Rep. Curt Weldon: DIA Lies, Destroys Reputations

Rep. Curt Wheldon: DIA Lies, Destroys Reputations

http://www.postchronicle.com/comment...e_212938.shtml

by Joe Swank
Oct 21, 2005

If what US Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) says is true about the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), America has been wearing a blindfold so as not to see the truth about 9 / 11 prevention.

Weldon, Vice Chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security Committee, addressed the House of Representatives. He exposed the DIA as a perpetrator of deceit and intentionally destroying the reputation of a reputable American so that the latter would not be able to tell the truth. He is LTC Anthony Shaffer, a 23-year defense intelligence officer, whom the DIA has sought to smear.

"Shaffer is being abused and used as a scapegoat. If they (the DIA) can ruin Shaffer, they can silence the story," Weldon stated.

His speech also focused on a 20-person team, Able Danger, that came up with invaluable information via new technology that revealed crucial data that could have prevented 9 / 11. Weldon said further that Able Danger's significant data has been destroyed purposefully so as not to embarrass the DIA.

Just months ago, Weldon said he learned that in 1999 and 2000 a secret program known as Able Danger was put in place by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and seen through by the general in charge of the Special Forces Command. It was a force able to uncover key cells of al Qaeda globally, giving the military the capability to destroy those cells so they could not repeat carnage as set loose at the Trade Center, Khobar Towers, USS Cole and the African embassy.

Just months ago, Weldon stated he discovered that Able Danger "actually identified the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda in January and February 2000, over 1 year before 9 / 11 ever 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."

In September 2000, Able Danger tried to inform the FBI about their findings. Lawyers denied three times their admittance to the FBI.

Weldon stated that the FBI Director has now "publicly said 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 3000 lives and changed the course of world history."

Now, Weldon contends, the DIA, including its deputy director, does not want this truth to get out. Why? Weldon states: "Because they perhaps are fearful of being embarrassed and humiliated."

So what has the DIA done to keep the truth under cement bars?

Weldon stated to Congress that the DIA has "gagged the military officers." They cannot speak truth to Congresspersons. They cannot tell the facts to the press. Further, the DIA has set their aim on destroying the reputation and life of Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer.

They have engineered a precise smear campaign against Shaffer so as to leave him ruined. They have taken from Shaffer his security clearance, his salary, health care benefits for himself and children. They took away his security clearance one day before he was to "testify before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, in uniform."

Almost a year before 9 / 11, the DIA Deputy Director met with Shaffer. Shaffer showed him "a disk in his office with information about al Qaeda and Mohammed Atta." The Deputy Director halted the conversation, informing Shaffer that he did not want to see the data. "'You cannot show me that. I do not want to see it. It might contain information I cannot look at.'" That is what Weldon reports that the deputy told Shaffer. Others were in the room so as to witness this dialogue.

To this date, the DIA deputy informs media that he never met with Shaffer about such a disk. He never said what Shaffer says he said.

Yet, Weldon states, "Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, like Commander Scott Philpot of the Navy, like J. D. Smith, and like a host of other Able Danger employees, have told the truth."

So we have Able Danger with the data: identification of Mohammed Atta and al Qaeda before 9 / 11. Such information was not able to get to the FBI because of legal obstructions. A large part of that data was destroyed in the summer of 2000.

Weldon then pointed to a man with "impeccable credentials" whom he left nameless in his address. However, Weldon did state that he would reveal the name to any Member of Congress, "any of our colleagues that want to come to me. I will tell you privately who this official is."

The significance of the man is that he was a leading official with Able Danger. However, though he is of utmost importance due to the knowledge he has of Able Danger's activities and finding prior to 9 / 11, he has never once been asked to speak to anyone at the Pentagon, the DIA, nor the 9 / 11 Commission staff in their investigations.

This particular man informed Weldon 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." Yet the leading official with Able Danger tells Weldon that there is a body of information that just may still exist.

Weldon is incensed that the DIA has covered up "their own shortcomings." They fear Able Danger's data going public.

Able Danger knew about Mohammed Atta and al Qaeda cell a year before 9 / 11. Further, they knew about the threat to the USS Cole 2 weeks before the attack. Two days "before the attack (Able Danger) was screaming not to let the USS Cole come into the harbor at Yemen because they knew something was about to happen."

The DIA is jealous of Able Danger's capability with the latter's new, state of the art technology. Twenty persons had data that the DIA did not come by. This, the

DIA concludes, must never come to light.

For that, and the ruination of Shaffer's reputation, Weldon holds the DIA on the same par as dictatorships down through history and around the world. He exposes the DIA as anti-freedom, anti-democracy, anti-American. He spoke to Congress of the troops serving in New Iraq particularly who are valiantly seeking to plant liberties for others. Yet at the same time the DIA is working as a despotic regime unto itself, destroying freedoms and reputable person's careers.

There are "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," Weldon stated.

The DIA had millions of dollars, hundreds of millions, Weldon stated, but could not perform what the 20-person team accomplished. "DIA does not want that to come out. . .Heaven forbid that the Defense Intelligence Agency, with hundreds of millions of dollars, would have a 20-member team do what they could not do because they were using new technology and new software."

Weldon called on Congress to appoint a "full independent investigation by the Inspector General of the Pentagon. I have asked Secretary Rumsfeld today to do that."

Further, "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.

"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."

For the full speech, visit http://curtweldon.house.gov/News/Doc...cumentID=35792