Video: Cowan:Why Didn’t We Blast ‘em? Sestak: Here’s Why…
Terrorism Expert/Marine Lt.Col. Bill Cowan on the Strait of Hormuz incident.
Retired Admiral/Congressman (D) Sestak on ROE.
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SFC Cunningham: I’ve got it figured. I’ve had two separate folk tell me that there have been strangers around. Can’t tell what they look like, ’cause they’re staying the shadows… covert-like. Nobody’s been hurt yet, and that’s the giveaway.
Merrill: I see.
SFC Cunningham: It’s called “probing”. It’s a military procedure. You send in a reconnaissance group, very small… to check things out. Not to engage, but to evaluate the situation… evaluate the level of danger. Make sure things are all clear.
Merrill: Clear for what?
SFC Cunningham: For the rest of them.
“Signs” (2002)
January 9th, 2008 at 12:46 pmAt the very least I have no idea why they didn’t fire warning shots across the bow of those boats. Hell, we do it to drug smugglers and they aren’t threatening to attack.
January 9th, 2008 at 12:49 pmTypical Democrat cocksucker. The timing of the threat and the proximity of the boats were nothing but coincidence??
Who voted that piece of shit in as a Congressman?
January 9th, 2008 at 1:01 pmHERE is the REST of the STORY. Cowan is CORRECT! Sestak is WRONG! Sestak was FIRED by ADM Mullen when he was the CNO (Mullen is now CJCS). WE Will strike the Iranians and sink their navy just as we did in 1988. Sestak has recommended our SURRENDER in IRAQ! Sestak won his seat from Curt Weldon when he was silenced for his out spoken position on ABLE Danger.
‘Able Danger’ Could Rewrite History
Friday , August 12, 2005
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WASHINGTON —
The federal commission that probed the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks was told twice about “Able Danger,” a military intelligence unit that had identified Mohamed Atta and other hijackers a year before the attacks, a congressman close to the investigation said Wednesday.
Rep. Curt Weldon (search), R-Pa., a champion of integrated intelligence-sharing among U.S. agencies, wrote to the former chairman and vice-chairman of the Sept. 11 commission late Wednesday, telling them that their staff had received two briefings on the military intelligence unit — once in October 2003 and again in July 2004.
Weldon said he was upset by suggestions earlier Wednesday by 9/11 panel members that it had been not been given critical information on Able Danger’s capabilities and findings.
“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,” Weldon wrote to former Chairman Gov. Thomas Kean (search) and Vice-Chairman Rep. Lee Hamilton (search). “The 9/11 commission staff received not one but two briefings on Able Danger from former team members, yet did not pursue the matter.
“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,” Weldon added.
On Wednesday, a source familiar with the Sept. 11 commission — formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (search) — told FOX News that aides who still had security clearances had gone back to the National Archives outside Washington, D.C., to review notes on Atta and any information the U.S. government had on him and his terror cell before the Sept. 11 attacks.
The source acknowledged that the aides were looking for a memo about a briefing given to four staff members by defense intelligence officials during an overseas trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in the fall of 2003.
Staffers apparently did not recall being told of the Able Danger information at that meeting and wanted to double-check their records.
Former commission spokesman Al Felzenberg told The New York Times in Thursday editions that Atta was mentioned to panel investigators during at least one meeting with a military officer. That briefing came in July 2004, less than two weeks before the commission’s final report was issued to the public.
Felzenberg said the information about Atta was considered suspect because it didn’t jibe with many other findings. For example, the intelligence officer said Atta was in the United States in late 1999, but travel records confirmed that he did not enter the country until late 2000.
“He wasn’t brushed off,” Felzenberg told The Times about the military officer’s briefing. “I’m not aware of anybody being brushed off. The information that he provided us did not mesh with other conclusions that we were drawing.”
But Weldon said that argument was not good enough.
“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,” Weldon wrote in his letter Wednesday night.
“Therefore it is no small irony,” Weldon pointed out, “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.”
On Thursday, Weldon told FOX News that the military official, who was under cover when he was in Afghanistan for the October 2003 briefing, is certain he told the staffers about Atta at that time.
The military intelligence officer who attended that meeting with staffers “kept notes of that meeting and will testify under oath that he not only told” the staffers about Able Danger’s mission, but about Atta.
Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, told FOX News on Wednesday that if Atta’s name had been mentioned in the October 2003 briefing, it would have jumped out at staffers.
He said that the commission did not include the claims by Able Danger in the definitive report of the events leading up to Sept. 11 because it had no “information that the United States government had under surveillance or had any knowledge of Mohamed Atta prior to the attacks.
“It could be a very crucial incident in terms of the lead-up to 9/11. It could reveal flaws in the intelligence sharing or the lack of intelligence that we have not yet focused on,” Hamilton said of the military’s tracking of Atta and its inability to get domestic intelligence agencies to follow up.
Hamilton told FOX News that the commission team would get to the bottom of the confusion over what the United States knew about Atta and whether it played into the commission’s investigation.
“I think the 9/11 commission’s obligation at this point is to review our records very, very carefully and make very soon — we hope within the next few days — a complete statement about what happened during our investigation,” Hamilton said.
Weldon said that he personally knows five members of the commission and is not attacking the integrity of any of them. He said he discussed the matter with two commissioners who told him they were never briefed about Able Danger.
“I have to ask why. I would hope there was not a deliberate attempt by someone on the 9/11 commission staff to keep this information” from the commissioners, Weldon said, adding “I find no fault right now with the commissioners.”
A commission spokesman told FOX News that the panel expected to issue a statement before the end of the week.
Among the most critical facts to be determined, if the information about Atta did exist in 2000, would be who then blocked the intelligence from going to the FBI, which could have tracked down the terror cell.
“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,” Weldon wrote.
“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,” he added.
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January 9th, 2008 at 1:15 pmAll market data delayed 20 minutes.
@drillianwr
Merrill: Felt wrong not to swing.
……..
Bill Cowan is doing a bit of Monday morning QB’ing, I do not know how close the boats were going to be allowed to get, but I trust that if they crossed that line we would have smoked them.
He rants a bit too much, along with the idiot female shep smith, her especially, because she starts by admitting she knows nothing about the ROE and then goes on to criticize the actions of our Navy based on something she said she knows nothing about. Really fucking stupid if you listen to it.
The clip of the d’rat is loading for me, I feel blessed.
January 9th, 2008 at 1:28 pm.. the clip is NOT loading, I meant
January 9th, 2008 at 1:29 pm@Steve in NC
@drillianwr
Merrill: Felt wrong not to swing.
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Fucking-A, Steve!! … We’re on the same page!
January 9th, 2008 at 1:54 pm@RJI
Sestak has recommended our SURRENDER in IRAQ! Sestak won his seat from Curt Weldon when he was silenced for his out spoken position on ABLE Danger.
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Thanks for clearing up the [history] of Sestak …
January 9th, 2008 at 1:58 pmBill Cowen just backed up what we already said here at “Dollard Nation” about this incident. Sestak is sickening. Fooking Dhimi.
January 9th, 2008 at 2:39 pmdillanwr…”Swing away Merrill, swing away.”
Steve in NC Col. Bill Cowan is a fine decorated US Marine with loads of special ops experience in the middle east. He can lead my team any time he wants. We would be far better off with him at the helm than that panty waisted democratic Senator Sestak (what a dirt bag!)
And by the way Sestak, who cares about any missle or RPG on board those fast-boats. The USS Cole was not struck by a missle, it was struck by a fast-boat loaded with explosives. That’s why you do not let those pukes get too close and that is why you blow them out of the water with some 50 mike mike from the deck mounted systems.
January 9th, 2008 at 3:16 pmI’m okay with it as I’m sure they were on the brink of destroying those speed boats. I’m sure while they were parallel a command was given that if they turn into us to open fire.
January 9th, 2008 at 3:19 pmSestak is a douche! Yes we have great Commanders in the Navy. But they are so politicized nowadays with “what it will appear to be if we fire.” I have the same ROE’s here standing a gate sentry. If a suicide bomber runs my gate I was told to not fire at the vehicle either as it approaches the gate or past it. To rather allow entry and hope to god there’s not much damage or death, as opposed to if I fire my weapon and god forbid it hit an innocent bystander! Un-fucking-believable. I’m sure the commanders in theatre have the same mindset. Rather some of my crew taken out in an assault than start an international incident. I know that’s what they are thinking. Commanders are so hamstrung by politics it is sickening.
January 9th, 2008 at 3:32 pm@Dr. Jerry
And by the way Sestak, who cares about any missle or RPG on board those fast-boats. The USS Cole was not struck by a missle, it was struck by a fast-boat loaded with explosives. That’s why you do not let those pukes get too close and that is why you blow them out of the water with some 50 mike mike from the deck mounted systems.
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Exactly! He kept talking about “electronic emissions” … A bomb vest or an IED isn’t necessarily going to give off some signal. DUH!
BTW, Sir, clicked onto your site … A thousand pardons if my, at times, *colorful language* offends your reading eyes. I believe I have a bit of a “running tab” with The Good Lord … and I’ll pay-up when the time comes.
January 9th, 2008 at 3:51 pm@Dr. Jerry,
you know I give f*ck what sestak says, did not waste my time watching his clip.
They could have taken the boats out if they felt it was necessary. I do not agree with the punditry that says that it showed weakness on our part by not firing them. I do not agree with pundits who make statements that question our troops in combat with out real info. I wish he was not in position of having to do newsporn with ed hill. She has devolved into simpleton rants and statements based on nothing. I repeat, she starts that segment stating she does not know the ROE, but then goes on to base the segment on questioning something she stated she knows nothing about. I’ll take the word of the man at the helm over any talking head.
Would have loved to see the footage of the boats blowing up, but I am not on the ship and have not heard directly why they with held fire.
January 9th, 2008 at 5:33 pmThe boats were hazarding our ships.
No weapons were seen on those boats.
The boxes that were dropped in the water - contents unknown.
Had we fired upon these ‘unarmed boaters’ - we would be condemned as ‘trigger happy aggressors’.
The ships reacted correctly -
January 9th, 2008 at 8:20 pmWe did not blink in this game of chicken, the Iranians did.
Good, I live in the Congressional District right next to sestak’s. I see I don’t have to say a thing. Anyone go into detail about the CAIR meeting on City Line?
January 10th, 2008 at 1:24 amI’d have been concerned about torpedoes, not the missiles Sestak is on about. Or, of course, a ramming attack.
January 10th, 2008 at 1:45 amFunny he had more concern about an iraniac airbus. I guess CAIR told him not to mention the Cole or Stark.
January 10th, 2008 at 4:09 am