Pentagon Blocks Testimony at Senate Hearing on Terrorist

And so the obstruction of Justice continues....

September 20, 2005 Pentagon Blocks Testimony at Senate Hearing on Terrorist By PHILIP SHENON WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 - The Pentagon said today that it had blocked a group of military officers and intelligence analysts from testifying at an open Congressional hearing about a highly classified military intelligence program that, the officers have said, identified a ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks as a potential terrorist more than a year before the attacks.

The announcement came a day before the officers and intelligence analysts had been scheduled to testify about the program, known as Able Danger, at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bryan Whitman, a Defense Department spokesman, said in a statement that open testimony about the program "would not be appropriate - we have expressed our security concerns and believe it is simply not possible to discuss Able Danger in any great detail in an open public forum." He offered no other detail on the Pentagon's reasoning in blocking the testimony.
Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the committee, said he was surprised by the Pentagon's decision because "so much of this has already been in the public domain, and I think that the American people need to know what happened here."

Weldon is a bulldog, this will not stop him from getting at the truth.

Related: 9/11 relatives charge cover-up

WASHINGTON -- Sept. 11 family members are protesting a reported Pentagon attempt to close this week's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on a claim that military intelligence had lead hijacker Mohammed Atta in its sights as early as 1999.

"They want to sweep it under the rug," said Joan Molinaro, a former Eltingville resident, whose firefighter son was killed at Ground Zero.

Update: This from NRO ABLE DANGER [Kathryn Jean Lopez]In from Specter's committee office:

Washington, D.C.--Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, will hold a second hearing on Operation Able Danger on October 5, 2005. In the initial hearing held on September 21, 2005, the Department of Defense refused to produce five key witnesses relating to the identification of 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta.

The Department of Defense has now changed their position and will make the witnesses available in a public hearing. The Committee will focus on obtaining corroborating evidence as to what occurred with the pre-9/11 charts and information which were allegedly destroyed by order of DoD personnel.

Wonder who busted who's ba!!s on this one. My suspician, it came from the top Bush telling Rummie the way it was gonna be.