Able Danger

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Able Danger was a small, highly classified U.S. Army intelligence program under the command of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC). It was created as a result of a directive in early October 1999 by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hugh Shelton, to USASOC to develop a campaign plan against transnational terrorism, "specifically al-Qaida." According to claims made by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and confirmed by four others, Able Danger had identified the 9/11 attack leader, Mohamed Atta, and three other 9/11 hijackers as possible members of an al Qaeda cell operating in the United States by mid-2000, more than a year before the attack. Data mining has been cited as the method by which this information was found. The claim appears to contradict the official conclusion of the 9/11 Commission that American intelligence agencies had not identified Atta as a terrorist prior to the attack. This has resulted in a political controversy that has begun to damage the credibility of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission.

A new data mining effort based on a reconstituted Able Danger type team called "Able Providence" has been proposed by Congressman Weldon.[1]


Contents

Assertion that Able Danger identified 9/11 hijackers

The existence of Able Danger and its claimed identification of the 9/11 terrorists was first disclosed publicly on June 27 2005, by Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, in a special orders speech on the House floor [2].

Mr. Speaker, I rise because information has come to my attention over the past several months that is very disturbing. I have learned that, in fact, one of our Federal agencies had, in fact, identified the major New York cell of Mohamed Atta prior to 9/11; and I have learned, Mr. Speaker, that in September of 2000, that Federal agency actually was prepared to bring the FBI in and prepared to work with the FBI to take down the cell that Mohamed Atta was involved in in New York City, along with two of the other terrorists. I have also learned, Mr. Speaker, that when that recommendation was discussed within that Federal agency, the lawyers in the administration at that time said, you cannot pursue contact with the FBI against that cell. Mohamed Atta is in the U.S. on a green card, and we are fearful of the fallout from the Waco incident. So we did not allow that Federal agency to proceed.

Able Danger and the 9/11 Commission

Weldon's claims that Able Danger identified the 9/11 hijackers were picked up by the national media in August 2005 after it was reported in Government Security News [3]. In addition to the claim that Able Danger identified the 9/11 hijackers and was prevented from passing that information onto the FBI, Weldon also claimed that the intelligence concerning Able Danger was provided to the 9/11 Commission and ignored. Two 9/11 Commission members, Timothy J. Roemer and John F. Lehman, both claimed not to have received any information on Able Danger.

Following the report in Government Security News, members of the 9/11 Commission began commenting on the information they had on Able Danger and Atta. Lee H. Hamilton, former Vice Chair of the 9/11 Commission, and Al Felzenberg, a former spokesman for the 9/11 Commission, both denied that the 9/11 Commission had any information on the identification of Mohammed Atta prior to the attacks. Hamilton stated that The Sept. 11 commission did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of surveillance of Mohammed Atta or of his cell . . . Had we learned of it obviously it would've been a major focus of our investigation. [4][5][6]

On August 12 2005, Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, former Chair and Vice Chair of the 9/11 Commission, issued a statement [7] in response to media inquiries about the Commission's investigation of the Able Danger program. They stated that the Commission had been aware of the Able Danger program and requested and obtained information about it from the Department of Defense (DoD), but none of the information provided had indicated that the program had identified Atta or other 9/11 hijackers. They further stated that a claim about Atta having been identified prior to the attacks had been made to the 9/11 Commission on July 12, 2004 (just days before the Commission's report was released), by a U.S. Navy officer employed at DOD, but that

The interviewee had no documentary evidence and said he had only seen the document briefly some years earlier. He could not describe what information had led to this supposed Atta identification. Nor could the interviewee recall, when questioned, any details about how he thought a link to Atta could have been made by this DOD program in 2000 or any time before 9/11. The Department of Defense documents had mentioned nothing about Atta, nor had anyone come forward between September 2001 and July 2004 with any similar information. Weighing this with the information about Atta's actual activities, the negligible information available about Atta to other U.S. government agencies and the German government before 9/11, and the interviewer's assessment of the interviewee's knowledge and credibility, the Commission staff concluded that the officer's account was not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the report or further investigation.

Congressman Weldon issued a response to the 9/11 Commission statement [8] clarifying the mission of Able Danger, expressing concern over the statements made by various members of the 9/11 Commission, and promising to push forward until it is understood why the DoD was unable to pass the information uncovered by Able Danger to the FBI and why the 9/11 Commission failed to follow up on the information they were given on Able Danger.

The 9/11 Commission has released multiple statements over the past week, each of which has significantly changed — from initially denying ever being briefed to acknowledging being briefed on both operation ABLE DANGER and Mohammed Atta. The information was omitted primarily because they found it to be suspect despite having been briefed on it two times by two different military officers on active duty. Additionally, the 9/11 Commission also received documents from the Department of Defense on ABLE DANGER.

Congressman Weldon reiterated these statements in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 21, 2005. [9] The Senate Judiciary Committee will be looking into these claims.

Able Danger Data Destroyed

In his book Countdown to Terror [10] Weldon asserted that an Able Danger chart produced in 1999 identifying 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi had been presented to then-Deputy National Security Advisor Jim Steinberg. Weldon went on to claim that he had personally presented the chart to then-Deputy National Security Advisor Steve Hadley in 2001 days after the 9/11 attacks.

A Time magazine article dated August 14, 2005, [11] reports that Weldon admitted he is no longer sure that Atta's name was on the chart he presented to Hadley and that he was unable to verify whether this was the case, having handed over his only copy, and that a reconstruction was used for post-9/11 presentations. Weldon gave a talk at the Heritage Foundation with a chart he described as the one handed over on May 23, 2002. [12](Time 33:33).

House intelligence committee chairman Peter Hoekstra is currently investigating the matter at Weldon's request, but is reported by Time as having cautioned against "hyperventilating" before the completion of a "thorough" probe.

Pentagon officials said they were unaware that any Able Danger material named Atta. They declined to comment on the reports as they worked to clarify the matter.

"There's something very sinister going on here that really troubles me," Weldon told FOX News on August 25, blasting the Sept. 11 commission for not investigating the Able Danger claims. Weldon said some panel members were trying to smear Shaffer and Able Danger.

"What's the Sept. 11 commission got to hide?" Weldon asked. "The commission is trying to spin this because they're embarrassed about what's coming out. In two weeks with two staffers, I've uncovered more in this regard than they did with 80 staffers and $15 million of taxpayer money." [13]

On August 14, Mike Kelly, a columnist for the Bergen Record (New Jersey), described a telephone interview, arranged by the staff of Rep. Weldon, with a man who identified himself as a member of the Able Danger team but asked that his name not be revealed. [14] In the interview the man claimed that his team had identified Mohamed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers as likely al Qaeda terrorists operating in the United States, but were prevented from passing this information on to the FBI by government lawyers. He also claimed that he was ignored by the 9/11 Commission's staff when he approached them on two occasions to explain Able Danger's work.

On September 15, Weldon asserted that he had identified an employee who had been ordered to destroy the 2.5 terabytes (TB) of data collected by Able Danger two years before the 9/11 attack.[15] For comparison, all the books in the U.S. Library of Congress combined contain approximately 20TB of text.


Able Danger's 2.5 Terabytes is a small percentage of all available internet data. A University of California at Berkeley study showed that, in 2002, 532,897 terabytes of new data flowed across the Internet, 440,606 terabytes of email was sent, and the Web contained 167 terabytes of data that was accessible to all users, plus another 91,850 terabytes in the deep Web where access is controlled. Data collected by data mining techniques, such as was used in Able Danger, could result in a large amounts of data.

Comments by members of the Able Danger team

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer

After Weldon's assertions were disputed by the media, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a member of the Able Danger team, identified himself as Weldon's source. Shaffer claimed that he alerted the FBI in September 2000 about the information uncovered by the secret military unit "Able Danger," but he alleges three meetings he set up with bureau officials were blocked by military lawyers. Shaffer, who currently works for the Defense Intelligence Agency, claims he communicated to members of the 9/11 Commission that Able Danger had identified two of the three cells responsible for 9/11 prior to the attacks, but the Commission did not include this information in their final report. [16]

Shaffer's lawyer, Mark Zaid, has revealed that Shaffer had been placed on paid administrative leave for what he called "petty and frivolous" reasons and had his security clearance suspended in March 2004 following a dispute over travel mileage expenses and personal use of a work cell phone. [17]

Congressman Weldon has asked for a new probe into the activities undertaken to silence Lt. Col Shaffer public comment on Able Danger and Able Danger's identification of the 9/11 hijackers. Weldon called the activities "a deliberate campaign of character assassination." [18]

Shaffer has also told the story of CIA opposition to Able Danger, prior to 9/11, based on the view Able Danger was encroaching on CIA turf. According to Shaffer, the CIA representative said, "I clearly understand. We're going after the leadership. You guys are going after the body. But, it doesn't matter. The bottom line is, CIA will never give you the best information from 'Alex Base' or anywhere else. CIA will never provide that to you because if were successful in your effort to target Al Qaeda, you will steal our thunder. Therefore, we will not support this." [19]

Navy Captain Scott Philpott

Capt. Scott Philpott, an expert in futuristic naval warfare, confirmed Shaffer's claims. "I will not discuss this outside of my chain of command," Philpott said in a statement to Fox News. "I have briefed the Department of the Army, the Special Operations Command and the office of (Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence) Dr. Cambone as well as the 9/11 Commission. My story has remained consistent. Atta was identified by Able Danger in January/February 2000," he wrote. [20]

Mr. J.D. Smith

Shaffer's claims were also confirmed by J.D. Smith, a civilian contractor who worked on Able Danger. In an interview with Fox News, Smith reported that the project had involved analysis of data from a large number of public sources and 20 to 30 individuals. [21]

Smith stated that Atta's name had emerged during an examination of individuals known to have ties to Omar Abdel Rahman, a leading figure in the first World Trade Center bombing.

Anonymous Pentagon sources have alleged that Smith was fired after a similar data analysis project to examine Chinese strategic and business connections in the U.S. identified Condoleezza Rice and former Defense Secretary William Perry based on their associations through Stanford University [22]. Kevin Drum has interpreted these allegations as a possible attempt to construct an alibi, and hence an indication that it is likely that Able Danger did identify a person named Mohamed Atta as a terrorist [23].

Major Eric Kleinsmith

Major Eric Kleinsmith, who was with the Army and chief of intelligence for LIWA until February 2001, testified that he was ordered to destroy Able Danger’s information. “I deleted the data,” he said. “There were two sets, classified and unclassified, and also an ‘all sorts,’ ” which contained a blend of the two, “plus charts we’d produced.” Kleinsmith deleted the 2.5Tbytes of data in May and June 2000 on orders of Tony Gentry, general counsel of the Army Intelligence and Security Command. [24]

Other Witnesses

The Defense Department announced its findings on September 1, 2005, after a three-week investigation into Able Danger [25]. The DoD admitted that they have found three other witnesses in addition to Shaffer and Philpott who confirm Able Danger had produced a chart that "either mentioned Atta by name as an al-Qaida operative [and/or] showed his photograph." Four of the five remember the photo on the chart. The fifth remembers only Atta being cited by name. The Pentagon describes the witnesses as "credible" but did not rule out the possibility that their recollections were faulty. [26]

Media Comment

Fox News pundit Bill O'Reilly and others have asserted that the Able Danger intelligence was suppressed as a result of a policy of forbidding the CIA and FBI to share intelligence known as "the wall." During the 9/11 Commission hearings, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft testified the wall was strengthened under the Clinton administration by Jamie Gorelick to prohibit sharing of terrorist intelligence within the federal government. [27]

This assertion was disputed by former senator Slade Gorton (R-WA), a member of the 9-11 Commission, who said, "nothing Jamie Gorelick wrote had the slightest impact on the Department of Defense or its willingness or ability to share intelligence information with other intelligence agencies." Gorton also asserted that "the wall" was a long-standing policy that had resulted from the Church committee in the 1970s, and that the policy only prohibits transfer of certain information from prosecutors to the intelligence services and never prohibited information flowing in the opposite direction.

Gorelick's presence as a member of the 9/11 Commission, and her refusal to recuse herself from judgements of her activities, has deepened the controversy surrounding the commission and Able Danger. The controversy is beginning to erode the credibility of the 9/11 Commission in areas outside of Able Danger as well. Columnist Mike Kelly has written that the 9/11 Commission's work is "under a cloud." [28]

Skepticism

The Two Attas Theory

Mickey Kaus of Slate.com [29], referring to Tom Maguire's Two Attas theory [30], speculates that "the 'Atta' fingered by Able Danger was really the first, 'Abu Nidal' Atta, and not the second, 9/11 'Al Qaeda' Atta," and that this may help explain this Able Danger issue. Snopes.com clarified a widely circulated email that claimed the two Atta's were one and the same [31].

Another variation of the Two Attas theory reported by Kaus notes that Omar Abdel Rahman also had an associate with the name Mohamed El-Amir (a name sometimes used by Atta) who was not the Mohamed Atta involved in the 9/11 hijacking [32].

However, Shaffer clarified that. He told 9/11 Commission staffers Able Danger identified terrorist cells and not just individual terrorists, and that the New York City al-Qaeda cell included Mohamed Atta and two other 9/11 terrorists. A fourth 9/11 terrorist came from the second cell. [33] Eric Umansky states the problem this way: "In fact, the two-Atta theory only leaves one major issue unexplained: What about the three other 9/11 hijackers that Able Danger purportedly fingered? Possible answers: 1) Mr. Shaffer was embellishing. (Has he named the specific hijackers who were purportedly ID'd?) 2) They indeed were named and--just like Atta may be--are also cases of mistaken identity. That would be understandable." [34]

Timing

Kevin Drum writing for the Washington Monthly notes that reports of the precise date at which the information was allegedly passed to the FBI vary considerably. It is most unlikely that Able Danger would have identified a terrorist called "Mohamed Atta" before May 2000.

Since 9/11, of course, we have retrieved every scrap of information ever known about Mohamed Atta, so we know what information would have been available to the Able Danger data mining operation. And what we know is that Mohamed Atta sent his first email to friends in the U.S. in March 2000 and received his first U.S. visa on May 18, 2000. Moreover, that was the first time he had ever gone by the name "Mohamed Atta." His full name is "Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta," and prior to 2000 he went by "Mohamed el-Amir."

Congressional Hearings

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter held a hearing on September 21, 2005, looking into the facts about Able Danger. However, Lt. Col Shaffer and the other four members of Able Danger were ordered not to testify by the Department of Defense. Senator Specter decided to go forward with the hearings hoping "to produce a change of heart by the Department of Defense." [35]

Senator Specter wondered if the Posse Comitatus Act may have been the reason Defense Department attorneys would not allow Able Danger to turn over information to the FBI. The Posse Comitatus Act prevents the military from being engaged in law enforcement activities, including gathering information on U.S. persons. Speaking on behalf of Lt. Col Shaffer, attorney Mark Zaid testified "Those within Able Danger were confident they weren't compiling information on US persons. They were potentially people connected to US persons." [36]

Former Army Major Erik Kleinsmith, former head of the Pentagon's Land Warfare Analysis Department, testified that he was instructed to destroy data and documents related to Able Danger in May and June of 2000. The instruction came from a top Pentagon lawyer. He testified, "I go to bed every night and other members of our team do as well [thinking] that if [Able Danger] had not been shut down that we would have at least been able to prevent something or assist the United States in some way. Could we have prevented 9/11? I could never speculate to that extent." [37] [38]

See also

External links

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