Able Danger Coverup (Excerpt)
by William F. Jasper
October 17, 2005
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The Able Danger story has gradually gained traction and headline space, but official stonewalling and coverup continue to thwart efforts to get to the heart of the matter.

This past summer news began to break out about a super-secret Pentagon "data mining" operation that had identified the lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta as a terrorist threat long before the deadly attacks of September 11, 2001. The operation, code named "Able Danger," was a joint effort spearheaded by Army intelligence and the Special Operations Command. According to Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), Able Danger was in operation from 1998 to 2001 and was an effort "to map out Al Qaeda." Reportedly, the Able Danger staff had linked Atta and three other men (who turned out to be 9/11 hijackers) from al-Qaeda's Hamburg, Germany, operation to a cell in Brooklyn. They wanted to notify the FBI about the danger, but Pentagon officials scotched that idea. That was more than a year before the 9/11 attacks.

Rep. Weldon, who is vice chairman of the Armed Services Committee and the Homeland Security Committee, says that two weeks after 9/11.... To continue reading the complete article, place an online order for a PDF version of the October 17th issue of The New American, and get instant access to the full-text of this article along with the full-text of all the other articles in the same issue. Similarly, if you place an online order for one or more copies of the print version of the October 17th issue, you'll receive a complimentary link to the PDF version of that issue, also giving you instant access to the full-text of the "Able Danger Coverup" article and all of the other articles in that issue.

"Able Danger" & 9/11 Foreknowledge
by William F. Jasper
October 31, 2005
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The ongoing coverup concerning the secret Able Danger operation provides further evidence that the "war on terror" is a farce.

There was nothing in outward appearance to draw attention to the four-bedroom apartment at 54 Marienstrasse. Nonetheless, the attention of the intelligence services of Germany, the U.S., Israel, and other Middle Eastern and European countries had been drawn to the nondescript flat in Hamburg, Germany, as early as 1998. That was when Mohammed Atta signed the lease and he and Ramzi bin al Shibh moved in. Soon thereafter, it was identified by intelligence agencies as a target of interest. It became known as the hub of al-Qaeda's "Hamburg Cell."

Over the next two and a half years, dozens of al-Qaeda operatives, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the reputed 9/11 "mastermind," passed through the 54 Marienstrasse apartment. Twenty-nine al-Qaeda recruits from the Middle East or Northern Africa listed it as their registered address. Mohammed Atta would later be labeled, after the fact, as the "ringleader" of the 9/11 terrorists who hijacked four jetliners to use as missiles against targets in New York City and Washington, D.C. Atta is believed to have been the suicide pilot who flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center. His Hamburg roommate, Ramzi bin al Shibh, captured in Pakistan in 2002, has been described by U.S. officials as the al-Qaeda "coordinator and paymaster" for 9/11. In the months leading up to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terror network were under intense scrutiny by intelligence services worldwide.

Cover Story Wearing Thin

Over the past several years, as more and more evidence has come out, it has grown more and more difficult for U.S. government officials to sustain the cover story that they had no way of anticipating the attacks. As it turns out, U.S. intelligence agencies and their foreign counterparts were almost tripping over each other as they shadowed the al-Qaeda network across the face of the planet. The FBI and CIA were tracking al-Qaeda operatives and their activities in the U.S. and overseas. The National Security Agency (NSA) was intercepting and recording the telephone calls of many al-Qaeda operatives, including Osama bin Laden himself. More recently, it has come to light that a super-secret Pentagon operation, known as "Able Danger," was also tracking and monitoring al-Qaeda. Using advanced computer "data mining" capabilities, the Able Danger team reportedly identified Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Midhar, and Nawaf al-Hazmi as members of an al-Qaeda cell code-named "Brooklyn" because of its connections to New York City.

According to Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), in September 2000 the Able Danger team initiated at least three separate efforts to get its information on the hijackers to the FBI "so they could bring that cell in and take out the terrorists." That was one year before 9/11. Army Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Schaffer, one of the principal members of Able Danger, has stated in interviews given this past August that Able Danger had identified five al-Qaeda cells, including two of the three cells that ultimately would be used to pull off the 9/11 terror attacks. Lt. Col. Schaffer set up one Able Danger/FBI meeting in the fall of 2000. It was canceled — as were all other efforts to inform the FBI — per orders from higher-ups in the Department of Defense.

Was the intelligence developed by Able Danger of sufficient quality, specificity, and credibility that it could have and should have been used to prevent the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., that claimed almost 3,000 lives? We don't know the answer to that question since the executive branch has been blocking efforts by Congress and the public to gain access to information about Able Danger. This much we do know: first, the Clinton administration in 2000 and then the Bush administration in 2001 failed to heed the Able Danger warnings on al-Qaeda. Moreover, Clinton administration officials ordered the main Able Danger files destroyed in 2000; Bush administration officials ordered Lt. Col. Schaffer's duplicate Able Danger files destroyed in 2004. Both the Clinton administration and the Bush administration have attempted to cover up the existence of Able Danger and its findings. The official, bipartisan 9/11 Commission also covered up the existence of this operation and its findings. In recent months, members of the Able Danger team who have spoken out have been subjected to official harassment and intimidation. Considerable effort is being expended by Donald Rumsfeld's minions in the Defense Department to keep all information about this operation under wraps.

The first major exposure of Able Danger came on June 27 of this year, when Rep. Curt Weldon, who is vice chairman of the Armed Services Committee and the Homeland Security Committee, delivered a 45-minute speech on the House floor outlining the nature of the operation and the data it had developed on al-Qaeda prior to 9/11. Since then, Operation Able Danger has been the subject of growing controversy and intense international interest. Congressional hearings on Able Danger were scheduled, postponed, and rescheduled. Finally, on September 21, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a long-awaited hearing on Able Danger. It was a letdown; the Pentagon blocked the star witnesses from testifying. Able Danger team members James D. Smith and Lt. Col. Schaffer sat mute in the audience, prevented from testifying by the Bush/Rumsfeld Defense Department. Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and other committee members, both Republicans and Democrats, angrily accused the Defense Department of obstructing the Senate's investigation.

Stung by the congressional criticism and the unfavorable public and media reaction to its stonewalling and obstruction, the Pentagon suddenly became cooperative — or so it seemed. On September 23, Senator Specter announced that new Able Danger hearings had been rescheduled for October 5 and that now the Pentagon would allow the witnesses to testify. However, Mark Zaid, the attorney for Schaffer and Smith, said the Defense Department had told him that his clients would not be allowed to testify. Mr. Zaid turned out to be correct. The October 5 hearings were canceled. When THE NEW AMERICAN contacted Mr. Zaid on October 5, he expressed the hope that there would still be hearings before the end of the year, but he had no idea when they might be.

Unfettered hearings in which Able Danger members are allowed to testify freely might provide useful information about al-Qaeda as well as about who was responsible — in both the Clinton and Bush administrations — for failing to heed the warnings of the Able Danger staff. However, there are some false assumptions underlying the arguments of Rep. Weldon and other advocates of Able Danger. Chief among these is the assumption that if only the FBI and the CIA had been given Able Danger's data on the al-Qaeda cells, they would have "taken out" the terrorists — either overseas or in the U.S. — prior to 9/11.

This line of argument dovetails with the standard conclusion of virtually every other official "investigation," to wit, 9/11 was an "intelligence failure" that demonstrated "lack of coordination and cooperation" among U.S. agencies. And the solution to this problem, we have been told, is to reward incompetence by giving the agencies involved still larger budgets and more manpower, and to combine them all together in a new gargantuan super-bureaucracy, the Department of Homeland Security.

However, as we noted above and will detail further below, the failure to "take out" the al-Qaeda cells before the deadly 9/11 attacks was not due to a lack of information. Whatever useful data Able Danger might have been able to offer concerning Mohammed Atta and his associates would have been superfluous. The FBI and CIA had been tracking the al-Qaeda 9/11 conspirators very closely for years — both in the U.S. and overseas, using both technical means and human intelligence. Dedicated FBI and CIA field operatives had warned their superiors repeatedly and had urged them to authorize the arrest of the terrorists. Those sensible pleas by agents in the field were rejected repeatedly by decision makers at the top levels of the federal government. Even worse, as we will show, co-conspirators with the 9/11 terrorists have been allowed to remain free and roaming at large in the United States. Many U.S. decision makers, instead of being penalized for their failures (or worse) in regard to 9/11, have received promotions! The agents who tried to warn and protect the country have been muzzled.

Disturbing Pattern

The continuity of coverup and conspiracy from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration to suppress Able Danger follows a disturbing pattern that is demonstrated in these cases directly related to 9/11:

• Hamburg Cell. Mohammed Atta, Ramzi bin al Shibh, and their roommates in Hamburg came under surveillance by German intelligence and the CIA in 1998 because of their association with al-Qaeda operatives in Hamburg who had been linked to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Those operatives included Mamoun Darkazanli, Mohammad Haidar Zammar, Said Bahaji, and Mounir al-Motassadek. The CIA station chief in Hamburg, Tom Volz, who posed as a U.S. embassy employee, actually tried to recruit Darkazanli as an informant in late 1999 and 2000. CIA agent David Edger shadowed the Hamburg Cell for several years, before returning to the U.S. in 2001 to take a professorship of political science at Oklahoma University at Norman, coincidentally, just a few blocks from an apartment where an al-Qaeda cell operated that included 9/11 terrorists Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Zacarias Moussaoui.

• San Diego Cell. Even the 9/11 Commission Report, which whitewashed federal government failures, acknowledged that the failure to identify hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar when they entered the U.S. was one of the biggest "lost opportunities." The CIA had tracked both men to the "secret" al-Qaeda planning meeting for 9/11 in Malaysia, where they and other participants were photographed and videotaped by the CIA and Malaysian intelligence. The FBI claims that the CIA didn't inform them about the two men, so they had no way of knowing about them.

That won't wash. Available evidence shows the FBI had multiple tails on the duo in San Diego, where Hazmi and Midhar lived with former San Diego State professor Abdussattar Shaikh, an acknowledged longtime undercover asset of the FBI! What's more, the two terrorists had regular contacts with several other area jihadists who had long been under FBI surveillance, including Omar al-Bayoumi, an agent of the Saudi government whom federal authorities acknowledge as a primary financial conduit for Hazmi and Midhar. Hazmi worked (illegally) at a San Diego convenience store/gas station owned by Osama Mustafa, a militant who had been under FBI surveillance since 1994 because of his violent threats and his membership in the PLO and PFLP terrorist groups.

These and a host of other red flags had caused FBI Agent Stephen Butler to press his superiors to take action against Hazmi and Midhar, but they refused. "He saw a pattern, a trail, and he told his supervisors, but it ended there," said one congressional investigator of Butler's predicament. FBI officials have blocked Butler from testifying before any of the 9/11 investigations.

• Phoenix Cell. FBI informant Aukai Collins, who monitored Middle East terrorist suspects for the FBI for four years in Phoenix, claims to have told the FBI about 9/11 hijacker Hani Hanjour while Hanjour was in flight training in Phoenix. Collins said the FBI knew Hanjour lived in Phoenix, knew his exact address, his phone number, and even what car he drove. "They knew everything about the guy," Collins claims. In July 2001, Phoenix FBI agent Ken Williams sent an electronic memo to FBI headquarters in Washington outlining his investigation into area flight schools that led him to believe al-Qaeda may be using U.S. flight schools to train terrorists as pilots. He recommended that the FBI should conduct an investigation of flight schools nationally to see if this was happening. His memo was never acted on.

• Brooklyn Cell. The official 9/11 Commission Report has this to say about Ali Mohamed and his terrorist cell: "As early as December 1993, a team of al Qaeda operatives had begun casing targets in Nairobi for future attacks. It was led by Ali Mohamed, a former Egyptian army officer who had moved to the United States in the mid-1980s, enlisted in the U.S. Army, and became an instructor at Fort Bragg. He had provided guidance and training to extremists at the Farouq mosque in Brooklyn, including some who were subsequently convicted in the February 1993 attack on the World Trade Center." Known as "Al Qaeda's California connection," Mohamed worked for the FBI's Sacramento office, while training terrorists and escorting top al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri on a fundraising tour of the Golden State in 1995.

Mohamed pleaded guilty to terrorism charges in 2000 and was held in U.S. custody. Incredibly, he has been released and is now again on the streets. He can hardly be anything except a government agent provocateur.

• Minnesota. Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker," would have gotten away scot-free if FBI officials in Washington had had their way. Thanks to FBI field agents like Coleen Rowley, who tenaciously dug in their heels on the issue, he was not released and was still in custody when the 9/11 attacks occurred.

• Norman Cell. In addition to Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Zacarias Moussaoui, the al-Qaeda cell that operated out of Norman, Oklahoma, included convicted felon Melvin Lattimore, a convert to militant Islam who now goes by the name Majahid Abdulquaadir Menepta.

Mr. Lattimore/Menepta's credit card was used to help finance the 1993 World Trade Center bombing masterminded by Ramzi Yousef. He was identified by an FBI informant as a top suspect in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and was identified by witnesses interviewed by this magazine as being in the company of Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City. Menepta's roommate Hussain al-Attas drove Moussaoui to Minnesota. According to FBI documents, 9/11 hijacker Salem al-Hazmi was also seen at Menepta's apartment, and when FBI agents visited the apartment three weeks before 9/11, they saw several men fleeing through the back door of the apartment. The airline ticket for 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah (United Airlines Flight 93) was purchased from an Oklahoma University computer terminal just a few blocks from Menepta's apartment.

Like Ali Mohamed, Mr. Lattimore/Menepta is almost certainly a federal agent provocateur. As we have reported in a previous article ("Al-Qaeda's OKC-9/11 Ties," July 26, 2004), it is almost impossible rationally to explain his record in any other way. When Menepta was picked up and prosecuted, it was for only a minor weapons violation. He was sentenced to a few months in prison and is now back on the streets. Thus, a man who has been tied to the three most important terrorist attacks in U.S. history — 1993 WTC, 1995 OKC, and 9/11 — has been purposely set loose.

The current coverup of the terrorist bombing in Norman, Oklahoma, outside the stadium during the Oklahoma University-Kansas State football game on October 1 is yet another wake-up call. The 85,000 fans inside the stadium — and a national television audience — were the intended targets. Fortunately, the suicide bomber was unable to get inside the stadium and took only his own life. However, federal authorities have rushed to cover up all evidence that the bombing was a terrorist effort involving foreign nationals.

The official story is that the bomber was a mentally unstable student, Joel Henry Hinrichs III, with no ties to Islamic jihadists. However, news organizations and confidential sources in Oklahoma have challenged that account, producing contradictory evidence showing that Hinrichs was indeed involved with a ring of Pakistanis who were Islamic fanatics. (See article on page 19.)

Time for Truth, Not Partisan Politics

Predictably, Republicans and Democrats are both trying to use the Able Danger revelations for partisan purposes, to portray the opposition as weak and irresponsible on terrorism and national security. But like the Oklahoma football bombing and a number of other incidents, the ongoing Able Danger stonewalling demonstrates a continuity of pernicious policy that transcends party lines.

According to Rep. Weldon, two weeks after 9/11 he was provided with data from Able Danger that included "an extensive analysis chart of Al Qaeda, which I immediately took to the White House and personally delivered to then-Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. Mr. Hadley was extremely interested in the chart and said that he would take it to the President."

During his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 21, Rep. Weldon said: "And I can tell you this — I talked to Mr. Hadley three months ago when I briefed him on another issue, and I said, remember that chart that I gave you? And he said, yes, I remember it." However, Mr. Hadley, who has since been promoted to national security adviser, has been mum on the issue of that meeting.

One of the peripheral issues that has become a main bone of contention in the whole matter is whether or not the chart provided to Hadley actually included a photo of Mohammed Atta. According to Lt. Col. Schaffer and other Able Danger team members, the chart (roughly four-and-a-half feet by five feet) included a photo of Atta and showed his linkage to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the blind sheik Omar Abdul-Rahman, who was convicted and sent to prison on bombing conspiracy charges.

The Pentagon's story on the chart evolved through several stages. Initially, Defense Department officials claimed that there was no evidence that a chart ever existed. Then the chart's existence was acknowledged, but it was alleged that the data on it was non-specific. Then it was asserted that the chart had not included a photo of Atta. But on September 2, Rep. Weldon announced that on the previous day he had been to a Pentagon briefing in which officials "confirmed that five credible witnesses did see the 9/11 ringleader, Mohammad Atta, in data produced by Able Danger prior to the 9/11 attacks."

That "official" line could change again, of course, if an investigation proceeds. But Lt. Col. Schaffer and other Able Danger members are being pressured to drop the matter.

Likely as a penalty for not keeping silent, Schaffer's security clearance has been revoked. In October 2003, while stationed in Afghanistan, Schaffer briefed Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, and other Commission staff members on Able Danger. According to Schaffer, Zelikow stated that this was very important information, gave Schaffer his card, and told him to get back in touch when he returned to Washington, D.C. However, Schaffer says that when he called Zelikow's office in January 2004 to set up an appointment, he was given the brush off. When he called again, he was told Dr. Zelikow had all the information he needed on Able Danger and there was no need for a meeting. Shortly thereafter he was hit out of the blue with charges that he had run up unauthorized telephone charges, to the tune of $67. According to Schaffer, the Pentagon spent "in our estimation $400,000 to investigate all these issues simply to drum up this information." That fits a pattern of retaliation against other government whistleblowers who have been faced with similar charges.

Many additional examples could be cited to amplify this pattern. It is a pattern that reflects not incompetence or "lack of coordination" but something much worse. It is a pattern of conscious, purposeful action aimed at thwarting those who are tasked with defending America in the "war on terror." It is a pattern that is being carried out by policymakers at the highest levels of our government, and it is time to ask why.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170878,00.html
Pentagon Revokes 'Able Danger' Officer's Clearance
Saturday, October 01, 2005

VIDEO
FREE FOX News Video:•Whistleblower Silenced?STORIES BACKGROUND LINKS
•'Able Danger' Will Get Second Hearing•Revised 9/11 Report Reveals New Details•9/11 Report: 'We Cannot Let Our Guard Down'•Flight 93 Downed Without Struggle•Qaeda Ties to Iran, Iraq Still Murky•9/11 Report Urges Communication•Families Not Done Pressing Gov't•Fast Facts: Missed Opportunities•Fast Facts: Panel's Major Findings•Bush Defends War on Terror Record•Kerry: Intelligence Reforms Overdue •Raw Data: 9/11 Report Chapters•9/11 Report: 'We Cannot Let Our Guard Down'•Fast Facts: 9/11 Panel's Guidance•Quotes: Reactions to 9/11 Report•Transcript: Bush Praises 9/11 Panel's Report•Intel Chief Idea Gets Mixed Response•Ridge: Intel Czar Not Needed 'Now'•Video Shows Hijackers at Security
WASHINGTON — An officer who has claimed that a classified military unit identified four Sept. 11 hijackers before the 2001 attacks is facing Pentagon accusations of breaking numerous rules, charges his lawyer suggests are aimed at undermining his credibility.

The alleged infractions by Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer (search), 42, include obtaining a service medal under false pretenses, improperly flashing military identification while drunk and stealing pens, according to military paperwork shown by his attorney to The Associated Press.

Shaffer was one of the first to publicly link Sept. 11 leader Mohamed Atta (search) to the unit code-named Able Danger (search). Shaffer was one of five witnesses the Pentagon ordered not to appear Sept. 21 before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the unit's findings.

The military revoked Shaffer's top security clearance this month, a day before he was supposed to testify to a congressional committee.

Mark Zaid, Shaffer's attorney, said the Pentagon started looking into Shaffer's security clearance about the time in 2003 he met in Afghanistan with staff members of the bipartisan commission that studied the Sept. 11 attacks and told them about Able Danger.

(Story continues below)

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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."

Citing concerns with the privacy act, Cmdr. Terry Sutherland, a Defense Intelligence Agency (search) spokesman, declined to release any information on Shaffer.

According to papers provided by Zaid, the Defense Intelligence Agency is questioning whether Shaffer deserved a Defense Meritorious Service Medal (search) he was awarded. Shaffer, who is supported by a retired colonel who has praised his work, says those challenging the medal do not have firsthand knowledge of his actions.

Shaffer says he showed his government credentials during two incidents in 1990, when he was drunk, and 1996, when he was pulled over by police. The military says he misused his credentials, but Shaffer says he was not told he should not have used them. He also said he has joined Alcoholics Anonymous and has been sober for 13 years.

As for the pens and other office supplies taken, he blamed that on "youthful indiscretions" more than 20 years ago.

According to the paperwork, the alleged infractions against Shaffer also include:

-- Falsely claiming $341.80 in mileage and tolls fees. He said he filed travel expenses based on what he was told by human resources staff.

-- Obtaining $67.79 in personal cell phone charges. He said the amount was a legitimate expense accrued so he could forward calls.

-- Going over his chain of command to do briefings. Shaffer said he was providing briefings to higher-ups on projects even his direct superiors did not know about, and he received superior review ratings for that time.

-- Showing irresponsibility with $2,012 in credit card debt. He said he paid off the debt, and Zaid said DIA dropped the issue.

Shaffer, now a member of the Army Reserves, has been on administrative leave since March 2004. During the same time, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel on Oct. 1, 2004.

Shaffer has said he tried three times to meet with the FBI to convey the Able Danger unit's findings before Sept. 11, but was ordered not to by military attorneys.

Shaffer's assertions on Able Danger have been supported by Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa. If correct, they would change the timeline as to when authorities first learned of some of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

The Sept. 11 commission has dismissed the claims. The Pentagon has acknowledged some employees recall seeing an intelligence chart identifying Atta as a terrorist before the attacks, but said none have been able to find a copy of it.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...&articleId=1175

The Security Council Resolution on Syria is a pretext for the bombing and occupation of Syria
The Resolution is in Violation of the UN Charter


by Niloufer Bhagwat

November 2, 2005
GlobalResearch.ca

Rafik Harari died in a manner which anyone who has humanity would not want any individual to die, and it is conceded he was a former Prime Minister. Does that justify an investigation by the Secretary General of the United Nations and a Resolution by the Security Council, when the pogroms committed by the Phalangists and Israel army in conspiracy with General Aron Sharon have never been investigated, even though it took place during an international conflict and the occupation of Lebanon . Are the lives of the Palestinian refugees who who were brualy killed, raped, mutilated any less important than that of Rafik Hariri and which provision of the UN Charter says so?

The world has witnessed the killings by bomb blasts of Indian citizens from 1993 including in Kashmir, Delhi , Mumbai in scores of places with a death toll of thousands of citizens killed and maimed by covert agencies in India . The bombings mysteriously conincided invariably with some sharpening crisis of some nature or the other or of impending pogroms against minorities or other sections. Yet UN probe was ever ordered and there is no resolution of the Security Council on bomb blasts in India , the Philippines or Indonesia.

Recently no less a person than a former Minister of Indonesia has claimed that the Indonesian military had covert links with those perpetrating the blasts at Bali. Earlier Junior military officers in the Philippines had made similar allegations against some of the highest in the political leadership of their country .

The United Nations Charter explicitly and implicitly prohibits interference in the internal affairs and criminal investigations in any country, the only exception possible would be War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity as defined by the Nuremberg principles perpetrated by any government, including the permanent members of the Security Council . Apart from this exception the sovereignty of every nation, society or people is guaranteed by the UN Charter and no country in the conduct of its criminal investigation can be influenced or pressurised by the permanent or elected members of the Security Council without this constituting an undue interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation.

To illustrate the diabolical nature of the double standards the series of covert political assassinations carried out by some of the permanent and other governments in the Secuirity Council have been open knowledge the world over . The assassination of President Allende in Chile is one example ,where the UN and all the members of the Security Council continued to deal with the murderous Pinochet regime. The same General Pinochet is now indicted for receiving funds and other largesse from American Banks and other financial insitutions claiming age in defence . The role of Henry Kissinger in that assassination was carefully documented by impeccable American sources, and yet neither has Henry Kissinger been indicted nor anyone associated with the conspiracy to murder the innocent and instal in Chile a government favourable to US - UK Corporations and finance capital

In India two Prime Ministers were brually assassinated . Indira Gandhi in 1984 while in office and Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, while leader of the opposition was killed by a suicide bomber mid way through an election , an act of covert agencies and terrorist organizations acting in a covert conspiracy . The Inquiry Commission inquiring into the assassination has held that it is necessary to further investigate the conspiracy and conspirators behind the suicide bomber as these have not been unmasked.

Prior to the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi a leading member of a terrorist organization sheltered in the UK announced on BBC that Mrs.Indira Gandhi should be killed . Neither the Secretary General of the United Nations nor the Security Council directed an investigation into the International conspiracy to assassinate Mrs Indira Gandhi despite prima facie evidence on record that the funds and training were being received by these covert organizations from the UK and across the Atlantic.

Similarly it cannot be forgotten that an urgent message was sent to the late Rajiv Gandhi by the late Yasser Arafat that there was a covert plot to assassinate him, which came to pass. The fact that Yasser Arafat communicated the existence of this covert conspiracy would reveal that Mossad could not be very far from this plot, as a former Mossad agent has admitted in a controversial book that more than one side to the fratricide in Sri Lanka were trained by Mossad in Israel including sections of the LTTE .

We have the example of the Kanishka aircraft which was bombed with hundreds of Indian and other passengers on board killed with the failure of Canadian Intelligence to conduct a public inquiry or to indict covert organizations being funded and operated from Canada, with a highly compromised trial satisfying none of the surviving relatives as comprehensive and thorough; yet the Security Council of the United Nations despite the hundreds of lives lost did not indict the government of Canada and put it on notice that those responsible must be proceeded against in the alternative Canada could be subjected to sanctions .

Can one Rafiq Harari whose assassination however brutal be given greater primacy over the murder of hundreds and thousands of citizens in covert International and national incidents which the UN Security Council has never cared to investigate even though when they have taken place across international boundaries as in the Kanishka crash, during wars of occupation as in the case of Sabra and Chatilla , in Kashmir and those killed in coups and counter coups by external forces in Latin America and other places . No inquiry has taken place as to how Ahmed Shah Massood of the Nothern Alliance was murdered in Afghanistan two days before 9/11.

An innocent Brazilian was recently murdered by the police in England and there has been no Resolution on the UK by the Security Council and no international investigation by a prosecutor into the suspicious London bomb blasts and no possibility of sanctions against the UK, India, Indonesia, Philippines or other countries where scoresof innocent citizens are being killed by bomb blasts.

The 9/11 tragedy remains a mystery with no UN investigation and no Security Council Resolution though thousands died in one incident alone and we are now informed of "Able Danger " and the implications of the controlled demolitions of the towers by explosives and not by aircraft .

For the last few years since 1993 in tandem with the neoliberal globalization program imposing a creeping economic death sentence on several classes of Indian society including weavers, peasants, workers, petty traders, bomb blasts have been occurring in different cities of the Indian Union on ordinarly citizens with covert agencies operating, leaving thousands killed and maimed including Kashmiris in the State of Jammu and Kashmir including sections of the middle classes and working people in Mumbai , New Delhi , Tamil Nad, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, among other cities . Despite the fact that this discloses a complete and abject failure of more than one national party in power at the Centre and in the States where the bomb blasts have taken place the Security Council has not appointed an international inquiry to protect the lives of the Indian people against these covert attacks from allegedly terrorist organizations operating from inside India or from outside India and not a single government has resigned acknowledging responsibility in not being able to secure the right to life of the citizen of India a basic function of government .

The propoganda systems national and International have broked down , no one believes the Goebelsian news reports , the Security Council and IAEA are seen to be aiding and abetting invasions and occupations . Even war can no longer camouflage the civlizational collapse when it is necessary to kill innocent men, women and children for systems to survive .

On the murder of Rafiq Hariri the central question asked in any crime is a simple one :" Who benefits ?"

The answer is that the murder of Rafiq Hariri benefits those corporations controlling governments who desire to militarily invade yet another country of the region vital for control of hydrocarbon resources and pipelines and for that purpose secured withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon a country which was articially severed from Syria by the elite classes of the big powers, in what has been the " Great Game " of redrawing artificially the maps of countries and societies in the age of Imperialism and now in its new camouflage neoliberal globalization in the tradition of Cecil Rhodes who recommended colonization as a policy to prevent revolution at home in societies increasingly polarized .

For governments like Syria who attempted for decades to comply with various and diverse requests of the Imperial powers, there is a lesson, which is no one is spared not even yesterday's ally.

Despite tight rope walking every single leader, the government and its members are dispensable in a brutal game which recognizes no one and makes not a single concession to humanity. Many leaders erstwhile friends and allies of the US-UK corporations will follow Saddam Hussain either to trial or to the grave including those who collaborated in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia, Iran, Pakistan, India and anywhere else ...

All the perfumes of Arabia cannot cleanse this blood of innocent humanity .


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http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46981

DAY OF INFAMY 2001
Weldon: Pentagon just trying to cover its backside
Full text of congressman's floor speech

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Posted: October 21, 2005
7:18 p.m. Eastern



© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk to our colleagues and through our colleagues to the American people about an issue that troubles me greatly.

I have been in this institution 19 years, and during those 19 years I have been on the Committee on Armed Services. Currently, I am the vice chairman of that committee and chairman of the subcommittee that oversees the purchase of our weapons systems. In the past I have chaired the research subcommittee. I have chaired the readiness subcommittee, and I have spent every available hour of my time working to make sure that our military troops were properly protected and have the proper equipment and training.

I am a strong supporter of our military. Whether it was in the last 2 years of the Reagan administration, the four years of the Bush administration, the 8 years of the Clinton administration, or the current administration of President George W. Bush, I have been a strong supporter of our military. I am a strong supporter of President Bush. I campaigned for him. I am a strong supporter of Secretary Rumsfeld. I say all of that, Mr. Speaker, because tonight I rise to express my absolute outrage and disgust with what is happening in our defense intelligence agencies.


Mr. Speaker, back in 1999 when I was Chair of the defense research subcommittee, the Army was doing cutting-edge work on a new type of technology to allow us to understand and predict emerging transnational terrorist threats. That technology was being done at several locations, but was being led by our Special Forces Command. The work that they were doing was unprecedented. And because of what I saw there, I supported the development of a national capability of a collaborative center that the CIA would just not accept.

In fact, in November 4 of 1999, 2 years before 9/11, in a meeting in my office with the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Deputy Director of the CIA, Deputy Director of the FBI, we presented a nine-page proposal to create a national collaborative center. When we finished the brief, the CIA said we did not need that capability, and so before 9/11 we did not have it.

When President Bush came in after a year of research, he announced the formation of the Terrorism Threat Integration Center, exactly what I had proposed in 1999. Today it is known as the NCTC, the National Counterterrorism Center. But, Mr. Speaker, what troubles me is not the fact that we did not take those steps.

What troubles me is that I now have learned in the last 4 months that one of the tasks that was being done in 1999 and 2000 was a top-secret program organized at the request of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, carried out by the general in charge of our Special Forces Command, a very elite unit focusing on information regarding al Qaeda. It was a military language effort to allow us to identify the key cells of al Qaeda around the world and to give the military the capability to plan actions against those cells so they could not attack us as they did in 1993 at the Trade Center, at the Khobar Towers, the U.S.S. Cole attack, and the African embassy bombings.

What I did not know, Mr. Speaker, up until June of this year, was that that secret program called Able Danger actually identified the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda in January and February of 2000, over 1 year before 9/11 every happened. In addition, I learned that not only did we identify the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda, but we identified Mohamed Atta as one of the members of that Brooklyn cell along with three other terrorists who were the leadership of the 9/11 attack.

I have also learned, Mr. Speaker, that in September of 2000, again, over 1 year before 9/11, that Able Danger team attempted on three separate occasions to provide information to the FBI about the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda, and on three separate occasions they were denied by lawyers in the previous administration to transfer that information.

Mr. Speaker, this past Sunday on "Meet the Press," Louis Freeh, FBI Director at the time, was interviewed by Tim Russert. The first question to Louis Freeh was in regard to the FBI's ability to ferret out the terrorists. Louis Freeh's response, which can be obtained by anyone in this country as a part of the official record, was, Well, Tim, we are now finding out that a top-secret program of the military called Able Danger actually identified the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda and Mohammed Atta over a year before 9/11.

And what Louis Freeh said, Mr. Speaker, is that that kind of actionable data could have allowed us to prevent the hijackings that occurred on September 11.

So now we know, Mr. Speaker, that military intelligence officers working in a program authorized by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the general in charge of Special Forces Command, identified Mohammed Atta and three terrorists a year before 9/11, tried to transfer that information to the FBI were denied; and the FBI Director has now said publicly if he would have had that information, the FBI could have used it to perhaps prevent the hijackings that struck the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the plane that landed in Pennsylvania and perhaps saved 3,000 lives and changed the course of world history.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight because we have been trying to get the story out about Able Danger and what really happened. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, I have to rise tonight to tell you that as bad as this story is, and as bad as it is that the data was not transferred to the FBI, and as bad as it is that the 9/11 Commission totally ignored this entire story and referred to it as historically insignificant even though it was authorized by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, even though Louis Freeh has now said it could have provided information to prevent the attack against us, the 9/11 Commission ignored it. Not because the commissioners ignored it, but because someone at the staff level on the 9/11 Commission staff decided for whatever reason that they did not want to pursue the Abel Danger story.

Mr. Speaker, in August and September I met with the military officials involved with Abel Danger and one by one they told their story, until, Mr. Speaker, leaders in the Defense Intelligence Agency, including the deputy director, decided they do not want the story told. I think because they perhaps are fearful of being embarrassed and humiliated.

So what direction had they taken, Mr. Speaker?

They have gagged the military officers. They have prevented them from talking to any Member of Congress. They have prevented them from talking to the media. And the Defense Intelligence Agency has began a process to destroy the career and the life of Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer.

Now, it might be easy for us to ignore this, Mr. Speaker. We all have busy careers and worry about reelections every 2 years and worry about our own families and our jobs. But I cannot do that in this case and neither can this body, and neither can the other body. You see, Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer took an oath to defend our Constitution. He took the words "duty, honor, country" seriously and devoted 23 years of his life in four deployed intelligence operations of our military to protect America.

During the time he served our country, he has received the Bronze Star, an award that does not come easily, for showing acts of courage, leadership, and bravery in the course of his activities.

He has received public commendations from previous directors of the Defense Intelligence Agency, including General Patrick Hughes, including generals at Special Forces Command, and including Admiral Wilson of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He has received dozens of letters and commendations for his work. The laudatory comments I reviewed in his files are unbelievable.

But, you see, Mr. Speaker, there is a problem. The Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency was in a meeting with Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer almost a year before 9/11, and Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer showed him a disk in his office with information about al Qaeda and Mohammed Atta, and the Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency stopped the briefing and said, you cannot show me that. I do not want to see it. It might contain information I cannot look at.

Now, Tony Shaffer was not in the room alone, Mr. Speaker. There were other people, and we know their names. So we have witnesses. Now, the Deputy Director has denied that meeting and denied he was there and denied this particular story, but the fact is he knows that we are going to pursue it.

So what has happened to Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, Mr. Speaker? The Defense Intelligence Agency has lifted his security clearance. One day before he was to testify before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, in uniform, they permanently removed his security clearance. And now our Defense Intelligence Agency has told Colonel Shaffer's lawyer that they plan to seek a permanent removal of his pay and his health care benefits for him and his two children. Why, Mr. Speaker? Because Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, like Commander Scott Philpot of the Navy, like J. D. Smith, and like a host of other Able Danger employees, has told the truth.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I sat here in the 1990s and I sat here during the 9/11 investigation and watched a ridiculous situation develop with Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser under President Clinton. He walked into the National Archives before he was to testify before the 9/11 Commission looking through documents. He took documents out of the archives and stuffed them in his socks and pants so that no one would see them as he left the National Archives. Now, that is a felony, tampering with Federal documents and removing classified information regarding our security and information that the 9/11 commission needed to see.

Sandy Berger initially lied about it. He said he did not do it. Then he admitted it, and he was given a punishment. And, oh, by the way, his security clearance was temporarily lifted, but he will get it back again, for lying, for stealing, and for committing an act of outrage against our country's security. Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, a Bronze Star 23-year military veteran, simply told the truth and now his life is being ruined.

His career is ended. He is no longer in military intelligence. They have taken his security clearance, and they are about to destroy him as a person. They are about to deny him the basic health care and the salary that he has earned, and they are doing it in this way. This is outrageous. It is evil. They do not want to fire Tony because they also do not want him to talk to the media. So by suspending him and removing his pay and his health care, they hurt him bad, but he cannot talk because he is under suspension and his lawyer has advised him that to talk to the media, to talk to Members of Congress, even when he is not being paid, would cause him further problems and totally prevent him from ever having this gross problem reversed. Mr. Speaker, this is outrageous. Mr. Speaker, this is not America.

Over my 19 years in Congress, I have led 40 delegations to the former Soviet Union. I have sat in the face of the Soviet Communists and confronted them on full transparency. I sat at the table with President Lukashenko of Belarus, who has been called by our Secretary of State the last dictator in Europe. I took both delegations to North Korea, Mr. Speaker, and sat across the table from Kim Gye Gwan and I told him we abhor the way they treat their people, the way they lie about what is happening, and the way they distort information.

Mr. Speaker, I took three delegations to Libya to meet with Qadhafi, and I told him that we are absolutely outraged at what Libya did in helping complete the Lockerbie bombing and the bombing of the Berlin nightclub.

You know, Mr. Speaker, I never thought I would have to take the floor of this Chamber and make the same statements about the Defense Intelligence Agency. As a supporter of the President, as a supporter of the military, Mr. Speaker, if we allow this to go forward, then we send the signal to every man and woman wearing a uniform that if you tell the truth, you will be destroyed if a career bureaucrat above you does not like what you are saying. If you tell the truth, we will take your health care benefits away from your kids. If you tell the truth, we will ruin you.

Mr. Speaker, this is not America. Mr. Speaker, this is not what I have been told by Secretary Rumsfeld that we are doing with our troops in protecting them, in giving them the best equipment and the best training. This is not what I spend hours in committee hearings on. This sends the wrong signal to America's troops. It tells them, do not be honest. Do not respect the fact that you have to be truthful. If there is somebody that the truth offends, then you better be silent.

Mr. Speaker, I have today asked for an independent investigation of the Defense Intelligence Agency and their efforts at destroying Tony Shaffer's life. This is outrageous, Mr. Speaker. They trumped up charges against him. They said while he was overseas in Afghanistan, forward deployed, that he forwarded cell phone calls from his official phone to his personal phone; and when they checked that out, it ran up a cost to the taxpayers of about $60. The second verbal charge they gave him was that he went to a course at the Army War College and he got reimbursed for his travel, his mileage and tolls, 100-some dollars. And they said he received a commendation for which he was not entitled, even though it was signed by his commanding officer and the acting Secretary of the Army.

But they went beyond that, Mr. Speaker. They went beyond that with this man. They said he had $2,000 of debt, personal debt. Well, I would like to have every Pentagon employee tomorrow, I would like to have the senior leadership show us what debt they have in the Defense Intelligence Agency so we can make that public.

They even went to this length, Mr. Speaker: the Defense Intelligence Agency wrote in an official document that Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer stole public property. A serious charge. Well, when you check what that public property was, it was an assortment of pens, government pens. But what they did not say in the Defense Intelligence report was that he took those pens when he was 15 years of age and was with his father when he was on assignment at one of our embassy outposts. He took the pens to give to other students at the school when he was 15 years of age. And by the way, Mr. Speaker, it was Tony Shaffer himself who admitted to that thievery when he applied for his security clearance. So the Defense Intelligence Agency knew that during his entire career of 23 years, but they put that in the document against him.

This is a scandal, Mr. Speaker. It is an outrage. It is a travesty. Everyone that worked with Tony Shaffer, the Navy officers, the private citizens have all said the same thing. This is a scandal to get Tony Shaffer because he has told the truth.

Now, this Defense Intelligence Agency and this Deputy Director had the audacity to have their legal counsel send Tony Shaffer's lawyer a letter on September 23. I cannot put that letter in the RECORD because it is privileged information, but it will eventually come out. But in that letter, in the second to last paragraph, the legal counsel for the Defense Intelligence Agency says to Mr. Shaffer's lawyer, he cannot receive any more classified information from the Defense Intelligence Agency because I checked and his security clearances have all been removed. Therefore, he is not allowed to look at anything that is secret or confidential.

Now, that is a letter sent by the general counsel of the DIA on September 23 of this year. Two weeks later, Mr. Speaker, to show the stupidity of the Defense Intelligence Agency, they send seven packages to Mr. Shaffer's lawyer of his personal belongings, which the Deputy Director of the DIA told my staff 3 months ago did not exist any more. And in those seven boxes, Mr. Speaker, were five classified memos. The Defense Intelligence Agency sent five classified memos to Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, which they told him on September 23 he was not allowed to have access to.

Mr. Speaker, that is a felony; and I have asked the Inspector General and the legal officials to investigate and prosecute the Defense Intelligence officials who sent five classified documents through the mail or by hand delivery to Tony Shaffer.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, the Defense Intelligence Agency, in its absolute total stupidity, included in those boxes $500 worth of Federal property, including a multi-hundred dollar GPS system owned by the Federal Government, which they sent to Tony Shaffer, I guess to keep. They also sent, Mr. Speaker, 25 pens, brand new, and marked on them is "Property of the U.S. Government." The Defense Intelligence Agency, in its absolute utter stupidity, sent Tony Shaffer Federal property which they accused him of taking when he was 15 years of age.

Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong here. There is a bureaucracy in the Defense Intelligence Agency that is out of control. They want to destroy the reputation of a 23-year military officer, Bronze Star recipient, hero of our country, with two kids because people in defense intelligence are embarrassed at what is going to come out.

And what is going to come out, Mr. Speaker? Well, we are going to find out, Mr. Speaker, that that unit, Able Danger, not only identified Mohammed Atta before 9/11, not only did they try to pass that information to the FBI, not only was that large data destroyed in the summer of 2000, but now, Mr. Speaker, I can add a new dimension to this whole story. Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I met with another Able Danger official. I was not aware of this official's knowledge because he does not live within the Beltway.

This official, Mr. Speaker, has impeccable credentials. I cannot reveal his name today. I will to any Member of this body, any of our colleagues that want to come to me, I will tell you privately who this official is, and you will agree with me when I tell you his name that he has impeccable credentials. This official yesterday, Mr. Speaker, in a meeting in my office, told me that he has never been talked to by the Pentagon. He has never been talked to by the Defense Intelligence Agency in their supposed investigation. He has never been talked to by the 9/11 Commission staff in their investigation; yet this official had a leadership position in Able Danger.

This official told me that there is a separate cache of information collected from over 20 Federal agencies in 1999 and 2000 on Able Danger that still may exist. Now, the Pentagon has told us all this material was destroyed, and now I have a senior official telling me there is a second pot of information that may well still exist.

Furthermore, at the hearing over in the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, when Senator Specter asked why this data was destroyed, the witness who destroyed the data said, well, I was told that we could not keep this data for more than 90 days because it might involve information that contains U.S. persons, so we had to destroy it.

Well, I found out that is not the story. The reason the data was destroyed was because Special Forces Command asked the Army for that data and within a matter of days, that data was destroyed so the Army would not pass it to Special Forces Command. Yet there still is, was and I hope still is a massive pot of data.

But furthermore, that official that I talked to yesterday will also say that there was no 90-day requirement, as was testified before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He said on a regular basis they kept information from Able Danger data mining for months and months and months. In fact, he will say he had a discussion with a lawyer in DOD named Schiffren who told him do not worry about it, just fill out a document, sign your name that you need it, put it in the box, and you can keep it as long as you want.

Mr. Speaker, that is entirely contradictory to what the Defense Intelligence Agency has been telling us, to what DOD has been telling us. Now we have someone who is willing to come forward and say that 90-day period is not real, they kept Able Danger information for months and months and months.

Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong here. A sitting President of the United States resigned his position because he tried to cover up a third-rate burglary when some low-level operatives from the Republican committee to reelect him broke into the Democrat headquarters in Washington, D.C. No one was killed. No money was stolen. No State secrets were stolen. It was a third-rate burglary, but it caused the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about the deaths of 3,000 Americans.

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about 2.5 terabytes of data about al Qaeda. That is equal to one-fourth of all of the printed material in the Library of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about Mohammed Atta and three of the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11.

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about military intelligence officers, including an Annapolis graduate who will command one of our destroyers in January of 2006 who risked his entire career to state on the record I will swear until I die that I saw Mohammed Atta's face every day starting in January of 2000, a year and a half before 9/11.

Mr. Speaker, this is not somebody off the street, this is a graduate of Annapolis, a 23-year Naval officer who will command one of our destroyers in January who is agreeing with Lieutenant Shaffer. We have three other people who have testified under oath that they saw the same photograph, and the person I met yesterday will testify that he had the name of a Mohammed Atta before 9/11 but not the face.

Mr. Speaker, this is not some third-rate burglary coverup. This is not some Watergate incident. This is an attempt to prevent the American people from knowing the facts about how we could have prevented 9/11 and people are covering it up today. They are ruining the career of a military officer to do it and we cannot let it stand. I do not care whether you are Democrat or Republican, you cannot let a lieutenant colonel's career be ruined because of some bureaucrat in the Defense Intelligence Agency. If we let that happen, then no one who wears the uniform will ever feel protected because we will have let them down. Anyone who wears the uniform of this country who is serving today expects us to back him or her up and that is not happening. We are seeing lying, distortion.

Mr. Speaker, do you know, Wolf Blitzer on CNN told my staff that a Department of Defense employee told him that Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer was having an affair with one of my employees. How low can we go, Mr. Speaker? How low can we go to allow this Defense Department to try to ruin the reputation and the personal life of a lieutenant colonel with a Bronze Star? To Wolf Blitzer, Mr. Speaker.

We need to know the name of that defense official who told Wolf Blitzer who told my staff, and he is not the only one. I have other media people who will come forward in this grand effort to destroy the reputation of a uniformed military officer, to create scandalous accusations. He does not even know my staff, to accuse him of stealing pens when he was 15, to take away his health care benefits for his two kids because he is telling the truth.

What do we stand for if not the truth? Is it more important that we be politically correct? Is it more important that I not rock the boat because my party is in the White House, because I campaigned for Bush, and support Don Rumsfeld. Is that more important? If that is more important, I do not want to be here. I will leave. I will leave my post, but I will not do it until we get justice for this man and for these people who the 9/11 Commission called historically insignificant.

Mr. Speaker, there is something wrong inside the Beltway.

Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong when a military officer risks his life in Afghanistan time and again, embedded with our troops under an assumed name with a false beard and a false identity, forward deployed with our troops, gets castigated, gets ridiculed, gets some low life scum at the Pentagon spreading malicious lies about this individual, and then say to his lawyer, we are going to take away his health care benefits, we are going to take away his salary.

Mr. Speaker, if we allow this to stand as Democrats and Republicans, then none of us deserve to be here. When we all go overseas and meet the troops, we tell them how proud we are of them. We provide funding for them. We give them training and take care of their families. What we are allowing to happen right now is the Defense Intelligence Agency to ruin the career and the life of a man who spent 23 years protecting his Nation. If Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer was telling this story alone in a vacuum, that would be one thing. But he has been corroborated over and over again. I have met with at least 10 people who fully corroborate what Tony Shaffer says. Those meetings with the FBI, the FBI employee still works there and she told the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, I set those meetings up with the FBI to transfer information about al Qaeda and Able Danger. So she is still there and she testified.

What we have here, I am convinced of this now, is an aggressive attempt by CIA management to cover up their own shortcomings in not being able to do what the Able Danger team did: They identified Mohammed Atta and the al Qaeda cell of Brooklyn 1 year before Р9/11. But even before that, as the story unfolds, you are going to hear the story that they also identified the threat to the USS Cole 2 weeks before the attack, and 2 days before the attack were screaming not to let the USS Cole come into the harbor at Yemen because they knew something was about to happen.

Mr. Speaker, bad news never comes easy; but in a democracy, the bad news has to come out so we can make sure it does not happen again.

Mr. Speaker, this whole thing started, not to embarrass anyone, this whole thing started because none of us knew that Mohammed Atta was identified before 9/11. It started because this Congress, this body in particular, tried to establish what is now in place back in 1999, a national collaborative center, but the CIA said we did not need it. The American people deserve to have the answers here. They deserve to know why 3,000 people died. They deserve to know what we could have done and should have done to better prepare ourselves and to work to prepare for the next incident. The American people need to know where those multiple terabytes of data is. Is it still being used? We know in January of 2001, General Shelton was given a 3-hour briefing on Able Danger. So even if they destroyed the data back in the summer of 2000, in January of 2001 there was enough material to give General Shelton, Commander of the Joint Chiefs, a 3-hour briefing.

Mr. Speaker, there is something here. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but there is something desperately wrong, Mr. Speaker. There is something outrageous at work here. This is not a third-rate burglary of a political campaign headquarters. This involved what is right now the covering up of information that led to the deaths of 3,000 people, changed the course of history, led to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and has disrupted our country, our economy and people's lives.

Mr. Speaker, we could ignore this. I cannot. If it means I have to resign from this body, I will resign. I will not allow, after 19 years in this body and as a vice chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, bureaucrats in the Defense Intelligence Agency to concoct stories, to talk about the theft of pens when this lieutenant colonel was 15 years old, to talk about this man's personal debt of $2,000. I would hate to check the indebtedness of Members of Congress. I know mine is more than $2,000.

Mr. Speaker, this is not America. I had a group of college students down from Drexel University. There were about 20 of them, including representative students from eight other nations. We talked about this. Of course we have talked about all of the problem countries in the world. We talk about our values as a Nation, the need for a democracy to have people involved, to have transparency, to have people who respect the rule of law and the Constitution.

How do I tell them that is what is working here, Mr. Speaker, when the Pentagon says that these people who simply want to tell the truth are not allowed? They are saying it is for classified purposes, yet the DOD lawyer on the Senate side there is nothing classified about any of the information. It is not about classified programs. I would be the last to want to see anything classified revealed. I have seen many, many instances where I have been given sensitive information that only a few people in the Congress and the country had. I would never reveal it. It is not about that. This is not about the DIA, this is not about the CIA, this is about CYA. It is about CYA by bureaucrats in the Defense Intelligence Agency and possibly some political operatives that do not want the facts to come out about Able Danger and the information that the Able Danger team put together. And in the process, they are going to destroy a man, a man who has been recognized by his country, who has a family, and who simply wants to do the right thing.

Mr. Speaker, I hated to take the floor tonight, but I did not know what else to do. We have committees of Congress working on this. I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), chairman of the FBI Appropriation Committee on Oversight. He is as outraged as I am. I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), who is looking at this, and the gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter). The Committee on Armed Services has a full-time staffer assigned to get to the facts of this. I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. King), chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, because he is looking at this. I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Chairman Hoekstra) and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He has met with Tony Shaffer and has offered to get more information. I want to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for standing up and beginning to ask questions, and I want to thank Senator Specter and Senator Biden, who attended a Committee on the Judiciary hearing and expressed their outrage. I want to thank Senator Sessions, Senator Kyl, and Senator Grassley, who were all there. In fact, Senator Grassley called it a coverup.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell you the number of Members who have come to me and said this is unacceptable. I would hope that as a result of what we have heard tonight every Member of Congress will ask for an inquiry. The gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. McKinney) wrote a letter to the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services asking for an investigation. We have from Republicans to Democrats, left to right, conservatives to liberals. What is happening here is unacceptable. It is unimaginable. It is un-American. All over the world tonight, young Americans are wearing our uniforms. They are doing a great job. They make us all proud when we travel overseas. They make us proud because of the pride they have. When I talk to them, they say I am glad to be doing what I am doing. I am doing the right thing for our country. I will go any place the Commander in Chief sends me. Whether I am in Afghanistan or Iraq, they will tell me that.

Whether we are in Kosovo or Somalia, they will tell us that. Whether we are at Hurricane Katrina, whether we are at Hurricane Andrew, or whether we are out in California, the earthquake, or the Midwestern floods, our troops are all the same. They respect our country. They respect our Constitution. If we allow this travesty to continue, Mr. Speaker, then we have let all of those people down for some nameless, faceless bureaucrat who is fearful that the information will finally come to light, that the DIA just did not get it.

Back in 1999 and 2000, they did not have a clue. They had millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, and could not do what a 20-member team did in being able to identify Mohammed Atta before the 9/11 attacks. DIA does not want that to come out, Mr. Speaker. They do not want that to come out. Heaven forbid the Defense Intelligence Agency, with hundreds of millions of dollars, would have a 20-member team do what they could not do because they were using new technology and new software. They do not want that to come out. That is why that Deputy Director, when he was at that meeting, said, I do not want to see this. Do not show it to me. And that is why today that Deputy Director is trying to ruin the career of Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer.

The only way to resolve this, Mr. Speaker, is to have a full independent investigation by the Inspector General of the Pentagon. I have asked Secretary Rumsfeld today to do that. I would ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in that request. Let the independent inspector for the Pentagon go in, not DIA. DIA cannot investigate itself. It does not have the capability to do that. It does not have the integrity to do that. Let the Inspector General do the investigation and while that is being done, protect Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer. He does not deserve to have his career ruined or destroyed for telling the truth.



And while we are at it, Mr. Speaker, if DIA is going to continue to press this ridiculous set of facts, then as I said earlier, I want DIA prosecuted for the five felonies they committed in sending classified documents to a person that 2 weeks earlier they said was incapable of receiving classified information. And if this continues, I want DIA held responsible for illegally transferring $500 of public assets to a person, that in the process of sending that stuff to him, DIA committed fraud against the taxpayers. I want them held accountable: DIA's stupidity; DIA's incompetence.

We have a new nominee for the head of DIA, and I am going to ask every Senator to fully explore each of these issues before that person is confirmed. I will meet with every Senator personally and go over all of this information. And I would encourage the Senators and the House Members to interview the other people who worked with Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer and to get their assessments of what is going on there. They will all tell them the same thing: Shaffer is being abused and used as a scapegoat. If they can ruin Shaffer, they can silence the story.

It cannot happen, Mr. Speaker. We cannot let it. That is not what America is about. That is not what we say to our enlisted personnel when they sign up for duty. That is not what we say when we pass our defense bills every year.

This man is being maligned and mistreated. He is being harassed. The most scurrilous accusations, totally unfounded, have been given to the American media; and I will name names, and I will ask for an investigation of the people who made those statements to these media people because it all needs to be put on the record.

And as someone tomorrow who will chair another hearing on our defense oversight to try to get the best value for the dollars for our military, I ask all of our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, on both sides of the aisle to join us. This is not Republicans or Democrats. It is about what is fundamental to this country. I would ask our constituents across America we represent to join us, to express their outrage, to e-mail, make phone calls, write letters to the Secretary of Defense, the President of the United States, to Members of Congress to simply let the story be told. Let the Able Danger story finally come out to the American people. Let them understand what really happened. Let Scott Philpott talk. Let Tony Shaffer talk. Let the others who have been silenced have a chance to tell their story to Congress and openly to the American people. In the end, the country will be stronger.

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U.S. Department of Defense
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
News Transcript



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Presenter: Various DoD Officials Thursday, September 1, 2005

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Special Defense Department Briefing

Participating in this brief were:



Mr. Bryan Whitman, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (Media Operations)



Ms. Pat Downs, Senior Policy Analyst, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Intelligence)



Mr. Thomas Gandy, Army G-2 Director of Counterintelligence and HUMINT



Mr. Bill Huntington, Vice Deputy Director for HUMINT, Defense Intelligence Agency



Cmdr. Christopher Chope, Center for Special Operations, U.S. Special Operations Command



Whitman: When I scheduled this particular room I hadn't anticipated that we would have these other activities that are going on down south, but I'm glad there are some of you here to report on this and have an interest in this.



As you know, the department has been aggressively looking into this Able Danger program since there were some allegations that were made some three weeks ago I think now, about three weeks. There's been a very extensive effort by the department to look broad, to look deep, and to document as well as to interviewing individuals that are associated with the project. Today we have reached the point where we're prepared to tell you what that broad and deep and extensive review has revealed to us.



I've got a number of subject matter experts here whose organizations were involved. By the mere fact of the representatives here you can see that this was not something that was just looked at narrowly. What we'll be able to do today is talk a little bit about what Able Danger was and maybe more importantly what it wasn't; what type of products were a result of this activity; discuss a little bit about some of the legal authorities and things that have been reported on, sometimes inaccurately about this; and to really talk to you a bit about our interactions with the 9/11 Commission when they were doing their work.



I got you all here under the guise of a background briefing, but I think what we'll do is, we've discussed this and these individuals have agreed to be on the record. There has been a lot of anonymous reporting on this which I think has been unhelpful. I hope that as you write these reports that you give weight to those people that have been directly involved in this effort and are on the record to discuss what the department has found for you on this.



With that they're going to kind of open up with a little bit of a presentation, talk about it just a little bit. Pat's going to start I think, Pat Down is going to start from the Under Secretary of Defense Intelligence Office. Then the commander here from Special Operations Command is going to give you a bit of a thumbnail on the activities. We've got some other subject matter experts if we get into Q&A that involves their areas. I promise not to make it too long because I know you all have day jobs on this other story too.



With that, Pat, why don't you go ahead and start us off.



Down: Let me give you an overview of what we have done to determine the facts concerning the recent public statements on Able Danger and where we are to date and what we've found. And then I'll turn it over to Commander Chope so he can give you background information on Able Danger. Some of you may not be as familiar with exactly what that is, what it isn't, and what the timeline is here. It can be confusing with all the various accounts that are in the press.



We have conducted two types of activities. One is extensive document searches from all the organizations including contracting firms that were associated with the Able Danger program. To date we have not identified the chart that is referenced in public statements by Mr. Schaeffer and Captain Philpot in particular, who say they saw a chart with the photo of Mohammed Attah and other hijackers, particularly Mohammed Attah, pre-9/11. We have not discovered that chart. We have identified a similar chart, but it does not contain the photo of Mohammed Attah or reference to him or reference to the other hijackers.



The second type of activity we've conducted is interviews of people involved, again associated with the Able Danger project. To date we've conducted interviews with 80 people, and that is still ongoing. We're not done yet. We're still refining the questions. As we talk to some people we have to come back to other and ask additional questions.



Most of those people do not recollect the existence of a chart with the picture of Mohammed Attah on it, or again, other hijackers pre-9/11. We have identified three other individuals besides Mr. Schaeffer and Captain Philpot who have a recollection of either a chart with a photo of Mohammed Attah or a reference to Mohammed Attah. That's basically where we are.



As I said, we continue, we also have searched the records, the documents that we sent to the 9/11 Commission just to be sure that our copies of those records don't include anything additional we might have missed, including a whole number of documents that were deemed non-responsive to Commission requests. It's possible we might have missed something in that collection. It's a fairly extensive collection. We have reviewed all that documentation and at this point have not identified, again, such a chart which references pre-9/11 hijackers.



Media: But the three people who do remember, those three people are from which agency or what's their function?



Down: We have from SOCOM, two individuals. One of those is Captain Philpot. We have, of course Tony Schaeffer, he's actually a DIA civilian employee. We have, the two other individuals are, one is from the Land Information Warfare Activity, the Army's Land Information Warfare Activity, now actually part of the Information Dominance Center. The last one is with the O'Ryan contractors.



Media: At the time.



Down: At the time, yes. And we can answer, Mr. Gandy can answer more questions on the contractors and some of these -- Five individuals all told. Four of them, five individuals including Captain Philpot and Mr. Schaeffer. Four of them remember a chart with a photo of Mohammed Attah pre-9/11; the fifth person remembers a chart with a reference to Mohammed Attah, but not a photo.



As I said, we're continuing to interview or re-interview based on what we've discovered so far to be sure that we're not missing anything.



I think it probably is a good idea at this point to turn it over to Commander Chope, and he'll describe to you what Able Danger is. I think that would be helpful. Again, describe some of the timelines because, as I said, we're confused by some of the reports out. We're trying to find the facts. Some of the various accounts have conflicted somewhat. I think it would be helpful to put this in some context for you.



Chope: I'm Commander Chope from the Special Operations Command and I'll offer a brief chronology and overview of what Able Danger was and try and dispel some of the myths and rumors surrounding the effort.



In early October 1999 the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff tasked the United States Special Operations Command with developing a campaign plan against transnational terrorism, specifically al-Qaida. That effort would result, or that tasking would result in a 15-month effort undertaken mostly out of Tampa, Florida with some peripheral collaborative partners, that would span a 15-month period. In order to accomplish this tasking SOCOM turned to an internal working group who again worked with elements within the Department of Defense and with the Department of the Army to construct this plan. Captain Scott Philpot, then Commander Scott Philpot was probably the team leader, you would call him, for the Able Danger effort.



Able Danger was never a special access program. Able Danger was never a military unit. Able Danger was never a targeting effort. It was not a military deception operation. It was merely the name attributed to a 15-month planning effort.



In January of 2001 the U.S. Special Operations Command delivered the final product of their plan which was a draft operations plan to the Joint Staff, and for all intents and purposes Able Danger ended at that time.



Media: Can you say how many people were involved in it?



Chope: From the Special Operations Command, probably ten people were involved throughout the effort.



Media: You say it wasn't military? It was --



Chope: It was not a military unit. It was a name given to the effort. It's like calling all of us in here Able Danger. That's not --



Media: Were they all military people?



Chope: No, not uniformed service members, no.



Media: You say it wasn't a targeting effort.



Chope: Correct.



Media: I'm very ignorant about military affairs, but wouldn't any kind of plan against transnational terrorism involve a list of targets?



Chope: It would, and that's a good question. Throughout the Able Danger effort we're going to talk about data mining and nodal analysis. What the data mining and nodal analysis actions were designed to do was characterize the al-Qaida terrorist network. Those were some of the tools they used in order to do that mapping, if you will. When I said it was not a targeting effort, I mean it was not meant to go after individual people. It was meant to determine vulnerabilities, key nodes, linkages among and within al-Qaida.



Media: Nodal analysis? What does that mean?



Chope: I think in layman's terms it means determining linkages and relationships among disparate entities.



Down: Looking for patterns based no previous activity.



Media: It would seem you would want to deal with individual names of people if you were trying to understand vulnerability and linkages. No?



Chope: I'm sure that they got to that level of detail, however when you look at the plan, what the task was rather, the task was develop a plan, so that was the focus of the effort. The effort was never determine which individuals we ought to roll up. Did Osama bin Laden's name come up? Of course it did. But as far as that granularity, that level of detail, that was not the desired or required level of effort on the project. It was a by-product.



Gandy: This is Tom Gandy from the Army. Let me just help out here a little. The way it works is there's a campaign plan and then if someone decides to act upon that plan they will give that plan to someone to execute. At that point you get into various specifics about how you're going to execute it, phases of the operation, what the targets are in each phase, and get really down to the down and dirty side of things.



But in a plan you're saying here's what we're trying to do against this threat element, in this case transnational terrorism, not al-Qaida, so it's a more generalized level. I'm just trying to help out there.



Media: Can I get some clarity on the subsets that people are talking about. There were ten in Able Danger.



Gandy: SOCOM personnel.



Media: SOCOM personnel. How large was Able Danger in all then?



Gandy: I would say in the 15-month period it waxed and wanted. It depended on which collaborative partner SOCOM dealt with at the time. AT some points there was a partnership with the Army; other points there were contracted personnel involved?



Media: What was the maximum number --



Media: Hang on just a second and let me finish this line of questioning.



So you've interviewed 80 people. Were all 80 of them Able Danger or were they people who got briefings by Able Danger? What is that universe that gave you 80 people?



Gandy: It probably spans both of those representations you just gave. Not only folks who were integrally involved in the effort, but also those that were peripherally involved. I don't think that we necessarily went out and amongst those 80 we'd count people who just happened to have been exposed. Those 80 I would say had something to do with Able Danger.



Media: And the five who have some recollection of something, are those Able Danger core members, are they people who received briefings, are they the peripherals?



Gandy: Out of the ten I quoted you, two of them are from that ten. So the other three would be from the other 70, if you will, if that math makes sense to you.



Media: So three are peripheral, quote/unquote, to use your phrase; and two are from Able Danger.



Gandy: No. The hard core U.S. SOCOM part of Able Danger was ten people. There were other collaborative partners who were as involved in Able Danger. I'm only speaking to the SOCOM Personnel involved in Able Danger with those ten. There were other people who were as involved in Able Danger during the time.



Media: Who were the five who have some recollection of something?



Gandy: We have two SOCOM personnel, one of whom is Captain Philpot, one is Mr. Schaeffer who is a DIA employee.



Down: Actually --



[Multiple voices].



Media: Just simple math here. This is a really --



Whitman: In the SOCOM people there's an unnamed analyst who's going to remain unnamed. Then there's Captain Philpot. Those are the two from the ten.



Media: Civilian analyst?



Whitman: Yes.



Media: But there are five with some recollection, so who are the other three?



Whitman: The other three, one was an analyst associated with the Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) which is the Army activity, one of the partners spoke of where LIWA was supporting the SOCOM effort for a period of time in the planning effort.



Another was a contractor who supported the Land Information Warfare activity. That's one of the other.



The other was Mr. Schaeffer.



Media: That's very helpful. Thank you.



Media: One further thing on that, how would you characterize, of those three people -- the analyst from LIWAC (sic) and the, well Schaeffer I think we know his relationship with Able Danger. But the other two. The analyst from LIWAC (sic) and the, associated with LIWAC (sic) and the contractor, how would you characterize their degree of -- Were they part of the core? Were they in the periphery, out of periphery?



Whitman: They were doing analysis and production support of requirements to help build the plan. So they were provided with requirements from the core group of SOCOM planners and they would try to meet those requirements of intelligence analytical products.



Media: Intelligence requirements.



Whitman: Right. It's LIWA, by the way, Activity. Not LIWAC.



Down: And Captain Philpot was more managing the whole effort. As opposed to an analyst.



Media: So five people remember this, but you haven't been able to come up with the chart. So you're not here telling us this chart does exist or doesn't exist.



Down: We don't know. We don't have it. We have not to date identified that chart, discovered it in our recent searches, nor did we pull it up during the life of the 9/11 Commission where the Commission itself did ask us, sent us two document requests for information on Able Danger. It was not pulled up at that time.



Media: What could have happened to it? Could someone have destroyed it to cover up?



Whitman: Let me say something there, just for any other questions that might come up too. We're not going to get into the business of speculating in terms of what might have happened. We're here today to present the facts as they exist and as we know them.



Like Pat was saying, what we know is that we didn't discover such a chart when we first responded to the Commission back in November and December of '03 and we haven't discovered such a chart in the current search. That's the facts. It's just not productive for us to get into speculating beyond what we actually know.



Media: Does that mean that because it was a classified operation a lot of documents including the chart could have been destroyed and that's why you can't find it?



Down: There are regulations. At the time how they were interpreted, very strictly pre-9/11, for destruction of information which is embedded, I guess is the way I would say it, that would contain any information on U.S. persons. In a major data mining effort like this you're reaching out to a lot of open sources and within that there could be a lot of information on U.S. persons. We're not allowed to collect that type of information. So there are strict regulations about collection, dissemination, destruction procedures for this type of information. And we know that that did happen in the case of Able Danger documentation.



Media: So it's possible then that this is how the chart cannot be found. Along with other documents, they could have been destroyed and that's why you can't corroborate what these people are saying or say it's wrong.



Down: Correct.



Media: What is the definition for U.S. person?



Down: I wish we had our lawyer here.



Chope: A U.S. citizen or someone who is in the country legally.



Media: So a tourist is a U.S. person.



Chope: Can be.



Media: Under what circumstances?



Chope: For instance on a work visa. I think it's more than just a tourist, on a work visa or something like that.



Media: But there are work visas that allow you to come, I’m here on one --



Gandy: We have a whole class on that if you'd like to attend it. I'll invite you. We have it annually.



We have lots of regulations on this that spell out precisely what they are. I'd hate to make an off-the-cuff comment here.



Media: Okay.



Gandy: But there are strict definitions.



Media: Maybe you can direct me to --



Gandy: Executive Order 12333. You can go on the web tonight and do it. DoD Directive 5240-1R.



Media: That does not --



Gandy: And Army Regulation 381-10.



Media: Does that mean there could have been legal advice given by the department or somebody within SOCOM to destroy it before it got out of the military's possession?



Chope: We have negative indications that that was ever the case. We've spoken to all the attorneys at all levels of command and organization that were involved with Able Danger, and there was no legal advice given along those lines.



Media: That lines?



Chope: Along the lines to destroy anything.



Down: We have not discovered that legal advice was given to date.



Media: On this chart, can you say approximately what the date of the chart is these five people recall? And do all of them recall not only Attah, but the other hijackers?



Down: Maybe Tom can help with the details of the interviews, but I believe Captain Philpot says he saw the chart in January, February 2000. That's the general reference point.



Media: Are you saying that the recollections of Schaeffer and Philpot are incredible?



Down: They're our starting point. They're DoD people who -- Captain Philpot, or then Commander during when the 9/11 Commission was wrapping up, came to us and said I have this information. We took him to the 9/11 Commission to examine it further. It's really up to the Commission to determine the relevancy of the information.



Fortunately, Captain Philpot or then Commander Philpot did not have documentation either, and so the staff questioned, and you can talk to the 9/11 Public Discourse Project where the two former chairmen of the Commission now work. But in terms of the clarity of the dates, when things were produced. At the time that Commander Philpot spoke with the Commission, the Commission staff at that time believed it wasn't strong enough evidence, especially without documentation, to make a change in their report which was at that time being coordinated with us and had already been drafted.



Media: So now that you have three other individuals corroborating this chart, saying they've seen this chart, are you going back to brief the Discourse Project now? The 9/11 Commission?



Down: No, not at this point, but we will be shortly. Or at least --



Media: Has anything changed. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.



Down: That's okay.



Media: Has anything changed about the way that U.S. persons who get sucked up in a data mining operation would be handled today as opposed to how they might have -- completely independent of this. Say if my name gets sucked up into a database tomorrow morning would it be handled differently today than it would have before 9/11?



Down: My understanding is that the same procedures are in place. We may exercise some flexibility, but I have to be careful here because the same procedures, the same regulations, they are still accurate. We have to be very careful of what we protect against U.S. persons --



Media: -- different or --



Down: Again I have to be careful. The procedures stand and I really can't speak for the analytical side at the moment, but I would think that in the post-9/11 mindset --



Chope: Let me get into some of the problems we have. We're looking back about 5.5 years. Data mining is a relatively new thing in the intelligence community. They were not using the most sophisticated tools. They were using what tools were available. Sophisticated at the time, but compared to now of course we're Moore's law a couple of times down and we've got a lot better tools. So at this point now in the analytical side, we're a lot better in identifying the type of data we get and where we get it from. Back then you would do what they called a web crawl and you'd get a lot of data and it would go in one pile.



Now when we put the data in a pile we tag it, you've heard about XML tagging and those sorts of things. So we understand where the data came from better, we understand the nature of that, and we have tools to help us identify the data.



So while the procedures haven't changed, the interpretation has probable become a little more flexible with hindsight on 9/11, a little more flexible, but we still have the procedures in place, believe me, and we have the training, but we also have the better ability now to say okay, this data came from this source, it's a U.S. person that has nothing to do with our problem set and we can expunge it a lot more easily than we could in the past. In the old days it was kind of an all or nothing.



Media: All these questions about Able Danger seem to sound like how could you possibly have missed Mohammed Attah did this, but I'm wondering if Mohammed Attah came in under the same circumstances at the same time tomorrow, he would still be of the same class. Wouldn't they get ditched, thrown out? Not that that's what happened with this, but if you were to tag him as a U.S. person wouldn't he automatically be thrown out of the data base tomorrow just as --



Chope: I don't know.



Media: Can you say whether you have gone through all the documents yet? You say you you're now going back and reintegrating, but have you looked through all the documents? Is that why you're here, to say you've completed that?



Down: We have done extensive searches including the documents that we delivered to the 9/11 Commission and the group of documents that were deemed unresponsive to the Commission's particular request. There are boxes and boxes of these.



As you can imagine, an organization as large as DoD with the speed at which we had to respond to the Commission's request, there were numerous documents that came through for all 39 of the Commission's requests that weren't really relevant to specific requests. So we have like a non-responsive pile. We weeded those out. If we had any doubt we left it up to the Commission to decide. It's their job to decide what's really relevant for them. But we went back through the old piles just to be sure we had not missed anything or to see if we could potentially identify this chart. And in terms of the other organizations, there have been very extensive document searches.



Media: Is there an estimate about how many pages you searched?



Down: Oh, boy --



Chope: We did a complete electronic search --



Down: Pages.



Chope: All holdings, physical searches, --



Down: Hundreds of thousands probably.



Media: Are you done with your effort?



Down: Including electronic files, of pages



Media: I'm sorry. Are you done with your review? Is this, are you finished or is this ongoing?



Down: Not in terms of the interview process. But in terms of document searches, unless there is some other source of documents that we find out through the interview process that we haven't looked at, and again, we haven't identified what that would be, right now we are complete on our document.



Media: Can I just return briefly on this chart that had Attah's picture or reference, did the chart, did all the people have a recollection that the other hijackers who have been mentioned were also on the chart or just Attah?



Chope: Most of the discussion's been about Attah --



Whitman: Before we get into that, let's address the question. You said the chart that had Attah on it. We have not found a chart that had Attah on it. I just want to make sure --



Media: You said five people said they recall --



Whitman: I just didn't want that to be out there as that there is a chart that exists that has Attah on it. Okay?



Chope: If there was a chart with Attah, [Laughter].



Whitman: It's important.



Media: These five people recall, do they recall it having Attah and additional hijackers on it?



Chope: I can't be certain. That would really be the, then Commander Philpot would be the one. The remainder talk about Attah and a picture, or Attah's name. The one person who only saw a name and no picture, and the others saw a picture and a name.



Media: So Philpot is the only one who recalls other hijackers?



Chope: I believe, but I'd have to check the notes I have from the discussions we had.



Media: Let me go back to the U.S. persons question for a second. To what extent did any controversy over that issue lead to the shutdown of this program? I talked to several people who said there was a separate program developing. They were looking at Chinese tech transfer. It wasn't Able Danger, but it used some of the same personnel, some of the same facilities at LIWA and came up with a name list of some very prominent U.S. persons and led to somebody saying terminate this thing. Is there any truth to that at all?



Chope: No. It had nothing -- There was a prior effort involved with those topics that you mentioned. That effort ended with a subpoena by Congress in November of '99. That was the end of it. It was a completely different target, different subjects, different data, everything.



Media: You say ended with a subpoena from Congress. From where? From which committee?



Chope: I'm not sure about the committee. That was a completely different effort. There were similar tools, but you've got to remember back here, let me just for the Land Information Warfare Activity, this was very experimental stuff back then. So what that was about was demonstrating can experimental stuff like this be useful in helping us solve some technology transfer riddles. That was kind of the purpose of that effort. That effort ended in the LIWA's eyes in November. LIWA did a lot of other analytical projects. That's what they do. They do intelligence analysis.



Media: -- open source, classified?



Chope: In which?



Media: In both.



Chope: In Able Danger it was mixed, both open source and classified.



Media: The five people that recall seeing either Attah's name or photograph on the charts, do they have any recollection of where that photograph might have come from, number one? How many people's names were on that chart? Was it five, was it 10,000?



Chope: We don't know what was on the chart.



Media: In their recollection, what is their recollection of that chart?



Chope: It's different compared to any person you talk to.



Gandy: Captain Philpot will contend there are upwards of 60 names on that chart. Not all of them will have photographs attributed to them. Some will just be outlined silhouettes of a head.



Media: Given the differences in their recollection, are their claims considered credible?



Chope: Don't know. We're just in the fact-finding mode.



Media: This is kind of a fair question, actually. We won't ask you to do hypotheticals or conjectures, but you all live in a world of analyzing data. Clearly if you're supervisors or Dr. Cambone said to you want do you think now? You’ve now gone from two to five people who recall it. You haven't found the document. What do you think?



Down: These people are, Captain Philpot for instance and the others, especially the ones that are involved in data mining, the contracting firms, are credible people. Again, we just -- We are unable to again provide corroborating evidence. We just, as I've said, can't find the document. But as I said, they are credible people.



Media: What do you make of that? That disparity. How do you conclude?



Chope: We can only hypothesize on how this --



Down: I don't --



Chope: -- might have come about is all you can do, hypothesize.



I agree with Pat. Most of the people involved in this are credible folks. We've checked out everything they've said. We can go to the same group of people you would think were sitting next to each other and say did you see a chart with a picture of Attah on it? No, no, no, yes. That's kind of the situation we're in right now. We drill into that and we still have the no, no, no, yes kind of situation.



Media: If these people are credible, what could account for this difference in your view?



Down: I don't know. We've seen a chart with different Mohammed's on them. Is it possible that Mohammed Ajaz, Mohammed -- what's the other one.



Chope: Arateff.



Down: Arateff, thank you. So we have charts with those names but not Mohammed Attah. Is there confusion there? Again, we don't know. We simply don't know. Was the reference to Mohammed Attah, did it come out early on in a chart? In that case if it came out early on, were there any kind of concerns which we again can't corroborate for our interviews. If it came out early, such as in a proof of concept chart, we may never find it.



So as I said, we haven't found any supporting evidence at this point, especially that documentation, to back those claims up.



[Multiple voices].



Down: We didn't, no.



Media: -- head of Special Ops at the time, wasn't he?



Chope: -- do not.



Media: You do not?



Down: Not yet.



Media: Can I ask a real basic question here? This effort to try to get to the bottom of this, this is responsive to Congress, to a directive from the Secretary, to what? Maybe you got into that in the beginning or maybe everyone in here knows it but me, I just -- You're getting to the bottom of this because Congress wants an answer or because you just want to know, because we're all asking these questions and you want us to shut up? [Laughter].



Down: Maybe all of the above. We --



Chope: -- Cambone has directed that we do fact-finding and find the facts in this case. Each of the components involved, SOCOM as the headquarters and supporting agencies have stepped forward and are doing their part to try and figure out what the facts are.



Media: Can I ask another question about the lawyers? You said I think that you had negative indication that that has happened, i.e. the destruction of documents.



Chope: That was taken a little out of context. No lawyer ever directed any Able Danger personnel to destroy documents. Any destruction of documents was conducted in accordance with established regulations and directives.



Media: What about the question of the meetings with the FBI?



Chope: Aside from the statements by Mr. Schaeffer and Captain Philpot we have found no corroborating statements or evidence or whatever you want to call it to that effect in the course of our interviews.



Media: So you talked to all of the lawyers who might have tried to stop this because it was U.S. person information and couldn't be disseminated to domestic agencies. And no one remembers --



Chope: We have talked to all the lawyers involved in the project and there is no hindrance upon the sharing of information.



Gandy: We know that data was destroyed, the Land Information Warfare Activity. But it was destroyed in compliance with our intelligence oversight directives, 12333, DoD 5240-1R, et cetera. So it was destroyed in complete protocols, normal protocols that we would follow with any kind of U.S. person data. It wasn't destroyed because a lawyer came in and said you've got to get rid of this stuff. It was the clock is ticking, show us how you can pull this U.S. person information out of here or not, you can't do it we have protocols and directives to comply with, we're going to comply, and they did. That's how the data was destroyed at LIWA and I believe later on in SOCOM was in a similar manner destroyed.



Media: So the people involved in the project were asked whether there was a way that they could extract intelligence which could be shared from this massive data that they had from this pile you talked about --



Gandy: I think you're confusing the sharing of data -- Data can be shared with anybody. U.S. person data can be shared in a wide variety of situations. We do that every day in the Department of Defense. For instance on the counter-intelligence side of the house which I am responsible for for the Army, our intelligence agents share information every day with the FBI no U.S. persons, and who has primacy in an investigation, and who doesn't. It's all laid out in the protocols surrounding EO-12333 and 5240, our counter-intelligence regulations. Promulgation of those sharing agreements. So we can share data with U.S. persons.



In this case because of the nature in which the data was collected, now we're 5.5 years ago. It was a gobbling up of a lot of data from a lot of sources and put in one pile. You had this commingling of U.S. person data with lots of other data, and there was no way to really pull it out. So the protocols were applied as they stood and really as they stand saying do you have a reason to do this. Like in the counter-intelligence case we have a reason, that we're doing a counter-espionage investigation or we're doing a force protection investigation. In this case there was no perceived imminent threat, imminent crime going to occur, any danger, those kinds of things that say that you can share it. That was not perceived to be the case in these situations and it was destroyed.



Media: So the identification of individuals who were linked to al-Qaida inside the United States was not perceived as an imminent threat after the USS Cole and after the embassy bombings --



Gandy: We don't know that they identified those people in this data.



Media: You say there was no imminent threat, there was no perceived imminent threat.



Gandy: That might be a reason you would keep the data. Those are the kind of reasons we're allowed to keep data about U.S. persons.



Media: And share it, right?



Gandy: Absolutely. It depends on the situation. If that person, for instance, if that person is located overseas, then you would share it with a different group of people than if the person was located in the United States. Just that there are links established doesn't really mean anything. And by the way, some of these links, in the primacy of this technology you get some very goofy links that require research. In fact when we interviewed these analysts to a person they said what was the nature of the stuff? They said you really need to dig into this to find out what these links meant.



Media: I was told that the, after the data run had been done on unclassified data bases it was then scrubbed against classified data in order to try and do this process. Like burrowing in and finding out what the links might be and which might be meaningful and so on. Have you been able to discover whether this chart that these five people remember was the product of a first stage of that or a second stage?



Gandy: One, we don't know there's a chart. But if there was a chart we believe it came from open source information.



Media: And not being scrubbed against classified --



Gandy: I don't know.



Media: Just to return to the question of the lawyers, Schaeffer said there were two occasions on which military lawyers intervened, the first was he said, that the military couldn't do anything with it and then when he tried to take it to the FBI again -- But you're saying that no -- Can you clarify exactly what you're saying about what the lawyers did? The document destruction stuff was SOP. You haven't found anything about a meeting with the FBI. I mean apart from the SOP on document destruction, what role did the regulations about U.S. persons and the legal interpretation of those made by lawyers of SOCOM play in how this all played out?



Gandy: Intelligence oversight drives how long we can store information on U.S. persons. It's really proscribed pretty clearly.



Media: Any activity that was proposed by people involved in Able Danger that was prohibited by lawyers --



Gandy: No. That's not the lawyers' job in this kind of a, in any situation within here. Their job is to give advice to the commander. The commander makes the ultimate determination. In no way, shape or form did the lawyers dissuade or hinder people from turning information over.



Media: The additional three people that recall seeing references to Mohammed Attah, do any of them recall what that was based on? You said --



Gandy: We asked where did this data come from and the person who saw the name and not the face couldn't tell. What it comes from is a big large conglomeration of data from lots of sources, and you drag a problem set through this data and you get lots of linkages and then you research the linkages is how it works.



We asked every single analyst if there was such a chart where would the data from that have come from? They didn't know. What they're doing is this huge data mining and they just get a pile of data, and in those days -- Now if you say okay, I have this piece of information, you could probably trace it back to its original parentage.



Media: But not in those days.



Gandy: In those days I think you could with some of the tools, but it depends upon analyst input to the tools, the linkages and all. They had some capability to do that because they would describe an anecdote where they'd say we'll read this information, and they'd say well, it's from a web site. They got to the web site it's kind of like a goofball web site. Then okay, get rid of that stuff. It's from something that really is not credible information. So they had some capability but I don't think they had the capability to scrub it in the fashion that the oversight rules could live with.



Media: The documents that were destroyed, is there a, if it's a standard operating procedure, are there rudimentary records that are kept of what documents are destroyed?



Gandy: There are certificates of destruction. What you'll have, traditionally for electronic it's very difficult. They'll say I destroyed so many disc drives, so many zip drives, so many CD roms were in the cruncher, that kind of stuff. You have lots and lost of data. So it's very general in nature.



Media: It doesn't really identify --



Gandy: It would never go down like in an index fashion or an inventory fashion. For those volumes of data it would say, the Y drive on this server at this place was wiped on this day, certified by the technician