A bit of news has come out in regards to the Able Danger story. First there was the news that members of the Able Danger team got assurances from House Republican leaders that it was ok to come forward:
House Republican leaders approved in advance plans by a military intelligence official to go public with details of a top-secret Pentagon project code-named Able Danger.
…”I spoke personally to Denny Hastert and to Pete Hoekstra,” Col. Shaffer said. Mr. Hastert, Illinois Republican, is speaker of the House, and Mr. Hoekstra, Michigan Republican, is chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
“I was given assurances by [them] that this was the right thing to do. … I was given assurances we would not suffer any adverse consequences for bringing this to the attention of the public,” Col. Shaffer said.
Col. Shaffer said his conversations with Mr. Hastert and Mr. Hoekstra took place before he and members of the Able Danger team spoke as anonymous sources to reporters in the offices of Rep. Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican, on Aug. 8.
Did you catch that last paragraph? He and MEMBERS of the Able Danger team spoke to….does this mean more witnesses will be forthcoming? Well today the other Officer that Lt. Col. Sheehan has been talking about has indeed come forward:
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.”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.” …
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.
Along with the statement that they had identified Atta earlier then has been reported, Jan – Feb 2000, comes news that Weldon has found a contractor who made the chart:
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
But….
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.
Did anyone check Sandy Berger’s underwear? Seriously.
Michael Ledeen has this to say:
Ed Morrissey reports that Shaffer and “the navy officer” are apparently only two of the AD team that briefed the press on datamining etc. Moreover, Weldon went public with full support from Hastert and Hoekstra. Thus the sources seem to be multiple, not just one or two, it’s just that Shaffer is the only one who has abandoned anonymity (perhaps because he’s getting pecked to death by the Pentagon bureaucracy? Having your security clearances suspended because of a perhaps failure to document a few dollars’ worth of phone calls reeks of politics…). Ed calls for the rest of the team to go public. Notice that the usual supporters of ‘whistleblowers’ are not defending Shaffer and the others. And once again, notice that lots of information is slow arriving, and that we do well to proceed cautiously. There is no medal for being wrong first. We still lack lots of knowledge. But it’s clearer and cle arer that the 9/11 Commission wasn’t the final word on this subject.
Agreed.
Rich Lowry also made this comment:
The National Geographic channel is running a two part miniseries on events leading up to and including 9/11. The first part was on this evening and did a wonderful job of tracing the rise of OBL and what is know about those involved in 9/11. It was a truly fascinating 2 hour show and was very informative.
So how does this relate to the Able Danger Chart? Well, during the last half hour of the show when it was detailing what was happening in the months leading up to 9/11 the special operations center in Florida was mentioned when the show said they received a chart containing Mohamed Atta and one of the other pilots. The show then said the special ops centcom decided they were unable to share the info with the FBI. And that was it. Maybe 20 seconds when they mentioned a chart with Atta and another pilot and the special ops groups located at I believe McGill base and how the info was not passed to the FBI. Nothing more and no mention of Able Danger.
You may want to contact the producers of the show and ask what info they have on this chart. They must have something because they included it in the program. Having followed the Able Danger story over the past few weeks I was taken aback by the casual and brief mention of the ?chart? given to the special ops group.
I have TiVo’d this program so I can’t comment on it yet but will update as soon as I view it. Anyone else see this?
Gotta end this update with an excellent article by Mary Laney for the Chicago Sun Times:
It’s amazing what you read when you go from place to place. One newspaper had an editorialist calling for someone to tell President Bush that the war is over — the war has ended.
Really?
I don’t think so.
This war is against terrorism, and it appears to be very clear that the terrorists are still going strong.
Did we Americans turn them into terrorists, as some people would have you believe?
No. Warped understanding of the Quran did that. Islamofascist brainwashing turned them into terrorists. They are told to kill anyone and everyone who does not follow the same warped teachings as they’ve come to follow. They’re taught that this is their duty. They’re promised that if they die along the way they’ll be met with great celebrations and surrounded by virgins.
To set things straight — America isn’t at fault for the terror, nor is England, nor Spain, nor Israel, nor anywhere else in the world. The fault lies with the Islamofascists themselves.
How do we stop them? How do we keep them from fomenting another attack on our country? How can we learn from what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, so it never happens again?
Well, it won’t be from the 9/11 commission’s report. We could learn more from what the commission omitted from its final report than from what it included. We can learn from the omitted fact that America’s military had identified a terrorist cell of Islamofascists as early as 1996, but was prevented from sharing the information with the FBI because lawyers wouldn’t allow it. That fact wasn’t included in the 9/11 published report because commission members decided not to include it.
Members also decided not to include this information: Four of the hijackers who flew planeloads of innocent people into the Twin Towers in New York, into the Pentagon outside Washington, and into a Pennsylvania field — four of them — had been identified by a military unit called “Able Danger” a full year before they struck. Members of the 9/11 commission neglected to add the fact that “Able Danger” wanted to warn the FBI to be on the alert for these men but was stopped because of a directive from commission member Jamie Gorelick, who was then deputy attorney general under Janet Reno.
When the 9/11 commission members were asked about these stark and important omissions — and how, had the information been shared, the 9/11 attacks might have been prevented — commission members at first denied they had ever been told of the information.
When declassified documents recently proved the commission had been advised of the information — and advised more than once — commission staff finally admitted that they were told of the “Able Danger” information — naming Mohamed Atta and three other terrorists a year before the 9/11 attacks — but they insisted the information was “historically insignificant.”
I don’t think so.
…nvestigators are now looking into these questions and going to the National Archives to learn whether there are more items the 9/11 commission overlooked. What they’ll find in the archives is anyone’s guess. What they’re looking for could turn up to be unfindable — maybe some of those documents former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was heard flushing down the toilet, or stuffing into his shoes or pants, or the papers he admits he somehow lost when he illegally took them home.
Now it’s time to ask him some real questions. After all, the 9/11 commission’s book is obviously going to have to be updated.
This is the real story of the summer — not Karl Rove, not Cindy Sheehan, not a sideshow. The real story of the summer is how a commission, filled with highly intelligent people, could have missed so much.
She is dead on target. I believe I also know the answer how these people could have missed so much. Because they were all trying to save their asses and the asses of those who they are beholden to.
Check out Captain’s Quarters, The Jawa Report, The Strata-Sphere, & QT Monster’s Place for more.
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The Gorelick Wall & Sandy Berger, Update IX
The Gorelick Wall & Sandy Berger, Update VIII
The Gorelick Wall & Sandy Berger, Update VII
The Gorelick Wall & Sandy Berger, Update VI
The Gorelick Wall & Sandy Berger, Update V
The Gorelick Wall & Sandy Berger, update IV
The Gorelick Wall & Sandy Berger, Update III
The Gorelick Wall & Sandy Berger, Update II
The Gorelick Wall & Sandy Berger, Update
The Gorelick Wall & Sandy Berger
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