Pentagon: Secret unit couldn't stop 9/11

WASHINGTON - A Pentagon report rejects the idea that intelligence gathered by a secret military unit could have been used to stop the Sept. 11 hijackings.

The Pentagon inspector general's office said Thursday that a review of records from the unit, known as Able Danger, found no evidence it had identified ringleader Mohamed Atta or any other terrorist who participated in the 2001 attacks.

The report was ordered following the assertion last year that the unit had identified four of the 19 hijackers in 2000. That claim was made by a former intelligence officer who worked on Able Danger, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, and by Rep. Curt Weldon (news, bio, voting record), vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees.

Weldon, R-Pa., has said the unit used data-mining to link Atta and three other hijackers to al-Qaida more than a year before the attacks. The 71-page report, blacked out in parts, rejected Weldon's claim that the unit wanted information given to the FBI but that Pentagon lawyers would not allow it.

Weldon questioned the "motives and the content" of the report and rejected its conclusions. "Acting in a sickening bureaucratic manner, the DOD IG cherry-picked testimony from witnesses in an effort to minimize the historical importance of the Able Danger effort," Weldon said in a statement.

"The report trashes the reputations of military officers who had the courage to step forward and put their necks on the line to describe important work they were doing to track al-Qaida prior to 9/11," Weldon said. He said the investigation did little to answer the questions it was supposed to examine.

The report acknowledged that one Able Danger member alleged he was prohibited from providing a chart to the FBI in 2000 by a senior Special Operations commander. But, the report said, "the senior official did not recall the incident and we are persuaded that the chart would have been of minimal value to the FBI."

The Pentagon had said some employees recall seeing an intelligence chart identifying Atta as a terrorist before the attacks. The report said those accounts "varied significantly" and witnesses were inconsistent at times in their statements.

Several lawmakers had asked the Pentagon to investigate whether Defense Department officials mismanaged Able Danger and retaliated against Shaffer. He was a leading proponent of the program who later had his security clearance revoked.

The report said Shaffer was not retaliated against because of his involvement. But the inspector general did find "procedural oversights" in the handling of his office contents and his performance evaluations.

Last year, the bipartisan commission that investigated the attacks dispensed with the issue by calling it "not historically significant."

Thomas Kean, the commission's co-chairman, said he hoped the report would put an end to discussion about Able Danger. "After this I don't know where it can go," Kean said.

I agree with you. I refuse to change my tagllne until Col. Schaffer has his clearance back, and has been listened to.

I'm not holding my breath but I am holding onto my tagline.

I read too much about Able Danger and knew the particular cast of characters at DIA that were so busy in persecuting Col. Schaffer - ADM Jacoby put in for his retirement in a big-O hurry, and so did the major guys next in line. I know enough to know that that is highly suspicious.

I also keep saying, "There but for the grace of God go I.'

I sympathize with Col. Schaffer more than anyone can possibly understand and way more than I am allowed to say.

Bravo, Rep Weldon. I hope he doesn't let this whitewash by the DoD/Pentagon IG stand. Go Weldon!!!!

While it is not uncommon for military officers (or DoD civilian employees, for that matter) to turn "whistle-blower" when they have been the subject of an adverse personnel action, that doesn't necessarily mean that whatever they allege is automatically untrue. Sometimes "disgruntled employees" really do know where the "bones are buried".

There are a number of citations in this report that look suspiciously like good old fashioned military CYA at its finest. Among these are the tendency to extend credibility to the utmost for commanding (especially flag rank) officers, while reducing the credibility of field grade officers (even O-6s) and senior DoD civilians to below the level of military cadets. Also there is the attempt to cast Shaffer in a bad light by suggesting that he "stole" the GPS unit. While it's possible that he returned the equipment "after the fact" to avoid being charged with its misappropriation, it it is equally possible that Shaffer believed that he was authorized to keep the unit (apparently property accountability in his outfit was shoddy, at best) or that he simply found the unit in his "deployment bag" and decided to take that opportunity to return it or that the individuals responsible for sending his personal belongings to him did (their denials notwithstanding) ship the GPS unit to him, and he subsequently returned it. This little attempted frame-up is illustrative of the "black and white" tone of the report. It's not possible that people have memory lapses, or different recollections of facts and events. Either Shaffer, and a few other witnesses are "lying", or senior military and civilian officers (heaven fore fend) have had convenient memory lapses.

Take a look around here:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project
Complete 911 Timeline

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essaykhalidandnawaf
Alhazmi and Almihdhar: The 9/11 Hijackers Who Should Have Been Caught

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project

Right hand column under 10/16/2005 heading, scroll down you'll find the following where it says half is about 'Able Danger'.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&before_9/11=ableDanger

October 1999: CIA Does Not Share Information with Able Danger Program

Capt. Scott Phillpott, head of the Able Danger program, asks Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer to talk to a representative of CIA Director George Tenet and attempt to convince him that the new Able Danger program is not competing with the CIA. Shaffer later recalls the CIA representative replying, “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 bottom line is, CIA will never give you the best information from ‘Alex Base’ [the CIA’s covert action element targeting bin Laden] 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.” Shaffer claims that for the duration of Able Danger’s existence, “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.” [Government Security News, 9/2005]

January-May 2000: CIA Has Atta Under Surveillance

Hijacker Mohamed Atta is put under surveillance by the CIA while living in Germany. [Agence France-Presse, 9/22/2001; Focus (Munchen), 9/24/2001; Berliner Zeitung (Berlin), 9/24/2001] He is “reportedly observed buying large quantities of chemicals in Frankfurt, apparently for the production of explosives [and/or] for biological warfare.” “The US agents reported to have trailed Atta are said to have failed to inform the German authorities about their investigation,” even as the Germans are investigating many of his associates. “The disclosure that Atta was being trailed by police long before 11 September raises the question why the attacks could not have been prevented with the man’s arrest.” [Observer, 9/30/2001] A German newspaper adds that Atta is able to get a visa into the US on May 18. According to some reports, the surveillance stops when he leaves for the US at the start of June. However, “experts believe that the suspect [remains] under surveillance in the United States.” [Berliner Zeitung (Berlin), 9/24/2001] A German intelligence official also states, “We can no longer exclude the possibility that the Americans wanted to keep an eye on Atta after his entry in the US” [Focus (Munchen), 9/24/2001] This correlates with a Newsweek claim that US officials knew Atta was a “known [associate] of Islamic terrorists well before [9/11].” [Newsweek, 9/20/2001] However, a congressional inquiry later reports that the US “intelligence community possessed no intelligence or law enforcement information linking 16 of the 19 hijackers [including Atta] to terrorism or terrorist groups.” [US Congress, 9/20/2002] In 2005, after accounts of the Able Danger program learning Atta’s name become news, newspaper account will neglect to mention this prior report about Atta being known by US intelligence. For instance, the New York Times will report, “The account [about Able Danger] is the first assertion that Mr. Atta, an Egyptian who became the lead hijacker in the plot, was identified by any American government agency as a potential threat before the Sept. 11 attacks”(see August 9, 2005) . [New York Times, 8/9/2005]

A lot of the stuff on the site has been updated with recent dates. I have the old copies on file but a script error keeps popping up and won't let me 'Copy and Paste' them here.

That report that came out today is a load of bull and they know it. They'd taken the fake Wilson/Plame case as far as they could, so threw a spoke in the wheel there to put it on light simmer, and other than trying to stop Curt Weldon being re-elected I have to wonder if this has been put out as another false trail to stop anyone following the 'Oil-For-Food' scandal which has so many legs leading back to Slick and Hitlery's illegal campaign contributions and their contacts and dealings with U.S. enemies.

The CIA and other government depts are crammed full of clinton rogues and we won't be safe until they've all been routed out.

Mr. 'expert' Larry Johnson spent a total of 4 years at the CIA [which means in my book he was still a rookie when he left, or was forced out] He left in 1993, yet listening to what he says it's obvious he's still privy to classified information somehow. It's time someone got off their duff and investigated him and all the other VIP's to find out where all the leaks are coming from.

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