ABLE DANGER and the 9/11 Whitewash.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/19/194633/395

by reprehensor
Sun Feb 19, 2006 at 05:46:33 PM PDT

On Wednesday, February 15th, 2006, LTC Anthony Shaffer submitted an amazing written statement detailing his involvement with ABLE DANGER to Congress. You can download a PDF of the statement here, and I have made an HTML version here. For those people who are new to the ABLE DANGER (AD), story, I can't think of a better starting point.

The idea was to take the 'best and brightest' military operators, intelligence officers, technicians and planners from the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), the U.S. Army and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), in an entrepreneurial endeavor, much like bringing the best minds and capabilities from Ford Motor Company, General Motors and Daimler-Chrysler to focus on a single challenge. In the case of ABLE DANGER, the challenge was to discover the global 'body' of Al Qaeda - then, with this knowledge, prepare military and intelligence "options" that would be supported by the "actionable information" that was being produced by the project. - Prepared Statement Of LTC Shaffer, 2/15/06.

That was the idea.

And they had successes. Most notoriously identifying a threat in Yemen that may have saved lives in the USS Cole bombing, and identifying Mohammed Atta prior to 9/11; this once again reiterated in the February 15th Congressional hearing by a contractor, James D. Smith, who worked at Orion Scientific Systems in Viginia;

During the Orion support (on or about 25 October 1999 to 04 August 2000), James Smith delivered multiple open-source task order visual charts and printed support documentation that identified "linkages" or "associations" of people of interest and events including timeline charts, and historical events visual charts, as defined by the U.S. Army INSCOM interests. James Smith was the Task Lead/Program Manager/Business Developer for this support effort during the identified timeframe. Detailed analytical support was supplied by a variety of experienced analysts on a, "per task/availability" schedule. Produced within James Smith's support timeframe (to the best of his recollection) was a visual chart that identified associates of known terrorists (Omar Abdul Rahman) within the New York City geographical area (name of the visual chart is not documented within current notes); Mohamed Atta's picture and association with Rahman was on the chart. Several of these visual charts were printed and due to the size of the charts (approximately 41/2' X 5') in size, printing irregularities would result. Several of these charts addressing multiple topics were retained by JD Smith and turned over to Representative Curt Weldon. James Smith's copy of the chart containing the picture of Mohamed Atta was destroyed in an office move in 2004. - Prepared Statement Of James D. Smith, 2/15/06 I think it's time to accept this fact, they did ID Atta. Smith went on to say that there are two other Intelligence contractors willing to sign affadavits saying that yes, that was Atta, not some "other Atta".

Shaffer's prepared statement is packed with explosive details...

My veteran ABLE DANGER colleagues and I share the common fear that the seeds of the next 9-11 attack have already been sewn - and that much of the critical data that was harvested for the ABLE DANGER project, that could be used again now in the search for sleeper cells and others that matched the "Atta" profile is now gone - destroyed at the direction of DoD officials in the 2000 timeframe. You have heard from Eric Kleinsmith of his work on ABLE DANGER, and his receiving direction to "destroy the data and background documents or go to jail" - which he did. However, it must be noted that despite citing AR 380-10 as the "authority" for this action, the DoD lawyer is wrong and, worse, deceptive. There are two exceptions that allow the retention of U.S. person information - both of those were met by then MAJ Kleinsmith - yet lawyers directed that he destroy the data anyway. Those exceptions are:

2. Publicly available information. Information may be collected about a United States person if it is publicly available.

3( c ) Persons or organizations reasonably believed to be engaged or about to engage, in international terrorist or international narcotics

Therefore, there was no "legal" reason for the directive that the ABLE DANGER information and charts be destroyed then. So then, what was the real reason? What is the real justification for these documents - this critical data - to have been destroyed? Embarrassment and political CYA to protect themselves from accountability for their bad, and in this case, fatal decisions, made in 2001 regarding ABLE DANGER. - Prepared Statement Of LTC Shaffer, 2/15/06.

In his testimony, Shaffer relates that the CIA was uncooperative with AD because if AD was successful, it would "steal CIA's thunder".

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Shaffer has been perpetually harrassed by the DIA ever since he went to the 9/11 Commission and gave a briefing to Zelikow and other 9/11 staffers at Bagram AFB in Afghanistan in late 2003;

There is no incentive for the bureaucrats to change - and instead of embracing change, and being accountable to their actions, they obfuscate and inveigle and hide their own failures. In my specific instance, DIA has been allowed by DoD to make an "example" of me to try and intimidate the others from coming forward by spending what we now estimate $2 million in an effort to discredit and malign me by creating false allegations, and using these false allegations to justify revocation of my Top Secret security clearance. How can it be that we, as a country at war, have such officers in the government who are more concerned about suppressing the truth than winning the war? How many sets of body armor, or enhanced protection for military vehicles in Iraq or Afghanistan would $2 million buy? - Prepared Statement Of LTC Shaffer, 2/15/06.

This goes way beyond partisan politics. This about a defense establishment that will not come clean about what happened on 9/11, from the history of the "Afghan Arabs" to overlapping Intelligence operations that shared different agendas.

It's time to accept the fact that the 9/11 Commission crafted a political document in the "Final Report". It is clearly not a reference volume for serious research regarding the events of 9/11.

The omission of AD from the Final Report is but one in a long list of items that didn't fit the narrative the Commission sought to cobble together;

What happened to those reports that surfaced within months of September 11th stating that 7 or more of the alleged hijackers had come forward and claimed that they were victims of stolen identities, they were alive and well, living in Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Tunisia? Why did the Commission choose not even to address this?

What about the terrorist Said Sheikh? Now sitting in a Pakistani prison on charges of participating in the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal's Daniel Pearl. According to Indian intelligence, this man received orders from a Pakistani General to transfer $100,000 to Mohammed Atta. People all over the world are talking about this story. But not a word about it in the Report.

What about Osama bin Laden and his role in the Mujahadin backed by the CIA in the 1980's to fight the Soviets? The Commission didn't go there. - Rep. Cynthia McKinney, 7/22/2005

McKinney has been an invaluable asset regarding the pursuit of the truth regarding the events of 9/11. She is deeply entrenched with Weldon on this issue, and is sure to keep the normally rabidly partisan Weldon on the straight and narrow.

As to Zelikow and his whitewash, McKinney and Shaffer are hardly alone in their assessment, but Shaffer's testimony bears special scrutiny;

End Part I