If you recall, Able Danger is the program that
identified Mohamed Atta in 2000, but was stopped from sharing their data with the FBI. Then when the Bush administration took over, the program was
shut down just months before 9/11. Now the Pentagon has
silenced the witnesses and is
threatening to end the lead whistleblower's career.
Here is part of a letter to Rumsfeld that right-wing Congressman Weldon - who encouraged the witnesses to speak out in the first place - is circulating. He has 150 signatures from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle so far:
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.
From an interview with Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer before he was gagged:
JD: I guess more importantly, Lt. Col. if we have the order of destruction for the information that we had, who's responsible for shutting down Able Danger and dismantling the infrastructure to continue to get information on suspected terrorist cells, organizations and connections?
AS: That's a good question. I don't actually know who that is. I know that, I know my part. I was ordered out of the operation by a 2-star Army general named Rod Isler, who came to the point where he was yelling at me, demanding that I stop supporting this. Each individual within the group had their own horror story at how we attempted to say, look this is pretty important stuff, global terrorism, you know these guys have killed Americans we should continue this. And we were told to a man and woman, no, sit down, shut up, move on, it's time to forget about it. And this all happened in the spring of 2001 right before the attacks. So I can't tell you what the philosophy was, I can't tell you who actually was behind it, I can just tell you that obviously my observations, the fact that it happened, the fact that we had Atta, we had other information which we tried to pass to the FBI. Plus, Jerry, I don't know if your listeners are aware, Captain Philpott actually told the 9-11 Commission about the fact that Able Danger discovered information regarding the Cole attack. The USS Cole which was attacked in October of 2000. There was information that was Able Danger found that related to Al Qaeda planning an attack. That information unfortuantely didn't get anywhere either. So that is another clue that was given to the 9-11 Commission to say, hey, this capability did some stuff, and they chose not to even look at that.