Curt Weldon: What I Saw at 9/11

Kurt Weldon, today, at Frontpagemag:

I was reluctant, but I felt it was my responsibility, so I went. I cleaned up as best as I could, and with the president of the Firefighters’ Association of New York, we went into the Java Center. On one side of the room were the urban search and rescue teams arriving from all over America; on the other, 700 folding chairs, all neatly lined up in front of a podium, where President Bush would speak to the families that night. He was supposed to speak for 30 minutes. But, knowing the kind of human being our president is, he stayed for two-and-a-half hours. With no media, with no politicians in the room, he wept, he consoled, and he shared the grief of the families.

and

I’m now convinced the 9/11 Commission with Able Danger did something far worse than what Richard Nixon did in covering up a third-rate burglary. Back in Watergate, no one was injured, no one was killed, and no money was stolen. With Able Danger, the facts and the details leading up the largest attack in the history of America, including the attack on the USS Cole, were covered up or isolated. On top of that, in October of last year, Louis Freeh, the former FBI Director on national TV, in an answer to Tim Russert, said, “If I’d have had the Able Danger information, Tim, we could have stopped 9/11 from ever happening."

and

Why would this happen? Why would this cover-up by the Clinton administration be protected by the Bush administration? Because there are bureaucrats in the Bush administration who will be embarrassed. They will be embarrassed because, in the first quarter of 2001, there were briefings given to Condoleezza Rice’s national security staff that included the facts of Able Danger. There were briefings given to Don Rumsfeld’s assistants about the work that Able Danger had done, even though the program was over. The current Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who has tried to destroy Tony Schaffer, was the head of Human Intelligence under Bill Clinton, who refused a brief from Tony Schaffer about what Able Danger knew.

Cover-up? I think it was instead the origins and motivations of the newer programs. The Gorelick Wall and silencing of the Able Danger Data is what pulled the Bush Team together and provided the modus and motivation for what needed to be done.

What we have to understand is that the success of the security of this country and the world doesn’t just depend on who’s in the White House, or who’s running our agencies, or who’s commanding our troops. It depends upon what we’re willing to do to keep this country strong. Sometimes it means, we’re gonna have to take on unbelievable odds and fight the system and fight our own party and our leaders. But that doesn’t matter. That’s why we’re there. Those soldiers do it every day. Ray Downey did it. The Angelinis did it. Bernstein did it. And so I challenge you to go out to the rest of the country and you keep the fight up. I’ll be there with you.

Yes: It does matter who is in the White House. And, I'm with Curt on this fighting the good fight.