Aug 27 2005
Able Danger, Weldon’s Speech, Update XX
For those wondering about the difference between an “Update” and a “Round Up” on Able Danger, updates are my posts on a specific topic while a round up canvasses the news and internet for new or breaking information.
This post revisits the Weldon speech on the floor of The House in June 2005, which really started this story rolling – first through the Norristown Times Herald and then onto the NY Times and FoxNews. What is interesting, when looking back, is how much of the story we know todayt was is in the Congressional record of that speech.
One thing of interest to me was when Mac of Mac’s Mind continued to reference ‘plussed up’ funds and Schoomaker. I now appreciate that this term came from this speech, and is a key feature in the background of the program and Weldon’s role with it.
But at the time, Mr. Speaker, I was chairman of the Defense Research Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee. My job was to oversee the funding, approximately $40 billion of defense research money on new systems and new technologies. And one of the most striking technologies was the work being done by the Army’s Information Dominance Center at Fort Belvoir, formerly known as the LIWA, the Land Information Warfare Assessment Center. I had visited the LIWA several times and was tremendously impressed with not just the ability to provide security for our Army classified systems, but I saw a unique approach to doing well beyond that, data mining, data collaboration, using cutting-edge software tools like Starlight and Spires, able to do profiling. Having plussed-up funding for this facility after talking to George Tenet, I called my friends at the Army’s Information Dominance Center and said, can you do something for me as a favor, off the record? And they said sure, Congressman, whatever you like. Would you run me a profile of this Serb, for the same reason I had asked the Director of the CIA. They said, no problem, Congressman; we will get back to you in a few hours. And they did. They gave me 10 pages of information, Mr. Speaker, about the Serb and his ties.
This occurred in the Spring of 1999. The first recorded product of this technology. A littel later on Weldon mentions a name that should be on the interview list for any hearings into Able Danger, and fills in the time line a bit more:
This 9-page briefing, Mr. Speaker, was put together in the spring of 1999.
I asked the Deputy Secretary of Defense, John Hamre, to take a look at this capability. He went down to the LIWA and he came back and he said, Congressman, you are right. I agree with you. This capability is amazing. It offers unlimited potential. How about sending me a letter describing your interest, Congressman?
Weldon does send the letter to Hamre, and here is a portion of the letter from July, 30th, 1999
The Department of Defense has a unique opportunity to create a centralized national center that can do this for the country. It would be patterned after the Army’s Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) at Fort Belvoir, but would operate on a much broader scale. This entity would allow for near-time information and analysis to flow to a central fusion center, which I would designate the National Operations Analysis Hub (NOAH).
So it is clear the data mining capability existed in the DIA before this time as a technology study. How long before is not clear, but it must have been up to at least a year (takes that long to get even a basic system up and going). “NOAH” was a full up capability Weldon was pushing to create (not really a bad idea) – it did not exist at that time. But Weldon felt the LIWA was a precursor ‘sample’ of what he envisioned NOAH to be.
Weldon is making sense because what he is describing is a reasonable model of what should be tying our intelligence resources together t0day. And through out this speech their are hints something close to this is being worked or working. So from that stand point the concepts revolving around Able Danger in 1999 and 2000 are very important to today’s efforts.
I also have seen what the Army has done at LIWA, which has created a foundation for creating a higher-level architecture collaborating all of these efforts. Each of these independent efforts needs to be coordinated at the national level. I believe LIWA has created a model that should be used as a basis for creating the participating agency pod sites.
To claim Weldon is simply out for publicity, as some have done, I think is a bit unfair. It seems he feels that what he was seeing at LIWA was so much more advanced than what the traditional groups were proposing he feels more consideration should be given what they had been able to achieve. This is 100% consistent with all my years shaking up the government by applying technologies in ways no one envisioned. The resistance to change is incredible, especially the more radical the leap forward. Of course, when you fall behind the technology wave, the leap forward to simply become current again can look quite daunting. This is probably what was happening.
And here is Weldon’s recollection of Hamre’s suspicion on where the resistance would be coming from:
But, Congressman, the problem is not with me or the money. You have got to convince the CIA and the FBI that this is something they want to pursue.
On October 21, 1999 Hamre sends a supportive and vague letter, with a personal comment included:
“Sir, this is a mealy-mouth response because no one wants to commit to a LIWA-based solution. You know I am very impressed by LIWA and see them involved in a range of activities. I would like to get together with you to review some of our thinking when you have time.
John.”
Supposedly this letter is now in the Congressional Record. I would like to hear more about what Deputy Sec of Defense Hamre has to say about this topic. Anyway, much of this speech is Weldon pushing for a more integrated technology infrastructure for intelligence anaylsis and dissemination. I think we do Weldon an injustice if we do not at least recognize is stated and obvious intentions.
I will not belabor the portion of the speech recalling h0w Weldon passed either a rendition or an original of the ‘chart’ with Atta and al-Shehhi to Deputy National Security Advisor Hadley. One thing is for sure. If, as Weldon claims, Hadley intended this to go to President Bush – it was going to go through his boss Condi Rice. I want answers more than anything else, so I add Hadley and Rice to the list of people who can help clear this mess up. So far Weldon’s claims have held up better than most of us initially expected. I include myself in that statement.
The good news in this is tit appears the Able Danger concept is apparently not gone, but coming still in play. And the NOAH concept, with a name change and some adjustments from the initial idea, appears to be advancing as well.
It is now known as the NCTC, the National Counterterrorism Center, but Mr. Speaker, I still have concerns, and I rise this evening to express those concerns.
This capability was produced in 1999 and 2000 by the IDC, the Information Dominant Center. I asked them to update me on al Qaeda, to show me what they can do today at the IDC. This, Mr. Speaker, is al Qaeda today. It is obviously impossible for anyone watching our television monitor to see what is on this chart. I have had this chart magnified by a large factor and have large copies in my office.
Unfortunately, the root cause of the problems facing Able Danger and Weldon has he tried to push the intelligence community forward to meet the terrorist threat are clearly alluded to at the end of this speech. With one another name to focus on:
At the military’s inception, the CIA drags its feet and limits its support to the effort. In an off-the-record conversation between the DCI and the CIA representative to this military unit, a man that I will call Dave and our military *intelligence* officer explains that even though he understands the military’s effort is against the global infrastructure of al Qaeda, he tells me that the CIA will, and I quote, never provide the best information on al Qaeda, end quote. Why would they not do that? Because of the effort that they were taking as part of a finding they had on bin Laden himself and if the military’s project was successful it would, quote, steal their thunder. Steal the CIA’s thunder.
Maybe that is why the CIA is being damned in its own internal report about what went wrong pre 9-11.
AJSTRATA
Some info to ponder per your request:
In Feb. of 2000 Specter along with Senators Torricelli, Grassley, Thurmond, Sessions,
Schumer, Feingold, Biden, Helms and Leahy introduced on the floor of the Senate the Counterintelligence Reform act of 2000 (S.2089). In his remarks Specter laments the OIPR’s rejection of an FBI request for electronic surveillance of Wen Ho Lee simply because the OIPR’s did not find enough “probable cause†under F.I.S.A. Specter states:
“When FBI Assistant Director John Lewis raised the FISA problem with
the Attorney General on August 20, 1997, she delegated a review of the
matter to Mr. Dan Seikaly, who had virtually no experience in FISA
issues. It is not surprising then, that Mr. Seikaly again applied the
wrong standard for probable cause. He used the criminal standard, which
requires that the facility in question be used in the commission of an
offense, and with which he was more familiar, rather than the relevant
FISA standard which simply requires that the facility “is being used,
or is about to be used, by a foreign power or an agent of a foreign
power.”â€
Specter goes on to detail how the OIPR’s extremely high standard of probable cause hindered the investigations into the PRC’s involvement in U.S. politics. Specter then mentions an interesting fact about F.I.S.A., namely that Senator Biden wrote it in 1978:
“Senator Biden was consulted specially and is a
cosponsor because he was the author of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act back in 1978.â€
This bill (S.2089) became a part of the Intelligence Authorization Act For FY 2001 by being inserted as an amendment to H.R. 5630 which was passed into law Dec. 27 2000, in the middle of Bush V. Gore, and would not take affect for another 120 days. Basically, this Bill attempted to lower the Wall of information sharing between the Law enforcement side and the Intelligence side.
My question is this: Why all this concern about the PRC and the Wall in 2000? Specter was part of the Senate Intell. Com. in the mid 90’s. And Biden was around back then as well. So why did they not get together 3 or 4 years earlier to voice these concerns? Why in 2000? Also, am I to think it strange that Able Danger was terminated in 2000, the same time Congress was going to make information sharing easier? Unfortunately, 120 days after Dec. 27th is April of ’01. So the wall wasn’t partially lowered until 5 months before 9/11 and 3 months after Able Danger was terminated. I have no real conclusions other than this: The Senate Intelligence Committee knew about the Wall and its hindrances to national security. It is also very likely that they also knew about Able Danger given item 9. of the SPECIAL REPORT of the SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE UNITED STATES SENATE JANUARY 6, 1999 TO DECEMBER 15, 2000:
“Throughout the 106th Congress, the Committee continued to conduct rigorous oversight of covert action programs. The Committee reviews these programs to ensure their methods and objectives are consistent with U.S. foreign policy goals, and
are conducted in accordance with all applicable U.S. laws.â€
So, to be honest, I am not too surprised that Specter, according to Schaffer, is asking the wrong agency for info about AD, which will ultimately lead to Specter NOT receiving the right info. There is a part of me that believes there are many in the Senate Intelligence Committee who do not want to see this all fleshed out.
The good news in this is (tit – the word should be it, not tit )- appears the Able Danger concept is apparently not gone, but coming still in play. And the NOAH concept, with a name change and some adjustments from the initial idea, appears to be advancing as well.
Why haven’t we heard William Cohen’s name come up? What did he know and when did he know it?
I posted this over at Captain’s Quarters, but it’s relevant here too.
Here is one example of how data mining could have worked.
Subject: 1993 WTC Bombing
Ahmad Ajaj and Ramzi Yousef arrive in NYC on a flight from Karachi, Pakistan.
Ajaj is arrested after his Swedish passport is flagged for question and his belongings are searched that uncover luggage loaded with phony passports, bank records, medical records and explosives manuals.
Yousef uses an Iraqi passport to enter the United States but does not have a valid visa. He is immediately detained and proclaims he is in the US to seek political asylum. Yousef is released the same day and is requested to return the next day for a hearing in an INS court. Yousef never returns.
Ajaj and Yousef were on the same flight from Karachi to NYC. They were both in first class. They sat apart and dressed uniquely to avoid appearances of traveling together.
Ajaj was convicted of charges of using a false passport to enter the US. His sentence was 6 months. Yousef was never heard from again until he was linked to the 93 WTC bombing during the investigation aftermath. Yousef wasn’t apprehended until 1995 in Pakistan.
Data mining would have produced a link between Ajaj and Yousef through the Karachi-NYC flight. After Ajaj’s arrest and evaluation of the materials in his possession, the data mining software would have flagged every other passenger on that flight and Yousef’s name would have come up. Yousef’s claim of political asylum and an Iraqi passport would also raise suspiscion and the software would establish a connection between the two.
Human analysis would expand the search to learn that Yousef never showed up for his INS hearing. An immediate APB would go out with his photograph, description and last known whereabouts.