with intelligence
oversight procedures that we lived by. Ultimately, we were able to restart
our support to SOCOM at the end of September of 2000. Additionally, the bombing
of USS Cole on October 12th brought US-CENTCOM to the IDC, who became our
primary customer until my departure from active duty on April 1, 2001.
I thank you for the opportunity to appear, sir. And understand that I can
only talk in an unclassified nature in terms of the operations and administrative
coordination that was conducted, not the actual analytical results or anything
that would jeopardize classification.
SPECTER: Thank you very much, Mr. Kleinsmith.
Mr. Kleinsmith, what knowledge, if any, do you have about the allegation
of destruction of documents?
KLEINSMITH: The allegation of the destruction of documents is correct. I
am the one who deleted all of the documentation that we had gathered at the
IDC.
SPECTER: And you deleted the data?
KLEINSMITH: Yes, sir.
SPECTER: Precisely, what do you mean by that?
KLEINSMITH: We had collected data from all of our different harvests, and
we had two different sets. So we had an unclassified or Internet poll that
we had done. We also had what we term as all source, and this is data that
was combined together from both classified and unclassified sources.
We also had printouts of charts that we had produced, as well as some --
I take that back -- the charts that we had produced, as well as one chart
or two that Orion Scientific had provided to us, but we had already gone
beyond their analysis.
So both soft copy and hard copy was deleted or destroyed.
SPECTER: Well, what kind of information was deleted?
KLEINSMITH: Everything. Everything that we had...
SPECTER: What was the essential substance of it?
KLEINSMITH: We had done Internet polls related to a preliminary analysis
of Able Danger, and what I mean by that is we were trying to get a worldwide
perspective of exactly where this organization functioned and operated just
as a start, and that was in terms of Al Qaida.
SPECTER: And did part of that involve operations within the United States?
KLEINSMITH: No specific operation in the United States; only a presence that
was known. And we were unable to get to the details for specific persons
or information in the United States before we were shut down.
SPECTER: And when was that information deleted?
KLEINSMITH: I deleted that data roughly May, June time frame of 2000.
SPECTER: May, June 2000.
And did somebody instruct you to delete the information?
KLEINSMITH: We were visited by INSCOM's general counsel, and the man was
named Tony Gentry. But he was only there 10 days prior to remind me of the
intelligence regulation that we are operating under.
And the intelligence oversight regulation we referred to was Army Regulation
381-10. And in that -- I brought a copy with me -- we are allowed to, under
procedure 3, allows us to temporarily retain information about United States
persons -- may be retained temporarily for a period not to exceed 90 days,
solely for the purpose of determining whether that information may be permanently
retained under the other procedures.
So that while we were shut down, we were unable to do any other further analysis,
vetting of data or investigation into the data that we had polled.
Because of that, the 90-day mark had hit and he came back down to remind
me again, and it was more of a friendly visit not an adversarial visit, and
that was when he told me jokingly, "Remember, delete this data, or you guys
will go to jail." And that's ha-ha, very funny -- understanding completely
we abide by the regulation so we deleted the data and destroyed the charts
that we had also...
SPECTER: When you say abide by regulations, what do you mean by that?
KLEINSMITH: We had to abide specifically by the Army intelligence oversight
regulations that said we could only retain this information for 90 days.
SPECTER: Is there some relationship between those regulations and the Posse
Comitatus Act?
KLEINSMITH: The Army regulation was in direct correlation with the DOD regulation
5140.R, which follows Executive Order 12333.
SPECTER: That seems to be a lot of sequential documents.
KLEINSMITH: I apologize.
SPECTER: That's OK.
KLEINSMITH: It's more of a...
SPECTER: Excuse me. Does any of it trace back to the Posse Comitatus act?
KLEINSMITH: Only from an intelligence analysis perspective, not from an
operational or mission perspective.
SPECTER: What do you mean by that, "intelligence but not operational?" I
only was a first lieutenant so you are going to have to explain it to me.
KLEINSMITH: Yes, sir. It allowed us to conduct intelligence analysis and
to incidentally collect information on U.S. persons. We didn't consider --
or Posse Comitatus was never brought up at our level that we had worked at.
We stayed strictly with A.R. 381-10.
SPECTER: Was there any reason for you to conclude that the deletion of these
documents related in any way up the chain of command with all the regs to
Posse Comitatus?
KLEINSMITH: Not from my perspective or from my level. And I can't answer
that fully, sir.
SPECTER: Are you in a position to evaluate the credibility of a Captain Philpott
(ph), of Colonel Shaffer, Mr. Westphal, Ms. Pricer, Mr. J.D. Smith, as to
their credibility, when they say they saw Mohammed Atta on the chart?
KLEINSMITH: Yes, sir. I believe them implicitly, from the time that I worked
with all of them, and everyone you had mentioned was part and I had contact
with during this time. I did not...
SPECTER: You had contact with all of them?
KLEINSMITH: Yes, sir.
I cannot corroborate them completely and say that, yes, they saw it, because
I myself do not remember seeing either a picture or his name on any charts.
But I believe them implicitly. When they say they do, I believe them.
SPECTER: Well, my red light just went on but I am going to take the liberty
of asking one more question notwithstanding my insistence on adherence to
the red light by everybody.
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
SPECTER: That's extensive license, more than I really have as chairman. I
have a report that you feel very strongly about this matter, so strongly
that you were quoted as saying, and I want to know if this is an accurate
quote, that every night when you go to bed, you believe that if the program
had not shut down U.S. intelligence on these subjects, that 9/11 could have
been prevented.
KLEINSMITH: That's not completely accurate. What I have said is, yes, I do
go to bed every night, and other members of our team do as well, that if
we had not been shut down, we would have been able to at least present something
or assist the United States in some way.
Could we have prevented 9/11? I don't think -- I can never speculate to that
extent we could have done that.
SPECTER: But you think you might have been able to glean some intelligence
that could have been helpful along that line?
KLEINSMITH: Yes, sir.
Senator Sessions?
SESSIONS: Thank you.
Major Kleinsmith, you are not a lawyer and have not studied the origins of
all these regulations. Is that what I hear you saying?
KLEINSMITH: Yes, sir.
SESSIONS: You simply, as an officer, were bound by A.R. 381-10, as you understood
it?
KLEINSMITH: Yes, sir.
SESSIONS: And do I understand you to say that A.R. 381-10, for whatever good
reason somebody may have had for passing it, was the culprit that got you
into this or required these deletions? Or do you think that the deletions
were not necessary even under the Army regulation?
KLEINSMITH: Sir, I am actually the one who made the decision to delete the
documents, and so if it came to the point where -- I was ordered by whoever
wrote the regulation, and I understood that the regulation was written before
the Internet, before data-mining, and so it was a natural result.
Yes, I could have conveniently forgot to delete the data, and we could have
kept it, but I would have been in violation, and I knowingly would have been
in violation of the regulation.
SESSIONS: I would just like to first say that, you know, one moment, we are
giving the military a hard time because they don't follow the regulations.
The next minute, we give you a hard time for following the regulations. Is
it your understanding from the legal counsel -- you discussed this with legal
counsel at some point before you deleted the information?
KLEINSMITH: Yes, sir.
SESSIONS: And they can confirm that in their view that it was your obligation
to delete this, to comply with it?
KLEINSMITH: Yes.
SESSIONS: And at this time, who was secretary of defense?
KLEINSMITH: I'm sorry. I think it was William Cohen at the time.
SESSIONS: It wasn't Mr. Rumsfeld ordering you to do any of this. And do you
think -- just from your perspective, having been there and worked on this,
do you feel like that the regulation and the policies behind it should be
modified to allow this kind of activity and that it would not adversely impact
our traditional view that the military should not be involved in domestic
law enforcement?
KLEINSMITH: Sir, again, yes, you are correct; I am not a lawyer. If I had
one recommendation to make, it is that a review would be conducted that involved
data-mining and the technology and the capability. But I could not give you
an answer on how it should be changed specifically.
SESSIONS: Mr. Zaid, do you want to comment on that point, on what the policy
ought to be?
ZAID: Sure, Senator.
SESSIONS: And you represent...
ZAID: I represent Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer and Mr. Smith.
SESSIONS: And these were the individuals involved in this data- mining, that
had apparently come up with Mr. Atta's name...
ZAID: Correct.
SESSIONS: ... And information about that?
As a lawyer, have you -- recognizing our concern about -- and I take this
very seriously -- the Posse Comitatus Act. I don't think we would likely
change that act. But as to this data-mining and the kind of things that they
did, do you think we ought to change that policy?
KLEINSMITH: Let me say, first, understand that much of the data- mining,
and there are differences as to the technical definitions as to what exactly
was happening with respect to that, were done by the contractors, the defense
contractors. The rules are somewhat different for them.
KLEINSMITH: They have no restrictions as far as what data they are maintaining.
The other aspect is that we're not entirely sure what specific legal
interpretations were being applied in this case other than obviously with
respect to the destruction on the Army side.
I'd encourage the committee, if they haven't already, to try and obtain the
undoubted legal memoranda that exists within the Department of Defense. This
wasn't the first time, obviously, the issue came up.
Plus, from my somewhat understanding of Posse Comitatus -- I represent military
offices all the time, but I have never been a military lawyer -- Posse Comitatus,
of course, pertains to law enforcement activities of the military.
In the aftermath of Waco, the Army took a P.R. hit because it had apparently
helped support or provide activities more than they were supposed to with
respect to the FBI raid on the Waco compound.
SESSIONS: Well, let's talk about that. So the Army provided information that
assisted ATF and FBI in the Waco activities, is that correct?
KLEINSMITH: Yes. And I don't remember...
SESSIONS: But they were criticized...
KLEINSMITH: They were criticized.
SESSIONS: ... for not staying within their role?
KLEINSMITH: Absolutely.
SESSIONS: So it's a matter -- the military, Major Kleinsmith -- the military
takes the rules they're given seriously.
KLEINSMITH: Yes, sir. This is a requirement to be trained on intelligence
oversight every year for every intelligence soldier.
And it's tracked.
But there is case law, and there are DOD regulations that pertain to the
sharing of information compiled by the military, with law enforcement. What
is my understanding of Able Danger's activities does not appear as if it
would have crossed over that line. Now, whether there's an inconsistency
between this Army regulation and other DOD regulations in the case law is
something this committee could obviously look at within its jurisdiction.
It doesn't appear that there should have been any conflicts. So it's not...
SESSIONS: Sum up -- my time has expired. To sum up, you would say that...
SPECTER: You can take some more time, Senator.
SESSIONS: ... it may have been in violation of A.R. 381-10 but not necessarily
in violation of the case law or the Posse Comitatus theories that we have
tried to operate under?
KLEINSMITH: There's absolutely evidence of that. Plus, there's a concern
that this was too zealously applied.
Those within Able Danger were confident they actually weren't compiling
information on U.S. persons. They were potentially people connected to U.S.
persons.
Again, I said they never identified Mohammed Atta in the United States.
Apparently the problem that came up was, on the chart where his image was,
he was listed under Brooklyn, New York, or something to that effect -- it
had Brooklyn. And those within the Army, either on the legal level or some
of the policy levels, were apparently showing apprehension and concern that
somehow that was then was linking to data compilation of U.S. persons, whether
that's U.S. citizens or individuals, foreigners here legally.
Now, the other thing I should add, as far as the destruction, Lieutenant
Colonel Shaffer was the liaison between the DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency,
and Able Danger.
Because he was located here in Washington/Arlington, he maintained an extensive
amount of files that pertained to the work that Able Danger was compiling
at Orion Scientific.
That data was not destroyed by Major Kleinsmith. That data, which may very
well have included this Mohammed Atta chart, sat in his office at the Defense
Intelligence Agency until some time in spring of 2004 when DIA destroyed
it. We have no idea why.
By that time, Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer had been suspended and put on admin
leave because his clearance had been suspended. DIA apparently claims that
they sent him an e-mail asking: Well, what do you want us to do with all
these boxes of documents?
I don't know if they send it. I can tell you he never received the e-mail.
I don't understand why they would have destroyed any documents, particularly
if they were classified -- and there was classified information within these
boxes.
Why would they destroy any documents presuming he would get a fair shake
at challenging his clearance suspension and ultimately come back to work
within the DIA and hopefully use the documents again?
So those documents were not necessarily subject to A.R. 381-10 and the DIA
should be required to explain who destroyed the documents and why they destroyed
them.
SESSIONS: Good point. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SPECTER: Thank you very much, Senator Sessions.
Mr. Zaid, you are representing Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer and Mr. J.D. Smith?
ZAID: Correct.
SPECTER: And they are present in the hearing room this morning?
ZAID: They are, sir. Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer is in uniform and Mr. Smith
is right next to him.
SPECTER: Would you gentlemen mind standing, please?
OK, would you, for the record, identify Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer.
ZAID: Sure. Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer is to the left -- both to the left
-- in uniform, of course, and Mr. J.D. Smith is here in his business attire.
SPECTER: You may be seated, gentlemen. You speak as their counsel.
ZAID: Yes, sir.
SPECTER: And they have consented to your testimony?
ZAID: Yes, sir.
SPECTER: And why are they not permitted to speak for themselves?
ZAID: Because the Defense Department has prohibited -- I received both phone
calls and a letter from the Defense Intelligence Agency, as well as the
Department of Defense General Counsel's Office, specifically prohibiting
Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer from testifying.
Mr. Smith, admittedly, has not been explicitly prohibited but, being an
individual who still works within the classified environment with numerous
agencies of the federal government, I advised him it would preferable not
to testify until the classification issue with the department is taken care
of.
SPECTER: And was any effort made to have you not testify?
ZAID: I'm not aware of any. There's no indication from the Department of
Defense or DIA that I not testify and, as I said earlier, never have been
told -- and I work with these attorneys over in the agencies all the time
-- never have I been told that there was any concern that Lieutenant Colonel
Shaffer specifically had been saying anything classified within his public
comments.
And I have routinely been told by agencies of the federal government,
particularly when we represent intelligence officers when one of them has
potentially crossed the line, and we have been told to reel them back.
SPECTER: But you're saying there's never been any suggestion either as to
Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer or Mr. Smith that DOD was concerned about the
disclosure of classified information?
ZAID: At least with respect to what they have publicly stated, to the press,
to the committees, et cetera. Without a doubt -- I should say two things.
J.D. Smith's contract with Orion, through which ever part of Defense Department
engaged him, was completely unclassified. No questions about that.
Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer and Able Danger, of course, did have access to
classified information. But the work that prepared or led to the creation
of the Mohammed Atta chart was unclassified.
SPECTER: And the information which has been in the public domain, which is
what this committee was looking for, was not classified?
ZAID: It's all of our indications that nothing was classified and could certainly
have been spoken to today and then elaborated on in executive session.
SPECTER: Obviously, it would be preferable, as Senator Kyl pointed out, to
have the witnesses testify first-hand. But in the absence of that, we can
hear hearsay.
What would Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer testify to had he been permitted to
do so?
ZAID: Predominantly, he would have testified to the fact of the work that
Able Danger had been doing, both in the certainly unclassified environment;
that they had created numerous charts that had dealt with Al Qaida -- one
of which had identified Mohammed Atta, had a photograph of him.
That photograph was not the same photograph that we have all seen in the
news, not a photograph released by a U.S. government agency or the 9/11
Commission. It was a very grainy photograph. He remembers it specifically
because of the essentially evil death-look in Mohammed Atta's eyes and his
narrow, drawn face.
Of course, the name itself didn't mean anything to them until after 9/11.
He conversed with other members of his team. Found that they had gone to
meet with Mr. Hadley and turned over the chart.
Thought, "Well, my job is taken care of. The information has been passed."
He would have talked about the capabilities that LIWA and the contractors
were undertaking and the successful enterprises they were doing that was
revelation and novel within the intelligence and military community.
He also would have indicated that, finally, he came and he met with members
in the 9/11 staff -- to include its executive director while on active duty,
risking his life in Afghanistan -- that he had told them that his team had
identified two of the successful cells of 9/11 to include at Atta.
That statement, of course, is in dispute by the 9/11 staff that were present.
There were also DOD staff that were present there who have not come forward
and have not been questioned so far as we know.
He also would have indicated that after that he made -- Mr. Zelikow gave
him his business card and said, "I want you to call us when you got back
to the United States so we can follow this up."
He did so in January of 2004. He called the commission. He said, "Mr. Zelikow
told me to call. I'd like to come in and give more information."
They never called him back. A week later, he called again and he was told,
"That's OK. We don't need to talk to you."
SPECTER: The red light went on during your answer.
Senator Sessions?
SESSIONS: I just would briefly, Mr. Chairman, would follow up Mr. Kleinsmith.
We found, in the Patriot Act work that we did, that there were clear prohibitions
-- unbelievable prohibitions -- on the sharing of information, such as FBI
investigation involving the grand jury could not share with the CIA matters
and vice versa; CIA felt they couldn't share information in certain ways.
I guess I want to ask again: Did you think, when this lawyer talked to you
about your requirement to destroy this information, that -- I believe you
said you felt that the advice was consistent with the existing Army regulation,
did you not?
KLEINSMITH: Yes, sir.
SESSIONS: Mr. Zaid, were you saying that you felt your clients did not feel
that the existing regulations required under deletion of that information
-- or at least some of it?
ZAID: Sure. From my discussions with those involved with Able Danger, they
were well aware of this concern, and they felt they had put in and put into
place numerous safeguards that would ensure that that concern would not rise
to a significant level of necessitating the destruction.
They said they were taking, in fact, numerous steps beyond what they felt
were even necessary to allay any concerns by the attorneys. But obviously,
as you heard, at the end of the day, I guess the attorneys won out.
SESSIONS: I think it's important for us to review these matters. First thing
I would like to say -- I think it's very important for the American people
to understand: Somehow there's a belief in this country that we give regulations
and the directives to the military, and that they think we don't comply with
them, that the military does not comply with them.
I used to have to teach in the Army Reserve and certify every year -- or
every other year -- that I taught the Geneva Conventions to Army Reserve
privates in a transportation unit.
SESSIONS: And the military does what we tell them to do. And when we have
these kind of crazy rules that do this, I think it's us in Congress that
really deserve the criticism here, first.
And, second, if a lawyer was too aggressive in requiring deletion of things
that they shouldn't, I think we need to look into that.
Mr. Chairman, I would yield back on my time to you.
SPECTER: Thank you very much, Senator Sessions.
Mr. Zaid, just one final question. But then we'd like to hear from Mr. Smith,
but we are precluded. If he were to testify, what would he say?
ZAID: Mr. Smith would have indicated that he was tasked by individuals associated
with Able Danger, again not knowing it was Able Danger, to compile unclassified
information, that they then put into charts like Congressman Weldon had brought
today and looked somewhat similar -- some were that size, some were smaller
-- containing massive amounts of data; that these were associational links;
that at least one chart in particular which he, in fact, kept on his office
wall until the summer of 2004 when it had been destroyed after he tried to
move it for an office move and then junked it, had Mohammed Atta and potentially
-- according to other team members; he doesn't recall this -- three others
of the 20 hijackers of 9/11.
In fact, as well, he would have made one mention that at some point in time
-- he was not there at this time -- that armed federal agents came to Orion
in around March or April of 2000 and confiscated many or much of the data
that Orion had compiled with respect to this contract.
They never obtained his data or his charts because, given that it was
unclassified, they actually were in the trunk of his car. And so that's why
he was able to maintain these charts.
After the summer of 2000 or even the spring of 2000, that contract ceased
to exist, so he no longer participated in any of the efforts.
SPECTER: When you say Mohammed Atta, is it the Mohammed Atta who turned out
to be the hijacker?
ZAID: Yes. Without a doubt, his recollection is that, again by the photograph.
And he obtained the photograph through a subcontractor that Congressman Weldon
mentioned, bought through, and he understood it to be a foreign source.
And it was the look of this photograph -- it wasn't the same photograph that
we've all seen. And he, post-9/11, when he had this chart on his wall in
his office, would bring in anybody who would come by, and say: Look what
we had. Look what we had compiled.
And others they would be shown -- here was the photograph of Mohammed Atta.
And he would just shake his head, you know, what if? What if? What if?
SPECTER: Do you know where the chart is now?
ZAID: The chart unfortunately was destroyed. I'm not sure what the paper
is of those, but many of the charts were on a type of paper almost like tissue
paper to some extent, from what I understand. And he had it taped to the
wall. And when he tried to take it down, it had become so torn and tattered
after, at that time, three years, that he threw it out.
SPECTER: Anything further, Senator Sessions?
Thank you very much, Mr. Kleinsmith.
Thank you very much, Mr. Zaid.
ZAID: Thank you.
SPECTER: And in absentia, although present, thank you very much, Colonel
Shaffer and Mr. Smith. It's pretty hard to be in absentia and present at
the same time, but you are.
We now call our third panel, Mr. Gary Bald and Mr. William Dugan.
Mr. Gary Bald is executive assistant director of the FBI for the National
Security Branch, appointed on August 12th of this year. A branch created
at the recommendation of the Commission on Intelligence Capabilities, the
WMD commission, responsible for integrating the FBI's national security mission
with the director of national intelligence.
Been in the FBI since 1977. Has a very extensive, laudatory record there.
A bachelor of science from the University of South Carolina, a master's in
forensic science from George Washington University.
Thank you for joining us, Mr. Bald. And we look forward to your testimony.
BALD: Thank you, Senator.
Thank you, Chairman.
I have submitted a written statement, if I could ask that it could be made
a part of the record, and I will briefly...
SPECTER: Without objection, it will be made a part of the record.
BALD: Thank you, sir.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Senator Leahy and members of the committee. Thank
you for this opportunity to update you on the progress the FBI has made since
9/11 in sharing information with our partners in law enforcement and the
intelligence community.
As you requested, I'll focus on collaboration with the Department of Defense.
I'm testifying today in my new capacity as executive assistant director of
the National Security Branch of the FBI which was established on September
the 12th, pending final administration approval.
Created in response to the president's directive to implement the recommendations
of the weapons of mass destruction commission, the National Security Branch
combines the resources, missions and capabilities of the counterterrorism,
counterintelligence and intelligence elements of the FBI, and in doing so,
it will help us build on the tremendous strides that we have already made
since 9/11 in strengthening our intelligence and information sharing capabilities
and coordinating with other intelligence agencies.
Before 9/11, our ability to share information was hampered by legal and
procedural restrictions, often referred to as the wall, that separated
intelligence and criminal investigations within the FBI. Those restrictions
contributed to a situation in which our relationships with other intelligence
agencies on counterterrorism investigations were driven by case-specific
needs.
Since 9/11, the passage of the Patriot Act and other major legal developments
eliminated the wall between criminal and intelligence investigations within
the FBI. And these actions removed real and perceived barriers to coordination
among the FBI and other intelligence agencies and changed the way the FBI
conducts international terrorism investigations.
In addition, the FBI now places great emphasis on producing intelligence
reports and disseminating them through our partners in the intelligence and
law enforcement communities. Our policy is to share by rule and withhold
by exception.
To ensure that this policy is implemented, we have created a senior level
information policy sharing group to provide guidance within the FBI for internal
and external information sharing initiatives.
The FBI has also developed a national information sharing strategy as part
of the Department of Justice's law enforcement information sharing program
which aims to ensure that those charged with protecting the public have the
information that they need to take action.
There are three components of this strategy: the National Data Exchange,
or what we refer to as NDEx, which will provide a nationwide capability to
exchange data from incident and event reports with other agencies; the Regional
Data Exchange, or as we refer to as RDEx, which will enable the FBI to join
participating federal, state, tribal and local law enforcement agencies in
regional, full text information sharing systems; and our Law Enforcement
Online, which provides a Web based a platform for the law enforcement community
to exchange information.
The FBI also participates in a variety of interagency centers, working groups
and committees that were established to improve information sharing. In each
of the FBI's 56 field offices, and in most major United States cities, we
now have a joint terrorism task force which combines the resources of the
FBI, other federal agencies, with the expertise of the state and local law
enforcement agencies in those areas to prevent acts of terrorism and investigate
the activities of terrorists in the United States.
BALD: To support the joint terrorism task forces throughout the country and
provide a point of fusion for terrorism intelligence, we also have created
the National Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Department of Defense is strongly represented on the joint terrorism task
forces and on the National Joint Terrorism Task Force.
The FBI also has a significant complement of personnel working at the interagency
National Counterterrorism Center, which integrates the federal government's
intelligence and analysis and presents a comprehensive view of the terrorist
threat for the president and other senior policymakers.
The FBI is proud of its efforts. In partnership with the Department of Defense,
we're working together on numerous fronts to share information to support
the global war on terrorism.
And, as an example of our joint activities, the FBI's Criminal Justice
Information Services Division has been working with the Department of Defense's
Biometric Fusion Center to store and disseminate data collected by military
troops deployed overseas.
The data consists of fingerprints, photographs and biographical data of enemy
prisoners of war or individuals of interest as national security threats.
The FBI currently has special agents assigned as liaison officers to several
Department of Defense combatant commands. And additional FBI personnel are
embedded with the Department of Defense in military operations in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
The Department of Defense and FBI are also collaborating on the Foreign Terrorism
Tracking Task Force, which using analytic techniques and technologies to
enable terrorist identification and tracking.
In addition, the two agencies share information as participants in the Terrorist
Explosive Device Analytic Center, which coordinates and manages a unified
national effort together and technically and forensically exploits terrorist
improvised explosive devices worldwide.
With the intelligence gathered throughout these and other partnerships, as
well as their own investigation, the FBI produces intelligence products that
we disseminate to the intelligence and law enforcement communities, primarily
through six information sharing networks: the FBI Intranet, Intel Link Top
Secret, Intel Link Secret, Law Enforcement Online, the Homeland Security
Information Network, and the Secure Automated Message Network.
Over the past several years, the FBI has significantly increased the number
of intelligence products disseminated via these networks. The primary route
for the Department of Defense components to receive FBI intelligence products
is through the Defense Intelligence Agency.
SPECTER: Mr. Bald, could you summarize your testimony at this point, please?
BALD: I will, sir. Thank you. Through the Defense Intelligence Agency, which
is the primary distribution list for FBI intelligence products.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, and members of this committee, the FBI has made
significant progress in our efforts to share information with our partners
in the intelligence and law enforcement communities.
We have established policies and developed tools that make it easier for
us to disseminate intelligence and provide access to those who need it. And
we are working collaboratively on many fronts with the Department of Defense
and other agencies to develop the capabilities we need to succeed against
the threats of the future.
Thank you, sir.
SPECTER: Thank you, Mr. Bald.
We turn now to Mr. William Dugan, acting assistant secretary of defense,
intelligence oversight. Mr. Dugan is a retired Air Force colonel; had served
as a Minuteman missile combat crew commander; a bachelor of art's degree
from the University of Florida and a law degree from the University of Kansas;
also a graduate of the Army War College.
The floor is yours, Mr. Dugan.
DUGAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning.
Senator Sessions, and members of the committee, it is my privilege to appear
before you today. I'm Bill Dugan. I'm the acting assistant to the secretary
of defense for intelligence oversight. I'm here to discuss the intelligence
oversight program in the Department of Defense and also to talk about information
sharing.
I'm responsible to the secretary and the deputy secretary for the DOD's
intelligence oversight program. And the purpose of the intelligence oversight
program is to enable DOD intelligence components to carry out their authorized
functions while, at the same time, ensuring that their activities that affect
U.S. persons -- United States persons -- are carried out in a manner that
protects their constitutional rights and privacy.
Now, I have used the term "United States persons," and I would like to define
it because it is an important term. It's a broad term. It refers to more
than just United States citizens. The term also includes permanent resident
aliens, corporations incorporated in the United States unless directed or
controlled by foreign governments, and associations composed of permanent
resident aliens and United States citizens.
So you can it's broader than just U.S. citizens.
We operate under executive order 12333, entitled, "United States Intelligence
Activities," which was issued by President Reagan in December 1981. The DOD
implementing regulation is DOD 5240.1-R, entitled "Procedures Governing the
Activities of DOD Intelligence Components that Affect United States Persons."
This DOD regulation was approved by the attorney general and was issued in
December 1982. So these are the attorney general-approved guidelines for
the DOD intelligence community regarding activities that affect United States
persons -- and they have been in place for more than 20 years.
DUGAN: The office of the assistant to the secretary of defense was established
in 1976 to implement the original executive order which is one issued by
President Ford.
And that was in response to the investigations, including those done by this
committee, that revealed the misuse of intelligence assets, both DOD and
non-DOD to collect information on civil rights protesters, anti-Vietnam War
demonstrators, community and religious leaders, et cetera.
The lack of clear rules, Mission Creep and the lack of meaningful oversight
caused an abuse of the constitutional rights of United States persons by
defense intelligence and counterintelligence personnel.
The result, President Ford's first executive order, and the one we operate
under currently by President Reagan in 1981.
I would like to describe how the process works regarding the collection of
United States person information by DOD intelligence components.
First, no one in DOD intelligence has a mission to collect information on
United States persons. What we have are missions such as foreign intelligence,
counterintelligence, counterterrorism, signals intelligence and the like.
In the course of performing our mission, we run across or find information
that identifies United States persons. That is when the rules in the DOD
regulation that I mentioned, 5240.1-R kick in, the attorney general-approved
guidelines.
If the information is necessary to the conduct of the mission as I just
described, for example, counterterrorism, and if it falls within one of the
13 categories prescribed by the executive order and the DOD regulation, then
the intelligence component can collect it.
The 13 categories -- I won't list them all, they are in my prepared remarks
-- but the ones most likely to be used in the war on terrorism are information
obtained with consent, publicly available information, foreign intelligence,
counterintelligence and threats to safety from international terrorist
organizations.
If the intelligence component is unsure if the information they have obtained
is proper for them to keep regarding U.S. persons, the intelligence oversight
rules allow them to temporarily retain the information for up to 90 days
solely to determine whether it may be permanently retained.
And thus we have intelligence components who have properly collected U.S.
person information and in their holdings.
Finally, if an intelligence component is in receipt of information that pertains
to the function of other DOD components or agencies outside DOD, such as
the FBI, the intelligence component can transmit or deliver the information
to them for their independent determination whether it can be collected,
retained or disseminated in accordance with their governing policy. Thank
you.
SPECTER: Thank you, Mr. Dugan.
Mr. Dugan, you were present during the entire hearing today.
DUGAN: Yes, I was.
SPECTER: I didn't hear you object to any classified information being presented.
DUGAN: Sir, I listened to your reading of the statement from your legal counsel
regarding my responsibility to object if there was classified information
revealed. My knowledge of Able Danger is very limited. The information that
I heard discussed by the previous two panels based on my limited knowledge
of Able Danger did not cause me to rise and say that I thought classified
information was being revealed. Had I...
SPECTER: So you...
DUGAN: Had I believed so, I would have done so.
SPECTER: So you didn't hear any classified information?
DUGAN: No, I didn't hear what I believe to be classified information.
SPECTER: Well, we're not looking for anybody else's belief. Is there anybody
else present from the Department of Defense here today?
DUGAN: I have some folks from OSD Legislative Affairs but I don't believe
they're in a position...
SPECTER: It was your job to object if you heard something that you thought
was classified?
DUGAN: Yes, sir, that's correct.
SPECTER: Is there anything in Posse Comitatus that would have prevented the
Department of Defense from telling the FBI about an Al Qaida cell and Mohammed
Atta?
DUGAN: No, sir. I don't think so. I don't think this is a Posse Comitatus
the issue. I think this is an intelligence oversight, an Executive Order
12333 compliance issue. The Army regulation that the previous speaker referred
to, Army Reg 381-10, is an implementation of the DOD regulation, and that
is what they followed. Posse Comitatus I don't think bears on this.
SPECTER: Was there any basis under Posse Comitatus for the deletion of materials,
as testified by Mr. Kleinsmith, or the destruction of other records relating
to Mohammed Atta and the charts?
DUGAN: I don't think so unde
Posse Comitatus.
SPECTER: Any basis for the destruction of those records or deletion on any
ground?
DUGAN: Perhaps under the intelligence oversight rules and the 90-day retention
determination period that I spoke of; that is, under the DOD guidance --
the attorney general approved guidelines -- if information identifies a U.S.
person, the intelligence component concerned has 90 days to determine if
they have a reasonable belief that it can be related to one of the 13 categories
in procedure two of the DOD directive. The Army directive is the same.
SPECTER: Rather extensive record for this committee today, albeit by hearsay.
To some substantial extent, Congressman Weldon's testimony has established
the existence of intelligence information in the hands of the Department
of Defense, including the identity of Mohammed Atta.
That evidence having been presented and factually ascertainable, did the
Department of Defense make a mistake in not telling the FBI about that prior
to 9/11?
DUGAN: Not have reviewed the evidence...
SPECTER: Well, you were here today and you heard all the testimony.
DUGAN: Yes, sir, I was.
SPECTER: You heard a lot of testimony that there was a cell uncovered in
Al Qaida and that Mohammed Atta was identified, the Mohammed Atta that later
turned out to be a ringleader.
Now, I don't know whether it's true or not because we haven't had the first-hand
testimony but we have to accept what we can get; that is, for a first hearing.
We may have some more hearings.
DUGAN: Certainly.
SPECTER: The secretary of defense is coming in to brief the Senate this afternoon
at 4:00. He may have some extra time. He may be able to lend some substance
to what we heard here today.
But all we can do is accept the testimony we have heard. now, accepting that
testimony, if the Department of Defense knew about an Al Qaida cell and about
mow ham Mohammed Atta, the ring leader, wasn't it a mistake not to turn that
over to the FBI?
DUGAN: If the INSCOM folks, following the regulation in their intelligence
oversights rules, found that the information was collected and collectible,
then -- under the attorney general approved guidelines -- they can retain
it and disseminate it. And the dissemination, under procedure four of the
regulation, would be lawful to the FBI.
SPECTER: Should it have been disclosed? That's my question. Your last answer
was circuitous and not to the point. Should it have been disclosed if it
might have prevented 9/11?
DUGAN: If it was properly collected, yes.
SPECTER: Well, was it properly collected?
DUGAN: I don't know, sir.
SPECTER: Will you say there is nothing that you heard about which puts it
at variance with the Posse Comitatus Act?
DUGAN: Correct. But I haven't heard testimony from the Army, and I understand
they're not here and the reasons for that.
DUGAN: But as to what they collected, how they collected it and why they
determined it was not properly collectible and why it could not be retained
and then disseminated.
SPECTER: Do you know why the decision was made not to retain it?
DUGAN: I assume, based on the previous testimony of the previous panel, and
from what he said, was that the 90-day period had run. And since the 90-day
period had run, they had not made a collectibility determination that it
could fit into one of the 13 categories, that it was excluded.
SPECTER: Since you're the only representative from the Department of Defense
here, we can only ask you to respond to the committee and to make the
determination as to whether, number one, the Department of Defense had
information about an Al Qaida cell and Mohammed Atta, the ringleader.
That's question number one, did they have that information? If so, was there
any reason under Posse Comitatus why they could not disclose it to the FBI
or others, intelligence agencies?
And question number three, was it a mistake not to make that information
available to prevent 9/11 or perhaps contribute to the pre
ention of 9/11?
DUGAN: Mr. Chairman, with respect to your first question, did we have information
that identified Mohammed Atta, I have heard the testimony here, but I don't
know.
SPECTER: The question was, since you're the only representative of DOD here,
the committee would like you to find out the answers to those questions.
If we had the secretary here, we'd ask him. If we had somebody with knowledge
of Able Danger, like General Schoomaker, who was very intimately involved
in it -- he's not too far away, he's the chief of staff. He was confirmed
by the Senate the last time he was up. If we had somebody who knew more about
the matter, we'd ask him.
And I understand that you were sent over in a very limited capacity with
perhaps a calculation that you didn't have this information. But those are
the questions which the committee would like to have answered.
DUGAN: Yes, sir.
SPECTER: And if you would undertake the task of finding out the answers or
having your superiors finding out the answers, the committee would appreciate
it.
DUGAN: Yes, sir.
SPECTER: Senator Sessions?
SESSIONS: Mr. Dugan, to get the ancestry of how we get into these walls that
make life in government more difficult, there were Church hearings and other
abuse hearings that resulted in President Reagan --President Ford and then
President Reagan issuing the directives to constrain the activities of the
Department of Defense in things that could be considered domestic investigations
or domestic law enforcement. Is that correct?
DUGAN: Yes, sir, that is correct. There was also an intervening order, an
executive order, from President Carter.
SESSIONS: And as a result of that, DOD regulation 12333 was issued?
DUGAN: I believe you're referring to Executive Order 12333 that was issued
by President Reagan.
SESSIONS: And you referred in your remarks here to a DOD regulation that
governed the issue, and is that the regulation from which Major Kleinsmith
referred when he talked about A.R. 381-10?
DUGAN: Yes, sir.
SESSIONS: So the Army implemented that DOD regulation and that became, for
the officers and men and women in the Army, their binding authority?
DUGAN: Yes, sir. That's correct. All the other services have a similar regulation
as well as the Defense Intelligence Agency.
SESSIONS: And is it your understanding that that regulation really was not
founded on the Posse Comitatus Act but some other principle or concern to
the executive and the legislative branches that led to that.
DUGAN: Yes, sir. That's correct.
SESSIONS: Are there any statutory provisions that underlay this executive
order and the A.R. 381-10?
DUGAN: The provisions in President Reagan's executive order grow out of the
abuses committed by DOD and non-DOD intelligence organizations during the
'60s and '70s, as I explained and investigated by Senator (inaudible); Senator
Church, the Church committee; Representative Pike, as well as the...
SESSIONS: Well, I...
DUGAN: So it's a fear that you have the military collecting intelligence
on -- let me use the term U.S. citizens, but U.S. persons, within this country.
SESSIONS: I think that's a big issue. I think it's an important issue. I
don't dispute that. And I'm not for eroding that principle in any significant
way.
But the chairman is, I guess -- I think we need to ascertain whether or not
there was any statutory requirement that resulted in 381-10 that impacted
this particular matter, or was that the result purely of an executive order
which could be changed by the chief executive?
DUGAN: I believe it's the result of the executive order. I do not believe
it's a Posse Comitatus statute issue, that...
SESSIONS: And you're not aware of any statutory requirement that requires
this?
DUGAN: No.
SESSIONS: See if I can follow up on the chairman's question about sharing
this information. There was this the 90-day rule that the major and others
I guess felt they were confronted with.
Do you have an explanation of why they couldn't just call Mr. Bald at the
FBI and say: We can't hold these documents anymore; we turn them over to
you? What would be the difficulty in doing that?
DUGAN: We're a lot smarter now than we were in 1999 and 2000. And we think
we could do that. Give them -- provide that information to the FBI and say
you need to review this with your authorities in mind to determine whether
it's lawful for you to keep.
Now we are faced with that same situation when law enforcement information
is given to us, for us to look at. And we look at that information in the
light of the executive order and the DOD directive and say, is it proper
for us to keep this information? Is this of intelligence value to us? And
make our decision and determination in accordance with the DOD directive
or the Army regulation.
SESSIONS: Well, those decisions were made. And I guess we'll follow up and
the chairman has asked what about this ultimate destruction of the documents,
was that called for under the regulation or was that necessary?
DUGAN: The 90-day rule is what is referred to as a collectibility determination.
I have this information. I don't know if I have a reasonable belief that
-- relating to U.S. person information, relating to U.S. persons. And they
have this 90-day period with which to make a determination.
If the determination after day 10 is this does not relate to one of the 13
categories that I have just described, then the 90-day clock stops. But they
have a full 90 days to make that determination.
Once that 90-day period goes by and they have not made the information, then
it's not properly collected.
SESSIONS: Is it deemed not to be properly collected and under criminal law,
when police officer improperly collects something, he does not have to destroy
the evidence unless -- but he can't utilize it.
DUGAN: We destroy it.
SESSIONS: So you destroy it. So if you delay and haven't made a determination
of 90 days, it's to be destroyed, could it not be shared? What if it's improperly
gathered, but - and then so it can't be maintained, can it then be shared?
DUGAN: We think the information can be shared, for instance with the FBI,
as I indicated earlier, for them to review it with their authorities, and
to make a similar decision or determination, whether for their agency they
can.
Now, why wasn't it done in this case?
DUGAN: I can't tell you. Information sharing, obviously, has increased in
significance and importance since the 2001 attacks. We are doing a better
job of sharing information, both from law enforcement to intelligence and
intelligence to law enforcement.
I'm sure there are plenty of areas necessary and open for improvement. But
in 1999, 2000, I wish to convey to the committee that U.S. person information
is something that we are skittish about in the Defense Department. We follow
the rules strictly on it. And we want to do the right thing and follow the
attorney general guidelines.
SESSIONS: Well, thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I have had the honor to serve with Congressman Weldon on the
Armed Services Committee; he in the House and I in the Senate. And there's
no stronger proponent of America's defense, no stronger supporter of the
United States Army and the Defense Department and a healthy, strong America.
Congressman, thank you for your leadership and for your information you've
provided us.
SPECTER: Thank you, Senator Sessions.
Mr. Dugan, Mohammed Atta was not a U.S. person, was he?
DUGAN: Based on what I've read in the press, since September 11, 2001, I
don't believe he was. He wasn't a permanent resident alien. He wasn't a U.S.
citizen. He wasn't in any of the other categories. He wasn't in the country
lawfully.
For instance, a student visa or a tourist visa, that is not the same thing
as a permanent resident alien. So the...
SPECTER: Mr. Dugan, you're the acting assistant secretary for intelligence
oversight. Can't you give us a more definitive answer to a very direct and
fundamental and simple question like: Was Mohammed Atta a U.S. person?
DUGAN: No, he was not.
SPECTER: Well, maybe we ought to continue since we've got a direct answer.
(LAUGHTER) Mr. Dugan, I know you were sent here by your superiors to do the
best you could. I think the Department of Defense owes the American people
an explanation as to what went on here.
There are very credible questions which have been raised. And these credible
questions have been raised by Congressman Weldon, whose reputation is impeccable
as to credibility and thoroughness. And these questions have also been raised
by five witnesses, all of whom have been prohibited from testifying.
And we are not dealing with here on a matter of minor consequence. We're
dealing with the intelligence gathering data of the Department of Defense
and prima facie reasons to believe that there was credible evidence as to
Mohammed Atta -- the Mohammed Atta, the ringleader -- and an Al Qaida cell,
and that, had that information been shared -- and the FBI was trying to get
it -- 9/11 might have been prevented.
And the other senators have expressed the same point of view. Senator Biden
finds it inexplicable; can't figure out why the Department of Defense is
stonewalling this. And I can't either.
I hope you'll go back and talk to the secretary and tell him that the American
people are entitled to some answers -- and this committee, on its oversight
function, because if there is a problem with Posse Comitatus, it's our duty
to try to correct it.
I want to thank the staff especially for pursuing this investigation and
this hearing. This hearing preparation is one of the most difficult that
I have seen and I'm in my 25th year and no stranger to investigations.
I spent a lot of time investigating the mafia, organized crime and racketeers
of all sorts, and I never faced a more fundamental question than fighting
terrorism, which is the number one problem we have here today. And we need
answers.
I want to thank Ivy Johnson (ph) and Adam Turner (ph) and Adam Cauttle (ph)
and John Nor (ph) and Kathy Micheltoe (ph) and Josh Bataret (ph), and especially
Carolyn Short (ph), general counsel, and Evan Kelly (ph), for the work they
have done here.
And we're going to suspend the hearing on this subject at this point in the
hopes that we'll get some better answers.
--END--
###
[Congressional Record: June 27, 2005 (House)]
[Page H5243-H5250]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr27jn05-122]
U.S. INTELLIGENCE
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McHenry). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon)
is recognized for 44 minutes.
[[Page H5244]]
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to
discuss for the next 45 minutes the most important topic that will
allow us to protect the homeland, provide for the security of the
American people and our allies and our troops around the world: our
intelligence.
Last Thursday, Mr. Speaker, I had a meeting with the very able and
distinguished chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra). We discussed
many things, one of which was a source that I had hoped that we could
get some information to assist us in understanding the threats in Iraq
and the Middle East, and especially in regard to Iran.
I said to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), I am going to
make a prediction to you. Based on my source, I said, common wisdom
tells us that the winner of the election in Iran that will take place
on Friday and Saturday our time will probably be Rafsanjani. He is the
name that most pundits have said would be the likely winner in a two-
person runoff against the more conservative and not well-known mayor of
Tehran. But I said to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), based
on information we had, the election was not going to be close; it will
be a landslide. But the conservative mayor of Tehran, a relative
unknown, had been anointed by Ayatollah Homeni in Iran and he would in
fact win the Iranian election.
We all saw the results, Mr. Speaker, on Saturday night and Sunday
morning as, in fact, the mayor of Tehran won the election with a margin
of 62 to 38 percent, an overwhelming landslide. I raise this issue, Mr.
Speaker, because good intelligence and good information is the most
critical tool that we can have over the next several years and decades
to protect our homeland.
Mr. Speaker, I rise because information has come to my attention over
the past several months that is very disturbing. I have learned that,
in fact, one of our Federal agencies had, in fact, identified the major
New York cell of Mohamed Atta prior to 9/11; and I have learned, Mr.
Speaker, that in September of 2000, that Federal agency actually was
prepared to bring the FBI in and prepared to work with the FBI to take
down the cell that Mohamed Atta was involved in in New York City, along
with two of the other terrorists.
I have also learned, Mr. Speaker, that when that recommendation was
discussed within that Federal agency, the lawyers in the administration
at that time said, you cannot pursue contact with the FBI against that
cell. Mohamed Atta is in the U.S. on a green card, and we are fearful
of the fallout from the Waco incident. So we did not allow that Federal
agency to proceed.
Mr. Speaker, what this now means is that prior to September 11, we
had employees of the Federal Government in one of our agencies who
actually identified the Mohamed Atta cell and made a specific
recommendation to act on that cell, but were denied the ability to go
forward. Obviously, if we had taken out that cell, 9/11 would not have
occurred and, certainly, taking out those three principal players in
that cell would have severely crippled, if not totally stopped, the
operation that killed 3,000 people in America.
Tonight, I am going to provide some background to my colleagues,
because I think this represents a major problem with our intelligence
that needs to be focused on by the committees of the House and the
Senate, by the leadership of the House and the Senate, by John
Negroponte, the new person assigned by President Bush, and a very able
man, to integrate the 33 classified systems overseen by the 15 Federal
agencies.
I want to also start off by praising Porter Goss, the director of the
CIA. Porter served us extremely well in this body as the chairman of
the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; and he went over to the
CIA with an aggressive agenda to change that agency, and he has begun
that process. We, in this body, need to rally the American people to
support the efforts brought forward by Porter Goss and to allow John
Negroponte to undertake perhaps the most difficult task in protecting
the security of America, a task that will not be easy, given the
history of our Federal agency system.
Let me take my colleagues back, Mr. Speaker, to 1999. It was, in
fact, the spring of 1999 when I was first involved in taking a
delegation of 10 Members of Congress to Vienna with the support of my
friend and colleague, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), and with
the support of the Clinton State Department.
{time} 2320
The 11-member delegation of five Democrats, five Republicans and
myself, along with the State Department employee, traveled to Vienna to
meet with five senior leaders of the Russian political parties. Our
purpose was to try to reach a framework that could allow for a peaceful
resolution of the war in Kosovo on the terms that the U.S. had desired
after Ramboullet.
After securing a military plane, my Russian friends told me they were
bringing a Serb along with them, a Serb who would be able to understand
what we were talking about and help us decide and determine whether or
not Milosevic back in Belgrade would accept any recommendations that we
would develop. I did not know anything about the Serb. I knew the
Russians. But I figure I had better ask the CIA what they knew about
this Serb so I could be better prepared, and to make sure that the Serb
was not a part of the Milosevic regime, because that would cause myself
and my colleagues to be in violation of the Hobbs Act because we were
at war with Serbia at that time.
So I called George Tenet. I said, Director Tenet, can you give me
some information about this Serb? His family is evidently well known. I
need to know whether or not he is a part of the Milosevic regime. I
need to know any other information you can provide to me because we are
going to meet with him when we travel to Vienna to meet with the
Russian leaders to help provide a beginning of a solution to end the
war in Kosovo.
He called me back the next day and he gave me a couple of sentences
and said not to worry, he was not a part of the Milosevic regime. And
he had strong ties to the Communist Party inside of Moscow and had ties
to other leaders in the Russian Government. It was not much to go on.
But at the time, Mr. Speaker, I was chairman of the Defense Research
Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee. My job was to oversee the
funding, approximately $40 billion of defense research money on new
systems and new technologies. And one of the most striking technologies
was the work being done by the Army's Information Dominance Center at
Fort Belvoir, formerly known as the LIWA, the Land Information Warfare
Assessment Center. I had visited the LIWA several times and was
tremendously impressed with not just the ability to provide security
for our Army classified systems, but I saw a unique approach to doing
well beyond that, data mining, data collaboration, using cutting-edge
software tools like Starlight and Spires, able to do profiling. Having
plussed-up funding for this facility after talking to George Tenet, I
called my friends at the Army's Information Dominance Center and said,
can you do something for me as a favor, off the record? And they said
sure, Congressman, whatever you like. Would you run me a profile of
this Serb, for the same reason I had asked the Director of the CIA.
They said, no problem, Congressman; we will get back to you in a few
hours. And they did. They gave me 10 pages of information, Mr. Speaker,
about the Serb and his ties. Now, the information was not vetted but it
was from a number of sources that the Information Dominance Center was
able to pull together very quickly. I used that information as we
traveled to Vienna to understand who we were meeting with. We had those
meetings for 2 days and my colleagues, my five Republican and five
Democrat colleagues, worked aggressively to establish a framework that
would begin the end of the Kosovo war. In fact, it was historic.
When we returned to Washington several weeks later I was contacted by
the FBI and they said, Congressman, we would like to debrief you. We
would like you to tell us what you know about that Serb that you all
met in Vienna. I said, no problem, I will be happy to do it Monday
afternoon in my office. The Friday before the Monday, my D.C. office
paged me with a 911 page. When I called them they said, you have got to
call CIA Congressional Affairs immediately, which I did. CIA
[[Page H5245]]
Congressional Affairs said, Congressman Weldon, we are going to fly two
agents to Philadelphia this evening. They will meet you at the airport,
at a hotel, at your home, wherever you want to meet them. And I said, I
am sorry, I cannot do it. It is a weekend. It is a Friday night. I have
got events already planned. What is the urgency of this meeting? And
the CIA Congressional Affairs person said well, Congressman, we have
been tasked by the State Department to brief our Ambassador, who is
negotiating the final terms to end the war in Kosovo, and he needs to
know something about this Serb that you met in Vienna. I said, well,
the FBI has already called me for that. Can we not do it together? And
finally, after pushing back for 10, 15 minutes, the CIA agreed. And so
on Monday afternoon in my office I hosted four agents, two FBI and two
CIA. These agents asked me four pages of questions about the Serb that
I had met with along with our colleagues in the House.
When I finished answering all their questions and giving them all of
the information I had, I said to them, now you know where I got my data
from, right? And they said, well, you got it from the Russians. I said,
no. Well, you got it from the Serb. I said, no. I said, before I left
Washington, before I left my office, I called the Army's Information
Dominance Center and asked them to do me a favor. They ran a profile
and gave me 10 pages. The CIA rep and the FBI rep said, what is the
Army's Information Dominance Center, congressman?
It was then, Mr. Speaker, that I knew we had a problem; that our
intelligence systems were not linked together, that the stovepipes were
so great that we would never be able to deal with emerging
transnational terrorist threats. So beginning in the spring of 1999, I
began a process working with the Army, and their subgroup working with
them, Special Forces Command down in Florida, which had a similar
capability to develop a national prototype, a prototype that could be
providing support for the President, the National Security Adviser, and
all of our policymakers. In fact, working together over a multiweek
period, we came up with a plan, a document. And Mr. Speaker, I would
like to place this document in the Record at this point in time.
National Operations and Analysis Hub: NOAH
Policy makers' tool for acting against emerging
transnational threats and dangers to U.S. national security.
Policy makers need better decision support tools.
Policy makers continue to work in a vacuum. Briefings and
testimonies are the primary vehicles for transmitting
information to leadership.
The volume of information germane to national issues is
expanding so rapidly that policy makers are overwhelmed with
data.
Policy makers need robust situational awareness over
growing asymmetric threats to national security.
Policy makers need an overarching information and
intelligence architecture that will quickly assimilate,
analyze and display assessments and recommended course of
action from many national agencies simultaneously.
Policy makers need tools to aid them in developing courses
of action against threats to U.S. policy, interests, or
security.
Policy makers need virtual communications with one another.
White House, Congress, Pentagon and at the agency levels
should each have centers they can go to and receive, send,
share, discuss, and collaborate on assessments before they
act.
National Level Collaboration Solution: NOAH, National
Operations and Analysis Hub.
Tasks supported by NOAH's overarching collaborative
environment:
Provide Multi Issue, Multi-agency Hybrid Picture to White
House Situation Room, JCS;
HUMINT Support;
Peackeeping Missions;
Humanitarian Aid;
Battle Damage Assessment;
Develop and Leverage new Technologies of important to
national security;
Support Congressional Committees/Hearings;
Apply Analysis of Foreign Threat to Policy;
Provide Hybrid Situational Awareness Picture of the Threat;
Incorprote Industrial Efforts of Interests to the Policy
Maker;
Link academia directly to policy maker; and
National Emergencies.
NOAH can leverage existing networks to address diverse
issues:
NOAH's Hub Center if linked to other agency centers
electronically;
Each key agency must prossess a Pod Site and be connected
to the NOAH network;
The Pod can consist of a large screen and appropriate
connect for collaboration. Operations Centers can simply be
converted into NOAH;
National Policy makers cannot control agency Pods, agencies
must post replicated data on the NOAH system so that sister
groups can access data;
Support multi-level security requirements and can sanitize
and ``push'' data to many types of users to many levels;
NOAH can address National, law enforcement and military
needs. The situation will determine the mission;
Ties policy maker, military and law enforcement together;
Goals of the NOAH Hub Center is to apply agency operations,
strategies analysis, tactical assessments to a course of
action for the policy maker; and
Optimizes group of expertise within each organization--
experts always on hand regardless of issue.
NOAH and Pod Site Network:
Part of national policy creation and execution system;
Will existing sites and connectivities where available;
Will share tools available at LIWA IDC so every agency has
same tools;
All agencies will post data on NRO highway in a replicated
format sensitive to classification;
NOAH's Global Network will use NRO System as backbone;
All centers connect to other centers electronically; and
Mechanism for gathering, analyzing, displaying, tailoring,
and disseminating all kinds of information quickly at the
national level.
Overview--National Operations and Analysis Hub:
Center dedicated to National Policy Makers at White House,
Congress and National Agencies;
Provides system of system advanced technological
communications environment to harvest, analyze, display data
as needed;
Coordinate and synchronize information among IC, S&T
centers, military services;
Provide near real time situational awareness at the
national level;
Link virtually via a pod site to every participating member
agency; and
Pod sites designed to pull together agency resources on
single system of systems.
NOAH's is staffed by members from participating agencies.
The staff has a 24 x 7, high bandwidth, virtual connectivity
to experts at agency Pod Sites. This provides decision makers
with real-time situational awareness of adversary picture and
courses.
Steps to Achieve NOAH Capability:
Establish baseline capability by building initial Hub
Center and congressional virtual hearing room. Equip White
House Situation Room to Collaborate with these sites;
Staff the Hub Center with two reps from each of the 28 key
participating agencies;
Link up NOAH internal and external collaborative
environment;
Hook in Back up Site for redundancy and begin training on
collaborative tools;
Build the 28 Key Agency Pod Sites along model of the
Information Dominance Center at Fort Belvoir, VA;
Link all Pod Sites to NOAH hub center establish Protocols
for Inter-agency data sharing;
Exercise live ability to retrieve, collate, analyze,
display disparate data and provide policy makers course of
action analysis at the NOAH Hub Center; and
Refine procedures and Protocols.
Agencies Represented in the National Collaborative Center:
Central Intelligence Agency; Defense Intelligence Agency;
National Imagery and Mapping Agency; National Security
Agency; National Reconnaissance Office; Defense Threat
Reduction Agency; Joint Chiefs of Staff; Army/LIWA; Air
Force; Navy; Marine Corps; Joint Counter-Intelligence
Assessment Group; ONDCP; and FBI.
Drug Enforcement Agency; U.S. Customs; National Criminal
Investigative Service; National Infrastructure Protection
Center; Defense Information Systems Agency; State Department;
Five CINCs; Department of Energy; Department of Commerce;
Department of the Treasury; Justice Department; Office of the
Secretary of Defense; National Military Command Center; and
National Joint Military Intelligence Command.
Elements to be connected to the national collaborative
center would include the White House Situation Room, a
Congressional Virtual Hearing Room and a possible redundant,
or back-up site.
This document, as you can see, Mr. Speaker, is entitled the NOAH,
National Operations and Analysis Hub, Policy Makers' Tool for Acting
Against Emerging Transnational Threats and Dangers to U.S. National
Security. This 9-page briefing, Mr. Speaker, was put together in the
spring of 1999.
I asked the Deputy Secretary of Defense, John Hamre, to take a look
at this capability. He went down to the LIWA and he came back and he
said, Congressman, you are right. I agree with you. This capability is
amazing. It offers unlimited potential. How about sending me a letter
describing your interest, Congressman?
[[Page H5246]]
So on July 30, 1999, I sent this 3-page letter to Deputy Secretary
John Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense, at his request, talking about
creating an integrated collaborative center for all of our
intelligence. I would like to place this letter in the Record at this
point in time, Mr. Speaker
House of Representatives,
Washington, DC, July 30, 1999.
Hon. John Hamre,
Deputy Secretary of Defense,
The Pentagon, Washington, DC.
Dear Dr. Hamre: I believe the time has come to create a
central national level entity that can acquire, fuse and
anaylze disparate data from many agencies in order to support
the policy maker in taking action against threats from
terrorism, proliferation, illegal technology diversions,
espionage, narcotics, information warfare and cyberterrorism.
These challenges are beginning to overlap, thereby blurring
their distinction while posing increasing threats to our
Nation.
Before we take action to counter these emerging threats, we
must first understand their relationship to one another,
their patterns, the people and countries involved, and the
level of danger posed to our Nation. The Department of
Defense has a unique opportunity to create a centralized
national center that can do this for the country. It would be
patterned after the Army's Land Information Warfare Activity
(LIWA) at Fort Belvoir, but would operate on a much broader
scale. This entity would allow for near-time information and
analysis to flow to a central fusion center, which I would
designate the National Operations Analysis Hub (NOAH). I
think this title is fitting, as NOAH will provide a central
hub built to protect our nation from the flood of threats.
NOAH would be comprised of a system of agency-specified
mini-centers, or ``pods'' of participating agencies and
services associated with growing national security concerns
(attachment 1). NOAH would link the policymaker with action
recommendations derived from fused information provided by
the individual pods. NOAH would provide the automation and
connectivity to allow the pods to talk together, share data
and perspectives on a given situation in a near real-time,
computer-based environment.
The NOAH center in the Office of the Secretary of Defense
would be comprised of representatives from an initial cluster
of pod sites to include: CIA, DIA, National Imagery and
Mapping Agency (NlMA), NSA, NRO, Defense Threat Reduction
Agency (DTSA), JCS, Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps,
ONDCP, FBI, DEA, Customs, National Criminal Investigative
Service (NCIS), National Infrastructure Protection Center.
Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), State, the five
CINCS, DOE, INS, Commerce. Treasury.
Elements which would be connected into NOAH would include
the White House Situation Room, a Congressional Virtual
Hearing Room and a possible redundant (back up) site.
The benefits of creating a NOAH include:
For national policy makers, a national collaborative,
environment offers situations updates across a variety of
issues and offers suggested courses of action, based on
analysis, to help government officials make more informed
decisions.
For the Intelligence Community, a national collaborative
environment will help end stovepiping and create more robust
strategic analyses as well as near real-time support to field
operations.
For military commanders and planners, a national
collaborative environment offers full battlefield
visualization, threat profiling, robust situational
awareness, as well as near real-timer support to special
missions such as peacekeeping, humanitarian aid, national
emergencies or special operations.
For law enforcement, a national collaborative environment
provides investigative and threat profiling support, and
field station situational awareness.
Along with its system of connected agency pod sites, NOAH
would permit the display of collaborative threat profiling
and analytical assessments on a large screen. It would be a
national level operations and control center with a mission
to intergrate various imagery, data and analytical viewpoints
for decision-makers in support of national actions. I see
NOAH as going beyond the capability of the National Military
Command Center (NMCC) and the National Joint Military
Intelligence Command (NJMIC), providing recommended courses
of action that allow us to effectively meet those emerging
challenges from asymmetrical threats in near real-time. Given
its mission, I believe that NOAH should reside in the Office
of the Secretary of Defense (Attachment 2).
I am aware of the initiative to link counterintelligence
groups throughout the community. I am also aware of the
counterterrorism center at the CIA, the new National
Infrastructure Protection Center at the FBI, and a new HUMINT
special operations center. I have heard of an attempt to
connect the Office of Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and OSD
assets with federal, state and local law enforcement
agencies. I also have seen what the Army has done at LIWA,
which has created a foundation for creating a higher-level
architecture collaborating all of these efforts. Each of
these independent efforts needs to be coordinated at the
national level. I believe LIWA has created a model that
should be used as a basis for creating the participating
agency pod sites.
I do not expect that establishment of NOAH should exceed
$10 million. Each agency involved could set up its own pod to
connect with the central NOAH site or to exchange data with
any of its participants. Each agency could dedicate monies to
establish their own pod site, while the $50 million available
in DARPA for related work could be used to establish the NOAH
structure immediately.
The NOAH concept of a national collaborative environment
supporting policy and decision-makers mirrors the ideas you
have expressed to me in recent discussions, and it is a
tangible way to confront the growing assymetrical threats to
our nation. I have a number of ideas regarding staffing
options and industry collaboration, and would appreciate the
opportunity to discuss them with you. Thank you for your
consideration. I look forward to hearing from you at your
earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
Curt Weldon,
Member of Congress.
Secretary Hamre was interested and he told me, Congressman, I will
even pay the bill. The Defense Department will provide the funding for
this. And I do not care where they put it, Congressman. It could be at
the White House, it could be at the NSC, wherever it is most
appropriate, but I will pay the bill. But, Congressman, the problem is
not with me or the money. You have got to convince the CIA and the FBI
that this is something they want to pursue.
In fact, he wrote me a letter, Mr. Speaker, dated October 21, 1999:
``Dear Congressman Weldon, I wholeheartedly agree that combating
asymmetrical threats challenging national security requires a
collaborative interagency approach as suggested in your concept of the
National Operations Analysis Hub. We are actively engaged in assessing
how the department should leverage ongoing activities and develop a
long-term strategy along these lines. I will keep you apprised of our
progress. I would be happy to meet with you on the subject.''
And then he puts a personal comment on the note that I will read.
``Sir, this is a mealy-mouth response because no one wants to commit to
a LIWA-based solution. You know I am very impressed by LIWA and see
them involved in a range of activities. I would like to get together
with you to review some of our thinking when you have time. John.''
Mr. Speaker, I would like to place this in the Record.
Deputy Secretary of Defense,
Washington, DC, October 21, 1999.
Hon. Curt Weldon,
House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Congressman Weldon: I wholeheartedly agree that
combatting the asymmetrical threats challenging National
Security requires a collaborative, inter-agency approach, as
suggested in your concept of the National Operations Analysis
Hub. We are actively engaged in assessing how the Department
should leverage ongoing activities and develop a long-term
strategy along these lines.
I will keep you apprised of our progress, and I would be
happy to meet with you on this subject.
Sincerely,
John J. Harme.
{time} 2330
Mr. Speaker, that was in October of 1999 at John Hamre's suggestion
on November 4 of 1999, almost 2 years before 9/11. I had John Hamre and
the representatives of the CIA and the FBI in my office. And at John
Hamre's suggestion, we went through the 9-page briefing to create an
overarching national collaborative center. When I finished the briefing
which had been prepared for me with our intelligence officials off the
record, the CIA said, Congressman Weldon, that is all well and good,
but we really do not need that capability. It is not necessary. We are
doing something called CI-21; and, therefore, we do not need to pursue
that multi-system approach that you have outlined where we bring in all
of these other classified systems.
I was very unhappy with that response because I knew full well the
Army and our special forces commands were using that capability at that
very moment in a special project against al Qaeda.
So, Mr. Speaker, in 1999 and in 2000 and in 2001, I put language in
each of our defense bills calling for the creation of a national
collaborative center to bring together our disparate intelligence
capabilities and systems for 3 consecutive years. And, in fact, one of
[[Page H5247]]
those bills required a response by the CIA as to why this system had
not been put into place.
But in the meantime, on November 12, 1999, the Defense Information
and Electronics Report published an article about the need for a
massive intelligence network for shared threat information. On April of
2000, Signal Magazine did another story on a fusion center concept
taking root as we kept pushing this process.
Mr. Speaker, the following are both of these articles:
[Nov. 12, 1997]
Defense Information and Electronics Report
WELDON: DOD NEEDS MASSIVE INTELLIGENCE NETWORK FOR SHARED THREAT
INFORMATION
Senior Pentagon officials are mulling over an idea proposed
by Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) that would link classified and
unclassified documents in a massive intelligence
clearinghouse that could be accessed by 33 federal agencies--
a concept similar in some ways to one floated by DOD
intelligence officials but with significantly fewer players
involved.
``Our problem with intelligence is that we're stove-
pipped,'' said Weldon, chairman of the House Armed Services
military research and development subcommittee, during a Nov.
8 interview. ``Each agency has its own way of collecting data
and analyzing it, but they don't share that information with
other agencies. The need is to have a better system of
analyzing and fusing data sets across agencies and services--
certainly within the Pentagon and the military, but my
opinion is that we have to go further than that.''
Weldon first proposed the concept of a ``National
Operations Analysis Hub'' to Deputy Defense Secretary John
Hamre last July, although the congressman said he kept his
initiative quiet until a stronger plan could be developed.
The Pentagon-funded network of agencies would be operated
by DOD. According to Weldon, it would pull together large
amounts of information to produce intelligence profiles of
people, regions and national security threats, such as
information warfare and cyber-terrorism.
``The NOAH concept of a national collaborative environment
supporting policy and decision-makers mirrors the ideas you
have expressed to me in recent discussions, and it is a
tangible way to confront the growing asymmetrical threats to
our nation.'' Weldon wrote in his July 30 letter to Hamre.
The NOAH concept, however, was not wholeheartedly embraced
by Hamre, who met with Weldon last summer and told the
congressman his suggested use of the Army's Land Information
Warfare Activity at Ft. Belvoir, VA, as a model for NOAH,
would never stick.
Because LIWA is already short of resources, the Army is
apprehensive about taking on any new tasks, Hamre told
Weldon.
Weldon, in a July 21 letter to Hamre, also urged the
Pentagon to support additional future funding for LIWA,
citing critical budget shortfalls that he said have kept the
agency from fulfilling a barrage of requests for intelligence
files from Army commanders (Defense Information and
Electronics Report, July 30, p1).
``There's massive amounts of data out there, and you have
to be able to analyze it and create ways to focus on that
data so its relevant to whatever you're interested in,'' he
said this week about his support for LIWA. ``Well the Army
has already done that.''
While Weldon continues to push for NOAH to be patterned
after LIWA, he sees it operating on a much larger scale.
Impressed by its ability to pull together huge amounts of
both unclassified and classified data, Weldon noted LIWA's
Information Dominance Center can create in-depth profiles
that could be useful to the CIA, FBI and the White House. Yet
most federal agencies don't even know LIWA exists, he added.
``Right now the military is limited to [its] own sources of
information,'' Weldon said. ``And in the 21st century, a
terrorist group is more than likely going to be involved with
terrorist nations. So the boundaries are crossed all the
time. We don't have any way to share that and get beyond the
stove-pipping.''
Meanwhile, officials within the Defense Department's
intelligence community have been considering another way to
amass intelligence information through a concept called the
Joint Counter-intelligence Assessment Group. A DOD
spokeswoman said proponents of the idea, for now, are
unwilling to disclose details about it. She was also unable
to say whether a formal proposal to Hamre had been made yet.
In Weldon's July 30 letter to Hamre, however, Weldon
alludes to an ongoing ``initiative to link
counterintelligence groups throughout the community.''
``I have heard of an attempt to connect the Office of Drug
Control Policy (ONDCP) and [Office of the Secretary of
Defense] assets with federal, state and local law enforcement
agencies,'' Weldon wrote. However, Weldon said in the
interview he believes JCAG is simply more ``stove-pipping.''
``I also have seen what the Army has done at LIWA, which
has created a foundation for creating a higher-level
architecture collaborating all of these efforts,'' his July
letter states.
NOAH would link together almost every federal agency with
intelligence capabilities, including the National Security
Agency, the Nation Imagery and Mapping Agency, the Energy
Department, the CIA and the FBI. Both Congress and the White
House would be offered a ``node'' for briefing capabilities,
meaning intelligence agencies could detail situations on
terrorist attacks or wartime scenarios.
``It's mainly for policymakers, the White House decision
makers, the State Department, military, and military
leaders,'' he said.
Although information sharing among the intelligence
community has yet to be formalized through NOAH or JCAG or a
similar system, military officials have said they need some
kind of linked access capability.
Intelligence systems need to be included within the Global
Information Grid--the military's vision of a future global
network that could be accessed from anywhere in the world,
said Brig. Gen. Manlyn Quagliotti, vice director of the Joint
Staff's command and control, communications and computers
directorate, during a Nov. 5 speech on information assurance
at a conference in Arlington, VA.
``We need a more integrated strategy, including help from
[the Joint Staff's intelligence directorate] with
Intelligence reports or warnings of an attack,'' he said.
Quagliotti said the toughest challenge for achieving
``information superiority'' is the need to unite networks and
network managers under one command structure with stronger
situational awareness capabilities.
Part of [the challenge] is the overwhelming amount of
information, the ability to access that Information, and the
ability to reach back and get that information, which means
that networks become more crucial to the warfight'' she said.
Fusion Center Concept Takes Root As Congressional Interest Waxes
[From Signal, Apr. 2000]
Creation of a national operations and analysis hub is
finding grudging acceptance among senior officials in the
U.S. national security community. This fresh intelligence
mechanism would link federal agencies to provide instant
collaborative threat profiling and analytical assessments for
use against asymmetrical threats. National policy makers,
military commanders and law enforcement agencies would be
beneficiaries of the hub's information.
Prodded by a resolute seven-term Pennsylvania congressman
and reminded by recent terrorist and cyberthreat activities,
the U.S. Defense Department is rethinking its earlier
aversion to the idea, and resistance is beginning to crumble.
Funding to establish the national operations and analysis hub
(NOAH), which would link 28 federal agencies, is anticipated
as a congressional add-on in the Defense Department's new
budget. An initial $10 million in funding is likely in fiscal
year 2001 from identified research and development accounts.
Spearheading the formation of NOAH is Rep. Curt Weldon (R-
PA), chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives National
Security Committee's military research and development
subcommittee. He emphasizes that challenges facing U.S.
leaders are beginning to overlap, blurring distinction and
jurisdiction. ``The increasing danger is both domestic and
international.''
Conceptually, NOAH would become a national-level operations
and control center with a mission to integrate various
imagery, data and analytical viewpoints. The intelligence
products would support U.S. actions. ``I see NOAH as going
beyond the capability of the National Military Command Center
and the National Joint Military Intelligence Command. NOAH
would provide recommended courses of action that allow the
U.S. to effectively meet emerging challenges in near real
time,'' the congressman illustrates.
``This central national-level hub would be composed of a
system of agency-specified mini centers, or `pods,' of
participating agencies and services associated with growing
national security concerns,'' Weldon reports. ``NOAH would
link the policy with action recommendations derived from
fused information provided by the individual pod.''
Automation and connectivity would allow the to talk to each
other in a computer-based environment to share data and
perspectives on a given situation.
The congressman believes that NOAH should reside within the
Defense Department and is modeling the hub's concept on a
U.S. Army organization he closely follows. He says the idea
for NOAH comes from officials in several federal agencies.
However, it is also based on his own experiences with the
U.S. Army's Intelligence and Security Command's (INSCOM's)
Land Warfare Information Activity (LIWA) and Information
Dominance Center, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
Patterned after LIWA (SIGNAL, March, page 31), NOAH would
display collaborative threat profiling and analysis with the
aid of a variety of electronic tools, the hub would
support national actions, Weldon discloses.
The congressman is conscious of other initiatives such as
linking counterintelligence groups throughout the community.
He also is aware of the Central Intelligence Agency's,
(CIA's) counterterrorism center, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation's (FBI's) National Infrastructure Protection
Center and a new human intelligence (HUMINT) special
operations center, ``We don't need another
[[Page H5248]]
analytical center. Instead, we need a national-level fusion
center that can take already analyzed data and offer courses
of action for decision making,'' he insists.
Weldon's wide experience in dealing with officials from
the FBI, CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) convince
him that policy makers are continuing to work in a vacuum.
``Briefings and testimonies are the primary vehicles for
transmitting information to leaders. The volume of
information germane to national security issues is expanding
so rapidly that policy makers are overwhelmed with data,'' he
claims.
Robust situational awareness of asymmetric threats to
national security is a key in assisting leaders, Weldon
observes. ``Policy makers need an overarching information and
intelligence architecture that will quickly assimilate,
analyze and display assessments and recommend courses of
action for many simultaneous national emergencies,'' he
declares. The concept of NOAH also calls for virtual
communications among policy makers.
Weldon's plan is for White House, Congress, Pentagon and
agency-level leaders each to have a center where they
receive, send, share and collaborate on assessments before
they act. He calls NOAH the policy maker's tool. In the
collaborative environment, the hub would provide a
multiissue, multiagency hybrid picture to the White House
situation room and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
NOAH's concept also includes support for HUMINT and
peacekeeping missions along with battle damage assessment.
The same system could later help brace congressional
committees and hearings. The new capability would allow
application of foreign threat analyses to policy, while
providing a hybrid situational awareness picture of the
threat, Weldon relates. Industrial efforts of interest to the
policy maker could be incorporated, and academia also could
be directly linked.
In meetings with high-level FBI, CIA and defense officials,
Weldon stressed the need to ``acquire, fuse and analyze
disparate data from many agencies in order to support the
policy maker's actions against threats from terrorism,
[ballistic misile] proliferation, illegal technology
diversions, espionage, narcotics [trafficking], information
warfare and cyberterrorism.'' He is convinced that current
collection and analysis capabilities in various intelligence
agencies are stovepiped. ``To some extent, this involves turf
protection, but it clearly hinders policy making.''
Weldon, who was a Russian studies major, offers some of his
own recent experiences as examples of why there is a strong
need for NOAH. He maintains close contact with a number of
Russians and understands their programs and technologies. The
congressman is quick to recall vignettes about Russian
officials and trips to facilities in the region.
During the recent U.S. combat action involvement in Kosovo,
Weldon was contacted by senior Russian officials.* * *
Weldon learned from the agents that they were seeking
information on Karic to brief the State Department. When he
explained that the information came from the Army and LIWA,
the CIA and FBI agents had no knowledge of that organization,
he confirms. Before his departure for Vienna, the congressman
received a six-page LIWA profile of Karic and his family's
links to Milosevic.
``This is an example of why an organization like NOAH is so
critically necessary,'' Weldon contends. ``LIWA's Information
Dominance Center provides the best capability we have today
in the federal government to assess massive amounts of data
and develop profiles. LIWA uses its contacts with other
agencies to obtain database information from those systems,''
he explains. ``Some is unclassified and some classified.''
Weldon cites an ``extraordinary capability by a former CIA
and Defense Intelligence Agency official, who is a LIWA
profiler, as one of the keys in LIWA's success. She does the
profiling and knows where to look and which systems to pull
information from in a data mining and extrapolation
process,'' he proclaims. ``She makes the system work.''
Weldon intends to use LIWA's profiling capability as a
model for building NOAH. ``My goal is to go beyond service
intelligence agencies and integrate all intelligence
collection. This must be beyond military intelligence, which
is too narrow in scope, to provide a governmmentwide
capability. Each agency with a pod linked to NOAH would
provide two staff members assigned at the hub, which would
operate continuously. Data brought together in ``this cluster
would be used for fusion and profiling, which any agency
could then request,'' he maintains.
NOAH would not belong to the Army, which would continue
with its own intelligence capabilities as would the other
services. There would only be one fusion center, which would
handle input from all federal agencies and from open sources,
Weldon explains. ``NOAH would handle threats like information
operations and examine stability in various regions of the
world. We need this ability to respond immediately.'' The
congressman adds that he recently was briefed by LIWA on very
sensitive, very limited and scary profile information, which
he describes as ``potentially explosive.'' In turn, Weldon
arranged briefings for the chairman of the House National
Security Committee, the Speaker of the House and other key
congressional leaders.
``But this kind of profiling capability is very limited
now. The goal is to have it on a regular basis. The profiling
could be used for sensitive technology transfer issues and
information about security breaches,'' the congressman
allows. LIWA has what he terms the fusion and profiling
state-of-the-art capability in the military, ``even beyond
the military.'' Weldon is pressing the case for NOAH among
leaders in both houses of Congress. ``It is essential that we
create a governmentwide capability under very strict
controls.''
Weldon adds that establishing NOAH is not a funding issue;
it is a jurisdictional issue. ``Some agencies don't want to
tear down their stovepipes. Yet, information on a drug lord,
as an example, could be vitally important to help combat
terrorism.'' He makes a point that too often, federal
agencies overlap each other in their efforts to collect
intelligence against these threats, or they fail to pool
their resources and share vital information. ``This
redundancy of effort and confusion of jurisdiction only
inhibits our nation's capabilities,'' he offers.
NOAH would provide high-bandwidth, virtual connectivity to
experts at agency pod sites. Protocols for interagency data
sharing would be established and refined in links to all pod
sites. The ability to retrieve, collate, analyze and display
data would be exercised to provide possible courses of
action. A backup site would be established for redundancy,
and training would begin on collaborative tools as soon as it
is activated.
The hub system would become part of the national policy
creation and execution system. The tools available at LIWA
would be shared so that every agency would have the same
tools. Weldon explains that all agencies would post data on
the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) highway in a
replicated format sensitive to classification. NOAH's global
network would use the NRO system as a backbone.
NOAH optimizes groups of expertise within each
organization--experts who are always on hand regardless of
the issue. This approach ties strategic analysis and tactical
assessment to a course of action. ``Before the U.S. can take
action against emerging threats, we must first understand
their relationship to one another, their patterns, the people
and countries involved and the level of danger posed to our
nation,'' Weldon say's ``That is where NOAH begins.''--CAR
So we have pushed the process, Mr. Speaker. We pushed it in
legislation passed by this Congress 3 years in a row. I pushed it
publicly in magazine articles, in newspapers, in speeches before
intelligence symposiums and agency briefings; but the CIA continued to
balk.
In fact, Mr. Speaker, I have one of the report languages from H.R.
5408, the conference report printed October 6, 2000, the section
entitled ``Joint Report on Establishment of a National Collaborative
Information Analysis Capability.''
That section is as follows:
Joint report on establishment of national collaborative
information analysis capability (sec. 933)
The House bill contained a provision (sec. 905) that would:
(1) require the Secretary of Defense and the Director of
Central Intelligence to prepare a joint report assessing
alternatives for the establishment of a national
collaborative information analysis capability; (2) require
the Secretary of Defense to complete the data mining,
profiling, and analysis capability of the Army's Land
Information Warfare Activity; and (3) restrict funds to
establish, support, or implement a data mining and analysis
capability until such a capability is specifically authorized
by law.
The Senate amendment contained no similar provision.
The Senate recedes with an amendment that would: (1)
require the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central
Intelligence to prepare a joint report assessing alternatives
for the establishment of a national collaborative information
analysis capability; and (2) require the Secretary of Defense
to complete the data mining, profiling, and analysis
capability of the Army's Land Information Warfare Activity.
The amendment would not restrict funds, but would require the
Secretary to make appropriate use of such capability to
provide support to appropriate national defense components.
Mr. Speaker, to push this process, a report came back from the CIA
dated May 1, 2001, just a few short months before 9/11. And I will read
one sentence in this report in the summary: ``A single overarching
collaborative solution addressing the totality of mission requirements
is not practical.''
In other words, the CIA said, We cannot create what the Department of
Defense already has. Now, Mr. Speaker, the Department of Defense and
the Army and our special forces commands already had this capability,
and they were using it in 1999 and 2000. I knew they were using it, but
was not quite sure of the extent of the use until 2 weeks after 9/11.
Mr. Speaker, exactly 2 weeks after
9/11 where I lost some very good friends, Ray Downey, the chief of all
rescue for the New York City Fire Department and one of my best
friends, was the chief of all rescue at Ground
[[Page H5249]]
Zero when the first tower came down. It was Ray Downey who had taken me
through the Trade Center in 1993 when bin Laden hit us the first time.
It was Ray Downey who convinced me in the late 1990s to introduce
legislation, eventually becoming law, to create a commission to make
recommendations to prepare for the next terrorist threat.
My legislation was passed, became law, and created what is now known
as the Gilmore Commission, chaired by Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore.
Ray Downey was one of those commissioners. The Gilmore Commission and
Ray Downey gave us three reports before 9/11 of recommendations of
things we should be doing to prepare for the next terrorist attack. And
they gave us those three reports before 9/11 occurred. In fact, almost
40 percent of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission were actual
recommendations of the Gilmore Commission. But because the attack had
not occurred, it did not get as much visibility.
On September 11, Ray Downey was killed. I brought his wife and five
kids to my district 1 month after 9/11, and 40,000 of my constituents
came out to honor Ray as an American hero at a parade ending at our
county park.
We also lost one of my neighbors, Mr. Speaker, a fellow graduate of
Westchester University, Michael Horrocks who served our Nation in the
Navy, was a pilot on one of the planes that was commandeered on
September 11. Michael left behind a young wife, a teacher in my
district, and two young children in the Rose Tree Media School
District. In fact, we built a playground in Michael's honor at the
school of the two children.
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.
But I learned something new, Mr. Speaker, over the past several weeks
and months. I have talked to some of the military intelligence officers
who produced this document, who worked on this effort. And I found
something out very startling, Mr. Speaker. Not only did our military
identify the Mohammed Atta cell; our military made a recommendation in
September of 2000 to bring the FBI in to take out that cell, the cell
of Mohammed Atta. So now, Mr. Speaker, for the first time I can tell
our colleagues that one of our agencies not only identified the New
York cell of Mohammed Atta and two of the terrorists, but actually made
a recommendation to bring the FBI in to take out that cell. And they
made that recommendation because Madeleine Albright had declared that
al Qaeda, an international terrorist organization, and the military
units involved here felt they had jurisdiction to go to the FBI.
Why, then, did they not proceed? That is a question that needs to be
answered, Mr. Speaker. I have to ask, Mr. Speaker, with all the good
work that the 9/11 Commission did, why is there nothing in their report
about able danger? Why is there no mention of the work that able danger
did against al Qaeda? Why is there no mention, Mr. Speaker, of a
recommendation in September of 2000 to take out Mohammed Atta's cell
which would have detained three of the terrorists who struck us?
{time} 1140
Those are questions, Mr. Speaker, that need to be answered.
Last week, I asked the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the
chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, my good friend, and the
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), the chairman of the Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence, my good friend, who I have the
highest respect for both of these individuals, to allow us to proceed
with an investigation that has not yet been brought forward to the
American people and our colleagues in this body.
We need to know, Mr. Speaker, why those recommendations, if they, in
fact, occurred, as my intelligence military friends told me that they
occurred, why were they stopped. Now, Mr. Speaker, I have been told
informally that they were stopped because the lawyers at that time in
2000 told them that Mohamed Atta had a green card and they could not go
after someone with a green card.
I have also been told, Mr. Speaker, that it was because of the fear
of the lawyers of the fallout that had occurred on the Waco attack in
Texas just a short time earlier. Mr. Speaker, if that is, in fact, the
case, that is an outrage and a scandal. If our reason for not going
after the Mohamed Atta cell was because of the fear of the fallout from
Waco, then someone needs to answer some questions.
The bottom line process in all of this, Mr. Speaker, is that this
capability, which the CIA said we did not need, which the CIA said was
not necessary, which was, in fact, being used by the military, both the
Army and Special Forces command did something the CIA did not do. It
identified the key cell of Mohamed Atta prior to 9/11, and it actually
gave us a suggestion to deal with that cell. Mr. Speaker, this story
needs to be investigated. This information needs to be pursued.
Now, Mr. Speaker, in spite of the CIA's refusal to implement a
national collaborative center, thank goodness our President did
respond, and in January of 2003, standing in this very chamber, in the
State of the Union speech, he announced the TTIC, the Terrorism Threat
Integration Center. Mr. Speaker, the TTIC is identical to the NOAH, no
different, same concept, same design, linkage together in one location
of all 33 classified systems.
But, Mr. Speaker, we proposed that in 1999, 2 years prior to 9/11.
The administration put it into place in January of 2003. That is the
same capability that the CIA said we do not need that, Congressman; we
cannot do that, Congressman; we have better ways to assess emerging
threats. TTIC has now been reformed. It is now known as the NCTC, the
National Counterterrorism Center, but Mr. Speaker, I still have
concerns, and I rise this evening to express those concerns.
This capability was produced in 1999 and 2000 by the IDC, the
Information Dominant Center. I asked them to update me on al Qaeda, to
show me what they can do today at the IDC. This, Mr. Speaker, is al
Qaeda today. It is obviously impossible for anyone watching our
television monitor to see what is on this chart. I have had this chart
magnified by a large factor and have large copies in my office.
Each of these little individual people are cells of al Qaeda, are
groups of al Qaeda, clusters of al Qaeda around the world. In fact,
Mohamed Atta's cell is identified in this chart. This chart, Mr.
Speaker, was prepared through the national collaborative efforts of our
IDC, using, Mr. Speaker, open source data. That chart was produced with
open source data.
What troubles me, Mr. Speaker, is in talking to my friends in the
defense community who work with the NCTC, I have learned that quite
possibly the NCTC cannot duplicate this capability. That is a question
I plan to get answered this week because we have a
[[Page H5250]]
very new and very capable leader of the NCTC that hopefully will tell
me I am wrong, that they can produce this kind of capability to
understand a threat group like al Qaeda.
I rise tonight, Mr. Speaker, to raise the importance of intelligence
collaboration. We can never allow ourselves to return back to the days
prior to 9/11, to the days where individual agencies or individual
agencies that think that they have all of the answers in providing
security for our country and intelligence for our agencies and our
policy-makers. Mr. Speaker, we can never return to the days of 1999 and
2000, and I hope this is not the case today, but back in those days
where the agency bureaucrats were fighting with each other over who
would take credit for the best information. Let me read a couple of
excerpts, Mr. Speaker.
Back in 1999, when I was pushing the CIA to establish this
collaborative capability and our military was actually using that
capability, focusing on emerging threats like al Qaeda, this
conversation went back and forth, Mr. Speaker, September 1999. This is,
by the way, written from military intelligence officers, a summary of
notes to me.
At the military's inception, the CIA drags its feet and limits its
support to the effort. In an off-the-record conversation between the
DCI and the CIA representative to this military unit, a man that I will
call Dave and our military intelligence officer explains that even
though he understands the military's effort is against the global
infrastructure of al Qaeda, he tells me that the CIA will, and I quote,
never provide the best information on al Qaeda, end quote. Why would
they not do that? Because of the effort that they were taking as part
of a finding they had on bin Laden himself and if the military's
project was successful it would, quote, steal their thunder. Steal the
CIA's thunder.
Dave went on to say that short of the CINC, General so and so,
calling the Director, George Tenet, directly, the CIA would never
provide the best information to the military on al Qaeda. To my
knowledge, that information was never provided.
Mr. Speaker, never again can America allow intelligence bureaucrats
to argue back and forth over who is going to steal whose thunder, that
you heaven forbid would want to embarrass the CIA because a military
intelligence unit got information that is supposed to be under their
authority and jurisdiction.
Mr. Speaker, I am not going to read all these pages, but this
classified information that I have to back up what I have given in
unclassified format, will be provided and has been provided for the
chairman of our intelligence oversight committee and our armed services
oversight committee.
Again, I have to ask the question, why did the 9/11 Commission not
investigate this entire situation? Why did the 9/11 Commission not ask
the question about the military's recommendation against the Mohamed
Atta cell? Why did the 9/11 Commission not document the internal
battles and disputes between agency personnel going after the same
terrorist organization al Qaeda?
If we are truly going to have an understanding of the need to reform
our intelligence system, then we have to be honest with the American
people about the past.
{time} 2350
Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight because I am very troubled by what I have
seen and by what I have heard. I have interviewed and talked to some
very brave military intelligence officers who, back in 1999 and 2000,
were involved in protecting America. They knew what we needed, and they
were trying to do it. As I have read to you, there were some in other
agencies, especially the CIA and some in DIA, who were saying you
cannot do that, that is not your area. That is our area. You cannot
steal our thunder. That is our job, not your job.
Never again, Mr. Speaker, can we allow agency bureaucrats to argue
over who is going to get the credit for solving the next attack or
planned attack against us. I do not rise tonight, Mr. Speaker, to
embarrass anyone. I rise tonight because of my own frustration. We knew
6 years ago what direction we had to go. The agency said we do not need
that, Congressman, we know better than the Congress. Trust us.
Thank goodness President Bush put that system in place when he took
office. If we had had that system in 1999 and 2000, which the military
had already developed as a prototype, and if we had followed the lead
of the military entity that identified the al Qaeda cell of Mohamed
Atta, then perhaps, Mr. Speaker, 9/11 would never have occurred.
Certainly taking out the Mohamed Atta cell and two of the terrorists
that were with him, would have had a profound positive impact in
shutting down the major plan against us that moved forward on September
11, 2001.
Mr. Speaker, I have placed these documents in the Record because I
want our colleagues to have a chance to read them. I want our
colleagues to see the facts and the information, and I want to support
our very capable chairman, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter)
and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) as they move forward
with an investigation.
We have to ask the question, why have these issues not been brought
forth before this day? I had my Chief of Staff call the 9/11 Commission
staff and ask the question: Why did you not mention Able Danger in your
report? The Deputy Chief of Staff said, well, we looked at it, but we
did not want to go down that direction.
So the question, Mr. Speaker, is why did they not want to go down
that direction? Where will that lead us? Why do we not want to see the
answers to the questions I have raised tonight? Who made the decision
to tell our military not to pursue Mohamed Atta? Who made the decision
that said that we are fearful of the fallout from Waco politically?
Were those decisions made by lawyers? Were they made by policymakers?
Who within the administration in 2000 was responsible for those
actions? This body and the American people need to know.
____________________