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Dumfuk can't even button his shirt right

STATEMENT BY CONGR. CURT WELDON REGARDING OMMISSION OF ABLE DANGER FROM THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT

email from Weldon's office 8-12-05 Congr. Weldon's office
Posted on 08/12/2005 8:32:13 PM PDT by doug from upland
STATEMENT BY CONGRESSMAN CURT WELDON REGARDING THE OMMISSION OF ABLE DANGER FROM THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT
WASHINGTON, D.C. (12 Aug. 2005) - Today Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA), Vice Chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, released the following response to a statement by the former 9/11 Commission regarding the ABLE DANGER operation.
"ABLE DANGER was about linkages and associations of individuals identified with direct links to Al-Qaeda and not about dates and times.
To clarify, ABLE DANGER was a Department of Defense planning effort, tasked to Special Operations Command (SOCOM) by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The task assigned to ABLE DANGER was to identify and target Al-Qaeda on a global basis and, through the use of cutting edge technology (data-mining, massive parallel processing, neural networking and human factors analysis) and enhanced visualization and display tools, present options for leaders (national command authority) to manipulate, degrade or destroy the global Al-Qaeda infrastructure.
The 9/11 Commission has released multiple statements over the past week, each of which has significantly changed - from initially denying ever being briefed to acknowledging being briefed on both operation ABLE DANGER and Mohammed Atta. The information was omitted primarily because they found it to be suspect despite having been briefed on it two times by two different military officers on active duty. Additionally, the 9/11 Commission also received documents from the Department of Defense on ABLE DANGER.
Despite their varied statements, two critical questions remain unanswered.
1) Why did the Department of Defense fail to pass critical information obtained through ABLE DANGER to the FBI between the summer and fall of 2000?
2) Why did the 9/11 Commission staff fail to properly follow-up on the three separate occasions when they received information on ABLE DANGER and Mohammed Atta?
I will continue to push for a full accounting of the historical record so that we may preclude these types of failures from happening again."

PM - Galloway, Hitchens reunite for 'Grapple in the Apple'

VIEW VIDEO from Democracy NOW

PM - Thursday, 15 September , 2005 18:25:00
Reporter: Mark Colvin
MARK COLVIN: They billed it as The Grapple in the Apple, but it was intellectual mud-wrestling, rather than the real thing, when two of the most colourful British public speakers of the age met for a public debate in New York a few hours ago.

In the red corner, George Galloway, also known as Gorgeous George, the far-left British MP best known for telling Saddam Hussein, "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability".

In the blue corner, Christopher Hitchens, the prolific left-wing writer and commentator who's now one of the strongest supporters of the toppling of Saddam Hussein, and who argues in every available forum that the Americans must stay the course in Iraq.

It was always expected to be vigorous. Last time they met, Mr Galloway called Mr Hitchens a drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay.

That was when George Galloway was testifying against the war to a United States Senate Subcommittee four months ago.

Our coverage begins with Christopher Hitchens' condemnation of George Galloway's Senate testimony.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I believe it is a disgrace that a member of the British House of Commons should go before the United States Senate Subcommittee, and not testify, but decline to testify, and to insult all those who try to ask him questions with the most vile and cheap gutter snipe abuse, I think that's a disgrace.

(sound of cheering and clapping)

It is not just a disgrace, it is a crime that Mr Gadafi has profited from the theft of money from the Iraqi oil for food program, has told continuous lies about his profiteering from it and the foul associates that he made at a time when Iraqi children were dying and 11 billion from this program – 11 billion – went to the murderer and criminal and sadist and fanatic Saddam Hussein.

How can anyone who's a business partner of this regime show their face at a city like this and not content with it, not content with it!

(sound of cheering and clapping)

Not content with it, he turns up in Damascus. The man searched for a tyrannical fatherland never ends! The Soviet Union's let him down, Albania's gone, the red army's out of Afghanistan and Czechoslovakia, the hunt persists! Saddam has been overthrown and his criminal connections with him have been exposed. Onto the next on the 30th of July in Damascus in Syria, appearing… I've given it all to you in a piece of paper, in front of Mr Assad, whose death squads are cutting down the leaders of democracy in Lebanon as this is going on to tell the Syrian people they're fortunate to have such a leader.

The slobbering dofan who they got because he's the son of the slobbering tyrant who came before him! How anyone with a tincture of socialist principle can actually speak in this way is beyond me, and I hope ladies and gentlemen, far beyond me and far beneath your contempt, thank you.

(sound of cheering and clapping and some booing)

ANNOUNCEMENT: George Galloway, your response.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: Well ah, ladies and gentlemen slobbering was the note that Mr Hitchens chose to end on, I'm not sure that was wise.

(sound of laughter from crowd)

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Bring it on! Bring it on!

GEORGE GALLOWAY: But ah, I want to thank Mr Hitchens for the brave stand that he made against the war on Iraq in 1991. What you are… what you have witnessed since is something unique in natural history, the first ever metamorphosis from a butterfly back into a slug.

(sound of cheering and clapping)

And I mention slug purposely, because the one thing a slug does leave behind it is a trail of slime.

Now, I was brought up by my father on the principle never to wrestle with a chimney sweep, because whatever you do you can't come out clean.

But you, Mr Hitchens are no chimney sweep. That's not coal dust in which you are covered, you are covered in the stuff you like to smear onto others, not just me with your Gobellian leaflets full of selective quotation, half-truth, mistruth and downright untruth, and the comments you made in your last two minutes of this speech.

People like Mr Hitchens are ready to fight to the last drop of other people's blood, and it's utterly contemptible, utterly and completely contemptible.

MARK COLVIN: The British MP, George Galloway and a section of his debate held just a few hours ago with the Commentator, Christopher Hitchens.

Chertoff Delayed Federal Response, Memo Shows: "WASHINGTON - The federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina was Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, not the former FEMA chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned earlier this week, federal documents reviewed by Knight Ridder show"

Even before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials. Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown had only limited authority to do so until about 36 hours after the storm hit, when Chertoff designated him as the "principal federal official" in charge of the storm.

As thousands of hurricane victims went without food, water and shelter in the days after Katrina's early morning Aug. 29 landfall, critics assailed Brown for being responsible for delays that might have cost hundreds of lives.

But Chertoff - not Brown - was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the National Response Plan, the federal government's blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. An order issued by President Bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director.

But according to a memo obtained by Knight Ridder, Chertoff didn't shift that power to Brown until late afternoon or evening on Aug. 30, about 36 hours after Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi. That same memo suggests that Chertoff may have been confused about his lead role in disaster response and that of his department.

"As you know, the President has established the `White House Task Force on Hurricane Katrina Response.' He will meet with us tomorrow to launch this effort. The Department of Homeland Security, along with other Departments, will be part of the task force and will assist the Administration with its response to Hurricane Katrina," Chertoff said in the memo to the secretaries of defense, health and human services and other key federal agencies.

On the day that Chertoff wrote the memo, Bush was in San Diego presiding over a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Chertoff's Aug. 30 memo for the first time declared Katrina an "Incident of National Significance," a key designation that triggers swift federal coordination. The following afternoon, Bush met with his Cabinet, then appeared before TV cameras in the White House Rose Garden to announce the government's planned action.

That same day, Aug. 31, the Department of Defense, whose troops and equipment are crucial in such large disasters, activated its Task Force Katrina. But active-duty troops didn't begin to arrive in large numbers along the Gulf Coast until Saturday.

White House and homeland security officials wouldn't explain why Chertoff waited some 36 hours to declare Katrina an incident of national significance and why he didn't immediately begin to direct the federal response from the moment on Aug. 27 when the National Hurricane Center predicted that Katrina would strike the Gulf Coast with catastrophic force in 48 hours. Nor would they explain why Bush felt the need to appoint a separate task force.

Chertoff's hesitation and Bush's creation of a task force both appear to contradict the National Response Plan and previous presidential directives that specify what the secretary of homeland security is assigned to do without further presidential orders. The goal of the National Response Plan is to provide a streamlined framework for swiftly delivering federal assistance when a disaster - caused by terrorists or Mother Nature - is too big for local officials to handle.

Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman, referred most inquiries about the memo and Chertoff's actions to the Department of Homeland Security.

"There will be an after-action report" on the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, Perino said. She added that "Chertoff had the authority to invoke the Incident of National Significance, and he did it on Tuesday."

Perino said the creation of the White House task force didn't add another bureaucratic layer or delay the response to the devastating hurricane. "Absolutely not," she said. "I think it helped move things along." When asked whether the delay in issuing the Incident of National Significance was to allow Bush time to return to Washington, Perino replied: "Not that I'm aware of."

Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, didn't dispute that the National Response Plan put Chertoff in charge in federal response to a catastrophe. But he disputed that the bureaucracy got in the way of launching the federal response.

"There was a tremendous sense of urgency," Knocke said. "We were mobilizing the greatest response to a disaster in the nation's history."

Knocke noted that members of the Coast Guard were already in New Orleans performing rescues and FEMA personnel and supplies had been deployed to the region.

The Department of Homeland Security has refused repeated requests to provide details about Chertoff's schedule and said it couldn't say specifically when the department requested assistance from the military. Knocke said a military liaison was working with FEMA, but said he didn't know his or her name or rank. FEMA officials said they wouldn't provide information about the liaison.

Knocke said members of almost every federal agency had already been meeting as part of the department's Interagency Incident Management Group, which convened for the first time on the Friday before the hurricane struck. So it would be a mistake, he said, to interpret the memo as meaning that Tuesday, Aug. 30 was the first time that members of the federal government coordinated.

The Chertoff memo indicates that the response to Katrina wasn't left to disaster professionals, but was run out of the White House, said George Haddow, a former deputy chief of staff at FEMA during the Clinton administration and the co-author of an emergency management textbook.

"It shows that the president is running the disaster, the White House is running it as opposed to Brown or Chertoff," Haddow said. Brown "is a convenient fall guy. He's not the problem really. The problem is a system that was marginalized."

A former FEMA director under President Reagan expressed shock by the inaction that Chertoff's memo suggested. It showed that Chertoff "does not have a full appreciation for what the country is faced with - nor does anyone who waits that long," said Gen. Julius Becton Jr., who was FEMA director from 1985-1989.

"Anytime you have a delay in taking action, there's a potential for losing lives," Becton told Knight Ridder. "I have no idea how many lives we're talking about. ... I don't understand why, except that they were inefficient."

Chertoff's Aug. 30 memo came on the heels of a memo from Brown, written several hours after Katrina made landfall, showing that the FEMA director was waiting for Chertoff's permission to get help from others within the massive department. In that memo, first obtained by the Associated Press last week, Brown requested Chertoff's "assistance to make available DHS employees willing to deploy as soon as possible." It asked for another 1,000 homeland security workers within two days and 2,000 within a week.

The four-paragraph memo ended with Brown thanking Chertoff "for your consideration in helping us meet our responsibilities in this near catastrophic event."

According to the National Response Plan, which was unveiled in January by Chertoff's predecessor, Tom Ridge, the secretary of homeland security is supposed to declare an Incident of National Significance when a catastrophic event occurs.

"Standard procedures regarding requests for assistance may be expedited or, under extreme circumstances, suspended in the immediate aftermath of an event of catastrophic magnitude," according to the plan, which evolved from earlier plans and lessons learned after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "Notification and full coordination with the States will occur, but the coordination process must not delay or impede the rapid deployment and use of critical resources."

Should Chertoff have declared Katrina an Incident of National Significance sooner - even before the storm struck? Did his delay slow the quick delivery of the massive federal response that was needed? Would it have made a difference?

"You raise good questions," said Frank J. Cilluffo, the director of George Washington University's Homeland Security Planning Institute. It's too early to tell, he said, whether unfamiliarity with or glitches in the new National Response Plan were factors in the poor early response to Katrina.

"Clearly this is the first test. It certainly did not pass with flying colors," Cilluffo said of the National Response Plan.

Mike Byrne, a former senior homeland security official under Ridge who worked on the plan, said he doesn't think the new National Response Plan caused the confusion that plagued the early response to Katrina.

Something else went wrong, he suspects. The new National Response Plan isn't all that different from the previous plan, called the Federal Response Plan.

"Our history of responding to major disasters has been one where we've done it well," Byrne said. "We need to figure out why this one didn't go as well as the others did. It's shocking to me."

Chertoff's Aug. 30 memo is posted at www.krwashington.com

CounterRecruiter: "September 11, 2005
Recruiters Target Hurricane Survivors At Astrodome
From the Wall Street Journal:

'Ten U.S. Army recruiters are offering volunteer help for Katrina evacuees at Houston's Astrodome. But the recruiters, struggling to keep enlistment up during Iraq war, are also available with options for the jobless. 'Our intent is to approach the evacuees at the right time for them,'' says Army spokesman Douglas Smith.'"

KPFTX.org KPFT 90.1 Houston Online: "Galloway - Hitchens Debate
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Live streaming starts at 7pm ET Wednesday"

from Democracy Now
LISTEN WATCH

LISTEN ALTERNATE

John Conyers, Jr. -- ConyersBlog: "Starting tomorrow and stretching through next week, 4 House Committees are expected to vote on resolutions addressing the Valerie Plame leak. Specifically, these resolutions demand information from the Bush Administration on the outing of Valerie Plame in apparent retaliation for Ambassador Wilson's truth telling concerning weapons of mass destruction. The Bush Administration refuses to police itself in the midst of criminal and ethical misconduct and it is time for Congress to exercise its duty to oversee the Executive Branch. Many of these markups will be broadcast live on the Internet."

continued

News Hounds: Bush Cohorts Profiteering at all levels: "
As Donna reported yesterday, inept FEMA director Mike Brown told a reporter on Studio B that the removal of bodies from New Orleans was being handled by a company called 'Kenyon'. Kenyon International bills itself as 'Worldwide Disaster Management.' How convenient for GWBush to have a disaster management company that enriches his friends and supporters to clean up after him as he spreads disasters worldwide.
Kenyon is a wholly owned subsidiary of SCI Corp., 'the largest provider of funeral, cremation, and cemetery services in North America.' SCI Corp is owned by major Bush contributor and friend Robert Waltrip, who was at the center of the scandal known as 'Funeralgate'."