Oct 01 2005
Able Danger, Round Up, 10/01/05
The administration clamp down on Able Danger seems to continue apace – giving this near dead story a new lease on life. First is this story that not only was Shaffer’s clearances revoked, and not only was he told not to testify in open hearings, but he may also have been told not testify in closed hearings.
Shaffer was further advised that he, also, could not testify to the Senate committee behind closed doors.
I have no clue to the veracity of this source, but there cannot be any national security, intelligence reasons to not testify in closed hearings! What is going on here? [some confirmation is provided below]
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough have this tidbit from ‘Inside the Ring” in the Washington Times:
Atta’s photo
Congressional investigators looking into the Special Operations Command data-mining activity known as Able Danger are trying to find a woman in California who first came up with a supposed photograph of September 11 terrorist leader Mohamed Atta months before the deadly suicide attacks.
The woman worked for a security contractor that obtained the photo of Atta and other Islamist militants through surveillance of a mosque, said Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican who has been looking into the matter.
“There were five cells of al Qaeda that were identified [by Able Danger], including the Brooklyn cell,” Mr. Weldon told us.
The purported photo of Atta was later reproduced on a chart that had the names of up to 60 suspected terrorists that Mr. Weldon says he gave to Stephen J. Hadley in 2001, when he was White House deputy national security adviser.
So the hunt continues.
And as I alluded to when Haldley made is quasi disclaimer about receiving the AD chart, there was another Congressman present at the event. I was wondering if Dan Burton was going to come forward – and he has.
The account was provided by Representative Dan Burton of Indiana, who said in an interview that on Sept. 25, 2001, he attended a meeting with Mr. Hadley in the White House along with Representative Curt Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania. Mr. Weldon has said that he gave Mr. Hadley such a chart at the meeting, but the White House had refused to comment on Mr. Weldon’s account.
Told about Mr. Burton’s account, a spokesman for Mr. Hadley, who is now the national security adviser, confirmed for the first time last week that Mr. Hadley recalled seeing such a chart in that time period. But the spokesman, Frederick Jones, said that Mr. Hadley did not recall whether he saw it during a meeting with Mr. Weldon, and that a search of National Security Council files had failed to produce such a chart.
So now Hadley does recall ‘a chart’, but he can’t find it. He lost a chart that possibly had information on the 9-11 terrorists and maybe Al Qaeda in the US? Is that what the WH wants the story to be? And Slade Gorton continues to jam both feet into his mouth as far as possible:
In a letter to Congress last week, a former member of the Sept. 11 commission, Slade Gorton, defended the commission’s decision not to mention Able Danger in its report last year. Mr. Gorton questioned Mr. Weldon’s account, saying Mr. Hadley did not recall seeing the chart described by Mr. Weldon.
But in the White House response, Mr. Jones said: “Mr. Hadley did in fact meet with Congressman Weldon on Sept. 25, 2001. He recalls in that same time period receiving a briefing on link analysis as a counterterrorism tool, and being shown a chart that was an example of link analysis. But he does not recall whether he was shown that chart in the meeting with Mr. Weldon or in some other meeting. Either way, Mr. Hadley does not recall seeing a chart bearing the name or photo of Mohammed Atta.”
Well, for one the name would not be Mohamed Atta – that is now established fact since Shaffer, JD Smith and others are on the record Atte el Amir was not detected in the US by Able Danger (I am still waiting to so if SOCOM backs this up). And if the photo Able Danger had of Atta was a zerox of an identification taken at a mosque with a beard and headdress, I would not recognize him either.
Lawhawk at A Blog for All found this recent Weldon interview. Since Weldon is still giving interviews I am beginning to think the deal with the Pentagon is off. Weldon probably did not react well to the attempt to punish Shaffer by trumping up ridiculous charges to revoke his clearances. Weldon is obviously trying to whip up Congress to help him break the wall of silence here:
It also flies in the face of the legitimate role of Congress in oversight of the executive branch. So as Senator [Grassley] said yesterday, this is a lot of bigger than Curt Weldon or Able Danger: It’s about Congress exercising its legitimate roll in oversight.
Weldon also is supporting the basis of the first story I linked to in this post, adn my points on why this is bogus:
If this were a case where they might jeopardize our national security, I’d be the first to say, “Wait a minute. We’d better think through this.” Or I would say, “Let’s do the hearings in a closed session.” The Pentagon didn’t do either. They didn’t want a closed session. They just said, “We are stopping these people from testifying.”
Looks like Weldon also might be succeeding in his efforts to garner Congressional allies amongst committee chairs:
I can tell you I talked to [Rep.] Jim Sensenbrenner [R-Wis.], the chairman of the judiciary committee in the House of Representatives, and I think you’re going to see a congressional hearing in the House as well for one or more committees.
Well, let’s hope he is successful.
Also, I ran across this long discussion of Able Danger with some additional tidbits and context:
The Washington-based FBI agent who was Shaffer’s liaison has recalled, in interviews with her superiors, that Shaffer told her his group had unearthed important information on suspected Al Qaeda operatives with links to the U.S., but without mentioning Atta’s name.
When Shaffer, who is also a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, asked to whom at the FBI that information should be communicated, the agent gave him the name and phone number of an official at FBI headquarters, according to the senior FBI official.
OK, so we have the FBI agent Shaffer contacted in response to SOCOM’s request for assistance in alerting the FBI to possible AQ in the US. And she has been interviewed by the FBI and named someone to contact at FBI HQ. This is an interesting piece of data. The lead FBI office for Al Qaeda was in New York due to the WTC 1 attack. And the lead Justice Dept Attorney’s General office was in the same place. So why contact the FBI HQ in DC? If the information made it to FBI HQ, that does not mean it made it into the hands of the FBI team in charge of Al Qaeda in New York. Which FBI group were the meetings meant to be with?
This recent claim by Arkin in his first Washington Post Blog has had be scratching my head because of the funny wording [speculation alert]:
No military lawyers prevented intelligence sleuths from passing useful information to the FBI.
The Clinton-esque dodgey language originally had me focused on the differentiation between military and civilian DoD lawyers. But now I am wondering if his use of ‘useful information’ means some information went from SOCOM into some kind of dead-end, and never found its way to the FBI’s New York field office.
Arkin is apparently tied to a source close to the legal side of Able Danger, and my guess it is the civilian legal side which put the brakes on the program. Did the AD alert of AQ in the US go up the convoluted chain of command that funneled all intelligence to the WH and Bergler and Clarke? Did the information go through the NSC to the FBI HQ where it disappeared? [end speculation]
This article also provides some interesting context to the timeline. Recall Able Danger was set up late fall 1999. Sometime before April 2000 the Orion/LIWA element developed an interim report supposedly with the 9-11 terrorists identified in it. Also in this time frame, the parallel and independent data mining study on china’s connections inside the US caused the uproar the led to the purge of data at Orion and LIWA for both studies. Able Danger was restructured without Orion and LIWA and continued on. Late summer 2000 SOCOM contacts Shaffer to assist in contacting the FBI because SOCOM thinks they detected AQ in the US. At the moment these possibly US-based terrorists apparently do not include Atta.
So here are some other events happening at the time:
2. JAN. 15, 2000
THE CIA AND FBI
– Investigations into Sept. 11 paid much attention to the CIA’s failure to tell the FBI that one of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar, had apparently moved to the U.S., where he was taking flying lessons with another hijacker, Nawaf al-Hazmi, in San Diego.
al-Midhar and al-Hamzi are two of the four 9-11 terrorists supposedly identified by Able Danger along with Atta (el Amir) and al-Shehhi. All four are suspected of being pilots on 9-11.
3. JAN. 31, 2000
DUBAI ARREST
– One of the most promising leads came from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, where in January 2000 authorities detained Sept. 11 hijack pilot Ziad Jarrah as he was returning to Hamburg from a twomonth sojourn with Mohamed Atta and fellow hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi in Osama bin Laden’s Afghan training camps.
I assume everyone recognizes the names.
According to a senior UAE official who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, while Jarrah was in custody the Dubai police informed the American Embassy that a young Lebanese student had been detained on his way back to Europe from Afghanistan. The embassy contact, the official said, asked that Jarrah be arrested.
When the Dubai police explained they had no grounds for an arrest, the embassy contact replied that the police should let Jarrah go.
Jarrah flew from Dubai to Amsterdam and then to Hamburg, where he reconnected with Atta, al-Shehhi and Ramzi Binalshibh.
U.S. officials dispute the UAE official’s account, saying they never learned of the Jarrah airport stop until Sept. 18, 2001.
I assume UAE has records to back this up. I see no reason for UAE to make this up.
The rest of the events are in 2001, after Able Danger was completed. I cannot help but wonder what could have been thwarted if the Able Dangers information had been passed to the FBI. Would the Phoenix memo made more of a splash? Would Zacarias Moussaoui’s computer been searched:
When Minneapolis FBI agents asked FBI headquarters in Washington for permission to see what was on Moussaoui’s laptop, they were denied. In fact, Moussaoui had been sent to the U.S. by Al Qaeda to undergo flight training, and aides to bin Laden had arranged for Moussaoui to receive at least $15,000, according to the Sept. 11 commission report.
Well, what we do know is we cannot allow purging of information and the blocking of meetings with law enforcement. And we definitely cannot allow this to happen to cover for partisan or political concerns or misdeeds.
Great post, AJStrata. I’m updating my Able Danger blogroll now at:
http://www.qtmonster.com
Maybe Lucy Ramirez has the famous picture:)
All of this information about the charges against Shaffer is coming from Shaffer’s lawyer Mark Zaid.
The Pentagon has not commented on Shaffer at all.
Here is a link to information about Mark Zaid and the James Madison Project.
http://www.jamesmadisonproject.org/markzaid.html
“Through his practice Mr. Zaid often represents former/current federal employees, intelligence officers, Whistleblowers and others who have grievances or have been wronged by agencies of the United States Government or foreign governments, as well as members of the media. He has participated in cases against or involving the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Departments of Defense, Health & Human Services, Justice and State, the Marshal’s Service, Secret Service, Library of Congress, Taiwan, Mexico, Macedonia, the Government of Libya, and the Republic of Georgia.
“Mr. Zaid is also the Executive Director of the James Madison Project, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit, with the primary purpose of educating the public on issues relating to intelligence gathering and operations, secrecy policies, national security and government wrongdoing.”
I googled Zaid+aclu
Mark Zaid has cases against the FBI that the ACLU is publicizing.
Here is one example
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=18880&c=206
If I really believed the ACLU was interested in Civil Liberties, I would be for them. But I think that they seem to be protecting radicals and terrorists.
The ACLU is really against the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force. They depict them as thugs and terrorists and the people they catch as “innocent victims.”
I think this whole business with Zaid is really sketchy. I wouldn’t believe any documents he shows the media and claims are from the Pentagon.
Mark Zaid and the ACLU are helping defend a lady named Edmonds who–it is claimed–was a “whistleblower” in the FBI and so was fired.
I guess I believe the FBI and not the ACLU and Mark Zaid.
I don’t think the ACLU is for civil liberties. I think they are protecting radicals from the FBI.
In the case of Shaffer, I guess I believe the Pentagon and not Mark Zaid.
Mark Zaid has shown the AP reporter documents he CLAIMS are charges against his client Tony Shaffer. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/30/AR2005093000117.html
But the Pentagon has not authenticated these documents at all, so these “facts” are simply allegations from Shaffer’s lawyer Zaid.
I think the Pentagon has been advised to be quiet by its lawyers.
Maybe our enemies are using the hearing process to get our secrets.
Maybe they are going to claim that the Pentagon spied illegally on terrorists and so the terrorists can’t be prosecuted.
I believe Rumsfeld. Not Shaffer. Not Weldon. Not Mark Zaid.
http://www.strata-sphere.com actually links to Stop the ACLU
http://www.stoptheaclu.com/
Maybe you should ask Stop the ACLU about Mark Zaid.
I think this Able Danger stuff was a little trick to fool Americans—like Rathergate/Memogate. I don’t believe the documents Mark Zaid is waving around.
The far left is posting all these stories about how the Pentagon is “covering up” and how Shaffer is being persecuted with charges that he steals pens because he is whistleblowing.
I am going to wait and see what Rumsfeld and the Pentagon say before I believe Tony Shaffer’s ACLU lawyer, Kimberly Hefling of the the AP/WP, and the communist websites like Global Research and US Labor Against the War who are posting Able Danger stories about how the Pentagon is “covering up” and harrassing a whistleblower by saying he is stealing pens
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/30/AR2005093000117.html
http://uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=8822
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MAR20050917&articleId=964
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20050917&articleId=965
Weldon is a big dupe of the terrorists and the left. Or worse.
According to the AP/WP: Zaid said he can’t prove the Pentagon went after Shaffer because he’s a whistleblower, but “all the timing associated with the clearance issue has been suspiciously coincidental.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/30/AR2005093000117.html
Uh-huh.
Now genuine whistle-blowing is one thing, but sometimes people who are giving away secrets or in hot water claim to be whistleblowers.
This is Barrister Zaid’s speciality. He and the ACLU help “whistleblowers.”
Has anyone but the AP reporter Kimberly Hefling seen these documents with the “pen stealing and drunk driving” charges against Shaffer that Mark Zaid claims his client got from the Pentagon?
The Pentagon has not said those are its documents. And I doubt that they would make a silly charge like pen stealing. That sounds like Barrister Zaid is trying to embarrass them. But the Pentagon is not going to be drawn into revealing information to Zaid or the terrorists about Able Danger.
Go Rummy!
Double-O Weldon is reportedly on the prowl for Mystery Woman, the lady investigator from California with the picture of Atta that was used on “the chart.”
Maybe Congressman Sherlock will use link analysis to zero in on Lucy Ramirez and get more charts at a dusty Texas laughingstock show. That’s a good place to go for bull****
Or maybe, if we all close our eyes, get out our secret decoder rings, and count to ten backwards, Congressman “Dick Tracy” will access a very nice facial recognition package and pull the spitting image of Atta out of Whittaker Chamber’s pumpkin field. Or pull it out of somewhere. …or…other.
Oh, good gracious. An October surprise!
Trick or Treat!
I think Mark Zaid should make his “documentation” on Shaffer’s Pentagon misdeeds available to investigative reporters and bloggers, not just to the AP/WP Kimberly Hefling. If indeed she saw these papers.
I want to see for myself the famous Pentagon Papers about how a Lt. Colonel was busted for swiping pens.
Everyone can e-mail Mark Zaid at ZaidMS@aol.com
Bloggers unite!!! Demand the evidence he gave the AP!
I think he should post the Pentagon Papers he waved at Kimberly on his website at http://www.jamesmadisonproject.org
After all, he wants the populace to have information.
It SAYS so on his site:
“A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both.
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.
—James Madison, 1822”
So, here we are, live, at the laughingstock show. Waiting for Lucy Ramirez to materialize with the picture of M. Atta.
Poking around in the pumpkin patch.
So show us the beef, Barrister!
Show us the papers you have from the Pentagon about Shaffer. Forward!! Bloggers of the strata-sphere unite! “We must arm ourselves with the power knowledge gives!!!”
Otherwise we are consigned to the Prologue of a Farce or a Tragedy as Barrister Zaid so eloquently explains at http://www.jamesmadisonproject.org
Here is Cynthia McKinney a far-left Congresswoman and a supporter of anti-FBI activist Ward Churchill (she just hosted him in Washington last week) on Able Danger:
“We held the first-ever full day open briefing on the 9/11 Commission Report’s unanswered questions. You might have seen this on C-Span. Family members, scholars, academics, and whistleblowers served as panelists. And days after our event, the 9/11 Commission was forced to admit that it cavalierly failed to include vital information about the military intelligence operation known as Able Danger in their report.” http://www.thuglifearmy.com/news/?id=1942
I do not think it is true that the 9-11 Commission “was forced to admit that it failed to include vital information about …Able Danger.”
You can bet that terrorists are going to claim they were illegally spied on by Able Danger if and when they are arrested.
Ww have Curt Weldon to thank for that. He wanted use secret information to embarrass the Democrats, but instead he served the far-left agenda of people like Cynthia McKinney. The far left want to depict Bush as complicit in 9-11. They want our secrets told openly so they can defeat us.
Now here is some Muslim commentary on Able Danger. I think it is a lie, of course. For one thing, I live near the Pentagon and lots of people saw the plane hit. It flew right over a freeway. This propaganda probably does not fool you, but Mark Zaid’s does.
According to this, the former TV pundit “Barbara Olson is reportedly considered to be a conspirator to the obstruction of justice in the mass murders of 3,000 individuals on September 11, 2001 in the attacks on the World Trade Center.”
Enjoy!
http://www.milligazette.com/dailyupdate/2005/20051002-911sep.htm
9-11 “dead” victim Barbara Olson arrested in Europe
The Milli Gazette Online
2 October 2005
She was “dead” when her flight hit Pentagon on 9-11 and made a hole of half the size of the plane
According to TomFlocco.com, French and American intelligence agents have arrested Barbara Olson, the wife of a former Bush administration official, a few days ago on the Polish-German border, according to agents close to and with knowledge of the incident.
The alleged 9-11 Pentagon crash victim was found to be in possession of millions in fake interbank Italian Lyra currency, according to the agents.
Olson was also reportedly in possession of a fraudulent Vatican passport and was held on charges of counterfeiting.
Barbara K. Olson, the former Fox News TV commentator and Independent Women’s Forum activist, was said to have called her husband Theodore Olson from her plane to seek help in countering hijackers who had allegedly taken over American flight 77 which the Bush administration said was crashed into the Pentagon- although the impact only left an opening approximately 16 feet across.
Ted Olson is the former Bush 43 Solicitor General who had previously argued the President’s legal interests in the controversial Bush-Gore 2000 election recount case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Mrs. Olson’s alleged cell phone call to her husband was employed by the administration and the 9.11 Commission as partial proof that American 77 crashed into the Pentagon, despite physical evidence to the contrary.
The Pentagon crash evidence was ignored and obstructed by both the Commission and previously by the Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee in its own separate probe.
Due to the ongoing sensitive nature of the arrest, investigation and questioning, one source who declined to be named for this story, told TomFlocco.com that Olson’s call to her husband was a fraud and that another projectile impacted the Pentagon other than Olson’s plane.
The agents were said to have closed in to arrest the former television pundit because the evidence of counterfeiting and passport violations was obvious and that the timing was right.
According to the agents, Barbara Olson is reportedly considered to be a conspirator to the obstruction of justice in the mass murders of 3,000 individuals on September 11, 2001 in the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the alleged crash in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Olson’s arrest and potential appearance at trial in the United States would undoubtedly have a profound impact upon current “Able Danger” hearings in the Senate and past probes by both the Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee and the 9.11 Commission.
Regarding the above article, it is entirely possible that Congressman Weldon should not have dissed by name certain very smart, very nefarious spies in the former Directorate of Operations so much in his really, Really, REALLY stupendously stupid book. They’ve all become corporate security moguls and are making just heaps and heaps of money. No more Mr. Nice Guys.
This may be a case of chickens coming home to roost.
Bye bye, Double-O Weldon!
Over at the Captain’s Quarters Blog (October 1) Shaffer’s Attorney Mark Zaid is claiming that the AP/WP article on Able Danger by Kimberly Hefling was “replete with many errors .”
Well, yeah!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/30/AR2005093000117.html
Zaid is not very gallant to blame his prevarications on the lady reporter.
We still have not seen these charges against Shaffer that Zaid claims he has from the military.
It is not at all clear that the military actually wrote or gave these documents to Shaffer and his attorney.
The military has not commented on Shaffer’s alleged misconduct or on these documents Zaid is talking about.
Kimberly Hefling wrote:
“Zaid said he can’t prove the Pentagon went after Shaffer because he’s a whistleblower, but ‘all the timing associated with the clearance issue has been suspiciously coincidental.'”
Now Zaid claims he didn’t say that, even though it is a direct quote.
Zaid says, “The information I submitted not only from LTC Shaffer to refute the allegations but also from independent third parties would show everyone how petty, pathetic and absurd the allegations were.”
I agree the allegations are pathetic and absurd. I just doubt the military wrote them. I think the reporter got these allegations, “independent third party accounts,” and refutations from Mark Zaid and from nobody else.
Perhaps the reporter never even saw the documents. She doesn’t quote from them, does she?
Zaid claims he has documents that make allegations about Shaffer. And he claims others are getting the documentation. He says he “had no qualms about releasing the information.”
Really? In fact, this information has been released at all. Why doesn’t Zaid post the documents on his own website? Then we could see for ourselves. It would pin him down to one story. Why doesn’t he take them to investigative reporters at TIME or NEWSWEEK?
I suspect the documents aren’t written yet.