TOPDOG08.COM

September 01, 2007

Can you name this unnamed Navy official?

Many thanks to keshavsmilitaryblog for pointing out this article from Seapower magazine back in October 2005:

Digging Deep

Munns, David

The use of data mining reportedly helped unmask a terrorist leader months before 9/11, but there are concerns about coordination and privacy

26 Terabytes of Data

The Navy mines large volumes of data each day, but converting it into intelligence is still the work of human analysts.

* New software tools cannot determine the significance of data.

* An executive office to foster coordination among data mining programs could be helpful.

* Coming soon: Project Rockwell will plumb the depths of news reports.

Recent reports by The New York Times and Fox News that the Pentagon identified 9/11 ring-leader Mohammed Atta as part of a U.S.-based terrorist cell months prior to the attacks on Washington and New York have sparked new interest - and controversy - about the Defense Department's relatively nascent abilities to assess huge volumes of data for patterns of behavior that are indicative of terrorists and their activities.

According to press reports, Atta was identified in early 2000 by several military officers, including Navy Capt. Scott J. Phillpott, who managed a Pentagon program called "Able Danger" that employed an analytical process called "data mining." The process allows intelligence analysts armed with specially designed software to aggregate multiple data sources, such as lists of terrorists and decades of reporting by the Associated Press, and search for specific patterns of behavior, anomalies and relationships. The findings become the basis for refined analyses by intelligence specialists.

The New York Times reported in August that Defense Department lawyers forced three meetings to be canceled where military officials involved with "Able Danger" were to report Atta's name to the FBI after the program identified him. These claims have not been confirmed by the Pentagon.

U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., who arranged a meeting between the news agencies and Phillpott, released a statement in late August describing the program's objective as "to identify and target al Qaeda on a global basis, and, through the use of cutting-edge technology ... to manipulate, degrade or destroy the global al Qaeda infrastructure."

After the public speculation about "Able Danger," the 9/11 Commission stated Aug. 12 that it had learned about the program in October 2003. Initial informants did not mention Atta or any other future highjackers. In July 2004, a different informant knowledgeable about "Able Danger" told the Commission he had seen Atta's name and photo in another analyst's notes. However, this informant was not able to substantiate that assertion to the satisfaction of the Commission, and "Able Danger" was not mentioned in the Commission's final report.

The alleged identification of Atta has attracted high-profile attention to the potential of data mining technologies and processes as intelligence tools. However, the usage and processes of data mining remain relatively immature in the military arena.

One official told Seapower that coordination of data-mining efforts and requirements between federal agencies should be much improved. Also, implementation and oversight issues remain a key challenge in balancing the use of data-mining tools with privacy concerns.

Data mining is not new. Industry has reaped benefits from it in sectors such as health care, insurance and banking. But the lack of coordination between government agencies sometimes creates barriers that prevent valuable intelligence from reaching the proper authorities.

At the forefront of acquisition and development of Navy data-mining tools are the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, the Naval Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). There is little to no coordination between these commands to acquire data-mining tools in concert, a Navy official said, adding that one of the biggest problems with Navy data-mining tools is the number of various commands working on acquiring these tools, "some of which overlap, and it's not always as well coordinated as it could be."

The official suggested establishing a maritime domain awareness program executive office as a means to "deconflict" some of the divergent acquisition of data-mining tools between commands, which leads to conflicts in data and hardships in comparing data sets. The Navy had no comment on the plausibility of this suggestion.

"There have been times where ONI needed information that existed in other agencies' data sources" and it was not available, the Navy official said. "It's certainly not seamless and it's not as well integrated as it could be. Today, there are still lots of places where things can fall through the cracks and where connections might not be made.

"For example, there is not a single source of, or a single list of, terrorists" that all intelligence commands share, the official said. "If someone boards a ship in the Mediterranean and gets a crew list of people who are on that ship and that ship's en route to the United States, we can take that crew list but we have to run it against multiple lists to see if anybody who's on that ship pops up as a bad guy. ... It could be easy to not check against somebody's database."

ONI shares a working relationship with Naval Networks Commander Vice Adm. James McArthur, who wears a lesser-known hat as the assistant chief of naval operations for Information Technology. McArthur's office provides oversight and guidance to validate ONI's information technology spending on tools such as data mining.

McArthur's office was reluctant to discuss these tools because of the "Able Danger" controversy, citing their immaturity and the relative lack of "concrete" examples of how they can be used successfully, according to a Navy spokesperson.

Several experts told Seapower that data mining is destined to be a valuable asset in the war on terror, but should be viewed as a capability with advantages and limitations rather than a cure-all for the nation's growing intelligence requirements.

Jeffrey W. Seifert, an analyst in information science and technology policy for the Resources, Science and Industry division of the Congressional Research Service, released an overview of data mining last December. The report points to a limitation in data mining as being unable to determine the value or significance of intelligence. It also mentions an inability of data-mining tools to determine causal relationships.

"For example, an application may identify that a pattern of behavior, such as the propensity to purchase airline tickets just shortly before a flight is scheduled to depart, is related to characteristics such as income, level of education and Internet use. However, that does not necessarily indicate that the ticket purchasing behavior is caused by one or more of these variables," the report states.

Regardless of the particular data-mining tool or its limitations, the first step in data mining is to concentrate data into a single, normalized architecture or data model. That can be done physically, by actually moving all the data into a common disk form, or "disk warehouse," so it can then be digested to resolve ambiguities, or the sorting can be done automatically by a computer. For example, if one set of data is recorded in meters and one is recorded in feet, then the data-mining process would initially make a conversion so that when the actual tools are run against the data set a consistent outcome would be produced. Once data is normalized, the tools scan through it and create a statistical model.

Data-mining tools look through the existing data and identify patterns. From those patterns, anomalies, or out-of-place data patterns, are recognized and then analyzed. One notable outcome from the analysis of these patterns is the ability to make predictions about what is missing in the data, or what elements of data are not included.

This, however, is an extremely difficult task when working with 26 terabytes of active data on a daily basis, an amount that would fill up about 85 high-end 300 gigabyte hard drives each day. This quantity of information being processed by the Navy is also growing at a rate of 10 percent per year, according to ONI.

Nonetheless, data mining is an asset to government agencies that have taken on new roles in the aftermath of 9/11.

A new interest of the Navy and other government agencies is to track the movement of more than 130,000 commercial vessels and the 17 million cargo containers they carry, which could be used by terrorists as a means of attack against U.S. ports, or to smuggle arms or people into the country. ONI looks at transit plans, bills of lading, intelligence reports, and years of reporting by internal analysts and news agencies to identify vulnerabilities or suspicious activity within the shipping industry. Today, the Navy is shifting its focus from the ships themselves to terrorist use of the commercial shipping network, according to a Navy source.

"Many of the problems that we're looking at in the commercial shipping industry are very much analogous to fraud detection; we want to track norms and we want to identify things that are outside of the norm," said the Navy official.

Data-mining tools take some of the manpower out of the loop, but the likelihood of them ever reaching a capability to replace the need for analysts is unlikely. Data-mining tools provide some of the manipulation of data that data entry analysts have historically had to deal with, and the development of these tools now allows analysts to focus on the actual threats and their dissemination to the appropriate authorities for mitigation.

There are typically 10,000 messages on an analyst's desk at ONI every morning. One tool ONI has been exploring, and is deploying this fall to approximately three-dozen workstations, is Project Rockwell. Derived from another agency and an industry partner, Project Rockwell allows analysts to go through open wire news feeds, such as Reuters or the Associated Press, and run queries against the feeds in the areas that they have highlighted.

If there is a subject an analyst has particular interest in, they can highlight it, and pertinent information will be color-coded on their desktop. For example, if there is a topic of concern that normally has one news-feed pertaining to it and suddenly there are hundreds of feeds, Project Rockwell brings that information to the analyst's attention and directs them to that topic or subject of interest.

"What it allows them do is go through the thousands of messages that they would get normally in a day and does it four times faster," said the Navy official. "That's not taking the man out of the loop, but it's certainly freeing up the man to do more analysis and less data sorting and initial review."

In the homeland security realm, there are some legal privacy constraints, not necessarily restrictions, on sharing information outside of Department of Defense boundaries, depending on what that information is. Intelligence commands, for example, have limitations on how and how long they can retain information on U.S. persons or companies.

"What we're hoping to build is a capability that, if we can't keep the data, will allow us to connect the data that might be held by the FBI or by the U.S. Coast Guard, as examples of law enforcement agencies, so they can easily extract value from our data," said the official.

Posted by Mike at 02:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

February 26, 2007

Our new ally in the global War on Terror? Al Qaeda!

From Late Edition on CNN:

BLITZER: Near the end of your article, you have this explosive point in there about John Negroponte, who is now going to be the deputy secretary of state, as opposed to the head of U.S. intelligence. You write this: "I was subsequently told by the two government consultants and the former senior intelligence officials that the echoes of Iran-Contra were a factor in Negroponte's decision to resign from the National Intelligence directorship and accept the position of deputy secretary of state."

Explain what you were hearing, because that's obviously a very explosive charge.

HERSH: Yes, it's probably the single most explosive, if you will, or depressing or distressing sort of thing I discovered in the last few months, which is simply this: This administration has made a policy change, a decision that they're going to put all the pressure they can on the Shiites.

That is the Shiite regime in Iran, and they're also doing everything they can to stop Hezbollah, which is Shiite, the Hezbollah organization from getting any control or any more of a political foothold in Lebanon.

So essentially, I quote -- I saw Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, and he described it this way, as fitna, the Arab word for civil war. As far as he is concerned, we are interested in recreating what's happening in Iraq in Lebanon, that is, Sunni versus Shia.

And in looking into that story -- and I saw him in December -- I found this. That we have been pumping money, a great deal of money, without Congressional authority, without any Congressional oversight -- Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia is putting up some of this money -- for covert operations in many areas of the Middle East where we think that the -- we want to stop the Shiite spread or the Shiite influence.

They call it the "Shiite Crescent." And a lot of this money, and I can't tell you with absolute assurance how, exactly when and how, but this money has gotten into the hands, among other places, in Lebanon, into the hands of three, at least three jihadist groups.

There's three Sunni jihadist groups whose main claim to fame inside Lebanon right now is that they are very tough. These are people connected to al Qaida who want to take on Hezbollah. So this government, at the minimum, we may not directly be funneling money to them, but we certainly know that these groups exist.

My government, which arrests al Qaida every place it can find them and sends -- some of them are in Guantanamo and other places, is sitting back while the Lebanese government we support, the government of Prime Minister Siniora, is providing arms and sustenance to three jihadist groups whose sole function seems to me and to the people that talk to me in our government, to be there in case there is a real shoot-'em-up with Hezbollah and we really get into some sort of serious major conflict between the Sunni government and Hezbollah, which is largely Shia, who are basically -- as you know, there is a coalition headed by Hezbollah that is challenging the government right now, demonstrations, sit-ins. There has been some violence.

So America, my country, without telling Congress, using funds not appropriated, I don't know where, but my sources believe much of the money obviously came from Iraq, where there's all kinds of piles of loose money, pools of cash that could be used for covert operations.

All of this should be investigated by Congress, by the way, and I trust it will be. In my talking to the membership, members there, they are very upset that they know nothing about this. And they have great many suspicions.

We are simply in a situation where this president is really taking his notion of executive privilege to the absolute limit here, running covert operations, using money that was not authorized by Congress, supporting groups indirectly that are involved with the same people that did 9/11, and we should be arresting these people rather than looking the other way...

BLITZER: And your bottom line, Sy...

HERSH: ... and could lead to a real mess...

BLITZER: Your bottom line is that Negroponte was aware of this, obviously, and he wanted to distance himself from it? That's why he decided to give up that position and take the number two job at the State Department?

HERSH: That's one of the reasons, I was told. Negroponte also was not in tune with Cheney. There was a lot of complaints about him because he was seen as much too of a stickler, too ethical for some of the operations the Pentagon wants to run.

As you know, this Pentagon has been running covert operations. I think Mr. Gates's job and one of the things he wants to do is get some control over it. But under Rumsfeld, we were running operations all over the world with who knows what money and who knows what authority, because most of those operations are not briefed to the intelligence committees.

And the Pentagon has basically been open about it in saying, hey, this is military stuff that has nothing to do with CIA operations. We have nothing to do with them. We are running military operations. And the president has the authority to do this.

But Negroponte was unhappy about -- in general about some of the things. He also, I don't think, liked -- he may not have been terrific at his job, that's another factor. But certainly John Negroponte went through this issue, Iran-Contra, in the '80s, when we had the first big debate over the use of unlawfully obtained money to buy arms.

Well, you know, the whole arms-for-hostages business was to generate cash to fight the war, the Contra war against the Sandinistas, that mess that we had. Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras there, very sensitive to the issue that took place 20 years ago. He did not want a repeat of it.

And I frankly, it's something that I think to be asking him in a Congressional session or whatever. But I have that -- you know, I understand this is very serious stuff. And my magazine understands this is very serious stuff.

And we have really taken a lot of time with this story and couched it as carefully as we could and with all of the caveats. This is serious business.

BLITZER: The article is entitled, "The Redirection: Is the Administration's New Policy Benefiting Our Enemies in the War on Terrorism?" That is the subtitle, the author, Seymour Hersh. Sy, thanks very much for joining us from Cairo.

HERSH: Thank you.

You can read the full article here, and my comments on it here.

Posted by Mike at 10:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 20, 2006

Read the damn book first, Larry

Cross posted at Able Danger Blog. I wanted to leave my review of Triple Cross at the top of the page, but this was too good to pass up:

Peter Lance, Crisscrossed

by Larry C Johnson

Peter Lance is back hawking his latest book, Triple Cross. Unfortunately, it does not come with a “Buyer Beware” label. Peter, in my judgment, confuses self-promotion with analysis and is prone to jump to conclusions not supported by actual evidence. Consider for example Lance’s specious claim in his recent post on Huffington Post, touting his book and his accomplishments:

What isn't known and will be revealed for the first time in Triple Cross was that Ali Mohamed had been acting as an FBI informant on the West Coast since 1992 - a year before the WTC bombing carried out by the same cell members he'd trained.

Really?

Johnson goes on to quote from two news articles, both of which quote none other than Larry Johnson but neither of which claim Ali Mohamed was an informant since 1992 or provide any details about his handling agent, John Zent. My emphasis added. Lance has entire chapters full of details about Ali Mohamed and his inept FBI handling agent. Larry might know this if he read the book, but seeing as how it is not in stores yet, I guess he knew all he had to know from the cover. Leaving no truth unspurned, he keeps digging:

Peter does a slick job of intermixing facts and conjecture to create the impression that he has a special truth. Consider the following from Peter:

Using evidence from the SDNY court cases, interviews with current and retired Special Agents and documents from the FBI's own files, I prove in Triple Cross that Patrick Fitzgerald and Squad I-49 in the NYO could have prevented those bombings - not just by getting the truth from FBI informant Ali Mohamed, but by connecting him to Wadih El-Hage, one of the Kenya cell leaders.

Here’s the truth—there is not one document, piece of court evidence, or retired FBI agent that supports the claim that in the year prior to the bombing of the US Embassies in East Africa Ali Mohamed was recorded stating his intent to attack those embassies. Not one.

This is an easy one. Lance never said Mohamed stated his intention to attack the embassies beforehand! He said the FBI should have been able to stop the bombings by connecting him to Wadih El Hage. One of the articles Larry quoted describes the connection:

Ali Mohamed's testimony, which will likely earn him a reduced sentence, may prove particularly damning to el-Hage. The former U.S. Army sergeant, a naturalized American citizen born in Egypt, claims he worked with el-Hage in Nairobi and that during a visit to the man's house, bin Laden's security chief told him to surveil American, British, French, and Israeli "targets" in Senegal.

Of course, there is always that link chart Jay Boesen made in 2000 which shows two clear connections between them. First as personal advisors to Bin Laden, and second as associates of Abouhalima and the Brooklyn Cell of Al Qaeda in New York. Nonetheless, Larry continues:

Peter’s venom spewed at Patrick Fitzgerald is particularly crazy. Consider the following claim by Lance:

How was it that Fitzgerald, the man Vanity Fair described as the bin Laden "brain," possessing "scary smart" intelligence, had not connected the dots and ordered the same kind of "perch" or "plant" to watch Sphinx that the Bureau had used against Gotti?

Well, for starters, prosecutors in the United States are not like prosecutors in France. Fitzgerald and other junior prosecutors do not have the luxury of waking up each morning and deciding on their own to follow a hunch. Moreover, they normally don’t direct Federal investigations. The investigative part is handled by FBI agents who run field offices.

I'll have to quote Patrick Fitzgerald on this one:

I was on a prosecution team in New York that began a criminal investigation of Usama Bin Laden in early 1996. The team – prosecutors and FBI agents assigned to the criminal case – had access to a number of sources. We could talk to citizens. We could talk to local police officers. We could talk to other U.S. Government agencies. We could talk to foreign police officers. Even foreign intelligence personnel. And foreign citizens. And we did all those things as often as we could. We could even talk to al Qaeda members – and we did. We actually called several members and associates of al Qaeda to testify before a grand jury in New York. And we even debriefed al Qaeda members overseas who agreed to become cooperating witnesses.

But there was one group of people we were not permitted to talk to. Who? The FBI agents across the street from us in lower Manhattan assigned to a parallel intelligence investigation of Usama Bin Laden and al Qaeda. We could not learn what information they had gathered. That was “the wall.” A rule that a federal court has since agreed was fundamentally flawed – and dangerous.

Posted by Mike at 12:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 19, 2006

My review of Triple Cross

Cross posted at Able Danger Blog:

Lance breaks new ground on Able Danger

While I was deciding how I should start my review of Peter Lance's new book - "Triple Cross: How Bin Laden’s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets and the FBI -- And Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him" - I remembered a quote from Monica Gabrielle, one of the Jersey Girls, in a documentary about 9/11:

The one thing that I personally was hoping for was another Woodward and Bernstein with regard to 9/11. Someone, anyone that was willing to put their teeth into this.

Well, we have found that person, and his name is Peter Lance. In his third book on the origins of the 9/11 plot and the failures of the FBI and others to stop the attack, Lance focuses on Ali Mohamed - yet another figure relegated to footnotes in the 9/11 Report who Lance shows played a central role in Al Qaeda's plan of attack. Not only did he create the "Brooklyn Cell" which supported the 9/11 hijackers, but he wrote the training manual for Al Qaeda and created training camps for hijackers! Arrested in 1998 for his role in the embassy bombings, Ali Mohamed has demonstrated foreknowledge of the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 and an outline of the 9/11 plot itself, all of which he did not reveal to the FBI until after the attacks! Worse, he has still not been formally sentenced because the FBI believes they can use him to get information on Al Qaeda even when he's been playing the FBI for two decades.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I am quoted twice in the Epilogue to Triple Cross. However, this review of the book is not based on my limited contacts with Lance. It is based entirely on the content of the book, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in Able Danger. Some have expressed frustration at the delays in publication, but I can attest to the fact that Lance needed the extra time in order to include all of the latest details from the interviews National Geographic conducted for their documentary based on his book and the latest developments in the Able Danger and Greg Scarpa Jr. scandals.

The best part of Triple Cross is the way Lance weaves together the different strands of the 9/11 story and enhances them with his own original reporting on each. For example, the book quotes from numerous interviews Lance conducted with Tony Shaffer, Curt Weldon, and other members of the Able Danger team. While not a complete history of Able Danger, it is by far the most complete version published to date. He devotes four chapters to the subject and weaves together the story of Able Danger with the story of how the "Big Five" intelligence agencies all failed to detect the plot on time. He also provides new evidence that the discovery of what a central role Ali Mohamed played in the Al Qaeda leadership may have played a role in the destruction of all the Able Danger charts and data at LIWA in April 2000. This took place literally days after the chart linked above was produced by a member of the Able Danger team.

To give you an idea of the level of detail Lance includes about Able Danger, here is how he opens Chapter 37, "The Briefing in Bagram":

That October in 2003, Shaffer, then an army major, was aboard an army UH 60 Blackhawk helicopter snaking along the Kabul River toward Asadabad, a small firebase in Northeast Afghanistan eight clicks from the Pakistani Border. Wearing forty pounds of body armor and brandishing an M-4 carbine and an M-11 pistol, Tony was attached to Task Force 180, whose mission was to "deter and defeat the re-emergence of terrorism" after 9/11 by hunting down and eliminating members of the fugitive Taliban. As a clandestine officer with the DIA, he was assigned to work in unison with the other "three-letter" agencies, including the FBI and the CIA, in what was a hoped-for reintegration of the intel services that had become so fragmented and stovepiped in the years before 9/11. While he got along well with the FBI agents who were engaged in the Taliban hunt, Tony and other DIA operatives still regarded the CIA as independents, nicknaming them the "Klingons" after the Star Trek aliens, who were reluctant members of "the Federation."

Able Danger is mentioned throughout the book, but some other chapters which focus on it include Chapter 31, "Operation Able Danger", Chapter 32, "Obliterating the Dots", and Chapter 33, "Able Danger Part Two". Over the past nine months, I was beginning to doubt if anyone would ever give the Able Danger story the treatment it deserves. Peter Lance has gone above and beyond my expectations in "Triple Cross" and anyone who is interested in getting to the bottom of the Able Danger story should read it.

Among other things, he points out flaws in the IG Report on Able Danger:

It's also clear that, in attempting to impeach Capt. Phillpott, the IG relied heavily on the word of Dietrich Snell, the 9/11 Commission senior counsel, who found Phillpott's account of the Able Danger findings "not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the [Commission] report or further investigation." That was Snell's conclusion following a July 12, 2004, meeting with Phillpott ten days before the Commission's "final report" was to go to press:

We considered Mr. Snell's negative assessment of Capt. Phillpott's claims particularly persuasive given Mr. Snell's knowledge and background in antiterrorist efforts involving al Qaeda. Mr. Snell considered Capt. Phillpott's recollection with respect to Able Danger identification of Mohammed Atta inaccurate because it was 'one hundred per cent inconsistent with everything we knew about Mohammed Atta and his collegues at the time.' Mr. Snell went on to describe his knowledge of Mohammed Atta's overseas travel and associations before 9/11 noting the "utter absense of any information suggesting any kind of a tie between Atta and anyone located in this country during the first half of the year 2000," when Able Danger had allegedly identified him.

But in this book we've demonstrated that there was massive evidence on the high visibility of 9/11 hijackers al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, who were living openly in San Diego as early as January 2000. We showed how Atta himself entered the United States on June 3 and rented a room in Brooklyn near the Al Farooq Mosque, using his own name. Just how difficult would it have been for the Able Danger analysts to track his movements via airline reservations and immigration sources, since, according to the IG's report, the Able Danger data harvest was "collecting data from 10,000 websites each day"?

In an interview following release of the report, one operative close to the data-mining operation told me that "we also accessed INS databases in the data harvest, so picking up Atta who had to get airline tickers and a visa prior to his arrival in early June was no big deal."

This Tuesday, go pick up a copy of "Triple Cross", then tune in to "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News, where Lance is scheduled to appear for an interview with Bill.

Posted by Mike Kasper at 7:20 PM.

Posted by Mike at 01:35 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

September 16, 2006

"From Xena Warrior Princess to Joan of Arc"

Just collecting some more links.

From the testimony of Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer:

(U) Last but by no means least, Dr. Eileen Preisser, the brilliant double PhD who’s understanding of both cutting edge technology and human factors/neural networking served as the intellectual “glue” that put together the suite of technology and analysts that perform the astounding feat of identifying Atta and other pre-9-11 terrorist events....

(U) Jun 2000. At the request of SOCOM ([ ], DIA’s Rep to SOCOM), with the permission of the DIA/DO leadership, I approach MG Noonan, Commander of Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) to request that Dr. Eileen Preisser be attached to my unit, STRATUS IVY so that she could continue to support ABLE DANGER. This request is denied – I am told later, privately, that MG Noonan felt that by trying to take Dr. Preisser that I was trying to “steal his capability”....

(U) Late September 2001. Eileen Preisser calls me for coffee and tells me she has something she needs to show me. At coffee she shows me a chart she had brought with her – a large desk top size chart. On it she has me look at the ‘Brooklyn Cell’ – I was confused at first – but she kept telling me to look – and in the “cluster” I eventually found the picture of Atta. She pointed out (and I recognized) that this was one of the charts I LIWA had produced in Jan 2000, and had a sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach – I felt that we had been on the right track – and that because of the bureaucracy we had been stopped – and that we might well have been able to have done something to stop the 9/11 attack. I ask Eileen what she plans to do with the information/chart – she tells me that she does not know but she plans to do something.

(U) Last week of September 2001. I am on my normal afternoon run from the Pentagon to the Lincoln Memorial – and I receive a call from Dr. Preisser. She tells me “you’ll never guess where I am” – she tells me about sitting in the outer office of Scooter Libby and the fact that she, Congressman Curt Weldon, Congressman Chris Shays and Congressman Dan Burton are going in to brief Steven Hadley on the Atta chart. I am both amazed and satisfied that the Atta information and our work on ABLE DANGER had been provided to proper government leadership and fully expected that the ABLE DANGER team might even be reconstituted. It was not.

(U) Nov 2001-July 2003 – I accept recall to active duty as a Major in the Army and command a Defense HUMINT unit named Field Operating Base (FOB) Alpha. During this period I attempted to work with ASD/SOLIC to resurrect ABLE DANGER as part of FOB Alpha’s mission. When some sensitive information relating SOLIC was leaked to the press the effort to bring back ABLE DANGER was also terminated. Dr. Preisser was involved in this attempt to resurrect the project.

From the testimony of Erik Kleinsmith:

From March of 1999 until February of 2001, I was an active duty Army Major and the Chief of Intelligence of what was then called the Land Information Warfare Activity or LIWA. My branch provided analytical support to Army Information Operations, but because of the data mining capabilities we possessed in the Information Dominance Center, we routinely provided direct analytical support to several combatant commands as well as other customers. One of our most prominent operations was in support of the data mining proof of concept demonstration for the Assistant Security of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence or ASD-C3I. Called the JCAG project, it demonstrated how data mining and intelligence analysis could be conducted in a counterintelligence and technology protection capacity. That project ran throughout the later half of 1999 and our results were ultimately subpoenaed by Congressman Dan Burton's office through the House Reform Committee on November 16th, 1999.

In December of 1999 we were approached by US Special Operations Command to support Able Danger. I assigned the same core team of analysts that worked the JCAG project, and with Dr. Eileen Preisser as the analytical lead, four of us conducted data mining and analysis of the Al Qaeda terrorist network coordinating with SOCOM and other organizations throughout that time. In the months that followed, we were able collect an immense amount of data for analysis that allowed us to map Al Qaeda as a world-wide threat with a surprisingly significant presence within the United States.

In approximately April of 2000 our support to Able Danger became severely restricted and ultimately shut down due to intelligence oversight concerns. Supported vigorously by the LIWA and INSCOM chains of command, we actively worked to overcome this shut down for the next several months. In the midst of this shut down, I along with CW3 Terri Stephens were forced to destroy all the data, charts, and other analytical products that we had not already passed on to SOCOM related to Able Danger. This destruction was dictated by, and conducted in accordance with intelligence oversight procedures.

Ultimately, we were able to restart our support to SOCOM at the end of September 2000. Additionally, the bombing of the USS Cole on October 12th brought USCENTCOM to the IDC, who then became our primary customer until my departure from active duty on April 1st 2001.

From the later testimony of Erik Kleinsmith:

Because of our abilities, our support was routinely requested by several customers that took our work far outside our normal mission of supporting Army information operations. In the two years that I was Chief of Intelligence, we provided analytical support to every Combatant Command and several times I notified my chain of command that my analysts were overwhelmed with tasks. Because of our ability to understand data mining technology from an intelligence analytical perspective, Dr. Eileen Preisser and I spent a lot of our time inventing new and rewriting traditional analytical processes that gave my analysts even better ability to take advantage of the IDC tools.

Coordination for our support to SOCOM’s Able Danger Project began in December of 1999. After an assessment of our capabilities in comparison to other intelligence organizations, SOCOM requested our support in January of 2000. By February we were conducting massive data mining and analysis of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups associated with that network. I would like to stress that during this time my branch was completely supported by my chain of command that included the Commander of LIWA, Colonel Jim Gibbons, and the Commander of INSCOM, then Major General Robert Noonan.

One of the pivotal questions that has come up since 9/11 is whether or not Mohammed Atta or any of the other hijackers were identified by an infamous chart produced during this time. I reiterate my answer that I gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee that I do not remember seeing Mohammed Atta’s name or face on a single specific chart. The more important point is that our team was tracking hundreds of names and creating dozens of charts for SOCOM. And while most of these charts contained information and intelligence that needed further analytical vetting, we were still able to identify a significant worldwide footprint with a surprisingly large presence within the United States.

In the middle of our preliminary analysis of the data, we were ordered to cease our support to SOCOM due to what we were told were intelligence oversight concerns. While I received the order through my chain of command, we knew that the order had come from somewhere in the Pentagon. Even today neither I, nor any of the other team members that I have spoken with, can say exactly where the order originated. This order, along with a subsequent six month struggle for LIWA and INSCOM to get permission to restart our work was a huge source of frustration felt by both our team and our SOCOM contacts. SOCOM finally grew so impatient with our inability to overcome our work stoppage that they decided to move their analytical operation to a Raytheon facility at Garland, Texas and continue their own efforts without our support. By the time we were allowed to begin work again, the bombing of the USS Cole had changed the face of our entire effort completely.

From the testimony of JD Smith:

From March 1997 to August, 2000, I worked at Orion Scientific Systems, McLean, Virginia, as a Program Manager. From March 1997 to approximately 15 September 1999, I managed and performed criminal intelligence support activities within the Gulf States Initiative (GSI) Program – an unique joint federal (U.S. Army/National Guard)/multi-state (Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi) effort by working with specialized contractor support personnel and the U.S. government to assist/upgrade criminal intelligence support information technology hardware, software, communications, facilities, and training within the mentioned states.

As the GSI Program was being phased out, I had met with personnel at Fort Belvoir (the GSI Headquarters [HQ] location) concerning Orion’s ability to perform similar support to elements of the U.S. Army. In discussions and meetings about our capabilities, I met Dr. Eileen Preisser, Chief Intelligence Officer, U.S. Army INSCOM HQ, Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) at Fort Belvoir. After multiple meetings and discussions held at Fort Belvoir and at Orion Scientific Systems (8400 Westpark Drive, McLean, VA), a formal support proposal was presented to Dr. Preisser on or about 12 October 1999.

My recollection is that during a two-week period (i.e., the end of October 1999), Orion Scientific and the U.S. Army were able to establish a, “Task Order Contract” (i.e., funding provided for individual tasking – no guaranteed work or tasking by the Government). All tasking would come from INSCOM, specifically Dr. Preisser to Orion with me (James D. Smith), the Program Manager/Task Manager, responsible for assigned products/deliverables as well as the accountability for hours charged per task by experienced intelligence analysts....

Notes (incomplete), from my monthly calendar for this time period reveal the following:
• 26 October 1999, Dr. Preisser, James Smith, and John Sconda met to discuss Orion MAGIC (Orion proprietary software) capabilities.
• 1, 2, 3 November 1999, Dr. Preisser, James Smith, and others met to discuss a task research activity concerning “Chinese military and business influences around the globe.”
• 09 November 1999, James Smith met with Dr. Heath at INSCOM and Orion’s support Task Order contract was started.
• 17 November 1999, Dr. Heath and staff met at Orion for discussions.
• 22, 23 November 1999, James Smith met with Dr. Heath at Fort Belvoir.
• 01, 02, 03 December 1999, James Smith met with Colonel Worsocki (sp.) concerning Orion’s unclassified collection processes and possible studies.
• 20 December 1999, Task Order Delivery to LIWA (product not identified).
• 13 January 2000, Dr. Preisser presentation to Command (all input sent to her on time – topic not identified).
• 19 January 2000, Meeting with Dr. M. Heymann concerning LIWA support.
• 20 January 2000, Briefing from James Smith to Major Erik Kleinsmith (topic unknown).
• 24 January 2000, Major Task Order delivery to Dr. Preisser (Taliban Visual chart).
• 03 February 2000, Meeting with Dr. Heath and staff on progress.
• 08 February 2000, James Smith met with Major Kleinsmith and Dr. Heymann
• 09 February 2000, Orion produced additional information concerning China to Dr. Preisser for meeting 10 February 2000, with the SSCI.
• 22 February 2000, James Smith met with Major Kleinsmith (4 hours) concerning a Project Plan (subject of Plan unidentified).
• 23 February 2000, Information (data extraction) samples discussed with Dr. Preisser of Law Enforcement related and open source data.
• 28, 29 February 2000, James Smith worked on the DIESCON II proposal.
• 01 March 2000, James Smith prepared a report of all direct labor charges to report to INSCOM.
• 02 March 2000, James Smith met with Dr. Heath and staff concerning developed Program Plan.
• 06 March 2000, New LIWA Task Order assigned (topic not identified).
• 08 March 2000, Task Order delivery given to Major Kleinsmith by James Smith.
• 10 March 2000, Task Order meetings at Fort Belvoir (4 hours).
• 17 March 2000, James Smith attends meetings at LIWA all morning (4 hours).
• 23 March 2000, Orion plans to install “Magic” at LIWA per request.
• 27, 28, 29 March 2000, installation of Magic at LIWA.
• 31 March 2000, James Smith meetings at LIWA (4 hours).
• 05 April 2000, James Smith meets with Major Kleinsmith all morning at LIWA (4 hours).
• 06 April 2000, James Smith met with Dr. Heymann (topics not identified).
• 07 April 2000, James Smith met with LIWA for two hours – progress report.
• 14 April 2000, James Smith met with Dr. Heath and staff concerning deliverables.
• 18, 20, 21 April 2000, James Smith met with Major Kleinsmith and Colonel Worsocki (sp.)
• 27 April 2000, Major Kleinsmith and Dr. Preisser hosted at Orion for major meeting (topics not identified).
• 28 April 2000, James Smith met at LIWA for monthly progress reporting.
• 01 May 2000, James smith delivered major research activity to LIWA (topic not identified).
• 02 May 2000, James Smith prepared a major Task Order Report with future budget needs projected.
• 05 May 2000, LIWA meeting (4 hours).
• 08 May 2000, James Smith met with Major Kleinsmith (4 hours).
• 11 May 2000, James Smith delivered Task Order charts, fiscal reports and projections.
• 25 May 2000, Task Order delivery to LIWA (chart with data not identified).
• 30 May 2000, James Smith delivered to LIWA monthly reports.
• 09 June 2000, James Smith meets at Fort Belvoir (no further information).
• 17, 18 19 July 2000, Multiple meetings with Major Kleinsmith and Dr. Preisser – topics unknown.
• 04 August 2000, last day at Orion for James Smith

From an October 9, 2005 op-ed written by F. Michael Maloof:

If we only had acted

Rep. Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican, correctly asserts the terrorist attack on America on September 11, 2001, could have been averted.
The assertion was based on his efforts as early as 1999 to create a national collaborative or fusion center. It would data-mine vast amounts of information from U.S. intelligence and law enforcement to confront such asymmetrical threats as terrorism, proliferation, illegal arms trafficking, espionage, narcotics and information warfare and cyber-terrorism.
It was a process that produced, among other things, the Able Danger open-source analysis that reportedly revealed hijacker Mohamed Atta as a potential terrorist before the attack.
Mr. Weldon first sought help from Eileen Preisser, who ran the Information Dominance Center at the U.S. Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) at Fort Belvoir, Va. He then asked this writer to work with Ms. Preisser to see how the Army initiative could be expanded into a national effort.
As Mr. Weldon envisioned it, the national collaborative center would have been comprised of a system of mini-centers or "pods" of some 34 entities from the U.S. intelligence community and law enforcement agencies to function in a common operating environment.
It would not have been just another analytical unit. The effect of data-mining information that had already been analyzed was to game-plan particular issues and offer options to policymakers and national commanders to deal with them.
For example, say terrorists in South America work with drug cartels raise money to buy weapons on the "gray" arms market to smuggle to terror cells in the U.S. Information from independent analytical centers dedicated to the elements in this hypothetical scenario would be fused at the center to determine a course of action.
Potential end-users would have been the White House, Congress, State and Defense Departments, Joint Chiefs of Staff, the regional commanders-in-chiefs (CINCs) and government operation centers.
In a July 30, 1999, letter to then-Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre, Mr. Weldon proposed creating a national entity "that can acquire, fuse and analyze disparate data from many agencies to support the policymaker in taking action against asymmetrical threats. "These challenges are beginning to overlap, thereby blurring their distinction while posing increasing threats to our nation."
Mr. Weldon pointed out that the Defense Department "has a unique opportunity" to create a centralized national center, which he called the National Operations Analysis Hub (NOAH, to protect against the "flood of threats."
The NOAH would have been created by presidential executive order as a tool of the National Security Council. The Defense Department would have been designated to run it.
Mr. Weldon's proposal, however, met with immediate opposition from the Defense Department. The office of the assistant secretary for command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I), now renamed networks and information integration, especially pushed for creating the Joint Central Analytic Group (JCAG). C3I was concerned that money for the national collaborative center would be diverted from the long-sought JCAG counterintelligence analytical center.
Unfortunately, the JCAG, now at the Defense Intelligence Agency at Bolling Air Force Base, doesn't talk to other analytical centers that deal with various asymmetrical threats.
Nor do the other existing analytical centers dedicated to collecting information on terrorism, proliferation, arms smuggling and other threats talk to each another regularly.
Following the initial DoD turndown, Ellen Preisser and this writer then data-mined unclassified information to report to Mr. Weldon on possible Chinese front companies in the United States seeking technology for the People's Liberation Army.
It showed how Chinese front companies in the United States listed as U.S. corporations were acquiring U.S. weapons technology from U.S. defense contractors, and improving China's military capability. Such access to U.S. technology then would allow the Chinese over time to duplicate U.S. military systems down to the widget.
Indeed, a June 27, 2005 article in The Washington Times reported U.S. investigators were concerned with China and its middlemen increasingly and illegally obtaining "sensitive or classified U.S. weapons technology" from U.S. companies.
Reaction to the study on Chinese front companies in the United States from the Army and the General Counsel's office in the Office of the Defense Secretary was immediate. In November 1999, they ordered the study destroyed, but not before Mr. Weldon complained to then Army Chief of Staff Eric K. Shinseki.
Mr. Weldon also wrote a letter to then-FBI Director Louis Freeh requesting an espionage investigation. Mr. Freeh never responded to the Weldon request.
Then in an April 14, 2000, memorandum from the legal counsel in the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Capt. Michael Lohr wrote that the concern over the LIWA initiative potentially bumped into what amounted to domestic spying.
"Preliminary review of subject methodology raised the possibility that LIWA 'data mining' would potentially access both foreign intelligence (FI) information and domestic information relating to U.S. citizens (i.e. law enforcement, tax, customs, immigration, etc," Capt. Lohr wrote.
"I recognize that an argument can be made that LIWA is not 'collecting' in the strict sense (i.e. they are accessing public areas of the Internet and non-FI federal government databases of already lawfully collected information)," Capt. Lohr added. "This effort would, however, have the potential to pull together into a single database a wealth of privacy-protected U.S. citizen information in a more sweeping and exhaustive manner than was previously contemplated."
In effect, the national collaborative center experiment based on the LIWA example was sidelined.
If the concept of the NOAH had been in effect on September 11, 2001, events may have been different. The cost for such a system would have been minimal compared to the heavy cost in human life and resources the nation suffered.

F. Michael Maloof is a former senior analyst in the Office of the Defense Secretary.

Committee on Government Reform hearing on October 12, 2001:

Mr. Shays: In a briefing we had yesterday, we had Eileen Pricer, who argues that we don't have the data we need because we don't take all the public data that is available and mix it with the security data. And just taking public data, using, you know, computer systems that are high-speed and able to digest, you know, literally floors' worth of material, she can take relationships that are seven times removed, seven units removed, and when she does that, she ends up with relationships to the bin Laden group where she sees the purchase of
chemicals, the sending of students to universities. You wouldn't see it if you isolated it there, but if that unit is connected to that unit, which is connected to that unit, which is connected to that unit, you then see the relationship. So we don't know ultimately the authenticity of how she does it, but when she does it, she comes up with the kind of answer that you have just asked, which is a little unsettling.

USA Today from April 22, 2002:

Eileen Preisser, a professor of homeland and national security at the New Mexico Institute of Mines and Technology, warns that the varied progress among the states in establishing security plans has created a "Frankenstein monster syndrome."

"The states are grabbing what they can and sewing it all together," she says. "What happens, though, when you need it to work and it all collapses or spins out of control?"

Preisser, on loan to the U.S. government as an adviser on homeland security and technology matters, says federal authorities have provided states with few guidelines to ensure that officials are at least giving emergency workers similar levels of training.

"I have a lot of respect for Tom Ridge," Preisser says. "But until his office blesses some kind of national strategy, we're going to have people going off in all different directions."

As for the nation's overall preparedness to deal with a major terrorist incident, Preisser estimates a 50% chance of a successful response if the incident took place near where medical and emergency response teams are plentiful.

Beyond "those centers of excellence," Preisser says, the chances of overall success drop to about 10% in the event of a bioterrorist attack. "I hate to say it," she says, "but we're not prepared like we should be."

ABC World News Tonight from April 30, 2002:

Newscast: Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge faces criticism from Congress and states

PETER JENNINGS, anchor: On Capitol Hill today, congressmen heard testimony from administration officials about the state of homeland security. Tom Ridge, the director of Homeland Security, was not there. The Bush administration refuses to let Mr. Ridge testify before the Congress. Around the country, many people are asking, what progress there is to see. ABC's Jackie Judd has been covering the testimony today, and she reports from Washington.

JACKIE JUDD reporting:

Peter, frustration is mounting across the country about the administration's efforts to make the nation safe from terrorism. As you say, Tom Ridge got a tongue-lashing on Capitol Hill today, but he wasn't there to hear it. The White House says, as an adviser to the president, he doesn't answer to Congress.

(VO) Committee chairman, Democrat Robert Byrd, accused Ridge of keeping the public in the dark.

Senator ROBERT BYRD (Chairman, Senate Appropriations Committee): The real losers are the American people whose lives this government is bound to protect. They're not being given the whole picture.

JUDD: (VO) In Atlanta today, anger at a hearing on how undercover investigators got into four federal buildings, bypassing all security measures.

Representative BOB BARR (Republican, Georgia): They were given, in effect, the keys to the kingdom. In the words of investigators, they owned those buildings.

JUDD: (VO) All 50 states now have homeland security directors, and most have mapped out anti-terrorism plans. But there is no coordination, not even on what computer equipment they should use so the states can talk to one another in a crisis.

Professor EILEEN PREISSER (New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology): In this kind of an environment, especially when we're dealing with weapons of mass destruction, we do need some kind of policy at the highest level to standardize what happens across the board.

Mr. DAVID DEWHURST (Chairman, Texas Homeland Security Task Force): Fingerprints are 100 percent.

JUDD: (VO) In Texas, the director of homeland security says intelligence about who is slipping across the borders illegally is really no better today than it was before September 11th. David Dewhurst also says even now only a tiny fraction of cargo ships coming into the port of Houston is inspected.

Mr. DEWHURST: These containers can be moved all around the United States before they're inspected. So this affects Wyoming. It affects North Dakota. It affects Kentucky.

JUDD: Ridge plans to unveil a national strategy this fall to help guide the states. Security analysts, Peter, who are sympathetic to Ridge, say the task is so complex, it could take a decade to implement.

JENNINGS: A long time. Many thanks, Jackie. Jackie Judd in Washington.

SIGNAL Magazine from May 2002:

Creating a Knowledge-Based First-Responder Force
By Patrick S. Guarnieri
May 2002

Web-enabled techniques help prepare reaction to weapons of mass destruction.

Before September 11, only a few brave organizations were dedicated to authorizing and funding programs to test advanced technologies for state and federal disaster first responders and train key personnel in their use. For scenarios involving weapons of mass destruction, even fewer offered unclassified-level training in the skills and technology needed by law enforcement and health care personnel. Among those few are the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Homeland Defense Technology Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico; the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, Washington, D.C.; and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro. In times of crisis, it has been their experts who arrived on the scene toting a combination of “Men in Black” suitcase technology and advanced supercomputing capabilities to assist the nation’s first responders.

The terrorist attacks and subsequent anthrax incidents, however, quickly brought attention to the critical need for first responders, including health care professionals, to be trained in the use of specialized information, communication and coordination technologies. To address this pressing requirement, several government, military and industry organizations have joined forces to prepare emergency response professionals to deal with erupting crises immediately instead of waiting for the men with the suitcases to arrive.

Dr. Eileen M. Preisser, a professor at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, is one of the key players in this arena. A congressional fellow on science and technology applicable to national security, she was appointed this year as director of the Air Force Homeland Defense Technology Center. Her role, as she describes it, is “to help prepare American cities for possible terrorist attacks and give them the tools and education required to perform consequence management before any national agency arrives on the scene.”

Since September, a large portion of Preisser’s time has been spent working with Congress and groups from the Executive Office of the President to make U.S. Defense Department command, control, communications, computers, intelligence and coordination technologies available to first responders throughout the United States, Canada and NATO. “My methods are effective, but I knock over ricebowls. I’ve been called everything on Capitol Hill from Xena Warrior Princess to Joan of Arc,” the former Air Force special activities officer says.

Her partners in this mission are C.H. “Butch” Strauv II, program director, Office of National Defense Preparedness within the Office of Justice Programs, and Dr. Van Romero, president, National Domestic Preparedness Consortium, an organization sanctioned by the Office of Justice Programs. The consortium prepares firefighters, law enforcement professionals, medical and other emergency personnel to respond to acts of chemical, biological, nuclear and radiological terrorism. Strauv and Romero facilitate Preisser’s access to law enforcement and emergency medical services personnel, firefighters, public works professionals and mayors from around the country as well as to the university-accredited courses that give structure to the technical training offered online and in the classroom. The consortium already has trained and supported more than one million first responders in the United States, NATO and Canada. Since last September, it has trained approximately 100,000 personnel at strategically located sites across the United States.

Romero and Preisser endeavor to engage anyone and everyone on the threats facing the nation, and they are experts on the topic. “We used to think terrorism wouldn’t happen in the United States, but it has. It cannot be overemphasized that we in the United States are ill prepared for terrorism at home. We cannot train people fast enough. There is a six-month waiting list to get into the consortium’s on-site courses,” Romero notes.

Preisser agrees that the need for training is great. “Time is of the essence here. We have to find better ways to educate, train, support and exercise our first responders on a nationwide basis. Using the Web to offer accredited distance learning and preparing the same courses so they can be tailored for execution at conventions as part of professional continuing education is a logical extension of our work.”

This self-organized partnership recently created a valuable asset for first responders—the Collaborative Engagement Complex, which was built to house a portal system and facilitate collaborative engagement to support the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium in its mission.

The core of the new complex is the RESPOND! architecture, which uses the GENESIS technology Preisser developed in association with a major U.S. defense contractor. Other partners are being brought into this project from within the Defense Department and the civilian sector. The software is used to create threat profiles and terrorism vulnerability assessments for cities, companies or sites anywhere in the country. It not only handles text but also is being augmented to handle audio, video, signals and sensor data, which can be streamed to the responders upon request to track and follow a specific situation. The RESPOND! portal helps create a knowledge-based first-responder force.

RESPOND! will allow for training online and in conference environments on topics such as explosives, hazardous materials, urban search and rescue, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) incident management, public works emergencies and unified command protocols. It uses new Web-based knowledge assessment tools to help instructors create randomly generated digital exams. WebKat and Learning Framework provide secure testing formats for Web-based instruction as well as for tracking students’ grades and progress.

RESPOND! technology creates a knowledge environment where multiple users can interact for education, exercise, training or information sharing. The system assigns first responders passwords and log-on identifications that allow them to send e-mail, enter community-of-interest chat rooms and use the first response white pages to locate a colleague or expert. They can use the technology to do a city-threat assessment using massive data mining and information patterning online. During a crisis, they also will be able to work through the portal on secure lines to connect and collaborate with multiple colleagues anywhere in America.

The technology operates in Windows environments, allowing for the use of audio, video, white boarding, still photography or mapping annotations.

“The RESPOND! architecture is new technology for the first responder that builds upon what was originally Defense Department technology for anti-terrorism and counterterrorism. We call this tech transfer, and it is the fastest way to get advanced technology into the hands of the first responders,” Preisser explains.

According to Strauv, a lot of available technology can be used. Most was developed originally under Justice Department programs that support the consortium. The programs, which cost approximately $100 million annually, provide equipment and training to respond to and manage domestic terrorism safely. The program’s advantage for local municipalities is that first responders normally do not pay for their training if they register with the Office of Justice Programs first. “It’s one of the few benefits of being a hero,” Romero says.

“I think the real travesty to date,” Preisser says, “is that I am not currently training any Defense Department people in these courses, not even reservists. We do not have policies and mechanisms established that allow us to train military personnel as we do civilians in the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium. There is a big fear of many in the Pentagon of military overreach. We have not figured out that the military can help significantly in training and equipping first responders without violating posse comitatus laws.

“What needs to happen is that key professional specialty codes in the active-duty military, the Reserve and National Guard must be identified as first-responder equivalents so they can take and benefit from this WMD consequence management training. One of my key goals for this year is to develop policy and mechanisms to get reserve Department of Defense personnel—who are often on the scene as first responders—trained and educated in the first-responder protocols we are teaching in the consortium. If I can do this with online courses and convention and seminar exposure, so be it. But we have to move out on this. It’s important to all Americans.”

“Eventually,” Preisser continues, “we want to give first responders wearable interface access and smart card technology as well.” Such technology will drastically revamp the way firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians and physicians do business across multiple states and municipalities.

Patrick S. Guarnieri is the chief executive officer of the National Conference on Homeland Security. The not-for-profit organization educates, trains and shares information with first responders on issues associated with terrorist incidents involving weapons of mass destruction.

Federal Computer Week on June 12, 2002:

By Dan Caterinicchia

The ultimate success or failure of the Homeland Security Department will be determined by the intelligence and information technology plan that's proposed and the person selected to lead that effort, according to a congressional fellow who advises the Executive Office of the President on technology.

Speaking June 11 at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association's TechNet International 2002 in Washington, D.C., Eileen Preisser, also director of the Defense Department's Homeland Defense Technology Center, said the key will be getting the new department to organize and share information horizontally, instead of vertically in the usual stovepipes.

"The kicker that will determine if it succeeds or fails is the intelligence and IT plan that's prepared," Preisser told Federal Computer Week. "There has to be a [chief information officer or chief operating officer]-type person to bring together all the disparate capabilities that exist and create a new and exciting virtual information environment that will set the pace for everything else in government.

"If you hire a 65-year-old to do it, it will fail. If you hire former military, it will fail."

Preisser said the government should look to someone with experience in a large industry enterprise effort who understands the mission and the roles that the various agencies should play in the "big picture."

"I would like for that to happen, but I don't see that happening," she said.

Preisser said she fears that the new department will just add more bureaucracy to a system already overloaded with red tape. She added that agencies were just beginning to move "horizontally over the last nine months, and forcing them to go back will be the hardest cultural shift."

An interagency organization can be successful as long as the various parts are united by their mission and outfitted with the "same standard suitcase and equipment, and put in the field together," she said, adding that the interagency operational security (OPSEC) group is a prime example of one that works.

However, the only way the proposed Homeland Security Department can break agency stovepipes will be to cut off the individual budgets and fund everything at the department level, Preisser said. And even with the right IT and funding plan, the basic implementation will take anywhere from 15 years to 25 years, she said.

To get at least the basic foundation done faster than that, DOD officials should be given a mentoring role. Preisser said DOD officials have the necessary experience and should be "highly encouraged" to share what they know.

With that idea in mind, the Missile Defense Agency is developing an architecture for "mission-critical test beds" that will produce a common operational picture for itself and the other players involved in a potential accident or strike involving missiles, such as state and local first responders, utility companies and industry partners, Preisser said.

The test beds are designed to help DOD, aided by its partners, to identify text, voice, video or audio data patterns over time that should not be there. "That is the 'so what' of homeland security," she said, adding that terabytes of data are useless if the user can't pinpoint what they need quickly and act on it.

The architecture for this environment should be complete by July, when a decision is made whether to proceed in Texas or Florida. After that, partners will be selected based partly on geographical location, and by September, sites will be configured to use the architecture, Preisser said.

From Federal Computer News on June 17, 2002:

By Dan Caterinicchia

Three top Defense Department officials said last week that DOD could take a larger leadership role in establishing the proposed Homeland Security Department and that the key to the department's success would be the person responsible for information technology.

Eileen Preisser, director of DOD's Homeland Defense Technology Center, said the ultimate success or failure of the Homeland Security Department will be determined by the intelligence and IT plan that's proposed and the person selected to lead that effort. Preisser spoke at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association's TechNet International 2002 conference in Washington, D.C.

"The kicker that will determine if it succeeds or fails is the intelligence and IT plan that's prepared," Preisser, a congressional fellow who also advises the Executive Office of the President on technology, told Federal Computer Week.

"There has to be a [chief information officer or chief operating officer]-type person to bring together all the disparate capabilities that exist and create a new and exciting virtual information environment that will set the pace for everything else in government," Preisser said. "If you hire a 65-year-old to do it, it will fail. If you hire former military, it will fail."

Preisser said the government should tap someone who has worked on an enterprise system for a large corporation and who understands the mission and the roles that the various agencies should play. "I would like for that to happen, but I don't see that happening," she said.

Preisser and Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Kellogg Jr., director of command, control, communications and computers for DOD's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said to bring the department up to speed quickly, DOD officials should be given a mentoring role.

Kellogg told FCW that he has received "marching orders" from Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to work with the Office of the Secretary of Defense and other departments to "scope the issue...and get it done."

The greatest challenge facing the Homeland Security Department is integrating the cultures of the agencies it will comprise, Myers said. "It's very difficult to get those cultures to think in a different way, and [without IT] to back it all up, we're putting ourselves at risk, and that's unacceptable," he said.

"We need to capitalize on current technologies to build to the future, because the intent is to link everyone together," Kellogg said, adding that his office is now working on a "proposal on the way ahead to do it."

The only way the Homeland Security Department can break agency stovepipes will be to cut off the agencies' individual budgets and fund everything at the department level, Preisser said. She fears that the new department will just add more bureaucracy to a system already overloaded with red tape and that agencies were just beginning to move "horizontally over the last nine months, and forcing them to go back will be the hardest cultural shift."

"I don't buy that," said Paul Kurtz, senior director for national security for the White House's Office of Cyberspace Security. "It breaks down stovepipes, and that is a key to our success. The refrain has been to bring [the agencies] together to be more powerful. The sum of the total is greater than what we have now."

The government must continue to use and evolve IT, and the related policies and procedures, in a coordinated way. Currently, federal agencies, as well as state and local governments and industry partners, don't know where to go when they possess, or are in search of, certain homeland security information or intelligence, Kurtz said.

"This is the government doing its part to reorganize and coordinate better," he said. "Reorganization isn't the end, it's the beginning. We're trying to make it better."

The White House, in conjunction with the private sector, would release its national strategy for critical infrastructure protection in August or September, but that document will be subject to frequent updates as threats and vulnerabilities change, Kurtz said.

"We're going to make mistakes," he said. "We're new at this. The goal is to release the strategy in August or September and pursue that while the legislation is being put together on [Capitol] Hill. We're trying to do both at the same time."

Press Release for TSM 2003 conference at Murray State:

The conference begins at 6 p.m. April 3 with Dr. Eileen Preisser, Congressional Fellow and Special Assistant for Homeland Defense and National Security, giving the keynote address.

Shane Harris in National Journal on November 7, 2005:

Data Destruction

As quickly as the IDC garnered powerful fans, it also earned some enemies. The center was not a chartered member of the formal intelligence community -- the 14 agencies that in 1999 officially constituted the country's spy apparatus. For a support organization, buried several layers deep in the Army, to tread on territory normally reserved for big-name agencies like the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, and to present intelligence gleaned from the Internet, of all places, was simply anathema to people steeped in decades of intelligence rules and culture. The IDC analysts were mavericks.

In particular, the Defense Intelligence Agency questioned the analysts' results on a number of projects, not just Able Danger, the former IDC employee said. "We'd show them our stuff, and they'd say, 'Show us the math.' " But the answers didn't always add up so neatly. The combination of data mining and hunches sometimes produced results that the bigger intelligence agencies viewed as murky, even if military commanders found them compelling.

At a Pentagon briefing on Able Danger in September of this year, Thomas Gandy, the Army's director of counterintelligence and human intelligence, cautioned reporters about inferring too much information from the "links" the IDC established, particularly because its data-mining tools were far less sophisticated than the ones used today. "Just that there are links established doesn't really mean anything," Gandy said. "In the primacy of this technology, you get some very goofy links that require research."

Kleinsmith and the former employee, as well as others who worked tangentially to the IDC over the years, insisted that the IDC analysts were senior and seasoned, and that they recognized the fact that simple links required further investigation. Yet the analysts' enthusiasm for a less tidy sort of inquiry, which often raised more questions than answers, divided intelligence professionals. Some former government officials, who declined to be named, derided the IDC analysts as "zealots" and said their work never produced the eureka-like results that some, particularly former Able Danger members, now claim.

One senior IDC analyst, Eileen Preisser, who worked with Kleinsmith on Able Danger and other projects, was characterized by a former Defense official as "an uncontrolled flake." Kleinsmith, who called Preisser an "analytical genius," admitted that she "has constant trouble in working with others in the community." Preisser has worked in several intelligence jobs, inside and outside the government, and those who know her see her as the prototypical IDC believer.

She "is especially critical of those folks who she feels did not, or do not, 'get' the technology," Kleinsmith said. "Instead of working within the system, maneuvering around the tough spots, negotiating and dealing, she tends to burn her way through an issue to get where she needs to go." Preisser now works for the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. A spokeswoman there said Preisser declined all requests for interviews.

In early 2000, in the midst of Able Danger, a lawyer with the Army's general counsel visited Kleinsmith. As Kleinsmith testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September, the lawyer reminded him that under Army regulations, any data the IDC collected on U.S. persons -- even inadvertently -- had to be destroyed within 90 days. If analysts could establish a legitimate reason to investigate a person further, they could keep the corresponding data.

But with potentially tens of thousands of names, checking each one would have been impossible, Kleinsmith said. In the Pentagon briefing, Gandy concurred: "I don't think they had the capability to scrub it in the fashion that the oversight rules could live with."

By the spring of 2000, Kleinsmith said, the IDC had the list of 20 individuals whom Special Operations wanted investigated further under Able Danger. But in March, Kleinsmith was ordered to cease all work on the project. He believes the order came from outside the IDC's command. From May to June, Kleinsmith and his team destroyed the information, and possibly the linkages between Mohamed Atta, Al Qaeda, and convicted terrorists already sitting in U.S. prisons.

"It was terrible," Kleinsmith said.

'So It Begins'

After the data purge, the heartbeat of the IDC slowed. In late September 2000, the center was authorized to begin new work on Able Danger, Kleinsmith said. A data harvest would take no time to replicate, but the analysis on people and locations was much harder to reproduce.

But Able Danger never ramped up a second time. On October 12, while the USS Cole was docked in Yemen's port city of Aden, Al Qaeda suicide bombers rammed the destroyer with a small explosive-laden boat, killing 17 U.S. sailors and wounding 39. From then on, U.S. Central Command, responsible for the Middle East, became the IDC's primary customer, Kleinsmith said. Special Operations Command, unhappy because the IDC's attention had shifted, moved Able Danger to a private intelligence research center run by Raytheon in Garland, Texas, Kleinsmith said.

A Raytheon spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. But Eileen Preisser, the IDC analyst who had worked on Able Danger with Kleinsmith, was working for Raytheon after the September 11 attacks. In a 2001 interview with National Journal, she spoke of projects she was involved with that were essentially the same as those at the IDC.

After the Cole bombing, the IDC concentrated on projects not related to Al Qaeda. "We went on to do some other things, other projects," the former IDC employee said. Less than a year later, the 9/11 attackers struck. Looking back, Kleinsmith doesn't claim that he saw the attacks coming. Rather, he felt resigned. "I wasn't surprised," he said. He had studied Al Qaeda's evolution and believed he knew its capabilities. "I thought, 'So it begins.'

Total Information Awareness

The 9/11 attacks breathed some new life into the Information Dominance Center. In late 2001, retired Navy Adm. John Poindexter, who had served as President Reagan's national security adviser, met with the director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, where Poindexter was soon to be employed. Poindexter was looking for a site to test new technologies under his Total Information Awareness program, which, not unlike the IDC, aimed to use open-source data and government information to understand terrorism.

TIA also looked at tools to examine commercial databases containing information on U.S. citizens, within the context of privacy regulations.

Poindexter wanted a proving ground staffed by seasoned, technology-inclined analysts, a "Manhattan Project" for counterterrorism, he said. The DARPA director, Tony Tether, told him to consider the IDC. After meeting with Gen. Alexander, the Army commander overseeing the center, Poindexter agreed to test some of the TIA tools at the IDC.

"TIA was a very good concept," the former IDC employee said. The center offered TIA "a high-speed testing bed" for its new technologies. "Some of the tools sucked, and some of them were good ideas," the employee said. The frustration came from officials' reluctance to use the tools for active intelligence projects. Poindexter emphasized that TIA was a research project and wasn't using data mining as part of any real intelligence operations. TIA was an experiment.

But the experiment was short-lived. In late 2002, Poindexter's role in TIA was revealed in the press. The controversial retired admiral's past caught up with him -- Poindexter was the central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, which diverted the profits from covert arms sales to Iran to anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua.

Members of Congress derided TIA as an Orwellian excess of the post-9/11 era. The funding was pulled. Kleinsmith, who had left the Army by the time TIA arrived, seemed perplexed by lawmakers' concerns. "We've had this capability for years," he remembered thinking. "Who cares?"

TIA's detractors declared a victory for privacy protection when they killed the project. Poindexter was forced to resign in August 2003. But research on TIA tools has hardly ceased.

Rather, it has moved into the intelligence agencies, where the work and the budgets for it are classified, Poindexter said, noting that now Congress has more-limited oversight and should be more concerned about privacy infringements. The former IDC employee concurred, saying "The [TIA] concept hasn't died off. It continues. And it continues elsewhere now, and I can't talk about that. The tools are continuing to be developed."

Government Computer News from May 6, 2002:

TechNet International 2002.

You and your guest are invited Tech Net International Gala Evening

Tuesday, D.C. Convention Center Exhibit Halls A & B

Enjoy a Buffet Dinner and Technology Tour followed by a special performance by the irreverently uproarious "Capitol Steps"

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The Department of Defense finds this event meets the minimum regulatory standards for attendance by Dod employees. This finding does not constitute a blanket approval or endorsement for attendence.

Technet International 2002

AFCEA'S 56TH ANNUAL CONVENTION AND EXPOSITION

TechNet International 2002 is one of the nation's largest [C.sub.4]I conferences and expositions- everything for the communications, electronics, intelligence and information systems professional.

It's FREE, but it's priceless!

Five VALUABLE reasons you can't afford to miss TechNet International 2002:

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Register for TechNet International 2002 today! To register, visit www.technet2002.org

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Featured Speakers

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Defense Keynote Luncheon

and 2002 David Sarnoff Award Winner

Gen Richard B. Myers, USAF

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Four Star Breakfast Series

GEN Paul J. Kern, USA

Commanding General

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ADM William J. Fallon, USN

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Lt Gen Bruce A. Wright, USAF

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The Industry Perspective

C. Michael Armstrong

Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer AT&T

Back by Popular Demand! J-6 Luncheon Panel

Moderator: LTG Joseph K. Kellogg Jr., USA

Director, J-6

The Joint Staff

Panel Sessions

Admission to panel sessions is free to all registrants.

Application of Information Technology to Homeland Security

Tuesday, June 11, 9:00 a.m. -- 10:30 a.m.

Moderator:

Donald Zimmerman, CEO, Synergy, Inc., Senior Vice President, Information Technology Division, SOZA & Co., Ltd.

Panelists include:

Alan Harbitter, PEC Solutions

Dr. Eileen Preisser, Director, Air Force Homeland Defense Technology Center

Network Centric Warfare:

Approaches to Implementation

Tuesday, June 11, 2:00 p.m. -- 3:30 p.m.

Moderator:

Paul R. Brubaker, Chief Executive Officer, Aquilent, Inc.

Panelists include:

MG Steven W. Boutelle, USA, Director, Information Operations, Networks and Space, Office of the Secretary of the Army

Maj Gen Charles E. Croom, Jr., USAF, Vice Director for Command, Control, Communications and Computer Systems, The Joint Staff

LTG David j. Kelley, USA (Ret.), Vice President, Information Operations, Lockheed Martin Mission Systems

Rick Rosenburg, Program Executive, Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) Strike Force, EDS

Biometrics: Integration of Technologies for Information Security

Wednesday, June 12, 9:00 a.m. -- 10:30 a.m.

Moderator:

Jeff Dunn, National Security Agency, Co-Chair, Biometric Consortium

Panelists include:

Joseph Atick, Chief Executive Officer, Visionics

LTG Peter Cuviello, USA, Director, Information Systems for Command, Control and Computers

Cathy Tilton, SAFLink, Chair, Biometrics API Committee, Biometrics Consortium

Smart Card Applications

Wednesday, June 12, 2:00 p.m. -- 3:30 p.m.

Moderator:

Mary Dixon, Director, DoD Smart Card Program, Office of the Secretary of Defense

Panelists include:

LTC Greta Lehman, USA, Program Manager, U.S. Army Secure Electronic Transaction-Device Office

Dave Wennergren, Chairman, Smart Card Senior Coordinating Group

Jim Zok, U.S. Department of Transportation

Emergency Communications and Infrastructure Reconstitution

Thursday, June 13, 9:00 a.m. -- 10:30 a.m.

Moderator:

Brenton Greene, Deputy Manager, National Communications System

Panelists include:

Joe Wassel, Office of the Secretary of Defense

Professional Development Center Mini-Courses

Admission to mini-courses is free.

An overview of AFCEA's most popular PDC courses:

MILSATCOM

Tuesday, June 11

9:00 a.m. -- Noon

Wednesday, June 12

1:45 p.m. -- 4:45 p.m.

The Military Satellite Communications course covers the whole spectrum of MILSATCOM programs and issues. It also gives up to date visibility into the latest OSD initiatives, including the Transitional Communications Study (TCS) and the National Security SATCOM Systems Synchronization (NS4R) Roadmap.

Instructor: James Mazzei

Information Assurance, Roadmap to Excellence

Tuesday, June 11

1:45 p.m. -- 4:45 p.m.

Wednesday, June 12

9:00 a.m. -- Noon

The Information Assurance, Roadmap to Excellence course covers the entire spectrum of Information Assurance issues. The course provides current information regarding the use of biometrics along with passwords to achieve multi-factor identification and authentication. Timely information regarding joint NIST and NSA initiatives in COTS IT product evaluation using the Common Criteria is provided as well. Instructor: James E. Wingate, CISSP

Schedule
(*)Ticket required. Tickets available at www.technet2002.org.
morning
7:30 8:00
Tuesday, June 11
7:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m.
Four Star Breakfast Series (*)
GEN Paul J. Kern, USA
Commanding General
U.S. Army Materiel
Command
8:00 a.m. - Noon
Career Transition
Seminar
Wednesday, June 12
7:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m.
Four Star Breakfast Series (*)
ADM William J. Fatlon, USN
Vice Chief of Naval
Operations
Thursday, June 13
7:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m.
Four Star Breakfast Series (*)
Lt Gen Bruce A. Wright, USAF
Vice Commandar Air Combat
Command
7:30 9:00 10:00
Tuesday, June 11
7:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m. 9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.
Four Star Breakfast Series (*) Panel Session
GEN Paul J. Kern, USA Application of Information
Commanding General Technology to Homeland
U.S. Army Materiel Security
Command
9:00 a.m. - Noon
PDC Mini-Cource
MILSATCOM
Wednesday, June 12
7:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m. 9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.
Four Star Breakfast Series (*) Panel Sesion
ADM William J. Fatlon, USN Biometrics: Integration of
Vice Chief of Naval Technologies for Information
Operations Security
9:00 a.m. - Noon
PDC Mini-Cource
Infomation Assurance: Roadmap
to Excellence
Thursday, June 13
7:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m. 9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.
Four Star Breakfast Series (*) Panel Session
Lt Gen Bruce A. Wright, USAF Emergency Communication and
Vice Commandar Air Combat Infrastructure Reconstitution
Command
9:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Business Opportunity Workshop
for Small Business
7:30 11:00 Noon
Tuesday, June 11
7:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m. Noon - 1:30 p.m.
Four Star Breakfast Series (*) Defense Keynote Luncheon (*)
GEN Paul J. Kern, USA Gen Richard B. Myers, USAF
Commanding General Chariman of the Joint Chiefs
U.S. Army Materiel of Staff
Command
Wednesday, June 12
7:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m. Noon - 1:30
Four Star Breakfast Series (*) J-6 Luncheon Panel (*)
ADM William J. Fatlon, USN Moderator:
Vice Chief of Naval LTG Joseph K. Kellogg Jr.,
Operations USA
Director, Command, Control
Communications and Computer
Systems (J-6)
The Joint Staff
Thursday, June 13
7:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m. Noon - 1:30 p.m.
Four Star Breakfast Series (*) Luncheon (*)
Lt Gen Bruce A. Wright, USAF C. Michael Armstrong
Vice Commandar Air Combat Chairman of the Board and
Command Chief Executive Officer
AT&T
7:30 1:00
Tuesday, June 11
7:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m.
Four Star Breakfast Series (*)
GEN Paul J. Kern, USA
Commanding General
U.S. Army Materiel
Command
Wednesday, June 12
7:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m.
Four Star Breakfast Series (*)
ADM William J. Fatlon, USN
Vice Chief of Naval
Operations
Thursday, June 13
7:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m.
Four Star Breakfast Series (*)
Lt Gen Bruce A. Wright, USAF
Vice Commandar Air Combat
Command

Posted by Mike at 05:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 07, 2006

Who is Jay Boesen?

Just doing some research here, but I think he is important.

From the National Conference on Homeland Security in October 2002:

Technical Board of Directors

Jay Boesen - Senior Counter Intelligence analyst and field officer specializing in European, Middle East and Asian terrorism. He is a former senior consultant for analytical tradecraft at the Defense Intelligence Agency's Joint Terrorism Analysis Center's Counter Terrorism course. Mr. Boesen served as liaison at the DCI Counter-terrorist Center at the Central Intelligence Agency. He has also served as guest lecturer at the CIA's Analytical Risk Management Course.

From the same site in October 2004:

Technical Board of Directors

J. L. Boesen - has a Bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts from the University of the State of New York and a Master's degree in International Relations from Troy State University. Mr. Boesen is the author of the Vulnerability Assessment Fundamentals Course and the Advanced Vulnerability Assessment Course at the U. S. Department of Energy. He was the Special Advisor for Intelligence to the D.O.E. Director of Safeguards and Security. Mr. Boesen served as liaison at the DCI Counter-terrorist Center at the Central Intelligence Agency and was responsible for analytic training and support at the Defense Intelligence Agency's (DIA) Joint Terrorism Analysis Center. He currently serves as a faculty member in automated analytical methodologies and exercise scenario development for the DIA and Interagency Intelligence Committee on Terrorism's "Counter-terrorism Analysis Course,” Mr. Boesen was a senior tactics instructor and course chief with the US Air Force Security Police Academy, was a lead instructor and course developer for vulnerability assessment training at the Department of Energy Non-Proliferation and National Security Institute's Central Training Academy. While assigned to the European region he was recognized for his efforts in fighting terrorism by the German Federal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt) earning the title of "Honorary Kriminalkommissar." He has conducted some of the first terrorism risk assessments in the world. Mr. Boesen is co-author of an NCHS published book entitled "The Al-Qaeda Network".

From another NCHS web page:

The Law Enforcement Intelligence section was developed and is maintained by members of our Technical Advisory Board and the Genesis Intelligence Laboratory at Raytheon. To review the credentials of our Technical Advisory Board, go to the About Us section of this web site.

The Raytheon Genesis System utilizes “best of breed”, commercially available applications coupled with proprietary software and processes to mine, exploit and analyze all-source intelligence data. Characterized by extreme speed and super computing capacity, Genesis can provide solutions to all strategic, operational and tactical intelligence problems. The end product of this process is actionable intelligence that all operators and first responders can utilize to detect, deter, disrupt and/or neutralize asymmetric threats.

The Law Enforcement Intelligence section contains weekly updated information concerning the following subjects.

** Intelligence concerning terrorist organizations domestically and abroad.
** Charts concerning Al-Qaeda members their affiliations and photographs.
** Current information on radical and protest groups which may pose threats to the United States domestically or abroad.
** Information concerning safety of U.S. citizens at various locations domestically and abroad.
** Information concerning new methods of operation, potential venues and weaponry.
** Analysis of current intelligence data.

In order to gain access to this section you must be a local, state or federal law enforcement agency. After you provide the information requested, The National Conference on Homeland Security will verify its accuracy and provide you with a user name and password. Non-law enforcement entities should contact NCHS directly for a determination as to whether they may gain access. Once you have gained access, you will be provided with navigation instructions.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT GENESIS
You may contact Jay Boesen at Raytheon
(703) 391-2913, Extension 7063

From After by Steven Brill:

To screen people, the data would be mined through a system that Raytheon called Genesis, which, Woollen explained vaguely, could track "certain patterns of behavior" that indicated someone was a threat.

None of that was enough by itself, Woollen added. The real value Raytheon added was that the Raytheon system would be "proactive." Once a visitor arrived here, his data would be constantly updated, so that everything he did would be "tracked during the entire lifetime of the visa." If he got into trouble here and was wanted by the police, or even if new information about his prior activities was developed by Genesis, he'd be placed on a new lookout list so that he could be apprehended.

Depending on your point of view, it was all fascinating, scary, or encouraging. But Peterman and the man from the White House science office also knew that it was wildly expensive. To take one example, how could they pay for the biometric scanners -- whether of the iris, the palm, or the face -- at every border crossing? And how would someone be apprehended once put on a lookout list? Where would all the checkpoints be?

Nonetheless, these Raytheon guys seemed determined to build a system that, in some form, had to be built, so Peterman gave them the name of the procurement people at INS who were overseeing the development of the entry-exit system, and said they should get a meeting over there. He added the now standard speech that all homeland security staffers had learned -- which was that they did not make any purchasing decisions.

According to an attorney named Wade Birdwell:

When Able Danger powered up, Dr. Preisser became the head of the data evaluation group within the program, apparently applying the Genesis data-mining technology (or a derivative thereof), the development for which she was at least partially responsible. Over the next few months, she and her group developed a list of approximately 80 possible Al-Queda operatives, including Atta, and a Brooklyn cell, and made at least three attempts to get the FBI/DOJ to initiate an investigation based upon their findings.

If Weldon presents evidence tomorrow of the success of Able Danger in predicting an attack that became the attack on the U.S.S. Cole attack in October 2000, and that the Pentagon/DOD received the warning, but ignored it, then we can reasonably infer that the Pentagon/DOD knew that Dr. Preisser and her group were on the right track in doing the very thing they were supposed to be doing, i.e., discovering, predicting and, thereby, preventing Al-Queda activity before it occurred. If they were not so aware, we can reasonably infer that Dr. Preisser and her group attempted to make them aware over the course of the next few months. We can also reasonably infer that Dr. Preisser and her group went back to their data and became more convinced than ever that they had a line on Al-Queda in the form of that list of 80 possible operatives, and that they would have attempted to bring this back up with the powers that be.

Unfortunately, this would all have occurred during the Florida recount debacle. But it is at least possible that this critical information in Clinton Administration efforts ( I use that term advisedly) made it some way up the chain of command, and was available to both the Clinton Administration and the incoming Bush 43 Administration.

My guess, it stopped at some fairly high career bureaucrat(s) because they didn't want their betters to know that they could have stopped the U.S.S. Cole attack, but didn't. Then, the 2.5 teragigs of data get deep sixed shortly thereafter, ostensibly because the Pentagon/DOD was worried about being accused of domestic spying.

The point of all this is that Dr. Preisser, again, a critical member of the DOD intelligence community presumably knew all of this was going on, and can testify that her superiors ignored not only her unsubstantiated warnings about the 80 possible operatives, but also her clear success in predicting the U.S.S. Cole attack almost a year before the 9/11 attack.

From a Raytheon presentation on Genesis:

So the intelligence side, we are now bringing together the data. There is, of course, the question of how do we absorb that and be able to use it and put it all together make the right decisions. In this area, we have tools, not only at Raytheon, but at all other places, that are incredible. In our case, the front page that you saw, there’s a tool called Genesis. If I give Genesis your name, Genesis will find out more about you than you could ever remember about yourself. That is a key tool to look into people, visitors that are coming in. That is not just data that is available publicly, but other data that may be available also; it puts it all together and it yields a recommendation to a border guard, to an analyst, et cetera, on the basis of the data available.

Excerpts from "1000 Years for Revenge" by Peter Lance that mention Jay Boesen.

Page 235:

In light of what we now know was going on in Manila at the time, Khalifa's release has to be considered one of the most grevious instances of negligence in the years leading up to 9/11. Even given the need to apease Jordan, a key U.S. ally in the Mideast, the release of Khalifa represents disturbing evidence of just how badly the FBI and State, two of the nation's top antiterrorism agencies, were at odds.

"I remember people at CIA who were ripshit at the time," said Jacob L. Bosesen, who worked as an analyst tasked from the Department of Energy to the CIA's Counter Terrorism Center. "Not even speaking in retrospect, but contemporaneous with what the intelligence community knew about bin Laden, Khalifa's deportation was unreal."

Page 357:

Ronnie Bucca was a fire marshal. By any traditional definition, terrorism wouldn;t have been even remotely close to his jurisdiction. But he had seen the 1993 World Trade Center bombing as an act of arson, and one that touched him personally. Now the four main conspirators and the bomb maker himself had been convicted. The blind Sheikh and the other member of his "jihad army" would be locked up for years. any other investigator might have given up and moved on. But not Bucca. He was the firefighter who had fallen five stories and worked his way back to Rescue One.

As the spring of 1997 arrived, he continued to believe that the Trade Center was a potential target. "He said, 'They're gonna come back and do it again,'" said Jacob L. Boesen, an analyst who worked with Ronnis at the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. "I said to him, 'They did it once.' But he said, 'Some of those people have folded now into al Qaeda.'"

Boesen, who wrote a study on al Qaeda for the National Conference on Homeland Security, said Bucca was a rare combination. "Ronnie's military experience as an intelligence officer gave him an analytical role, and his experience as a Special Ops Green Beret gave him an operational perspective," said Boesen. "He was the real deal. He has was frustrated because the Bureau was the lead player in New York when it came to terrorism and he couldn't get anybody on the Task Force to listen."

Page 382:

By late November, Ronnie was visiting firehouses to discuss terrorism preparedness with the rank and file. In July he'd taken a course in advanced counterterrorism analysis at the Joint Military Intelligence Training Center. In his capacity as an analyst with the 3413th Military Intelligence Detachment, Ronnie and his unit would now meet at least once a month with Jacob Boesen, an analyst with the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center, who would come up from Washington to Fort Dix and deliver chalk talks on the latest terrorism intelligence.

"We were working in asymmetrical threat analysis," said Boesen, "using a program called Analyst's Notebook the helped us produce link charts of the entire Al Qaeda organization." The charts, like the one of page 362-63, allowed DIA analysts to step back and take a broad snapshot of Osama bin Laden's organization and its related cells.

Boesen remembered one session in particular. "After we'd finished," he said, "Ronnie pulled me aside and asked what I thought the chances would be of al Qaeda hittin New York again. At that point the sense in law enforcement had been that Yousef and his cell were finished. But Ronnie seemed to sense that was something else in the works. That's when he asked me about KSM."

Bucca had seen Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's name in the unsealed bin Laden indictment, and he wanted to pick Boesen's brain to see what he knew.

"The truth was, we knew very little about him at the time," said Boesen. "Just what was in the intel from Manila. We knew the FBI had tried to grab him in Qatar. But what we didn't know was that he was now in Hamburg meeting with Mohammed Atta and the other members of the 9/11 cell."

Posted by Mike at 09:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

February 15, 2006

"It did not fit with the story we wanted to tell"

From page 41 of Shaffer's written testimony:

During the briefing, Congressman Weldon asked Russ Caso, his chief of
staff, to call the 9/11 commission and find out if they (the 9/11
commission) had ever heard of ABLE DANGER. Mr. Caso left the room and
called Chris Cojm at the 9/11 Discourse Project and asked him if they
had ever "heard of something called ABLE DANGER". Chris quickly
checked and told Russ "Yes - we heard of it" - Russ then asked him why
they did not put it in their final report - Cojm's answer was this "It
did not fit with the story we wanted to tell". Russ came back in and
told Congressman Weldon and me of the comment. Both Congressman
Weldon and I could not hide our astonished looks at hearing the news.
This was the beginning of the investigation as to why ABLE DANGER
information was not examined or included in the 9/11 report that has
brought us to where we are today.

Posted by Mike at 11:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

January 08, 2006

It's not the NSA you should be worried about

I've made the point before, but government overreach should really be the last of our concerns when it comes to safeguarding our privacy. Lack of government oversight in the private sector is the problem.

From the Chicago Sun Times:

The Chicago Police Department is warning officers their cell phone records are available to anyone -- for a price. Dozens of online services are selling lists of cell phone calls, raising security concerns among law enforcement and privacy experts.

Criminals can use such records to expose a government informant who regularly calls a law enforcement official.

Suspicious spouses can see if their husband or wife is calling a certain someone a bit too often.

And employers can check whether a worker is regularly calling a psychologist -- or a competing company.

Some online services might be skirting the law to obtain these phone lists, according to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has called for legislation to criminalize phone record theft and use.

In some cases, telephone company insiders secretly sell customers' phone-call lists to online brokers, despite strict telephone company rules against such deals, according to Schumer.

And some online brokers have used deception to get the lists from the phone companies, he said.

"Though this problem is all too common, federal law is too narrow to include this type of crime," Schumer said last year in a prepared statement.

In other words, Kossacks want to provoke a constitutional crisis because the NSA did something like this to track Al Qaeda, but anyone with $100 bucks can already do it today. During the Able Danger story "information brokers" and "buying information online" were mentioned several times. Frankly, it makes me wonder if they might have used a service like this in order to locate Al Qaeda agents.

Posted by Mike at 11:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

December 11, 2005

An Inconvenient Patriot

Yeah, I stole the title from that Sibel Edmonds article, but I'm just pointing out no one but Colin Powell bothered to listen to Brian Sheridan and what he had to say.

First some background:

IAB Fall Meeting Program

"The Engineer's Response to Homeland Security"
October 17-18, 2002 — New York, NY

Speaker Biography: Brian Sheridan

Deputy General Manager, National Security Programs & Operations
Bechtel Nevada

Mr. Sheridan is currently serving as the Deputy General Manager for National Security Response Programs & Operations at Bechtel Nevada. He is responsible for the management of four major programs: Combating Terrorism, The National Security Response, Environmental Management, Defense & Civil. In addition to his program responsibilities, he also oversees the Remote Sensing Laboratory (based at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada and Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland), and the Special Technologies Laboratory Operations (based in Santa Barbara, California).

Before working with Bechtel Nevada, Mr. Sheridan served as the Vice President for Strategic Programs, Bechtel National Incorporated (BNI), where he was responsible for business development for the Combating Terrorism and Homeland Defense markets.

Prior to his assignment at BNI, Mr. Sheridan served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC) at the Department of Defense. He had five direct report Deputy Assistant Secretaries responsible for: Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance, Special Operations, Combating Terrorism, Drug Enforcement, and Inter-American Affairs. He previously served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in SOLIC and before that as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Drug Enforcement Policy and Support.

Before entering the Pentagon, Mr. Sheridan worked as a Consultant for Frank Lynn & Associates, a marketing consulting firm in Chicago. Prior to consulting, Mr. Sheridan worked for the Central Intelligence Agency.

His educational background includes a BA from Boston College (1982); an MSFS from Georgetown University (1985); and an MBA from the University of Chicago (1991).

Mr. Sheridan is married to Anne Sheridan and they have three children: Connor (age 11); Patrick (age 9); and Sloan (age 7). They currently reside in Las Vegas, Nevada.

From page 228 of Against All Enemies by Richard Clarke:

Colin Powell took the unusual step during the transition of asking to meet with the CSG, the senior counterterrorism officers from NSC, State, Defense, CIA, FBI and the military. He wanted to see us interact, respond to each other's statements. When we all agreed at the importance of the al-Qaida threat, Powell was obviously surprised at the unanimity.

Brian Sheridan, the soon departing Assistant Secretary of Defense, summed it up: "General Powell, I will be leaving when the administration changes. I am the only political appointee in the room. All these guys are career professionals. So let me give you one piece of advice, untainted by any personal interest. Keep this interagency team together and make al-Qaida your No. 1 priority. We may all squabble about tactics and we may call each other assholes from time to time, but this is the best interagency team I have ever seen and they all want to get al-Qaida. They're comin' after us and we gotta get them first." Powell asked extensive questions about what State could do, took detailed notes, and later asked Rich Armitage (who would become Deputy Secretary) to get involved.

From an op-ed to the LA Times by former Clinton NSC staffer Daniel Benjamin:

In reporting for our book, "The Age of Sacred Terror," Steven Simon and I found that Clarke was not alone. Several top U.S. government officials agreed in interviews that the new administration had been unwilling to revise its understanding of America's security position and too slow to recognize the danger of Al Qaeda.

Brian Sheridan, President Clinton's outgoing assistant secretary of Defense for special operations and low intensity conflict, was astonished when his offers during the transition to bring the new Pentagon leadership up to speed on terrorism were brushed aside. "I offered to brief anyone, any time on any topic. Never took it up."

From the 9/11 Commission staff statement:

Brian Sheridan—the outgoing Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC), the key counterterrorism policy office in DOD—never briefed Rumsfeld. Lower-level SOLIC officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense told us that they thought the new team was focused on other issues and was not especially interested in their counterterrorism agenda. Undersecretary Feith told the Commission that when he arrived at the Pentagon in July 2001, Rumsfeld asked him to focus his attention on working with the Russians on agreements to dissolve the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and preparing a new nuclear arms control pact. Traditionally, the primary DOD official responsible for counterterrorism policy had been the assistant secretary of defense for SOLIC. The outgoing assistant secretary left on January 20, 2001, and had not been replaced when the Pentagon was hit on September 11.

From Bill Gertz on May 2, 2003:

As we reported in this space in February, Thomas W. O'Connell is President Bush's pick to be the next assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict (SOLIC). The White House this week sent the nomination to the Senate.

Special operations is a high priority with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in the war on terrorism, but the SOLIC post has been vacant since the Bush team took office.

It withdrew its first nominee, then proposed eliminating the assistant secretary post and folding the SOLIC office into another organization. Some senators balked at that proposal and it was dropped.

Mr. O'Connell is a senior manager at defense contractor Raytheon Corp. A former special-operations commando, he worked at the CIA and was a deputy director at U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla.

From Slade Gorton's written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee:

In the Department of Defense, the 9/11 Commission interviewed General Schoomaker, who was Commander of the Special Operations Command at the time Able Danger was created. The Commission interviewed General Hugh Shelton, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Scott Fry and General Gregory Newbold, successive directors of operations for the Joint Staff. The Commission interviewed Brian Sheridan, the Assistant Secretary for Special Operatoins and Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC) during the period Able Danger was in existence; as well as several other senior and mid-level managers in SOLIC. Despite direct questions for any information relevant to the 9/11 attacks, they mentioned nothing about a chart. They mentioned nothing about identifying Mohamed Atta, even in response to questions about the Able Danger program.

From Tony Shaffer's interview with GSN Magazine:

GSN:
Even when a program is compartmented, wouldn’t the senior leadership on the civilian side know about it?

SHAFFER:
I cannot speak to that because I have no direct knowledge. I only know from my direct knowledge that General Shelton was aware because of his tasking this to Special Operations Command. I briefed him on another operation regarding the Internet and data, and I referenced Able Danger to him because we were going to use the same Able Danger methodology to protect U.S. person issues.

I briefed [General Shelton] on that other operation in the spring 2001 timeframe, before 9/11. So, from my knowledge, I believe he remembered Able Danger at that point in time because of the reference to this other operation.

However, I don’t know how far above him or laterally, he shared information regarding Able Danger. I don’t know about the civilian leadership.

The highest level on the civilian side that I’m directly knowledgeable of was that the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict was aware because I briefed him on this. [Editor’s Note: Brian E. Sheridan held that assistant secretary position at the time.]

He received a briefing from me [in 2000] on Stratus Ivy, my unit, and I gave him information on what we were doing for Able Danger. His comment to me was, “You need to get on those guys and push them harder.” That was the way he told me to get on SOCOM to get them to push harder to get this going.

GSN:
This was before Able Danger had any success or had identified any results.

SHAFFER:
Absolutely, yes.

Posted by Mike at 03:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

December 02, 2005

Sign this petition

Help support Weldon's letter calling for public hearings on Able Danger. Sign it here then spread the word. We've got over 500 signatures so far, let's make it 1,000.

Posted by Mike at 10:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 18, 2005

List of Congress members supporting Able Danger

From Weldon's office:

Below is a list of those who have signed Congressman Weldon's letter to Secretary Rumsfeld requesting open hearings for ABLE DANGER members...

Republican (144)

Curt Weldon (R-PA)
David L. Hobson, (R-OH)
Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
Joel Hefley (R-CO)
Todd Russell Platts (R-PA)
Tom Davis (R-VA)
Michael G. Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
Charles W. Dent (R-PA)
Jim Ramstad (R-MN)
Mark Souder (R-IN)
Phil English (R-PA)
Michael McCaul (R-TX)
Sam Johnson (R-TX)
Christopher Shays (R-CT)
Walter B. Jones (R-NC)
Charles H. Taylor (R-NC)
John L. Mica (R-FL)
John T. Doolittle (R-CA)
Jeff Miller (R-FL)
Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD)
Nathan Deal (R-GA)
Joe Wilson (R-SC)
Donald A. Manzullo (R-IL)
Charles W. Boustany, Jr. (R-LA)
Ralph M. Hall (R-TX)
John E. Peterson (R-PA)
Ron Paul (R-TX)
Jerry Weller (R-IL)
Michael N. Castle (R-DE)
Geoff Davis (R-KY)
J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ)
Cliff Stearns (R-FL)
Fred Upton (R-MI)
Rob Simmons (R-CT)
Rodney P. Frelinghuysen (R-NJ)
Henry Bonilla (R-TX)
Virgil H. Goode, Jr. (R-VA)
Howard Coble (R-NC)
Jim Gibbons (R-NV)
Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY)
Dan Burton (R-IN)
Joseph R.Pitts (R-PA)
Jim Gerlach (R-PA)
Trent Franks (R-AZ)
Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
Ellen Gallegly (R-CA)
Don Sherwood (R-PA)
Zach Wamp (R-TN)
Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD)
Chris Smith (R-NJ)
Frank Wolf (R-VA)
Chris Chocola (R-IN)
Bobby Jindal (R-LA)
Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
Mark Kirk (R-IL)
Ron Lewis (R-KY)
Rob Aderholt (R-AL)
Randy J. Forbes (R-VA)
Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-CA)
John Boozman (R-AR)
Frank A. LoBiondo (R-NJ)
John E. Sweeney (R-NY)
Michael R. Turner (R-OH)
Dennis R. Rehberg (R-MT-At Large)
Tom Osborne (R-NE)
Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
Pete Sessions (R-TX)
John Linder (R-GA)
Todd W. Akin (R-MO)
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)
Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
Phil Gingrey (R-GA)
Robin Hayes (R-NC)
John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN)
Bob Inglis (R-SC)
Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
Lee Terry (R-NE)
Dave Weldon (R-FL)
Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT)
Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL)
Melissa Hart (R-PA)
John Sullivan (R-OK)
Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
Adam H. Putnam (R-FL)
Don Young (R-AK-At Large)
Peter King (R-NY)
Daniel E. Lungren (R-CA)
Michael T. McCaul (R-TX)
Katherine Harris (R-FL)
John Hostettler (R-IN)
Paul E. Gillmor (R-OH)
Roy Blunt (R-MO)
Michael Simpson (R-ID)
Tom Price (R-GA)
Charlie Norwood (R-GA)
Michael Bilirakis (R-FL)
Spencer Bachus (R-AL)
Henry E. Brown, Jr. (R-SC)
Thomas G. Tancredo (R-CO)
Terry Everett (R-AL)
Robert Ney (R-OH)
Ed Whitfield (R-KY)
Wally Herger (R-CA)
Mark Foley (R-FL)
Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)
Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA)
Mike Rogers (R-MI)
John J. H. "Joe" Schwarz (R-MI)
Jon C. Porter (R-NV)
Kay Granger (R-TX)
Greg Walden (R-OR)
Mary Bono (R-CA)
Anne Northup (R-KY)
John Kline (R-MN)
Frank D. Lucas (R-OK)
Candice S. Miller (R-MI)
William Jenkins (R-TN)
Patrick McHenry (R-NC)
Sue W. Kelly (R-NY)
Mike Pence (R-IN)
Kenny Hulshof (R-MO)
Cathy McMorris (R-WA)
Ralph Regula (R-OH)
John Carter (R-TX)
Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI)
James Leach (R-IA)
Jim Kolbe (R-AZ)
Bill Shuster (R-PA)
John McHugh (R-NY)
Tim Murphy (R-PA)
Barbara Cubin (R-WY-at large)
Michael Conaway (R-TX)
Chris Cannon (R-UT)
Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
Jim Ryun (R-KS)
Jeb Bradley (R-NH)
Steven C. LaTourette (R-OH)
Ander Crenshaw (R-FL)
Bill Young (R-FL)
Melissa Bean (D-IL)
Jack Kingston (R-GA)
Ed Royce (R-CA)
Tom Cole (R-OK)
Patrick Tiberi (R-OH)

Democrats (100)

John Murtha, John P. (D-PA)
Ike Skelton (D-MO)
Jim Cooper (D-TN)
Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA)
Solomon Ortiz (D-TX)
Silvestre Reyes (D-TX)
Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX)
Joe Baca (D-CA)
Bob Etheridge (D-NC)
James R. Langevin (D-RI)
Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX)
Nydia Velazquez (D-NY)
Ed Pastor (D-AZ)
Eliot Engel (D-NY)
Loretta T. Sanchez (D-CA)
Linda T. Sanchez (D-CA)
Mike McIntyre (D-NC)
Louise McIntosh Slaughter (D-NY)
Corrine Brown (D-FL)
Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
Ellen Tauscher (D-CA)
Sam Farr (D-CA)
Chet Edwards (D-TX)
Bill Pascrell (D-NJ)
Nita M. Lowey (D-NY)
Neil Abercrombie (D -HI)
Steny H. Hoyer (D-MD)
Gwen Moore (D-WI)
Madeline Z. Bordallo (D-GU)
Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY)
Nick J. Rahall, II (D-WV)
Robert Brady (D-PA)
Paul Kanjorski (D-PA)
Mike Doyle (D-PA)
Tim Holden (D-PA)
G.K. Butterfield (D-NC)
Dale E. Kildee (D-MI)
James E. Clyburn (D-SC)
Steve Israel (D-NY)
Harold Ford (D-TN)
John Larson (D-CT)
Eni Faleomavaega (D-AS)
Ken Meek (D-FL)
John Dingell (D-MI)
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
Rush Holt (D-NJ)
Vernon J. Ehlers (D-MI)
Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL)
Martin Olav Sabo (D-MN)
Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA)
David Wu (D-OR)
Grace F. Napolitano (D-CA)
Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)
Ruben HinoJosa (D-TX)
John M. Spratt, Jr. (D-SC)
Norman D. Dicks (D-WA)
Edward Markey (D-MA)
Jane Harman (D-CA)
Peter DeFazio (D-OR)
Bart Stupak (D-MI)
Susan A. Davis (D-CA)
Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
Hilda Solis (D-CA)
Gene Green (D-TX)
Martin T. Meehan (D-MA)
Marion Berry (D-AR)
Charles B. Rangel (D-NY)
James P. Moran (D-VA)
Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD)
Maxine Waters (D-CA)
John Lewis (D-GA)
Cynthia McKinney (D-GA)
Chaka Fattah (D-PA)
Lloyd Doggett (D-TX)
Lane Evans (D-IL)
Shelley Berkley (D-NV)
Bill Delahunt (D-MA)
Rick Larsen (D-WA)
Robert E. (Bud) Cramer, Jr. (D-AL)
Gene Taylor (D-MS)
Allyson Y. Schwartz (D-PA)
Richard E. Neal (D-MA)
Al Green (D-TX)
Robert Wexler (D-FL)
John T. Salazar (D-CO)
Michael Capuano (D-MA)
Mike Thompson (D-CA)
Collin Peterson (D-MN)
Joseph Crowley (D-NY)
Robert Andrews (D-NJ)
Mark Udall (D-CO)
George Miller (D-CA)
Adam Smith (D-WA)
Michael Honda (D-CA)
Anthony Weiner (D-NY)
Steven R. Rothman (D-NJ)
Bennie Thompson (D-MS)
Jerry Costello (D-IL)
Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ)
Allen Boyd (D-FL)

Independent (1)

Bernard Sanders (VT-at large)

Posted by Mike at 07:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 08, 2005

Weldon press conference on Able Danger tomorrow

From Congressman Weldon's web site:

PRESS CONFERENCE ON ABLE DANGER; NEW INFO EXPOSES MORE BLUNDERS BEFORE 9-11 & POINTS TO WIDER COVER-UP

WASHINGTON, Nov 8 - U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, will hold a press conference on Wednesday, November 9th at 12:30 p.m. in the House Radio/TV Gallery to discuss the latest findings from his investigation into Able Danger.

The latest findings include: information Able Danger provided to defense officials about terrorist activity in the Port of Aden prior to the terrorist attack on the USS Cole back in October 2000; a discovery of another Able Danger member who confirms a set of Able Danger data not accounted for by the Pentagon; recent statements by the 9-11 Commission about Able Danger; and the latest efforts by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to smear Able Danger member Lt. Col. Shaffer who broke the silence about the Pentagon’s efforts to track al-Qaeda worldwide prior to September 11.

WHAT: Press Conference with Congressman Curt Weldon on Able Danger

WHERE: House Radio/TV Gallery, The Capitol (H-321)

WHEN: Wednesday, 9 November 2005 at 12:30 p.m.

CONTACT: John G. Tomaszewski, (202) 225-2011

**Print media who do not have credentials may obtain a day pass at the House Print Gallery in H-315.

Posted by Mike at 09:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 04, 2005

Effort to make Able Danger disappear continues

The mainstream media has moved on, but the Pentagon maintains its stubborn focus on destroying Shaffer to keep others from speaking out.

Quoted verbatim from Captain Ed:

November 03, 2005

Shaffer Loses His Appeals

Earlier today, I received a message from Mark Zaid, attorney for Able Danger whistleblower Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer. The Defense Intelligence Agency has decided to proceed in revoking Col. Shaffer's clearance, a necessary component for his civilian job at the agency, and will likely terminate his employment. Zaid says:

Ed, in record breaking speed that to me clearly denotes selective retaliatory attention, the DIA's SAB has affirmed the revocation of Tony's security clearance. Unfortunately DIA has seen fit to completely disregard our submissions, and Cong Weldon and Hunters' formal requests to refrain from acting against Tony. This was the final stage of the process. There are no more administrative appeals left with respect to the clearance. A response to the indefinite suspension will be filed tomorrow. I expect that Tony will receive a notice of termination also in record breaking speed. That will take effect no sooner than thirty days from when received.

Since the Judiciary Committee has decided to schedule the Alito hearings in January, that gives them some free time between now and the end of their work sessions to haul the DIA in front of them and demand some answers. Given the old and picayune nature of the infractions that the DIA has used to challenge Shaffer's security clearance, their haste in closing this case strongly suggests that Zaid has it pegged; this termination surely comes as a vindictive ploy to warn other potential Able Danger witnesses not to cooperate with Congress.

That sounds like a terrible message to allow to pass unnoticed by the American public. While we understand the need for secrecy in dealing with some issues about the war on terror, we need to know that we have all the effective assets of intelligence work on line and functioning properly. We need to know exactly what Able Danger found, and what information got passed along and which got blocked by the DIA and Pentagon lawyers. Mostly, though, when the people's representatives demand that a government agency opens its books, it damned well better cooperate.

Posted by Mike at 12:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 02, 2005

Talking about Able Danger is "unhelpful to our country"

Rumsfeld speaks, or double speaks as the case may be:

Secretary Rumsfeld Interview with Lee Rodgers, Hot Talk KSFO San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose

Tuesday, November 1, 2005

RODGERS: Since we mentioned several days ago that we had a few minutes with you this morning, I have gotten more e-mails from listeners asking me to ask you one question, more than on any other subject. The question has to do with this Able Danger investigation, and why can't military people involved talk about it?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, they do and have talked about it. They've been up and testified before congressional committees and briefed people on a classified basis. What's been in the press is that some people feel that everything they say should be on an unclassified basis and the judgment apparently was made by the people involved that that would be unhelpful to our country. But in terms of talking to people about it, they've done it extensively.

The interesting thing about that is it's such an interesting story, of course it's something that occurred well before this Administration came in, back in the '90s as I understand it, and it's an interesting story.

The problem we've had is that our folks have spent a large amount of time trying to go in and look at all the records and see what they could find and haven't been able to validate it, which doesn't mean something wasn't so. It just means they've not been able to validate it.

The Department of Defense has provided literally volumes of information to multiple committees up there and if anyone else has any insights we're happy to open it up and go look somewhere else. But at some point if you can't find something, you can't find it.

Posted by Mike at 07:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 31, 2005

Able Danger Doubters

Add Kausfiles to the "blissfully ignorant" list:

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

...If the Times story falls apart, will reporters Johnston, Stevenson and Jehl get fired like so many people think Judtih Miller should be fired (given that her WMD stories fell apart)? What if Jehl's big front-page Able Danger scoop turns out to be a crock too? That would be two big strikes against Jehl! Hey, what do you have to do to get fired at the New York Times? ... This principle of actually holding reporters accountable for the accuracy of their stories could get out of hand.

Posted by Mike at 09:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 30, 2005

Tim Roemer on Lou Dobbs

Not much news here, but I found another Lou Dobbs transcript I missed from October 19th:

DOBBS: Congressman Curt Weldon, Tim, has made a very primary issue out of a secret Pentagon report. Why is there no mention of Able Danger in the 9/11 Report? Can you answer that for us?

ROEMER: Absolutely, Lou. Congressman Weldon has said that there was a chart that identified Atta before 9/11. If we would have seen that chart, if there was a chart that existed and it was put before the 9/11 Commission, it'd probably be front and center on this book because what we say in our book is government failed to communicate and share information.

Able Danger may have put together some good information. We have not seen a chart, however, that would have said Atta was somebody that was a terrorist identified before 9/11.

The DOD, Defense Department has looked for this chart. They haven't found it. The White House has looked for it. They haven't found it. It doesn't exist.

DOBBS: But the Pentagon at the same time, Tim, as you know, has stopped two of the principal witnesses here -- the DOD has stopped them from ever moving forward with their further public statements.

Is there anything that the Congress should be doing right now? Because some of the coincidence, after being told that Able Danger material was not put before the commission, occurred twice, once in October of 2003, which happens to be the same period that Sandy Berger, the Clinton administration's former national security adviser was accused of destroying documents. It's led to all sorts of speculation about what was destroyed, how it related to the Pentagon's secret project, Able Danger, and what it knew about Mohammed Atta.

ROEMER: Well, first of all, Lou, let's be very clear. The information with Sandy Berger had nothing to do with -- we got all that information in the 9/11 Commission, so there's no issue there.

With respect to Able Danger or data mining, you know, trying to piece together information that terrorists are talking to certain people, and they put together these spider diagrams to show how they communicate, who they communicate with, that's a very, very valuable mechanism for us to track terrorists.

We do it at the CIA, we do it at the FBI. Those are valuable means purportedly we were doing at Able Danger and DOD. It's not as if it was only going on at DOD.

What Congressman Weldon and others have claimed -- and I'd love to see the chart. I'd love to see the evidence, where's the beef of this? I'd love to see it. DOBBS: So would all Americans.

Tim Roemer, we thank you for what you're doing, what you've accomplished, and we wish you luck going forward.

ROEMER: Thank you, sir.

DOBBS: Tim Roemer.

Posted by Mike at 06:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 27, 2005

Lou Dobbs is keeping the focus on Able Danger

The best part is, Lou sticks with a story, and something about Able Danger has caught his attention. Personally, I'm hoping Lou will set up one of those calendars he uses - to keep track of how many days all of the witnesses in the Able Danger story have been gagged. If you count September 21st as Day One (although it might technically be even longer) then today is already Day Thirty-Seven.

From last night:

DOBBS: Colonel Anthony Shaffer's attorney Mark Zaid joins me now.

Mark, thanks for being with us.

MARK ZAID, COL. ANTHONY SHAFFER'S ATTORNEY: Thank you.

DOBBS: What is your response to what Slade Gorton said there?

ZAID: Well, I think the first thing is that someone should remind Senator Gorton he's no longer talking on the Senate floor where he has immunity from defamation, because he's going perilously close to crossing the line with his attacks on Tony Shaffer who, by the way, is -- his statements are being supported by half a dozen or so more career civil servants within the military and the defense contracting community.

So it's just nonsense with his statements that, in fact, he's talking about things he just doesn't know, and that's the problem.

He doesn't know because the Defense Department never gave the 9/11 Commission the crucial information.

DOBBS: Never gave them the information.

Dr. Eileen Pricer (ph), Captain Scott Philpott, both DOD, and J.D. Smith (ph), a defense contractor -- did any of those individuals who support your client, Colonel Shaffer -- have any of them made any progress in communicating with the 9/11 Commission, with the government here?

ZAID: Well, Shaffer spoke to them in October of '03, as the senator said, and then they asked the DOD for more information. When the DOD -- what we didn't know at the time was that the Defense Department had destroyed millions and millions of the documents that the Able Danger team had come up with, so it's no surprise that the commission then didn't have the information.

Then, Scott Philpott goes to them in July of '04, only about a week or so before the committee's report was issued, so it was too late to do anything.

Where the senator fails to address is the issue that if the commission had gone back to Shaffer in January of '04, when he tried not once but twice to talk to them and said one sentence, "Mr. Shaffer, we're not finding any documents that support your claims. Can you point us in the direction we should go?"

If they had done that, Shaffer could have gone back to his office at DIA and obtained the info.

And J.D. Smith, my other client, actually had a copy of the chart -- the chart that everyone is looking for -- with Mohamed Atta's name and photo, had it hanging in his wall. That chart then was destroyed several months later, and the DIA destroyed Shaffer's documents.

DOBBS: I'm unclear about who would take a picture, a chart off a wall for an active DOD project without their permission or knowledge?

ZAID: No.

By this time, Able Danger actually had ceased by late 2000, early 2001.

And the copy of the chart that J.D. Smith had was a draft copy that he had just kept as a memento. And when he moved his offices, the paper the chart was on was so frail it just fell apart and was destroyed. That didn't happen until the summer of 2004.

If the commission had actually followed up and done its due diligence, the chart would exist today in their hands and what Senator Gorton says was irrelevant probably would have been featured prominently in their report.

DOBBS: As another member of the commission, Tim Roemer, has said on this broadcast, he never saw the chart, no one has ever been able to produce the chart, he would have loved to have seen the chart.

ZAID: Absolutely.

And I can tell you also that Senator Gorton is not necessarily speaking for the entire 9/11 Commission.

I know of meetings with at least one commission member -- and it's not who you just referenced -- who does not agree with what Senator Gorton is saying.

DOBBS: Well, let's find out, what is the next step here? Because Congressman Curt Weldon, who is doing an outstanding job of advocacy for truth here and trying to get to the truth, and Senator Specter holing hearings on the Judiciary Committee on this very issue -- what happens next? How do we get to the truth?

ZAID: Yes.

And the Defense Department has been blocking the Senate Judiciary from pursuing their investigation. I had to testify in the place of my clients because DOD wouldn't allow it.

We're hopeful that somewhere within the grand canyon of the government and in the defense contractors that additional information, and especially the documents, someone will find some copies.

We do know that there is at least another person coming forward soon who will say the same assertion that Shaffer and Philpott and Price and the others have been.

So what's their motive? What exactly did these people have to gain by lying? Even the Defense Department says that they're credible witnesses, but unfortunately there is no documents. But we know in this town, just because there's no documents -- hey, 18 minutes off the Nixon tape disappeared. Do we think there wasn't anything on those 18 minutes? We just have to find it.

DOBBS: Mark Zaid, we thank you for being here representing Colonel Anthony Shaffer. We will continue along with you to try to get to the bottom as best we can of this remarkable controversy on able danger...

ZAID: Thank you.

DOBBS: And who knew what a year before 9/11.

Congressman Curt Weldon as we just mentioned, leading an investigation being and a remarkable advocate for both your clients and for the truth here. Thank you.

Posted by Mike at 06:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

9/11 Commission spent "months" on Able Danger

Responding to a question about Louis Freeh's book, Lee Hamilton responded instead to his comments on Meet the Press regarding the Able Danger program, and the fact that Freeh felt the FBI could have prevented 9/11 if it had the information Able Danger put together. A commenter on one of Vi's posts pointed this out. From C-SPAN back on October 20th:

Hamilton: If I can go back to the previous question on Louis Freeh, I've not read the book either, but my recollection is that he said that the 9/11 Commission had not looked into the Able Danger. We have looked at that and we've spent a lot of time on it both prior to the report being issued and since, and our conclusion has been that after months of looking at it we've not found a single bit of documentary evidence to back up the claims of those who thought they had seen the name and photo of Mohamed Atta. And I won't go into detail on this, but Slade testified on this question, well I guess you submitted testimony, which states very comprehensively what the Commission has done with respect to Able Danger, and I commend that statement to your attention.

Gorton: The Louis Freeh book is his side of his feud with President Clinton and has to be read in that light.

Kean: I think, I was told, I didn't read it, but I was told actually he was quite complimentary of the Commission in most areas.

There he goes again. Slade Gorton, casting doubt on a perceived criticism related to Able Danger with absolutely no basis at all. Freeh's book does not even mention Able Danger. The controversy broke after it went to press. Here is what Freeh said on Meet the Press:

Louis Freeh: No I disagree with that. And you know, while we're on the subject of the 9-11 Commission, I'm very interested and I know the country is in the Able Danger report. We have now very honorable military officers telling the United States, Tim, that in 2000 not only had Mohammad Atta been identified, by photo and name, but was earmarked as an Al Qaeda operative in the United States. Apparently this information was brought to the 9-11 Commission prior to their report, but there's no reference to it. That's the kind of tactical intelligence that would make a difference in stopping the hijacking, not the strategic intelligence, the stuff that comes out of um, like water out of a fire hydrant and then in hindsight, you say, well you missed these three molecules of water. I think we're very interested in what the 9-11 Commission didn't do with respect to Able Danger.

Posted by Mike at 10:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 26, 2005

Hunter asks for IG report on Able Danger retaliation

I think Weldon mentioned this last Wednesday, but this story provides some more details. It is worth remembering that the Inspector General has been involved in this all along, stiffling Able Danger from the start:

Smith says data was gathered from a variety of sources, including about 30 or 40 individuals, but one day it all came to a grinding halt. So why did that happen?

"The I.G. (inspector general) came in and shut down the operation because of a claim that we were collecting information on U.S citizens," says Smith.

I also have to point out this comment from a reader at Captain's Quarters, before anyone gets their hopes up:

Jerry is correct on the DIA chain of command. This tactic of holding hostage the security clearances of whistle-blowers is not isolated to Jacoby's administration in particular or DIA in general.

I happened to be assigned to the same Air Force HUMINT service where Tony Schaffer and Eileen Preisser were both assigned in the mid 1980's. I held a position which gave me a bird's-eye view into the tactics used by that Air Force bureaucracy to get rid of "bad apples".

This process included co-opting the I.G.'s concurrence (for legal cover) before actually pulling the "bad apple's" clearances...

Posted by: MaidMarion

Anyway, here are some new details from The Hill:

In a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dated Oct. 20, Hunter said there are several inconsistencies between the information provided by the DIA about its decision to revoke Shaffer’s clearance and Shaffer’s version of the story.

Hunter wrote that the House Armed Services Committee has been reviewing issues concerning Able Danger, specifically allegations that Shaffer’s security clearance had been revoked “possibly in retaliation for his having spoken to the 9/11 Commission staff about Able Danger.”

“The Committee has taken these allegations seriously and with assistance from your staff has conducted both an internal review of documents provided by the Department of Defense and informal interviews with persons associated with these allegations,” Hunter wrote in the letter obtained by The Hill.

He said that the committee’s investigations had turned up inconsistencies and that the committee “also has concerns with certain aspects of how the DIA handled this matter.”

Hunter is asking the Pentagon to stop any further action to revoke Shaffer’s clearance or to terminate his employment with the DIA until the inspector general’s office conducts its own review. Hunter is also asking for a copy of that review once it is completed.

Hunter is one of the few members of Congress who have spoken up on at least on one facet of this complex issue.

Weldon said he is planning to brief all members of Congress on Able Danger and the campaign to ruin Shaffer’s reputation.

Posted by Mike at 08:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Didn't have anything to do with 9/11?

Slade Gorton claims to already know the results of the Senate Intelligence Committee proceedings. He says they will agree with him. All along, he has been saying that Able Danger was historically insignificant. Now he says it "didn't have anything to do with 9/11"! Let's hope Mr. Gorton is in for a rude awakening. If not, it begs the question, how does he know so much about classified proceedings in the Senate that the American public has not been allowed to hear for ourselves?

From Lou Dobbs last night:

DOBBS: Congressman Curt Weldon claims a secret Pentagon project known as Able Danger identified Mohammed Atta as a member of a New York-based al Qaeda cell a year before the September 11th terrorist attacks. There was no mention of Able Danger in the commission's report on 9/11. I'm joined now by former Senator Slade Gorton, a member of the 9/11 Commission. Good to have you here, but, in fact was Able Danger omitted from your initial 9/11 Commission report with a purpose?

SLADE GORTON, FORMER 9/11 COMMISSIONER: No, Able Danger was omitted -- omitted from our report because it didn't have anything to do with 9/11. We learned about Able Danger from Colonel Shaffer, who briefed four of our staffers on it in Kabul, Afghanistan eight or nine months before our report came out. We immediately followed up on it, and we got all of the Able Danger materials from the Department of Defense, and they had nothing to do with Mohammed Atta or with any of the other conspirators. So Able Danger was -- got very interesting. It didn't identify Mohammed Atta a year beforehand. Unfortunately, no one identified Mohammed Atta beforehand. Able Danger was simply irrelevant to our report, and still is.

DOBBS: Irrelevant, you say, and at the same time, you're saying that Colonel -- Lieutenant Colonel Terry (sic) Shaffer, Congressman Curt Weldon have their facts entirely wrong. Is that correct?

GORTON: No, not entirely wrong. Colonel Shaffer told us about Able Danger. And he was the first person who did so. He also claimed later that he told us about Mohammed Atta. He didn't do that. We had four people in on that meeting, all of whom were fascinated by Mohammed Atta, who of course at that point we knew to be the leader of the conspirators. He was never mentioned.

Congressman Weldon said he turned over Mohammed Atta's name to Steve -- to Steve -- what's his name -- the deputy head of the National Security Agency in the White House. He didn't do so. He never told us about it. He never told his own congressional investigating committee about it. Never mentioned it until he got to his book about three or four months ago. Unfortunately, he's just mistaken. He may have talked about some of the elements of 9/11, but they didn't include Mohammed Atta.

DOBBS: Congressman Weldon, as you know, has called for an investigation. I take it you feel that that's unnecessary at this point?

GORTON: Oh, no. That investigation has already taken place. It's taken place by the Senate Intelligence Committee. That investigation will report, I hope, within the next week, and it will agree with the 9/11 Commission.

DOBBS: The fact that the intelligence community has not followed up on the recommendations that you and the rest of the commission put forward, and you focus greatly on the FBI. Do you have any sense that there is going to be a movement toward fulfilling the recommendations, the remaining recommendations of the commission?

GORTON: Well, let's divide it. Congress did a very good job in creating a new direction of national intelligence and a National Counterterrorism Center. We had more faith in the FBI I think at the time in which we reported a year ago, because we really liked Bob Mueller and what he was trying to do. But he's being defeated by the FBI itself, which just won't change its culture to provide the kind of activity on internal security here in the United States that we think is necessary. We're very troubled by that.

DOBBS: Senator Slade Gorton, we thank you for being here as we continue to follow this story and to follow the recommendations that are followed and not followed by the administration. We thank you for being here.

Posted by Mike at 08:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

October 25, 2005

What exactly was Atta's connection to Rahman?

While avoiding the subject of a misguided CIA connection with Rahman, the Norristown Times Herald is back on the case at least:

Previously, Shaffer said that Atta, an Egyptian, had been linked to the El Farouq mosque in Brooklyn, N.Y., a hotbed of anti-American sentiment once frequented by Sheik Omar Ahmed Abdul Rahman, know as the "Blind Sheik." Rahman is also Egyptian. Atta was not believed to be in the U.S., however, when he came to the attention of the team.

In 1995, Rahman was convicted of plotting to bomb various sites in New York City. Four of Rahman's associates were convicted in 2002 of conspiring with him to commit terrorist acts while he was in prison.

Though Shaffer was not allowed to give testimony at the Sept. 21 committee hearing, his attorney, Mark Zaid, did testify.

As a sobering reminder of "Able Danger's" unfulfilled promise, Zaid said the missing charts showing terrorist links likely still contained "several dozen" individuals yet to be captured.

"There are terrorist on the chart who may still be out there and planning attacks," Zaid said.

This Ashcroft press conference might explain it:

A U.S. grand jury has indicted four people for supporting and providing resources for convicted blind terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and the organization known as the Islamic Group, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced at an April 9 news conference in New York.

"The Islamic Group is a global terrorist organization that has forged alliances with other terrorist groups, including al Qaeda," Ashcroft said, noting that it has an active membership in the United States, concentrated in the New York City metropolitan area....

Among other overt acts, the indictment charges that, during a May 2000 visit to Sheik Abdel-Rahman, Stewart allowed Yousry to read letters from Ahmed Abdul Sattar regarding whether the Islamic group should continue to comply with a cease-fire in terrorist activities against Egyptian authorities that had been in place following the shooting and stabbing of 58 tourists and four Egyptians visiting an archaeological site in Luxor, Egypt in 1997. That's a terrorist attack for which the Islamic group claimed credit....

QUESTION: Do you know what, if anything, is the consequence of the letters that you allege were read to the Sheik, and if you read letters back in addition to (inaudible) which you say was issued under his name in the year 2000? What, if any, are the consequences of these communications?

ASHCROFT: Well, the first consequence is that the agreement and that the rules relating to his incarceration have been broken.

The second is that the communication, in accordance with the items mentioned in the indictment, that he had lifted his approval of the cease-fire is a very important signal to members of the Islamic group.

Yes, sir?

QUESTION: How did these people provide financial support (inaudible) and other things, including sending money to Sheik Rahman's son in Afghanistan?

ASHCROFT: The indictment alleges that money was transferred, but frankly, for us to go beyond the indictment at this time would be improper....

QUESTION: Could you talk about the Luxor attack and the taking of the tourists as hostages? Did the sheik--the information that got out--what were the repercussions, that they encouraged these gentlemen to take the hostages?

ASHCROFT: Well, you know that dozens of people died in Luxor.

QUESTION: Right.

ASHCROFT: And the sheik is a person whose leadership is substantial in the community of terrorists. Scattered on the bodies of those who died in Luxor were the pamphlets saying, ``Release the sheik from his imprisonment in the United States,'' just to indicate that his influence in the Islamic group as a terrorist organization was a profound influence, and so that signaling from him would be important....

QUESTION: When did you start monitoring conversations? Can somebody answer that question?

ASHCROFT: 1998, I believe, is it? December of 1998.

From the Wikipedia entry for Ayman al-Zawahiri:

On February 23, 1998, he issued a joint fatwa with Osama bin Laden under the title "World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders", an important step in broadening their conflicts to a global scale.

In 1999 al-Zawahiri was sentenced to death in absentia by an Egyptian military tribunal for his role in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad insurgency, including the massacre of sixty-two civilian tourists in Luxor in 1997.

According to Vincent Cannistraro, former top CIA counterterrorist official, "Zawahiri is the guy-he's the operational commander...number one, on the right hand side of Osama."

Posted by Mike at 12:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 24, 2005

Gorelick and Zelikow, birds of a feather?

A group called 9/11 CitizensWatch suggests that both Zelikow and Gorelick were out to cover for their respective administrations from the start:

9/11 CitizensWatch joined the families in calling for current and former administration leaders, as well as National Security Director Condaleeza Rice, to testify under oath and in public. Rice did so, on the condition that the Commission could not ask any other cabinet-level official to appear, and the Commission acceded.

Not a single executive branch official or federal agency employee was issued a subpoena to testify, though several resisted. After long periods of foot-dragging the agencies reportedly complied, but only after public exposure and commentary. Commission reluctance to hold individuals responsible for their perceived failures meant that key testimony was never required and that needed reforms or restructuring, discipline or demotion still remain unaddressed.

The Commission accepted a deal to radically limit their access to the White House documents detailing just what high-level administration officials knew in advance of the attacks. The Presidential Daily Briefings or PDBs included "BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO STRIKE IN U.S." (dated Aug. 6, 2001) and warned of imminent hijackings. Only two delegates of the Commission were to be allowed to see pre-edited versions of these documents: Executive Director Philip Zelikow and Commissioner Jamie Gorelick. The other commissioners would have to rely on Zelikow and Gorelick to report back to them, based on their notes, which the White House would also be allowed to redact. Commissioners Max Cleland and Tim Roemer both objected to the deal.

Eventually, a second compromise was worked out, letting additional Commission members see other selected PDBs from earlier months. Thomas Blanton of the National Security Archive argued that PDB's are not as sensitive as claimed and that several have been released publicly from President Johnson's term in office. (Slate, MSN.com 3/22/04).

Here is the original article:

After much sturm und drang, a compromise was worked out allowing three commission members and the staff director to see the originals of the PDBs from the Bush and Clinton years and then write up a summary for their peers.

I don't see a mention of Gorelick specifically, although I would bet the three commissioners mentioned were Gorelick, Kean, and Hamilton. Maybe the 9/11 families had more information than was in the article?

Posted by Mike at 01:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Weldon renews comparison to Kim Jong-Il

The Conservative Voice reports:

Appearing on the Laura Ingraham Radio program Monday, Rep Curt Weldon (R-Pa) said that the smear campaign and cover-up is continuing, in regards to Abel Danger Intel. Weldon advised that Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, who has a gag-order placed on him by the Pentagon, DIA and DoD, is being summarily vilified by these government agencies.

Weldon said: “This is something I expect from Kim Jong Il of North Korea.”

At least 7 former Able Danger team members have volunteered to testify before Congress that former Clinton Administration officials were warned ahead of time of both the USS Cole bombing and of Mohammed Atta’s presence in the US a year before 9/11/2001. These individuals have also been placed under gag-orders and are not allowed to speak to any Senate Committees or the media.

Posted by Mike at 11:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 23, 2005

Able Danger linked Atta to Brooklyn mosque

In the flood of news stories after the Senate hearing, it looks like I missed an important revelation. From the Norristown Times Herald:

Previously, Shaffer told The Times Herald that Atta, an Egyptian, had been linked to the El Farouq mosque in Brooklyn, N.Y., a hotbed of anti-American sentiment once frequented by Sheik Omar Ahmed Abdul Rahman, know as the "Blind Sheik." Rahman is also Egyptian.

In 1995, Rahman was convicted of plotting to bomb various sites in New York City. Four of Rahman's associates were convicted in 2002 of conspiring with him to commit terrorist acts while he was in prison.
As a sobering reminder of the intelligence program's unfulfilled promise, Zaid said the charts likely contained "several dozen" terrorist yet to be captured.

"There are terrorists on the chart who may still be out there and planning attacks," he said.

When queried later Wednesday by e-mail, Zaid speculated about why the Pentagon halted "Able Danger."

One theory is that Defense Department officials became "very uncomfortable" when the LIWA program ran China charts that showed links to U.S. political officials. The China effort, however, was not part of "Able Danger," he wrote.

When LIWA shut its operation down in 2000, the "Able Danger" program was forced to move elsewhere. But why the program itself was shut down in late 2000 or early 2001 is still a mystery.

If you believe Robert Friedman, here are some more details:

One week on Atlantic Avenue, it might be a CIA-trained Afghan rebel travelling on a CIA-issued visa; the next, it might be a clean-cut Arabic-speaking Green Beret, who would lecture about the importance of being part of the mujaheddin, or ‘warriors of the Lord.’ The more popular lectures were held upstairs in the roomier Al-Farooq Mosque; such was the case in 1990 when Sheikh Abdel Rahman, travelling on a CIA-supported visa, came to town. The blind Egyptian cleric, with his ferocious rhetoric and impassioned preaching, filled angry, discontented Arab immigrants with a fervour for jihad – holy war. This was exactly what the CIA wanted: to stir up support for the Muslim rebels and topple the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan.

The sheikh, however, had a somewhat broader agenda.

A former investigative counsel for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, now a private attorney in Washington, Jack Blum speaks bitterly but fatalistically. ‘After every covert war there is an unintended disposal problem,’ he says, as if he were talking about unexpected land mines and not potential Islamic terrorists living in Brooklyn. ‘We steered and encouraged these people. Then we dropped them. Now we’ve got a disposal problem. When you motivate people to fight for a cause – jihad – the problem is, how do you shut them off?’

The answer for the CIA was, you don’t. And then when the fanatical fervour you’ve whipped up leads to unintended consequences – the assassination of a Jewish militant leader in Manhattan, the bombing of the World Trade Centre, a terror conspiracy to blow up the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels and other Manhattan landmarks – you try to discourage local law enforcement agencies and the FBI from looking into the matter too deeply.

Well, that could explain this part of Weldon's blistering speech:

What we have here, I am convinced of this now, is an aggressive attempt by CIA management to cover up their own shortcomings in not being able to do what the Able Danger team did: They identified Mohammed Atta and the al Qaeda cell of Brooklyn 1 year before 9/11. But even before that, as the story unfolds, you are going to hear the story that they also identified the threat to the USS Cole 2 weeks before the attack, and 2 days before the attack were screaming not to let the USS Cole come into the harbor at Yemen because they knew something was about to happen.

Mr. Speaker, bad news never comes easy; but in a democracy, the bad news has to come out so we can make sure it does not happen again.

Mr. Speaker, this whole thing started, not to embarrass anyone, this whole thing started because none of us knew that Mohammed Atta was identified before 9/11. It started because this Congress, this body in particular, tried to establish what is now in place back in 1999, a national collaborative center, but the CIA said we did not need it. The American people deserve to have the answers here. They deserve to know why 3,000 people died. They deserve to know what we could have done and should have done to better prepare ourselves and to work to prepare for the next incident. The American people need to know where those multiple terabytes of data is. Is it still being used? We know in January of 2001, General Shelton was given a 3-hour briefing on Able Danger. So even if they destroyed the data back in the summer of 2000, in January of 2001 there was enough material to give General Shelton, Commander of the Joint Chiefs, a 3-hour briefing.

Mr. Speaker, there is something here. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but there is something desperately wrong, Mr. Speaker. There is something outrageous at work here. This is not a third-rate burglary of a political campaign headquarters. This involved what is right now the covering up of information that led to the deaths of 3,000 people, changed the course of history, led to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and has disrupted our country, our economy and people's lives.

As other's have pointed out:

"The terrorist associations were mapped out on large charts, according to Shaffer, during the program that operated from 1999 to 2001"? During this time frame, Rahman's followers were still active at the Al Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn. This came out in the Yemeni Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan Al-Moayad case. He "helped funnel Islamist fighters to al-Qaida in Bosnia and Afghanistan." This happened at the Al Farouq mosque:

"The al-Farooq mosque was recently in the news when federal prosecutors announced charges alleging that a radical Yemeni cleric -- who in 1999 appeared at the mosque to raise money, allegedly for needy families -- in fact helped funnel millions of dollars to al-Qaeda. According to Justice Department officials, Sheikh Muhammad Ali Hasan al-Moayad told a federal informant that money he took in at the mosque went to Osama bin Laden.....

Al-Farooq first became a major source of revenue for terrorist groups in the late 1980s and 1990s. In 1988, the late Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, a key figure in the latter-day international jihad movement, addressed a conference at the mosque, exhorting the faithful to carry out holy war wherever they are. Azzam's Alkifah Refugee Center -- a bogus charitable organization that ran a nationwide network out of the mosque -- was involved in both fundraising and recruitment for terrorist operations. In 1990, al-Farooq was taken over by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind cleric who had just come to the United States from Egypt, and who for a while effectively commanded the jihad movement here....

[Al Farooq] mosque leaders have since claimed to have left the jihad business. According to new indictments, however, the jihad fundraising at al-Farooq may have never really stopped."

Posted by Mike at 05:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Snell worked for Zelikow, not Gorelick

As much as you've got to love Curt Weldon for having the guts to say he will resign if the Able Danger cover up continues, you've also got to admit that at times Congressman Weldon can get his facts wrong.

A great furor has arisen in the blogosphere over this Weldon comment:

"The person who debriefed Scott Philpot was, in fact, the lead staffer for Jamie Gorelick," Weldon told the Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes." "His name was Dieter Snell."

Weldon contended: "It was Dieter Snell who did not brief the 9/11 Commission. The 9/11 Commissioners were never briefed on Able Danger."

He also said pretty much the same thing to Lou Dobbs on CNN:

That 9/11 Commission staffer made a decision not to brief the commissioners. That 9/11 Commission staffer was working for Jamie Gorelick, who was a member of the Commission, who wrote the famous memo that said they could not tranfer information between the military and the FBI.

First of all, the Gorelick memo - which you can read - dealt with FBI counterterrorism efforts and the need to separate countterterrorism from criminal prosecution, to avoid getting a mistrial. It did not have anything to do with the separation of FBI counterterrorism from CIA countterterrorism, DIA countterterrorism, or anything else. William Dugan established this at the Judiciary Committee hearing.

Now, on to the real substance of the argument.

Did Snell debrief Phillpott? Yes. Was he working for Jamie Gorelick? No. Not any more than he was working for Slade Gordon or any other member of the Commission, as opposed to the Commission staff. He was working for Philip Zelikow, the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission staff who hired him as Senior Counsel.

Who is Philip Zelikow? Zelikow is now the lead Counsel for Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Zelikow also wrote a document called the National Security Strategy for Rice back in 2002. Not exactly a Clinton administration hold over:

Zelikow, who's mostly stayed out of the spotlight, is a strange fit for the role of administration scourge. Intellectually, he's squarely in the neoconservative camp. He was part of the Bush foreign policy transition team, and the president later named him to his presidential advisory board on intelligence. Zelikow is reportedly close to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, with whom he co-wrote a book about German reunification in 1995. In 2002, according to James Mann's Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet, Rice tapped Zelikow to rewrite the National Security Strategy of the United States, which emphasized preemption. He also fought for the administration's corner in his academic writing. After working on the National Security Strategy, Zelikow wrote a 6,000-word article in the neoconservative journal The National Interest praising his own document for its "explicit adaptation to the new conditions of international life."

Not only did Zelikow hire Snell, he put him in charge of writing the section of the 9/11 Commission report that dealt with the 9/11 plot. As Ernest R. May told The New Republic:

With agreement from the commissioners and his colleagues in the front office, Zelikow divided the staff into teams, more or less coinciding with topics in the outline. MacEachin headed one studying Al Qaeda. In time, this team split in two, with Dietrich Snell captaining a group that worked specifically on the 9/11 plot and the movements of the hijackers. Though a lawyer through and through, Snell had prosecuted terrorists in New York, was fascinated by the terrible story, and proved to be both a natural-born historian and a gifted writer. Hurley led the team that focused on U.S. counterterrorism activity prior to September 11.

MacEachin's, Snell's, and Hurley's teams found offices in the premises that Hamilton had obtained from the CIA. So did a team that concentrated on the intelligence community, as well as parts of a team that dealt with terrorist finance. This Special Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF, pronounced "skiff"), essentially one large safe, housed also the front office and the commission's sensitive files. It had the commission's principal conference room. Other staff in Washington and New York worked on topics such as emergency response on September 11, which required less access to highly classified material, but the SCIF was where the commission met and where all drafts for the final report ended up.

Zelikow asked all the teams to start preparing timelines and monographs for their subjects. For some, this was the first hint that they might not be writing a conventional government report--that they would be writing history. MacEachin set the example, turning out a rolling chronology into which he fitted every new scrap of information. Nearly all members of the staff accommodated to this way of sorting evidence--and this way of thinking about it. In the late spring of 2003, when the outline was finally unveiled before all the commissioners, it appeared to have won acceptance among the staff. The commission endorsed it almost without debate.

It is also worth noting that while Zelikow had been told about Able Danger in October 2003, he subsequently ignored Tony Shaffer, when Shaffer attempted to contact him to discuss it in more detail.

Snell on the other hand, did not meet with Phillpott until days before the 9/11 Report was supposed to go to press. As the Commission describes in their press release from August 12, 2005:

On July 12, 2004, as the drafting and editing process for the Report was coming to an end (the Report was released on July 22, and editing continued to occur through July 17), a senior staff member, Dieter Snell, accompanied by another staff member, met with the officer at one of the Commission’s Washington, D.C. offices. A representative of the DOD also attended the interview.

According to the memorandum for the record on this meeting, prepared the next day by Mr. Snell, the officer said that ABLE DANGER included work on “link analysis,” mapping links among various people involved in terrorist networks. According to this record, the officer recalled seeing the name and photo of Mohamed Atta on an “analyst notebook chart” assembled by another officer (who he said had retired and was now working as a DOD contractor).

The officer being interviewed said he saw this material only briefly, that the relevant material dated from February through April 2000, and that it showed Mohamed Atta to be a member of an al Qaeda cell located in Brooklyn. The officer complained that this information and information about other alleged members of a Brooklyn cell had been soon afterward deleted from the document (“redacted”) because DOD lawyers were concerned about the propriety of DOD intelligence efforts that might be focused inside the United States. The officer referred to these as “posse comitatus” restrictions. Believing the law was being wrongly interpreted, he said he had complained about these restrictions up his chain of command in the U.S. Special Operations Command, to no avail....

The interviewee had no documentary evidence and said he had only seen the document briefly some years earlier. He could not describe what information had led to this supposed Atta identification. Nor could the interviewee recall, when questioned, any details about how he thought a link to Atta could have been made by this DOD program in 2000 or any time before 9/11. The Department of Defense documents had mentioned nothing about Atta, nor had anyone come forward between September 2001 and July 2004 with any similar information. Weighing this with the information about Atta’s actual activities, the negligible information available about Atta to other U.S. government agencies and the German government before 9/11, and the interviewer’s assessment of the interviewee’s knowledge and credibility, the Commission staff concluded that the officer’s account was not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the report or further investigation.

Notice that it does not say Snell made the decision, it only says that "the Commission staff" did. That leads me to believe that Snell showed Zelikow his momorandum which specifically named Atta, and it was Zelikow, not Snell, who deemed it "not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the report or further investigation".

Now compare the records Snell kept, explicitly mentioning Atta, with the records that Zelikow kept when he met Shaffer in Afghanistan. From the same press release:

On October 21, 2003, Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, two senior Commission staff members, and a representative of the executive branch, met at Bagram Base, Afghanistan, with three individuals doing intelligence work for the Department of Defense. One of the men, in recounting information about al Qaeda’s activities in Afghanistan before 9/11, referred to a DOD program known as ABLE DANGER. He said this program was now closed, but urged Commission staff to get the files on this program and review them, as he thought the Commission would find information about al Qaeda and Bin Ladin that had been developed before the 9/11 attack. He also complained that Congress, particularly the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), had effectively ended a human intelligence network he considered valuable.

As with their other meetings, Commission staff promptly prepared a memorandum for the record. That memorandum, prepared at the time, does not record any mention of Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers, or any suggestion that their identities were known to anyone at DOD before 9/11. Nor do any of the three Commission staffers who participated in the interview, or the executive branch lawyer, recall hearing any such allegation.

Was Snell on this trip? If not, who else was? The plot thickens.

Here is some more background information on Zelikow:

Zelikow practiced law in the early 1980s, but he turned toward the
field of national security in the mid 1980s. He was adjunct professor
of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California in 1984-1985, and served in three different offices of the U.S. Department of State in the second Reagan administration.

Zelikow joined the National Security Council in the George Herbert Walker Bush administration, at the same time as Condoleezza Rice. Zelikow left the NSC in 1991 and went to Harvard, where from 1991 to 1998 he was Associate Professor of Public Policy and co-director of Harvard's Intelligence and Policy Program.

In 1998 Zelikow moved to the University of Virginia, where he directs the nation's largest center on the American presidency, serves as director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs and, as White Burkett Miller Professor of History, holds an endowed chair.

Philip Zelikow has co-authored many books. He wrote a book with Ernest May on The Kennedy Tapes, and another with Joseph Nye and David King on Why People Don't Trust Government. He wrote Germany Unified and Europe Transformed with Condoleezza Rice.

Prof. Zelikow's area of academic expertise is the creation and maintenance of, in his words, "public myths" or "public presumptions," which he defines as "beliefs (1) thought to be true (although not necessarily known to be true with certainty), and (2) shared in common within the relevant political community." In his academic work and elsewhere he has taken a special interest in what he has called "'searing' or 'molding' events [that] take on 'transcendent' importance and, therefore, retain their power even as the experiencing generation passes from the scene. In the United States, beliefs about the formation of the nation and the Constitution remain powerful today, as do beliefs about slavery and the Civil War. World War II, Vietnam, and the civil rights struggle are more recent examples." He has noted that "a history's narrative power is typically linked to how readers relate to the actions of individuals in the history; if readers cannot make a connection to their own lives, then a history may fail to engage them at all" ("Thinking about Political History," Miller Center Report [Winter 1999], pp. 5-7).

In the November-December 1998 number of Foreign Affairs, he co-authored an article entitled “Catastrophic Terrorism,” in which he speculated that if the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center had succeeded, “the resulting horror and chaos would have exceeded our ability to describe it. Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime and undermine America’s fundamental sense of security, as did the Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949. Like Pearl Harbor, the event would divide our past and future into a before and after. The United States might respond with draconian measures scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either future terrorist attacks or U.S. counterattacks. Belatedly, Americans would judge their leaders negligent for not addressing terrorism more urgently.”

Philip Zelikow served on President Bush's transition team in 2000-2001. After George W. Bush took office, Zelikow was named to a position on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and worked on other task forces and commissions as well, including the National Commission on Federal Election Reform.

Posted by Mike at 05:53 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1)

October 21, 2005

New Weldon Audio and Video Clips on Able Danger

Thanks to Vi at QT Monster for getting me all this material.

On Wednesday evening, Weldon went on the Savage Nation.
The clip is about 17 minutes. (3.0 MB - MP3)

Next, he gave a powerful speech on the floor of the House.
Vi got about 20 minutes of excerpts. (4.8 MB - WMA)
You can also hear this 90 second clip. (340 KB - WAV)

Thursday, Weldon appeared on several talk radio programs.
Here is his interview with Sean Hannity. (5.7 MB - MP3)
Here is an interview with Victoria Taft. (7.8 MB - MP3)

Thursday night, Weldon was interviewed on CNN by Lou Dobbs.
Here is the segment in Windows Media. (5.9 MB - WMV)
Here is the segment in Quicktime. (5.0 MB - MOV)

No major newpaper has commented on these developments. None.

Posted by Mike at 03:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Able Danger in the news

Conservative columnistJ. Grant Swank Jr. gives a running commentary on Weldon's speech:

If what US Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) says is true about the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), America has been wearing a blindfold so as not to see the truth about 9 / 11 prevention.

Weldon, Vice Chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security Committee, addressed the House of Representatives. He exposed the DIA as a perpetrator of deceit and intentionally destroying the reputation of a reputable American so that the latter would not be able to tell the truth. He is LTC Anthony Shaffer, a 23-year defense intelligence officer, whom the DIA has sought to smear.

...Just months ago, Weldon stated he discovered that Able Danger "actually identified the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda in January and February 2000, over 1 year before 9 / 11 ever happened. In addition, I learned that not only did we identify the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda, but we identified Mohamed Atta as one of the members of that Brooklyn cell along with three other terrorists who were the leadership of the 9/11 attack."

I was hoping someone would point out it was not just "4 of the 19".

Shaun Waterman has an updated piece for the UPI, but I have no idea who carries the UPI other than the Washington Times, and they have not picked up the story yet. Anyway, here is the article:

“There is something outrageous at work here,” Weldon said. “Mr. Speaker, we could ignore this. I cannot. If it means I have to resign from this body, I will resign.”

After the speech, Weldon told reporters he had written to the inspector-general of the Department of Defense to ask for “an immediate formal inquiry, with people testifying under oath” into what he called “a clear witch-hunt” against Shaffer.

In a turn of events that clearly outraged Weldon, Shaffer said boxes of his personal effects, returned to him by the DIA earlier this month, contained both government property and classified documents.

“Sending classified material through the mail is a felony, and much more serious than any of these minor, trumped-up charges against [Shaffer],” Weldon said, adding that “I want the appropriate persons held accountable.”

A DIA spokesman told ISN Security Watch that the agency had indeed mailed Shaffer his personal effects from his workspace at the DIA. “We’re not aware of any classified material being included in that shipment,” said the spokesman. He had no immediate comment on any of Weldon’s other charges.

Canada Free Press also has a story on the speech:

Was it a typo or a boast in code from Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) arsenal when the word "Abel" somehow replaced "Able", as in Able Danger in the published text from Rep. Curt Weldon’s defense of Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer on the House Floor yesterday?

Able was spelled Abel several times in the typed transcript from Weldon’s hour-long plea to Congressmen for a new probe into what he says is a "witch-hunt by defense officials against a September 11 intelligence whistleblower" (Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer).

Able Danger was the elite, 20-member, highly classified U.S. Army Intelligence program under the command of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) that identified Mohammed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers more than a year before the attack only to have their intelligence blocked by lawyers in the Bill Clinton administration,

And now it’s happening again to what Weldon says could be "a second pot of information". Only this time it’s defense officials and lawyers blocking the truth from coming out.

Biblical brother Abel was the first recorded murder, as related in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 4:1 through 4:16. Abel was toiling in the field when his brother, Cain rose up against him and slew him.

There are enough twists and turns in the Able Danger story without boasts in code.

Am I my brother's keeper? It looks like it was only mispelled twice, toward the end of page one of five. I wouldn't make too much of it.

Posted by Mike at 11:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Able Danger is finally seeing the light of day

It's official. I'm going to go watch "Good Night, and Good Luck" this weekend. I hope some real journalists will go do the same.

'Good Night, And Good Luck.' takes place during the early days of broadcast journalism in 1950's America. It chronicles the real-life conflict between television newsman Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. With a desire to report the facts and enlighten the public, Murrow, and his dedicated staff - headed by his producer Fred Friendly and Joe Wershba in the CBS newsroom - defy corporate and sponsorship pressures to examine the lies and scaremongering tactics perpetrated by McCarthy during his communist 'witch-hunts'. A very public feud develops when the Senator responds by accusing the anchor of being a communist. In this climate of fear and reprisal, the CBS crew carries on and their tenacity will prove historic and monumental.

Here is Curt Weldon on Sean Hannity:

SH: You know what I'd like to do, Congressman? I actually have the ability, I would like to sit down with all 7 of these guys for a national 1 hour TV special on the Fox News channel. If you can get all 7 of these guys I will tape it. This weekend, next weekend, I'll fly down to Washington. You let me know what you want me to do. This needs to be brought to the attention of the American people. We need to expose this. And we need to get some more main stream coverage. I cannot believe that if we don't learn the lessons from the past, our countrymen are going to die again.

CW: Here's our problem, the Pentagon today will not allow any of these people who work for the Pentagon, to talk to the media and they have gagged them from talking to members of Congress.

SH: Can Col. Shaffer no longer talk to us?

CW: Col. Shaffer is prohibited by his lawyer from talking. He's at great risk, he has talked to some people. He's at great risk, which is why they want to take away his pay and his health care benefits so they can hold it over his head and not allow him to talk while he's under suspension. This is not America, Sean. There's nothing here about our national security. There's no classified information. This is a story that needs to be told, that has been stopped by people in the Defense Intelligence Agency, who were in that agency, the career bureaucrats that were in that agency, when they had access to this information, and did nothing with it. They're still there, Sean. And for the life of me I can't understand why, and I said to Mr. Don Rumsfeld 10 days ago, who I support, I said, Mr. Secretary, why can't they talk in public.

More importantly, Captain Ed, one of the most popular conservative bloggers, drops this bomb shell insider account on us tonight, too:

Deputy Director of DIA is Mark Ewing. He won't be in that position for very long, seeing as how he recently put in his paperwork to resign. This action comes after he had a spat with the outgoing director, Admiral Lowell Jacoby, the subject of which is not clear ... there is the recent revelation that Ewing may very well have pulled a three-monkeys trick (see/hear/speak no evil) when presented with the findings of Able Danger. As the senior leadership exodus at DIA continues (see below) Ewing would have been the last one standing and facing the music. He would like to flee the intelligence community completely but that is apparently not possible: through a curious set of administrative circumstances he has ample government service time under his belt, but cannot retire and collect his pension (details require a long explanation). If anyone needs to panic it is Ewing.

Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby is the outgoing director of DIA. His previous assignment, in the late 2001 time-frame, was the J2 (the DOD's top officer for warning). Not many outside the business know this but his retirement timetable seemed to accelerate about the time ABLE DANGER hit the fan. This is a guy who never met a mission that he didn't want to kill or ignore if there was any chance that it would prevent him from achieving that next star on his collar. Jacoby is a naval officer but not a "ship-driver". If he were, you tell me, would you want serve on the ship being captained by a guy would didn't think it would be prudent to put the vessel in the water due to the risks involved in actually sailing? When he does go sailing he likes to make sure that there are plenty of familiar hands to help man the sails. Once he was firmly in the director's chair, he began a purge of the old executive corps at DIA, replacing most of them with friends from the office of naval intelligence. When he couldn't easily force incumbents out of their seats, he simply created new executive positions to put his pals into.

The head of HUMINT at DIA is a guy named Bill Huntington (he spoke during the DOD briefing on Able Danger). Technically he's the vice deputy director for HUMINT, but in all of these jobs the civilian deputy is the long-term head of office, while the military officer who is named the head of the office is the short-timer. Huntington is in the process of attempting to flee DIA for the DNI.

The deputy director of intelligence (head of the analysis office) is Earl Sheck. Sheck was one of the first cronies Jacoby brought over from ONI. As the keeper of the analytical resources at DIA, the odds that Sheck also knew something about Able Danger are pretty good. Able Danger was a SOCOM/LIWA show, but if they were using tools from Orion (also have contracts at DIA) and working CT issues, inevitably they would have talked to relevant offices in DIA, if nothing else than to bounce ideas off of each other or to request additional intel support. DIA's CT mission is run by the J2, but to think that Sheck would not be aware to some extent is inconceivable. Sheck is also rumored to have one foot out the door.

An intelligence agency, full of cronies who all botched their respective roles during the decades preceding and years after September 11th, thought they could handily weather the Able Danger storm. When it became clear that the ship was about to capsize, they all couldn't move fast enough for the life rafts. Not like they would have much to worry about given the tendency to not punish intelligence officers for negligence, but then the DIA isn't the CIA, and military officers (like Jacoby) have the UCMJ to worry about.

Even Mac's Mind, who never gets tired of making fun of Able Danger, is jumping back on the band wagon - granted with one eye on the exit:

"Able Danger - The Great Summer Story - Re-Awakens!"

I wonder what Cobweb has to say about all of this?

Posted by Mike at 01:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 20, 2005

Weldon was talking about Ewing not Ennis

Okay, I'm updating this because from all of Weldon's statements today it is clear he is talking about someone who was at DIA in 2000 and is still there today, trying to ruin Tony Shaffer's career. Ennis did not join DIA until 2004, so cleary that can not be who Weldon means. I think when he says "Deputy Director" he means "Deputy Director". Mac's ambigious post mentioning Ennis sounds to me like blowing smoke.

From his interview with Sean Hannity today:

This is a story that needs to be told, that has been stopped by people in the Defense Intelligence Agency, who were in that agency, the career bureaucrats that were in that agency, when they had access to this information, and did nothing with it. They're still there, Sean.

In his blistering speech on the House floor, Weldon makes repeated references to the Deputy Director at the DIA:

Mr. Speaker, in August and September I met with the military officials involved with Abel Danger and one by one they told their story, until, Mr. Speaker, leaders in the Defense Intelligence Agency, including the deputy director, decided they do not want the story told. I think because they perhaps are fearful of being embarrassed and humiliated.

According to this DIA web page, no longer online, but still cached by Google:

DIA Command Element

Overview: The Director of DIA is a three-star military officer who serves as principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense and to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on matters of military intelligence. The Deputy Director is a senior federal executive and acts as the Director's second-in-command. The Chief-of-Staff is also a senior federal executive and controls the day-to-day operation of the agency and the major task of leading and directing the agency's human resource program.

DIA's Current Command Element:

Director: VADM Lowell E. Jacoby, USN

Deputy Director: Mr. Mark W. Ewing

Chief of Staff: Mr. John K. Kiehm

Mark Ewing is also listed as Deputy Director in this DOD directory:

DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Dir VADM Thomas R Wilson USN
Dep Dir Mark W Ewing

Mac's Mind thinks Weldon is really referring to the Deputy Director for HUMINT, not the Deputy Director of the whole DIA:

UPDATE: Weldon was talking about the pressure on Schaffer coming from the Office of Deputy DIA. Well that's a little broad. I made a call, a name.....General Michael Ennis is currently the Deputy Director for Human Intelligence and comes directly under the Director's office.

I doubt it. Here is a short biography for Ennis:

Major General Michael E. Ennis was appointed Deputy Director for Human Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency, on 20 January 2004. He previously served as the Commandant's Director of Intelligence at Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps....

Following an eighteen month tour of duty in Okinawa as a Rifle Platoon Commander and Battalion Embarkation Officer, 1st Lieutenant Ennis was assigned to officer recruiting duty in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he spent three years recruiting officer candidates from the colleges and universities of Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

In 1978, Captain Ennis entered the Foreign Area Officer program and spent two years studying Russian, first at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and then at the U.S. Army's Russian Institute in Garmisch, Germany. In 1980 he returned to Okinawa where he served one year as the Deputy G-2 of the 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade and as the S-2 of the 9th Marine Regiment. Upon returning to the United States, Captain Ennis spent three years as a translator on the Washington-Moscow Hotline (MOLINK).

In 1986 Major Ennis returned to Europe where he spent over three years in Potsdam, East Germany as the Naval Representative to the CINC, Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. He returned to the United States in 1989 and was assigned as the Operations Officer, 2nd Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Intelligence Group. LtCol Ennis completed a Military Fellowship at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. He was then assigned to Moscow, Russia where he served as the Assistant Naval Attaché and as the U.S. Military representative to Azerbaijan.

Upon selection to Colonel in 1993, he was returned to the United States where he served two years as the Director of the Intelligence Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps. From 1995 to July 1998, Colonel Ennis served as the AC/S G-2 of the III Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa and in 1998 he was named Commander of the Joint Intelligence Center Pacific (JICPAC) in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii where he remained until he was selected for Brigadier General in 2000. He was selected for Major General in 2005 and assumed his current rank on 18 May, 2005.

Major General Ennis' personal decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters, the Joint Service Commendation Medal, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with one gold star, the Army Commendation Medal, and the Army Achievement Medal.

Ewing on the other hand, seems to have been Deputy Director forever:

Director Vice Adm. Thomas R. Wilson, USN
Deputy Director Mark W. Ewing
Chief of Staff John K. Kiehm

Wilson retired back in 2002. Here is another reference from 2000:

Mr. Mark W. Ewing, Deputy Director, Defense Intelligence Agency

My gut feeling is that Weldon is talking about Ewing, not Ennis, but that is still only an educated guess.

Posted by Mike at 02:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Complete text of Weldon speech

Sorry dailup users. Here it is from the Library of Congress:

(Here are the PDFs: Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 31 | Page 4 | Page 5)

ABLE DANGER FAILURE -- (House of Representatives - October 19, 2005)

[Page: H8979] GPO's PDF

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Reichert). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon ) is recognized for 60 minutes.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk to our colleagues and through our colleagues to the American people about an issue that troubles me greatly.

I have been in this institution 19 years, and during those 19 years I have been on the Committee on Armed Services. Currently, I am the vice chairman of that committee and chairman of the subcommittee that oversees the purchase of our weapons systems. In the past I have chaired the research subcommittee. I have chaired the readiness subcommittee, and I have spent every available hour of my time working to make sure that our military troops were properly protected and have the proper equipment and training.

I am a strong supporter of our military. Whether it was in the last 2 years of the Reagan administration, the four years of the Bush administration, the 8 years of the Clinton administration, or the current administration of President George W. Bush, I have been a strong supporter of our military. I am a strong supporter of President Bush. I campaigned for him. I am a strong supporter of Secretary Rumsfeld. I say all of that, Mr. Speaker, because tonight I rise to express my absolute outrage and disgust with what is happening in our defense intelligence agencies.

Mr. Speaker, back in 1999 when I was Chair of the defense research subcommittee, the Army was doing cutting-edge work on a new type of technology to allow us to understand and predict emerging transnational terrorist threats. That technology was being done at several locations, but was being led by our Special Forces Command. The work that they were doing was unprecedented. And because of what I saw there, I supported the development of a national capability of a collaborative center that the CIA would just not accept.

In fact, in November 4 of 1999, 2 years before 9/11, in a meeting in my office with the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Deputy Director of the CIA, Deputy Director of the FBI, we presented a nine-page proposal to create a national collaborative center. When we finished the brief, the CIA said we did not need that capability, and so before 9/11 we did not have it.

When President Bush came in after a year of research, he announced the formation of the Terrorism Threat Integration Center, exactly what I had proposed in 1999. Today it is known as the NCTC, the National Counterterrorism Center. But, Mr. Speaker, what troubles me is not the fact that we did not take those steps.

What troubles me is that I now have learned in the last 4 months that one of the tasks that was being done in 1999 and 2000 was a top-secret program organized at the request of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, carried out by the general in charge of our Special Forces Command, a very elite unit focusing on information regarding al Qaeda. It was a military language effort to allow us to identify the key cells of al Qaeda around the world and to give the military the capability to plan actions against those cells so they could not attack us as they did in 1993 at the Trade Center, at the Khobar Towers, the U.S.S. Cole attack, and the African embassy bombings.

What I did not know, Mr. Speaker, up until June of this year, was that that secret program called Able Danger actually identified the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda in January and February of 2000, over 1 year before 9/11 every happened. In addition, I learned that not only did we identify the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda, but we identified Mohamed Atta as one of the members of that Brooklyn cell along with three other terrorists who were the leadership of the 9/11 attack.

I have also learned, Mr. Speaker, that in September of 2000, again, over 1 year before 9/11, that Able Danger team attempted on three separate occasions to provide information to the FBI about the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda, and on three separate occasions they were denied by lawyers in the previous administration to transfer that information.

Mr. Speaker, this past Sunday on ``Meet the Press,'' Louis Freeh, FBI Director at the time, was interviewed by Tim Russert. The first question to Louis Freeh was in regard to the FBI's ability to ferret out the terrorists. Louis Freeh's response, which can be obtained by anyone in this country as a part of the official record, was, Well, Tim, we are now finding out that a top-secret program of the military called Able Danger actually identified the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda and Mohammed Atta over a year before 9/11.

And what Louis Freeh said, Mr. Speaker, is that that kind of actionable data could have allowed us to prevent the hijackings that occurred on September 11.

So now we know, Mr. Speaker, that military intelligence officers working in a program authorized by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the general in charge of Special Forces Command, identified Mohammed Atta and three terrorists a year before 9/11, tried to transfer that information to the FBI were denied; and the FBI Director has now said publicly if he would have had that information, the FBI could have used it to perhaps prevent the hijackings that struck the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the plane that landed in Pennsylvania and perhaps saved 3,000 lives and changed the course of world history.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight because we have been trying to get the story out about Able Danger and what really happened. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, I have to rise tonight to tell you that as bad as this story is, and as bad as it is that the data was not transferred to the FBI, and as bad as it is that the 9/11 Commission totally ignored this entire story and referred to it as historically insignificant even though it was authorized by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, even though Louis Freeh has now said it could have provided information to prevent the attack against us, the 9/11 Commission ignored it. Not because the commissioners ignored it, but because someone at the staff level on the

9/11 Commission staff decided for whatever reason that they did not want to pursue the Abel Danger story.

Mr. Speaker, in August and September I met with the military officials involved with Abel Danger and one by one they told their story, until, Mr. Speaker, leaders in the Defense Intelligence Agency, including the deputy director, decided they do not want the story told. I think because they perhaps are fearful of being embarrassed and humiliated.

So what direction had they taken, Mr. Speaker?

They have gagged the military officers. They have prevented them from talking to any Member of Congress. They have prevented them from talking to the media. And the Defense Intelligence Agency has began a process to destroy the career and the life of Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer.

Now, it might be easy for us to ignore this, Mr. Speaker. We all have busy careers and worry about reelections every 2 years and worry about our own families and our jobs. But I cannot do that in this case and neither can this body, and neither can the other body. You see, Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer took an oath to defend our Constitution. He took the words ``duty, honor, country'' seriously and devoted 23 years of his life in four deployed intelligence operations of our military to protect America.

During the time he served our country, he has received the Bronze Star, an award that does not come easily, for showing acts of courage, leadership, and bravery in the course of his activities.

[Time: 20:30]
He has received public commendations from previous directors of the Defense Intelligence Agency, including General Patrick Hughes, including generals at Special Forces Command, and including Admiral Wilson of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He has received dozens of letters and commendations for his work. The laudatory comments I reviewed in his files are unbelievable.

But, you see, Mr. Speaker, there is a problem. The Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency was in a meeting with Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer almost a year before 9/11, and Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer showed him a disk in his office with information about al Qaeda and Mohammed Atta, and the Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency stopped the briefing and said, you cannot show me that. I do not want to see it. It might contain information I cannot look at.

Now, Tony Shaffer was not in the room alone, Mr. Speaker. There were other people, and we know their names. So we have witnesses. Now, the Deputy Director has denied that meeting and denied he was there and denied this particular story, but the fact is he knows that we are going to pursue it.

So what has happened to Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, Mr. Speaker? The Defense Intelligence Agency has lifted his security clearance. One day before he was to testify before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, in uniform, they permanently removed his security clearance. And now our Defense Intelligence Agency has told Colonel Shaffer's lawyer that they plan to seek a permanent removal of his pay and his health care benefits for him and his two children. Why, Mr. Speaker? Because Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, like Commander Scott Philpot of the Navy, like J. D. Smith, and like a host of other Able Danger employees, has told the truth.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I sat here in the 1990s and I sat here during the 9/11 investigation and watched a ridiculous situation develop with Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser under President Clinton. He walked into the National Archives before he was to testify before the 9/11 Commission looking through documents. He took documents out of the archives and stuffed them in his socks and pants so that no one would see them as he left the National Archives. Now, that is a felony, tampering with Federal documents and removing classified information regarding our security and information that the 9/11 commission needed to see.

Sandy Berger initially lied about it. He said he did not do it. Then he admitted it, and he was given a punishment. And, oh, by the way, his security clearance was temporarily lifted, but he will get it back again, for lying, for stealing, and for committing an act of outrage against our country's security. Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, a Bronze Star 23-year military veteran, simply told the truth and now his life is being ruined.

His career is ended. He is no longer in military intelligence. They have taken his security clearance, and they are about to destroy him as a person. They are about to deny him the basic health care and the salary that he has earned, and they are doing it in this way. This is outrageous. It is evil. They do not want to fire Tony because they also do not want him to talk to the media. So by suspending him and removing his pay and his health care, they hurt him bad, but he cannot talk because he is under suspension and his lawyer has advised him that to talk to the media, to talk to Members of Congress, even when he is not being paid, would cause him further problems and totally prevent him from ever having this gross problem reversed. Mr. Speaker, this is outrageous. Mr. Speaker, this is not America.

Over my 19 years in Congress, I have led 40 delegations to the former Soviet Union. I have sat in the face of the Soviet Communists and confronted them on full transparency. I sat at the table with President Lukashenko of Belarus, who has been called by our Secretary of State the last dictator in Europe. I took both delegations to North Korea, Mr. Speaker, and sat across the table from Kim Gye Gwan and I told him we abhor the way they treat their people, the way they lie about what is happening, and the way they distort information.

Mr. Speaker, I took three delegations to Libya to meet with Qadhafi, and I told him that we are absolutely outraged at what Libya did in helping complete the Lockerbie bombing and the bombing of the Berlin nightclub.

You know, Mr. Speaker, I never thought I would have to take the floor of this Chamber and make the same statements about the Defense Intelligence Agency. As a supporter of the President, as a supporter of the military, Mr. Speaker, if we allow this to go forward, then we send the signal to every man and woman wearing a uniform that if you tell the truth, you will be destroyed if a career bureaucrat above you does not like what you are saying. If you tell the truth, we will take your health care benefits away from your kids. If you tell

the truth, we will ruin you.

Mr. Speaker, this is not America. Mr. Speaker, this is not what I have been told by Secretary Rumsfeld that we are doing with our troops in protecting them, in giving them the best equipment and the best training. This is not what I spend hours in committee hearings on. This sends the wrong signal to America's troops. It tells them, do not be honest. Do not respect the fact that you have to be truthful. If there is somebody that the truth offends, then you better be silent.

Mr. Speaker, I have today asked for an independent investigation of the Defense Intelligence Agency and their efforts at destroying Tony Shaffer's life. This is outrageous, Mr. Speaker. They trumped up charges against him. They said while he was overseas in Afghanistan, forward deployed, that he forwarded cell phone calls from his official phone to his personal phone; and when they checked that out, it ran up a cost to the taxpayers of about $60. The second verbal charge they gave him was that he went to a course at the Army War College and he got reimbursed for his travel, his mileage and tolls, 100-some dollars. And they said he received a commendation for which he was not entitled, even though it was signed by his commanding officer and the acting Secretary of the Army.

But they went beyond that, Mr. Speaker. They went beyond that with this man. They said he had $2,000 of debt, personal debt. Well, I would like to have every Pentagon employee tomorrow, I would like to have the senior leadership show us what debt they have in the Defense Intelligence Agency so we can make that public.

They even went to this length, Mr. Speaker: the Defense Intelligence Agency wrote in an official document that Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer stole public property. A serious charge. Well, when you check what that public property was, it was an assortment of pens, government pens. But what they did not say in the Defense Intelligence report was that he took those pens when he was 15 years of age and was with his father when he was on assignment at one of our embassy outposts. He took the pens to give to other students at the school when he was 15 years of age. And by the way, Mr. Speaker, it was Tony Shaffer himself who admitted to that thievery when he applied for his security clearance. So the Defense Intelligence Agency knew that during his entire career of 23 years, but they put that in the document against him.

This is a scandal, Mr. Speaker. It is an outrage. It is a travesty. Everyone that worked with Tony Shaffer, the Navy officers, the private citizens have all said the same thing. This is a scandal to get Tony Shaffer because he has told the truth.

Now, this Defense Intelligence Agency and this Deputy Director had the audacity to have their legal counsel send Tony Shaffer's lawyer a letter on September 23. I cannot put that letter in the RECORD because it is privileged information, but it will eventually come out. But in that letter, in the second to last paragraph, the legal counsel for the Defense Intelligence Agency says to Mr. Shaffer's lawyer, he cannot receive any more classified information from the Defense Intelligence Agency because I checked and his security clearances have all been removed. Therefore, he is not allowed to look at anything that is secret or confidential.

Now, that is a letter sent by the general counsel of the DIA on September 23 of this year. Two weeks later, Mr. Speaker, to show the stupidity of the Defense Intelligence Agency, they send seven packages to Mr. Shaffer's lawyer

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of his personal belongings, which the Deputy Director of the DIA told my staff 3 months ago did not exist any more. And in those seven boxes, Mr. Speaker, were five classified memos. The Defense Intelligence Agency sent five classified memos to Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, which they told him on September 23 he was not allowed to have access to.
Mr. Speaker, that is a felony; and I have asked the Inspector General and the legal officials to investigate and prosecute the Defense Intelligence officials who sent five classified documents through the mail or by hand delivery to Tony Shaffer.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, the Defense Intelligence Agency, in its absolute total stupidity, included in those boxes $500 worth of Federal property, including a multi-hundred dollar GPS system owned by the Federal Government, which they sent to Tony Shaffer, I guess to keep. They also sent, Mr. Speaker, 25 pens, brand new, and marked on them is ``Property of the U.S. Government.'' The Defense Intelligence Agency, in its absolute utter stupidity, sent Tony Shaffer Federal property which they accused him of taking when he was 15 years of age.

Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong here. There is a bureaucracy in the Defense Intelligence Agency that is out of control. They want to destroy the reputation of a 23-year military officer, Bronze Star recipient, hero of our country, with two kids because people in defense intelligence are embarrassed at what is going to come out.

And what is going to come out, Mr. Speaker? Well, we are going to find out, Mr. Speaker, that that unit, Able Danger, not only identified Mohammed Atta before 9/11, not only did they try to pass that information to the FBI, not only was that large data destroyed in the summer of 2000, but now, Mr. Speaker, I can add a new dimension to this whole story. Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I met with another Able Danger official. I was not aware of this official's knowledge because he does not live within the Beltway.

This official, Mr. Speaker, has impeccable credentials. I cannot reveal his name today. I will to any Member of this body, any of our colleagues that want to come to me, I will tell you privately who this official is, and you will agree with me when I tell you his name that he has impeccable credentials. This official yesterday, Mr. Speaker, in a meeting in my office, told me that he has never been talked to by the Pentagon. He has never been talked to by the Defense Intelligence Agency in their supposed investigation. He has never been talked to by the 9/11 Commission staff in their investigation; yet this official had a leadership position in Able Danger.

This official told me that there is a separate cache of information collected from over 20 Federal agencies in 1999 and 2000 on Able Danger that still may exist. Now, the Pentagon has told us all this material was destroyed, and now I have a senior official telling me there is a second pot of information that may well still exist.

Furthermore, at the hearing over in the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, when Senator Specter asked why this data was destroyed, the witness who destroyed the data said, well, I was told that we could not keep this data for more than 90 days because it might involve information that contains U.S. persons, so we had to destroy it.

[Time: 20:45]
Well, I found out that is not the story. The reason the data was destroyed was because Special Forces Command asked the Army for that data and within a matter of days, that data was destroyed so the Army would not pass it to Special Forces Command. Yet there still is, was and I hope still is a massive pot of data.

But furthermore, that official that I talked to yesterday will also say that there was no 90-day requirement, as was testified before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He said on a regular basis they kept information from Able Danger data mining for months and months and months. In fact, he will say he had a discussion with a lawyer in DOD named Schiffren who told him do not worry about it, just fill out a document, sign your name that you need it, put it in the box, and you can keep it as long as you want.

Mr. Speaker, that is entirely contradictory to what the Defense Intelligence Agency has been telling us, to what DOD has been telling us. Now we have someone who is willing to come forward and say that 90-day period is not real, they kept Able Danger information for months and months and months.

Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong here. A sitting President of the United States resigned his position because he tried to cover up a third-rate burglary when some low-level operatives from the Republican committee to reelect him broke into the Democrat headquarters in Washington, D.C. No one was killed. No money was stolen. No State secrets were stolen. It was a third-rate burglary, but it caused the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about the deaths of 3,000 Americans.

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about 2.5 terabytes of data about al Qaeda. That is equal to one-fourth of all of the printed material in the Library of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about Mohammed Atta and three of the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11.

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about military intelligence officers, including an Annapolis graduate who will command one of our destroyers in January of 2006 who risked his entire career to state on the record I will swear until I die that I saw Mohammed Atta's face every day starting in January of 2000, a year and a half before 9/11.

Mr. Speaker, this is not somebody off the street, this is a graduate of Annapolis, a 23-year Naval officer who will command one of our destroyers in January who is agreeing with Lieutenant Shaffer. We have three other people who have testified under oath that they saw the same photograph, and the person I met yesterday will testify that he had the name of a Mohammed Atta before 9/11 but not the face.

Mr. Speaker, this is not some third-rate burglary coverup. This is not some Watergate incident. This is an attempt to prevent the American people from knowing the facts about how we could have prevented 9/11 and people are covering it up today. They are ruining the career of a military officer to do it and we cannot let it stand. I do not care whether you are Democrat or Republican, you cannot let a lieutenant colonel's career be ruined because of some bureaucrat in the Defense Intelligence Agency. If we let that happen, then no one who wears the uniform will ever feel protected because we will have let them down. Anyone who wears the uniform of this country who is serving today expects us to back him or her up and that is not happening. We are seeing lying, distortion.

Mr. Speaker, do you know, Wolf Blitzer on CNN told my staff that a Department of Defense employee told him that Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer was having an affair with one of my employees. How low can we go, Mr. Speaker? How low can we go to allow this Defense Department to try to ruin the reputation and the personal life of a lieutenant colonel with a Bronze Star? To Wolf Blitzer, Mr. Speaker.

We need to know the name of that defense official who told Wolf Blitzer who told my staff, and he is not the only one. I have other media people who will come forward in this grand effort to destroy the reputation of a uniformed military officer, to create scandalous accusations. He does not even know my staff, to accuse him of stealing pens when he was 15, to take away his health care benefits for his two kids because he is telling the truth.

What do we stand for if not the truth? Is it more important that we be politically correct? Is it more important that I not rock the boat because my party is in the White House, because I campaigned for Bush, and support Don Rumsfeld. Is that more important? If that is more important, I do not want to be here. I will leave. I will leave my post, but I will not do it until we get justice for this man and for these people who the 9/11 Commission called historically insignificant.

Mr. Speaker, there is something wrong inside the Beltway.

Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong when a military officer risks his life in Afghanistan time and again, embedded with our troops under

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an assumed name with a false beard and a false identity, forward deployed with our troops, gets castigated, gets ridiculed, gets some low life scum at the Pentagon spreading malicious lies about this individual, and then say to his lawyer, we are going to take away his health care benefits, we are going to take away his salary.
Mr. Speaker, if we allow this to stand as Democrats and Republicans, then none of us deserve to be here. When we all go overseas and meet the troops, we tell them how proud we are of them. We provide funding for them. We give them training and take care of their families. What we are allowing to happen right now is the Defense Intelligence Agency to ruin the career and the life of a man who spent 23 years protecting his Nation. If Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer was telling this story alone in a vacuum, that would be one thing. But he has been corroborated over and over again. I have met with at least 10 people who fully corroborate what Tony Shaffer says. Those meetings with the FBI, the FBI employee still works there and she told the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, I set those meetings up with the FBI to transfer information about al Qaeda and Able Danger. So she is still there and she testified.

What we have here, I am convinced of this now, is an aggressive attempt by CIA management to cover up their own shortcomings in not being able to do what the Able Danger team did: They identified Mohammed Atta and the al Qaeda cell of Brooklyn 1 year before 9/11. But even before that, as the story unfolds, you are going to hear the story that they also identified the threat to the USS Cole 2 weeks before the attack, and 2 days before the attack were screaming not to let the USS Cole come into the harbor at Yemen because they knew something was about to happen.

Mr. Speaker, bad news never comes easy; but in a democracy, the bad news has to come out so we can make sure it does not happen again.

Mr. Speaker, this whole thing started, not to embarrass anyone, this whole thing started because none of us knew that Mohammed Atta was identified before 9/11. It started because this Congress, this body in particular, tried to establish what is now in place back in 1999, a national collaborative center, but the CIA said we did not need it. The American people deserve to

have the answers here. They deserve to know why 3,000 people died. They deserve to know what we could have done and should have done to better prepare ourselves and to work to prepare for the next incident. The American people need to know where those multiple terabytes of data is. Is it still being used? We know in January of 2001, General Shelton was given a 3-hour briefing on Able Danger. So even if they destroyed the data back in the summer of 2000, in January of 2001 there was enough material to give General Shelton, Commander of the Joint Chiefs, a 3-hour briefing.

Mr. Speaker, there is something here. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but there is something desperately wrong, Mr. Speaker. There is something outrageous at work here. This is not a third-rate burglary of a political campaign headquarters. This involved what is right now the covering up of information that led to the deaths of 3,000 people, changed the course of history, led to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and has disrupted our country, our economy and people's lives.

Mr. Speaker, we could ignore this. I cannot. If it means I have to resign from this body, I will resign. I will not allow, after 19 years in this body and as a vice chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, bureaucrats in the Defense Intelligence Agency to concoct stories, to talk about the theft of pens when this lieutenant colonel was 15 years old, to talk about this man's personal debt of $2,000. I would hate to check the indebtedness of Members of Congress. I know mine is more than $2,000.

Mr. Speaker, this is not America. I had a group of college students down from Drexel University. There were about 20 of them, including representative students from eight other nations. We talked about this. Of course we have talked about all of the problem countries in the world. We talk about our values as a Nation, the need for a democracy to have people involved, to have transparency, to have people who respect the rule of law and the Constitution.

How do I tell them that is what is working here, Mr. Speaker, when the Pentagon says that these people who simply want to tell the truth are not allowed? They are saying it is for classified purposes, yet the DOD lawyer on the Senate side there is nothing classified about any of the information. It is not about classified programs. I would be the last to want to see anything classified revealed. I have seen many, many instances where I have been given sensitive information that only a few people in the Congress and the country had. I would never reveal it. It is not about that. This is not about the DIA, this is not about the CIA, this is about CYA. It is about CYA by bureaucrats in the Defense Intelligence Agency and possibly some political operatives that do not want the facts to come out about Able Danger and the information that the Able Danger team put together. And in the process, they are going to destroy a man, a man who has been recognized by his country, who has a family, and who simply wants to do the right thing.

Mr. Speaker, I hated to take the floor tonight, but I did not know what else to do. We have committees of Congress working on this. I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), chairman of the FBI Appropriation Committee on Oversight. He is as outraged as I am. I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), who is looking at this, and the gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter). The Committee on Armed Services has a full-time staffer assigned to get to the facts of this. I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. King), chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, because he is looking at this. I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Chairman Hoekstra) and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He has met with Tony Shaffer and has offered to get more information. I want to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for standing up and beginning to ask questions, and I want to thank Senator Specter and Senator Biden, who attended a Committee on the Judiciary hearing and expressed their outrage. I want to thank Senator Sessions, Senator Kyl, and Senator Grassley, who were all there. In fact, Senator Grassley called it a coverup.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell you the number of Members who have come to me and said this is unacceptable. I would hope that as a result of what we have heard tonight every Member of Congress will ask for an inquiry. The gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. McKinney) wrote a letter to the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services asking for an investigation. We have from Republicans to Democrats, left to right, conservatives to liberals. What is happening here is unacceptable. It is unimaginable. It is un-American. All over the world tonight, young Americans are wearing our uniforms. They are doing a great job. They make us all proud when we travel overseas. They make us proud because of the pride they have. When I talk to them, they say I am glad to be doing what I am doing. I am doing the right thing for our country. I will go any place the Commander in Chief sends me. Whether I am in Afghanistan or Iraq, they will tell me that.

[Time: 21:00]
Whether we are in Kosovo or Somalia, they will tell us that. Whether we are at Hurricane Katrina, whether we are at Hurricane Andrew, or whether we are out in California, the earthquake, or the Midwestern floods, our troops are all the same. They respect our country. They respect our Constitution. If we allow this travesty to continue, Mr. Speaker, then we have let all of those people down for some nameless, faceless bureaucrat who is fearful that the information will finally come to light, that the DIA just did not get it.

Back in 1999 and 2000, they did not have a clue. They had millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, and could not do what a 20-member team did in being able to identify Mohammed Atta before the 9/11 attacks. DIA does not want that to come out, Mr. Speaker. They do not want that to come out. Heaven forbid the Defense Intelligence Agency, with hundreds of millions of dollars, would have a 20-member team do what they could not

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do because they were using new technology and new software. They do not want that to come out. That is why that Deputy Director, when he was at that meeting, said, I do not want to see this. Do not show it to me. And that is why today that Deputy Director is trying to ruin the career of Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer.
The only way to resolve this, Mr. Speaker, is to have a full independent investigation by the Inspector General of the Pentagon. I have asked Secretary Rumsfeld today to do that. I would ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in that request. Let the independent inspector for the Pentagon go in, not DIA. DIA cannot investigate itself. It does not have the capability to do that. It does not have the integrity to do that. Let the Inspector General do the investigation and while that is being done, protect Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer. He does not deserve to have his career ruined or destroyed for telling the truth.

And while we are at it, Mr. Speaker, if DIA is going to continue to press this ridiculous set of facts, then as I said earlier, I want DIA prosecuted for the five felonies they committed in sending classified documents to a person that 2 weeks earlier they said was incapable of receiving classified information. And if this continues, I want DIA held responsible for illegally transferring $500 of public assets to a person, that in the process of sending that stuff to him, DIA committed fraud against the taxpayers. I want them held accountable: DIA's stupidity; DIA's incompetence.

We have a new nominee for the head of DIA, and I am going to ask every Senator to fully explore each of these issues before that person is confirmed. I will meet with every Senator personally and go over all of this information. And I would encourage the Senators and the House Members to interview the other people who worked with Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer and to get their assessments of what is going on there. They will all tell them the same thing: Shaffer is being abused and used as a scapegoat. If they can ruin Shaffer, they can silence the story.

It cannot happen, Mr. Speaker. We cannot let it. That is not what America is about. That is not what we say to our enlisted personnel when they sign up for duty. That is not what we say when we pass our defense bills every year.

This man is being maligned and mistreated. He is being harassed. The most scurrilous accusations, totally unfounded, have been given to the American media; and I will name names, and I will ask for an investigation of the people who made those statements to these media people because it all needs to be put on the record.

And as someone tomorrow who will chair another hearing on our defense oversight to try to get the best value for the dollars for our military, I ask all of our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, on both sides of the aisle to join us. This is not Republicans or Democrats. It is about what is fundamental to this country. I would ask our constituents across America we represent to join us, to express their outrage, to e-mail, make phone calls, write letters to the Secretary of Defense, the President of the United States, to Members of Congress to simply let the story be told. Let the Able Danger story finally come out to the American people. Let them understand what really happened. Let Scott Philpott talk. Let Tony Shaffer talk. Let the others who have been silenced have a chance to tell their story to Congress and openly to the American people. In the end, the country will be stronger.

Posted by Mike at 10:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (2)

Is this why they are so afraid?

Captain Ed asks:

If the DIA really has resorted to these tactics, then it only demonstrates even more that they fear Shaffer and the rest of the Able Danger revelations. What has them so afraid?

Maybe we should ask the 9/11 Commission. They'll be in DC tomorrow:

The 9/11 Commission Report: The Unfinished Agenda: An ongoing series of public events assessing the progress of reform since the 9/11 Commission Report.

Next event: Second Report on 9/11 Commission Recommendations: Reforming the Institutions of Government
Thursday, October 20, 2005 • 10:30 a.m. • Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, DC • Oceanic Room

I'm starting to think people are silencing Able Danger not because they are embarassed about what did or did not happen with the program itself, but rather because of what Able Danger might have uncovered.

I almost hesitated to post this because it sounds so ridiculous, and even if it is true, there is no way any proof will get out in public without the approval of the new Roberts-Miers court - not very likely given their desire not to rock the boat. The main reason I am posting it anyway, even if it makes me look silly, is that the Department of Justice would not be claiming the "State Secrets" privilege against Sibel Edmonds if she was just making stuff up. They would not be falsely accusing Tony Shaffer of having an affair if they could prove him wrong. They would not be keeping Gary Berntsen's book from seeing the light of day if they were not worried about what he has to say. It also strikes me as something more than a coincidence that all three happen to be represented, in part, by Roy Krieger and Mark Zaid.

I would be very happy to be proven wrong, because what Sibel Edmonds is saying has the potential to even further erode our trust in government and also shows that we are still in danger - from the international smugglers and criminal organizations she describes. Until someone can prove these whistleblowers wrong, instead of trying to shut them up, I'm going to trust them - not the Penagon.

Here is what Sibel Edmonds said on August 15th:

I am talking about countries, not a single country here. Because despite however it may appear, this is not just a simple matter of state espionage. If Fitzgerald and his team keep pulling, really pulling, they are going to reel in much more than just a few guys spying for Israel....

Essentially, there is only one investigation – a very big one, an
all-inclusive one. Completely by chance, I, a lowly translator,
stumbled over one piece of it.

But I can tell you there are a lot of people involved, a lot of
ranking officials, and a lot of illegal activities that include
multi-billion-dollar drug-smuggling operations, black-market nuclear
sales to terrorists and unsavory regimes, you name it. And of course a lot of people from abroad are involved. It's massive. So to do this investigation, to really do it, they will have to look into everything.

Here is what she said on August 22nd:

If you go to my CBS 60 Minutes transcript of October 2002 – even though they chose to broadcast mostly the administrative problems and issues – I had one statement there that said that this involved people, officials, well-recognized names in the Department of State, Department of Defense, and certain elected officials. So I believe the source is also quoted somewhere else talking about the fact that in the late '90s they were going to have a special prosecutor to uncover these criminal activities and corruption, including the politicians – this is in the article. But later, after the administration changed, they decided to cool it and not do anything with it, so they stopped the investigation and they went against the initial decision of having a special prosecutor trying and indicting these criminals in the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the Congress....

And these activities overlap. It's not like okay, you have certain
criminal entities that are involved in nuclear black market, and then
you have certain entities bringing narcotics from the East. You have
the same players when you look into these activities at high-levels
you come across the same players, they are the same people.

Here's another interesting part of that transcript:

SE: No, but as I said, the reason I went to the Congress and to the 9/11 Commission had to do with criminal activities and the criminal activities I provided information on had a lot to do with 9/11. And it's very interesting for example this latest development with the 9/11 Commission and this information from the Department of Defense that had to do with Atta, right?

SH: Able Danger.

SE: And the main media is treating it as if "here's one piece of information the 9/11 Commission didn't include." I had this press conference last summer and together with 25 national security experts. These sort of people from NSA, CIA, FBI. And we provided the public during this press conference with a list of witnesses that had provided direct information, direct information. Some had to do with finance of al-Qaeda. These are people from NSA, CIA, and FBI to the 9/11 Commission, and the 9/11 Commission omitted all of this information, even though some of this information had been established as fact. One of them had to do with certain informants in April 2001. This informant provided very specific information about the attacks. The other had to do with certain information the FBI had in July and August 2001, where blueprints and building composites of certain skyscrapers were being sent to certain Middle Eastern countries, and many more information was just omitted. With my case they just said, "Refer to the inspector general's report," even though I had provided the commissioners with the documents and names of witnesses. So now today you're seeing the press talk about "Oh, one piece of information," which right now the Commission is denying: "We don't recall seeing that information." Well, I can put out 20 other cases. These are agents who worked for agencies such as FBI, CIA, some of them for 20 years, some for 18 years. I have their list, I have their affidavits that provided documents, and they were all omitted. But the media is treating it as if "oh, look, this one piece of information was omitted" from the 9/11 Commission report.

Now from the Vanity Fair article on Edmonds in September:

Vanity Fair has established that around the time the Dickersons visited the Edmondses, in December 2001, Joel Robertz, an F.B.I. special agent in Chicago, contacted Sibel and asked her to review some wiretaps. Some were several years old, others more recent; all had been generated by a counter-intelligence investigation that had its start in 1997. "It began in D.C.," says an F.B.I. counter-intelligence official who is familiar with the case file. But "it became apparent that Chicago was actually the center of what was going on."

Its subject was explosive: what sounded like attempts to bribe elected members of Congress, both Democrat and Republican. "There was pressure within the bureau for a special prosecutor to be appointed and take the case on," the official says. Instead, his colleagues were told to alter the thrust of their investigation—away from elected politicians and toward appointed officials. "This is the reason why Ashcroft reacted to Sibel in such an extreme fashion," he says. "It was to keep this from coming out."

In her secure testimony, Edmonds disclosed some of what she recalled hearing. In all, says a source who was present, she managed to listen to more than 40 of the Chicago recordings supplied by Robertz. Many involved an F.B.I. target at the city's large Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations.

Some of the calls reportedly contained what sounded like references to large-scale drug shipments and other crimes. To a person who knew nothing about their context, the details were confusing, and it wasn't always clear what might be significant. One name, however, apparently stood out—a man the Turkish callers often referred to by the nickname "Denny boy." It was the Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. According to some of the wiretaps, the F.B.I.'s targets had arranged for tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert's campaign funds in small checks. Under Federal Election Commission rules, donations of less than $200 are not required to be itemized in public filings.

From the Washington Post:

"Fitzgerald's office said on Monday it had decided to announce any decisions in the Plame case in Washington, rather than Chicago, where the special prosecutor is based.

From the Campaign for a Cleaner Congress:

Campaign for a Cleaner Congress today called on the number three leader in the U.S. House, Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO), to address questions about his past and current chiefs of staffs and his special assistant's involvement with junkets sponsored by a lobbying organization, the American Turkish Council (A.T.C.).

The Council is the subject of a report in the September issue of Vanity Fair magazine, which hit newsstands in New York on Wednesday, that reveals wiretapped conversations, translated by a then-FBI employee Sibel Edmonds, recorded Turkish nationals describing efforts to bribe U.S. politicians, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL). According to the wiretaps, thousands of dollars were to be paid to Hastert's campaign funds in small checks, which under Federal Election Commission rules do not have to be itemized in public filings if they are under $200.

Officials of large corporations with economic interests in Turkey, such as Philip Morris with whom Rep. Blunt's wife is employed as a lobbyist, sit on the Council's board.

A Campaign for a Cleaner Congress review of Congressional travel records shows that Gregg Hartley, then chief of staff to Congressman Roy Blunt (R-MO), took a junket sponsored by the A.T.C. Blunt's current Chief of Staff, Amy Field, also attended the same junket, and Jared Craighead, who was a special assistant to Rep. Blunt and now works as a senior policy advisor to Governor Matt Blunt, attended a separate A.T.C.- sponsored junket. Nov. 13-19,1999.

Now that Delay has stepped down, Blunt is the new Majority Leader. If what Edmonds has said is true, a lot of people should indeed be afraid. Not just members of the Bush administration.

Posted by Mike at 02:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

October 18, 2005

Details emerge for Able Danger's second act

Four years after 9/11, we are finally rebuilding Able Danger. Someone must have realized that if we were actually struck again - by a chemical, biological, or nuclear attack this time - and did not have something like this is place simply because we knew it worked and were trying to covering up the fact we had shut it down before 9/11, you think there might have been some dramatic political consequences - assuming the true story ever saw the light of day?

From Government Computer News, via AJ:

A draft proposal floating behind closed doors would reconstitute and improve upon a former Army data-mining program called Able Danger.

Able Providence, as the new program has been dubbed, would establish “robust open-source harvesting capabilities” to give military and law enforcement agencies the information to take the initiative in the war on terrorism—that is, to be able to plan and execute offensive measures—in addition to continued defensive actions.

In addition, the program would be driven by a presumption that use of weapons of mass destruction within the United States is possible. As a result, Able Providence would need to detect, track and target terrorists as they move from location to location and reorganize their cells.

As one part of the new data-mining effort, the proposal suggests using information about terrorist financing and the Islamist system worldwide to identify correlations.

The proposal, which GCN has seen, would place the Able Providence project within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, with the Defense Department having joint oversight responsibilities.

A first-year budget of a little more than $26 million would cover the cost of a director drawn from the Senior Executive Service, a deputy director from SES (or a brigadier general), five planners, software and hardware, and office space.

From the Saint Petersburg Times:

The Pentagon is establishing a secret facility in St. Petersburg to help Special Operations Command better process intelligence.

Because the project is classified, details remain sketchy. But Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Indian Shores, confirmed the basic outline late Friday.

He said Blackbird Technologies of Virginia was awarded the $27-million contract to operate a Joint Intelligence Operations Center on behalf of SOCom, which is based at MacDill Air Force Base.

SOCom oversees the nation's secret commandoes and is coordinating the Defense Department's global war on terror.

"They're continually looking for a more effective way to deal with their intelligence issues," said Young, chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

The center - to operate out of a building at 9th Street N and Gandy Boulevard - is intended to help National Intelligence Director John Negroponte "remodel" military intelligence at SOCom.

What a coincidence. A program for $27 million and a program for a little over $26 million. Hmm, I wonder if the two might be related?

Posted by Mike at 01:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 12, 2005

Somehow I doubt that Maloof was there

From U.S. News and World Report:

CHINCOTEAGUE, Va. – The first annual National Security Whistleblowers Conference, held on this tiny resort island, has to be one of the more unusual gatherings of intelligence veterans in recent years. The nearly 20 current or former officials from the FBI, CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, and even the supersecret National Security Agency who make up the core of the conference share an unusual distinction: They are all deeply out of favor with their longtime employers....

One of the biggest names of the conference never even uttered a word. Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer is the military intelligence operative who recently went public with a controversial claim that a year before September 11, his top-secret task force "Able Danger" was able to identify the man who later turned out to be the lead hijacker as being connected to al Qaeda. Shaffer is a veteran of top-secret operations against terrorists, including some in Afghanistan, and several of his DIA colleagues have come out publicly to confirm that they remember Mohamed Atta being identified in 2000 as part of a project that combed through public databases looking for hidden links. But these allegations have been vigorously denied by the Pentagon and the White House, while several members of Congress are investigating. Shaffer was slated to speak but instead sat quietly by as his lawyer, Mark Zaid, spoke for him....

"We're trying to figure out what we can do," Zaid said, "which is not much." But he added that he will most likely appeal the clearance revocation. Zaid is also looking into filing a class action suit related to the revocations of security clearances in whistle-blower cases. "It's the mentality of how the executive branch works," he said. "You can show a pattern."

It's something that several other panelists had in common. Russ Tice worked as an analyst at the NSA, which houses the nation's international eavesdropping capabilities. He worked on some of the nation's most secret intelligence-collection projects. But while he was on temporary assignment at the DIA, he said, he became concerned that an analyst there might be spying for the Chinese government....

The conference was organized by Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator who was pushed out of the bureau after raising accusations of wrongdoing by other FBI translators. She has been barred from discussing the details of her case by the FBI, which denies her allegations and says the entire issue is classified. She created the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition www.nswbc.org to bring whistle-blowers like her together to push for legal reforms and bring together other advocacy groups.

NSWBC.ORG is no longer available online from my ISP for some reason, but speaking of Edmonds, here's an interesting interview:

SH: It's interesting that the state-secrets privilege actually doesn't exist. There's no law that has ever been passed by Congress that even says such a thing. Wasn't it the Supreme Court that made up the state-secrets privilege in the first place?

SE: Yes, it's based on common law, and in fact, most judges don't even know how it is applied, and therefore that is another challenge we are bringing about: for the Supreme Court to look into this and say this is time for us to clarify just what the hell is this state-secrets privilege. If you were to go ask many attorneys in this country, they would tell you that, "Hey, I didn't know that the United States had any official secrets act," and they act surprised because even most attorneys don't know that we have this arcane draconian common law that is being exercised to gag people and rid them of their First Amendment rights.

SH: Sibel, let's see if we can figure out why they [the government] are going to such lengths to keep you quiet. Can you tell me, what is the American Turkish Council – let me rephrase that, can you tell me what the American Turkish Council is?

SE: Well sure, it's on the Web site. They are this lobbying organization for Turkish business and relationship between U.S. and Turkey. It's exactly like AIPAC

SH: Oh good, exactly like AIPAC!

SE: Exactly. In fact, they have so many crossovers, if you look at their members you will see many that are members of both organizations. And if you look at the people who are in the management and are in charge of these lobbying groups, you come across the same names, which is very interesting.

SH: That is very interesting. In fact, my next guest after you will be Bob Dreyfuss about the AIPAC spy scandal and something that occurred to me last night as I read the Vanity Fair piece An Inconvenient Patriot about you, was that some of the things I read about in there, and we'll try to get to some of this a little bit later, were about "unnamed Department of State and Department of Defense employees," which made me wonder whether perhaps your case is tied in with the AIPAC spy scandal case in any way.

SE: Absolutely. And I cannot go into any details – and maybe some other investigative journalist from across the ocean will come here and do the rest of this article – as article part two. But even the AIPAC spy scandal, as far as I'm reading today, is just touching the surface of it. It's going only to a certain degree. It doesn't go high enough, in what it involves and how far it goes, and that's as far, and the best – as far as I can explain.

SH: Thank you very much for that, and we'll see what we can make of it. Can I ask you how you first learned of the American Turkish Council?

SE: Oh, no, you can't.

SH: That's classified. Well, according to this article, which is written everybody by David Rose, it's in the current issue of Vanity Fair magazine. It's called "An Inconvenient Patriot." And I'm going to go ahead, because the states-secrets privilege has not been invoked against me so far – I don't think. David Rose says in this article – he basically talked to the congressional staffers who have debriefed you. And what they say, is while you were translating intercepts for the FBI you overheard American Turkish Council employees discussing criminal activity among both Republicans and Democrats, and even including the Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis Hastert. Can you cough or sneeze or blink twice or anything for me?

SE: All I can tell you is that the sources that David Rose interviewed – they were the people that were present during the investigation of the Congress and their meetings with the FBI, so I am sure that it was not based on hearsay that they made these comments. I am sure that they based it on the wiretap recordings they heard and the documents. So they didn't just come and say this is what it was without having all those documents and files from the FBI to go over, and I guess their statements were based on the evidence that was presented to them both by the inspector general's office – Glenn Fine briefed the Congress – because as you know the IG report was classified, but they briefed the Congress. So I guess they relied on the documents from the inspector general's office and the FBI to make those statements. I guess that was the case.

SH: So this just doesn't come from you but from the official investigations of your accusations as well?

SE: That's what I would assume because if these are Congressional sources who were in these investigations, and also David Rose spoke with certain FBI officials who were part of these files and case investigations within the FBI – they would not make comments on what they think it is but they would provide facts, that is my assumption. Otherwise, Vanity Fair would not print it.

SH: The article quotes one unnamed official as saying, "This is the reason why Ashcroft reacted to Sibel in such an extreme fashion. It was to keep this from coming out."

SE: Uh, when you say "this," I don't know. If you go to my CBS 60 Minutes transcript of October 2002 – even though they chose to broadcast mostly the administrative problems and issues – I had one statement there that said that this involved people, officials, well-recognized names in the Department of State, Department of Defense, and certain elected officials. So I believe the source is also quoted somewhere else talking about the fact that in the late '90s they were going to have a special prosecutor to uncover these criminal activities and corruption, including the politicians – this is in the article. But later, after the administration changed, they decided to cool it and not do anything with it, so they stopped the investigation and they went against the initial decision of having a special prosecutor trying and indicting these criminals in the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the Congress.

Here is the article from Vanity Fair:

The Edmondses' thoughts were turning to brunch when Matthew answered the telephone. The caller was a woman he barely knew—Melek Can Dickerson, who worked with Sibel at the F.B.I. "I'm in the area with my husband and I'd love you to meet him," Dickerson said. "Is it O.K. if we come by?" Taken by surprise, Sibel and Matthew hurried to shower and dress. Their guests arrived 30 minutes later. Matthew, a big man with a fuzz of gray beard, who at 60 was nearly twice the age of his petite, vivacious wife, showed them into the kitchen. They sat at a round, faux-marble table while Sibel brewed tea.

Melek's husband, Douglas, a U.S. Air Force major who had spent several years as a military attaché in the Turkish capital of Ankara, did most of the talking, Matthew recalls. "He was pretty outspoken, pretty outgoing—about meeting his wife in Turkey, and about his job. He was in weapons procurement." Like Matthew, he was older than his wife, who had been born about a year before Sibel.

According to Sibel, Douglas asked if she and Matthew were involved with the local Turkish community, and whether they were members of two of its organized groups—the American-Turkish Council (A.T.C.) and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (A.T.A.A.). "He said the A.T.C. was a good organization to belong to," Matthew says. "It could help to ensure that we could retire early and live well, which was just what he and his wife planned to do. I said I was aware of the organization, but I thought you had to be in a relevant business in order to join.

"Then he pointed at Sibel and said, 'All you have to do is tell them who you work for and what you do and you will get in very quickly.'" Matthew could see that his wife was far from comfortable: "She tried to change the conversation to the weather and suchlike." But the Dickersons, says Matthew, steered it back to what they called their "network of high-level friends." Some, they said, worked at the Turkish Embassy in Washington. "They said they even went shopping weekly for [one of them] at a Mediterranean market," Matthew says. "They used to take him special Turkish bread."

Posted by Mike at 12:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 10, 2005

DIA removed charts from Shaffer's briefcase

It looks like Rory O'Connor will be one to watch on the Able Danger story from here on out, not to rule out past posts I already missed.

Here is Rory with the inside scoop:

After revoking the security clearance of Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a key figure in the ongoing Able Danger ‘information warfare’ controversy, Department of Defense officials - apparently inadvertently - sent at least six classified documents to the whistleblower. The documents - two directly related to the once-clandestine Able Danger operation, which identified Mohammed Atta and other 9/11 hijackers a year before the terror attacks - were among the items found in six boxes of “personal stuff” the Defense Intelligence Agency returned to Shaffer via his attorney, Mark Zaid, according to a source close to the attorney. The source added that DIA officials told Zaid they had spent “15 hours scrubbing” the material to make sure no classified information was contained therein.

The documents DIA returned “confirm and expand the information about the amount of support” Able Danger was getting from another program known as Stratus Ivy - and “included information to confirm that Shaffer had other officers working to support Able Danger,” the source said.

In addition, twenty-six pieces of mail addressed to someone named Domingo A. Romo (and his wife Sandra) - ranging from financial statements to insurance information - were also found among the materials provided to Lt. Col. Shaffer.

The Pentagon scrubbing did have at least some cleansing effects, however. Although DIA did return Shaffer’s leather briefcase, items it once had contained - an Able Danger set of TOP SECRET documents (mission planning order, cover plan, etc.,) as well as some of the briefing books and charts that had been used to brief Pentagon leadership about the program - have all been hidden or destroyed by DIA.

Posted by Mike at 01:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

October 09, 2005

Well, that sure beats stealing pens

I just read Maloof's piece again, but I still don't see him say that he knew anything about Able Danger or it's use of LIWA during the time he was apparently using it for the Chinese proliferation work. Was he involved in or aware of Able Danger? If so, why didn't he ask his good friends Perle, Feith, or Cambone not to let it die on the vine in early 2001? Instead, he only talks about April 2000, not what happened at LIWA during the following eighteen months.

From the New York Times on April 28, 2004:

An appeals board reinstated his clearances after Mr. Feith and Mr. Perle wrote letters to the D.I.A. But the intervention angered some intelligence officials, and a second panel reversed course in April 2003. Mr. Maloof is now on paid leave.

Boy, I bet Shaffer would appreciate one of those letters about now.

Before people draw too many parallels between Shaffer and Maloof, can we all agree that secret dealings with a Lebanese gun runner are a lot more serious than stealing pens when you were fifteen or sixteen?

Another Near East policy official, F. Michael Maloof, was stripped of
his security clearance a year ago after the FBI linked him to a
Lebanese-American businessman under investigation by the FBI for
weapons trafficking. A handgun registered to Maloof was found in the
possession of Imad el Hage, a suspected arms dealer.

Investigators are seeking to learn whether Maloof's alleged contacts
with Hage and a hard-line former Lebanese general, Michel Aoun, may have been part of a back-channel effort to destabilize Syria, which has occupied Lebanon for nearly two decades.

"People are concerned about covert action being conducted by a policy office with no legal mandate to do so," said one Democratic official involved in the Judiciary Committee inquiry. "If the Senate and House intelligence committees in their review only look at the Chalabi relationship but don't look at the office's role in what was in effect covert action to explore regime change in the entire arc of the Middle East, then their inquiry will be a joke."

The official said he is trying to determine if some of the office's
activities may have been prohibited by the Hughes-Ryan Amendment, which holds that all activity to undermine a foreign government must be approved by the president in a specific document approving such activity.

Posted by Mike at 05:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

October 08, 2005

SOCOM moves to rebuild Able Danger capabilities

From the uncannily well-informed Paul De La Garza at the Saint Petersburg Times:

The Pentagon is establishing a secret facility in St. Petersburg to help Special Operations Command better process intelligence.

Because the project is classified, details remain sketchy. But Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Indian Shores, confirmed the basic outline late Friday.

He said Blackbird Technologies of Virginia was awarded the $27-million contract to operate a Joint Intelligence Operations Center on behalf of SOCom, which is based at MacDill Air Force Base....

The center - to operate out of a building at 9th Street N and Gandy Boulevard - is intended to help National Intelligence Director John Negroponte "remodel" military intelligence at SOCom....

He added: "The SOCom upgrade will look at better data management capabilities that include the use of open source information, emergency backup and retrieval systems and visualization tools."

...Open source intelligence, or "OSINT" - the kind of work that will be conducted out of the center - refers to intelligence-gathering based on information collected from open sources, such as information available to the general public.

That includes newspapers, the Internet, books, phone books, scientific journals, radio broadcasts, television and other sources.

Posted by Mike at 03:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 05, 2005

Stick a fork in Able Danger?

From the Washington Times:

The Senate Intelligence Committee has taken closed-door statements in an inquiry that could clear up whether the intelligence program Able Danger identified September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta a year before the attack.

A spokesman said yesterday that the committee likely will release a report or a statement in the next two weeks that makes conclusions, or at least determines the facts.

Most of the attention on Able Danger has come from the Senate Judiciary Committee, which already has conducted one public hearing on the intelligence-collection program. It is now asking the Pentagon to allow personnel associated with Able Danger, such as defense intelligence analyst Anthony Shaffer and Navy Capt. Scott Philpott, to testify in public about how Atta was purportedly identified.

But a final verdict could come sooner from the intelligence committee, based on closed-door briefings already provided by Mr. Shaffer, Capt. Philpott and Pentagon officials.

For the ninth time, Mac's Mind once again predicts The End Is Near:

This is the fork in the meat of what has been a Nice Summer Story. Again, pressure came from the top (over Spector's AO) and stuck that fork right in it's heart - it's dead.

The final report - as it will be - won't tell us much more than we aready know.

No matter what, the truth of this story will never see the light of day.

Remember Spector "magic bullet" was in on the Warren Commission - how anyone expected him to get to the bottom of Able Danger escapes me. Possibly he was trying to atone for the WC sins, but it doesn't appear that way. Besides, he hasn't the muscle. And Mr. Weldon has his check.

Again, the "Matrix" rules. What we know is only what we were allowed to know.

Meanwhile, Ed Morrissey won't let go, in his Weekly Standard column:

MARK ZAID has a full schedule these days, working on behalf of his beleaguered client, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer; media appearances, tilting at Department of Defense windmills, correcting poorly-written AP stories, and handling late-night interview requests. If anyone has an excuse to beg off an appointment, Zaid has a raft of them--yet last night he was happy to sit for a phone interview with THE DAILY STANDARD.

After exploding onto the scene two months ago, the Able Danger story and the revelation of its identification of Mohammed Atta as an al Qaeda operative over a year before the 9/11 attack have gone through several mutations in the press. At first, despite its launch at the New York Times, the media regarded it as a wild, unsourced conspiracy theory. The 9/11 Commission immediately dismissed it out of hand; the Pentagon took a bit more time to refute it. Eventually, key players of the SOCOM program came forward in public, first and foremost LTC Shaffer, the DIA liaison to the program.

Zaid has represented Shaffer during this public period which has seen him portrayed as a kook, a media hound, and thanks to the AP, a drunkard and a deadbeat. Zaid has taken his role as Shaffer's defender quite seriously; he recently wrote a lengthy and detailed rebuttal to the AP's report on the revocation of Shaffer's clearance....

"We're presumably waiting for them to reschedule," Zaid said. "Officially, the Defense Department and the DIA are taking the position--at least with me--that Shaffer is not allowed to testify." That gag order clearly has allowed the momentum of the story to slow in the last few weeks. When asked about the gag order's origin, Shaffer's attorney cannot tell for certain who ordered it. "These guys are talking out of both sides of their mouths," he replied when asked to identify the agency responsible for blocking the testimony. "The first time around, when the hearing on the 21st was scheduled to happen," he explained, "the Defense Department was calling the shots, and DIA was continually relaying messages from DIA to me."

That seems to have changed since the cancellation of the first Judiciary hearing. After Zaid informed the DIA that Shaffer had invitations from other Congressional committees to deliver unclassified briefings, the DIA took charge of the clearance issue--and placed hurdle after hurdle in front of the career officer and his attorney, preventing them from sharing Able Danger's details with the legislators. "The DIA is calling the shots . .
. First, I had Tony call that [a request for permission] in himself," Zaid said, "and they refused to act on that. Then I submitted it to Congressional Affairs, and they refused to act on that. They say I'm not specific enough."

"I said that House Judiciary wants to meet with him. Congressman Davis wants to meet with him. The House Committee on Government Reform wants to meet with him," Zaid continued. "Somehow, it's not specific enough because I didn't list the individual staff members." Zaid wonders why the DIA wants to know about the names of each staff member that may or may not be present during the presentation of an unclassified briefing. "They don't want him meeting with certain staff members that might be hostile to them? Well, sorry, that's not the way it works."

...In response to a question about the strange jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee for the public airing of the Able Danger narrative, Zaid said that he has been in contact with a number of staffers from committees and subcommittees. Curiously, the two committees seemingly most likely to want answers--the Armed Services committees--have remained on the sidelines.

"It really does raise the question about where the [Armed Services] committees are on this," Zaid said. He emphatically states that the two Armed services have "done nothing, at least with respect to contacting Able Danger team members."

Shouldn't these two panels at least have some curiosity about what information the DoD had about al Qaeda prior to 9/11? Everyone else seems to want answers--except those closest to the Pentagon. And Zaid wants Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer to be allowed to supply them.

It's extraordinary that the Armed Services committees would continue to act as wallflowers while the Pentagon they oversee tries to dance Able Danger off the floor.

Suspense, drama, intrigue, 9/11? I don't think this is going away.

Posted by Mike at 06:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 03, 2005

Suggestions for Congressional committee members

Thomas Raleigh, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, writes to the Dallas Star Telegram:

The recent Able Danger hearings ought to have resulted in a clearer understanding of what happened to a small but valuable intelligence program that went horribly wrong. By obstructing this investigation, in a manner that was as deliberate as it was clumsy, Rumsfeld undermines public confidence in him and his department.

There will be more hearings on Able Danger -- you can count on it. In light of recent reports that the Pentagon may be expanding intelligence operations that deliberately seek to evade congressional oversight, at the next hearing, the first series of questions Congress ought to pose might go something like this:

"Mr. Secretary, we have learned that it was Army lawyers who prevented Able Danger officers from meeting with FBI officials. It is my understanding that military lawyers provide commanders with advice, but operational decisions and directives remain the purview of commanders. What were the lines of command and control of Able Danger? What commander issued the order that prevented Able Danger personnel from meeting with the FBI? Who runs our intelligence programs; risk-adverse lawyers and intelligence bureaucrats, or warfighting commanders?

"Your former deputy Douglas Feith manipulated and distorted pre-war intelligence on Iraq. Then there was 'Curveball'; now Able Danger. That is a lousy track record. Could you please tell this committee, and the American people, why we should continue to entrust the Pentagon to run over 80 percent of this country's intelligence programs?"

Posted by Mike at 08:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 02, 2005

I hope this is not to keep Weldon quiet

I'm probably just being paranoid, but this sure caught my attention. I hope the new Chairmain of the Joint Chiefs is a huge Osprey fan and this has nothing to do with the growing Able Danger controversy.

V-22 OSPREY CLEARED FOR FULL PRODUCTION

WASHINGTON, Sep 28 - Today, the Pentagon’s Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) approved in principle the full-rate production of the V-22 Osprey. This hurdle marks a significant milestone for the tiltrotor program that has had its share of challenges, and for the Boeing plant in Ridley, Pa. that is charged with the production of the Osprey.

Congressman Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), Vice Chairman of the House Armed Services – and Chairman of the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee that oversees the V-22 program – views the Pentagon’s decision as a special victory for the people in Delaware County, Pa.

“This is big news for Delaware County and the surrounding areas, which will directly benefit from this decision,” said Weldon. “The V-22 will dramatically transform the way we fight our wars in the future, and is in high demand from our military leadership. This decision frees up almost $20 billion in potential orders – translating into increased production and ultimately more jobs for the region,” Weldon said.

Weldon recalls a time when the Osprey was effectively side-lined by the Pentagon for safety concerns. “Vice President Cheney (then-Secretary of Defense) and the Democratic-controlled Congress killed this program, relegating it to minimal production status,” said Weldon.

“Today’s approval is monumental in that it is one of very few weapon systems to be brought back from near extinction, and we owe this achievement to the hard working folks at Boeing – corporate and union – who have made the necessary changes to make this tiltrotor technology available to our warfighter.” Weldon added, “This is total vindication from all of the critics who had taken cheap shots at the V-22 project over the years,” said Weldon.

Here is an interesting perspective on Why the V-22 Osprey is Unsafe.

The Wikipedia entry on the Osprey summarizes the issues pretty well:

The Osprey's development process has been long and controversial. The first flight occurred in March 1989. Since then however there have been four significant failures during testing - a crash in 1991, a second in 1992 that killed seven, a third in April 2000 that killed 19, and a fourth in December 2000 that killed four. This aircraft has been in development for 16 years since first flight and has still not finished testing or development. It is claimed that problems identified in all of these mishaps have been addressed by the V-22 program office and advocates of the program are optimistic that the aircraft is mature enough for fleet operations. Critics state that the aircraft will never be mature enough for reasons of pure physics — the V-22 cannot be fixed because of its flawed side-by-side rotor design.

The cause of the April 2000 crash was investigated, and was officially determined to be due to the rate of descent of over 2000 feet per minute (600 m/min) of the aircraft while at slow horizontal speeds of around 30 knots (56 km/h). Descending too fast at slow horizontal speed in helicopter mode can cause the airflow over the rotor blades to enter a vortex ring state (VRS). While this phenomenon is present in all rotary-wing aircraft, it was believed that the Osprey may be much more susceptible to it. The Osprey's flight operations rules already restricted the Osprey to an 800 feet per minute (240 m/min) descent at lower than 40 knots (74 km/h) airspeed; the crew of the mishap aircraft exceeded this operating restriction threefold. Another factor that may trigger VRS is helicopters operating in close proximity, a concern given the likely missions for the Osprey. The Marine evaluators have concluded that the restrictions imposed do not impede the mission of the craft in any way, despite the concern that an Osprey with a slower rate of descent is more vulnerable to enemy fire.

The Osprey recently completed its final operational evaluation (OPEVAL) prior to a full rate production decision. This OPEVAL was extremely successful; events included long range deployments, high altitude, desert and shipboard operations. Press reports on these final trials, notably included some where journalists were carried in the craft to demonstrate it, state that contrary to earlier reports on the matter, the Osprey is not only less susceptible to entering Vortex ring state, it is more easily recoverable from it.

On September 28, 2005, the Pentagon finally approved full-rate production for the Osprey. The current plan is to boost production from 11 a year to 48 a year by 2012. Planned production quantities include 360 for the Marine Corps, 48 for the Navy, 50 for the Air Force, 4 for the Texas Air National Guard and 6 for the Georgia Air National Guard.

Posted by Mike at 02:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Zaid's Rebuttal To The AP

From Captain's Quarters:

Earlier this week, the AP reported on a series of issues that the DIA used as an excuse to revoke the clearances of Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, the liaison to the SOCOM program Able Danger and the first public witness to the program's identification of four 9/11 hijackers as al-Qaeda operatives more than a year before the terrorist attacks. Many of us saw the revocation as a transparent attempt to discredit LTC Shaffer before he has a chance to testify to Congress on the Able Danger program, and the failure of the DoD to allow it to share its information with the FBI as well as the 9/11 Commission's refusal to meet with any of the Able Danger team.

Now his attorney, Mark Zaid, has posted his comment on the matter at CQ. With his permission, I'm reposting here so that it gets the most exposure possible.

Zaid's lengthy comment provides all the details.

The most salient points I noticed were that his Bronze Star has NOT been challenged in any way shape or form. A different medal called a DMSM was challenged by someone at DIA, apparently because they were not authorized to know about what he was doing when he won it. Zaid even provided the AP with a copy of a letter from Col. Gerry York supporting the fact that Shaffer definitely earned the DMSM award.

Zaid also notes that the pens and notepads were taken for school from an American Embassy when Shaffer was 15 or 16 and apparently in high school overseas. I guess one of his parents worked at the embassy? Not sure, but talk about going on your permanent record! I have no idea how that could have anything to do with his security clearance. Adding insult to injury, the late payments on his credit card occured while he was in Afghanistan deployed for Operation Enduring Freedom! He arranged for his wife to make the payments but she simply forgot. DIA has since dropped that issue, though the AP still mentioned it.

I really think the AP story makes the DIA look bad, not Shaffer, but Zaid's frustration is a reminder that you can not count on getting the full story from a reporter who is up against a deadline. They go for volume first then quality and accuracy. Zaid got them to correct the story three different times, but they still couldn't get it right.

Posted by Mike at 01:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 01, 2005

Burton confirms chart was given to Hadley

From the New York Times:

A second Republican member of Congress has said that Stephen Hadley, who was then the deputy national security adviser, was given a chart shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks that showed information collected about Al Qaeda before the attacks by a secret military intelligence program called Able Danger.

The account was provided by Representative Dan Burton of Indiana, who said in an interview that on Sept. 25, 2001, he attended a meeting with Mr. Hadley in the White House along with Representative Curt Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania. Mr. Weldon has said that he gave Mr. Hadley such a chart at the meeting, but the White House had refused to comment on Mr. Weldon's account.

Told about Mr. Burton's account, a spokesman for Mr. Hadley, who is now the national security adviser, confirmed for the first time last week that Mr. Hadley recalled seeing such a chart in that time period. But the spokesman, Frederick Jones, said that Mr. Hadley did not recall whether he saw it during a meeting with Mr. Weldon, and that a search of National Security Council files had failed to produce such a chart.

It's not that Hadley didn't receive such a chart, he just doesn't recall it. It's not that Atta was not on the chart, he just doesn't recall it. It sounds like Hadley is definitely hedging his bets.

You might recall from the Post story:

But in the White House response, Mr. Jones said: "Mr. Hadley did in fact meet with Congressman Weldon on Sept. 25, 2001. He recalls in that same time period receiving a briefing on link analysis as a counterterrorism tool, and being shown a chart that was an example of link analysis. But he does not recall whether he was shown that chart in the meeting with Mr. Weldon or in some other meeting. Either way, Mr. Hadley does not recall seeing a chart bearing the name or photo of Mohammed Atta."

Mr. Jones said that security council staff members reviewed the files of Mr. Hadley and others who attended or might have attended such a meeting, but no chart was found.

Via QT Monster, here are some more details heard on Fox News Saturday:

LTC Shaffer was just on Fox with his lawyer, being interviewed by Catherine Herridge - (Sat am - 12:40 ET) His lawyer did ALL the talking. He is now no longer able to speak to the media or to Congress openly, or behind closed doors. Nada. He also does NOT fall under whistle blower protection because he is a member of the intelligence community. Also, Congressman Burton was there by telephone and said that he himself witnessed this 'chart' that has dissapeared, and would like to know where the wherabouts of the contents of many boxes of info that was subpeoned that had been stored in Crystal City (Arlington, VA.) The saga continues....

Burton reiterated, even after the interview was over, that we needed to find those boxes!

Here is a video of the segment. Shaffer is apparently not even allowed to talk to members of Congress about Able Danger now.

Laura Rozen also has this update, which I hope will be good news:

A reader suggests that the NYT is going to have a big Able Danger story on Sunday.

Posted by Mike at 07:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 30, 2005

Shaffer accused of stealing pens

What is it with these DoD higher ups about their lines and their pens?

Voice of the Taciturn does a good job batting away every single one of the ridiculous charges against Shaffer, as do Mac at Mac's Mind - who had just sworn the story off for the tenth time - and Ed at Captain's Quarters, too. I think the obvious point is that this story is not just going to fade away like AJ was worried it might. The Pentagon has made sure of that now. So much for a dead story.

Interestingly enough, the Pentagon has told Shaffer not to talk about Able Danger, but they can't keep him from going on every cable news and talk radio show in America in order to defend his own good name.

From the AP:

An officer who has claimed that a classified military unit identified four Sept. 11 hijackers before the 2001 attacks is facing Pentagon accusations of breaking numerous rules, allegations his lawyer suggests are aimed at undermining his credibility.

The alleged infractions by Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, 42, include obtaining a service medal under false pretenses, improperly flashing military identification while drunk and stealing pens, according to military paperwork shown by his attorney to The Associated Press.

Shaffer was one of the first to publicly link Sept. 11 leader Mohamed Atta to the unit code-named Able Danger. Shaffer was one of five witnesses the Pentagon ordered not to appear Sept. 21 before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the unit's findings.

The military revoked Shaffer's top security clearance this month, a day before he was supposed to testify to a congressional committee.

Could the Pentagon restore his clearance to try to make the story go away? Sure. Would it work? I doubt it. I think they've gone too far and said too much against him for Shaffer to just back down now.

Anyway, I'm updating this to add a very insightful comment left in the comments section over at Voice of the Taciturn:

I just processed $28K in travel for 2 high level people today, three weeks after their trips. You think they're going to take away the Assistant Secretary's Top Secret Clearance because he was behind on his credit card? Oh yeah, I'm taking home some staples tonight, and maybe some paperclips. Good lord, Halliburton steals us blind and they ding this guy over this petty crap!!!!

Lowly Government Worker

Posted by Mike at 10:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

September 29, 2005

"Trust the lines, they will protect you!"

I'd have to agree with Mark at Decision '08 that "my initial enthusiasm for William Arkin’s Able Danger series has declined in direct proportion to the number of installments." From Arkin's latest blog post:

Shaffer and other shadow warriors just don’t like lines. They think that they can conduct surveillance, analyze intelligence, enforce the law, and fight the war on terrorism all by themselves. As a result, they see the rules segregating intelligence from law enforcement, let alone intelligence from war fighting and policy (remember Iraq) as niceties that the global war on terrorism can no longer afford.

Not only is this an inaccurate description of the Able Danger program, but it's also a weak defense for the failure of our intellegence community to simply work together as provided for under existing law. Both current and past regulations were intended to allow different agencies to work together. Working together is exactly what Shaffer and Phillpott tried to do. Instead, they were beatened back at every turn by bureaucrats worried that "it's not my job" or concerned someone might "steal their thunder" by actually using shared information to accomplish something. It sounds like the General who compared Shaffer's team to "Kelly's Heroes" must have been one of Arkin's sources for this piece.

If buying photos of suspected terrorists who visit radical mosques in Europe means you are trying to "conduct surveillance" does that mean you can only use photos the CIA already has on file, instead of purchasing them from an investigator who might do that type of work for law firms or angry spouses all the time?

If connecting dots between open source databases and news articles means you are trying to "analyze intelligence" does that mean you can only rely on prepackaged information that might not even apply to your current objectives when you try to create new war plans?

If you discover that an international terrorist organization might be setting up operations in the US, are you trying to "enforce the law" all by yourself when you attempt to pass that information on to the FBI, instead of assuming that they will stumble upon it on their own in time to prevent an attack?

If you are tasked to plan for future strikes against Al Qaeda operatives world wide, are you trying to "fight the war on terrorism" all by yourself when you try to convince your military leaders that a terrorist attack is eminent at the Port of Aden in September 2000?

The more you listen to Arkin, the more it sounds like he is saying Able Danger, the one program that might have actually prevented 9/11, should never have existed in the first place! It sounds like he might have even agreed with the decision to dismantle it, just four months before 9/11, if he had heard about it at the time.

He brings up Iraq, but what does Iraq have to do with Able Danger? While Al Qaeda might be established in Iraq now, clearly Al Qaeda is an unconventional enemy and requires a different approach to planning that a conventional enemy with territory and an army. Does Arkin really fail to see that or is he just kicking up sand?

Ultimately, Able Danger was not disabled by "rules segregating intelligence from law enforcement" as Arkin suggests. Instead, it was doomed by bureaucratic leaders and cultures that enforced de facto segregation and kept information from being shared even when it should have been shared under existing regulations:

WILLIAM DUGAN: I guess I wish to convey to the committee that US person information is something that we are skittish about in the Defense Department. We follow the rules strictly on it. And we want to do the right thing and follow the attorney general guidelines.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Mr. Dugan, Mohammed Atta was not a US person was he?

WILLIAM DUGAN: Based on what I've read in the press since Sept. 11, 2001, I don't believe he was.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Mr. Dugan, you're the acting assistant secretary of defense for intelligence oversight. Can't you give us a more definitive answer to a very direct and fundamental and simple question like was Mohammed Atta a US person?

WILLIAM DUGAN: No, he was not.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: We're dealing with the intelligence gathering data of the Department of Defense and prima facie reason is to believe and that had that information been shared and the FBI was trying to get it, 9/11 might have been prevented. I hope you'll go back and talk to the secretary and tell him that the American people are entitled to some answers.

Is Arkin really arguing that the one military program that might have prevented 9/11 should never have happened anyway and is not worth taking a second look at to determine if it might still be of use?

It is worth adding - as AJ has noted - that Arkin acknowledges Able Danger was justified to collect and share intelligence on terrorists:

Nothing restricts U.S. military intelligence from collecting information on real terrorists, and nothing even stops U.S. intelligence from passing information indicating terrorist involvement on the part of a U.S. citizen from being passed to the FBI.

These were the rules before 9/11 and despite passage of the USA PATRIOT Act and the creation of new intelligence-law enforcement sharing arrangements, these same rules apply today.

Then goes on to say Able Danger crossed the line, but can't say how:

One can only wonder at this point what information the Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) really collected on behalf of Able Danger that necessitated a complete purge and destruction of its entire database.

Well, I would have to do a lot more than "wonder" before I questioned the credibility of officers prepared to risk their career to testify under oath before the Judiciary Committee, but maybe that's just me.

Posted by Mike at 09:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

September 28, 2005

Interesting letter to the editor

Written to the Billings Gazette in Montana:

People forgetting that laws apply to everyone

The Pentagon has recently barred military officers from testifying about a classified intelligence program called "Able Danger." American citizens can be held indefinitely without cause as part of the Patriot Act.

And Arnold has switched from the Republican mantra of slamming "activist judges" who are not in lockstep with legislative bodies by saying that the gay marriage bill passed by the California Legislature is now a matter that should be decided by the courts!

The United States has always held its head high in the world as a nation that is governed by laws. We have always portrayed the belief that no one is above the law, but, given recent events, it seems that we are slowly blurring, even erasing, the lines that were drawn by our founding fathers to separate governance by law from governance by political whim.

Unfortunately, once those lines disappear or become completely distorted, we may never be able to redraw them. At what point will Americans start paying attention? At what point will we demand that our laws apply to everyone, whether or not they may share our own political or religious affiliation?

Rod Gottula
Shepherd

Posted by Mike at 08:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 27, 2005

Able Danger hearings postponed again

From the AP:

Citing next week's Rosh Hashanah observances, the Senate Judiciary Committee has postponed its scheduled hearing on what a highly classified military intelligence unit code-named "Able Danger" knew about the 9/11 hijackers.

But an attorney for a military intelligence officer who was expected to appear said the Defense Department's refusal to allow such testimony - not the Jewish holiday - was the real reason for the delay.

"It sounds better than the truth, which is that DOD is not cooperative," said Mark Zaid, attorney for Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, who has said the unit used data mining to link ringleader Mohamed Atta and three other hijackers to al-Qaida more than a year before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Zaid said he was informed on Monday that Shaffer would not be allowed to testify at the hearing scheduled for Oct. 5. Observance of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins Monday, Oct. 3.

Posted by Mike at 06:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Now Hadley tells Weldon he was misquoted

After hearing last night that Curt Weldon would be on 540AM in Orlando at 8AM this morning, I signed up for their free registration so I could listen online. For once, I didn't sleep through my alarm clock, and it was worth it for the five minutes that Weldon was actually on, starting at about 8:47AM.

First, Weldon said Hadley's staff had told his staff "this morning" that the Washington Post misquoted him. That the reporter "got it wrong" and that what the Post printed was not what he meant to say. It's not entirely clear from Weldon which part Hadley now says the reporter got wrong, but I hope Hadley will clarify that point. Weldon also referred to some evidence he was considering bringing forward to "prove" his own version of the account. Very interesting.

Second, Weldon said the DIA had stepped up significantly its actions against members of the Able Danger team since the hearing last week. Weldon attributed this to bureaucrats in DIA who had worked in both the Bush and Clinton administration and were covering their ass. Could be, but I'm still thinking their orders came from higher up.

That was the only new information I heard in the brief segment, but if you heard anything else or think I got it wrong, leave me a comment or send me an email and let me know what I missed.

Here's what the Washington Post said Hadley said, which he now denies:

National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley yesterday denied receiving a Defense Department chart that allegedly identified lead terrorist Mohamed Atta before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, dealing a blow to claims by a Republican congressman that have caused a political uproar in recent weeks....

"Mr. Hadley does not recall any chart bearing the name or photo of Mohamed Atta," said the spokesman, Frederick L. Jones II. "NSC staff reviewed the files of Mr. Hadley as well as of all NSC personnel" who might have received such a chart.

"That search has turned up no chart," he said.

Hadley does recall seeing a chart used as an example of "link analysis" -- the technique used by the Able Danger program -- as a counterterrorism tool, but is not sure whether it happened during a Sept. 25, 2001, meeting with Weldon or at another session, Jones said.

Posted by Mike at 08:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

September 26, 2005

More voices want Able Danger witnesses ungagged

Here are some editorials, all asking the Pentagon to let them testify.

Muzzling pre-9/11? - The Journal News, NY

Able Danger and total awareness - Daniel Gallington in the Washington Times, DC

Able Danger: Pentagon should reveal details of pre-9/11 program - Salt Lake Tribune, UT

Force Pentagon to provide data - Scranton Times, PA

The Suicide Ethos - Andrew McCarthy in National Review

Here is a quote from McCarthy, who is right on target:

In the Information Era, the world is increasingly small. Thus, in the course of carrying out those missions, it frequently happens that DoD intelligence services will incidentally capture information about U.S. persons. Does that mean these services need to shed that information, even if it could be vital to our safety?

Of course not. The whole point of the governing regulations is to allow the military to keep intelligence that might save American lives. Thus, Dugan conceded that the rules set forth 13 broad reasons for retaining information about U.S. persons....

There are few of these categories that would not provide, by themselves, a justification to maintain intelligence gathered on U.S. persons in the course of tracking an international terrorist organization and its members who were in the process of plotting to mass murder American civilians and military personnel. And that's leaving aside that the information we are talking about was, for the most part, actually gathered from publicly available information (a justifying category unto itself — see, No.2, above)

Dugan went on to note that "[w]e place special emphasis on the protection of information on United States persons. Our second area of emphasis is on ensuring improper activity by intelligence personnel is identified, reported, investigated, and then action taken to keep it from happening again."

The culture, the message to our forces, could not be more patent: protecting American lives is secondary to not being vexed by the ACLU and its fellow travelers. Even if proving our hearts are pure means gratuitously and utterly unnecessarily expunging goo-gobs of critical intelligence about our enemies in the middle of a war in which we know they are trying to kill us (and, mind you, al Qaeda regarded this as a war long before 9/11, even if our government didn't).

Posted by Mike at 12:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 25, 2005

Atta stayed in Brooklyn during June 2000

Those who dismiss the Brooklyn connection should consider this. Why did Atta decide to go to Brooklyn? I would bet he knew someone at the infamous Al Farouq mosque on Atlantic Ave.

AP story by Pat Milton published December 9, 2001:

Mohamed Atta, suspected ringleader of the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackings, rented rooms in New York City in the spring of 2000 with another hijacker, a federal investigator says.

Atta's visit to the city he later attacked came at the time of his first known trip to the United States. Authorities learned of his New York stay while trying to retrace the hijackers' steps prior to the attacks, said the investigator, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Investigators confirmed that Atta and the second man stayed in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and are trying to identify anyone who may have provided support to the men.

Atta's trail in Brooklyn began with a parking ticket issued to a rental car he was driving, said a senior Justice Department official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity....

The U.S. investigator said Atta and another hijacker briefly rented a room in Brooklyn in late spring 2000. They also answered a "Room for Rent" classified advertisement placed by a landlord in the Bronx, and also lived there, the investigator said. Authorities have interviewed landlords at both locations, the investigator said.

From Chapter 7 of the 9/11 Report:

In the early summer of 2000, the Hamburg group arrived in the United States to begin flight training. Marwan al Shehhi came on May 29, arriving in Newark on a flight from Brussels. He went to New York City and waited there for Mohamed Atta to join him. On June 2, Atta traveled to the Czech Republic by bus from Germany and then flew from Prague to Newark the next day. According to Ramzi Binalshibh, Atta did not meet with anyone in Prague; he simply believed it would contribute to operational security to fly out of Prague rather than Hamburg, the departure point for much of his previous international travel.

Footnote 46 from Chapter 7 of the 9/11 Report:

As they looked at flight schools on the East Coast, Atta and Shehhi stayed in a series of short-term rentals in New York City.

From the LA Times in March 2003:

Separately, Ashcroft announced the unsealing of charges in Brooklyn, N.Y., federal court against two Yemeni citizens, Mohammed Al Hasan Al-Moayad and Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed. Ashcroft said the men stand accused of conspiring to provide material support to the Al Qaeda and Hamas terrorist groups through a worldwide fund-raising operation that netted Osama bin Laden $20 million.

According to Ashcroft, a portion of the funds came from the Al Farouq mosque in Brooklyn, a onetime gathering place for Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, known as the blind sheik, and other men, all of whom were convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

The men were arrested Jan. 10 in Frankfurt, Germany; the U.S. is seeking their extradition. A Justice Department spokesman said announcement of the arrests was delayed for "operational reasons."

From the New York Post in 2005:

A sheik who boasted he was Osama bin Laden's spiritual adviser was convicted yesterday of scheming to financing terrorism, in a case that nearly went up in smoke when a key witness set himself on fire outside the White House.

Yemeni cleric Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad, 56, faces up to 75 years behind bars after a Brooklyn federal jury found him guilty of five charges stemming from a conspiracy to support al Qaeda and Hamas....

The two men were arrested in January 2003 after three days of meetings with a pair of FBI informants in which they discussed funneling $2.5 million to al Qaeda and Hamas.

These sessions were secretly taped in a German hotel that had been wired for video and sound as part of a sting operation.

Posted by Mike at 11:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Great site with Able Danger video clips

The Intelligence Summit describes itself as a "Non-Partisan Non-Profit Educational Forum" and it has an extensive archive of video clips related to Able Danger from different news programs, Fox in particular. Check it out.

This video clip of Jim Woolsey on Fox News makes my questioning of his motives look paranoid. In the August 21, 2005 interview, he was supporting the credibility of the Able Danger team witnesses who stepped forward, not detracting from it at all. If Mac's Mind is right though, and the VP wants the story to go away, I still think the connections between Cheney and Woolsey are too strong for Woolsey not be keeping the Vice President up to date on all of the details. I will be very interested in what Woolsey has to say if the actions of top leaders in the current administration ever come into question.

Posted by Mike at 12:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Is James Woolsey setting Able Danger up to fail?

I thought I should update this post and its title to reflect that this video clip of Jim Woolsey on Fox News makes my questioning of his motives seem paranoid. In the August 21, 2005 interview, he was supporting the credibility of the Able Danger team members who stepped forward, not detracting from them at all. On the other hand, what is that saying? Just because you aren't paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. Ha. If Mac is right though and the VP wants this to go away, which Hadley's denial suggests, I still think the connections between Cheney and Woolsey are too strong for Woolsey not be keeping the Vice President up to date on all of the details. I will be very interested in what Woolsey has to say if the actions of top leaders in the current administration ever come into question. Anyway, here is the rest of my original post.

Mac at Macsmind explains how Cheney is trying to kill the Able Danger story, and if you can read between the lines that makes the involvement of James Woolsey, who is "helping" Congressman Weldon on this, highly suspect.

Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and James Woolsey all worked together during the Reagan administration serving as team leaders on different defense and national security issues. According to James Mann, on page 335 of Rise of the Vulcans, the three were also "would-be White House chiefs of staff in the clandestine doomsday exercises of the Reagan administration." James Bamford describes it this way on page 72 of A Pretext for War:

But during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, following the attempt on his life soon after he took office, the issue of how to run the country if the senior leadership was "decapitated" was again revived. To help resolve the problem, a plan known as the Presidential Successor Support System was developed - again in absolute secrecy. Once more, unelected private citizens from around the country and several cabinet officers were called upon to take command. But now, one of them would even assume the role of president.

Given overall responsibility for the secret government was Vice President George H. W. Bush, with Lt. Col. Oliver North, a key player in the Iran-contra scandal, as the National Security Council action officer. The operation was hidden under the cover name "National Program Office" and was run by a two-star general from a nondescript Washington office building. Among the key players in the shadow government were Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and James Woolsey.

After the Reagan administration ended, Dick Cheney served as George H. W. Bush's Secretary of Defense for Bush 41's full term in office - from March 1989 to January 1993. Cheney then became a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute from January 1993 to October 1995, when he was hired as the CEO of Halliburton. His wife Lynne was hired as a Senior Fellow by AEI at the same time in 1993 and still works at AEI in that position today.

James Woolsey was CIA Director from 1993 to 1995 under Bill Clinton and the neo-conservative hawk has gotten a lot of mileage as being bipartisan as a result, despite the fact that according to one source:

Woolsey was so disliked by Clinton that when an apparent suicide pilot crashed a single-engine Cessna airplane on the south lawn of the White House in 1994, jokers suggested it might be the CIA director trying to get an appointment with the President.

James Bamford, writes on page 118 of A Pretext for War: "One former CIA director, R. James Woolsey, had only two semiprivate meetings with the President in two years and referred to his relationship with Clinton as 'nonexistant.' " According to USA Today:

An angry ex-CIA director can be more damaging to a president than a disgruntled current director. That was President Clinton's experience after he pushed out CIA director James Woolsey, only to have Woolsey become one of the leading critics of Clinton on national security issues.

Since 1997, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Woolsey have all been leading advocates of the Project for a New American Century - whose headquarters are on the fifth floor of the American Enterprise Institute building in DC. The group's main goal for the five years preceding the Iraq War were to make the case for overthrowing Saddam and criticize the "incoherent policies of the Clinton Administration".

DowningStreetMemo.com has a timeline of Woolsey's actions since, which clearly establishes his role as an advocate for Bush and Cheney. When Wes Clark got that call from the Whitehouse on 9/11 to blame Iraq for the attacks, he said no. Jim Woolsey said yes:

01-26-1998 PNAC calls to remove Saddam Hussein from power

03-1998 James Woolsey defends INC rebels in deportation case

05-29-1998 PNAC letter outlining removal of Saddam Hussein

1999 Bush advisors "clearly wanted to go after Iraq"

2000 Woolsey serves briefly as a corporate officer for the Iraqi National Congress

02-2001 Woolsey makes first of two trips to London trying to link Iraq to 1993 WTC bombing

02-15-2001 Woolsey: "Iraq may have had a substantial hand in the World Trade Center bombing"

09-11-2001 Key Officials, Woolsey and Kristol used 9/11 as Pretext for Iraq War

09-13-2001 Woolsey: Investigators should consider the possibility the attacks were ordered

09-16-2001 Wolfowitz: 9/11 created opportunity to attack Iraq

10-2001 Woolsey in London, sent by Wolfowitz to investigate Iraqi link to 9/11

10-2001 While in London, Woolsey meets with INC [Iraqi National Congress] leaders

10-07-2001 Taliban offers US "significant insights into Iraq's terrorist collaborations in the region"

10-08-2001 Woolsey meeting cancelled with Taliban to discuss links between Iraq and Osama bin Laden

10-23-2001 Ex-CIA Chief suggests Iraq involvement in 9/11 attacks

10-26-2001 Woolsey: "substantial and growing indications" Iraq was behind attacks

02-11-2002 Woolsey arranges the debriefing of an Iraqi defector produced by the INC

Now do you understand my concern, after learning that Vice President Cheney made sure the Able Danger witnesses were gagged, that I remembered hearing Congressman Weldon say this at the hearing:

I brought in again as a volunteer Jim Woolsey. Jim Woolsey is a close friend of mine. Jim Woolsey sat in on a number of meetings with these people early on to make sure that I wasn't going off the deep end and to counsel me to make sure that I wasn't jumping to conclusions.

Combine that with this article, I'm sure there will be others, where Woolsey downplays the Able Danger controversy:

James Woolsey, President Clinton's CIA director from 1993 to 1995, said the decision not to pass the information to law enforcement agents was made before Sept. 11 and passage of the PatriotAct, which has expanded the government's ability to track terrorist threats inside the United States.

"There are all sorts of things that lawyers, during peacetime, advise their clients to do to stay within legal bounds," Woolsey said.

Now do you see it? The plan to kill Able Danger is an inside job.

As Mac says:

In light of the fact, that "Cobweb" pulled a plug on progress, the Able Danger saga continues on the web.

TopDog08 links to this letter issued by the 911 Commission on 20 September 2005. After perusing it I am even more convinced that whatever 'actvitiy' we see reference to hearings, it's all going to be one big "dog and pony" show from now on.

Why? Despite what Able Danger was, and what they did, the story is about "The Chart", and Weldon's big kahuna is that damn chart with Atta's mug shot on it. Unless he can pull it out of his rear end and soon this is a dead issue. The letter acknowledges "other charts", but not THE chart.

In other words, the focus is on a chart Woolsey knows they don't have.

They've made damn well sure it no longer exists by now.

Posted by Mike at 11:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Is Bush losing supporters over Able Danger?

It sounds like he just lost Mark Tapscott, Director of the Center for Media and Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation:

For a life-long conservative Republican and Bush voter in 2000 and 2004 like yours truly, that last question is especially galling. It was bad enough early in Bush’s first term when he signed an executive order keeping the truth about Bill Clinton’s midnight pardon spree behind closed doors. I swallowed hard and accepted the White House’s executive privilege claim on that one.

But the Able Danger hearing capped a long series of troubling decisions that tortured credulity such as Bush increasing federal spending twice as fast as Clinton, expanding entitlements at a pace only Lyndon Johnson could match, signing a campaign finance law that limits political speech and refusing to veto even the most outrageous examples of congressional pork barreling.

The last straw came the day before William Dugan, an assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said to the Senate panel “I don’t know” when asked if Able Danger had identified Atta. That’s when the Pentagon barred testimony by the five officials who have said they worked on the program and recall seeing the terrorist’s name on a chart during the Clinton administration.

Either the powers-that-be think most people are too stupid to figure out that a whitewash is in process or they assume most people aren’t paying attention and there is little to fear from the Senate. They will be proven right if Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate panel, doesn’t quickly start issuing subpoenas to get to the bottom of this scandal.

Here's another one:

I haven't written about Able Danger lately....
....It's not because there's nothing going on. It's because the Bush administration is really starting to piss me off with the on-again off-again responses of the Pentagon and the clear attempt to do damage control. I want the truth. That's all I've ever wanted. And they aren't cooperating. What the heck is wrong with these people?

Not unlike Iraq, this is fast becoming a lose-lose situation for Bush.

Posted by Mike at 12:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 23, 2005

"Yes you did, no I didn't, yes you did, no I didn't"

Simply unbelievable:

Specter: Pentagon drops hearing objection

A Senate committee said Friday that the Pentagon has dropped its refusal to let five people with knowledge of a highly classified intelligence program testify about it publicly, but a Pentagon spokesman said it remained opposed to such testimony in an open hearing.

In a news release, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the five will testify at an open hearing Oct. 5.

Asked about Specter's announcement, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said, "Our position with respect to this has not changed. Our concerns have not changed." He said the Pentagon has not agreed to permit the five to testify in public, although discussions with the committee were continuing.

Whitman said the Pentagon has provided a great deal of information about the intelligence program, called "Able Danger," to the Intelligence and Armed Services committees, and will continue to do so.

Specter spokesman William Reynolds said in response to Whitman's remarks that the Pentagon had given its assent Friday to the witnesses appearing. The agreed arrangement did not explicitly state whether the hearing would be open or closed, Reynolds said, but the committee plans to follow it usual practice of hearing testimony in public.

Talk about a standoff. It sounds like Specter has never had closed hearings and doesn't intend to have any, so what happens October 5th?

Posted by Mike at 11:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Does the Pentagon have any credibility left?

First they had never heard of it, then they could not find any documentation to support it, next they held a press conference on it, before saying it was too classified to discuss in a public forum, now it is once again, apparently fair game:

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department on Friday reversed its earlier decision to bar key witnesses from testifying about just how much information the U.S. government had on the Sept. 11 hijackers before they led the attacks that killed 3,000 people.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has therefore scheduled a second hearing for next week on the formerly secret Pentagon intelligence unit called "Able Danger".

Former members of Able Danger say the group identified Sept. 11 hijackers, including Mohamed Atta, more than a year before the attacks. Although those Able Danger analysts say they told the Sept. 11 commission about their findings, former members of the panel have so far dismissed the claim.

The Senate Judiciary Committee said in a statement Friday that the Pentagon now will allow five witnesses to testify. Among those are Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott and defense contractor John Smith.

Shaffer said in written testimony last week that the Pentagon blocked him from offering information on Able Danger and its identification of Atta — the lead hijacker.

Posted by Mike at 04:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Why Lambert didn't share the data with the FBI

Sorry for another short post without sources. I will get caught up tonight after I get some more work done at my real job. Think about it, though. In April, May 2000 depending who you ask, LIWA got into major trouble simply for HAVING information on US citizens in those databases it was using to mine for terrorists worldwide, despite the fact it was open source public information anyone could buy. "Armed federal agents" apparently seized everything they could find that JD Smith and others had been working on, out of fear that it related to US persons. Who would send armed federal agents? The FBI. All the databases at LIWA were deleted in July 2000 as Kleinsmith testified, which infuriated Lambert at SOCOM headquarters.

SOCOM rebuilt the Able Danger capability with Raytheon in Garland, Texas. The same capability federal agents from the FBI had been sent in to shut down. So in September, when they had information on someone inside the US they had identified with the same technology, why would they not want to share that information with the FBI? Not because of the Gorelick wall. Because Lambert was afraid the FBI would ask "where did you get this?" and send in the freaking armed federal agents to seize all the data! Then they would be right back at square one.

Based on Kleinsmith's written testimony, it sounds like the Cole bombing changed all of that and LIWA started supporting both CENTCOM and SOCOM again, until April of 2001 that is, when Kleinsmith left. According to Shaffer, all support - for SOCOM at least - ended by May. Which brings us back to the question: Why was it axed in May 2001? I think the hearings are in the Judiciary Committee because the question of why it was shut down is outside their jurisdiction.

Posted by Mike at 02:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

More evidence the 9/11 Commission is spinning

Compare this quote from the 9/11 Commission:

Brian Sheridan—the outgoing Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC), the key counterterrorism policy office in DOD—never briefed Rumsfeld. Lower-level SOLIC officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense
told us that they thought the new team was focused on other issues and was not especially interested in their counterterrorism agenda. Undersecretary Feith told the Commission that when he arrived at the Pentagon in July 2001, Rumsfeld asked him to focus his attention on working with the Russians on agreements to dissolve the Anti-Ballistic
Missile (ABM) Treaty and preparing a new nuclear arms control pact. Traditionally, the primary DOD official responsible for counterterrorism policy had been the assistant secretary of defense for SOLIC. The outgoing assistant secretary left on January 20, 2001, and had not been replaced when the Pentagon was hit on September 11.

With these quotes from the LA Times:

Voices in the Wilderness Are Turning Into a Chorus

by Daniel Benjamin
The Los Angeles Times
March 30, 2004

...Brian Sheridan, President Clinton's outgoing assistant secretary of Defense for special operations and low intensity conflict, was astonished when his offers during the transition to bring the new Pentagon leadership up to speed on terrorism were brushed aside. "I offered to brief anyone, any time on any topic. Never took it up."

Even if one dismisses Sheridan's remarks as those of a political appointee, the same cannot be done for Don Kerrick. A three-star general, Kerrick had served at the end of the Clinton administration as deputy national security advisor, and he spent the final four months of his military career in the Bush White House. He sent a memo to the NSC's new leadership on "things you need to pay attention to." He wrote about Al Qaeda: "We are going to be struck again."

But he never heard back. "I don't think it was above the waterline. They were gambling nothing would happen," he said.

The most damaging remarks came from Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff until Oct. 1, 2001. Shelton told us that in the Bush administration terrorism had moved "farther to the back burner." He also recounted how the Joint Chiefs of Staff, frustrated at the lack of progress in dealing with Al Qaeda, had begun a disinformation program in the last year of the Clinton administration to create dissent within the Taliban. But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz shut it down. Counterterrorism, the new leadership felt, was not a military mission.

Shelton added, "The squeaky wheel was Dick Clarke, but he wasn't at the top of their priority list, so the lights went out for a few months." Shelton summed up Rumsfeld's attitude as being "this terrorism thing was out there, but it didn't happen today, so maybe it belonged lower on the list."

Notice how the 9/11 Commission made it sound like Sheridan neglected to do his duty and brief Rumsfeld when Rumsfeld actually blew him off.

Then take this from Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies, p.228:

Colin Powell took the unusual step during the transition of asking to meet with the CSG, the senior counterterrorism officers from NSC, State, Defense, CIA, FBI, and the military. He wanted to see us interact, respond to each other's statements. When we all agreed at the importance of the Al Qaeda threat, Powell was obviously surprised at the unanimity.

Brian Sheridan, the soon departing Assistant Secretary of Defense, summed it up: "General Powell, I will be leaving when the administration changes. I am the only political appointee in the room. All these guys are career professionals. So let me give you one piece of advice, untainted by any personal interest. Keep this interagency team together and make al Qaeda your number one priority. We may all squabble about tactics and we may call each other assholes from time to time, but this is the best interagency team I've ever seen and they all want to get al Qaeda. They're comin' after us and we gotta get them first."

...Rice decided that the position of National Coordinator for Counterterrorism would also be downgraded. No longer would the Coordinator be a member of the Principals Committee. No longer would the CSG report to the Principals, but instead to a committee of Deputy Secretaries.

Still think the 9/11 Commission is being "fair and balanced" on this?
They interviewed all the same generals. Why don't they quote them?

Posted by Mike at 09:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 22, 2005

9/11 Commission asked generals about Able Danger

The latest character assassination attempt by the 9/11 Hit Commission - with an entire section entitled "Memories are Faulty" - unwittingly reveals some important new details:

In the Department of Defense, the 9/11 Commission interviewed General Schoomaker, who was Commander of the Special Operations Command at the time Able Danger was created. The Commission interviewed General Hugh Shelton, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Scott Fry and General Gregory Newbold, successive directors of operations for the Joint Staff. The Commission interviewed Brian Sheridan, the Assistant Secretary for Special Operatoins and Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC) during the period Able Danger was in existence; as well as several other senior and mid-level managers in SOLIC. Despite direct questions for any information relevant to the 9/11 attacks, they mentioned nothing about a chart. They mentioned nothing about identifying Mohamed Atta, even in response to questions about the Able Danger program.

In other words, while they never asked these military officers if Able Danger had identified Mohamed Atta or presumably any of the other hijackers, they did ask them specifically about Able Danger. Which begs the question: What did the 9/11 Commission ask all these people about Able Danger and what was their response?

Maybe this staff statement is a hint?

Though plans were not executed, the military continued to assess and update target lists regularly in case the military was asked to strike. Plans largely centered on cruise missile and manned aircraft strike options, and were updated and refined continuously through March 2001....

In late 1999, the military engaged in substantial preparations in anticipation of possible terrorist attacks around the Millennium. The Joint Chiefs of Staff developed a plan to react as rapidly as possible to an al Qaeda strike anywhere in the world. The Pentagon
was also prepared to provide assistance within the United States to other federal agencies in response to an act or threatened act of terrorism.

In the summer of 2000, the Joint Chiefs of Staff refined its list of strikes and special operations possibilities to a set of thirteen options within the Operation Infinite Resolve plan. Planning by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and CENTCOM also focused primarily on the
development of the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle for the purposes of intelligence collection and targeting of Bin Ladin and al Qaeda leaders....

The new team at the Pentagon did not push for a response for the Cole, according to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, his deputy. Wolfowitz told us that by the time the new administration was in place, the Cole incident was “stale.” The 1998 cruise missiles strikes showed UBL and al Qaeda that they had nothing to fear from a U.S. response, Wolfowitz said. For his part, Rumsfeld also thought too much time had passed. He worked on the force protection recommendations developed in the aftermath of the U.S.S. Cole attack, not response options....

On February 8, General Shelton briefed Secretary Rumsfeld on the Operation Infinite Resolve plan, including the range of options and CENTCOM’s new phased campaign plan. These plans were periodically
updated during the ensuing months. Brian Sheridan—the outgoing Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC), the key counterterrorism policy office in DOD—never briefed Rumsfeld. Lower-level SOLIC officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense told us that they thought the new team was focused on other issues and was not especially interested in their counterterrorism agenda. Undersecretary Feith told the Commission that when he arrived at the Pentagon in July 2001, Rumsfeld asked him to focus his attention on working with the Russians on agreements to dissolve the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and preparing a new nuclear arms control pact. Traditionally, the primary DOD official responsible for counterterrorism policy had been the assistant secretary of defense for SOLIC. The outgoing assistant secretary left on January 20, 2001, and had not been replaced when the Pentagon was hit on September 11....

General Pete Schoomaker, the chief of staff of the U.S. Army and former Commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, said that if the Special Operations Command had been a supported command before 9/11, he would have had the al Qaeda mission rather than deferring to CENTCOM’s lead. Schoomaker said he spoke to Secretary Cohen and General Shelton about this proposal. It was not adopted.

Posted by Mike at 12:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

Interesting report from SOCOM's hometown

Tampa is also home to CENTCOM. From the Tampa Tribune earlier today:

According to the draft version of a report prepared for the Pentagon's top intelligence official, federal oversight regulations ``were frequently cited'' by military organizations across thecountry ``as limiting factors to robust open-source collection.''

Public information includes items as generic as newspapers and professional journals and more sensitive documents such as legal filings, driver's license applications and property records.

In particular, the regulations have been a barrier for U.S. Northern Command, which has its headquarters in Colorado and is responsible for guarding U.S. borders, the report states.

The concerns, however, appear to be unfounded, according to the report.

Written by the Defense Open Source Council, the study says a review of current regulations and policy found no ``restrictions on collection and exploitation of publicly availableinformation.''

The Defense Open Source Council was established by Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence since March 2003.

The council is made up of representatives from Cambone's office, the four military services, and the defense agencies that gather and analyze secrets stolen overseas.

The May 24 draft report is labeled ``for official use only.'' The Tampa Tribune obtained excerpts of the study....

Using open-source information as an intelligence tool is not new.

Special Operations Command and U.S. Central Command, both at MacDill Air Force Base, are significant consumers of public information.

Within SoCom, the open-source effort is known as ``the Pit,'' a reference to a large electronic repository where information from public and private databases is gathered and sorted by computers.

Yet the practice of tapping open sources remains largely unregulated, a point underscored by the Defense Open Source Council....

Wait for it:

James Woolsey, President Clinton's CIA director from 1993 to 1995, said the decision not to pass the information to law enforcement agents was made before Sept. 11 and passage of the PatriotAct, which has expanded the government's ability to track terrorist threats inside the United States.

``There are all sorts of things that lawyers, during peacetime, advise their clients to do to stay within legal bounds,'' Woolsey said.

Posted by Mike at 01:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 21, 2005

Cheney ordered Able Danger witnesses gagged

My ears definitely perked up today when I heard Weldon say this:

I brought in again as a volunteer Jim Woolsey. Jim Woolsey is a close friend of mine. Jim Woolsey sat in on a number of meetings with these people early on to make sure that I wasn't going off the deep end and to counsel me to make sure that I wasn't jumping to conclusions.

Talk about the fox guarding the hen house.

Then I read this from Mac at Macsmind:

Early today I watched the 'Spector House' Able Danger hearings on CSPAN.

I watched closely, because at 8am, my cell was buzzing, a call from a friend. I had asked him to get some clarification on Shaffer's story that Rummy told 'em not to testify. The word I got from him was that contrary to popular knowledge, Rummy didn't pull the plug on the witnesses, it came from "Cobweb", which is just a little - OK, a lot higher up the chain.

Here's what I know. Spector is being "allowed" this little foray basically to keep Weldon quiet. Like I said before, "Give him his hearing and maybe he'll go away". There are people - active - who want this to go away and how the power to make it go away.

I know that everyone is clamering for more and indeed you have some of the families of 9/11 victims and others demanding answers. But unless the WH walls come crumbling down, it isn't going to happen. The MSM isn't picking up on the story (a little CIA/MSM/CYA going on IMHO), thus the majority of the public isn't catching on - thus no interest outside of bloggers and the principles.

So my take is that we'll have more 'revelations', 'hearings, etc, but that's about it. Weldon's book will sell a lot of copies.

The fact is that - and catch my drift - there are people that feel that keeping the truth at bay is better at this time than to "let it all hang out."

A sham, yeah. Incredible, yeah that too. But it won't be the first time and it's likely not to be the last.

"Cobweb" is Cheney. If you don't believe me, ask the London Times:

These top-secret code names have been used at various times by the SS:

Acrobat/Andy: Andrews Air Force Base
Angel/Cowpuncher: Air Force One
Bamboo: Presidential motorcade
Baseball: Secret Service Training Division
Birds-eye: Department of State
Bookstore: White House Communications Center
Cactus: Camp David
Cement Mixer: White House Situation Room
Cobweb: Vice President's office
Magic: Helicopter co-ordination command post
Pacemaker: Vice President's staff
Playground: Pentagon helicopter pad
Pork Chop: Old Senate Office Building
Roadhouse: Waldorf Astoria hotel, New York City
Wheels Down: Air Force One has landed

That would explain how they gagged the FBI witness, too.

Posted by Mike at 11:10 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Presidential Daily Brief or Able Danger?

A very interesting point, from The Corner of all places:

Remember the vaunted 9/11 Commission hearings? We were told that it was so urgently important that the public understand accurately the history of government counter-terrorism activities prior to the attacks that all manner of classified information was declassified – including, famously, a presidential daily brief from the intelligence community (among the most sensitive documents generated by the government) outlining the al Qaeda threat circa August 2001. Indeed, under great political and media pressure, the president’s then-National Security Adviser Condi Rice was compelled to give hours of sworn public testimony about everything she and the administration did from January 2001 through 9/11.

Why is it that this was important enough for the National Security Adviser but somehow not important enough for a group of intelligence operatives in connection with a program that hasn’t existed anymore for years?

Posted by Mike at 06:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 20, 2005

Pentagon blocks Able Danger testimony

First they had never heard of it, then it was merely a planning program that "ran it's course" in January 2001, now it is so vital to national security it can not be discussing in Congressional hearings.

I'm speechless. The Abu Ghraib photos I can almost understand. But this? Who gave them the power to decide what the American people get to know about the only military program that could have stopped 9/11?

From the New York Times:

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....

Mr. Whitman, the Pentagon spokesman, said that in place of members of the Able Danger team, a senior defense official would be sent to the Wednesday hearing to discuss "what the law and policies are on domestic surveillance and to provide some insights about information-sharing between agencies."

Posted by Mike at 09:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Able Danger hearing will air on C-SPAN3

Since both the House and Senate are in session tomorrow, the Able Danger hearing will be relegated to C-SPAN3. I know I don't get C-SPAN3, but I'm fairly sure you can watch it online at c-span.org, too.

C-SPAN3 Schedule:

09:30 AM EDT
3:00 (est.) LIVE
Senate Committee
Able Danger and Intelligence Sharing
Judiciary
Arlen Specter, R-PA

Posted by Mike at 05:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tentative Able Danger witness list released

Are Phillpott and Shaffer only letting their lawyer speak for them or will they be on one of these panels after all? If they are really planning a one-person panel for Weldon, that seems a little bit odd.

Anyway, the Judiciary Committee has released the Tentative Witness List:

PANEL I

The Honorable Curt Weldon
United States Representative [R-PA, 7th District]

PANEL II

Mark Zaid, Esq.
Attorney at Law
Washington, DC

Erik Kleinsmith
former Army Major and
Chief of Intelligence of the Land Infomration Warfare Analysis LIWA
Project Manager for Intelligence Analytical Training
Lockheed Martin
Newington, VA

PANEL III

Gary Bald
Executive Assistant Director
Counter Terrorism/Counter Intelligence
Federal Bureau of Investigation
United States Department of Justice
Washington, DC

William Dugan
Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Oversight
United States Department of Defense
Washington, DC

Posted by Mike at 04:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

9/11 families allege Pentagon cover-up

From the Staten Island Advance:

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.

"They have been denying this Atta thing up, down and sideways for weeks," she said. "And now they want to cover it up."

Bruce DeCell of Dongan Hills, who lost a son-in-law and cousin at the World Trade Center, said he has wearied of attempts by government officials to suppress 9/11-related information. "They always plead national security," he said. "But 9/11 was about national security and 3,000 people died because they let it happen."

"It would be a travesty to keep the facts surrounding this operation from the public," said Kristen Breitweiser of New Jersey, who lost her husband at Ground Zero.

According to Fox News:

The Pentagon is pressuring the Senate Judiciary Committee to close to the public next week's hearings on a former secret military intelligence unit called "Able Danger," two congressional sources have confirmed to FOX News.

Witnesses from the Pentagon are expected to testify at that hearing; that's why they want it classified. FOX News has learned that committee Chairman Arlen Specter's office is vigorously resisting the request.

Why would the Pentagon want closed hearings?

Let's ask Republican Congressman Weldon:

A briefing that included Richard Shiffrin, with Steve Cambone, in March of 2001, five months before 9/11, is historically insignificant? I don't think so.

Posted by Mike at 11:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 19, 2005

Able Danger details reported in 2003?

Dan Verton, the Vice President and Executive Editor of Homeland Defense Journal and a former senior writer with Computerworld Magazine, is somewhat understandably pissed that he got scooped by Government Security News on the Able Danger story. On his personal web site, he says he actually broke the Able Danger story way back in 2003:

Recent news about the findings of the Able Danger military intelligence unit is not news at all. Your humble correspondent reported on the findings of the unit and the fact that the unit had briefed senior Defense Department officials during the transition phase between the Clinton and Bush administrations more than two years ago.

Well, actually there are a lot of new details about the story. One, the fact that the first four intended pilots had been identified by the SOCOM effort. Two, the fact that the program was shut down four months before 9/11 and apparently never restarted after the attacks. Three, members of the Able Danger team are coming forward to talk. Four, they spoke to the 9/11 Commission staff, repeatedly, but were ignored. Five, the Pentagon still seems to have a lot to hide. Six, the issues of intelligence sharing and collection have still not been resolved. Seven, people are still afraid of retribution for talking.

I don't think Dan really reported anything Weldon had not said in the speeches he made in 2002. I think Dan simply fails to realize that a lot more details have come out now - and a lot of important ones, too.

Anyway, here are some more expects from the piece on Dan's web site:

According to the story Weldon told me during that interview, the U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., had approached LIWA in 2000 for information on its commercial data mining capabilities that it had built with the assistance of a former CIA profiler who was employed as a contractor. With LIWA’s help, the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) built a scaled-down version of the data mining system. It then produced an entire profile of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Through that profile, SOCOM made detailed recommendations to the Clinton administration in January 2001 — only weeks before the inauguration of President George W. Bush. Those recommendations, according to Weldon, included guidance on which individual al-Qaeda cells to direct military and law enforcement action against to cripple the terror organization.

During our interview, Weldon stated categorically that a detailed briefing had been scheduled with then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton. However, what was at first scheduled to be a three hour briefing was reduced at the last moment to one hour. And, tragically, the recommendations passed on to the leadership at the Defense Department were never acted upon, said Weldon. He also said that he had briefed then Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge on the findings and the urgent need to improve information sharing.

This is basically the same thing Weldon said in his speech at the Heritage Foundation back in 2002, and other speeches at the time. Here is a direct link to the Heritage Foundation video for Real Player.

Anyway, here is an excerpt from the Computerworld Magazine article Dan is citing:

The U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., also tapped into LIWA’s data mining capabilities and with that agency’s help built a small version of the LIWA system. It then produced an entire profile of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Through that profile, the Special Operations Command made detailed recommendations to the Clinton administration in January 2001 about which individual cells to direct action against to cripple the organization. Those recommendations were never acted upon.

“All of that activity could have prevented or helped to prevent 9/11 from ever occurring,” said Weldon, speaking in May in the House of Representatives.

"I briefed our Homeland Security director, Tom Ridge. He agreed with us, but he has not yet been able to achieve this new interagency collaborative center,” Weldon said in May. “And that is an indictment of our government that the American people deserve to be outraged over."

Dan wonders why this is only coming up now. I think the 9/11 Commission and the Pentagon share the blame, but the truth is that befor - no one even imagined that 9/11 could have been prevented.

If the facts don't fit the frame, the facts bounce off.

Posted by Mike at 03:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Testimony of Kie Fallis from 2002

This seems especially relevant in light of need for the DIA to "reconstitute the Able Danger capability" which it apparently never reconstituted after 9/11. (The new project is Able Providence).

This part in particular sounds a lot like the "Able Danger" tool set:

FALLIS: In my case, Senator, what I did is, I began to notice there was a voluminous amount of information, as others have testified, regarding Al Qaida. Most of it appeared to be unrelated to other pieces of information. It appeared to be almost chat. By using a piece of software that I was able to put these small snippets of information into, and graphically represent them as well, I was able to, over a course of many months, to determine certain linkages between these items -- linkages that would never be apparent without the use of this tool. It would be lost in the weeds. And there were a lot of weeds to look through.

Statement of Kie Fallis to the Joint Intelligence Committee on October 8, 2002 during the investigation into 9/11:

FALLIS: Thank you, Senator Roberts.

Mr. Chairman, members of these committees, I'd like to tell that it's a great honor for me to come before you today to have a discussion about the subject at hand. And I would also like to say that it's a great honor for me to be a part of this group of distinguished Americans at the table here, as well.

That said, my comments today will be strictly from the perspective of a former terrorism analysts, employed at the Central Intelligence Agency. What I'd like to do is to briefly summarize my written statement. And I want to move, sort of immediately, to this part on terrorism analytical issues complicating improved future performance.

The single most important issue that will affect future performance is the experience out of the analysts. While this certainly applies to all intelligence analysts regardless of subject area, it is even more critical for those trying to prevent the next terrorist attack. In the case of an analyst responsible for tracking a Middle Eastern terrorist group, this person will need to be -- will need to have an expertise or at least a good working knowledge of terrorism itself, the group that they have for an account, regional and country issues present in the group's operating area, which can be quite extensive, and Islamic history, culture and the sex there of.

This sort of required level of expertise is rarely going to be found outside the intelligence community and is instead going to be recruited from academia and then developed in-house through training programs and mentors.

Coupled with this issue of experience comes the ability to place current intelligence reporting in the context of historical perspectives. In the period leading up to the 1998 East Africa bombings, and the 2000 attack against USS Cole in Yemen, terrorism analysts, nearly across the board, incorrectly assessed that a group would not conduct an attack in an area where it was able to operate with relative ease. Additionally, there appears to be a continued reluctance to correctly assess and evaluate the nature of cooperation between many Sunni and Shiite Islamic extremist groups. Both of these examples, and there are certainly others, occurred despite over a decade of credible reporting to the contrary.

The other significant issue complicating future analytical performance against terrorists is the tendency of the FBI to compartment all pre and post-attack investigative information. I realize this committee has spent a great deal of its time looking at the many legal and other aspects of this problem, and I am not qualified to comment on those findings. However, as a former terrorism analyst and liaison officer to the FBI, I can tell you that having this information is critically important to being able to predict a future event.

If the communities' analysts are left in the dark about how a group puts an attack together, and each group does tend to do things a little differently, how will those analysts be able to pick up on future indicators of a future attack? Quite frankly, it's nearly impossible.

The investigative -- as an example, the investigative results of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing were not disseminated until almost two years after the event, and then only to a few select analysts and agencies.

Another issue would have be what have occurred right prior to the 1998 East Africa bombings, and that's -- U.S. agencies had conducted a vigorous investigation to include a physical search of the Al Qaida cell leader in Nairobi almost a year prior to this bombing. Almost all of the results of this effort weren't shared with the terrorism analytical community due to concerns -- legitimate concerns about the criminal case. Most of the information was never properly exploited. And after the embassy bombings, the post-attack investigative results were not shared.

Now as a result, by failing to share the information, bin Laden analysts were unable to build a correct modus operandi for Al Qaida attacks. And like the Khobar Towers example, they were unable to attach the proper level of importance to those culpable individuals still at large. This directly contributed to most analysts having only a moderate level of interest in the January 2000 Malaysia meeting of Al Qaida operatives, when in fact the same node that has organized the meeting in Malaysia was in fact responsible for a great deal of the planning for the East Africa bombings.

Moving on to my conclusions, the collection of additional information, further reorganizations and the hiring of additional analysts is unlikely to significantly effect any of these issues. The central hub in our nation's past, present and future failure or successes in the counterterrorism arena will rest squarely on the shoulders of the working level, all-source analysts in both the law enforcement and intelligence community.

These men and women are the hard-working patriots who will have to try and find that single piece of hay in a stack of needles, and then try to tie it to another disparate piece of information in a timely manner. This will never be an easy job for them to accomplish, but the leadership of America's intelligence and law enforcement communities must provide them with the training, tools and information to accomplish the mission.

The information they need to successfully predict and prevent the next terror attack is probably already contained in one or more databases inside the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement community. The only question is whether experienced, working level analysts will be given access to that information and will properly integrate that material into an accurate advisory warning.

Thank you and that will conclude my remarks.

You can read the transcript of the question and answer portion below.

ROBERTS: Let me just follow up with a question if I might. How did the use of the analytical software tools and the databases that you put together, that gave you insight, in regards to the draft that you tried to prepare improve your ability to produce the intelligence assessments on various terrorist groups? And how do we get that information to the analysts as you have just described?

FALLIS: In my case, Senator, what I did is, I began to notice there was a voluminous amount of information, as others have testified, regarding Al Qaida. Most of it appeared to be unrelated to other pieces of information. It appeared to be almost chat. By using a piece of software that I was able to put these small snippets of information into, and graphically represent them as well, I was able to, over a course of many months, to determine certain linkages between these items -- linkages that would never be apparent without the use of this tool. It would be lost in the weeds. And there were a lot of weeds to look through.

FALLIS: The reason it makes it easier by using this, and it makes it much easier to collaborate with other analysts in the intelligence community, in the FBI, CIA and others, to bring your findings, share their findings, and then work together towards a common goal of preventing the next attack.

ROBERTS: We've heard from Mrs. Hill -- or pardon me, Ms. Hill in another hearing so if we often do not anticipate these attacks, how can we do better?

FALLIS: By making better use of the information that we've already collected, quite frankly. There's a -- we have literally a treasure trove of intelligence information spanning back decades. And the proper examination of that information, the proper databasing and building of relationships among -- with that information, I think, will give us the results, not all the way to the extent that we might want them, but it will take us a lot further than we are now.

ROBERTS: We've heard that in order to get the warnings out the right people, that it would represent a flood to the policy makers and others with what we call constant vague warnings or warning fatigue. How can we ensure that that doesn't happen?

FALLIS: That's a very difficult thing to accomplish, because too few warnings and the information's not going to get across, too many and you induce warning fatigue. I think the answer lies in the analytical efforts against terrorist groups to be conducted more efficiently and effective, to gather the details, mined from the data that are there, put them together into a collaborative assessment, and then produce better and more correct and more thorough warning products, perhaps fewer, but more pressing and more accurate.

ROBERTS: Senator Rudman called for bringing in outside experts on a more regular and systematic basis. And our inquiry has heard from others that some in the intelligence committee, at times, lack the expertise. Can these experts be found? And can they be brought in to improve analysis?

FALLIS: Oh absolutely, and that was done routinely. And frequently individuals in the counterterrorism center, the leadership there, would attempt bring in academic experts and others. And I would say that they contributed a lot to the effort of the communities' analysts.

ROBERTS: I want to ask you a question, and it appears to be, you know, perhaps too basic, but -- how do you do your job? It's a lot like when my daughter asks me, when she knew I was a Senator, and she said, "Well, daddy, what do you really do, you know, when you go to work?" I want to know how you do your job. Can you describe the type of information you use and how you put it together and what happens to it then? Just give us an idea from a typical, although you're an atypical analyst from your background and your work. And I thought it was pretty assent, but I understand now that it is prescient. But at any rate, to that ability that you have -- what do you do when you get up in the morning and you go in and you're an analyst?

FALLIS: The first thing I would generally, Senator, would be to look through all of the national products that would be available to me in message queue, in a computer terminal that would be sitting on my desk, to sort of set the ground for what had been happening in the previous 24 hours.

From that point, I would move to a message traffic handling system where I had built a profile of certain key words that would hit on certain messages being brought in. You then sometimes have up to 200 messages a day to read through. From those, I would try to pick out the most compelling information, the most accurate, the best- sourced to begin populating my database with.

Then throughout the day you'd be talking to your counterparts at the CTC and/or the FBI. And putting together assessments or other products as directed. It could be exciting, and at times it could be mind-numbing.

ROBERTS: Is this what we call rocket science? Is this really hard work? You know, we hear about the analyst who has to have all this expertise and background, et cetera. You have that. You're fluent in Farsi. You're a student of that part of the world. In terms of recruiting and training, how tough is this?

FALLIS: The act of producing -- of doing analysis and producing assessments is not -- it's certainly not rocket science and it certainly isn't pushing any intellectual boundaries. It does require time to build the experience to become what we would call a working- level or a journeyman-level analyst. There's nothing special about it. As I related to both committees, I certainly did nothing special in the period leading up to the attack on the USS Cole. I think all I did was consistently read all of the traffic I could. And then instead of just moving onto something else, taking the traffic and trying to exploit every piece of information in it to see where that would take me.

ROBERTS: Bottom line, do you have a recommendation in regards to -- in behalf of all your analyst colleagues out there who are doing the hard-working work, as opposed to all of the very important and necessary officials that we normally have here who testify?

FALLIS: I would say that we need -- we need two things increased -- two areas of concern that are going to have to be addressed, and that is the ability of analysts across the community to collaborate on their efforts, and in doing this collaboration, to have the most possible information available to them.

Obviously, we have to be concerned about whether people are properly cleared. They have to be in order to receive certain information, read into certain programs, but by reaching that sort of apex of good, experienced, hard-working analysts with the tools they need to do the job, I think that we will -- we will have a lot of the information to predict their next act of terrorism.

And more importantly, even now, looking back at the information that we had, many people will say, "Well, that was too vague. That wasn't quite enough. That didn't point to this." And that's absolutely true, but if it had been put together, and if the gaps had been properly tasked out to collectors to follow up on and to exploit, there's no telling where that could have led to.

Posted by Mike at 02:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 18, 2005

Separating fact from Able Danger fiction

Well, the speculation is running wild. See this discussion by AJ Strata:

My post on the Weldon interview has been generating a lot of debate over at Free Republic (here). One comment caught my eye with an interesting theory on what happened and is worthy of some contemplation. The portion that caught my attention was:

Any destruction of documents and the closing down of Able Danger before 9/11 was due to the fear in the Clinton Administration that it could turn up linkages between known Chinese operatives and illegal contributions to Slick’s campaign. After 9/11, they realized to their horror (with the Able Danger staff briefings to the Commission) that they had at the same time destroyed information that might have prevented 9/11.

This is not the first time this connection has been suggested. There simply is no proof outside the coincidence of the parallel studies: China Connections, Able Danger Terrorist Connections. But logically it is not out of the realm of possibilities. The administration’s reaction to the China analysis could have impacted the Able Danger findings. They all occur in the same time period.

First of all, there were no briefings to the 9/11 Commission by its staff on what they had learned about the Able Danger program:

Weldon said he was told specifically by commission members, Tim Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana; and John Lehman, a former secretary of the Navy; that they had never been briefed on the Able Danger unit within Special Ops or on the unit’s evidence of a terrorist cell in Brooklyn.

The staff led by Executive Director Zelikow decided that it was not historically significant. But I think Rumsfeld is dreading Wednesday a lot more than Clinton, thus the bid to have the Able Danger hearings closed to the public.

Let's take a closer look at what Smith, Shaffer, and Phillpott have actually said. The truth is that the destruction of documents in May of 2000 is only one small part of the story, related to how the program was restructured and transferred from one contractor to another. The real story, is why were the recommendations of Able Danger never followed up on, and why was the program dismantled entirely in the spring of 2001, just months before 9/11?

Anyway, the only thing Phillpott has actually said publicly is "My story is consistent, Atta was identified by Able Danger by January-February of 2000." Through Weldon and Shaffer, partially confirmed by the Pentagon, it sounds like Phillpott has also said Able Danger identified al Shehhi, Mihdhar, and al Hamzi. Shaffer says that Able Danger, based in Tampa at Special Forces and CENTCOM command on MacDill Airbase, was supported by Orion Scientific out of Fairfax, VA and the Army's Land Information Warfare Activity project based out of Belvior, VA. J.D. Smith, who worked for Orion at the time says that he linked Atta to Al Qaeda in 2000 and kept a copy the chart until 2004:

Mr. Smith said that he had retained a copy of the chart until last year and that it had been posted on his office wall at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. He said it had become stuck to the wall and was impossible to remove when he switched jobs.

The New York Post claims that LIWA program that supported Able Danger was shut down in May 2000 and all the contractors fired, after producing a chart that wrongly tagged presidential candidate George W. Bush's top foreign policy advisor as a national security risk. According to the NY Post story:

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, the veteran Army officer who was the Defense Intelligence Agency liaison to Able Danger, told The Post China "had something to do" with the decision to restructure Able Danger....

A Pentagon official said last night that, while the canned contractors worked for Able Danger, the China project was separate from the counter-terrorism assignment.

The Able Danger work was transferred to another Department of Defense contractor — and the program quietly expired later that year when it was completed, the official said.

The China chart was put together by James Smith, who confirmed yesterday that his contract with the military was canceled and he was fired from his company because the military brass became concerned about the focus on U.S. citizens.

"It was shut down in a matter of hours. The colonel said our service was no longer needed and told me: 'You just ended my career.' "

From WTOP news radio in DC, we learn:

The names and the origin of the information turned out to be so sensitive that Smith says, "It cost me a contract and a eventually my job at the company that employed me at the time."

Now there are allegations, that the 2.5 terabytes of data Orion used for it's datamining effort were also destroyed in the summer of 2000:

So what we will have is a person who will testify under oath, on the record, that in the summer of 2000, he was ordered -- or he would lose his job and/or go to jail if he didn't comply -- he was ordered to destroy 2.5 terabytes of data specific to Able Danger, the Brooklyn cell and Mohammed Atta.

He will name the person who ordered him to destroy that material. And, furthermore, he will note that a commanding general from SOCOM -- Russ, what was his name?

STAFF: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: General Lambert was incensed when he found out that material that he was a customer for was destroyed without his approval.

We also know from Tony Shaffer, that the contract which was canceled with Orion, it was restarted with Raytheon in Garland, Texas:

GSN:
Tell me about the commercial contractors that were involved in Able Danger.

SHAFFER:
I have to be very careful now as to how I start answering because I’ve been told that there are going to be [congressional] hearings on this. I have to be careful regarding where the data may be.

Orion Scientific, [now part of SRA International, Inc., of Fairfax, VA] was helping LIWA [the Army’s Land Warfare Information Activity], but they also had a contract with Defense Intelligence. [James] Smith said in a statement I heard yesterday that Orion got cold feet when it appeared that LIWA was getting ahead of DIA in some of the analysis. Because the contract that Orion had with DIA was much more lucrative than the contract it had with Army, and the fact that the smaller contract was doing more and better things with its advanced technology, was embarrassing the DIA guys. So, I understand from Mr. Smith’s account, DIA put pressure on Orion Scientific to back out of the Army relationship, which then in turn reduced the capability of the Army support to Able Danger.

That may have been a contributing factor to why there were problems with Army and Special Operations Command beginning in the spring of 2000. At that point in time, LIWA backed out of the relationship.

GSN:
Which other contractors were involved with Able Danger?

SHAFFER:
I know that some of the technology you’re talking about were done by Battelle. There were Battelle scientists involved in this. Battelle, Orion and then Raytheon. Raytheon became the lead contractor when Army backed out of it.

What happened was the Special Operations Command -- General Schoomaker, in particular -- grew tired of trying to get the Army to do something like this. When Army started backing off for any number of reasons, Special Operations Command made the decision to relocate Able Danger to Texas. It began the effort from that location to do two things: first, recreate the LIWA suite of technology; and second, energize it using some of the same folks. The one common denominator was the senior scientist that moved from Army down to Texas to do that very function.

This sheds some light on another remark from Weldon:

Sam Johnson, Congressman Johnson's son, Dr. Bob Johnson, was working for Raytheon down in Texas. And Special Forces Command was setting up a separate operation for data mining at Garland, Texas, separate from LIWA, partly because the Army was getting cold feet because of the pressure they were realizing.

WELDON: Dr. Bob Johnson told his father that the military was deliberately destroying data. Sam Johnson came to a number of members, including Dan Burton. And, as the chairman of the government oversight committee, Dan Burton subpoenaed documents and files.

That caused a major uproar back and forth. And so, that did contribute to the ending of the LIWA.

And my understanding is -- correct me if I'm wrong -- that Richard Schiefren (ph) was the individual who ordered the destruction -- or the stoppage of the LIWA. Is that correct?

Richard Schiefren (ph), the same lawyer who was in the briefing with Steve Cambone in the winter of '01, was the lawyer who caused the data mining at LIWA to stop.

Clearly, there are two possible motives for the destruction of data. One, those 2.5 terabytes of data contained personal information on U.S. citizens that had been obtained "illegally" and people panicked. Two, Orion did not want to share "propriety" information with the competition at Raytheon. I'm betting the truth is a mixture of the two.

I think an important point is being overlooked though, by those who look at this as the central event in the history of Able Danger. First, the restructuring of support for Able Danger, transferring it from one contractor to another, clearly did not stop the program itself from completing it's mission. By September 2000, they had gathered information on a cell in the US that they wanted to pass on to the FBI. Also in September 2000, they warned of a potential terrorist attack in Yemen, at the Port of Aden in particular, three weeks before the attack on the USS Cole. Clearly, any destruction of data Orion had in May 2000 did not cripple the Able Danger effort.

What crippled the Able Danger effort was the fact that none of it's recommendations were ever followed, and when the new administration took office the program and technology were dissolved completely!

In January 2001, Hugh Shelton was briefed on Able Danger by Shaffer. The new Bush administration was just coming into office, and no action was taken. In March 2001, we now learn that Shaffer discussed Able Danger with at least four prominent military and intelligence leaders in Washington:

A briefing that included Richard Schiefren (ph), with Steve Cambone, in March of 2001, five months before 9/11, is historically insignificant? I don't think so....

I wanted to bring Tony Shaffer in to talk to you about the briefing that he was involved with with General Shelton in January of '01 and the briefing -- again, this second briefing, as Tony will tell you, was not specifically about Able Danger. It was about a program called Door Hop Galley (ph).

But during that briefing with Admiral Wilson and with Richard Schiefren (ph), the topic of Able Danger came up and Richard Schiefren (ph), who was the legal counsel at the Pentagon, knew about Able Danger....

Steve Cambone never mentioned to me that Able Danger was ever discussed in a meeting on Door Hop Galley (ph). Now, maybe he didn't remember that. That's understandable. And I'm not faulting him for that.

But in that meeting with Richard Schiefren (ph) and Admiral Wilson, as you can ask Tony Shaffer outside, Able Danger was discussed. It was not the purpose of the meeting, but it was discussed.

Ultimately, who killed Able Danger? It sounds like Tampa killed it after Shaffer's unit ended their direct support:

GSN:
Did it end Able Danger altogether?

SHAFFER:
I think it contributed to the failure of it because by that point, Army had already pulled out and Special Operations Command, because of the political change there, had also changed their focus. I remember the last conversation I had with Captain Scott Philpott on this was a desperate call from him asking me to try to help use one of my operational facilities to at least try to exploit the information [Able Danger had collected] before it got lost.

I still think that is the real controversy here. The fact that "the political change there, had also changed their focus" to the point that the disbanded the only global targeting effort against Al Qaeda four months before September 11th. That is a fact, and a crucial one:

SHAFFER: We were going down the right path. And that was my concern. And, as a matter of fact, my colleagues and I got together. As a matter of fact, one of my former investigators came forward recently and said, I remember you talking to me about this a week after 9/11.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

SHAFFER: We all realized that we had these guys. And then we started asking some questions to ourselves. Why was Able Danger, why was this whole technology piece turned off four months before the 9/11 attacks? In the spring of 2001, it was dismantled, all, completely.

Posted by Mike at 03:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (2)

September 17, 2005

Transcript of Weldon press conference

Weldon may have his flaws, but you've got to give him credit for being the only one willing to stick his neck out on this:

And for them to just try to brush this aside and hope it goes away -- the same problem that you identified I was told by Fox News that the press guy over at the Pentagon actually went in the room and told Fox News and the New York Times, "When you going to let this story go?"

This is the largest disaster in the history of the country. I mean, it would be like saying we don't want to know the details of Pearl Harbor. Three thousand innocent people were killed; the Congress, Democrats and Republicans, want the answers; why are we not getting straight talk? Why is there a constant effort to spin?

Why would you say, as Larry Di Rita said from the Pentagon after referring to Tony Shaffer and Scott Philpott's (ph) recollections, "Well, you know, memories sometimes play games on people."

Well, how about now that they've acknowledged five people recalling seeing Mohammed Atta's photograph and the linkage to the Brooklyn cell?

Here's the rest of Weldon's press conference from September 15th:

WELDON: Good afternoon.

I'm Curt Weldon, and I'm here to provide a response to the 9/11 Commission in their statements this week about Able Danger and the outrageous statement made by Slade Gorton that it just didn't exist.

And it is absolutely outrageous, especially from a commission that I supported, that spent $15 million with 80 staffers to give the American people and the Congress a full and complete understanding of what happened prior to 9/11.

They have maintained there is no information about Able Danger or the data mining work. They couldn't find anything.

So I brought some charts for you. These are all original charts. None of these charts were made after 9/11. These charts were all made before 9/11.

Now, granted, they're not all about Able Danger. They're not all about Mohammed Atta, nor Al Qaida.

They're about drug trafficking. They're about terrorist cells. They're about crime in Russia. They're about crime in Serbia. They're about the World Trade Center bombing in '93.

So this information is a compilation of work being done by the Army's LIWA Center, as well as some of the work being done by Able Danger on Mohammed Atta and Al Qaida.

It's absolutely unbelievable to me that a commission would come out and say that this program just didn't exist.

The Pentagon has acknowledged now, publicly, that they have identified five defense employees who either vividly remember identifying Mohammed Atta prior to 9/11 or seeing his name linked with a Brooklyn cell prior to 9/11.

We have Scott Philpott (ph), a Navy commanding officer, who's commanded one of our naval warships, an Annapolis graduate, who has come out publicly and risked his entire career to say what he'll say next Wednesday under oath: that he specifically remembers identifying Mohammed Atta in January and February of 2000, specifically; that he would stake his career on it. And that he was the leader of Able Danger.

We have Lieutenant Colonel Tony Shaffer -- who's outside in the hallway, who I couldn't bring into the House Gallery because of House rules, but who's available for you to talk to, outside -- who will testify under oath on Wednesday before the Senate that as a DIA liaison to Special Forces Command for Able Danger, he attempted to present information to the FBI on three occasions in September of 2000 about the Brooklyn cell and Mohammed Atta.

WELDON: We've identified the woman at the FBI who set those three meetings up. She will testify under oath at the Senate hearing next Wednesday that she actually organized three meetings. She knew the topics of the meetings because there had been other discussions that occurred prior to the attempt to set up those three meetings.

And in each of the cases of those three meetings, they were abruptly canceled by Pentagon lawyers hours before those meetings were to take place.

I asked the Pentagon had they talked to that FBI person. They said, "No."

And, by the way, the Pentagon did not conduct an investigation. There were no subpoenas. There were no witnesses under oath. It was an inquiry. There's a big difference between an inquiry and an investigation, as my colleagues on the Armed Services Committee brought up when we had a briefing last week with six or seven members of the committee.

What will be the added dimension to the Senate investigation and hearing that will take place on Wednesday is not just the five people that the Pentagon has confirmed, identified and knew about Mohammed Atta prior to 9/11, but we'll bring out the person who actually did much of the data analysis. Actually, his name, I think, has already been brought out in the public. That's J.D. (ph).

But the person who's not been brought out in the public yet, this individual who will testify that he was actually the one who destroyed 2.5 terabytes of data about Able Danger that included the Brooklyn cell and Mohammed Atta.

Now, I'm not a computer expert. I don't know what 2.5 terabytes of data are. But, John, I read your story. You called the Library of Congress.

And the Library of Congress, if we can believe this great reporter down here who I trust fully, told him that it's basically one-fourth of all the printed material that the Library of Congress has in their collection. Now, that's a lot of material.

So what we will have is a person who will testify under oath, on the record, that in the summer of 2000, he was ordered -- or he would lose his job and/or go to jail if he didn't comply -- he was ordered to destroy 2.5 terabytes of data specific to Able Danger, the Brooklyn cell and Mohammed Atta.

He will name the person who ordered him to destroy that material. And, furthermore, he will note that a commanding general from SOCOM -- Russ, what was his name?

STAFF: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: General Lambert was incensed when he found out that material that he was a customer for was destroyed without his approval.

So here we have a case where General Lambert at SOCOM was not told that an employee had been ordered to destroy all the material that he was a customer for. And that material related to Able Danger, it related to Al Qaida and it related to Mohammed Atta.

In addition, I urge you to go back and review, on the Heritage Commission Web site, a speech that I gave on May 23rd of 2002. That speech, which is one hour and 20 minutes long with questions, is about stovepipes. In fact, you'll see a chart there that I referred that I can't find.

WELDON: That chart refers to Able Danger.

It refers to the data mining. I'm not definitely sure that specific chart referred to Able Danger. But you can see the chart.

But what is in that speech are the exact details I've been talking about for the last two months. What was also in that speech, which I had forgotten and which I'm now public acknowledging, is that there was a three-hour briefing provided to General Shelton in January of 2001.

And furthermore, what Tony Shaffer will tell you in the hallway outside is that he personally briefed General Shelton on Able Danger, and in a briefing in the first quarter of 2001, and he will name the people that were in the room. He was giving a briefing on another topic, remember the name of that?

STAFF: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: Door Hop Galley (ph) which is another classified program.

In the course of that briefing -- and there was a Navy admiral in the room, Admiral Wilson, in charge of DIA, and Richard Schiefren (ph) was in the room. Richard Schiefren (ph) was an attorney at DOD.

In the course of that discussion, Richard Schiefren (ph) discussed Able Danger. I did not know that up until I watched the Heritage Foundation speech that I gave in 2002, where I document the meeting, in the briefing that was done for General Shelton. When I asked Tony Shaffer this morning about that, he said, "Yes, I briefed General Shelton. I was also involved in a Door Hop Galley (ph) brief, where Steve Cambone" -- he was not in the position he's in today. He was a special adviser to Don Rumsfeld.

My concern is if there were 2.5 terabytes of data that were destroyed in the summer of 2000, there had to be material in 2001 if you briefed General Shelton. Where is that material? Where is that briefing?

In addition, there is a question about the possibility of additional data that was in Tony Shaffer's office that was removed, not all of which was turned over to the 9/11 Commission.

As most of you know by now, when Tony Shaffer returned in January of 2004, Tony Shaffer -- or 2003, get my dates right, 2003 -- 2004 -- in January 2004 -- right, because it was in October of 2003 when he first briefed the 9/11 Commission's staff over in Baghram.

In January of 2004 when he was twice rebuffed by the 9/11 Commission for a personal follow-up meeting, he was assigned back to Afghanistan to lead a special classified program.

When he returned in March, he was called in and verbally his security clearance was temporarily lifted. By lifting his security clearance, he could not go back into DIA quarters where all the materials he had about Able Danger were, in fact, stored. He could not get access to memos that, in fact, he will tell you discussed the briefings he provided both to the previous administration and this administration.

For the 9/11 Commission to say that this does not exist is just absolutely outrageous.

It is a total denial of the facts. It's a denial of information the Pentagon has affirmed. And to say that we just don't have data to back it up is not enough.

WELDON: They had 80 staffers and spent $15 million and came up with nothing and didn't mention Able Danger once in their report, and I'm convinced never briefed the 9/11 commissioners.

In one month we provided all these charts, we reconstructed the original Mohammed Atta chart, which I've showed many times, with the linkages -- from the original data, I might add, that people had available.

All of this will come out on Wednesday, but I could not sit by and have Slade Gorton make the statement he made. He has not interviewed personally any of the Able Danger staff. He talked about a disagreement between a Defense Department female employee and Tony Shaffer. I've talked to both of them and he's totally wrong. He didn't speak to either one of them.

Tim Roemer, a good friend of mine, came out and said, "Well, they couldn't have had a photograph of Mohammed Atta because he wasn't in the country before a certain date." That obviously came from staff of the commission.

Well, as we now know, the photograph did not come from an immigration picture or a driver's license. An individual who will testify on Wednesday will say they bought that photograph from a woman in California who was researching the activity at selected mosques. That's where the photograph came from.

It's very troubling to me that people are going out of their way not to want to know the details of what happened here, to distort and spin.

In the time that I have known about this, I have not tried to spin this any way. I have not made any comments as to the intent or the effort by any of the 9/11 commissioners. In fact, I have defended them. I don't think any of them were ever briefed.

I can tell you, to not have this covered by the 9/11 Commission, to not have it mentioned, for them to say, as they did initially, that it was historically insignificant -- 2.5 terabytes of data about Mohammed Atta and Al Qaida, a three-hour briefing for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is historically insignificant? A briefing that included Richard Schiefren (ph), with Steve Cambone, in March of 2001, five months before 9/11, is historically insignificant? I don't think so.

And so the more information I get, the more questions arise. The American people deserve to have answers.

One of the pilots of one of the airplanes on 9/11, Michael Horrocks, was a neighbor of mine. He went to the same university I went to. He was a dedicated Navy pilot. He was killed. He left behind a wife and two kids.

The chief of all rescue for New York City Fire Department, Ray Downey, was one of my best friends. Ray had taken me through the Trade Center in 1993 when I went up. Ray was the one who convinced me to introduce the language to create the Gilmore commission. The Gilmore commission made three reports before 9/11. Ray Downey was a member of that commission, chaired by former Governor Jim Gilmore.

WELDON: The 3,000 people and the families of those people and their friends and loved ones, the American people and the Congress, when we approved the 9/11 Commission, asked to know all the facts.

How could anyone not only ignore this particular situation before they made the report but then when the report comes out and they're embarrassed and changed their story three times in one week about this particular Defense program, then come out with a statement they made yesterday that it didn't exist?

There's something wrong here, something tragically wrong.

The American people, the families, the country and the Congress need to know the truth, the whole truth, the complete truth. And so far we haven't gotten it.

I wanted to bring Tony Shaffer in to talk to you about the briefing that he was involved with with General Shelton in January of '01 and the briefing -- again, this second briefing, as Tony will tell you, was not specifically about Able Danger. It was about a program called Door Hop Galley (ph).

But during that briefing with Admiral Wilson and with Richard Schiefren (ph), the topic of Able Danger came up and Richard Schiefren (ph), who was the legal counsel at the Pentagon, knew about Able Danger.

Somebody's got to connect the dots and answer the questions. If the 9/11 Commission won't do it, then Congress has to do it.

I applaud Senator Specter and his staff for scheduling a hearing on Wednesday where all of these people can testify.

To say that nothing existed in spite of five people, the Pentagon acknowledged, knew about this information, in spite of what documentation we can provide as evidence of some of the work they were doing on a number of different programs -- the commission's attitude has been, "We don't want to go there."

The same response -- the acting staff director of the 9/11 Discourse Project told my chief of staff, when he made a call at my request, when I found out the details of Able Danger in May of this year.

And his response to Russ when he did not remember the first day when Russ called, the second day was, "Yes, you were briefed on Able Danger. Well, why wasn't it included in your report?" "We decided to not go down that route," whatever that means -- "down that route."

I talked to two of the commissioners personally, Tim Roemer and John Lehman. Neither of them had been briefed on Able Danger. To my knowledge, no member of the 9/11 Commission was ever briefed on Able Danger.

The facts are the facts. And it really is very discouraging to me that the 9/11 Commission's response is to do what they allege this administration and others have done: not be candid and forthcoming.

Now, I tried to get to the 9/11 Commission. I contacted the commission through staff.

WELDON: I offered to go in and give them a briefing while they were doing their investigation. They could have seen the Heritage tape that's on the Heritage Commission's Web site of the speech I gave in May of 2002. It's a public document. If they would have talked to me, I would have given them that link. I would have given them every piece of information that I had to reconstruct what I've reconstructed.

Do we have the actual date when I presented this document? Was it April?

STAFF: I think it was April -- one of the two hearings in the Hart Building.

WELDON: In the Hart Building, when the 9/11 Commission brought in George Tenet, and I was watching the hearings from my home, I couldn't believe the questioning. So I drafted this document and had my staff director hand deliver it to the 9/11 Commission. They never asked a question. This is the actual document.

The next week, they sent a staffer over to pick up some additional materials about the NOA (ph), about the concept, and about information I had briefed them on. They never followed up and invited me to come in and meet with them. So they can't say that I didn't try.

I had one phone conversation with Tom Kean, and it took me a long while to get him. That lasted about five minutes. He was in a big rush.

And I tried to explain to him in that five-minute time period all of the parameters of this information, so they could do what the Congress asked them to do. He assured me that 9/11 commission staff would follow up and they never did.

So we had Scott Philpott (ph) voluntarily go to the commission, Tony Shaffer voluntarily go to the commission. I went to the commission. And they choose to ignore the information. They choose to categorize it as historically insignificant, which the Pentagon will not do. They won't characterize it as that.

A three-hour briefing for General Hugh Shelton, a briefing on Door Hop Galley (ph) that included Richard Schiefren (ph) and Admiral Wilson and Steve Cambone, where Able Danger was discussed, and no one wants to get to the bottom of what really happened.

The 9/11 Commission has lost my confidence.

I voted for the commission. I supported the commission. I talked about the commission. I have given speeches around the country supporting the commission's recommendations.

WELDON: I was so frustrated when I could not get a face-to-face meeting with the commission staff or commissioners, that the day that Lee Hamilton and Tom Kean briefed Congress, that was right before the 9/11 commission's report was to be released, in the Cannon Caucus Room they invited members over. I got there first. I was the first member to raise my hand to ask the first question.

And I stood up and I said to the two of them, "I support your work. I support your recommendations. Many of your recommendations are recommendations previously made by the Gilmore commission. But I am extremely upset that you would not meet with members of Congress who were involved with these issues."

Lee Hamilton's response to me, in front of my colleagues in Congress, was, "Well, Curt, we couldn't meet with everyone."

So I tried.

And so I felt, after seeing what I thought was a ridiculous press conference yesterday and knowing what's going to come up on Wednesday at the Senate hearing -- unless somebody is gagged between now and Wednesday, because I have talked to all the witnesses -- there are some serious questions that need to be answered.

Who -- and why -- ordered 2.5 terabytes of data referring to Able Danger, Al Qaida, and including Mohammed Atta, in the summer of 2000? And why did they not seek the approval of General Lambert before his data was destroyed, especially given the fact that Madeleine Albright, the secretary of state, had declared Al Qaida an international terrorist organization? How could you destroy that volume of material about one of the top terrorist cells in the world?

I don't buy the idea that there was information about American persons -- or I guess, if you include Mohammed Atta in there, he would be considered an American person. I don't buy that as an excuse to justify destroying that kind of data.

Number two, who ordered -- either within the Pentagon legal staff or higher up -- the blockage of meetings on three separate occasions in September of 2000 where Able Danger material was going to be briefed to the FBI?

WELDON: And again, we have that person who set those meetings up who will testify on Wednesday. Who stopped those meetings and why did they stop them?

Number three, what was in the three-hour briefing that was prepared for General High Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in January of '01, and where is that brief, since it would still have existed, even though the bulk of the data had been destroyed in the summer of '00?

What materials did Richard Schiefren (ph) discuss in a briefing that was held with Colonel Shaffer, Steve Cambone and Admiral Wilson in the Door Hop Galley (ph) briefing in the winter of '01? What was the Able Danger material discussed in that meeting?

And finally, and most importantly, why did the 9/11 Commission, charged with the responsibility by the Congress with my support, choose to totally ignore the work of Able Danger? And why did they not pursue the people that I've pursued over the last 35, 40 days that would have provided them the same information that I've provided?

We, today, do not have a clear picture of what happened before 9/11 because this vacuum exists. I'm offering no conspiracy theories. I'm not making any allegations.

As a member of Congress, as the vice chair of two security and intelligence committees -- Armed Services and Homeland Security -- all I want are answers for the American people.

I'll be happy to make the document available of the questions that I've presented to a 9/11 commissioner and carried by my chief of staff in one of their hearings in '04.

QUESTION: What do you think is the whole truth?

WELDON: I think the whole truth is, bureaucrats in Defense intelligence don't want this story to be told. I don't know why.

I don't believe it's a coincidence that Colonel Shaffer, a Bronze Star recipient, 23-year career decorated veteran, put in charge of assignments working with SOCOM in the jungles of Afghanistan undercover, doing work that allowed him to brief George Tenet and other senior leaders on a number of occasions -- and you can talk to him outside -- that the work that he was doing relative to Able Danger and Al Qaida, interacting with the Army's information dominance center at Fort Belvoir, was not significant.

I think here are those, perhaps, that are going to be embarrassed by this: embarrassed in the previous administration, and now it looks like embarrassed in this administration.

WELDON: And I can tell you I met with Steve Cambone right after the story broke in the New York Times. And, as you all know, I did a floor speech a month before that. So this wasn't something I did for the media.

The New York Times did not pick up on this story until a trade publication called Defense Security News published it. And then the New York Times picked it up. That was a month after I gave the floor speech in late June of this year.

When Steve Cambone came in to meet with me, he said, "Congressman, you know more about this program than I do."

I brought Tony Shaffer in to meet with Steve Cambone, with the understanding his career would not be ruined. In the 19 years I've been in this city, I have seen people's careers ruined. I saw it with Notra Trulock, I saw it with Jay Stewart (ph), I saw it with Dr. Gordon Ehlers, I saw it with Mike Maluf (ph), I saw it with Jack Daly (ph).

I've seen it time and again.

My concern was that these military people, who wanted to simply tell the truth, would not have their careers ruined.

Steve Cambone never mentioned to me that Able Danger was ever discussed in a meeting on Door Hop Galley (ph). Now, maybe he didn't remember that. That's understandable. And I'm not faulting him for that.

But in that meeting with Richard Schiefren (ph) and Admiral Wilson, as you can ask Tony Shaffer outside, Able Danger was discussed. It was not the purpose of the meeting, but it was discussed.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: I think my own perception is the 9/11 Commission staff did not want this story to be pursued. As John Lehman and Tim Roemer told me, I don't think this was ever briefed to 9/11 commissioners.

I think, for some reason, there was a staff effort deliberately put forward not to allow this information to be brought forward.

Now, a couple of strange things have happened during this time period, and one thing I've never mentioned publicly.

The first week the story broke in the New York Times, I was in Pennsylvania that Friday doing district work and I got a call at my office. My chief of staff took the call, and it was from a person I'd never met in my entire life. I'd never mentioned her name. She was on vacation and asked my chief of staff for me to call her back.

Her name was Jamie Gorelick.

I said, "What does she want, Russ? I don't know the woman." I said, "I'm tied up. Would you please call her back and ask her what she wants?"

WELDON: Russ called her back on her cell phone. She was on vacation. And her response to my chief of staff was, "Please tell Congressman Weldon I've done nothing wrong."

Am I correct, Russ?

There are a lot of things here that leave a lot of unanswered questions.

I don't know why Al Feltzenberg (ph) got mad. I don't even know the guy. I don't know why Al Feltzenberg (ph) came out the first day the New York Times asked him and said they were never briefed. And the second day, he said they were briefed, but they never mentioned Mohammed Atta. On the third day, he said, "Well, we were briefed and they did mention Mohammed Atta, but only in passing and it was too late."

How many times can you change the story?

There's something deeper here that I don't understand, but that the American people need to have the answer to. And the only reason I'm doing this today is because the 9/11 Commission came out with their presentation yesterday that to me is just outrageous.

I listened to it. I read the transcript. And to read the statement of Slade Gorton, it just turned my stomach.

First of all, let me say this to you: I'll believe Commander Philpott (ph) 100 times before I'll believe politician Slade Gorton.

Scott Philpott (ph) jeopardized his entire naval career to state emphatically that he will swear on his career that they knew about not just Able Danger, but Mohammed Atta and ties to the Brooklyn cell in January and February of 2000. I believe Scott Philpott (ph).

And for them to say that this didn't exist, that this is not real -- what was the exact comment he used? This never happened? I mean, how could you say this never happened with everything I've given you, with all the people that have come out, with five people the Pentagon has confirmed, with the person at the FBI who set the meetings up, with the man who's going to testify next week on Wednesday that he destroyed the data and was ordered to destroy the data? How could you say this never happened?

How could you say there was never a three-hour briefing with General Shelton? How could you say that that briefing material never existed?

QUESTION: So who was it at the Pentagon that canceled those meetings with the FBI? Because you know Pat Downes (ph) and Tom Gandy (ph) gave a briefing a couple of weeks ago at the Pentagon and denied, absolutely, categorically, that there was ever any effort on the part of anyone at DOD to stop information being transferred.

WELDON: I wasn't there. And neither were the two men that you just referred to there. So we're all going on second- and third-hand information.

I can tell you that two of the people involved with this will testify under oath on Wednesday: Lieutenant Colonel Tony Shaffer, who's in the hallway and the FBI woman whose name has been out in the news, who set the meetings up. Neither of them are backing down on their statements.

So they can swear all they want; they can be as emphatic as they want. We have two people who will testify under oath that, number one, they set the meetings up; and, number two, that the purpose of those meetings was to transfer information that Able Danger had produced about Al Qaida and about the linkages of the Brooklyn cell and Mohammed Atta.

And let me also give you this point. They've constantly focused this on a chart. Well, we can't find the chart.

WELDON: This is not just about a chart. I've showed you 13 charts here. This is about 2.5 terabytes of information about Mohammed Atta and Al Qaida, the group that attacked us. It's not about one chart, the chart that I gave to Hadley, with Dan Burton present with me in the White House.

And for them to just try to brush this aside and hope it goes away -- the same problem that you identified I was told by Fox News that the press guy over at the Pentagon actually went in the room and told Fox News and the New York Times, "When you going to let this story go?"

This is the largest disaster in the history of the country. I mean, it would be like saying we don't want to know the details of Pearl Harbor. Three thousand innocent people were killed; the Congress, Democrats and Republicans, want the answers; why are we not getting straight talk? Why is there a constant effort to spin?

Why would you say, as Larry Di Rita said from the Pentagon after referring to Tony Shaffer and Scott Philpott's (ph) recollections, "Well, you know, memories sometimes play games on people."

Well, how about now that they've acknowledged five people recalling seeing Mohammed Atta's photograph and the linkage to the Brooklyn cell?

And how about now the witness that's going to testify that all this data was deliberately destroyed, in spite of the fact that the general was not aware his material was being destroyed?

There are just too many unanswered questions.

I wish I had a full staff to investigate all this. I don't. I hope the American media follows up on this material. I'm going to continue to use my influence to do that.

But there's something rotten here. And I'm not saying it's rotten in the conspiracy standpoint, I'm saying it's rotten from the standpoint that the American people are not getting answers.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: I've been told that the woman at the FBI has e-mails that will verify the meetings.

I can tell you that Tony Shaffer will tell you his e-mails, all classified, on his system, were deleted. They were deleted during the time that he could not get access because they had temporarily lifted his security clearance.

WELDON: And that in itself is absolutely outrageous.

You've all seen the charges they've trumped up against him, which were that he transferred a cell phone that amounted to $60 while he was working over in Afghanistan undercover to his personal phone, and that he had gotten reimbursed for mileage to a training course at Fort Dix that they said he wasn't entitled to even though it was a military training program which is $109.

And for that, they temporarily lifted his security clearance, conveniently after he gets back and had told the 9/11 Commission staff all the documents were in his office at DIA headquarters, but he could not get back into DIA headquarters because they had temporarily lifted his clearance for these three stupid allegations. But all during this time the Army's paying him $100,000 a year as a military officer -- and, oh, by the way, during that time they promoted him to lieutenant colonel.

Does something sound fishy there? It sure does to me.

QUESTION: I believe you said you spoke with the FBI woman...

WELDON: I didn't.

QUESTION: Oh, you didn't?

WELDON: But I know people who have. And she's also come out publicly. But I'll tell you what she said. I didn't talk to her personally.

QUESTION: I'm wondering about the why of this. Does the FBI woman know and will she testify why the Pentagon canceled the...

WELDON: She doesn't know.

QUESTION: She doesn't know.

WELDON: No. All she knows is the meetings were set up, and that's what she'll testify to.

QUESTION: OK.

And how...

WELDON: Now, Tony Shaffer talked to her, and you can talk to him outside.

QUESTION: And the other "why" question is why were the 2.5 terabytes of data destroyed? And since we're going to hear from the DOD person who destroyed the data, are we going to hear on Wednesday why?

WELDON: I don't know that anyone knows that. What the Pentagon's saying is that they routinely destroy data. We're trying to get to the bottom of what that means.

What I don't understand, as the vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is if you have 2.5 terabytes of data about Al Qaida; and Madeleine Albright, the secretary of state, has declared Al Qaida a national terrorist organization; and if that data -- which is largely open-source data, so it's not classified -- contains some information that may have involved U.S. persons, why wouldn't you want to retain the bulk of that data for your own use against Al Qaida in the future?

Now, Tony Shaffer will tell you that there were efforts to bring out the U.S. person information from that data but in the end that was dropped and the data was destroyed.

I don't know why it was destroyed. Pentagon is saying it was routine. To me, that doesn't make sense.

And if it's routine, the American people need to know that. If it's routine that the summer before 9/11 we routinely destroyed 2.5 terabytes of data about Al Qaida, then the American people, as a run- up to 9/11, need to know that that happened and they need to ask the question why did that happen.

For the 9/11 Commission to ignore that and say it wasn't historically significant is ridiculous.

Maybe it was justified but I would like to know that as the vice chairman of the committee.

QUESTION: It's also been reported that you gave an original chart, including the (inaudible). Is anybody asking the White House to look for this document?

WELDON: No, but I had a meeting -- I briefed -- you have asked him, right?

STAFF: Yes.

WELDON: I briefed Steve Hadley two weeks after 9/11, exactly, with Dan Burton and one of the analysts who did this work.

WELDON: And I took the chart down that was given to me. And the chart was a chart that was made before 9/11.

And in the speech that I did in 2002 on the Heritage Commission files, I said the same thing then that I've been saying recently. So the story hasn't changed.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: I have and he's asked them. I think the Senate asked for it. I don't even know if they have it. I think the Senate -- one of the Senate committees asked for it. I assume Specter's probably asked for it -- Judiciary.

I don't know the status. When I met with Steve, he acknowledged me giving him a chart.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: I don't know. Never met the woman. Never knew her, never mentioned her name. I've never said anything negative about her.

No other commissioner called me but she did.

It was the Friday after the New York Times ran a front-page story on Tuesday. They ran three straight stories, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. The call came into my office on Friday. He took the call. I wasn't there. When he called back at my request, she said, "I just want to tell the congressman I did nothing wrong."

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: I don't want to do this. I'll let you guys do that.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: I don't want to get involved with the commission directly per se after this (inaudible).

I would have hoped they would have done a thorough investigation. They didn't even call me in.

I sent a letter to the commission that week, three-page letter. You all got copies of it. I've never been given the courtesy of a response.

I have never said anything negative about any commissioner. I have said positive things about the commissioners I know: John Lehman, Bob Kerrey, Lee Hamilton, Tom Kean and Tim Roemer. I know them all personally. I have said positive things about the commissioners and about the commission.

I've never received a response. There were two questions in that letter I asked, never a response.

And for them to come out the way they did yesterday and make that statement -- now I can tell you I'm already networking with members of the Congress about all this, and Senator Specter's doing his hearing.

WELDON: We had a briefing for members of the Armed Services Committee last week in a closed session. And we're going to continue to pursue it.

I don't know the answers. And again, I don't have an agenda. I mean, I don't know -- but it's amazing that more facts continue to come out as they're saying there's nothing there. It didn't exist.

Well, those two things just don't jibe. And there I find out this morning that Tony Shaffer -- and going back to my speech in '02, there was a three-hour briefing, and I remember this now, that was presented to General Shelton.

And then Tony Shaffer says, yes, he was involved in the briefing with General Shelton. And then, separately, as a part of this other briefing, Able Danger came up, Richard Schiefren (ph), and Admiral Wilson were involved. I was not aware of that.

Isn't this what the 9/11 Commission was supposed to do? Wasn't this what those 80 staff people were for?

I shouldn't be doing this.

And these are all questions the American people need to have answers to, because all this happened before 9/11.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: Well, I know this, because I was very heavily involved with LIWA. What happened was, as the chairman of the R&D Subcommittee, back in the late '90s -- and I was briefed on the information dominance centers of the services, the Army's being LIWA -- I was very supportive, and I saw them doing amazing things.

And I had a discussion with John Hamre, deputy secretary of defense. I said, "John, you should go down and see what they're doing down there. It's amazing."

He went down, and John came back and we had a discussion. He said, "You're right, Congressman." He said, "This is amazing."

He tasked them to do a special briefing on Chinese proliferation. And I was aware of that. And I was aware that, when that briefing was done, there were some very sensitive human person issues that came up. Because the technology that China was acquiring, through researchers that were here in our country, in many cases were at Stanford University and other universities in America. And because of that, the two names surfaced that had been reported in the press.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: Condoleezza Rice and Bill Perry.

And I'm not saying they did anything wrong -- absolutely, unequivocally. They simply were associated with Stanford.

And Stanford was one of the most significant schools where Chinese post-doctoral students and researchers were focusing on very, very specific technology for our military that was being used in sensitive military programs.

There were other universities as well.

When that information reached Congress, it caused an uproar. And you can imagine the pressure the Army got, because the Army's not, in most people's minds, supposed to be doing that. This is a prototype capability.

At the time that was being done, there was an effort -- and I understand the effort -- to suppress that from coming out. And that was misread by some people as though there was an attempt to destroy data.

Sam Johnson, Congressman Johnson's son, Dr. Bob Johnson, was working for Raytheon down in Texas. And Special Forces Command was setting up a separate operation for data mining at Garland, Texas, separate from LIWA, partly because the Army was getting cold feet because of the pressure they were realizing.

WELDON: Dr. Bob Johnson told his father that the military was deliberately destroying data. Sam Johnson came to a number of members, including Dan Burton. And, as the chairman of the government oversight committee, Dan Burton subpoenaed documents and files.

That caused a major uproar back and forth. And so, that did contribute to the ending of the LIWA.

And my understanding is -- correct me if I'm wrong -- that Richard Schiefren (ph) was the individual who ordered the destruction -- or the stoppage of the LIWA. Is that correct?

Richard Schiefren (ph), the same lawyer who was in the briefing with Steve Cambone in the winter of '01, was the lawyer who caused the data mining at LIWA to stop.

QUESTION: How prominent do you think the Chinese connection is, or was, in the process of ending the LIWA?

WELDON: I think it was significant. I think it was a major reason why it was ended. I don't think it had anything to do with Able Danger. I think it was that that came up with some sensitive names that should not have been brought out to the public and caused this big uproar back and forth.

And that's really, to my opinion, a non-issue. And people have tried to discredit the work that was being done because of that. And that should not be the case.

QUESTION: So, I guess what I'm asking here now is that, do you feel like it was the embarrassment that that could have created for certain individuals...

WELDON: For the Army?

QUESTION: Yes -- that led to them just saying, "OK, we've got to throw this whole thing out, including Able Danger and everything"?

WELDON: No, I don't think that was the case. Because General Lambert wanted that Able Danger information. He was incensed when he found out that it had been destroyed.

And, let's face it, Madeleine Albright had by then declared Al Qaida an international terrorist organization.

I don't just think you throw out that kind of data if this is a major terrorism group that you've got focus on.

Now, maybe there's some American nationals in there you have to go through there and pull out; that's understandable. But the bulk of this information is open source.

I mean, let me compare this for you: In the campaign season that just ended last year, both political parties used something called smart voting.

What they did is they took massive data mining, looked at people's -- what magazines they buy; they looked at what their habits are. And from that, they profiled people to most likely vote for Republican or Democrat candidates.

STAFF: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: I've got to go?

STAFF: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: So, it's not something that's not been done before.

Any other questions: Tony Shaffer's outside and he'll be glad to talk to you, and you can follow up with any questions you want with him.

Thank you.

Posted by Mike at 07:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

Able Danger warned of Cole bombing, too

From the New York Post:

September 17, 2005 -- WASHINGTON — Members of a secret Pentagon intelligence unit known as Able Danger warned top military generals that it had uncovered information of increased al Qaeda "activity" in Aden harbor less than three weeks before the attack on the USS Cole, The Post has learned.

In the latest explosive revelation in the Able Danger saga, two former members of the data-mining team are expected to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee next week that they uncovered alarming terrorist activity and associations in Aden weeks before the Oct. 12, 2000, suicide bombing of the U.S. warship that killed 17 sailors.

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, the Defense Intelligence Agency's former liaison to Able Danger, told The Post that Capt. Scott Phillpott, Able Danger's leader, briefed Gen. Peter Schoomaker, former head of Special Operations Command and now Army chief of staff, about the findings on Yemen "two or three weeks" before the Cole attack.

"Yemen was elevated by Able Danger to be one of the top three hot spots for al Qaeda in the entire world," Shaffer recalled.

Shaffer and two other officials familiar with Able Danger said contractors uncovered al Qaeda activities in Yemen through a search of Osama bin Laden's business ties.

The Pentagon had no immediate comment.

Here is an interesting, possibly related story from a few years back:

It was Oct. 12, 2000; the clock was ticking toward a date just under a year away. He already had pieced together the methodology and connections of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network, using commercial software known as Analyst's Notebook. The results were alarming: Many of those involved in previous attacks against U.S. interests appeared to be planning new strikes....

"I obtained information in January of 2000 that indicated terrorists were planning two or three major attacks against the United States," he said. "The only gaps were where and when."

...One piece of the puzzle that Mr. Fallis uncovered was an intelligence report about a secret meeting of al Qaeda terrorists in a condominium complex in Malaysia in January 2000.

Information obtained after September 11 identified two of them as Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who would be on American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon.

...For Mr. Fallis, the "eureka point" before the Cole bombing in determining an impending terrorist attack came from a still-classified intelligence report in September 2000, which he will not discuss. But after the bin Laden video surfaced that same month, Mr. Fallis said, he "knew then it would be within a month or two."

Interestingly, this seems to contradict the testimony from a certain Four Star General to the Senate Armed Services Committee:

Gen. Tommy Franks, commander in chief of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, told the committee that the decision to refuel at the Yemeni port of Aden was made on sound military judgement.

"Leading up to the attack on USS Cole on October 12, we received no specific threat information for Yemen or for the port of Aden," he said. "Had such a warning been received, action would have been taken by the operating forces in response."

If you recall, from the 9/11 Commission Report:

Having issued directives to guide his administration's preparations for war, on Thursday, September 20, President Bush addressed the nation before a joint session of Congress. "Tonight," he said, "we are a country awakened to danger."80 The President blamed al Qaeda for 9/11 and the 1998 embassy bombings and, for the first time, declared that al Qaeda was "responsible for bombing the USS Cole."81

From the notes:

80.White House transcript, President Bush's Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People,

Sept. 20, 2001. British Prime Minister Tony Blair attended the session.

81. Ibid. Several NSC officials, including Clarke and Cressey, told us that the mention of the Cole in the speech to Congress marked the first public U.S. declaration that al Qaeda had been behind the October 2000 attack. Clarke said he added the language on this point to the speech. Richard Clarke interview (Feb. 3, 2004); Roger Cressey interview (Dec. 15, 2003).

Posted by Mike at 03:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

Too many coverups to count

It is becoming increasingly clear that there was not a single mistake or coverup in the Able Danger "nightmare", there were at least seven:

May 2000

Besides Able Danger, JD Smith and others at LIWA were also doing data mining for a project related to tracking Chinese spies. Smith and the contractor he work for at the time were fired in May 2000 after showing how several prominent people were linked to Chinese spies, not that this meant the politicians themselves were in fact spies. Apparently all the data Smith's contracting firm used was destroyed.

October 2000

Officials from Special Operations Command fail to show up for not one but three separate meetings about handing over information to the FBI.
Someone within SOCOM, either lawyers or leadership, cancels all three.

January 2001

General Hugh Shelton is briefed on the effort to target Al Qaeda, known as Able Danger, but a new administration is taking over and they are "tired of swatting flies" so the program is shelved.

May 2001

Four months before 9/11 Shaffer is ordered to halt his support for Able Danger, which had apparently continued after the restructure.

September 2001

Aided by Congressman Weldon, members of the Able Danger team give Stephen Hadley a chart showing how they had identified some of the hijackers two years before 9/11. Hadley said he would show it to Bush. Hadley now appears to be claiming that he never got any chart.

January 2004

After returning from Afghanistan, where the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission had asked him to contact him upon his return, Shaffer contacts Zelikow but is told that they no longer need to speak to him. He is subsequently placed on administrative leave and the Able Danger documents that he had kept a copy of mysteriously disappear.

June 2004

Captain Phillpott urgently requests a meeting with the 9/11 Commission and tells them how Able Danger had identified Atta almost two years before the attacks. The 9/11 Commission decides that he is not a reliable source, despite being the team leader for the project to target Al Qaeda, and makes no mention of Able Danger in its report.

Posted by Mike at 02:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 16, 2005

Pentagon Wants Able Danger Hearings Closed

I'm shocked, shocked:

Sources: Pentagon Wants 'Able Danger' Hearings Closed

Friday, September 16, 2005

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is pressuring the Senate Judiciary Committee to close to the public next week's hearings on a former secret military intelligence unit called "Able Danger," two congressional sources have confirmed to FOX News.

Witnesses from the Pentagon are expected to testify at that hearing; that's why they want it classified. FOX News has learned that committee Chairman Arlen Specter's office is vigorously resisting the request.

Why doesn't the Pentagon set the record straight? I'm mean, Able Danger had only identified the first four intended 9/11 pilots almost two years before the attacks, when the program was axed (four months before 9/11) right as the last 13 hijackers arrived in the US. Why would the Pentagon not want to get the facts out? I'm so confused!

Posted by Mike at 11:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Able Danger and English Grammar

In the AP story everyone is quoting, Donna De La Cruz writes:

A Pentagon employee was ordered to destroy documents that identified Mohamed Atta as a terrorist two years before the 2001 attacks, a congressman said Thursday.

Of course, there are two very different ways to read that sentence:

A Pentagon employee was ordered to destroy documents (that identified Mohamed Atta as a terrorist two years before the 2001 attacks), a congressman said Thursday.

Or the opposite:

A Pentagon employee was ordered to destroy documents (that identified Mohamed Atta as a terrorist) two years before the 2001 attacks, a congressman said Thursday.

Clearly, the first version is correct, based on everything we know. On the otherhand, the second, false version is very intriguing so it is the one everyone is assuming. Well, I guess they will be in for a suprise next Wednesday. There is a lot we do not know about Able Danger, but we do know it started in the fall of 1999 and did not involve any time machines, so there would have been no way to destroy documents before they were even created would there?

Posted by Mike at 01:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 14, 2005

Able Danger identified four intended 9/11 pilots

Notice how the only four hijackers in the US by early June 2000 were the exact same ones Shaffer claims Able Danger identified in the summer of 2000. In other words they didn't just identify "4 of the 19" they identified all four members of the advanced planning team who were in the country at the time. Ziad Jarrah, who arrived June 27th could be considered the one Able Danger missed. Hanjour, the fourth pilot besides Jarrah, Atta, and Shehhi was only sent in to replace Mihdhar and Hazmi after their training as pilots failed.

Shaffer also has said Able Danger identified some of Atta's fellow hijackers, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, as part of an al Qaeda cell inside the United States.

The 9/11 Commission's "monograph" entitled 9/11 and Terrorist Travel is not just pretty pictures. It contains details they left out of the 9/11 Report:

April 1999

On April 3, Nawaf al Hazmi applied for a B-1/B-2 (tourist/business) visa in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, submitting a written visa application, his passport, and a photograph. Hazmi was a Saudi citizen born August 9, 1976. Hazmi’s passport was new--issued on March 21, 1999, and it contained an indicator of extremism that has been associated with
al Qaeda....

April 7. Khalid al Mihdhar applied for a B-1/B-2 (tourist/business) visa in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, submitting a written application, his new passport, and a photograph. Mihdhar was a Saudi citizen born May 16, 1975. Mihdhar’s passport was issued on April 6, 1999. Mihdhar’s passport contained the same indicator of extremism as Nawaf al Hazmi’s. But because this indicator of extremism was unknown at the time to U.S. intelligence officials, the consular officer adjudicating their visas had not been warned to watch for it.

Both Hazmi and Mihdhar’s visa applications were destroyed before September 11, according to routine State Department document destruction practices in place in Jeddah, so we could not review them. The electronic records of their applications, their
photographs, and information about the visas issued to them still exist, however, and are maintained in the State Department’s Consular Consolidated Database (CCD), and we have reviewed this material.

It is not possible to state with certainty whether either Hazmi or Mihdhar were interviewed by a consular officer in connection with their visa applications. The consular officer who approved Hazmi’s visa stated, “I do not remember these specific applications.” State Department computer records did not provide any help in this regard, because they do not indicate whether the applicant has been interviewed.

If either of these two were interviewed, they must have convinced the officer they had good reasons to be going to the United States: both were issued visas after CLASS record checks showed no derogatory information about them. Hazmi’s visa was issued on April 3, 1999. Mihdhar’s visa was issued on April 7, 1999. Both were one-year, multiple-entry visas.

January 2000

January 15. Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar arrived together at Los Angeles International Airport from Bangkok, Thailand. The two Saudis were admitted as tourists for six-month stays by the same primary immigration inspector, who was unaware of the indicators of extremism likely present in their passports. Neither Hazmi nor Mihdhar was on the watchlists available to border inspectors.
However, Mihdhar was a known al Qaeda operative at the time, and a copy of his passport was available to the intelligence community.

January 18. Marwan al Shehhi, an Emirati, was issued a ten-year B-1/B-2 (tourist/ business) visa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Shehhi submitted a new passport with his visa application. Although his application was destroyed prior to September 11, 2001, pursuant to routine document handling policies, an electronic record was maintained by State. The consular officer who issued the visa said Shehhi probably was not interviewed, explaining that UAE nationals were not interviewed in connection with their visa applications unless—as did not happen in this case—there was a watchlist “hit.” UAE nationals were considered good visa risks both on economic and on security grounds.

April 2000

April 2. Nawaf al Hazmi’s visa expired, but that expiration had no bearing on his legal status in the United States. Any visitor who enters the country with a valid visa may remain through the length of stay granted by an immigration inspector upon arrival.

April 5. Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi acquired California driver’s licenses.

May 2000

May 17. Mohammed Atta, an Egyptian, applied for and on the next day received a five year B-1/B-2 (tourist/business) visa from the U.S. embassy in Berlin, Germany. The consular officer who adjudicated this visa said Atta “definitely” was not interviewed.

According to the officer, because he was a third-country national who had long been resident in Germany (approximately five years), the visa interview requirement was waived, and Atta was “basically treated like” a German citizen. German citizens do not need visas, as they participate in a “visa waiver” program. Another factor in his favor was Atta’s strong record as a student in Germany. Atta’s visa application was destroyed prior to 9/11 pursuant to State Department policy then in effect, so we were able to review only the electronic record of his application.

Also on May 17, Ramzi Binalshibh, another Yemeni, applied for a B-1/B-2 (tourist/visa) visa in Berlin. He listed Agus Budiman in Washington, D.C., as the person he would be visiting in the United States. Although his application was denied, Binalshibh did not give up on trying to get a visa to the United States, as we will soon see.

May 25. Ziad Jarrah, a native of Lebanon, applied for and received a five-year B-1/B-2 (tourist/business) visa in Berlin. The consular officer who issued the visa could not recall whether he interviewed Jarrah. However, our review of Berlin visa policy for thirdcountry
nationals suggests that Jarrah was a strong visa candidate, given his long residence in Germany (approximately four years), academic involvement in Germany (at two universities), and Lebanese nationality. Third-country nationals with more than two years of residency in Germany met a threshold for visa approval. The officer who adjudicated his visa has stated that wealthy Lebanese families often sent their children to school in Germany as a way to keep them out of the Middle East’s turmoil, and that Jarrah looked like one of those wealthy expatriates.

May 29. Shehhi arrived in the United States for the first time from Brussels, Belgium, anding at Newark International Airport in New Jersey. He was admitted by immigration uthorities as a tourist for six months. However, he was pulled aside by a “roving” customs inspector who conducted a secondary inspection. He was admitted after this two-minute examination, during which his bags were x-rayed but he was not personally searched and was admitted. The Customs inspector was trained to look for drug couriers, not terrorists.

June 2000

June 3. Atta arrived from Prague, Czech Republic, at Newark Airport as a tourist. He was given a customary six-month stay, valid until December 2, 2000.

June 5. Binalshibh’s May application was denied under INA section 221(g). This section was routinely invoked by the U.S. embassy in Berlin, without conducting an interview, to deny a visa application that was incomplete or weak. In such cases, the embassy would send a letter explaining the denial and inviting the submission of further
documentation in support of the application. Under the law, such additional information can become part of the original application.32 The applicant then had six months to have the original denial reversed.

June 10. Mihdhar left the United States against the wishes of the operational organizer of the plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He traveled to Yemen.

June 15. Binalshibh attempted a second time to obtain a B-1/B-2 (tourist/business) visa in Berlin.

June 27. Jarrah entered the United States for the first time on a tourist visa. He immediately violated his immigration status by going from the airport straight to full-time flight school. He studied at the Florida Flight Training Center in Venice, Florida, until
January 31, 2001. Jarrah never filed an application to change his status from tourist to student. This failure to maintain a legal immigration status provided a solid legal basis to deny him entry on each of the six subsequent occasions in which he reentered the United
States. But because there was no student tracking system in place and because neither Jarrah nor the school complied with the law’s notification requirements, immigration inspectors could not know he was out of status.

June 27. Binalshibh’s second visa application was again denied under 221(g), apparently without his being interviewed by a consular officer....

December 2000

December 8. Hanjour entered the United States for the final time at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, six months after the entry of the other pilots. He never attended the ELS Language Center in Oakland, California, the stated destination on his second visa application of September 25, 2000. His records do
not indicate the length of stay the primary immigration inspector gave him.

Hanjour was sent in to replace Hazmi and Mihdhar when their training as pilots failed:

Hazmi and Mihdhar came to the United States to learn English, take flying lessons, and become pilots as quickly as possible. They turned out, however, to have no aptitude for English. Even with help and tutoring from Mohdar Abdullah and other bilingual friends, Hazmi and Mihdhar's efforts to learn proved futile. This lack of language skills in turn became an insurmountable barrier to learning how to fly.

A pilot they consulted at one school, the Sorbi Flying Club in San Diego, spoke Arabic. He explained to them that their flight instruction would begin with small planes. Hazmi and Mihdhar emphasized their interest in learning to fly jets, Boeing aircraft in particular, and asked where they might enroll to train on jets right away. Convinced that the two were either joking or dreaming, the pilot responded that no such school existed. Other instructors who worked with Hazmi and Mihdhar remember them as poor students who focused on learning to control the aircraft in flight but took no interest in takeoffs or landings. By the end of May 2000, Hazmi and Mihdhar had given up on learning how to fly.

Posted by Mike at 12:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 12, 2005

Shaffer comments on Pentagon press conference

From the Norristown Times Herald:

Shaffer has always maintained that much of the information gathered for "Able Danger" was open source, or public, information.

Chope said if "Able Danger" documents were destroyed, it would have been done in accordance with established Pentagon regulations.

"In my view, there's no reason to destroy the ("Able Danger") data," Shaffer said in a telephone interview a few days after the briefing.

When Chope was asked if Mohamed Atta could elude an intelligence dragnet today if he was classified as a U.S. person, the commander said, "I don't know."

Shaffer, who firmly believes the Sept. 11 attacks could have been prevented if "Able Danger" had been allowed to continue, found the commander's comment unsettling.

"If that's not frightening, I don't know what is," Shaffer said. "That's chilling."

Shaffer is trying to launch "Able Providence," a new and improved version of "Able Danger." But the current controversy surrounding "Able Danger" is inhibiting the new effort, he said.

"Because of all this, the Army has gotten cold feet," he said.

The Senate Judiciary Committee rescheduled its hearing on "Able Danger" and intelligence sharing to Sept. 21.

Posted by Mike at 03:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 09, 2005

When was the Able Danger data destroyed?

One thing strikes me about the latest Congressional Quarterly article on Able Danger:

A Defense Department employee will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 21 that civilian superiors in 2000 ordered him to destroy a huge cache of data from a classified program that tracked al Qaeda, a congressman said Thursday.

I'm wondering if the "program that tracked al Qaeda" part is Weldon talking or CQ. If Shelton was not briefed on Able Danger until Jan 2001, how could they destroy any documents before that? The best I can tell is that they might be talking about the "China technology sharing" portion of the LIWA that was shut down in 2000?

Remember this NY Post story?

Cyber-sleuths working for a Pentagon intelligence unit that reportedly identified some of the 9/11 hijackers before the attack were fired by military officials, after they mistakenly pinpointed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other prominent Americans as potential security risks, The Post has learned.

The private contractors working for the counter-terrorism unit Able Danger lost their jobs in May 2000. The firings following a series of analyses that Pentagon lawyers feared were dangerously close to violating laws banning the military from spying on Americans, sources said.

Anyway, here is some more of the article via Voice of the Taciturn:

A Defense Department employee will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 21 that civilian superiors in 2000 ordered him to destroy a huge cache of data from a classified program that tracked al Qaeda, a congressman said Thursday.

“Another witness will testify that he was ordered to destroy 2.5 terabytes of data related to Able Danger and al Qaeda,” said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., […] The amount of data obliterated is equivalent to … a quarter of the print volumes in the Library of Congress.

“He was ordered to destroy the data or he would lose his job or go to jail,”....

Pentagon officials acknowledged at a Sept. 2 briefing that they destroyed the data. They said it was done as a matter of routine to protect the identity of “U.S. persons” — citizens and those who were visiting the country legally.

But Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, an Army intelligence officer who worked on the program, said Thursday that before the Able Danger data was destroyed, he had briefed senior officials in the Pentagon and White House on ways to excise U.S. persons’ names without losing the entire database. He said the Pentagon must have obliterated the data for another reason that it is not disclosing.

Previously, Shaffer has said the program was "turned off" and "dismantled, all, completely" four months before 9/11, not in 2000:

SHAFFER: We were going down the right path. And that was my concern. And, as a matter of fact, my colleagues and I got together. As a matter of fact, one of my former investigators came forward recently and said, I remember you talking to me about this a week after 9/11.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
SHAFFER: We all realized that we had these guys.
And then we started asking some questions to ourselves. Why was Able Danger, why was this whole technology piece turned off four months before the 9/11 attacks? In the spring of 2001, it was dismantled, all, completely...

Posted by Mike at 03:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Correction and Able Danger hearings update

First, as Captain V has pointed out in the comments, I should not have implied that this post of his linked Sandy Berger to Able Danger. It does not, and I have corrected my post.

Second, the hearings are rescheduled from September 14th to September 21st. Stay tuned:

September 8, 2005

NOTICE OF COMMITTEE HEARING
RESCHEDULED -- Wed., September 21, 2005 at 9:30 a.m.

The hearing on “Able Danger and Intelligence Information Sharing” scheduled by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary for Wednesday, September 14, 2005 at 9:30 a.m. in Room 226 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building has been rescheduled to take place on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 at 9:30 a.m.

By order of the Chairman

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September 08, 2005

Wrong millennium guys

Well, AJ Strata among others, might have their britches all in a bunch over Sandy Berger's latest slap on the wrist, but AJ Strata at least seems to have forgotten that the Millenium bombing blot was broken up on December 14, 1999 not December 14, 2000. No one has claimed Able Danger created any charts identifying Al Qaeda cells before January or February of 2000, and General Hugh Shelton was never shown such a chart or even briefed on the outcome of the planning and targeting effort until January 2001, after Berger was shown the door.

If you think Sandy Berger is responsible for letting Able Danger die on the vine, you are simply barking up the wrong tree: "You see the sliver in your friend's eye, but you don't see the timber in your own eye. When you take the timber out of your own eye, then you will see well enough to remove the sliver from your friend's eye."

Berger to Pay $50,000 Fine for Taking Papers:

The sentencing capped a bizarre sequence of events in which Berger admitted to sneaking classified documents out of the Archives in his suit, later destroying some of them in his office and then lying about it.

After initially saying it was an "honest mistake," Berger pleaded guilty in April to a misdemeanor of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material, which contained information relating to terror threats in the United States during the 2000 millennium celebration.

The Millenium Plot:

On December 31, 1999, an Algerian/Jordanian terrorist cell with cooperation from Al-Qaeda planned to execute two thwarted terrorist attacks. One an attack on Los Angeles International Airport, and the other on biblical sites in the Middle East and a hotel in Amman Jordan. In late 1998 two Palestinians, Raed Hijazi and Abu Hoshar settled on a plan to attack multiple targets throughout the middle east. They would first attack four targets: the SAS Radisson Hotel in downtown Amman, the border crossings from Jordan into Israel, and two Christian holy sites, at a time when all these locations were likely to be thronged with American and other tourists. Next, they would target a local airport and other religious and cultural sites. Hijazi and Abu Hoshar cased the intended targets and sent reports to Abu Zubaydah, a longtime ally of Osama Bin-Ladin, who approved their plan....

On December 14, 1999, Ressam drove his rental car onto the ferry from Victoria, Canada, to Port Angeles,Washington. Ressam planned to drive to Seattle and meet Meskini, with whom he would travel to Los Angeles and case LAX. They planned to detonate the bomb on or around January 1, 2000. At the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) preinspection station in Victoria, Ressam presented officials with his genuine but fraudulently obtained Canadian passport, from which he had torn the Afghanistan entry and exit stamps.The INS agent on duty ran the passport through a variety of databases but, since it was not in Ressam’s name, he did not pick up the pending Canadian arrest warrants. After a cursory examination of Ressam’s car, the INS agents allowed Ressam to board the ferry. Late in the afternoon of December 14, Ressam arrived in Port Angeles. He waited for all the other cars to depart the ferry, assuming (incorrectly) that the last car off would draw less scrutiny. Customs officers assigned to the port, noticing Ressam’s nervousness, referred him to secondary inspection. When asked for additional identification, Ressam handed the Customs agent a Price Costco membership card in the same false name as his passport. As that agent began an initial pat-down, Ressam panicked and tried to run away.

Just a friendly reminder, from the 9/11 Commission Staff:

Brian Sheridan—the outgoing Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC), the key counterterrorism policy office in DOD—never briefed Rumsfeld. Lower-level SOLIC officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense told us that they thought the new team was focused on other issues and was not especially interested in their counterterrorism agenda. Undersecretary Feith told the Commission that when he arrived at the Pentagon in July 2001, Rumsfeld asked him to focus his attention on working with the Russians on agreements to dissolve the Anti-Ballistic
Missile (ABM) Treaty and preparing a new nuclear arms control pact. Traditionally, the primary DOD official responsible for counterterrorism policy had been the assistant secretary of defense for SOLIC. The outgoing assistant secretary left on January 20, 2001, and had not been replaced when the Pentagon was hit on September 11.

Posted by Mike at 05:47 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Weldon confirms destruction of documents in 2003

From Shaun Waterman of the UPI:

The congressman who first made public claims that a secret Pentagon data mining project linked the Sept. 11 attacks ringleader to al-Qaida more than a year before the attacks took place says he does not believe the military's account of how the results of the project's work came to be destroyed.

"I seriously have my doubts that it was routine," Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Penn., told United Press International.

Last week, Pentagon officials told a hastily arranged briefing for reporters that much data generated by the project -- code-named Able Danger -- was destroyed in accordance with standard operating procedure for handling material that might contain the names of Americans.

Weldon said he had asked the Pentagon for the certificates of destruction that military officials must complete when classified data is destroyed.

He said that there had been "a second elimination of data in 2003," in addition to the destruction acknowledged last week.

Weldon said that a hearing next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee would hear testimony from the individual who destroyed the data.

"For some reason, the bureaucracy in the Pentagon -- I mean the civilian bureaucracy -- didn't want this to get out," he said.

For what it's worth, I also found out Shaffer contests this part of the statement the 9/11 PDP put out:

One of the men, in recounting information about al Qaeda’s activities in Afghanistan before 9/11, referred to a DOD program known as ABLE DANGER. He said this program was now closed, but urged Commission staff to get the files on this program and review them, as he thought the Commission would find information about al Qaeda and Bin Ladin that had been developed before the 9/11 attack. He also complained that Congress, particularly the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), had effectively ended a human intelligence network he considered valuable.

In an interview on NPR, Shaffer said:

Well, I, you know, I don't know what exactly they heard, because I've read their 12 August response to my comments and they say things, they attribute things to me which I never said, like something about me talking about, complaining about, Congress and the Permanent House Select Committee on Intelligence. I never said anything about the Permanent House Select Committee on Intelligence, it's not even in my notes. And, nor did I say that Able Danger was focused, and it's right here in their paragraph, that I, 'One man, in recounting information about al Qaeda activities in Afghanistan before 9/11, referred to a DOD program known as ABLE DANGER.' Well, I didn't do that, I simply talked about Able Danger being a global targeting program of al Qaeda. So this, this concerns me that this paragraph here describing their meeting with me can be so far off.

Posted by Mike at 11:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

September 05, 2005

Able Danger - A Democratic Perspective

I for one just want to know the truth, regardless of who is to blame. Yet Laura Rozen and Kevin Drum are the only two left leaning bloggers I have seen cover this story. Here's why I think a lot more should.

1- Able Danger was a Clinton initiative shut down under Bush

Able Danger was created under Cohen, Hamre, and Shelton, all Clinton appointees. Clearly, they thought it was something Clinton wanted. In January of 2001, the incoming Bush administration chose not to adopt the plan or even follow up on it.

According to Commander Chope from the Special Operations Command:

In early October 1999 the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff tasked the United States Special Operations Command with developing a campaign plan against transnational terrorism, specifically al-Qaida. That effort would result, or that tasking would result in a 15-month effort undertaken mostly out of Tampa, Florida with some peripheral collaborative partners, that would span a 15-month period. In order to accomplish this tasking SOCOM turned to an internal working group who again worked with elements within the Department of Defense and with the Department of the Army to construct this plan. Captain Scott Philpot, then Commander Scott Philpot was probably the team leader, you would call him, for the Able Danger effort.

Able Danger was never a special access program. Able Danger was never a military unit. Able Danger was never a targeting effort. It was not a military deception operation. It was merely the name attributed to a 15-month planning effort.

In January of 2001 the U.S. Special Operations Command delivered the final product of their plan which was a draft operations plan to the Joint Staff, and for all intents and purposes Able Danger ended at that time.

From Lt. Col. Shaffer's interview with Government Security News:

The highest level on the civilian side that I’m directly knowledgeable of was that the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict was aware because I briefed him on this. [Editor’s Note: Brian E. Sheridan held that assistant secretary position at the time.]

He received a briefing from me [in 2000] on Stratus Ivy, my unit, and I gave him information on what we were doing for Able Danger. His comment to me was, “You need to get on those guys and push them harder.” That was the way he told me to get on SOCOM to get them to push harder to get this going.

Brian Sheridan left with the outgoing administration on January 20, 2001 and the position of assistant secretary of defense for SOLIC remained vacant until May 2003, almost two years after 9/11. At one point Rumsfeld proposed eliminating the position entirely but this proposal was rejected by the Senate. Even the 9/11 Commission states: "Lower-level SOLIC officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense told us that they thought the new team was focused on other issues and was not especially interested in their counterterrorism agenda."

2- If Al Gore was elected, Able Danger might have stopped 9/11

Right wing pundits and bloggers have paid a great deal of attention to the fact that Able Danger was preventing from sharing information about Mohamed Atta with the FBI. However, almost no attention has been paid to the fact that Able Danger identified two of the three cells that attacked us on 9/11, and only one was affected by this sharing restriction. What happened to the other cells Able Danger found? We may never know, because the program was shut down under the Bush administration and all of the data that it gathered was destroyed.

According to Commander Chope, Captain Phillpott says that Able Danger identified four of the nineteen hijackers. According to Congressman Weldon and Lt. Col. Shaffer, the four were Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. According to the Associated Press, "A Navy spokesman said Phillpott was declining requests to speak with reporters. Phillpott is now assigned as a Navy staff officer with a program called Deep Blue, which is developing futuristic concepts for naval warfare, officials said."

According the 9/11 Commission's response to the Able Danger story, "all evidence that was available to the Commission indicates that Hazmi and Mihdhar were never on the East coast until 2001 and that these two pairs of future hijackers had no direct contact with each other until June 2001." Not only did Able Danger identify two pairs of hijackers, who were working in teams, but if the Pentagon had continued tracking them, it clearly would have noticed the two teams contacting each other in June 2001, less than four months before 9/11.

The real question here is not about the "Gorelick" memo which was written in 1995 and only addressed the sharing of information within the FBI. The question is the one that Shaffer and his lawyer have been asking:

SHAFFER: We all realized that we had these guys. And then we started asking some questions to ourselves. Why was Able Danger, why was this whole technology piece turned off four months before the 9/11 attacks? In the spring of 2001, it was dismantled, all, completely...

3- Key Bush admin figures kept Able Danger from sharing intel

George Tenet even met with Shaffer:

It did to me - and we fought it - and I was in meetings at the OSD level, with OSD laywers, that debated this - and I even briefed the DCI George Tenet on this issue relating to an internet project.

But the CIA failed to cooperate:

Why would they not do that? Because of the effort that they were taking as part of a finding they had on bin Laden himself and if the military's project was successful it would, quote, steal their thunder. Steal the CIA's thunder.

Dave went on to say that short of the CINC, General so and so, calling the Director, George Tenet, directly, the CIA would never provide the best information to the military on al Qaeda. To my knowledge, that information was never provided.

Frances Townsend, now Counterterrorism chief at the NSC, was a key piece of the intel problem:

Townsend found herself in the middle of that debate over how much of a "wall" should exist between intelligence-gatherers and prosecutors, and her tenure at OIPR remains controversial today. Many FBI agents say Townsend was crucial in obtaining FISA wiretaps, especially during the period of heightened terrorism concerns around the new millennium. But many prosecutors felt that Townsend was less than helpful in making sure the FBI shared wiretap data with lawyers at Main Justice when there was evidence of criminal activity. Townsend believed that the FISA court and its chief judge at the time, Royce Lamberth, would refuse to approve search warrants and wiretaps if they believed too much information sharing was going on and if prosecutors were controlling or directing the intelligence-gathering efforts....

Both the Government Accountability Office and the 9/11 commission have blamed OIPR in part for the government's intelligence failures before the terrorist attacks. Sources say that OIPR's narrow interpretation of FISA led to misunderstandings and overly cautious behavior by the FBI. As a result, in July and August of 2001, FBI intelligence analysts prohibited their own criminal-case agents from searching for two men on the government's terrorist watch list who they knew had entered the United States. The men later proved to be two of the 19 hijackers.

4- Bush allies covered up the very existence of the program

Philip Zelikow is a friend and advisor to Condi Rice. He was also the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission. Interestingly enough, a few months after the report was published, he was appointed as the new Counsel for the State Department under Rice. There was some controversy about his appointment as Executive Director at the time:

Former counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke revealed that Zelikow, as a member of the Bush transition team, had been extensively briefed on al-Qaida terrorism by the outgoing Clinton national security officials. When the widows learned first of Zelikow's close relationship with Rice and then of his presence at the terrorism briefings, they were outraged.

"As executive director, he has pretty much the most important job on the commission," said Mindy Kleinberg. "He hires the staff, he sets the direction and focus, he chooses witnesses at the hearings." She and her friends fear that even with the best of intentions, Zelikow's connections to the Bush White House will "taint the validity" of the commission's final report. Their demand that he resign or be fired has been rejected by the commission's co-chairmen, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean and former Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton.

Which seems especially relevant given what Lt. Col. Shaffer is saying:

SHAFFER:
I returned in December [2003], took 30 days of leave, came back off of leave, and I called Dr. Zelikow’s number on his card the first week of January [2004] Someone answers the phone and says, “Yes, we remember you. I will talk to Dr. Zelikow and find out when he wants you to come in.”

A week goes by, no phone call back. I called them a week later and said, “Hey, what gives?”

“Yeah, we know who you are. ummmmm. Dr. Zelikow tells me that he does not see the need for you to come in. We have all the information on Able Danger.”

This is the second week of January. To my knowledge, the Able Danger documentation, which they claimed that they did get, which was about two briefcase-sized containers, didn’t show up until February or March. So, I don’t know what they were looking at or what they’d been told about, but I can tell you, from my understanding, they did not have a full set of information at that point in time.

GSN:
What is your explanation for Zelikow’s actions.

SHAFFER:
Based on my lawyer’s recommendation, I want to remain tied to the facts that I’m aware of. There are some troubling timelines here. I told them about the set of documents in January. Then, in March of 2004, there are some allegations drummed up against me regarding $67 in phone charges, which were accumulated 25 cents at a time over 18 months. Even though when they told me about this issue, I offered to pay it back, they chose instead to spend in our estimation $400,000 to investigate all these issues simply to drum up this information. By the way, these allegations were refuted by the Army by the fact that in the same year, 2004, I was promoted on schedule to lieutenant colonel.

GSN:
So you’re suggesting that based in part or entirely on your coming forward to the 9/11 Commission and raising these issues that that might have ruffled somebody’s feathers?

SHAFFER:
There are some troubling facts that remain. The last time I saw the data I’m referring to is also the February 2004 timeframe. Since then, the data regarding the Able Danger set of documents has not been located.

According to the 9/11 Commission's own statement, Shaffer "complained that Congress, particularly the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), had effectively ended a human intelligence network he considered valuable." Further down it states, "A senior staff member also made verbal inquiries to the HPSCI and CIA staff for any information regarding the ABLE DANGER operation. Neither organization produced any documents about the operation, or displayed any knowledge of it." Porter Goss, former chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, is now the CIA Director.

Today, we hear this, from the 9/11 Commission's spokesman:

Felzenberg says that response raises more questions than it answers.

"Did they have Mohammed Atta in their sights before Sept. 11?" he asked. "They stand accused of that. People they say are credible are accusing them of calling off the dogs," Felzenberg said, a reference to charges that Pentagon lawyers blocked the Able Danger team from passing information to the FBI.

"Anything they say now only raises questions about what they told us then," he said.

The Defense Department was notorious among commission staff as the most recalcitrant government agency when it came to document production.

"At every agency there was an element of CYA about the handling of our document requests, but (the Department of Defense) was the most difficult to get material out of," said one.

"The bureaucracy there was just so, so thick... The people on the ground were awesome, but they'd say 'Yes, you can have something,' and that would be the start of this slippery slope. It was such a vast bureaucracy, and so many people had to sign off on anything, sooner or later there'd be someone who'd say 'No.'

"Usually a lawyer."

Felzenberg insists that history will absolve the commission.

"If it turns out that the commission missed this, that will be a failure on our part. But if it turns out (the Pentagon) had (Mohamed Atta) in their sights and let him get away, that is a much bigger failure."

Coincidentally or not, the Pentagon's General Council, William Haynes, has been sitting before the Judiciary Committee since 2003, nominated by President Bush to the Fourth Circuit Court. Couldn't that be considered a conflict of interest?

5- The Bush admin has not learned the lessons of Able Danger

According to Ms. Pat Downs, Senior Policy Analyst, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Intelligence) on Friday:

Down: My understanding is that the same procedures are in place. We may exercise some flexibility, but I have to be careful here because the same procedures, the same regulations, they are still accurate. We have to be very careful of what we protect against U.S. persons

Media: different or

Down: Again I have to be careful. The procedures stand and I really can't speak for the analytical side at the moment, but I would think that in the post-9/11 mindset

While at the same time, AR 381-10, which the Pentagon briefers directed people to look at, clearly does not consider someone with a visa to be a "US person" only a citizen or someone with permanent resident alien status (as in a green card):

27. United States person.

a. The term “United States person” means:
(1) A United States citizen;
(2) An alien known by the DoD intelligence component concerned
to be a permanent resident alien;
(3) An unincoporated association substantially composed of United States citizens or permanent resident aliens;
(4) A corporation incorporated intelligence the United States, except
for a corporation directed and controlled by a foreign government or governments. A corporation or corporate subsidiary incorporated abroad, even if partially or wholly owned by a corporation incorporated intelligence the United States, is not a United
States person.

b. A person or organization outside the United States shall be
presumed not to be a us person unless specific information to the
contrary is obtained. An alien in the United States shall be presumed
not to be a United States person unless specific information to the
contrary is obtained.

c. A permanent resident alien is a foreign national lawfully admitted
into the United States for permanent residence.

Listen to what 9/11 Commission member Richard Ben-Veniste said on CNBC:

SHAFFER: I think Richard Ben-Veniste said it the best the other day during an interview on CNBC on the Donny Deutsch show.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

SHAFFER: When Donny Deutsch asked him, why is it you never checked out, as the commissioners, Colonel Shaffer‘s story? His answer was very telling. He said, we had no technology or ability to actually check on what the colonel was telling us. We had—“The technology to do so no longer exists”—unquote.

So, that was the key. The technology we used to get this information does not exist at the time they were doing the report, the 9/11 Commission research, nor does it exist now. So, that is the key. They couldn‘t verify what we were saying.

In fact, the only reason all this finally came out is that Weldon has been trying to get the funding to rebuild the Able Danger capability:

SHAFFER:
The ultimate goal is what created this whole event to begin with. The intent of Congressman Weldon, and the Army and maybe the leadership was to re-create this [data mining] capability. That’s why this all came up. In the January / February timeframe, we started down the path with Captain Philpott in the lead, saying, “We need to look at how we can recreate the suite of Able Danger capabilities.”

That’s when I came into it, because of my knowledge of, and having managed part of the process last time. Army and Navy went to Weldon and said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we had some funding for this?” That’s the key. [Rep.Weldon] asked the hard question, “What happened to the previous iteration of this?” And that’s when the story came out.

I can tell you that both Army and Navy had told us to tell the truth to Congress about what happened. That is a fact. Every time we’ve talked to Army and Navy leadership, they’ve said, “Tell the truth.” And that is what we’ve tried to do here. The only reason that this is now in front of the public is because [Congressman Weldon] had the courage to take that information and to do something with it.

I believe it was his intent to put it into the record on 27 June 2005, just to justify the expense of putting this into the upcoming FY2006 appropriations bill. But that was the ultimate objective here -- to build something called Able Providence. Able Providence being the follow up to [Able Danger.] In the simplest terms, to create a global, 21st century armored cavalry capability. Again, the idea here, going back to Gettysburg, when General Buford went after and seized the high ground of Gettysburg. That was a decisive point of that battle.

Posted by Mike at 12:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 04, 2005

Able Danger and the relevant legal guidelines

At the DOD disinformation briefing, Mr. Thomas Gandy, Army G-2 Director of Counterintelligence and HUMINT, said:

Gandy: We have a whole class on that if you'd like to attend it. I'll invite you. We have it annually.

We have lots of regulations on this that spell out precisely what they are. I'd hate to make an off-the-cuff comment here.

Media: Okay.

Gandy: But there are strict definitions.

Media: Maybe you can direct me to --

Gandy: Executive Order 12333. You can go on the web tonight and do it. DoD Directive 5240-1R.

Media: That does not --

Gandy: And Army Regulation 381-10.

Alright, so I went on the web and looked it up. Wouldn't you know, the third or fourth hit on Google for AR 381-10 is this very interesting article by Intelligence Oversight Officer Michael Varhola in the Jan-March 2002 issue of Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin:

AR 381-10, an enabling regulation—a view from an intelligence oversight officer

by Michael H. Varhola

In our zeal to enforce compliance with regulations, we sometimes forget what they are about. This is particularly true in the area of intelligence oversight. Vigorous enforcement, particularly in the 1970s, resulted in a misperception that lingers to this day: that the intelligence oversight program exists to prevent Military Intelligence (MI) from collecting information on U.S. citizens. Nothing could be further from the truth. The purpose of the regulation is just the opposite; it enables intelligence components to carry out their authorized functions effectively while ensuring that they perform the activities that affect U.S. individuals in a manner that protects their constitutional rights and privacy. Any intelligence oversight inspector who does not understand this may be doing more harm than good, and certainly will not be furthering combat readiness and mission accomplishment.

In my 30 years working in MI, I have never seen a situation in which AR 381-10, U.S. Army Intelligence Activities, prevented an intelligence component from collecting information on U.S. citizens that it needed to accomplish its mission. What I have seen is intelligence components being rightfully prevented from doing the mission of others. This was particularly true after the Oklahoma City bombing when some MI components shifted their focus to domestic extremism. This violated AR 381-10, not only because the extremists were U.S. persons, but more fundamentally because it is not MI's mission. It is the mission of civilian law enforcement, the Provost Marshal and the Criminal Investigation Command, and sometimes, quite frankly, MI got in the way.

When it is MI's mission, AR 381-10 is there to provide procedures that enable the collection of the information on citizens of the United States. Procedure 2 gives thirteen criteria under which MI can collect information on U.S. persons. These are all-encompassing. I cannot think of a category of information on citizens that MI would need that one of these criteria does not cover. Unfortunately, some individuals find it easier or safer to avoid the issue altogether by simply not collecting the data on citizens they may need to do their complete jobs. What I hear regularly is, "I'd rat her err on the side of caution." This is unfortunate and defeats the purpose of the regulation. I have even seen units destroy information in individual security clearance files in preparation for an intelligence oversight inspection, not realizing that such information is "administrative," as AR 381-10 defines that term, and that the regulation does not cover its retention.

The other side of this coin is just as bad or even worse. A small number of MI soldiers, not understanding the regulation, and perhaps having had exposure to heavy-handed enforcement in the past, have come to believe that it is an outdated regulation or is simply stupid. While there is obviously a continuing need to reinterpret the regulation as information technology advances and the Internet becomes a bigger part of our lives, I believe that the regulation is sound and its principles are easily transferable. It is not a big intellectual leap to go from collecting open-source information from newspapers to collecting the same information from websites. The same considerations apply to the involvement of U.S. citizens: mission, mission, and mission!

As the Cold War sinks into the distant past and we move into a future of smaller and more varied deployments, it becomes increasingly important that MI soldiers understand the fundamental purpose of AR 381-10 and use it as the tool the Army intended it to be. U.S. citizens will be operating in many capacities in every area to which we deploy; some may even be members of the opposing force. We cannot anticipte every situation. When MI needs to collect information about citizens of the United States to accomplish its military mission, AR 381-10 provides the procedures that enable it to do so while protecting their constitutional rights and privacy. Mission first, constitutional rights and privacy always! Erring on the side of caution is not a viable option.

As Mr. Varhola's article was written before the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, MIPB asked for any change in his position. Mr. Varhola provided the following comment: "As far as I have seen, EO 12333 is standing up quite well in the post 9/11 world. Regarding collection on U.S. persons, I have seen no problems. The terrorist attack came from a foreign source, and AR 381-10 allows the collection of military and military related foreign intelligence and counterintelligence concerning the activities, intentions, capabilities, MO, etc of international terrorists. The key thing is cooperation and info sharing among all the players: strategic CI, installation security, tenant units, PMO, CID, FBI, local authorities, etc. If everybody is working together, then the authority that is needed will be resident in at least one of the players."

Michael Varhola is currently an Intelligence Oversight Officer with the Department of the Army Inspector General. Mr. Varhola earned his commission in Artillery through the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he majored in Russian and German. He entered the Military Intelligence civilian Excepted Career Program (MICECP) in 1979 and worked with the 511th as a CI Operations Case Officer.

COPYRIGHT 2002 U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School

For what it's worth, here are those thirteen criteria he mentions, several of which would cover Al Qaeda and justify collecting intel on suspected members in the US:

C. TYPES OF INFORMATION THAT MAY BE COLLECTED
ABOUT UNITED STATES PERSONS

Information that identifies a United States person may be collected
by a DoD intelligence component only if it is necessary to the
conduct of a function assigned the collecting component, and only if
it falls within one of the following categories: Note: Terms used in
this part are defined in appendix A and may differ substantially
from traditional Army usage.

1. Information obtained with consent. In may be collected about
a United States person who consents to such collection.

2. Publicly available information. Information may be collected
about a United States person if it is publicly available.

3. Foreign intelligence. Subject to the special limitations contained
in section E., below, information may be collected about a
United States person if the in constitutes foreign intelligence, provided the intentional collection of foreign intelligence about United States persons shall be limited to persons who are:

(a) Individuals reasonably believed to be officers or employees,
or otherwise acting for or on behalf, of a foreign power;
(b) An organization reasonably believed to be owned or controlled,
directly or indirectly, by a foreign power;
(c) Persons or organizations reasonably believed to be engaged or
about to engage, in international terrorist or international narcotics
activities. (See AR 190–52.);
(d) Persons who are reasonably believed to be prisoners of war;
missing in action; or art the targets, the hostages, or victims of
international terrorist organizations; or
(e) Corporations or other commercial organizations believed to
havesomerelationshipwithforeignpowers,organizationsorpersons.

4. Counterintelligence. Information may be collected about a United States person if the information constitutes counterintelligence, provided the international collection of counterintelligence
about United States persons must be limited to:

(a) Person who are reasonably believed to be engaged in, or
about to engage in, intelligence activities on behalf of a foreign
power, or international terrorist activities. (See AR 190–52, AR
381–12, and AR 381–20.)
(b) Persons in contact with persons described in paragraph C.4.a.,
above, for the purpose of identifying such persons and assessing
their relationship with persons described in paragraph C.4.a., above.

5. Potential sources of assistant to intelligence activities. Information may be collected about United States person reasonably
believed to be potential sources of intelligence, or potential sources
of assistant to intelligence activities, for the purpose of assessing
their suitability and credibility. This category does not include investigations undertaken for personnel security purposes. (See subsection 8.)

6. Protection of intelligence sources and methods. Information
may be collected about a United States person who has access to,
had access to, or is otherwise in possession of, information which
reveals foreign intelligence and counterintelligence sources or methods, when collection is reasonably believed necessary to protect
against the unauthorized disclosure of such information; provided
that within the United States, intentional collection of such information shall be limited to persons who are:

(a) Present and former DoD employees;
(b) Present or former employees of a present or former DoD
contractor; and
(c) Applicants for employment at DoD or at a contractor of DoD.

7. Physical security. Information may be collected about the
United States person who is reasonably believed to threaten the
physical security of DoD employees, installations, operations or
official visitors. Information may also be collected in the course of a lawful physical security investigation. (See AR 381–12, AR 381–20,
AR 190–1, and AR 190–52.)

8. Personnel security. Information may be collected on a United
States person that arises out of a lawful personnel security investigation. This includes information concerning relatives and associates of the subject of the investigation, if required by the scope of the investigation and the information has a bearing on the matter being investigated or the security determination being made. (See AR 604–5, AR 381–12, AR 381–20, and AR 190–52.)

9. Communications security. Information may be collected about
a United States person that arises out of a lawful communications
security investigation. (See AR 380–53.)

10. Narcotics. Information may be collected about a United
States person who is reasonably believed to be engaged in international narcotics activities.

11. Threats to safety. Information may be collected about a United States person when the information is needed to protect the safety of any person or organization, including those who are targets, victims or hostages of international terrorist organizations. (See AR 190–52.)

12. Overhead reconnaissance. Information may be collected for
overhead reconnaissance not directed at specific United States persons.

13. Administrative purposes. Information may be collected about
a United States person that is necessary for administrative purposes.

Furthermore, someone here on a visa does not seem to be a US person:

27. United States person.
a. The term “United States person” means:
(1) A United States citizen;
(2) An alien known by the DoD intelligence component concerned
to be a permanent resident alien;
(3) An unincoporated association substantially composed of United States citizens or permanent resident aliens;
(4) A corporation incorporated intelligence the United States, except
for a corporation directed and controlled by a foreign government or governments. A corporation or corporate subsidiary incorporated abroad, even if partially or wholly owned by a corporation incorporated intelligence the United States, is not a United
States person.

b. A person or organization outside the United States shall be
presumed not to be a us person unless specific information to the
contrary is obtained. An alien in the United States shall be presumed
not to be a United States person unless specific information to the
contrary is obtained.

c. A permanent resident alien is a foreign national lawfully admitted
into the United States for permanent residence.

Posted by Mike at 09:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 02, 2005

Pentagon: Able Danger documents were destroyed

"There are strict regulations about collection, dissemination and destruction procedures for this type of information," she told a briefing for reporters at the Pentagon, "and we know that that did happen in the case of Able Danger documentation."

Does that explain why Shaffer's documents were destroyed three years later, in 2004, once they realized he still had a copy of them and wanted to show them to the 9/11 Commission? They weren't concerned about covering for people in power, they were concerned about the privacy of hard working U.S persons who happen to belong to Al Qaeda.

This article really gets to the bottom of their "privacy" defense bullshit:

The Pentagon said Thursday that three more people who worked on a top secret data mining project now corroborate claims that it identified the Sept. 11 ringleader as linked to al-Qaida more than a year before the attack, but that documents the project generated were destroyed.

"We have identified three other individuals ... who have a recollection of a chart with a photo of Mohammed Atta or a reference to Mohammed Atta... pre Sept. 11," said Pat Downs a senior policy analyst in the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Steven Cambone.

Two people who worked on the project -- code-named Able Danger -- have already come forward.

Army reserve Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, who was a civilian analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Navy Capt. Scott Philpott, Able Danger's team leader, have already said that the effort -- which looked for associations, patterns and linkages to known al-Qaida supporters in vast amounts of commercially available data -- generated a chart in early 2000 which bore the names of Atta and three other of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

"Capt. Philpott believes he saw the chart in January or February 2000, so that's the general reference point," Downs said.

She said that the three new witnesses -- who were among about 80 individuals interviewed by defense officials as part of a major Pentagon probe into the Able Danger claims -- were a civilian analyst from U.S. Special Operations Command, an analyst "associated with" the Army's Land Information Warfare Activity, and someone who was "at the time" an employee of a defense contractor called Orion.

Thomas Gandy, the Army's head of counter-intelligence and human intelligence said the three were analysts working to develop intelligence products from the data generated by Able Danger.

Downs said that one of them remembered a chart "with a reference to Mohammed Atta," and the others a chart bearing his photograph.

However, she said that despite a very extensive search of "hundreds of thousands, probably" of documents and electronic files related to the project -- including those held by contractors who worked on the project -- no copies of the chart, and no documents referring to it, had been found.

"These people are credible people," she said of the five who recalled the chart, adding "We haven't found any corroborating evidence."

But she acknowledged that the chart could have been among documents from the project that were -- in accordance with regulations designed to prevent U.S. intelligence agencies spying on citizens -- destroyed.

"There are strict regulations about collection, dissemination and destruction procedures for this type of information," she told a briefing for reporters at the Pentagon, "and we know that that did happen in the case of Able Danger documentation."

She said that the regulations had been "very strictly interpreted pre-Sept. 11."

"In a major data mining effort like this," she said, "you're reaching out to a lot of open sources and within that there could be a lot of more information on U.S. persons.

"We're not allowed to collect that type of information."

If copies of the chart held by the military were indeed destroyed, it could mean that the sole remaining copy is the one Rep. Curt Weldon says he gave to national security advisor Steven Hadley at a White house meeting on Sept. 25, 2001.

"Steve Hadley looked at the chart and said, Congressman, where did you get that chart from?" Weldon said in a June 27 floor in congress.

"Steve Hadley said, Congressman, I am going to take this chart, and I am going to show it to the man. The man that he meant, Mr. Speaker, was the President of the United States."

The White House has repeatedly refused to comment on the issue or to arrange an interview with Hadley.

Gandy told the briefing that U.S. person information can be collected and shared under many circumstances, but that none of them were thought to obtain in the case of the individuals identified by Able Danger.

"In this case there was no perceived imminent threat, imminent crime going to occur, any danger, those kinds of things that say that you can share it. That was not perceived to be the case in these situations and (the data) was destroyed," he said.

Pressed on how al-Qaida linked individuals could be seen as presenting no imminent threat, Gandy pointed out that data mining programs generate "some very goofy links that require research."

"Just that there are links established doesn't really mean anything," he said.

Gandy added that the documentation had been destroyed as a matter of standard operating procedure at the time -- "in compliance with our intelligence oversight directives."

The directives forbade the retention of information about U.S. persons -- a hazy legal category for which every intelligence agency has its own definition. At a minimum, citizens and Green Card holders are included, although some definitions are more extensive.

Gandy said that, under Department of Defense definitions "anyone who is in the country legally" could be a U.S. person.

He said part of the problem was that -- given the technology in use at the time -- there was no way to separate out the information relating to U.S. persons.

"Back then you would do what they called a web crawl and you'd get a lot of data and it would go in one pile... We (now) have the better ability ... to say okay, this data came from this source, it's a U.S. person that has nothing to do with our problem set and we can expunge it a lot more easily than we could in the past," said Gandy.

"In the old days it was kind of an all or nothing," he concluded.

He characterized the attitude of the leadership of the Land Information Warfare Activity, the Army intelligence center where the data processing was conducted as follows, "The clock is ticking, show us how you can pull this U.S. person information out of here or not. If you can't do it, we have protocols and directives we must comply with."

He added that, since Sept. 11, the procedures had not changed but the way they were interpreted "has probably become a little more flexible with hindsight."

The Office of the Director of the National Intelligence recently announced it was reviewing the U.S. person regulations, with an eye to enforcing consistency across the nation's 15 intelligence agencies.

More details and a full transcript below.

First, from the New York Times:

Terrorist Known Before 9/11, More Say

By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 - A Defense Department inquiry has found three more people who recall seeing an intelligence briefing slide that identified the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks a year before the hijackings and terrorist strikes, Pentagon and military officials said Thursday.

But the officials said investigators who reviewed thousands of documents and electronic files from a secret counterterrorism planning unit had not found the chart itself, or any evidence the chart ever existed.

The officials acknowledged that documents and electronic files created by the unit, known as Able Danger, were destroyed under standing orders that limit the military's use of intelligence gathered about people in the United States.

At a Pentagon briefing on Thursday, four intelligence or military officials said investigators had interviewed 80 people who served directly with Able Danger, a team organized to write a counterterrorism campaign plan, or were closely associated with it.

Of those 80, 5 in all now say they saw the chart, including Capt. Scott J. Phillpott of the Navy and Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer of the Army, whose recent comments first brought attention to Able Danger.

At the briefing, the officials said that four of the five recalled seeing a picture of Mohamed Atta, the member of Al Qaeda who planned and carried out the attacks, while one said the chart contained only Mr. Atta's name.

The officials stressed that their inquiry was continuing, and that they still could not definitively prove or disprove whether the unit identified Mr. Atta - and, perhaps, other members of the hijacking team - before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The witnesses "are credible people," said Pat Downs, a senior policy analyst for the under secretary of defense for intelligence. But investigators "can't find the document," Ms. Downs said.

Another official who described the inquiry, Cmdr. Christopher Chope of the United States Special Operations Command, said there was no evidence that the destruction of Able Danger documents had been anything other than a routine application of privacy regulations.

Commander Chope also said there was no evidence that military lawyers issued orders preventing Able Danger personnel from sharing data they had gathered with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as Colonel Shaffer has said.

Now for the full transcript:

Special Defense Department Briefing

Participating in this brief were:

Mr. Bryan Whitman, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (Media Operations)

Ms. Pat Downs, Senior Policy Analyst, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Intelligence)

Mr. Thomas Gandy, Army G-2 Director of Counterintelligence and HUMINT

Mr. Bill Huntington, Vice Deputy Director for HUMINT, Defense Intelligence Agency

Cmdr. Christopher Chope, Center for Special Operations, U.S. Special Operations Command

Whitman: When I scheduled this particular room I hadn't anticipated that we would have these other activities that are going on down south, but I'm glad there are some of you here to report on this and have an interest in this.

As you know, the department has been aggressively looking into this Able Danger program since there were some allegations that were made some three weeks ago I think now, about three weeks. There's been a very extensive effort by the department to look broad, to look deep, and to document as well as to interviewing individuals that are associated with the project. Today we have reached the point where we're prepared to tell you what that broad and deep and extensive review has revealed to us.

I've got a number of subject matter experts here whose organizations were involved. By the mere fact of the representatives here you can see that this was not something that was just looked at narrowly. What we'll be able to do today is talk a little bit about what Able Danger was and maybe more importantly what it wasn't; what type of products were a result of this activity; discuss a little bit about some of the legal authorities and things that have been reported on, sometimes inaccurately about this; and to really talk to you a bit about our interactions with the 9/11 Commission when they were doing their work.

I got you all here under the guise of a background briefing, but I think what we'll do is, we've discussed this and these individuals have agreed to be on the record. There has been a lot of anonymous reporting on this which I think has been unhelpful. I hope that as you write these reports that you give weight to those people that have been directly involved in this effort and are on the record to discuss what the department has found for you on this.

With that they're going to kind of open up with a little bit of a presentation, talk about it just a little bit. Pat's going to start I think, Pat Down is going to start from the Under Secretary of Defense Intelligence Office. Then the commander here from Special Operations Command is going to give you a bit of a thumbnail on the activities. We've got some other subject matter experts if we get into Q&A that involves their areas. I promise not to make it too long because I know you all have day jobs on this other story too.

With that, Pat, why don't you go ahead and start us off.

Down: Let me give you an overview of what we have done to determine the facts concerning the recent public statements on Able Danger and where we are to date and what we've found. And then I'll turn it over to Commander Chope so he can give you background information on Able Danger. Some of you may not be as familiar with exactly what that is, what it isn't, and what the timeline is here. It can be confusing with all the various accounts that are in the press.

We have conducted two types of activities. One is extensive document searches from all the organizations including contracting firms that were associated with the Able Danger program. To date we have not identified the chart that is referenced in public statements by Mr. Schaeffer and Captain Philpot in particular, who say they saw a chart with the photo of Mohammed Attah and other hijackers, particularly Mohammed Attah, pre-9/11. We have not discovered that chart. We have identified a similar chart, but it does not contain the photo of Mohammed Attah or reference to him or reference to the other hijackers.

The second type of activity we've conducted is interviews of people involved, again associated with the Able Danger project. To date we've conducted interviews with 80 people, and that is still ongoing. We're not done yet. We're still refining the questions. As we talk to some people we have to come back to other and ask additional questions.

Most of those people do not recollect the existence of a chart with the picture of Mohammed Attah on it, or again, other hijackers pre-9/11. We have identified three other individuals besides Mr. Schaeffer and Captain Philpot who have a recollection of either a chart with a photo of Mohammed Attah or a reference to Mohammed Attah. That's basically where we are.

As I said, we continue, we also have searched the records, the documents that we sent to the 9/11 Commission just to be sure that our copies of those records don't include anything additional we might have missed, including a whole number of documents that were deemed non-responsive to Commission requests. It's possible we might have missed something in that collection. It's a fairly extensive collection. We have reviewed all that documentation and at this point have not identified, again, such a chart which references pre-9/11 hijackers.

Media: But the three people who do remember, those three people are from which agency or what's their function?

Down: We have from SOCOM, two individuals. One of those is Captain Philpot. We have, of course Tony Schaeffer, he's actually a DIA civilian employee. We have, the two other individuals are, one is from the Land Information Warfare Activity, the Army's Land Information Warfare Activity, now actually part of the Information Dominance Center. The last one is with the O'Ryan contractors.

Media: At the time.

Down: At the time, yes. And we can answer, Mr. Gandy can answer more questions on the contractors and some of these -- Five individuals all told. Four of them, five individuals including Captain Philpot and Mr. Schaeffer. Four of them remember a chart with a photo of Mohammed Attah pre-9/11; the fifth person remembers a chart with a reference to Mohammed Attah, but not a photo.

As I said, we're continuing to interview or re-interview based on what we've discovered so far to be sure that we're not missing anything.

I think it probably is a good idea at this point to turn it over to Commander Chope, and he'll describe to you what Able Danger is. I think that would be helpful. Again, describe some of the timelines because, as I said, we're confused by some of the reports out. We're trying to find the facts. Some of the various accounts have conflicted somewhat. I think it would be helpful to put this in some context for you.

Chope: I'm Commander Chope from the Special Operations Command and I'll offer a brief chronology and overview of what Able Danger was and try and dispel some of the myths and rumors surrounding the effort.

In early October 1999 the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff tasked the United States Special Operations Command with developing a campaign plan against transnational terrorism, specifically al-Qaida. That effort would result, or that tasking would result in a 15-month effort undertaken mostly out of Tampa, Florida with some peripheral collaborative partners, that would span a 15-month period. In order to accomplish this tasking SOCOM turned to an internal working group who again worked with elements within the Department of Defense and with the Department of the Army to construct this plan. Captain Scott Philpot, then Commander Scott Philpot was probably the team leader, you would call him, for the Able Danger effort.

Able Danger was never a special access program. Able Danger was never a military unit. Able Danger was never a targeting effort. It was not a military deception operation. It was merely the name attributed to a 15-month planning effort.

In January of 2001 the U.S. Special Operations Command delivered the final product of their plan which was a draft operations plan to the Joint Staff, and for all intents and purposes Able Danger ended at that time.

Media: Can you say how many people were involved in it?

Chope: From the Special Operations Command, probably ten people were involved throughout the effort.

Media: You say it wasn't military? It was --

Chope: It was not a military unit. It was a name given to the effort. It's like calling all of us in here Able Danger. That's not --

Media: Were they all military people?

Chope: No, not uniformed service members, no.

Media: You say it wasn't a targeting effort.

Chope: Correct.

Media: I'm very ignorant about military affairs, but wouldn't any kind of plan against transnational terrorism involve a list of targets?

Chope: It would, and that's a good question. Throughout the Able Danger effort we're going to talk about data mining and nodal analysis. What the data mining and nodal analysis actions were designed to do was characterize the al-Qaida terrorist network. Those were some of the tools they used in order to do that mapping, if you will. When I said it was not a targeting effort, I mean it was not meant to go after individual people. It was meant to determine vulnerabilities, key nodes, linkages among and within al-Qaida.

Media: Nodal analysis? What does that mean?

Chope: I think in layman's terms it means determining linkages and relationships among disparate entities.

Down: Looking for patterns based no previous activity.

Media: It would seem you would want to deal with individual names of people if you were trying to understand vulnerability and linkages. No?

Chope: I'm sure that they got to that level of detail, however when you look at the plan, what the task was rather, the task was develop a plan, so that was the focus of the effort. The effort was never determine which individuals we ought to roll up. Did Osama bin Laden's name come up? Of course it did. But as far as that granularity, that level of detail, that was not the desired or required level of effort on the project. It was a by-product.

Gandy: This is Tom Gandy from the Army. Let me just help out here a little. The way it works is there's a campaign plan and then if someone decides to act upon that plan they will give that plan to someone to execute. At that point you get into various specifics about how you're going to execute it, phases of the operation, what the targets are in each phase, and get really down to the down and dirty side of things.

But in a plan you're saying here's what we're trying to do against this threat element, in this case transnational terrorism, not al-Qaida, so it's a more generalized level. I'm just trying to help out there.

Media: Can I get some clarity on the subsets that people are talking about. There were ten in Able Danger.

Gandy: SOCOM personnel.

Media: SOCOM personnel. How large was Able Danger in all then?

Gandy: I would say in the 15-month period it waxed and wanted. It depended on which collaborative partner SOCOM dealt with at the time. AT some points there was a partnership with the Army; other points there were contracted personnel involved?

Media: What was the maximum number --

Media: Hang on just a second and let me finish this line of questioning.

So you've interviewed 80 people. Were all 80 of them Able Danger or were they people who got briefings by Able Danger? What is that universe that gave you 80 people?

Gandy: It probably spans both of those representations you just gave. Not only folks who were integrally involved in the effort, but also those that were peripherally involved. I don't think that we necessarily went out and amongst those 80 we'd count people who just happened to have been exposed. Those 80 I would say had something to do with Able Danger.

Media: And the five who have some recollection of something, are those Able Danger core members, are they people who received briefings, are they the peripherals?

Gandy: Out of the ten I quoted you, two of them are from that ten. So the other three would be from the other 70, if you will, if that math makes sense to you.

Media: So three are peripheral, quote/unquote, to use your phrase; and two are from Able Danger.

Gandy: No. The hard core U.S. SOCOM part of Able Danger was ten people. There were other collaborative partners who were as involved in Able Danger. I'm only speaking to the SOCOM Personnel involved in Able Danger with those ten. There were other people who were as involved in Able Danger during the time.

Media: Who were the five who have some recollection of something?

Gandy: We have two SOCOM personnel, one of whom is Captain Philpot, one is Mr. Schaeffer who is a DIA employee.

Down: Actually --

[Multiple voices].

Media: Just simple math here. This is a really --

Whitman: In the SOCOM people there's an unnamed analyst who's going to remain unnamed. Then there's Captain Philpot. Those are the two from the ten.

Media: Civilian analyst?

Whitman: Yes.

Media: But there are five with some recollection, so who are the other three?

Whitman: The other three, one was an analyst associated with the Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) which is the Army activity, one of the partners spoke of where LIWA was supporting the SOCOM effort for a period of time in the planning effort.

Another was a contractor who supported the Land Information Warfare activity. That's one of the other.

The other was Mr. Schaeffer.

Media: That's very helpful. Thank you.

Media: One further thing on that, how would you characterize, of those three people -- the analyst from LIWAC (sic) and the, well Schaeffer I think we know his relationship with Able Danger. But the other two. The analyst from LIWAC (sic) and the, associated with LIWAC (sic) and the contractor, how would you characterize their degree of -- Were they part of the core? Were they in the periphery, out of periphery?

Whitman: They were doing analysis and production support of requirements to help build the plan. So they were provided with requirements from the core group of SOCOM planners and they would try to meet those requirements of intelligence analytical products.

Media: Intelligence requirements.

Whitman: Right. It's LIWA, by the way, Activity. Not LIWAC.

Down: And Captain Philpot was more managing the whole effort. As opposed to an analyst.

Media: So five people remember this, but you haven't been able to come up with the chart. So you're not here telling us this chart does exist or doesn't exist.

Down: We don't know. We don't have it. We have not to date identified that chart, discovered it in our recent searches, nor did we pull it up during the life of the 9/11 Commission where the Commission itself did ask us, sent us two document requests for information on Able Danger. It was not pulled up at that time.

Media: What could have happened to it? Could someone have destroyed it to cover up?

Whitman: Let me say something there, just for any other questions that might come up too. We're not going to get into the business of speculating in terms of what might have happened. We're here today to present the facts as they exist and as we know them.

Like Pat was saying, what we know is that we didn't discover such a chart when we first responded to the Commission back in November and December of '03 and we haven't discovered such a chart in the current search. That's the facts. It's just not productive for us to get into speculating beyond what we actually know.

Media: Does that mean that because it was a classified operation a lot of documents including the chart could have been destroyed and that's why you can't find it?

Down: There are regulations. At the time how they were interpreted, very strictly pre-9/11, for destruction of information which is embedded, I guess is the way I would say it, that would contain any information on U.S. persons. In a major data mining effort like this you're reaching out to a lot of open sources and within that there could be a lot of information on U.S. persons. We're not allowed to collect that type of information. So there are strict regulations about collection, dissemination, destruction procedures for this type of information. And we know that that did happen in the case of Able Danger documentation.

Media: So it's possible then that this is how the chart cannot be found. Along with other documents, they could have been destroyed and that's why you can't corroborate what these people are saying or say it's wrong.

Down: Correct.

Media: What is the definition for U.S. person?

Down: I wish we had our lawyer here.

Chope: A U.S. citizen or someone who is in the country legally.

Media: So a tourist is a U.S. person.

Chope: Can be.

Media: Under what circumstances?

Chope: For instance on a work visa. I think it's more than just a tourist, on a work visa or something like that.

Media: But there are work visas that allow you to come, I’m here on one --

Gandy: We have a whole class on that if you'd like to attend it. I'll invite you. We have it annually.

We have lots of regulations on this that spell out precisely what they are. I'd hate to make an off-the-cuff comment here.

Media: Okay.

Gandy: But there are strict definitions.

Media: Maybe you can direct me to --

Gandy: Executive Order 12333. You can go on the web tonight and do it. DoD Directive 5240-1R.

Media: That does not --

Gandy: And Army Regulation 381-10.

Media: Does that mean there could have been legal advice given by the department or somebody within SOCOM to destroy it before it got out of the military's possession?

Chope: We have negative indications that that was ever the case. We've spoken to all the attorneys at all levels of command and organization that were involved with Able Danger, and there was no legal advice given along those lines.

Media: That lines?

Chope: Along the lines to destroy anything.

Down: We have not discovered that legal advice was given to date.

Media: On this chart, can you say approximately what the date of the chart is these five people recall? And do all of them recall not only Attah, but the other hijackers?

Down: Maybe Tom can help with the details of the interviews, but I believe Captain Philpot says he saw the chart in January, February 2000. That's the general reference point.

Media: Are you saying that the recollections of Schaeffer and Philpot are incredible?

Down: They're our starting point. They're DoD people who -- Captain Philpot, or then Commander during when the 9/11 Commission was wrapping up, came to us and said I have this information. We took him to the 9/11 Commission to examine it further. It's really up to the Commission to determine the relevancy of the information.

Fortunately, Captain Philpot or then Commander Philpot did not have documentation either, and so the staff questioned, and you can talk to the 9/11 Public Discourse Project where the two former chairmen of the Commission now work. But in terms of the clarity of the dates, when things were produced. At the time that Commander Philpot spoke with the Commission, the Commission staff at that time believed it wasn't strong enough evidence, especially without documentation, to make a change in their report which was at that time being coordinated with us and had already been drafted.

Media: So now that you have three other individuals corroborating this chart, saying they've seen this chart, are you going back to brief the Discourse Project now? The 9/11 Commission?

Down: No, not at this point, but we will be shortly. Or at least --

Media: Has anything changed. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

Down: That's okay.

Media: Has anything changed about the way that U.S. persons who get sucked up in a data mining operation would be handled today as opposed to how they might have -- completely independent of this. Say if my name gets sucked up into a database tomorrow morning would it be handled differently today than it would have before 9/11?

Down: My understanding is that the same procedures are in place. We may exercise some flexibility, but I have to be careful here because the same procedures, the same regulations, they are still accurate. We have to be very careful of what we protect against U.S. persons --

Media: -- different or --

Down: Again I have to be careful. The procedures stand and I really can't speak for the analytical side at the moment, but I would think that in the post-9/11 mindset --

Chope: Let me get into some of the problems we have. We're looking back about 5.5 years. Data mining is a relatively new thing in the intelligence community. They were not using the most sophisticated tools. They were using what tools were available. Sophisticated at the time, but compared to now of course we're Moore's law a couple of times down and we've got a lot better tools. So at this point now in the analytical side, we're a lot better in identifying the type of data we get and where we get it from. Back then you would do what they called a web crawl and you'd get a lot of data and it would go in one pile.

Now when we put the data in a pile we tag it, you've heard about XML tagging and those sorts of things. So we understand where the data came from better, we understand the nature of that, and we have tools to help us identify the data.

So while the procedures haven't changed, the interpretation has probable become a little more flexible with hindsight on 9/11, a little more flexible, but we still have the procedures in place, believe me, and we have the training, but we also have the better ability now to say okay, this data came from this source, it's a U.S. person that has nothing to do with our problem set and we can expunge it a lot more easily than we could in the past. In the old days it was kind of an all or nothing.

Media: All these questions about Able Danger seem to sound like how could you possibly have missed Mohammed Attah did this, but I'm wondering if Mohammed Attah came in under the same circumstances at the same time tomorrow, he would still be of the same class. Wouldn't they get ditched, thrown out? Not that that's what happened with this, but if you were to tag him as a U.S. person wouldn't he automatically be thrown out of the data base tomorrow just as --

Chope: I don't know.

Media: Can you say whether you have gone through all the documents yet? You say you you're now going back and reintegrating, but have you looked through all the documents? Is that why you're here, to say you've completed that?

Down: We have done extensive searches including the documents that we delivered to the 9/11 Commission and the group of documents that were deemed unresponsive to the Commission's particular request. There are boxes and boxes of these.

As you can imagine, an organization as large as DoD with the speed at which we had to respond to the Commission's request, there were numerous documents that came through for all 39 of the Commission's requests that weren't really relevant to specific requests. So we have like a non-responsive pile. We weeded those out. If we had any doubt we left it up to the Commission to decide. It's their job to decide what's really relevant for them. But we went back through the old piles just to be sure we had not missed anything or to see if we could potentially identify this chart. And in terms of the other organizations, there have been very extensive document searches.

Media: Is there an estimate about how many pages you searched?

Down: Oh, boy --

Chope: We did a complete electronic search --

Down: Pages.

Chope: All holdings, physical searches, --

Down: Hundreds of thousands probably.

Media: Are you done with your effort?

Down: Including electronic files, of pages

Media: I'm sorry. Are you done with your review? Is this, are you finished or is this ongoing?

Down: Not in terms of the interview process. But in terms of document searches, unless there is some other source of documents that we find out through the interview process that we haven't looked at, and again, we haven't identified what that would be, right now we are complete on our document.

Media: Can I just return briefly on this chart that had Attah's picture or reference, did the chart, did all the people have a recollection that the other hijackers who have been mentioned were also on the chart or just Attah?

Chope: Most of the discussion's been about Attah --

Whitman: Before we get into that, let's address the question. You said the chart that had Attah on it. We have not found a chart that had Attah on it. I just want to make sure --

Media: You said five people said they recall --

Whitman: I just didn't want that to be out there as that there is a chart that exists that has Attah on it. Okay?

Chope: If there was a chart with Attah, [Laughter].

Whitman: It's important.

Media: These five people recall, do they recall it having Attah and additional hijackers on it?

Chope: I can't be certain. That would really be the, then Commander Philpot would be the one. The remainder talk about Attah and a picture, or Attah's name. The one person who only saw a name and no picture, and the others saw a picture and a name.

Media: So Philpot is the only one who recalls other hijackers?

Chope: I believe, but I'd have to check the notes I have from the discussions we had.

Media: Let me go back to the U.S. persons question for a second. To what extent did any controversy over that issue lead to the shutdown of this program? I talked to several people who said there was a separate program developing. They were looking at Chinese tech transfer. It wasn't Able Danger, but it used some of the same personnel, some of the same facilities at LIWA and came up with a name list of some very prominent U.S. persons and led to somebody saying terminate this thing. Is there any truth to that at all?

Chope: No. It had nothing -- There was a prior effort involved with those topics that you mentioned. That effort ended with a subpoena by Congress in November of '99. That was the end of it. It was a completely different target, different subjects, different data, everything.

Media: You say ended with a subpoena from Congress. From where? From which committee?

Chope: I'm not sure about the committee. That was a completely different effort. There were similar tools, but you've got to remember back here, let me just for the Land Information Warfare Activity, this was very experimental stuff back then. So what that was about was demonstrating can experimental stuff like this be useful in helping us solve some technology transfer riddles. That was kind of the purpose of that effort. That effort ended in the LIWA's eyes in November. LIWA did a lot of other analytical projects. That's what they do. They do intelligence analysis.

Media: -- open source, classified?

Chope: In which?

Media: In both.

Chope: In Able Danger it was mixed, both open source and classified.

Media: The five people that recall seeing either Attah's name or photograph on the charts, do they have any recollection of where that photograph might have come from, number one? How many people's names were on that chart? Was it five, was it 10,000?

Chope: We don't know what was on the chart.

Media: In their recollection, what is their recollection of that chart?

Chope: It's different compared to any person you talk to.

Gandy: Captain Philpot will contend there are upwards of 60 names on that chart. Not all of them will have photographs attributed to them. Some will just be outlined silhouettes of a head.

Media: Given the differences in their recollection, are their claims considered credible?

Chope: Don't know. We're just in the fact-finding mode.

Media: This is kind of a fair question, actually. We won't ask you to do hypotheticals or conjectures, but you all live in a world of analyzing data. Clearly if you're supervisors or Dr. Cambone said to you want do you think now? You’ve now gone from two to five people who recall it. You haven't found the document. What do you think?

Down: These people are, Captain Philpot for instance and the others, especially the ones that are involved in data mining, the contracting firms, are credible people. Again, we just -- We are unable to again provide corroborating evidence. We just, as I've said, can't find the document. But as I said, they are credible people.

Media: What do you make of that? That disparity. How do you conclude?

Chope: We can only hypothesize on how this --

Down: I don't --

Chope: -- might have come about is all you can do, hypothesize.

I agree with Pat. Most of the people involved in this are credible folks. We've checked out everything they've said. We can go to the same group of people you would think were sitting next to each other and say did you see a chart with a picture of Attah on it? No, no, no, yes. That's kind of the situation we're in right now. We drill into that and we still have the no, no, no, yes kind of situation.

Media: If these people are credible, what could account for this difference in your view?

Down: I don't know. We've seen a chart with different Mohammed's on them. Is it possible that Mohammed Ajaz, Mohammed -- what's the other one.

Chope: Arateff.

Down: Arateff, thank you. So we have charts with those names but not Mohammed Attah. Is there confusion there? Again, we don't know. We simply don't know. Was the reference to Mohammed Attah, did it come out early on in a chart? In that case if it came out early on, were there any kind of concerns which we again can't corroborate for our interviews. If it came out early, such as in a proof of concept chart, we may never find it.

So as I said, we haven't found any supporting evidence at this point, especially that documentation, to back those claims up.

[Multiple voices].

Down: We didn't, no.

Media: -- head of Special Ops at the time, wasn't he?

Chope: -- do not.

Media: You do not?

Down: Not yet.

Media: Can I ask a real basic question here? This effort to try to get to the bottom of this, this is responsive to Congress, to a directive from the Secretary, to what? Maybe you got into that in the beginning or maybe everyone in here knows it but me, I just -- You're getting to the bottom of this because Congress wants an answer or because you just want to know, because we're all asking these questions and you want us to shut up? [Laughter].

Down: Maybe all of the above. We --

Chope: -- Cambone has directed that we do fact-finding and find the facts in this case. Each of the components involved, SOCOM as the headquarters and supporting agencies have stepped forward and are doing their part to try and figure out what the facts are.

Media: Can I ask another question about the lawyers? You said I think that you had negative indication that that has happened, i.e. the destruction of documents.

Chope: That was taken a little out of context. No lawyer ever directed any Able Danger personnel to destroy documents. Any destruction of documents was conducted in accordance with established regulations and directives.

Media: What about the question of the meetings with the FBI?

Chope: Aside from the statements by Mr. Schaeffer and Captain Philpot we have found no corroborating statements or evidence or whatever you want to call it to that effect in the course of our interviews.

Media: So you talked to all of the lawyers who might have tried to stop this because it was U.S. person information and couldn't be disseminated to domestic agencies. And no one remembers --

Chope: We have talked to all the lawyers involved in the project and there is no hindrance upon the sharing of information.

Gandy: We know that data was destroyed, the Land Information Warfare Activity. But it was destroyed in compliance with our intelligence oversight directives, 12333, DoD 5240-1R, et cetera. So it was destroyed in complete protocols, normal protocols that we would follow with any kind of U.S. person data. It wasn't destroyed because a lawyer came in and said you've got to get rid of this stuff. It was the clock is ticking, show us how you can pull this U.S. person information out of here or not, you can't do it we have protocols and directives to comply with, we're going to comply, and they did. That's how the data was destroyed at LIWA and I believe later on in SOCOM was in a similar manner destroyed.

Media: So the people involved in the project were asked whether there was a way that they could extract intelligence which could be shared from this massive data that they had from this pile you talked about --

Gandy: I think you're confusing the sharing of data -- Data can be shared with anybody. U.S. person data can be shared in a wide variety of situations. We do that every day in the Department of Defense. For instance on the counter-intelligence side of the house which I am responsible for for the Army, our intelligence agents share information every day with the FBI no U.S. persons, and who has primacy in an investigation, and who doesn't. It's all laid out in the protocols surrounding EO-12333 and 5240, our counter-intelligence regulations. Promulgation of those sharing agreements. So we can share data with U.S. persons.

In this case because of the nature in which the data was collected, now we're 5.5 years ago. It was a gobbling up of a lot of data from a lot of sources and put in one pile. You had this commingling of U.S. person data with lots of other data, and there was no way to really pull it out. So the protocols were applied as they stood and really as they stand saying do you have a reason to do this. Like in the counter-intelligence case we have a reason, that we're doing a counter-espionage investigation or we're doing a force protection investigation. In this case there was no perceived imminent threat, imminent crime going to occur, any danger, those kinds of things that say that you can share it. That was not perceived to be the case in these situations and it was destroyed.

Media: So the identification of individuals who were linked to al-Qaida inside the United States was not perceived as an imminent threat after the USS Cole and after the embassy bombings --

Gandy: We don't know that they identified those people in this data.

Media: You say there was no imminent threat, there was no perceived imminent threat.

Gandy: That might be a reason you would keep the data. Those are the kind of reasons we're allowed to keep data about U.S. persons.

Media: And share it, right?

Gandy: Absolutely. It depends on the situation. If that person, for instance, if that person is located overseas, then you would share it with a different group of people than if the person was located in the United States. Just that there are links established doesn't really mean anything. And by the way, some of these links, in the primacy of this technology you get some very goofy links that require research. In fact when we interviewed these analysts to a person they said what was the nature of the stuff? They said you really need to dig into this to find out what these links meant.

Media: I was told that the, after the data run had been done on unclassified data bases it was then scrubbed against classified data in order to try and do this process. Like burrowing in and finding out what the links might be and which might be meaningful and so on. Have you been able to discover whether this chart that these five people remember was the product of a first stage of that or a second stage?

Gandy: One, we don't know there's a chart. But if there was a chart we believe it came from open source information.

Media: And not being scrubbed against classified --

Gandy: I don't know.

Media: Just to return to the question of the lawyers, Schaeffer said there were two occasions on which military lawyers intervened, the first was he said, that the military couldn't do anything with it and then when he tried to take it to the FBI again -- But you're saying that no -- Can you clarify exactly what you're saying about what the lawyers did? The document destruction stuff was SOP. You haven't found anything about a meeting with the FBI. I mean apart from the SOP on document destruction, what role did the regulations about U.S. persons and the legal interpretation of those made by lawyers of SOCOM play in how this all played out?

Gandy: Intelligence oversight drives how long we can store information on U.S. persons. It's really proscribed pretty clearly.

Media: Any activity that was proposed by people involved in Able Danger that was prohibited by lawyers --

Gandy: No. That's not the lawyers' job in this kind of a, in any situation within here. Their job is to give advice to the commander. The commander makes the ultimate determination. In no way, shape or form did the lawyers dissuade or hinder people from turning information over.

Media: The additional three people that recall seeing references to Mohammed Attah, do any of them recall what that was based on? You said --

Gandy: We asked where did this data come from and the person who saw the name and not the face couldn't tell. What it comes from is a big large conglomeration of data from lots of sources, and you drag a problem set through this data and you get lots of linkages and then you research the linkages is how it works.

We asked every single analyst if there was such a chart where would the data from that have come from? They didn't know. What they're doing is this huge data mining and they just get a pile of data, and in those days -- Now if you say okay, I have this piece of information, you could probably trace it back to its original parentage.

Media: But not in those days.

Gandy: In those days I think you could with some of the tools, but it depends upon analyst input to the tools, the linkages and all. They had some capability to do that because they would describe an anecdote where they'd say we'll read this information, and they'd say well, it's from a web site. They got to the web site it's kind of like a goofball web site. Then okay, get rid of that stuff. It's from something that really is not credible information. So they had some capability but I don't think they had the capability to scrub it in the fashion that the oversight rules could live with.

Media: The documents that were destroyed, is there a, if it's a standard operating procedure, are there rudimentary records that are kept of what documents are destroyed?

Gandy: There are certificates of destruction. What you'll have, traditionally for electronic it's very difficult. They'll say I destroyed so many disc drives, so many zip drives, so many CD roms were in the cruncher, that kind of stuff. You have lots and lost of data. So it's very general in nature.

Media: It doesn't really identify --

Gandy: It would never go down like in an index fashion or an inventory fashion. For those volumes of data it would say, the Y drive on this server at this place was wiped on this day, certified by the technician who conducted it.

Media: If there were a chart, a piece of paper, that would be different?

Gandy: You do physical destruction of it.

Media: Is that what it was?

Gandy: This is for documents that are actually published and numbered kind of documents that you would sign for. Those kind of documents. But if you have like working papers, charts that you're printing off looking that's not good, that's not good, you wouldn't do that. You’d just destroy all those.

Media: Schaeffer and Philpot's current status is?

Gandy: Captain Philpot's in the Navy and Mr. Schaeffer is --

Huntington: On administrative leave without (corrected – should be with) pay.

Media: From the DIA?

Huntington: That's correct.

Media: Is he in uniform still?

Huntington: I don't know the answer to that.

Media: Is he on administrative leave without pay as punishment?

Huntington: No. That's totally separate from any of this activity.

Media: Does he face any possible action for disposing of information?

Whitman: We're not going to get into any personnel issues that bump against the Privacy Act.

Media: Is the reason why he's on leave, does that affect his credibility at all in the investigation?

Huntington: No. These two things are entirely separate sorts of things. The reason for this action is totally unrelated to any of the activities related to Able Danger.

Media: How much of your resources has been devoted to digging this up? Is it something – do you have a lot of people who are looking in to this now? [Laughter].

Down: Yes.

Gandy: A lot of personal time.

Media: Your personal opinion of it, is it a waste of time? Is it constructive? Is it something you find helpful?

Gandy: Dr. Cambone says this is something we ought to look into, I go roger that, sir. It's very important.

Whitman: Like I said, we would present you the facts when we had some conviction on it, and that's where we're at today. I hope it's been useful.

Media: Thanks for doing it on the record.

Chope: You're welcome.

Posted by Mike at 12:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

September 01, 2005

Who the hell is Rod Isler?

Wow, some big moves in the Able Danger story. Although it is becoming increasingly clear that Shaffer does not want to ruffle any feathers with the military brass. Which I am starting to see helps explain the continued interest from the right wing media. Shaffer's aiming a lot lower, and simply wants to get his new program approved.

First, Curt Weldon announces "he will be giving a speech on September 8th (next Monday) during which he will present yet another 'Able Danger' witness. This new witness will attest (and will swear under oath when called) that he was 'ordered to destroy records' relating to the 'Able Danger' program."

Next, the NY Times announces a public hearing September 14th "to get to the bottom of this" in Specter's words.

Now, Shaffer beats Weldon to the punch in a 10,000 word interview he gave last week which just appeared in the latest issue of Government Security News:

In a detailed recounting of a face-to-face confrontation with his then commanding officer, Major General Rod Isler, now retired, Shaffer described how the then deputy director of operations at the Defense Intelligence Agency essentially pulled the plug on his involvement with Able Danger. When contacted by GSN, General Isler said he did not recall ever having had such a conversation with Shaffer.

Shaffer also told GSN that the ultimate goal that he and his Able Danger colleagues are pursuing is the re-establishment of a similar data mining capability, in a newly-formed program the military is calling Able Providence. Such an effort would require less than $50 million to be launched, said Shaffer, and the military has enlisted the support of Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), who has taken a keen interest in the history of Able Danger....

SHAFFER:
I can only speak to the facts. His opinion was, “That’s not part of your job.” As he walked through things, he kept saying, “I don’t see this as your job. This should be done by someone else.”

I tried to explain to him how that’s not their job. We’re human intelligence. This is just an aspect of human intelligence. He disagreed with me. It came to the point where we brought up Able Danger, where I was explaining the operation to him -- as you know it now, plus more -- and he looked at me and he said “Well, Tony, that’s not your job.”

I said, “Well, sir, with all due respect, this is an important operation focused on the global Al Qaeda target,” and he said, “You’re not hearing me, Tony. This is not your job.”

“Well, sir, this is basically using human methodology, combined with data mining to…”

“Tony, you’re not listening to me. This is not your job.”

“Sir, this is important, I think…”

“Tony, I’m the two star here. I’m the two star. I’m telling you I don’t want you doing anything with Able Danger.”

“Sir, if not us then who?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not your job.”

And that effectively ended my direct support and my unit’s support to Able Danger.

GSN:
Did it end Able Danger altogether?

SHAFFER:
I think it contributed to the failure of it because by that point, Army had already pulled out and Special Operations Command, because of the political change there, had also changed their focus. I remember the last conversation I had with Captain Scott Philpott on this was a desperate call from him asking me to try to help use one of my operational facilities to at least try to exploit the information [Able Danger had collected] before it got lost.

GSN:
What was the name of the general who said “No, this is not your job.”

SHAFFER:
General Rod Isler.

GSN:
He sounds like a bit of a heavy in the story.

SHAFFER:
There are good guys and bad guys in the story.

[Editor’s Note: When contacted by GSN, General Rod Isler (USA-Ret.) said he recalls Lt. Col. Shaffer as someone who worked under his command at DIA, but had no recollection of any discussion with Shaffer in which Shaffer briefed him on Able Danger or an intelligence mission to find Al Qaeda cells. Isler emphasized that in his role as deputy director for operations at the Defense Intelligence Agency he had no authority over any programs run out of the J-3 unit of the Joint Staff, and no authority over any program run by the Special Operations Command.]

"No authority" - in other words - "that wasn't my job", either.

Regardless, neither Isler or his commanding officer, Thomas R. Wilson, had much trouble finding jobs immediately after they each retired from thirty plus years of service in the summer of 2002.

Think some internal investigations into the failures of 9/11 might have had anything to do with it?

Rod Isler was hired in 2002 by the defense contractor General Dynamics (where Rumsfeld was once the CEO). Isler works in the "Advanced Information Systems" business unit, of all things. Before taking over as Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1999, Isler served as "Associate Director of Central Intelligence for Military Support, Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C." Which I think helps explain the "It's not your job" remarks, not to mention why George Tenet keeps thanking him in speeches a year after Isler had retired.

Thomas Wilson - not to be confused with Thomas White - was hired as a corporate officer by the defense contractor ATK after his own retirement in the summer of 2002. ATK specializes in precision guided weapons, aerospace warfare, and ballistic missile defense. Wouldn't you know that when Wilson retired as DIA director, George Tenet of the CIA "presented Wilson the U.S. Intelligence community's highest commendation, the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal." Prior to becoming the director of the DIA, Wilson had previously served as "Associate Director of Central Intelligence for Military Support" - in other words approximately the same background and connection to George Tenet that Rod Isler had.

You know the part that bothers me the most?

GSN:
What did the CIA representative say when you explained that Able Danger was not competing with him?

SHAFFER:
He told me, “I clearly understand the difference. I clearly understand. We’re going after the leadership. You guys are going after the body. But, it doesn’t matter. The bottomline is, CIA will never give you the best information from ‘Alex Base’ or anywhere else. CIA will never provide that to you because if you were successful in your effort to target Al Qaeda, you will steal our thunder. Therefore, we will not support this.” [Alex Base was the CIA’s covert action element which was conducting the Osama bin Laden finding.]

I believe he was being a friend. I believe he was sincerely telling me this because it was the truth. He said, short of General Schoomaker calling George Tenet directly, the best information would never be released. To my knowledge, and my other colleagues’ knowledge, there was no information ever released to us because CIA chose not to participate in Able Danger.

If Schoomaker was such a big fan of Able Danger, why the hell didn't he pick up the phone? Did Shaffer even ask him to or was that considered completely out of the realm of possibility? Maybe Schoomaker decided to defer to Franks:

General Pete Schoomaker, the chief of staff of the U.S. Army and former Commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, said that if the Special Operations Command had been a supported command before 9/11, he would have had the al Qaeda mission rather than deferring to CENTCOM’s lead.

After all, Able Danger was Schoomaker's only supported - not supportive - mission:

GSN:
Who came up with the idea originally to set up Able Danger?

SHAFFER:
I’d have to defer that question to either General Schoomaker or General Shelton. I honestly don’t know that answer, but I know that between the two of them, the tasking was to SOCOM, Special Operations Command, as the supported CinC [military short-hand for Commander in Chief of a unified command]. This was the first time ever that Special Operations Command was the supported CinC, which means that they were the prime CinC. They were the lead CinC to do something. This was the first time the Special Operations Command wasn’t supporting someone else.

Anyway, some new developments out of the Pentagon:

DoD Background Briefing on Able Danger

There will be an Able Danger background briefing at 2 p.m. EDT in the OSD Executive Conference Center , Pentagon 2C554, Room #7.

Journalists without a Pentagon building pass will be picked up at the North Parking Entrance only. Plan to arrive no later than 1:30 p.m.; have proof of affiliation and two forms of photo identification. Please call (703) 697-5131 for escort into the building.

This is great. According to Google News, the advisory was issued at about 2:13 pm EDT or thirteen minutes into the briefing. It also says "Journalists without a Pentagon building pass will be picked up at the North Parking Entrance only. Plan to arrive no later than 1:30 p.m." Will Time Machine parking be provided?

I'm not betting on getting anything but disinformation from the OSD.

Posted by Mike at 01:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 31, 2005

Weldon will name names before next anniversary of 9/11

All in. I think Weldon wants Able Danger rebuilt, and doesn't care how much trouble he has to stir up with the administration to get it.

From a post at FreeRepublic.com:

Congressman Curt Weldon (R - Pennsylvania) gave another exclusive interview to Dom Giordano this evening (Monday) and broke the news that he will be giving a speech on September 8th (next Monday) during which he will present yet another 'Able Danger' witness. This new witness will attest (and will swear under oath when called) that he was "ordered to destroy records" relating to the 'Able Danger' program.

This order to destroy the records occurred prior to 9-11-01. Weldon intimated that it happened during the Clinton Administration.

The witness, who Weldon did not name, says that he was ordered to destroy records and was threatened with jail if he failed to comply. Weldon said that he has the names of the people involved, including the person who gave the order, and HE WILL NAME THEM in his speech.

Congressman Weldon also said that his staff has met with Senator Arlen Specter's (R - Pennsylvania) staff regarding the upcoming Judiciary Committee hearings. Weldon wants to be sure that everybody is on the same page. Weldon also said that he will do whatever he has to do to make sure that ALL the facts come out and that the process "is not manipulated".

Curt Weldon is like a pit bull on a steak. He expressed disgust with the "incompetence" of the 9-11 Commission and said that the victims of the 9-11 terror attacks deserve answers. Weldon is determined to see that they get them.

Weldon did express confidence in Tim Roehmer and John Lehman and speculated that perhaps the poor job done by the Commission was the result of an incompetent staff. Weldon sounded amazed and disappointed that so much important information was either glossed over or swept under the rug by the Commission.

Weldon will give his September 8th speech either to the National Press Club or to a "9-11 families" group which has asked him to speak. He apparently hasn't nailed down the exact venue yet.

Unless Shaffer's lawyer has been lying on the air, here's a preview of what Weldon might say. I still say it's not about Clinton:

SHAFFER: When Donny Deutsch asked him, why is it you never checked out, as the commissioners, Colonel Shaffer‘s story? His answer was very telling. He said, we had no technology or ability to actually check on what the colonel was telling us. We had—“The technology to do so no longer exists”—unquote.

So, that was the key. The technology we used to get this information does not exist at the time they were doing the report, the 9/11 Commission research, nor does it exist now. So, that is the key. They couldn‘t verify what we were saying.

ZAID: Chris, the problem is, the Defense Department didn‘t give them the data that was necessary. And we now know that the Army destroyed a large amount of that data in 2001. And that‘s another question that needs to be asked. Why?

Other sources have claimed the China portion of the program was shut down in May of 2000, but the Al Qaeda portion kept working through the spring of 2001. If Weldon gets up and trumps up the China half of the program being shut down under Clinton, while ignoring the shut down of the Al Qaeda portion under Bush, then we'll know Weldon is a scum bag looking to score political points - but somehow, I doubt it.

Remember the NY Post story?

Cyber-sleuths working for a Pentagon intelligence unit that reportedly identified some of the 9/11 hijackers before the attack were fired by military officials, after they mistakenly pinpointed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other prominent Americans as potential security risks, The Post has learned.

The private contractors working for the counter-terrorism unit Able Danger lost their jobs in May 2000. The firings following a series of analyses that Pentagon lawyers feared were dangerously close to violating laws banning the military from spying on Americans, sources said....

A Pentagon official said last night that, while the canned contractors worked for Able Danger, the China project was separate from the counter-terrorism assignment.

The Able Danger work was transferred to another Department of Defense contractor — and the program quietly expired later that year when it was completed, the official said.

Did you see the official line there? "Expired later that year when it was completed" is bull shit. Just ask Lt. Col. Shaffer:

SHAFFER: We all realized that we had these guys.
And then we started asking some questions to ourselves. Why was Able Danger, why was this whole technology piece turned off four months before the 9/11 attacks? In the spring of 2001, it was dismantled, all, completely...

Regardless, Specter has scheduled hearings for September 14th:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 - The Senate Judiciary Committee announced Wednesday that it was investigating reports from two military officers that a highly classified Pentagon intelligence program identified the Sept. 11 ringleader as a potential terrorist more than a year before the attacks.

The committee's chairman, Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said in an interview that he was scheduling a public hearing on Sept. 14 "to get to the bottom of this" and that the military officers "appear to have credibility."

The senator said his staff had confirmed reports from the two officers that employees of the intelligence program tried to contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2000 to discuss the work of the program, known as Able Danger.

Posted by Mike at 09:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 30, 2005

Even more Able Danger transcripts

Wow, Matthews is the first mainstream interview I've seen of Shaffer and it was a good one. Chris even mixed in some pop culture cues. Anyway, I have to admit I am curious who National Geographic talked to in order to get this story. Someone who is still at MacDill now?

“AT THIS AIR FORCE BASE IN TAMPA (Picture of Entrance Gate to MacDill Air Force Base), MEMBERS OF THE U.S. ARMY SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND ARE REVIEWING AN UNUSUAL CHART THAT REPORTEDLY IDENTIFIES BOTH ATTA (picture ID of Atta shown) AND AL-SHEHHI (picture ID of Al-Shehhi shown) AS LIKELY MEMBERS OF AN AL-QAEDA TERROR CELL OPERATING WITHIN THE U.S. THE OFFICIALS DECIDE THEY CANNOT PASS THIS INFORMATION ALONG TO THE FBI, IN PART BECAUSE THE MEN ARE HOLDING VALID U.S. VISAS AND MAY BE OFF LIMITS FROM INTELLIGENCE GATHERING BY THE MILITARY.”

Here's the segment from Chris Matthews on 8/26:

MATTHEWS: Some people in military intelligence say they knew about al Qaeda threats way before 9/11, but could not share the info with the FBI. Who was holding them back?
When HARDBALL returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
Two defense officers say that a military intelligence unit known as Able Danger identified Mohamed Atta and three other hijackers as potential al Qaeda threats more than a year before 9/11, but military lawyers prevented them from sharing this information with the FBI. Is the Pentagon to blame, then, for failing to prevent 9/11?
Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer was the first to come forward with his information. He served as the liaison officer between the Able Danger unit and the Defense Intelligence Agency. And Mark Zaid is his attorney.
Colonel, let me ask you this. In real simple terms, could 9/11 have been prevent by the information your unit had in its possession?
LT. COL. ANTHONY SHAFFER, FORMER ARMY INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: There‘s no way to tell if that could have happened or not. But I do believe that, had we been able to pass the information to the FBI, it would have given us a fighting chance. That‘s the best I can describe it.
MATTHEWS: Tell me how you learned about Mohamed Atta.
SHAFFER: This information...
MATTHEWS: And when.
SHAFFER: We found out about Mohamed Atta by his links, essentially, to put in it simple layman‘s term, profiling, using open-source data, regarding the travel and association of certain Muslim men and certain radical clerics. And this was done through open Internet completely by J.D. Smith. He came forward today.
There‘s—he is now on the record talking about exactly how he did this using advanced data tools, data mining, purchasing of data off the Internet through brokers, and then using multiple analytical tools to refute or confirm links. Again, this was a six-month process to come up with this information.
MATTHEWS: What was it that identified him as a terrorist, though?
SHAFFER: Describing him as a—he was found to be directly linked to radical Muslim clerics.
MATTHEWS: But he had no rap sheet, did he?
SHAFFER: No, he did not. And that was one of the things that was—the beauties of this whole technology. We were able to find these guys and their affiliations and associations a year before 9/11. Nobody else seems to have found this information.
MATTHEWS: Is there a formula—because this sounds like “Minority Report” with Tom Cruise, the movie—where you can predict a crime is going to happen based upon information?
SHAFFER: That was one of the keys of the way...
MATTHEWS: Do you believe you can?
SHAFFER: They were using the criteria of the World Trade Center one bomber.
As you recall, in ‘93, the World Trade Center one—was bombed. They took like eight points of data out of—which was common to all those individuals, take that data then, bounce it off the larger database, looking for profiles which meet up with the original set. That‘s how we found the linkage. That, plus the association of Atta and these other individuals with the radical clerics who were traveling and against the—for better or for worse. The Muslim clerics were being used as command-and-control of that operation.
MATTHEWS: Again using the “Minority Report” parallel, if you know someone is going to commit a crime, why don‘t you tell law enforcement officials?
SHAFFER: We attempted to do that. And that‘s one of the issues...
MATTHEWS: How hard? How hard did you try?
SHAFFER: I can‘t tell you. We tried as—to the point of where we thought this was the most important thing. There was no...
MATTHEWS: What‘s to stop you from dropping the dime on Mohamed Atta if you think the guy looks suspicious, just going to the nearest phone, call up and say, here‘s a tip? This guy, Mohamed Atta, is a dangerous man. He fits the pattern, the profile, of a terrorist. And we‘re afraid he is going to strike.
SHAFFER: He wasn‘t the only one that we discovered...
MATTHEWS: How many were in that category?
SHAFFER: There were probably about eight total that we had suspicion of.
MATTHEWS: Well, Why not do eight people like that? That‘ where—that‘s not a big chunk of people.
(CROSSTALK)
SHAFFER: Because that was where the Able Danger operations officer approached me and said, we have these individuals the lawyers have told us we can‘t look at we have to do something about.
That‘s where I came in to it, because I had a relationship with the FBI running a similar operation. So, I tried to broker meetings between the Able Danger individuals in Tampa and the FBI. That‘s where it went wrong. That‘s where we were stopped from providing the information.
MATTHEWS: Mark, what law prevents your client from telling his counterparts at the FBI that there‘s a dangerous guy out there that might blow up some things?
MARK ZAID, ATTORNEY FOR ANTHONY SHAFFER: Well, apparently, the concern within the military, similar to what was seen with the Justice Department wall, was that the military could not conduct intelligence operations or gathering of information on U.S. citizens or even U.S. person, meaning individuals here in the United States, foreigners, but who were lawfully here, as most or some of the hijackers were.
MATTHEWS: Where did that law come from, or rule?
ZAID: I‘m not entirely clear on that.
MATTHEWS: I mean, why do we collect intelligence information if we‘re not going to use it?
ZAID: Well, that‘s a good question.
I mean, part of it may come back in 19th century with Posse Comitatus and the military is not allowed to do law enforcement operations.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: I could give you a list of places to go buy Christmas trees, with the idea that you go buy a Christmas tree. Why would you collect data on locating bad guys if you are not going to pick them up?
ZAID: Well, that was the question.
And there was a division within the military as to what they can do and how long they can do it. And that‘s why the program was shut down. Most—a lot of these questions should be directed at the Army, as to why was the program shut down in early 2001, when it was producing the results that it did?
MATTHEWS: You‘re not the only one speaking out. Navy Captain Scott Philpott, is he saying the same thing you are?
SHAFFER: He has gone on the record backing up everything that‘s been said about him knowing about Atta and what we were doing regarding Able Danger, yes.
ZAID: It‘s not even Philpott.
We have now—there‘s been several have gone on the record. But having talked to other team members and who have also talked to other team members, there are now up to at least a dozen team members who are supportive...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Why are the two chairman of the 9/11 Commission denying the value of what you‘re saying?
SHAFFER: I think Richard Ben-Veniste said it the best the other day during an interview on CNBC on the Donny Deutsch show.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
SHAFFER: When Donny Deutsch asked him, why is it you never checked out, as the commissioners, Colonel Shaffer‘s story? His answer was very telling. He said, we had no technology or ability to actually check on what the colonel was telling us. We had—“The technology to do so no longer exists”—unquote.
So, that was the key. The technology we used to get this information does not exist at the time they were doing the report, the 9/11 Commission research, nor does it exist now. So, that is the key. They couldn‘t verify what we were saying.
ZAID: Chris, the problem is, the Defense Department didn‘t give them the data that was necessary. And we now know that the Army destroyed a large amount of that data in 2001. And that‘s another question that needs to be asked. Why?
MATTHEWS: OK. Thank you.
Nine-Eleven Commissioner Thomas Kean is one of those people that is denying the value of what you‘re saying right here.
SHAFFER: Well, I—sir, I can only tell you what I know and what I talked to the 9/11 Commission about. And how an offensive operation aimed at looking at al Qaeda two years in advance of 9/11 is somehow not historically relevant, I don‘t understand.
MATTHEWS: So, you knew the name Mohamed Atta? You knew the guy was dangerous?
SHAFFER: We knew that he was linked to radical Muslim clerics and he was of concern, by the fact that the lawyers told us we couldn‘t even do intelligence collection against him, yes.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: I want to come back and talk more about this. I think everybody has got to figure out watching this show how we can pick people ahead of time, because I was stunned.
The day of 9/11, the day after, all of a sudden, within 24 hours, I see pictures in the newspapers of every guy who did it. Where did those pictures come from?
SHAFFER: Exactly.
MATTHEWS: How did we know all that so fast? Usual suspects, obviously.
More with Anthony Shaffer and Mark Zaid when we return.
And a reminder: The political debate is 24/7 here at Hardblogger, our political blog Web site. Follow all the action on the hottest political stories each day. Just go to our Web site, HARDBALL.MSNBC.com.
This is HARDBALL on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: We are back with Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, who says that a military team had linked Mohamed Atta to an al Qaeda cell more than a year before 9/11. We are also joined by his lawyer, Mark Zaid.
Is the federal government—I mean, you are going to be asked this the rest of your life, my friend, Lieutenant Colonel. You‘re going to be asked the rest of your life, did we blow it?
SHAFFER: I think we did blow it.
I mean, any time you have information which is critical to any given military target and somehow it is not used properly, you have blown it. I mean, there‘s no—there‘s no way—there‘s no way too put too fine a point on it.
The question is now, how do we learn from this and what else did the 9/11 Commission miss? And how do we go back and try to find those other little misses of information? And one of the things I need to add here, Chris, is that, like you pointed out, the “Minority Report” paradigm here. These guys, these terrorists live in the real world. If you recall, the London bombing, the day that—weeks before the London bombing, there‘s a picture of these guys out on a white-water rafting trip together.
That—I swear, I believe in my heart of hearts, that was their final planning meeting. That means that they live in the real world. What we need to do is find out through the links who they associate with and how those links can be traced back to what they‘re doing. Unlike you and I, who have patterns in our life, they have a different pattern. And that pattern is detectable. And I think that‘s where we need to go with this.
MATTHEWS: so, you believe we can get enough basic hard facts on people that might be on a long list of—a watch list—to narrow down to those who have conducted themselves in a certain way that fits the pattern of people about to commit terrorism?
SHAFFER: Not even a watch list.
MATTHEWS: And we can do it?
SHAFFER: Not even a watch list. We‘re talking about, in some cases with the London bombers, citizens who were totally above board, looked perfectly normal.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
SHAFFER: There‘s—but there was a pattern there.
MATTHEWS: I love this with this formula. Don‘t give it away, though.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Keep that formula to yourself.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Because they might figure it out and operate differently.
But...
(CROSSTALK)
SHAFFER: Right.
MATTHEWS: It sounds like good standard police work. Did you notice anything different?
SHAFFER: Yes.
MATTHEWS: People fit patterns. People go to neighborhoods they don‘t normally go to. Look for them as the killer.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you this.
What—just personally, when you started to see this grim looking picture of Mohamed Atta flashed all over the TV screen, all over the newspapers, having picked him up as one of your eight suspects, what did you think?
SHAFFER: I was shocked, just like, you know...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: You might have said, we were right?
SHAFFER: We were going down the right path. And that was my concern.
And, as a matter of fact, my colleagues and I got together. As a matter of fact, one of my former investigators came forward recently and said, I remember you talking to me about this a week after 9/11.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
SHAFFER: We all realized that we had these guys.
And then we started asking some questions to ourselves. Why was Able Danger, why was this whole technology piece turned off four months before the 9/11 attacks? In the spring of 2001, it was dismantled, all, completely...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: You know what? It sounds like me watching the CIA leak case. I know all these people involved, all the suspects. And when their names start popping up in the reports, I go, yes, I figured that was one of them.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: But you‘re much closer to a horror story, because you, the rest of your life, will know that you could have, couldn‘t you, have gone nuts when you saw Mohamed Atta‘s face?
SHAFFER: We...
MATTHEWS: And said, this guy is really dangerous. I don‘t care how many rules I break. I‘m going to stop him.
SHAFFER: We didn‘t know—Chris, in our defense, we did not know al Qaeda was such a—that level of threat before 9/11. We did not.
MATTHEWS: You didn‘t know they would knock—tried to knock down the World Trade Center in ‘93?
SHAFFER: We did. I‘m not saying we didn‘t know that.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: And only came within a few cinder blocks of doing it?
SHAFFER: That‘s why Able Danger was created. And, again, look at the title, Able Danger. There was a knowledge that these guys were dangerous. The Cole Attack happened after Able Danger started.
MATTHEWS: OK.
Quick, just to finish up , because everybody is curious about this.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: This is an iconic event in our history.
Of those eight people that you fingered as possible dangers based on a pattern of behaviors...
SHAFFER: Right.
MATTHEWS: ... set behaviors that you‘ve identified as indicative of what‘s coming in this guy, how many of them were involved, three?
SHAFFER: There was a total of four, by my recollection.
MATTHEWS: So, you had four out of eight.
SHAFFER: That was—we had four of the group.
MATTHEWS: That‘s batting .500.
SHAFFER: And we believe that, had that information—the fact that
these guys were linked to al Qaeda leadership, we think that information
may have been useful to the FBI
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: You think, if you had had a perfect relations with the FBI
· tell me the law here, Mark. If the colonel had called up the FBI or his
· through the right channels, pick up these guys. These guys are dangerous. We have got a set of information about them that says these guys are about to pull something big. Would the law have been able to pick them up?

ZAID: My understanding of the preclusion that the military had, it would have been problematic from a law enforcement standpoint. Also understand...
MATTHEWS: There‘s no probable cause. There‘s no reason to believe...
(CROSSTALK)
ZAID: They did not have that type of data.
MATTHEWS: You can‘t use prior restraint in the law?
(CROSSTALK)
ZAID: They only had links. They had associations that this person was hanging out with this person, was shopping at this place, was attending this mosque, this church, whatever.
(CROSSTALK)
ZAID: They only had that type of links, which, in these type of operations, as we now know publicly from how al Qaeda operated, that was how they conducted their planning.
Now, the real grave concern is, they identified, OK, three or four of them. What happened to the other people on the list? Just because they weren‘t participating in 9/11, are they planning something now? If they identified 50 percent of them at that time, where is the data to look at these people on the list now?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Thank you, Colonel.
Thank you, Mark Zaid.
Join us again on Monday night at 7:00 Eastern for more HARDBALL. We will talk to former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott on how the Republicans are preparing to support Judge Roberts during his confirmation hearings, also about Trent‘s new book. Also, next week, comedian and TV host Bill Maher.
Up next, “COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN,” hosted tonight by my friend Chris Jansing, and more on the damage left by Hurricane Katrina.

Posted by Mike at 10:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (2)

Was Townsend at Bagram in October 2003?

Dafydd at Captain's Quarters raises some interesting points about the President's newest Homeland Security Advisor, Frances Townsend:

Acting Counsel for Intelligence Schroeder left in 1998, and was replaced by the soon-to-be controversial Frances Fargo Townsend. Townsend -- a Republican and former deputy to Rudolph Giuliani in the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York City, but a very close friend of Attorney General Janet Reno nevertheless -- was elevated to that position at Reno's request; since Townsend was also the protege of then FBI Director Louis Freeh (another recipient of Gorelick's memo), she was a shoe-in for the job heading OIPR.

U.S. News and World Report profiled Townsend last December. Although they did not discuss Able Danger, they did report on the feeling among nearly all of Townsend's critics that she was too enamored of that wall of separation, and that she was just as conservative in applying for wiretapping and surveillance warrants from the FISA court as Schroeder and Scruggs had been.

Townsend found herself in the middle of that debate over how much of a "wall" should exist between intelligence-gatherers and prosecutors, and her tenure at OIPR remains controversial today. Many FBI agents say Townsend was crucial in obtaining FISA wiretaps, especially during the period of heightened terrorism concerns around the new millennium. But many prosecutors felt that Townsend was less than helpful in making sure the FBI shared wiretap data with lawyers at Main Justice when there was evidence of criminal activity. Townsend believed that the FISA court and its chief judge at the time, Royce Lamberth, would refuse to approve search warrants and wiretaps if they believed too much information sharing was going on and if prosecutors were controlling or directing the intelligence-gathering efforts....

Both the Government Accountability Office and the 9/11 commission have blamed OIPR in part for the government's intelligence failures before the terrorist attacks. Sources say that OIPR's narrow interpretation of FISA led to misunderstandings and overly cautious behavior by the FBI. As a result, in July and August of 2001, FBI intelligence analysts prohibited their own criminal-case agents from searching for two men on the government's terrorist watch list who they knew had entered the United States. The men later proved to be two of the 19 hijackers.

The Washington Post has some more details on Townsend:

The next leap came in spring 2003, when two Townsend patrons urged Rice to hire her at the National Security Council. Both Clarke, the publicity-savvy former counterterrorism chief who later criticized Bush for failure to pay early enough attention to the al Qaeda threat, and Gen. John A. Gordon, at the time Bush's homeland security chief, lobbied for Townsend.

"They used all the right adjectives," Rice recalled. "Smart, tough, persistent, which is important. . . . Somebody who will not let anything slip past her."

It was a controversial hire. Political hands in the White House worried about her past as a Democratic appointee. Republicans on Capitol Hill circulated a stinging memo with details of her connection to the Wall. National security veterans worried, as one career official who worked with her put it, "Is she senior enough for this?" Columnist Robert D. Novak wrote that Reno's onetime protege could turn out to be an "enemy within."

At the time, Townsend told an interviewer she had volunteered to resign. But by December, she was coordinating government response to terrorism scares that led to the grounding of holiday season flights from Europe. She had also bonded with the president.

We also know that Townsend was at Abu Ghraib in November 2003:

Jordan, the top military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib, described "instances where I feel that there was additional pressure" to get information from detainees, including a visit to the prison last fall by an aide to Rice that was "purely on detainee operations and reporting." And he said he was reminded of the need to improve the intelligence output of the prison "many, many, many times."

Rice staffer Fran Townsend said Thursday that she spent about two hours at Abu Ghraib last November and recalls that Jordan was her guide. Townsend, then deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism, said she did not discuss interrogation techniques or the need to obtain more information from detainees, and neither witnessed nor heard about abuse of detainees.

Townsend said in an interview that she was in Iraq to learn more about the nature of the anti-U.S. insurgency and was particularly concerned about ensuring that whatever information was collected by various agencies there could be shared effectively. Townsend said she spent about 15 minutes in the detention areas at Abu Ghraib and remembers that her guide was "exceptionally polite." But she said that if his implication was that she was pressuring him to extract more information from detainees, that's "ridiculous."

That's the same time frame as the 9/11 Commission's secret trip to the Mideast which included the stop at Bagram:

The commission's staff director, Philip Zelikow, told United Press International that he and two other staff members interviewed "scores" of people, including officials from the countries and U.S. government personnel serving there.

"We wanted to get information about and their perspective on the events that led to the [September 11] attacks, and on the prosecution of the ongoing war on terror," said Mr. Zelikow, a former National Security Council official.

During their travels, which ended Friday, Mr. Zelikow and his colleagues visited Britain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said.

He said the trip was successful and useful in terms of building a narrative of the run-up to the attacks, adding that the commission members learned much that had not been made public.

Was she the "NSC attorney" at Bagram who TIME says corroborates Zelikow's story?

The panel also said that a Bush Administration lawyer—who, sources told TIME, was a National Security Council attorney present as a "minder" on behalf of the White House—agreed that Shaffer did not mention Atta's name. But Shaffer told TIME that he remembers specifically saying that the staff on the secret project had "found through the effort two of the three cells which conducted the 9/11 attack, to include Atta."

If so, wouldn't that constitute a conflict of interest on her part?

Posted by Mike at 01:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Able Danger - Franks, Tenet, Goss, and Haynes so far

That's 2 out of 3 Medal of Freedom winners involved, if you're keeping track. Plus one Bush appointee for the Federal Circuit court.

Tommy Franks

If you still can't understand why most of the Able Danger team members are so reluctant to come forward - even now - consider this. Able Danger was a SOCOM operation, initially tasked to its commander, Pete Schoomaker, now the Chief of Staff of the Army. According to the 9/11 Commission:

General Pete Schoomaker, the chief of staff of the U.S. Army and former Commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, said that if the Special Operations Command had been a supported command before 9/11, he would have had the al Qaeda mission rather than deferring to CENTCOM’s lead.

Tommy Franks took over as CENTCOM commander on July 6, 2000. On page 236 of his bestseller, American Soldier, Franks describes speaking to the "CENTCOM intelligence staff" on September 7, 2001:

I spoke about the excesses of Reconstruction after the Civil War, which had resulted in the enactment of Posse Comitatus, the law that prevents military forces from serving as policemen inside the United States. Would that stricture survive a full-blown terrorist attack?

"So, the thing that keeps me awake at night, Sergeant," I emphasized, "is the possible use of our armed forces against American citizens. We do our job well, but we're trained to fight foreign enemies. We're not police officers, sheriffs, or the FBI. If we were ever required to act in that capacity during a major emergency like an attack on the World Trade Center, the effect on America could be devastating. Martial law would not sit well in a free and open society."

On page 235, Franks recalls the summer of 2001:

The summer found our intelligence people working with the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, collecting and analyzing persistent but inspecific indications of planned terrorist activity in the Middle East. This was "all source" information - a blend of human intelligence and technical intelligence. I ordered the component commanders to have their people keep a lower profile. On several occassions, I increased our force protection posture - the Threat Con - but never as a result of a specific threat. Something was bewing, but the best minds at the CIA and the National Security Agency could now pin down the threats with any degress of certainty. Where would we see a terrorist act. . . and when?

As I read the increasingly alarming reports of potential attacks on Western facilities in the region, a thought formed. Al Qaeda had used cars, trucks, and boats as suicide bombs. What about small planes loaded with explosives? I sent a note - first to our embassy in Riyadh, then to other embassies across the AOR - asking the ambassadors to pass on my concerns to their hosts. "We should work to tune the host nations in the region in to this type of threat," I said.

It sounds to me like Franks had a very good idea about Al Qaeda's plans, possibly even thanks to Able Danger, he just assumed the attacks would be overseas, so his concern about Posse Comitatus precluded sharing their intelligence with the FBI. As CENTCOM commander, the Unites States was not in his AOR.

George Tenet

If Intel-Dump can be believed, which I think it can, Shaffer has said:

And lawyers of the era also felt that any intelligence officer viewing open internet information for the purpose of intelligence collection automatically required that any "open source" information obtained be treated as if it was "intelligence information"...does this sound like idiocy to you? It did to me - and we fought it - and I was in meetings at the OSD level, with OSD laywers, that debated this - and I even briefed the DCI George Tenet on this issue relating to an internet project.

Remember this from Weldon's speech?

At the military's inception, the CIA drags its feet and limits its support to the effort. In an off-the-record conversation between the
DCI and the CIA representative to this military unit, a man that I will call Dave and our military *intelligence* officer explains that even though he understands the military's effort is against the global infrastructure of al Qaeda, he tells me that the CIA will, and I quote, never provide the best information on al Qaeda, end quote. Why would they not do that? Because of the effort that they were taking as part of a finding they had on bin Laden himself and if the military's project was successful it would, quote, steal their thunder. Steal the CIA's thunder.

Dave went on to say that short of the CINC, General so and so,
calling the Director, George Tenet, directly, the CIA would never
provide the best information to the military on al Qaeda. To my
knowledge, that information was never provided.

Still wonder why the CIA was dragging its feet on it's 9/11 report?

Porter Goss

The 8/12 statement by the 9/11 Commission (now a "public discourse board") besides backing up Shaffer's and Phillpott's basic story, also contains this interesting statement about what Shaffer told them:

He also complained that Congress, particularly the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), had effectively ended a human intelligence network he considered valuable.

Who was chairman of the Permanent Select Committee at the time?

Porter J. Goss became Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on 21 April 2005. He served as the 19th Director of Central Intelligence from 24 September 2004 until 21 April 2005.

Previously, Mr. Goss represented the 14th Congressional District of Florida for almost 16 years. He was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 until his nomination as DCI in August 2004. He served for almost a decade as a member of the committee, which oversees the intelligence community and authorizes its annual budget. During the 107th Congress, Mr. Goss co-chaired the joint congressional inquiry into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

William Haynes

The Norristown Times Herald, which continues to get the uncut dope direct from Congressman Weldon's office, tells us this:

The Pentagon pulled the plug on the classified program, however, according to Shaffer, because it feared negative repercussion if the operation went wrong. Shaffer has met with the Judiciary Committee twice recently, he said, and revealed the names of about five Defense Department attorneys who advised shutting down "Able Danger" prior to the terrorist attacks....

The Pentagon's Office of General Counsel is ultimately responsible for legal decisions, he said, and he believes getting hold of the legal papers on "Able Danger" is paramount to resolving the controversy. "If I could have one (set of) documents, I would ask for the lawyers' notes," he said.

Conveniently enough, the General Counsel for the Pentagon, William Haynes, might have already turned over some of his notes to the Judiciary Committee, seeing as how he has been awaiting confirmation from the exact same committee ever since President Bush nominated him for the Fourth Circuit Court on September 29, 2003.

While not officially confirmed until May 17, 2001, this February 19, 2001 organizational chart still shows William Haynes in charge at the General Counsel's office. From January 2001 until Haynes formally took charge, Hayne's current deputy Dan Dell'Orto was officially in charge. Needless to say, both Haynes and Dell'Orto have since been caught up in the torture scandal, which is probably why Haynes' nomination is still stuck in the Judiciary Committee:

A law enacted in 1994 bars torture by U.S. military personnel anywhere in the world. But the Pentagon working group's 2003 report, prepared under the supervision of general counsel William J. Haynes II, said that "in order to respect the President's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign . . . [the prohibition against torture] must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority."

Haynes -- through Daniel J. Dell'Orto, principal deputy general counsel for the Defense Department -- wrote a memo March 17 that rescinded the working group's report, and Dell'Orto confirmed that withdrawal yesterday at the hearing. According to a copy of the memo obtained by The Washington Post, the general counsel's office determined that the report "does not reflect now-settled executive branch views of the relevant law."

So to Jon Holdaway, Laura Rozen, Vox Taciturn, Kevin Drum, AJ Strata, and all the others who have been following this story - I have a suggestion. Let's stay with it until all the facts come out, regardless of where it leads, or where we think the "blame" might fall.

Posted by Mike at 10:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 28, 2005

Now that's an interesting quote

Like I said, it ain't about Gorelick:

Information about Able Danger and its reports were also not included in the 9/11 Commission's report last year, he said, even though it was available to the commission.

Why it was not pursued, Weldon predicted, would be the subject of a "major scandal about to erupt over the 9/11 Commission," a scandal "as big as Watergate."

In fact, the revelation was a major story for several days last week, as spokespersons for the commission first said they had not been informed about Able Danger, then said they were aware of it as the report was being written. Most recently, Weldon's information about Atta has been called into question, as commission members have said the timelines don't add up and it's uncertain Atta's name was ever mentioned.

Posted by Mike at 10:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Did Zelikow meet with Bush in Idaho?

While not available to talk to reporters about Able Danger and the 9/11 Commission Report:

The State Department, where Zelikow now works as a counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said he was traveling and unavailable for comment.

Doctor Zelikow was able to talk to writers at the Sunny Valley Writer's Conference in Twin Falls, Idaho:

About 950 people attended the four-day conference, coming from as far away as Toronto to gorge on the written word and the ideas words can convey.

"It really comes down to the fact that words matter," said Juli Miller of Sun Valley. "Without words, how can you understand the world and how you fit into it?"

Philip Zelikow, chief architect of the 9/11 Commission Report, told how he ran the operation, scrutinizing 200 million pages of documents out of a hotel room -- there was no office, not even a telephone.

He also cautioned that the U.S. government needs to refrain from either inflating or downplaying the danger posed by Al Qaeda. "There is a problem there, but Al Qaeda is not 12 feet tall. They're not everywhere. They've been hurt and they can be hurt."

The reason the United States has not been attacked since 9-11 is not because Al Qaeda doesn't want to inflict more damage, he added. It's because they've been hampered in their ability to mete out more damage.

From the participant list:

PHILIP ZELIKOW, a lawyer, diplomat and historian, served as the executive director of the commission staff that produced THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, which was nominated for a National Book Award. Recently appointed as counselor to the State Department, Zelikow has taught at Harvard University and the University of Virginia. He earned his Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. With Condoleezza Rice, he co-authored GERMANY UNIFIED AND EUROPE TRANSFORMED: A STUDY IN STATECRAFT, which was awarded a citation for excellence by the Overseas Press Club of America.

You might recall, that was not all that was going on in Idaho during this four day period:

August 19-22 2005
Sun Valley, Idaho
Sun Valley Writer's Conference
"Writing in Unpredictable Times"

Bush takes a vacation within his vacation:

August 22, 2005

President Bush Visits Idaho

By Sarah Lanse

Boise & Donnelly

President Bush is taking a vacation from his vacation in Texas.

He made his first trip to Idaho for some mountain biking.

This comes amid nationwide protests asking the president to bring the troops home.

The president and First Lady Laura Bush landed in Boise this afternoon, and after deplaning from Air Force One, they spent about 10 minutes shaking hands with state officials.

Governor Dirk Kempthorne arrived on Air Force One as well and joined the president on Marine One for a short trip to the Tamarack Resort in Donnelly.

Marine One landed on Tamarak's golf course, where it was greeted by nearly 50 vehicles.

But not everyone in town was happy to see him.

Around 200 people held a peace rally and protest not far from the resort.

While few details have been released about the the president's trip, it appears he will be using some of his down time for a little mountain biking in Idaho's Central Mountains.

Bush is expected to entertain members of Idaho's congressional delegation at a private dinner before returning to the Boise area.

The president will be speaking Wednesday in Nampa to members of the military and their families.

Earlier today, he delivered a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Salt Lake City.

I was wondering why Bush decided to go to Idaho of all places.

Posted by Mike at 04:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Hmm, I wonder why Bush is upset?

Maybe he wasn't glad to be hearing from Pat Roberts down in Crawford?

Bush's Obscene Tirades Rattle White House Aides

While President George W. Bush travels around the country in a last-ditch effort to sell his Iraq war, White House aides scramble frantically behind the scenes to hide the dark mood of an increasingly angry leader who unleashes obscenity-filled outbursts at anyone who dares disagree with him.

“I’m not meeting again with that goddamned bitch,” Bush screamed at aides who suggested he meet again with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother whose son died in Iraq. “She can go to hell as far as I’m concerned!”

Bush, administration aides confide, frequently explodes into tirades over those who protest the war, calling them “motherfucking traitors.” He reportedly was so upset over Veterans of Foreign Wars members who wore “bullshit protectors” over their ears during his speech to their annual convention that he told aides to “tell those VFW assholes that I’ll never speak to them again is they can’t keep their members under control.”

White House insiders say Bush is growing increasingly bitter over mounting opposition to his war in Iraq. Polls show a vast majority of Americans now believe the war was a mistake and most doubt the President’s honesty.

“Who gives a flying fuck what the polls say,” he screamed at a recent strategy meeting. “I’m the President and I’ll do whatever I goddamned please. They don’t know shit.”

Bush, whiles setting up for a photo op for signing the recent CAFTA bill, flipped an extended middle finger to reporters. Aides say the President often “flips the bird” to show his displeasure and tells aides who disagree with him to “go to hell” or to “go fuck yourself.” His habit of giving people the finger goes back to his days as Texas governor, aides admit, and videos of him doing so before press conferences were widely circulated among TV stations during those days. A recent video showing him shooting the finger to reporters while walking also recently surfaced.

Posted by Mike at 03:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Second connection between NSC and 9/11 commission

Well, at least someone is looking into it:

Able Danger: More Mysteries

Further questions about whether a data mining program identified Atta before 9/11

By BRIAN BENNETT AND TIMOTHY J. BURGER/WASHINGTON

Posted Sunday, Aug. 28, 2005

As questions continue to swirl around claims that the Pentagon failed to act on pre-September 11 intelligence about the hijackers, a Senate panel is trying to clear up a key mysteries surrounding the data-mining intel program known as "Able Danger." The Senate Intelligence Committee is asking the Pentagon to let it interview anyone who worked on Able Danger, and last week drafted a letter asking the White House for a copy of a chart that Congressman Curt Weldon claimed in a recent book he gave then-deputy national security adviser Steve Hadley just after the 9/11 attacks.

Weldon says in the book, Countdown to Terror, that the chart was produced by Able Danger before the attacks and pegged lead hijacker Mohammad Atta as a threat to the U.S. Hadley—since promoted to be President Bush's national security adviser—has refused to confirm or deny the claim. Whether such a chart existed and was given to Hadley could prove or greatly undermine claims by Weldon and a handful of members of the Able Danger team.

Though another Defense Department contractor last week backed up Weldon's story, former 9/11 commission chairman Tom Kean said in a statement earlier this month that all three commission aides who attended a 2003 interview at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan with Lt. Col Anthony Shaffer, an intelligence liason to Able Danger, do not remember Mohammad Atta's name coming up.

The panel also said that a Bush Administration lawyer—who, sources told TIME, was a National Security Council attorney present as a "minder" on behalf of the White House—agreed that Shaffer did not mention Atta's name. But Shaffer told TIME that he remembers specifically saying that the staff on the secret project had "found through the effort two of the three cells which conducted the 9/11 attack, to include Atta."

The Pentagon has yet to find any documents to support this claim. Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said on Fox news Friday they are still reviewing the matter but "thus far have not found what it is those handful of individuals seem to remember."

Posted by Mike at 03:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 27, 2005

I'm saving this one for posterity

Mike Kelly's column keeps being reffered back to again and again:

Sunday, August 14, 2005

By MIKE KELLY

IT STILL SEEMS all so close.

Here, on Route 23, bathed in the August morning sun and only a short drive from Route 80 and the Willowbrook Mall, a roadside motel bears silent witness to a police bust that might have been.

For a year before the 9/11 attacks, the Wayne Inn was home to Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaida mastermind behind the hijacking plot that killed almost 3,000 people.

In those horrific weeks after the attacks, the official story line was that U.S. counterterror officials had no idea who Atta was before that murderous plot unfolded - or where he was before 9/11. Only after the attacks could authorities track Atta's movements.

Now that story seems to be false.

Federal officials confirmed last week that a year before the attacks, a top-secret military intelligence team was following Atta and three suspected terrorists who turned out to be hijackers. The intelligence operatives tried to sound an alarm but were rebuffed by government lawyers who feared possible legal complications of using military spying techniques to keep tabs on foreign visitors in the United States with legal visas even though they might be terrorists.

A former member of the military intelligence team told me in an interview that it had enough data to raise suspicions. "But we were blocked from passing it to the FBI."

The connect-the-dots tracking by the team was so good that it even knew Atta conducted meetings with the three future hijackers. One of those meetings took place at the Wayne Inn. That's how close all this was - to us and to being solved, if only the information had been passed up the line to FBI agents or even to local cops.

This new piece of 9/11 history, revealed only last week by a Pennsylvania congressman and confirmed by two former members of the intelligence team, could turn out to be one of the most explosive revelations since the publication last summer of the 9/11 commission report.

The information not only undermines key commission findings that Atta and others were undetected, but it again raises a question that continues to haunt the 9/11 tragedy:

Why is our government so incompetent?

To understand that question, it's important to understand how close counter-terror officials came to finding Mohammed Atta. And once you understand the closeness, you have to wonder how anyone could mess up so badly with information that was so tangible?

The story begins a year before the attacks. A top-secret team of Pentagon military counter-terror computer sleuths, who worked for a special operations commando group, was well into a project to monitor al-Qaida operations.

The 11-person group called itself "Project Able Danger." Think of them as a super-secret Delta Force or SEAL team. But instead of guns, they relied on advanced math training as their key weapons. And instead of traditional spying methods or bust-down-the-door commando tactics, the Able Danger group booted up a set of high-speed, super-computers and collected vast amounts of data.

The technique is called "data mining." The Able Danger team swept together information from al-Qaida chat rooms, news accounts, Web sites and financial records. Then they connected the dots, comparing the information with visa applications by foreign tourists and other government records.

From there, the computer sleuths noticed four names - Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.

All four turned out to be hijackers. Atta and al-Shehhi took a room at the Wayne Inn. They rented a Wayne mail drop, too, and even went to Willowbrook Mall. Al-Mihdar and al-Hazmi took rooms at a motel on Route 46 in South Hackensack.

What is interesting about this information now is that a CIA team, working separately from the Able Danger Team, had set its sights on al-Mihdar and al-Hazmi. The two were already on a CIA terror watch list and still had managed to obtain U.S. visas.

The CIA feared al-Mihdar and al-Hazmi might try to slip into the United States. But the CIA lost track of them after they left a terror meeting in Malaysia in early 2000 for Bangkok. Worse, the CIA waited until the summer of 2001 to tell the FBI that two suspected terrorists had visas to enter the United States - and might be here.

The story of the lack of cooperation between the CIA and FBI is well-known - and well-documented by the 9/11 commission. But the story is even more troublesome with the revelation that even before the CIA knew of suspected terrorists trying to enter the United States that the Able Danger team had its own set of information.

Imagine what might have happened if Able Danger was cooperating with the CIA and the FBI.

On the phone last week, the former Able Team member I interviewed told a depressing story of that cooperation that never took place.

His story, he says, tells us just how close U.S. officials could have come to breaking up the 9/11 plot before it unfolded. But there was one problem: The U.S. government did not want to hear what this sleuth and his 10 teammates had to say - before and even after the 9/11 plot.

By mid-2000, the Able Danger team knew it had important information about a possible terrorist plot. Because of a peculiar series of computer links that went through Brooklyn, the team began referring to the four future hijackers as the "Brooklyn cell." Their movements and communications were raising too many suspicions.

The Able Danger sleuth, whose interview with me was arranged by the staff of Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., asked that his name not be revealed so he could maintain his top-secret counter-terror role. He emerged from the shadows of spying and intelligence analysis last week because he wanted to set the record straight.

One of his targets is the 9/11 commission. The commission's staff, he says, ignored him when he approached them on two occasions to spell out Able Danger's work.

Another target are Pentagon lawyers. The sleuth says he and other Able Danger team members became so concerned during the summer of 2000 that they asked their superiors in the Pentagon's special operations command for permission to approach the FBI. Their superiors approached Pentagon legal experts. Those experts turned down the request.

Sticking to his partisan, Republican roots, Rep. Weldon singles out the Clinton administration for being too lax. He also blames the 9/11 commission for a possible coverup.

The bipartisan 9/11 commission denies any coverup. But it also went out of its way to avoid pointing fingers at the Clinton or Bush administrations. The deeper question is whether this desire to avoid blame also led the commission to ignore important facts.

"They definitely blew it," Weldon said of the commission's failure to look into the Able Danger's work and the legal issues it raises. "The question is whether it was deliberate."

We may never know. The commission says it may be a victim of the very same problem it sought to expose - that there is not enough sharing of information among federal counterterror officials.

Perhaps just as alarming, even the Able Danger team understood its limits. When lawyers blocked Able Danger's request to approach the FBI, the team simply went back to its work and kept quiet - even after the 9/11 attacks occurred.

Why? If the Able Danger team was so concerned about U.S. security, why didn't it approach Congress or even the press to sound an alarm?

When I posed that question in my interview with the Able Danger team member, he fell silent. Listening on a speaker phone, a congressional staffer interrupted: "Have you ever seen what happens to whistleblowers?"

Again, the Able Danger member had no answer.

Which brings us to this haunting question:

Is silence a form of incompetence or it is just the way things are?

Posted by Mike at 09:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Another interesting Able Danger development

Just when I thought Shaffer was exaggerating, the Post prints this:

MILITARY 'SPIED' ON RICE

By NILES LATHEM

August 27, 2005 -- WASHINGTON — Cyber-sleuths working for a Pentagon intelligence unit that reportedly identified some of the 9/11 hijackers before the attack were fired by military officials, after they mistakenly pinpointed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other prominent Americans as potential security risks, The Post has learned.

The private contractors working for the counter-terrorism unit Able Danger lost their jobs in May 2000. The firings following a series of analyses that Pentagon lawyers feared were dangerously close to violating laws banning the military from spying on Americans, sources said.

The Pentagon canceled its contract with the private firm shortly after the analysts — who were working on identifying al Qaeda operatives — produced a particularly controversial chart on proliferation of sensitive technology to China, the sources said.

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, the veteran Army officer who was the Defense Intelligence Agency liaison to Able Danger, told The Post China "had something to do" with the decision to restructure Able Danger.

Sources said the private contractors, using sophisticated computer software that sifts through massive amounts of raw data to establish patterns, came up with a chart of Chinese strategic and business connections in the U.S.

The program wrongly tagged Rice, who at the time was an adviser to then-candidate George W. Bush, and former Defense Secretary William Perry by linking their associations at Stanford, along with their contacts with Chinese leaders, sources said.

The program also spat out scores of names of other former government officials with legitimate ties to China, as well as prominent American businessmen. There was no suggestion that Rice or any of the others had done anything wrong.

A Pentagon official said last night that, while the canned contractors worked for Able Danger, the China project was separate from the counter-terrorism assignment.

The Able Danger work was transferred to another Department of Defense contractor — and the program quietly expired later that year when it was completed, the official said.

The China chart was put together by James Smith, who confirmed yesterday that his contract with the military was canceled and he was fired from his company because the military brass became concerned about the focus on U.S. citizens.

"It was shut down in a matter of hours. The colonel said our service was no longer needed and told me: 'You just ended my career.' "

Smith also claims his team came up with 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta's name and photo in 2000.

Posted by Mike at 03:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 26, 2005

Able Danger documents were destroyed in 2003

On O'Reilly, Shaffer's attorney just said that the Army ordered documents related to Able Danger destroyed! Here's the exchange:

O'REILLY: Is there a villain here, counselor? Is there a villain?

ZAID: Right now, that's really hard to identify. The question here, Bill, is that the commission most likely dropped this investigation because the documents that the DOD gave to it following their meeting with Lt. Col. Shaffer, said nothing that supported what he had found out with Able Danger. So the commission dropped the ball because they didn't go talk to any of the other Able Danger teammates.

O'REILLY: Okay. That's valid criticism.

ZAID: There are up to a dozen people, who, if they are contacted, who will support what Tony has asserted. His members of his team.

[Fade out music starts playing in the background.]

The Army ordered the documents destroyed. That's why they didn't get the right documents.

O'REILLY: I got it. Thank you gentlemen. We appreciate it. Plenty more ahead as the factor moves along this evening.

You should also watch the video of Shaffer on C-SPAN Sunday Morning. Shaffer's segment starts at the 34:25 mark and lasts for half an hour. Now THIS is must see TV. You can also paste this address into your Real Player:
rtsp://video.c-span.org/15days/wj082105.rm

Newsmax of all places has some quotes from the transcript:

"There's some troubling things that have happened both to me and the way the [Able Danger] information [was handled]," Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer told C-Span's "Sunday Morning Journal."

"Shortly after I talked to the 9/11 Commission, there was some issues going on about the documentation. Right now as it stands this minute, to my knowledge, the documentation I had . . . we don't know where it is."

"It's not where I left it back in March of 2003," Shaffer said, which was "in a Department intelligence facility in the Northern Virginia area."

Shaffer told C-Span he had "one full set of Able Danger documents in my holdings from the DIA."

He also said this right before that in the interview:

21 October of 2003, Doctor Philip Zelikow and two staffers and a attorney from the administration were there. During that meeting, and there were several folks in the room, I laid out the able danger story, and I've gone through it several times both with other members of the Congress, with DOD, and with the press to a certain extent - not as extensively as the other folks - but I did lay out to them the basic facts of the Able Danger operation, it's mission, focus, purpose, who was involved, the short comings, and I do mean short comings.

I laid out the short comings to include the FBI problem, the problems regarding the internal coordination within DOD and CIA, the problem, and don't get me wrong, I have some CIA friends who've come forward to help stick up for me in this but CIA had a massive role in not helping on it, so all these ambitions were discussed and given to Doctor Zelikow.

Further, he asked me to recontact him at the end of that meeting. At the end of that meeting in Bagram, he gave me his card and said "Please this is important, contact me upon your return to United States so that we can continue this dialogue.

I did, upon my return from Afghanistan in January of '04, attempt to call his office not once but twice. The first time they said "Yes, we remember you, we'd like to have you come in and continue the dialogue." They didn't contact me again after that.

I called them back a week later and they said, "Ah, we don't need you now, we've got all the information we need." Which I was suprised about, but I figured - in my own defense here - that they must have found someone else with the same information that I had....

Shortly after I talked to the 9/11 commission, there was some issues going on about the documenation. Right now, as it stands this minute, to my knowledge the documentation I had, and I had one full set of Able Danger documents in my holdings in DIA. We don't know where it's at, it's not where I left it back in March of '03....

I left it in a, in a skif, a compartmented intelligence facility in the Northern Virginia area. And right now we don't know where that's at, and that, its important because I both told the 9/11 Commission about the fact that this existed, I recommended they look at it, and then also because the fact is I had pretty much one of everything of Able Danger, in the way of authority, operation support, I can't get into, there's classifeid aspects of this still I can't get into, um, the whole set of army - socom interaction documents, which is key to how thing kind of fell apart there in the middle, and who terminated the operation.

Those were all in that set of documentation, becaseu I was the forward operating location for Able Danger. You have to uderstand, they were based out of Tampa, Florida, therefore they didn't have to bring all this classified information and other things back and forth on airplanes between here and Washington, er, between Tampa and Washington - therefore I became, became their forward base of operations.

I pretty much kept a copy of everything. Right now, we're looking for that.

Posted by Mike at 02:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 25, 2005

Able Danger Hearings: Why Franks and Goss should testify

If you missed it, they're scheduling hearings, so it's time to pay attention.

First, why Franks should testify. By all accounts, Able Danger was a Special Operations program focused on al Qaeda. According to 9/11 Commission Staff Statement Number 6, "General Pete Schoomaker, the chief of staff of the U.S. Army and former Commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, said that if the Special Operations Command had been a supported command before 9/11, he would have had the al Qaeda mission rather than deferring to CENTCOM’s lead." Franks was appointed as CENTCOM commander, replacing Anthony Zinni, on July 6, 2000. Both Phillpott and Shaffer refer to problems they had getting approval from SOCOM in Tampa during late summer and early fall of 2000, which is when Franks was in change. Both have referred to concerns about "Posse Comitatus" when saying why they were barred from sharing any information with the FBI. When speaking to the "CENTCOM intelligence staff" on September 7, 2001, Franks explained, "We do our job well, but we're trained to fight foreign enemies. We're not police officers, sheriffs, or the FBI. If we were ever required to act in that capacity during an emergency like an attack on the World Trade Center, the effect on America could be devastating." (Tommy Franks, American Soldier, Page 237)

Now, why Goss should testify. While this has not come up in any of the coverage of the Able Danger story either, the 9/11 commission's response to the Able Danger story says Shaffer "complained that Congress, particularly the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), had effectively ended a human intelligence network he considered valuable." Further down it states, "A senior staff member also made verbal inquiries to the HPSCI and CIA staff for any information regarding the ABLE DANGER operation. Neither organization produced any documents about the operation, or displayed any knowledge of it." According to the CIA's biography of it's new Director, Porter Goss, "He was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 until his nomination as DCI in August 2004. He served for almost a decade as a member of the committee, which oversees the intelligence community and authorizes its annual budget. During the 107th Congress, Mr. Goss co-chaired the joint congressional inquiry into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001."

If there is never a hearing on the Able Danger project. This is why.

The most interesting question to me is: What happened to Able Danger?

More details below.

This story in the Bergen Record, 8/14, in particular caught my attention:

We may never know. The commission says it may be a victim of the very same problem it sought to expose - that there is not enough sharing of information among federal counterterror officials.

Perhaps just as alarming, even the Able Danger team understood its limits. When lawyers blocked Able Danger's request to approach the FBI, the team simply went back to its work and kept quiet - even after the 9/11 attacks occurred.

Why? If the Able Danger team was so concerned about U.S. security, why didn't it approach Congress or even the press to sound an alarm?

When I posed that question in my interview with the Able Danger team member, he fell silent. Listening on a speaker phone, a congressional staffer interrupted: "Have you ever seen what happens to whistleblowers?"

Now, is it just me or has Clinton been out of office for five years? If they are afraid of retaliation from the Pentagon, it's Rumsfeld's Pentagon they're afraid of seeing retaliation from - not Cohen's.

Why would they be so afraid of retaliation? All the debate so far has focused on blocked information sharing before 9/11. No one has asked the simple question: Who killed Able Danger, when, and why?

Different accounts have given different dates for the program's termination.

Posted by Mike at 05:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Able Danger: Who axed it, when, and why?

From the 9/11 Commission's statement, 8/12:

The records discuss a set of plans, beginning in 1999, for ABLE DANGER, which involved expanding knowledge about the al Qaeda network. Some documents include diagrams of terrorist networks.

From the New York Times story on Shaffer, 8/9:

He said the team had been established by the Special Operations Command in 1999, under a classified directive issued by Gen. Hugh Shelton, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to assemble information about Al Qaeda networks around the world.

From the 9/11 Commission's Staff Statement No. 6:

General Pete Schoomaker, the chief of staff of the U.S. Army and former Commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, said that if the Special Operations Command had been a supported command before 9/11, he would have had the al Qaeda mission rather than deferring to
CENTCOM’s lead.

Tommy Franks replaced Anthony Zinni as CENTCOM commander on July 6, 2000. Pete Schoomaker retired on October 27, 2000 and was replaced by Charles Holland. (Schoomaker later rejoined the military as Chief of Staff of the Army in 2003).

From the 9/11 Commission's statement, 8/12:

One of the men, in recounting information about al Qaeda’s activities in Afghanistan before 9/11, referred to a DOD program known as ABLE DANGER. He said this program was now closed, but urged Commission staff to get the files on this program and review them, as he thought the Commission would find information about al Qaeda and Bin Ladin that had been developed before the 9/11 attack. He also complained that Congress, particularly the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), had effectively ended a human intelligence network he considered valuable.

Porter Goss chaired the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 until he was nominated to become the Director of the CIA in August 2004.

From the 9/11 Commission's statement, 8/12:

As with their other meetings, Commission staff promptly prepared a memorandum for the record. That memorandum, prepared at the time, does not record any mention of Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers, or any suggestion that their identities were known to anyone at DOD before 9/11. Nor do any of the three Commission staffers who participated in the interview, or the executive branch lawyer, recall hearing any such allegation.

While still in Afghanistan, Dr. Zelikow called back to the Commission headquarters in Washington and requested that staff immediately draft a document request seeking information from DOD on ABLE DANGER. The staff had also heard about ABLE DANGER in another context, related to broader military planning involving possible operations against al Qaeda before 9/11.

From the CNN interview with Shaffer, 8/17:

The other thing is Mr. Zelicow (ph) himself gave me his card and asked me to contact him upon my return from the deployment. And I did contact him in January of '04. That's where I was essentially blown off.

I called him. They said they wanted to talk to me. I waited a week, called him back. And they said, "No, we don't need to talk to you now."

From the 9/11 Commission's statement, 8/12:

On July 12, 2004, as the drafting and editing process for the Report was coming to an end (the Report was released on July 22, and editing continued to occur through July 17), a senior staff member, Dieter Snell, accompanied by another staff member, met with the officer at one of the Commission’s Washington, D.C. offices. A representative of the DOD also attended the interview.

According to the memorandum for the record on this meeting, prepared the next day by Mr. Snell, the officer said that ABLE DANGER included work on “link analysis,” mapping links among various people involved in terrorist networks. According to this record, the officer recalled seeing the name and photo of Mohamed Atta on an “analyst notebook chart” assembled by another officer (who he said had retired and was now working as a DOD contractor).

...The Commission did not mention ABLE DANGER in its report. The name and character of this classified operation had not, at that time, been publicly disclosed. The operation itself did not turn out to be historically significant, set against the larger context of U.S. policy and intelligence efforts that involved Bin Ladin and al Qaeda. The Report’s description of military planning against al Qaeda prior to 9/11 encompassed this and other military plans. The information we received about this program also contributed to the Commission’s depiction of intelligence efforts against al Qaeda before 9/11.

From the Bergen Record, 8/14:

Perhaps just as alarming, even the Able Danger team understood its limits. When lawyers blocked Able Danger's request to approach the FBI, the team simply went back to its work and kept quiet - even after the 9/11 attacks occurred.

Why? If the Able Danger team was so concerned about U.S. security, why didn't it approach Congress or even the press to sound an alarm?

When I posed that question in my interview with the Able Danger team member, he fell silent. Listening on a speaker phone, a congressional staffer interrupted: "Have you ever seen what happens to whistleblowers?"

From American Soldier by Tommy Franks:

I spoke about the excesses of Reconstruction after the Civil War, which had resulted in the enactment of Posse Comitatus, the law that prevents military forces from serving as policemen inside the United States. Would that stricture survive a full-blown terrorist attack?

"So, the thing that keeps me awake at night, Sergeant," I emphasized, "is the possible use of our armed forces against American citizens. We do our job well, but we're trained to fight foreign enemies. We're not police officers, sheriffs, or the FBI. If we were ever required to act in that capacity during a major emergency like an attack on the World Trade Center, the effect on America could be devastating. Martial law would not sit well in a free and open society." (Page 236-237)

Posted by Mike at 09:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 24, 2005

Two, count em, two, original sources quoted

James D. Smith and Scott J. Phillpott were both interviewed by the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 - An active-duty Navy captain has become the second military officer to come forward publicly to say that a secret defense intelligence program tagged the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks as a possible terrorist more than a year before the attacks.

The officer, Scott J. Phillpott, said in a statement today that he could not discuss details of the military program, which was called Able Danger, but confirmed that its analysts had identified the Sept. 11 ringleader, Mohamed Atta, by name by early 2000. "My story is consistent," said Captain Phillpott, who managed the program for the Pentagon's Special Operations Command. "Atta was identified by Able Danger by January-February of 2000."

His comments came on the same day that the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, told reporters that the Defense Department had been unable to validate the assertions made by an Army intelligence veteran, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, and now backed up by Captain Phillpott, about the early identification of Mr. Atta.

Colonel Shaffer went public with his assertions last week, saying that analysts in the intelligence project had been overruled by military lawyers when they tried to share the program's findings with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2000 in hope of tracking down terror suspects tied to Al Qaeda.

Mr. Di Rita said in an interview that while the department continued to investigate the assertions, there was no evidence so far that the intelligence unit had come up with such specific information about Mr. Atta and any of the other hijackers.

He said that while Colonel Shaffer and Captain Phillpott were respected military officers whose accounts were taken seriously, "thus far we've not been able to uncover what these people said they saw - memory is a complicated thing."

The statement from Captain Phillpott , a 1983 Naval Academy graduate, who has served in the Navy for 22 years, was provided to The New York Times and Fox News through the office of Representative Curt Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania, who is vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a longtime proponent of so-called data-mining programs like Able Danger.

Asked if the Defense Department had interviewed Captain Phillpott in its two-week-old investigation of Able Danger, another Pentagon spokesman, Maj. Paul Swiergosz, said he did not know.

Representative Weldon also arranged an interview with a former employee of a defense contractor who said he had helped create a chart in 2000 for the intelligence program that included Mr. Atta's photograph and name.

The former contractor, James D. Smith, said that Mr. Atta's name and photograph were obtained through a private researcher in California who was paid to gather the information from contacts in the Middle East. Mr. Smith said that he had retained a copy of the chart for some time and that it had been posted on his office wall at Andrews Air Force Base. He said it had become stuck to the wall and was impossible to remove when he switched jobs.

Posted by Mike at 12:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 23, 2005

Oh, it's getting interesting alright

Kevin Drum might want to check out this recommended thread at Kos:

Rice aide hid disbandment of Atta's trackers from 9/11 report

The story is not the sharing of intelligence, it's the fact that Bush cancelled the program!

Kevin was right, it's sure getting pretty interesting:

MORE ABLE DANGER WEIRDNESS....Yeah, I know everyone is bored with this story, but one way or another I think it's going to turn out to be pretty interesting. I'm just not sure yet which way it's going to be interesting.

Posted by Mike at 10:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Able Danger and Philip Zelikow

Hmm, I wonder why Philip Zelikow might not have wanted the 9/11 Commission Report to include the fact that Able Danger, a program shut down in February 2001 just after Bush took office, had been actively tracking the movements of Mohammed Atta at the time? Think it might have jeopardized his promotion to the State Department?

State Department Biography

Counselor of the Department

Term of Appointment: 02/01/2005 to present

Dr. Philip D. Zelikow was appointed Counselor of the U.S. Department of State in February 2005, where he serves as a senior policy advisor on a wide range of issues to the Secretary of State. Before his appointment as Counselor, Dr. Zelikow served as the Staff Director of the 9/11 Commission. Formerly a trial and appellate attorney in Houston, Zelikow served as a career foreign service officer overseas, in the Department, and on detail to the NSC staff. He then taught at Harvard University and at the University of Virginia, where he was, until his current appointment, the White Burkett Miller Professor of History and Director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs. A former member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (2001-2003), Dr. Zelikow also directed the privately-sponsored Carter-Ford Commission on Federal Election Reform, which led to the Help America Vote Act of 2002. Dr. Zelikow received his BA in history from the University of Redlands, his JD from the University of Houston, and his MA and Ph.D. degrees in international law and diplomacy from Tufts University’s Fletcher School.

Released on August 5, 2005

From Wikipedia:

Philip Zelikow served on President Bush's transition team in 2000-2001. After George W. Bush took office, Zelikow was named to a position on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and worked on other task forces and commissions as well, including the National Commission on Federal Election Reform.

In Rise of the Vulcans (Viking, 2004), James Mann reports that when Richard Haass, a senior aide to Secretary of State Colin Powell and the director of policy planning at the State Department, drafted for the administration an overview of America’s national security strategy following September 11, Dr. Rice, the national security advisor, "ordered that the document be completely rewritten. She thought the Bush administration needed something bolder, something that would represent a more dramatic break with the ideas of the past. Rice turned the writing over to her old colleague, University of Virginia Professor Philip Zelikow.” This document, issued on September 17, 2002, is generally recognized as a watershed document in the War on Terrorism.

Because Philip Zelikow's significant involvement with the administration of George W. Bush, many have questioned the propriety of his position as executive director of the 9/11 Commission, which examined the conduct of George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice. Both the 9/11 Family Steering Committee and 9-11 Citizens Watch demanded his resignation, without success.

From Salon.com:

Zelikow is a professor of history at the University of Virginia, where he also directs the Miller Center of Public Affairs. His qualifications to run the 9/11 commission are more than academic, however. During the first Bush administration he served on the National Security Council staff, and at the beginning of the second Bush administration he was appointed to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB). He also happens to be a longtime confidant, collaborator and friend of Rice, with whom he authored a book on German reunification in 1995 -- and whom he advised on the restructuring of the National Security Council during the Bush transition in late 2000.

Former counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke revealed that Zelikow, as a member of the Bush transition team, had been extensively briefed on al-Qaida terrorism by the outgoing Clinton national security officials. When the widows learned first of Zelikow's close relationship with Rice and then of his presence at the terrorism briefings, they were outraged.

"As executive director, he has pretty much the most important job on the commission," said Mindy Kleinberg. "He hires the staff, he sets the direction and focus, he chooses witnesses at the hearings." She and her friends fear that even with the best of intentions, Zelikow's connections to the Bush White House will "taint the validity" of the commission's final report. Their demand that he resign or be fired has been rejected by the commission's co-chairmen, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean and former Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton.

"We respectfully disagree with them," replied Al Felzenberg, the commission's press spokesman, who said Zelikow was chosen "for his scholarly credentials and his knowledge of national security issues." He hastened to praise the widows for doing "a very positive thing," adding that while he understood their concerns, he expected that "they're not going to be satisfied with everything we do."

According to Felzenberg, Zelikow has "recused" himself from any deliberations that involve the Bush transition -- and insisted on being interviewed, under oath, about that period by the commission staff. The spokesman said he didn't know whether Zelikow had helped Rice to restructure the NSC.

But Zelikow's recusal doesn't impress Kleinberg. "His conflict is so large that he can't overcome it," she said. "We asked everybody at the beginning to put their conflicts on the table. Philip Zelikow's conflicts were not all put out there at the beginning." She and her friends were particularly disturbed to learn that the Virginia professor had played a key role in advising Rice during the transition, when they believe "things went wrong" in counterterror policy.

"If he was there during the transition, making recommendations about restructuring the NSC, on prioritizing issues, on handling terrorism, on Iraq -- then how can he oversee the report on those issues?" Kleinberg asked.

From the NY Times on 08/16/2005:

"I was at the point of near insubordination over the fact that this was something important, that this was something that should have been pursued," Colonel Shaffer said of his efforts to get the evidence from the intelligence program to the F.B.I. in 2000 and early 2001.

From the Times Herald on 08/17/2005:

'Able Danger' source goes public

By: KEITH PHUCAS , Times Herald Staff

NORRISTOWN - A Pentagon review of a defunct defense operation said to have linked a Sept. 11 hijacker to a terrorist cell in New York City, could shed new light on why Defense Department officials shut down the secret program, "Able Danger," more than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks.

A defense intelligence analyst, Tony Shaffer, who worked on the high-tech counterterrorism operation, said Tuesday that battle lines are being drawn in the Pentagon as the old program comes under renewed scrutiny.
"Right now, the (Department of Defense) has a great deal of interest in this matter," he said. "Some elements in the Defense Department are attempting to go dirty."
In June, Shaffer revealed to The Times Herald that Pentagon officials rejected a plan to have the FBI and Special Operations Command collaborate to track Mohamed Atta and the other individuals who were suspected terrorists.
At that time, the Defense Intelligence Agency analyst asked not to be identified.
Even after the 9/11 Commission's recommended changes in intelligence community practices, Shaffer said, little has changed.
He charges that some defense officials responsible for counterterrorism before the Sept. 11 attacks have returned to their old intelligence-gathering habits and don't want to revisit past failings that an "Able Danger" probe might highlight.
"Guys that had a role in the (Sept. 11 intelligence) failure got promoted," he said. "They have not changed the way they do business."
The objective of "Able Danger" was to identify and target al-Qaeda and other terrorists. The DIA team used data mining, parallel processing and other cutting-edge computer technology from 1999 through early 2001, Shaffer said.
By charting the movements and transactions of suspected terrorists, a link was established between Atta and al-Qaida, and the defense intelligence team concluded that the Sept. 11 hijacker, and two others individuals, were part of a New York-based terror cell.
But when the "Able Danger" team wanted to tap the FBI to track the suspected terrorists, Defense Department attorneys put up roadblocks and eventually shut down the effort.
Last week, the 9/11 Commission was criticized by Rep. Curt Weldon for overlooking information on "Able Danger" and failing to return calls from Shaffer who had information on the program to offer.
The congressman fired off a letter to former 9/11 commissioners claiming his chief of staff actually hand delivered information to a commission member.
The operation was not mentioned in the commission report published on July 22, 2004.
In response to questions on the operation, commission staff combed through its massive archives last week.
In a prepared statement Friday, the 9/11 Discourse project, formerly the 9/11 Commission, said it first heard Atta's name mentioned by a Navy officer just 10 days before publication of its report, but found the officer's story lacked sufficient credibility and decided not to pursue it further.
Shaffer, however, claims he mentioned Atta by name to the 9/11 Commission's executive director, Philip Zelikow, when the two met in Afghanistan in October 2003.
"I kept my talking points (from the meeting)," Shaffer said. "And I'm confident about what I said."
After the meeting in Afghanistan, commission staff members said they would contact Shaffer again once they returned to the United States.
In November, the commission staff requested and received documents on the operation from the Pentagon; however, it did not call Shaffer as promised.
"They didn't follow up jack," he said. "That's when the investigative rigor wasn't followed."
The defense analyst said he believes the commission didn't comprehend the high-tech operation, and therefore, didn't desire pursuing detail of the program.
"They just didn't want to go down some of these paths," he said. "The 9/11 Commission was not qualified to investigate this matter."
Shaffer said intelligence agencies should be performing the sophisticated data analysis used by his "Able Danger" team, but claimed that the National Counterterrorism Center is not utilizing this technology.
"They are not doing this data mining and parallel processing," he said.
According to Shaffer, Stephen A. Cambone, the Pentagon's Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, is heading up the "Able Danger" review, and said Cambone "wants to get to the bottom of this."
A Defense Department spokesman, Maj. Paul Swiergosz, confirmed that the Pentagon was investigating the closed program. During the 9/11 Commission investigation, he said, the Pentagon turned over more than 175,000 total document to the body.
"Able Danger was a very short-lived program and sifting through all that takes time," Swiergosz said.
Currently, Shaffer is working to resuscitate the technological capability use in the "Able Danger" program.

From the Times Herald on 08/13/2005:

Weldon wants answers on Atta

By: KEITH PHUCAS , Times Herald Staff

NORRISTOWN - Ten days before publication of the 9/11 Commission report, commission staff discounted information from a military officer linking Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta to a terror cell believed to be operating in New York City more than a year before the terrorist attacks.

According to a statement released Friday by The 9/11 Public Discourse Project, the two commission staff members who interviewed the officer in July 2004 concluded his story about a Defense Department intelligence counterterrorism program, called Able Danger, that worked to identify and target al-Qaida and other terrorists, was not credible. As a result, the information was not included in the commission's final report published July 22, 2004.
The 9/11 Public Discourse Project, formerly known as the 9/11 Commission, issued the statement late Friday to respond to charges made by Congressman Curt Weldon, R-7th Dist., this week that the commission failed to follow up after being tipped off three times about the defense operation.
The Times Herald broke the Able Danger story in its June 19 edition. The story eluded the national media until early last week.
A small group of Defense Intelligence Agency employees ran the Able Danger operation from fall 1999 to February 2001 - just seven months before the terrorist attacks - when the operation was unceremoniously axed, according to a former defense intelligence official familiar with the program. The former official asked not to be identified.
In their efforts to locate terrorists, the operation's technology analysts used data mining and fusion techniques to search terabyte-sized data sets from open source material - such as travel manifests, bank transactions, hotel records, credit applications - and compared this material with classified information.
By charting the movements and transactions of suspected terrorists, the operation linked Atta to al-Qaida. Between fall 1999 and early 2000, the intelligence team concluded that Atta, and two others, were likely part of a terrorist cell in Brooklyn.
At that point, Able Danger wanted the FBI, assisted by Special Operations Command, to track the group. But to the team's surprise, SOCOM's legal counsel shot down the idea.
"I tried to broker meetings between Special Operations and the FBI, but SOCOM's lawyers squashed it," the former defense officials said.
According to the former official, the Special Operations attorneys told the team it couldn't perform surveillance on the suspected terrorist. The foreign nationals had green cards, and thus, had the same protections as American citizens from such scrutiny.
Special Operations had advised the FBI during the ill-fated seige of the Branch Davidian compound, in Waco, Texas, in 1993, that resulted in more than 80 deaths after Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raided the compound, Weldon and the official said.
Following the fiery debacle, all the federal participants in the siege, including SOCOM, were harshly criticized. Fear of suffering the fallout if Able Danger backfired, they said, explains the military's reluctance to help the FBI.
"We felt that they were terrorists, and we should have done something about it," the former intelligence officials said. "I believe we could have prevented 9/11."
Wednesday, after becoming exasperated with former 9/11 Commission staff who claimed it didn't know anything about Able Danger, Weldon fired off a harsh letter to former commission members demanding to know why the information had not been considered.
In Weldon's letter, he said his chief of staff actually handed a package on the defense program to one of the commissioners in a Capitol Hill congressional office building April 13, 2004. Also, the congressman criticized the staff for not returning calls from a defense intelligence official with information on the operation.
Scrambling to answer Weldon's claims, commission staff combed through its archives this week for information related to Able Danger.
In its Friday statement, The 9/11 Public Discourse Project said the commission was first told about Able Danger while commission members were visiting Afghanistan on Oct. 21, 2003. While there, Philip Zelikow, then executive director of the commission, and two senior staffers met with three intelligence officials working for the Defense Department. One official mentioned Able Danger and said it was shut down. According to documents the commission received from the Pentagon, Able Danger began in 1999.
In November 2003, commission staff requested Defense Department material about the operation and received documents in February 2004 that included diagrams of terrorist networks, according to the 9/11 project letter.
The commission, however, said it first heard Atta mentioned in discussions about Able Danger on July 12, 2004, during an interview with a Navy officer. The officer told senior commission staff member Deiter Snell and another staffer that he recalled briefly seeing Atta's name and photo in a chart belonging to a Defense Department employee, and said the material was dated "February through April 2000."
According to the commission, Atta first arrived in the United States on June 3, 2001, about three months before the airline he flew crashed into the World Trade Center.
The Navy officer, who said the chart showed Atta to be a member of a terrorist cell in Brooklyn, complained that the identities of other cell members had been removed from the document because Pentagon lawyers were concerned about the propriety of the military's role with the FBI in a domestic intelligence operation.
Eventually commission staffers found the military officer's description and explanation of Able Danger to be wanting and concluded the information was "not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the (9/11) report or further investigation."
Weldon is demanding to know why the Defense Department did not pass information about Able Danger on to the FBI in 2000 and why the commission's staff failed to pursue the matter. He has vowed to push for a full accounting of the controversy, according to a written response issued from his office Friday evening.
Since 1999 Weldon has called for fusing the government's intelligence agencies collection system so they could share information and more effectively thwart terrorist plots. Six years ago, he proposed the creation of a National Operations and Analysis Hub (NOAH) for this effort.
In 2004, President Bush established the National Counterterrorism Center to integrate all intelligence the U.S. possesses on terrorism and counterterrorism.
In a new book, "Countdown to Terror: The top-secret information that could prevent the next terrorist attack on America ... and how the CIA has ignored it," Weldon is critical of the CIA for failing to share intelligence information with other agencies and discrediting information he has offered the CIA.
The congressman said he first became aware of the tremendous intelligence collaboration possibilities after visiting the Army's Land Information Warfare Assistance Center, in Fort Belvoir, Va., where massive amounts of data was mined and fused to profile emerging threats.
Calls to communications director Al Felzenberg at the 9/11 Public Discourse Project by The Times Herald were not returned on Friday. A spokesman for John Lehman, a former 9/11 Commission member, said Lehman did not wish to comment on the matter.

From the Times Herald on 06/19/2005:

Missed chance on way to 9/11

By: KEITH PHUCAS , Times Herald Staff

NORRISTOWN - Two years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, U.S. intelligence officials linked Mohammed Atta to al-Qaida, and discovered he and two others were in Brooklyn. They wanted to mount a surveillance operation to track them.

But when officials asked Special Operations Command (SOCOM) to advise FBI agents of the "Able Danger" operation, the legal counsel shot down the plan, according to U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon, R-7th Dist., dumbfounding those managing the covert effort.
Atta was one of four hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11. Being the only terrorist onboard who was trained to fly a jet, according to the Sept. 11 Commission Report, he was likely at the cockpit controls when the airliner slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. that morning.
If the government had been able to arrest Atta in 1999, when the Egyptian was staying in Brooklyn, the deadly terrorist attacks might have been prevented - or at least disrupted.
"But (intelligence officials) were told that, because the men had green cards, they couldn't touch them," Weldon said in an interview in Washington, D.C., Monday.
Before 2001, possessing a green card gave foreign nationals the same eavesdropping protection as American citizens.
According to the congressman, SOCOM had advised the FBI during the law enforcement agency's ill-fated siege of the Branch Davidian compound, in Waco, Texas, in 1993, that resulted in more than 80 deaths after Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raided the compound. Following the fiery debacle, all the federal participants in the siege, including SOCOM, were harshly criticized.
Fear of suffering the fallout if "Able Danger" backfired, Weldon said, explains SOCOM's reluctance to assist the FBI.
"There was a lot of concern about repercussions, and the lawyers told special operations to back off," he said.
A small group of intelligence employees ran "Able Danger" from the fall of 1999 until February 2001 - just seven months before the terrorist attacks - when the operation was axed.
To link Atta to al-Qaida, the operation's information technology specialists used data mining and fusion techniques to search terabyte-sized data sets from open sources - such as travel manifests, bank transactions, hotel records, credit applications - and compared this material with classified information.
During the operation's life cycle, the group sought help from the CIA. But getting the intelligence agency to share information is like pulling teeth, Weldon said. The agency is notorious for its reluctance to cooperate with other government or intelligence agencies.
"The CIA was constantly balking the whole way," he said. "The agency doesn't like anyone on its turf."
Even after the Sept. 11 Commission declared sharing an imperative to prevent future terrorist attacks, the CIA is still as guarded and arrogant as ever nearly four years after the attacks, Weldon writes in his new book, "Countdown to Terror: The top-secret information that could prevent the next terrorist attack on America ... and how the CIA has ignored it." The book is critical of the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) for not doing enough to protect the country against the next attack.
Weldon is vice chairman of the Homeland Security Committee and the House Armed Services Committee.
In the book, the House Republican blasts the CIA for discounting information from an Iranian expatriate, "Ali," living in Paris who Weldon has met with since 2003 and claims is a reliable source. One CIA agent even warned Weldon to stop working with Ali.
The CIA has denounced "Countdown to Terror."
As proof of Ali's intelligence value, Weldon credits him for alerting the U.S. about Iran's advanced nuclear program and cooperation with North Korea on nuclear technology, Iranian support of Muqtada al Sadr's insurgents in Iraq, and a plot in Canada to fly a hijacked airliner into the Seabrook Nuclear Reactor in New Hampshire.
The book's title refers to Ali's unsettling warning that Muslim extremists are planning a massive attack on the U.S., dubbed "the twelfth imam" operation, that is envisioned to be grander than the Sept. 11 terrorism.
Since 1999, Weldon has called for fusing the government's 33 classified intelligence systems so agencies could share information and stay on top of terrorist plots. With help from intelligence allies, he proposed the creation of a National Operations and Analysis Hub (NOAH) for this effort.
He became aware of the tremendous intelligence collaboration possibilities after visiting the Army's Land Information Warfare Assistance Center, in Fort Belvoir, Va., he said, where massive amounts of data was mined and fused to profile emerging threats.
In 2004, President Bush established the National Counterterrorism Center to integrate all intelligence the U.S. possesses on terrorism and counter-terrorism.
But some warn about being overzealous about sharing sensitive material. Former CIA Director James Woolsey warns that sharing information widely across intelligence organizations can have negative consequences for national security.
"Sharing is not an unadulterated virtue," he said in a telephone interview Saturday. "I think it's a very bad idea."
The treacheries of the CIA's Aldridge Ames and FBI's Mark Hansen in the 1990s are two cautionary examples, he said, of damage individuals can do with access to too much sensitive intelligence. Both sold secrets to the Soviets, compromising national security and causing the deaths of sources.
"The idea is to share in a limited fashion," he said. "But it has to be controlled and carefully managed."
Though some find Weldon's hard-charging style abrasive, ignoring an intelligence source like Ali may be as grave a mistake as failing to act against a known terrorist staying in New York, Woolsey said. In the foreword for Weldon's book, he credits him for marching "toward the loudest sound of gunfire" in his effort to reform the intelligence process.
SOCOM officials did not respond to requests for interviews Saturday.

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August 10, 2005

"Obviously it would've been a major focus"

Obviously, that's why they never heard about it.

From the AP:

Members of the Sept. 11 commission want to know whether defense intelligence officials knew four of the hijackers were part of an al-Qaida cell but failed to tell law enforcement.

Lee Hamilton, co-chairman of the now-disbanded commission, said Tuesday that members of the panel could issue a statement by the end of the week after reviewing claims that officials had identified ringleader Mohamed Atta and three other hijackers.

"The 9/11 commission did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of surveillance of Mohamed Atta or of his cell," said Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana. "Had we learned of it, obviously it would've been a major focus of our investigation."

The commission's report on the terrorist attacks, released last year, traced government mistakes that allowed the hijackers to succeed. Among the problems the commission cited was a lack of coordination across intelligence agencies.

Only thirty two days to go until the "America Supports You" parade.

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