Ex-Army Officer Accuses CIA of Obstructing Pre-9/11 Intelligence-Gathering

[BridgeTheGap]

Offering new revelations about the CIA's role in shutting down military intelligence penetration of al-Qaeda, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer joins a growing list of government officials accusing former CIA director George Tenet of misleading federal investigators and sharing some degree of blame for the 9/11 attacks.
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A decorated ex-clandestine operative for the Pentagon offers new revelations about the role the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) played in the shut-down of the military's notorious Able Danger program, alleged to have identified five of the 9/11 hijackers inside America more than a year before the attacks.

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer joins a growing list of government officials accusing former CIA director George Tenet of misleading federal bodies and sharing some degree of blame for the attacks. Shaffer also adds to a picture emerging of the CIA's Bin Laden unit as having actively prevented other areas of intelligence, law enforcement and defense from properly carrying out their counterterrorism functions in the run-up to September 2001.

Shaffer spoke to documentary filmmakers John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski in late 2011, on the day Judicial Watch successfully forced the Department of Defense (DOD) to declassify many Able Danger documents through their Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. The materials newly in the public domain allowed Shaffer to speak more candidly than ever before. While he maintains the DOD bureaucracy was always the main obstacle for Able Danger, he offers fresh disclosures on the role played by the CIA in the shut-down of its military offensive.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/14008-ex-army-officer-accuses-cia-of-obstructing-pre-9-11-intelligence-gathering

[grahamhgreen]

1. We need a real 9-11 investigation, IMHO.

[think]

4. Even an orginal 9/11 commission member admitted the 1st one was a joke:

A New Look at the 9/11 Commission
By Dan Fletcher Friday, Sept. 11, 2009

Former New Jersey attorney general John Farmer served as senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, tasked with investigating the government response to the attacks....

~snip~

Some of the distortions you've discussed have fed various conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11. Did you ever see any evidence of a conspiracy?

"One of the harmful byproducts of not telling the truth about what happened is that it did fuel all sorts of conspiracy theories about what might have happened. If what the government is telling you isn't true, then the truth could be anything. But my experience suggests that government lacks competence to carry off an elaborate conspiracy like what is being talked about with 9/11. I think there is evidence that the truth wasn't told and that at least some of that was deliberate — but it did not occur on any sort of scale that people are imagining"....

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1921659,00.html#ixzz2IcbcZ0D0

If the senior counsel of the official 9/11 commission is admitting publicly that the government lied about the official story shouldn't that bother people enough to at least consider another thorough investigation of what really happened?

[rhett o rick]

5. "shouldn't that bother people enough to at least consider another thorough investigation of what

really happened?" Who do you think should be interested? The elite run this country. The President has made it clear that he will not "look back".

[think]

6. I keep hoping someone cares about the truth but understand

that to most people the show must go on truth be damned.....

[rhett o rick]

7. I recommend watching the videos here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101793194#post1

[grahamhgreen]

8. I say follow the money. Who profited the most from 9-11?

[bemildred]

2. The CIA has so much butt-covering to do. nt

[leveymg]

3. Here's a primary source: AbleDanger Blog ('06) and the Timeline. There's enough information in the

Last edited Mon Jan 21, 2013, 11:34 AM - Edit history (1)

public domain now to confirm what really happened. From Shaffer and others at DIA, we learned that for years before 9/11 there was a compartmentalized inter-agency entity (combined CIA/DIA and apparently multiple separate operations) working with several foreign intelligence agencies that had penetrated bin Laden's organization and had it under close surveillance in the US and abroad. US intelligence had detailed knowledge of Al-Qaeda's plans both from within by human sources and through blanket electronic surveillance, some of which was carried out illegally in the US under previous law.

The story of the shutdown of Able Danger after it mapped out the worldwide Al-Qaeda network and its U.S. support cells has been known for years. Another aspect that is well understood is that political pressure was applied to curtail AD after the same Pentagon domestic surveillance operators identified Condi Rice and other high officials as operators in the covert program to modernize China's nuclear forces during the '80s and '90s.

http://www.abledangerblog.com/2006/02/able-danger-timeline-in-shaffers-words.html

Al-Qaeda was riddled with double-agents working for US and allied foreign intelligence at all levels. In effect, AQ was in part a clandestine USG operation, in part a Saudi/Pakistani ISI paramilitary, and in part was run by non-state actors, such as bin Laden, to some degree unwitting of the roles of the others in manipulating this terrorist entity for various larger geopolitical goals which internally conflicted.

Rather than a lack of information about AQ's attack plans, there were so many players involved in running various agents that these conflicted and nobody could tell moment-by-moment who had control over the many, disparate terrorists cells. While various parts of the CIA and US military thought they had been running things, this was a delusion, a deadly self-deception and deceit. In fact, AQ was created in 1975 by then CIA Director Bush and head of Saudi GID intel Prince al-Turki as part of the "Safari Club" agreement (that also included cooperation in running BCCI and the Pakistani nuclear program), and continued to be used as a terrorist paramilitary by competing factions of Saudi, American and global elites to grab resources and territory and to settle scores in many off-the-books black operations. Bin Laden and AQ had value to multiple parties, which is why it was allowed to survive for so long.

The FBI was largely out of loop, except at the highest levels. Bureau liaison and field agents were repeatedly blocked from interfering in what was believed at higher levels to be a CIA and DIA counter-terrorism operation. But, what actually occurred was that operation was compromised by its lack of overall control and that allowed third-parties an opportunity to exploit the program to actually carry out the attacks. What happened in the end was a double-cross, or what is termed triple-cross in the book by the same name.

Just how high up knowledge of what was about to happen is still an unanswered question. However, there is no longer any question that 9/11 occurred as a result of criminal negligence at the very top of the command, within the Bush White House and NSC, and that responsibility ultimately must be assigned to the decision-makers who during 2000 and 2001 ordered DIA surveillance curtailed but refused to shut down the operational side of the operation.