Gold9472
09-29-2009, 07:20 AM
Laments and regrets about 9/11 failures
http://www.pottsmerc.com/articles/2009/09/13/news/srv0000006379534.txt
By Keith Phucas, Journal Register News Service
Published: Sunday, September 13, 2009
NORRISTOWN — With eight years gone by since the horrific Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and a new president in power, some question whether America has the will to keep up the fight against Islamic terrorism at home and abroad.
Though America is engaged in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Barack Obama and his administration are understandably preoccupied with resuscitating the ailing economy, and the president has been quiet about the war efforts.
Publicly, the administration has been considerably more focused on health care reform efforts and green energy initiatives than defense.
For Edward Turzanski, a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, dire predictions about climate change pale in comparison to ever present threats of attacks from extremists.
"Global warming may do us in in a century or two, but a terrorist attack can take care of you in an instant," he said.
Turzanski, who worked in the U.S. intelligence community before becoming a political science professor at Lasalle University, is concerned that renaming the war on terror an "overseas contingency operation" and reopening an investigation into past CIA interrogations signal a softening of Obama's resolve to wage all-out war.
"The drift and weakness is an invitation to attack," he said.
The professor is critical of America's penchant to blame itself in the years following the attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives at the World Trade Center in Manhattan, the Pentagon and on Flight 93 that crashed in Shanksville.
Passengers aboard Flight 93 are credited with resisting the four hijackers who planned to crash the airliner into the Capitol or White House, saving hundreds more.
A former Pentagon employee who worked to get the FBI to pursue jihadists in the U.S. before 2001 believes the government's blunders that failed to prevent the attacks are still not being acknowledged.
"There was a cover up and the cover up continues," said Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer.
Shaffer, an Army reservist who fought in Afghanistan, was first interviewed about the Army's computer data mining operation, "Able Danger," by The Times Herald for a June 19, 2005, article, "Missed chance on way to 9/11."
The operation at the Land Information Warfare Center, in Ft. Belvoir, Va., gathered large amounts of information on Islamic extremists in 1999 and 2000, and after the Sept. 11 attacks, Shaffer, former Congressman Curt Weldon and others at LIWA claimed the group's data runs had included 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and other hijackers.
Shaffer, a liaison between the "Able Danger" operation and U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), tried to arrange meetings between SOCOM and the FBI in 2000 to begin tracking terrorists in the U.S. The data miners found numerous links to jihadist "cells" in America and abroad, including at the al-Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The mosque, along with its al-Kifah Refugee Center, became the defacto headquarters for jihadists in 1988, according to Andrew McCarthy, a former prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office for the South District of New York. At that time, Islamic radicals were fighting against the Russians in Afghanistan.
McCarthy's book "Willful Blindness" details the governments prosecution of radical Egyptian cleric, Omar Abdel Rahman, known as the "Blink Sheik," and others who conspired in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and were plotting, before their arrest, to blow up New York's Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the United Nations.
Though the "Able Danger" group at LIWA culled data from thousands of Internet sites and compiled hundreds of names and locations linked to suspected terrorists, Pentagon attorneys raised concerns that the information collection might be illegal, and terabytes of data were reportedly deleted in 2000.
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Lambert, was reportedly distressed about the wholesale destruction of the data, repeating these sentiments to Doug Stanton in his new book about the 2001 Afghanistan invasion, "Horse Soldiers." Lambert said he reluctantly went along with the advice of Pentagon attorneys who recommended pulling the plug on the data mining effort.
But Shaffer doesn't believe all the information was wiped out and claims as many as 10,000 documents still exist, according to information he received about more recent data runs — some of which include Atta's name.
"I don't think it ever was deleted at all," Shaffer said. "We found the stuff."
In Stanton's book, Lambert also confirms Shaffer's claim that he tried to set up meetings with FBI and SOCOM, a claim the Defense Department refuted in 2005 when Shaffer went public with the story.
Currently, Shaffer is external communications director with the Center for Advanced Defense Studies in Washington.
Though President Obama has signed a proclamation recognizing Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance, Turzanski worries recollections of the day's horror are fading.
"I get the very uneasy feeling from people that Sept. 11 is becoming a distant memory," he said.
Shaffer feels "Able Danger" has been lost to history.
Though 9/11 Commission member John Lehman criticized the government for a failure of imagination in thwarting the attacks, Shaffer called this conclusion faulty, considering the commission overlooked the "Able Danger" successes.
"We had plenty of imagination," he said. "We had a pre-9/11 offensive capability."
http://www.pottsmerc.com/articles/2009/09/13/news/srv0000006379534.txt
By Keith Phucas, Journal Register News Service
Published: Sunday, September 13, 2009
NORRISTOWN — With eight years gone by since the horrific Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and a new president in power, some question whether America has the will to keep up the fight against Islamic terrorism at home and abroad.
Though America is engaged in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Barack Obama and his administration are understandably preoccupied with resuscitating the ailing economy, and the president has been quiet about the war efforts.
Publicly, the administration has been considerably more focused on health care reform efforts and green energy initiatives than defense.
For Edward Turzanski, a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, dire predictions about climate change pale in comparison to ever present threats of attacks from extremists.
"Global warming may do us in in a century or two, but a terrorist attack can take care of you in an instant," he said.
Turzanski, who worked in the U.S. intelligence community before becoming a political science professor at Lasalle University, is concerned that renaming the war on terror an "overseas contingency operation" and reopening an investigation into past CIA interrogations signal a softening of Obama's resolve to wage all-out war.
"The drift and weakness is an invitation to attack," he said.
The professor is critical of America's penchant to blame itself in the years following the attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives at the World Trade Center in Manhattan, the Pentagon and on Flight 93 that crashed in Shanksville.
Passengers aboard Flight 93 are credited with resisting the four hijackers who planned to crash the airliner into the Capitol or White House, saving hundreds more.
A former Pentagon employee who worked to get the FBI to pursue jihadists in the U.S. before 2001 believes the government's blunders that failed to prevent the attacks are still not being acknowledged.
"There was a cover up and the cover up continues," said Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer.
Shaffer, an Army reservist who fought in Afghanistan, was first interviewed about the Army's computer data mining operation, "Able Danger," by The Times Herald for a June 19, 2005, article, "Missed chance on way to 9/11."
The operation at the Land Information Warfare Center, in Ft. Belvoir, Va., gathered large amounts of information on Islamic extremists in 1999 and 2000, and after the Sept. 11 attacks, Shaffer, former Congressman Curt Weldon and others at LIWA claimed the group's data runs had included 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and other hijackers.
Shaffer, a liaison between the "Able Danger" operation and U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), tried to arrange meetings between SOCOM and the FBI in 2000 to begin tracking terrorists in the U.S. The data miners found numerous links to jihadist "cells" in America and abroad, including at the al-Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The mosque, along with its al-Kifah Refugee Center, became the defacto headquarters for jihadists in 1988, according to Andrew McCarthy, a former prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office for the South District of New York. At that time, Islamic radicals were fighting against the Russians in Afghanistan.
McCarthy's book "Willful Blindness" details the governments prosecution of radical Egyptian cleric, Omar Abdel Rahman, known as the "Blink Sheik," and others who conspired in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and were plotting, before their arrest, to blow up New York's Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the United Nations.
Though the "Able Danger" group at LIWA culled data from thousands of Internet sites and compiled hundreds of names and locations linked to suspected terrorists, Pentagon attorneys raised concerns that the information collection might be illegal, and terabytes of data were reportedly deleted in 2000.
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Lambert, was reportedly distressed about the wholesale destruction of the data, repeating these sentiments to Doug Stanton in his new book about the 2001 Afghanistan invasion, "Horse Soldiers." Lambert said he reluctantly went along with the advice of Pentagon attorneys who recommended pulling the plug on the data mining effort.
But Shaffer doesn't believe all the information was wiped out and claims as many as 10,000 documents still exist, according to information he received about more recent data runs — some of which include Atta's name.
"I don't think it ever was deleted at all," Shaffer said. "We found the stuff."
In Stanton's book, Lambert also confirms Shaffer's claim that he tried to set up meetings with FBI and SOCOM, a claim the Defense Department refuted in 2005 when Shaffer went public with the story.
Currently, Shaffer is external communications director with the Center for Advanced Defense Studies in Washington.
Though President Obama has signed a proclamation recognizing Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance, Turzanski worries recollections of the day's horror are fading.
"I get the very uneasy feeling from people that Sept. 11 is becoming a distant memory," he said.
Shaffer feels "Able Danger" has been lost to history.
Though 9/11 Commission member John Lehman criticized the government for a failure of imagination in thwarting the attacks, Shaffer called this conclusion faulty, considering the commission overlooked the "Able Danger" successes.
"We had plenty of imagination," he said. "We had a pre-9/11 offensive capability."