[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 22437-22438]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY USING FALSE CLAIMS TO SILENCE COLONEL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is 
recognized for half the remaining time until midnight.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I rise this evening for 
this short Special Order to express my personal outrage regarding the 
treatment of some brave military personnel who simply are trying to 
tell the truth.
  Madam Speaker, over the past 3 months, I have outlined for our 
colleagues evidence that came from military officers that we had 
knowledge of Mohammed Atta and al Qaeda prior to September 11 and the 
attack against us in New York City. This information came about from a 
top secret program known as ``Able Danger'' which was a program that 
was developed by Special Forces Command as a planning process to deal 
with al Qaeda cells.
  The military officers involved with this program identified 5 
specific cells around the world, one of which was a Brooklyn cell, and 
this Brooklyn cell, one year before 9/11; in fact, in January and 
February of 2000, actually identified Mohammed Atta, 3 of the other 
terrorists that were involved in the 9/11 attack, and identified this 
in a chart that was produced as a part of their planning process.
  Furthermore, Madam Speaker, these military officers have testified, 
and will testify under oath, that in September of 2000, one year before 
September 11, they made 3 attempts to transfer information regarding 
the Brooklyn cell and Mohammed Atta to the FBI. An FBI employee has 
again agreed to testify under oath that she arranged the 3 meetings and 
agreed to set up for the FBI the opportunity to receive this data. All 
3 meetings were canceled by lawyers within the previous administration, 
the Clinton administration.
  We still do not know who gave the ultimate order or why those 
meetings were canceled, but we do know that in September of 2000, 
attempts to transfer information regarding al Qaeda, the Brooklyn cell, 
and Mohammed Atta were thwarted.
  This information was presented to the 9/11 Commission in an effort to 
provide a clear and concise analysis of what happened prior to 9/11. On 
2 separate occasions, a Lieutenant Colonel from the Army, Anthony 
Shaffer and a commander from the Navy, Scott Philpott, offered to 
provide information to the 9/11 Commission that they, in fact, were 
involved with Able Danger and that they identified Mohammed Atta prior 
to 9/11.
  Colonel Shaffer, who was promoted during the past year, during a time 
in which his security clearance had been temporarily lifted by the 
Defense Intelligence Agency, has been the subject of gross and 
outrageous harassment. I have been on the Committee on Armed Services 
for 19 years, and my job as a member of that committee has been to 
support our military personnel when they are assigned overseas or when 
they are at home during their training and other operations. As I 
mentioned to Secretary Rumsfeld in a hearing last Thursday, a full 
committee hearing, I have supported every major reform that he has put 
forth over the past several years regarding our military, the way our 
military operates, and the way the Pentagon is organized.
  Madam Speaker, Secretary Rumsfeld has repeatedly told us that his top 
priority is the morale and the welfare of our troops. The commander of 
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both the recent and now the current Chairman 
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, repeatedly tell us their top priority is 
the protection of our military personnel in uniform. And now, we find 
out that Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, a Bronze Star recipient, 
23-year veteran of military intelligence, serving in Afghanistan, 
embedded with our troops in harm's way, has had gross distortions and 
absolute outrageous claims made against him publicly by the Defense 
Intelligence Agency as a way to silence him.

                              {time}  2345

  Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer has been prohibited from talking to 
Members of Congress. He has been stopped from testifying before the 
Senate Judiciary Committee in spite of the fact that five senators from 
both parties were present at a hearing 2 weeks ago. Lieutenant Shaffer 
was in the room. Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer was in the room, yet he was 
not permitted to testify. His lawyer, in fact, made statements for him.
  But in an attempt to totally discredit Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, in 
an attempt to try to diminish his credibility before the American 
people and the Congress, the Defense Intelligence Agency has resorted 
to a new set of lows in terms of the credibility of our American 
military. And no, Madam Speaker, I do not think this action by the 
Defense Intelligence Agency has been brought forward by uniformed 
military personnel. It has been brought forward by the bureaucrats, the 
sort of bureaucrats who linger from one administration to the other and 
who have the embarrassment of having to understand what Lieutenant 
Colonel Shaffer and commander Scott Philpott did in warning us, 
attempting to warn us about the 9/11 attacks.
  The Defense Intelligence Agency, 1 day before Lieutenant Colonel 
Shaffer was to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 
permanently pulled his security clearance, and the reasons they gave, 
Madam Speaker, were outrageous. They are scandalous. They said that he 
had forwarded phone calls on his cell phone while being deployed in 
Afghanistan for a total cost of approximately $67. They said that he 
had

[[Page 22438]]

received mileage and toll fees improperly for attending a military 
conference at Fort Dix, New Jersey, which anyone in this body would say 
he was eligible to attend. $341. They said that he, in fact, received 
an award for which he was not entitled, even though his superior 
officers nominated him for that award. But in one of the most 
despicable acts I have ever seen a Federal agency involve itself in in 
19 years, they said on the record that Lieutenant Colonel Anthony 
Shaffer stole pens from the U.S. government.
  Now, what they did not say, Madam Speaker, was that Lieutenant 
Colonel Shaffer, when he was 15 or 16 years old, as the son of an 
officer assigned to one of our embassies, admitted to stealing some 
pens which he gave to some disadvantaged people. Now, clearly, when he 
was 15 or 16, he was not working for the military. He was not a 
military intelligence officer. He was yet to take his lie detector test 
for admission into that category, and he admitted all of this. But in 
this current effort to try to discredit Lieutenant Colonel Anthony 
Shaffer, the Defense Intelligence Agency went to the outrageous length 
of publicly acknowledging that Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer had stolen 
pens and failing to mention how old he was when the theft took place, 
that he publicly admitted himself before being employed by the 
military.
  Madam Speaker, we have a major problem in America. Sandy Berger, our 
National Security Advisor, stole documents from the National Archives, 
stole documents and put them in his clothing and took them out because 
they would incriminate him and President Clinton about what they knew 
before 9/11. He stole them. He placed them inside of his coat, in his 
pants, in his shoes, and he took those documents out of the National 
Archives because he did not want the 9/11 Commission to see what was in 
there. When he was caught, and finally brought to justice, his security 
clearance was lifted for 3 years.
  Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer simply told the truth and because 
Defense intelligence bureaucrats are unhappy about being embarrassed 
they have removed his security clearance permanently. Is that what 
America is about, Madam Speaker? Is it about protecting a national 
security advisor who steals classified documents from the archives of 
the United States about what happened before 9/11 and gets a 3-year 
lift of his clearance, and a uniformed military officer who simply 
tells the truth has his security clearance permanently lifted?
  Madam Speaker, if we do not right this wrong that will send and is 
sending a signal to every uniformed officer in America, if you tell the 
truth and if that truth embarrasses a bureaucrat or a political 
appointee, you are more expendable than the civilian officer, and that 
cannot stand. We must do better. Anthony Shaffer deserves justice.

                          ____________________