Missing Able Danger 'Atta' Chart in 2002 Video (a search didn't bring this one up)

A copy of the Able Danger chart that identified lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta as a terrorist operating inside the U.S. a year before the 9/11 attacks is clearly visible in a video of a 2002 speech by delivered by Rep. Curt Weldon to the Heritage Foundation.

The Pentagon, the 9/11 Commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee are currently seeking evidence that the bombshell chart, featuring a photo Atta, ever existed - as claimed by three members of the Able Danger team, along with Rep. Weldon. But so far, no physical evidence of the controversial document has surfaced.

A third of the way through his May 23, 2002 address on data fusion techniques, the video shows Rep. Weldon unfurling a copy of the now missing document and displaying it to the Heritage audience.

"This is the unclassified chart that was done by the Special Forces Command briefing center one year before 9/11," he explains. "It is the complete architecture of al Qaeda and pan-Islamic extremism. It gives all the linkages. It gives all the capabilities. . . ."

Though Weldon never mentions Able Danger or Atta by name - and the video never zooms in on the chart to the point where Atta's photo is identifiable - it's clear from Weldon comments that the chart is the same one currently being sought.

From my files...

We already know exactly what Berglar took and why...pay close attention to the last para on the Clarke/Kerrick memo. From Ashcroft's testimony:

The NSC's Millennium After Action Review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 — with luck playing a major role. Among the many vulnerabilities in homeland defenses identified, the Justice Department's surveillance and FISA operations were specifically criticized for their glaring weaknesses. It is clear from the review that actions taken in the Millennium Period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government.

In March 2000, the review warns the prior Administration of a substantial al Qaeda network and affiliated foreign terrorist presence within the U.S., capable of supporting additional terrorist attacks here. [My note: AD info?]

Furthermore, fully seventeen months before the September 11 attacks, the review recommends disrupting the al Qaeda network and terrorist presence here using immigration violations, minor criminal infractions, and tougher visa and border controls.

Post #745

It falls directly into the AD timeline. In that same post, I note that what Sandy Berger stole was the versions of the after action report:

The missing copies, according to Breuer and their author, Richard A. Clarke, the counterterrorism chief in the Clinton administration and early in President Bush's administration, were versions of after-action reports recommending changes following threats of terrorism as 1999 turned to 2000. Clarke said he prepared about two dozen ideas for countering terrorist threats. The recommendations were circulated among Cabinet agencies, and various versions of the memo contained additions and refinements, Clarke said last night.

Therefore, they were never provided to the Commission, as evidenced by the Commission Report footnotes (#769):

46. NSC email, Clarke to Kerrick,“Timeline,”Aug. 19, 1998; Samuel Berger interview (Jan. 14, 2004). We did not find documentation on the after-action review mentioned by Berger. On Vice Chairman Joseph Ralston’s mission in Pakistan, see William Cohen interview (Feb. 5, 2004). For speculation on tipping off the Taliban, see, e.g., Richard Clarke interview (Dec. 18, 2003).
And to what does footnote (46) refer? On p. 117, Chapter 4, we find this:

Later on August 20, Navy vessels in the Arabian Sea fired their cruise missiles. Though most of them hit their intended targets, neither Bin Ladin nor any other terrorist leader was killed. Berger told us that an after-action review by Director Tenet concluded that the strikes had killed 20–30 people in the camps but probably missed Bin Ladin by a few hours. Since the missiles headed for Afghanistan had had to cross Pakistan, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was sent to meet with Pakistan’s army chief of staff to assure him the missiles were not coming from India. Officials in Washington speculated that one or another Pakistani official might have sent a warning to the Taliban or Bin Ladin. (46)
How about that? How many times have we heard Clinton say that he missed Bin Ladin by just a few hours? Yet the after-action report is missing, so the Commission relied on Sandy Berger's testimony.

Then the Clarke/Kerrick memo peaked my interest and I found this (#784):

Clarke was nervous about such a mission because he continued to fear that Bin Ladin might leave for someplace less accessible. He wrote Deputy National Security Advisor Donald Kerrick that one reliable source reported Bin Ladin's having met with Iraqi officials, who "may have offered him asylum." Other intelligence sources said that some Taliban leaders, though not Mullah Omar, had urged Bin Ladin to go to Iraq. If Bin Ladin actually moved to Iraq, wrote Clarke, his network would be at Saddam Hussein's service, and it would be "virtually impossible" to find him. Better to get Bin Ladin in Afghanistan, Clarke declared.

Kerry and crew could not afford to have this info come out before the election.

How easily we forget...the majority of the Defense Dept. was not in place until a few months before 9/11, they barely had the washroom key, much less the info to prevent 9/11 (Feith and Cambone were the two major ones). Also, the outgoing Clinton Admin had left the WH a mess.

BUSH APPOINTEE CONFIRMATION LIST

DEFENSE:

Donald Rumsfeld Secretary of Defense 01/20/2001
Paul Wolfowitz Deputy Secretary 02/28/2001
Dov Zakheim Undersecretary, Comptroller 05/01/2001
Edward Aldridge Undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics 05/08/2001
William James Haynes General Counsel 05/17/2001
Victoria Clarke Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs 05/17/2001
Powell A. Moore Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs 05/01/2001
Charles S. Abell Assistant Secretary for Force Management 05/03/2001
David S.C. Chu Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness 05/26/2001
Douglas J. Feith Undersecretary for Policy 07/12/2001
Jack Dyer Crouch II Assistant Secretary for International Security Policy 08/01/2001
Stephen A. Cambone Principal Deputy Undersecretary for Policy 07/19/2001
James G. Roche Secretary of the Air Force 05/24/2001
Thomas White Secretary of the Army 05/24/2001
Gordon England Secretary of the Navy 05/22/2001
Susan Morrisey Livingstone Undersecretary of the Navy 07/19/2001
Peter W. Rodman Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs 07/12/2001
Marvin Sambur Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Research and Development (Air Force) 11/08/2001
Alberto Jose Mora General Counsel, Navy 07/19/2001
Michael Montelongo Assistant Secretary for Financial Management and Comptroller, Air Force 07/12/2001
Steven John Morello, Sr. General Counsel, Army 07/12/2001
Thomas P. Christie Director, Operational Test and Evaluation 07/12/2001
Dionel M. Aviles Assistant Secretary for Financial Management & Comptroller, Navy 07/12/2001
Michael W. Wynne Deputy Undersecretary for Acquisition and Technology 07/12/2001
Diane K. Morales Deputy Undersecretary for Logistics and Material Readiness 07/12/2001
William A. Navas, Jr. Assistant Secretary for Manpower & Reserve Affairs, Navy 07/12/2001
Michael Parker Assistant Secretary for Civil Works, Army 09/26/2001
Reginald Jude Brown Assistant Secretary for Manpower & Reserve Affairs, Army 07/12/2001
John Stenbit Assistant Secretary for Command, Control, Communications & Intelligence 08/03/2001
Ronald M. Sega Director, Defense Research and Engineering 08/03/2001
John J. Young, Jr. Assistant Secretary for Research, Development & Acquisition, Navy 07/12/2001
Joseph E. Schmitz Inspector General 03/21/2002
Michael L. Dominguez Assistant Secretary for Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations & Environment, Air Force 08/03/2001
Nelson F. Gibbs Assistant Secretary for Installations & Environment, Air Force 08/03/2001
H.T. Johnson Assistant Secretary (Navy) for Installations & Environment 08/03/2001
Mario P. Fiori Assistant Secretary (Army) for Installations & Environment 08/03/2001
Sandra L. Pack Assistant Secretary (Army) for Financial Management & Comptroller 11/08/2001
William Winkenwerder, Jr. Assistant Secretary for Health Affairs 10/16/2001
Mary L. Walker General Counsel, Air Force 11/08/2001
Claude M. Bolton, Jr. Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Logistics & Technology, Army 12/20/2001
Dale Klein Assistant to the Secretary for Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs 11/08/2001
Peter B. Teets Undersecretary of the Air Force 12/07/2001
R. L. Brownlee Undersecretary of the Army 11/08/2001
Thomas Forrest Hall Assistant Secretary for Reserve Affairs 10/02/2002
Charles S. Abell Deputy Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness 11/12/2002

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