UPDATED: Able Danger: It’s time for President Bush to address this
I haven’t written about the military’s Able Danger “data-minig” operation and Rep. Curt Weldon’s accusations that the outfit had identified four 9/11 hijackers prior to the 9/11 attacks. Several things struck me as curious for an allegation of this magnitude, among them: (1) no available paper trail; (2) no knowledgeable Defense official or officer involved providing information “on background”, much less speaking on the record. Allegations of conspiracy don’t impress me; facts do– and I wasn’t getting facts.
That being said, I thought many of the folks serving on the 9/11 panel were weak, pompous politicos — placed there because of personal political connections, not defense and intelligence acumen or reputation for careful analysis. However, Lee Hamilton and Tom Kean have credibility, and they were the men who led the commission. If Able Danger had evidence, I expected Kean and Hamilton to demand to see it and vet it.
Yesterday Fox, the AP and NY Times changed the dimensions of this story. I’m still not certain where the allegations will lead, but we now have an officer involved providing details. How clear and detailed was the Able Danger information? We still don’t know– Weldon’s and Shaffer’s allegations could still unravel if the information amounts to “hearsay.”
But today the Times reports:
A military intelligence team repeatedly contacted the F.B.I. in 2000 to warn about the existence of an American-based terrorist cell that included the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a veteran Army intelligence officer who said he had now decided to risk his career by discussing the information publicly.
The officer, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, said military lawyers later blocked the team from sharing any of its information with the bureau.
Colonel Shaffer said in an interview on Monday night that the small, highly classified intelligence program, known as Able Danger, had identified the terrorist ringleader, Mohamed Atta, and three other future hijackers by name by mid-2000, and tried to arrange a meeting that summer with agents of the Washington field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to share its information. ..
The “wall” between mil/CIA and the police serves a definite civil purpose. That wall has lowered significantly in the past–when we were at war. It’s been lowered since 9/11. Until 9/11 America did not consider the terrorists’ attacks as war. Washington treated the terrorists as criminals. That was the strategic error, no matter what you think of Clinton or Bush.
If Jamie Gorelick wasn’t the weakest commission member, she was the most compromised. Gorelick should have recused herself from participation on the 9/11 Commission– because she did “raise the wall” during the Clinton Administration. Had she done that she would have enhanced her reputation. But she didn’t.
LTC Shaffer told the NY Times:
He said he learned later that lawyers associated with the Special Operations Command of the Defense Department had canceled the F.B.I. meetings because they feared controversy if Able Danger was portrayed as a military operation that had violated the privacy of civilians who were legally in the United States.
“It was because of the chain of command saying we’re not going to pass on information - if something goes wrong, we’ll get blamed,” he said.
I’ll defer to my wife — who is a lawyer– on this point. She says attorneys are trained to say no and raise objections. They’ll hesistate because they anticipate an ACLU law suit and a DC political firestorm. A senior military commander will focus on the potential for attack — he knows the American people are “the final client” and will weigh the data with that in mind. So far there is no evidence that says any discussion between attorneys and senior commanders took place.
It’s time for the President to make a statement about Able Danger, even something as simple as “the lieutenant-colonel’s statements require further investigation.” Then, let’s investigate, with presidential authority.
Stay tuned.
UPDATE: NeoNeocon has a must-read post. She covers the roots of the current firewall, with links to excellent source articles. As I mentioned, the firewall has been raised and lowered– and then raised again. The firewall became a “firmer fixture” post-Watergate– as neo-neocon points out.
UPDATE 2: FIne post from Tigerhawk on the State Dept’s 1996 memo.
THE “OMISSION COMMISSION” Is anybody keeping track of the number of revelations coming out in recent days on what the 9/11 Commission failed to include when giving us what was supposed to be the “definitive narrative” of the events leading up to that tragic day? …
Trackback by Right Wing Nut House — 8/17/2005 @ 9:02 am
WHY WE WILL NEVER KNOW THE WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT ABLE DANGER Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer is a very brave fellow. He’s also a glutton for punishment. Lt. Col. Shaffer is the man who is about to be engulfed by the storm of controversy surrounding the Able Danger revelations. And by engulfed, I mean…
Trackback by Right Wing Nut House — 8/17/2005 @ 9:05 am
Agreed. There are a couple of other things to take note of, though: SOCOM has been one of the agencies getting the most resources and a lot of favorable attention from Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. Somehow, they “made their bones” with the civilian leadership. I’m betting it was ABLE DANGER. Second, I would like to know what else ABLE DANGER discovered. We know there are gaps in the official timeline - can ABLE DANGER fill them, particularly one in April, 2001?
Comment by HaroldHutchison — 8/17/2005 @ 9:16 am
When I served in the intel community, it was expressly forbidden to collect intelligence on “US Persons”. A U.S. person is definded as a person who is currently within the borders of our country. Right or wrong - this was the Bible of military intelligence. It’s an example of the walls between agencies that the President and others described before. One can only hope that that has changed.
Comment by someguy — 8/17/2005 @ 9:22 am
Think about that: fear of ACLU lawsuits deters our government from protecting us from terrorism. Let me put it another way: the ACLU is more fearsome to our government than are terrorists. How did we ever get to this absurd state of affairs?
Comment by Jim O'Sullivan — 8/17/2005 @ 9:24 am
Remember the Other Shoe? Well, it just dropped. Big time.
Trackback by Chateau D'If — 8/17/2005 @ 9:26 am
[…] s second White Memo, which also would be interesting news. Rick Moran pointed me to this Austin Bay article (Rick’s two posts are linked below). I like this comment from Austin Bay If Jamie Gor […]
Pingback by The Strata-Sphere » Blog Archive » Able Danger Round Up 8/17/05 — 8/17/2005 @ 9:30 am
Germans Uncovered Iraqi Spy Ring During 9/11 Planning The Daily Standard has just published my latest column, which reveals to those who missed my earlier post on the arrests of two Iraqi spies in Heidelberg during February 2001. The discovery of these agents, especially given the time frame,…
Trackback by Captain's Quarters — 8/17/2005 @ 9:55 am
Maybe Ms. Gorelick didn’t know what recuse was; she doesn’t seem to bright when it comes to vital information. She was slated to be Mr. Gore’s Attorney General as Sandy Berger was to be Senator Kerry’s National Security Advisor. All these attorneys and so few brains between them.
Comment by Ron — 8/17/2005 @ 10:06 am
Officer Says Pentagon Barred Sharing Pre-9/11 Qaeda Data With FBI Though it’s still not clear what this story means, the first person to publicly step forward over “Able Danger” is interviewed in the New York Times: A military intelligence team repeatedly contacted the F.B.I. in 2000 to warn about the existence o…
Trackback by The New Editor — 8/17/2005 @ 10:09 am
W needs to call all the commission members “down to Crawford for a sit-down in the 99degree heat.” There is more to this and the American people need to hear it so we can trust that all is being done to protect America from another attack @home.
Comment by llbillman — 8/17/2005 @ 10:17 am
You are confused about the “Wall”. The wall that Ashcroft referred to, and Bush later aologized for, is the one that existed between the FBI’s counter-intelligence unit and the FBI’s criminal unit. This was done to protect criminal prosecutions against contamination from unauthorized sources. This wall began in the Reagan years and continued even Ashcroft’s Justice Department signed off on it. Actually Ashcroft was trying to cover his own ass since he was at a loss to explain why he wanted to cut back on anti-terrorism funding prior to 9-11.A court has subsequently ruled that the wall need not exist. Gorelick did recuse herself from any investigation of the Justice Department’s involvement pre 9-11. One of the great myth/fictions is that treating “terrorism” as a criminal matter showed weakness while treating it as “WAR” showed some type of machismo. What utter nonsense! Terroists use violent crimes to achieve political objective. It was the Justice Department that determined who was responsible for 9-11. Yes we may need the military to achieve military objectives to fight terroism. However, anti-terrorism will always be a criminal/intelligence operation. An arrest in Amsterdamn might be just as useful as a bombing raid in Afghanistan. Twenty more FBI or CIA agents might have thwarted 9-11 yet ten more aircraft carriers would have been of little value that day. Timothy McVeigh was arrested the same day as the Oklahoma City bombing yet Osama still runs loose. Prior to 9-11 many American’s both conservative and liberal would have rightfully objected to having the military spy on civilians even today this approach carries some very real dangers that should not be ignored.
Comment by Tom — 8/17/2005 @ 10:19 am
The only reason the right-wing is at all interested in this story is because it has a whiff of Clinton. Funny how the right-wing can essentially ignore the memo “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US” but then try to blow this up into some sort of conspiracy. The major difference of course is that the “Able Danger” business has Clinton’s imprimateur, and the other issue had Bush’s. Bush can do no wrong. Thus, ignore the memo but blow this up. Sad really.
Comment by Joe — 8/17/2005 @ 10:20 am
The problem is everyone in the political class has already signed off on the 9/11 Omission’s final report. From here on out, CYA kicks in, on all sides. I am curious, how much do you think China-gate played in raising the Gorelick wall, the timing is suspicious. The mystery is why the wall was raised when you have people like Mary Jo White adamantly opposed to the idea. There appears to be no good public reason to have raised the wall. We had already been hit once at the WTC and it was known by 1995 when PDD 24 was signed that Islamo-Fascist terrorists were interested in striking within the US. Do you have any other plausible explanation for raising the wall higher?
Comment by bill — 8/17/2005 @ 10:20 am
No, no, no! The Able Danger disaster will turn into a political fight soon enough (say, about the time Congress starts investigating). For now, it is best left as a news story to be investigated & reported by the media (New Media, that is). Once the President chimes in, the issue is instantly political, and any emerging facts that place the blame on the Clinton Administration, no matter how true they are, will be labeled as ‘partisan’. If we truly want the truth to emerge and have a better understanding of the failures that lead to 9/11, the President needs to stay away.
Comment by Scott L — 8/17/2005 @ 10:20 am
Issues looking solid like this–named officer willing to go on the record–have blown up before, so caution is warranted. However, it is possible that caution risks the thing going away through manipulation of the usual suspects before each and every dot is double-checked and connected to other similarly-vetted dots. This can fall through in several ways: Able Danger didn’t really have any of this alarming information: It wasn’t lawyers, it was self-censorship, that kept them quiet. And… uh. Umm. Anyway, the more complicated question which is the connection between this and the 9-11 Commission is less compelling. Since the folks were already dead. But, being more complicated, it will probably get more ink.
Comment by Richard Aubrey — 8/17/2005 @ 10:26 am
So many dots…my dyslexia hurts! Awright, awright…there’s just too much going on here, and it somehow all feels connected, but as you folks know, I am a tad dyslexic and when lots of similar things present themselves, I tend to get confused and lose track. I once taught …
Trackback by The Anchoress — 8/17/2005 @ 10:35 am
I’m a right wing nut- and I’m glad to read your comments about “the wall”. The wall is a limitation of federal Government power. In principle, I like those! I mean, one of our main principles is limited government. In this case, it was a mistake. A big one. I agree that Gorelick shouldn’t have been on the 911 comission. I just think it is worth mentioning that the wall is not an absolute evil in and of itself. It was a big mistake at that particular time. Please excuse me, my gut just wrenched, because I just stood up for Bill Clinton a little bit.
Comment by Al — 8/17/2005 @ 10:40 am
No way! I hate it when I have to repeat myself but here we go again. 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, about whose conflict of interest I’ve complained for years, is once again being criticized — by others who warned about her for…
Trackback by Classical Values — 8/17/2005 @ 10:42 am
Did the Wall put us in danger? The Clinton Administration did not erect this wall solely out of a desire to assuage the sensitivities of these separatist groups. As was typical of President Clinton, there was a desire to avoid confrontation, to not ruffle feathers, to hide our eye…
Trackback by Peace Like A River — 8/17/2005 @ 10:47 am
Wall falls on 9/11 commission The 9/11 commission’s credibility is getting buried under a ton of debris as “The Wall” falls on it. Mary Jo White’s prescient warnings in 1995 to Janet Reno and Jamie Gorelick has fallen into the nefarious hands of The New York Post.
Trackback by Mark in Mexico — 8/17/2005 @ 11:06 am
Austin, A better question to ponder here is did this inforamation reach the National Security Council and Richard Clark? While there was a wall between DoD and law enforcement. There wasn’t one between DoD and the NSC. Surely Able Danger’s output should have reached Richard Clark’s counter terrorism unit in the NSC. If it did not, why? And who blocked the flow of information?
Comment by Trent Telenko — 8/17/2005 @ 11:54 am
Cheney’s belief in Atta meeting with Iraqis in Prague. Did he have info from Able Danger? What if it is true? Is it good that he knew, or bad that he found out from DOD, cited the information, but not the source? Will the media blame him for covering it up, or praise him for withstanding criticism from the left for trying to ‘mislead’ the country?
Comment by mark — 8/17/2005 @ 12:52 pm
Links and Minifeatures 08 17 Wednesday Stephen Den Beste over at Daily Pundit covers the Gaza withdrawal from a dispassionate viewpoint. I agree with the allegation that it is unfair, anti-Jewish racism. …
Trackback by Searchlight Crusade — 8/17/2005 @ 4:39 pm
President Bush should comment? How about Clinton, he was the President and it was his administration that would not allow the information to be forwarded.
Comment by Dennis Lines — 8/17/2005 @ 4:53 pm
Blame Bush after all he is the root of all evil in the United States, but, wait, he wasn’t the President then. Why not blame him for WWII, Vietnam, Korea. Oh yeh, we were only going to be Kosovo for a year still there eight years later.
Comment by Dennis Lines — 8/17/2005 @ 4:56 pm
After the first WTC bombings, the planners and perpetrators were tracked down, convicted and jailed. This was done using law-enforcement methods. So far, using the military method, the planners of the second WTC attack have not been found, much less convicted, jailed or executed. This would seem to be a vindication for the law-enforcement method.
Comment by Bill Batten — 8/17/2005 @ 5:14 pm
I ask again, does anyone have any plausible reason why the wall had to be raised higher than it already was? Mary Jo White sure had some good reasons why it shouldn’t have been raised higher.
Comment by bill — 8/17/2005 @ 5:50 pm
The original 9/11 commission was a politcal circus held because the Democrats demanded it, sort of the way they demanded a DHS. It was a bad idea then. Still is. We shouldn’t wash our dirty laundry in public during wartime. During WWII the Pearl Harbor Commission was held in abeyance until after the conclusion of hostilities. I have learned nothing from the 9/11 commission that I need to know nor that advances my ability to exercise by rights and responsibilities as an American citizen. Its recommendations appear unlikely to address any real problems that could not have been addressed through closed door consultations between the executive and legislative branches. For Bush to become involved now would only lower himself to the Democrats level of politicizing the war. Bush should stay the hell out of this political circus and leave it to the adolescents. He’s got a war to fight.
Comment by Richard Heddleson — 8/17/2005 @ 7:32 pm
Tom–if you read the McCarthy article referred to in my post, you will see why treating terrorism as a criminal and law enforcement issue is a terrible, terrible idea. It’s not so much that the police or Justice Department can’t effectively investigate or catch a terrorist, it’s what happens afterwards that constitutes the big problem. The legal system in our country is based on the idea that protecting the innocent is more important than convicting the guilty, and it gives enormous protections and rights to the accused, including very liberal rights to discovery. That means that when terrorists are prosecuted they have a right to all sorts of information that they can then passed on to their confederates, a process by which terrorists learn way too much about the workings of our intelligence. Again, please read the linked article.
Comment by neo-neocon — 8/17/2005 @ 8:28 pm
Reading between the lines, the A-D analysts seemed to know a lot about Atta’s team’s movements and where they stayed. What if we find out that they, being good soldiers “preparing the battlefield” (which is what we pay them for, arguably “where” doesn’t matter), had gone to a number of the credit card companies and booking agencies, and got their “open source” data (which is shared commercially for many purposes, but they promised to keep super-duper secret), and some of this was used to “connect the dots”? Should we throw the A-D team in jail for (1) violating our (presumed) right to privacy?, (2) for just telling us they violated our privacy rights (i.e. if no one ever knows, it’s hard to claim your privacy was violated..), (3) for not doing whatever it took to prevent 9-11 (perhaps going out and personally killing Atta and the others and risking / accepting jail as a consequence), or (4) give them a ticker-tape parade for (almost) getting it right?
Comment by Ari Tai — 8/17/2005 @ 10:35 pm
Richard Heddleston says to leave Bush alone, “he’s got a war to fight.” Richard, if he’s got a war to fight and he is at the top of the chain of command, why did he just give himself a 35-day leave of absence? What would happen if someone down the chain asked for a 35-day vacation from the war? And, not only did the Pearl Harbor Commission continue to investigate during the war, but the Truman Commission investigated illegal war profiteering. The 9-11 commission was not “politicized” by democrats. Republicans made it a political issue by refusing to investigate and thwarting Democrats’ attempts to investigate until the “Jersey Girls” made so much public noise that the administration started to look bad. Remember, Bush opposed investigating 9-11 until he succumed to polical pressure. The unanswered questions not only include the subject posited on this fine blog, but the question of why NORAD didn’t scramble and why were there so many “puts” on United and American. Furthermore, since we now know that the FAA passed over 50 specific threat assessments to the administration, some of which actually spoke of flying airliners into buildings, it’s past time to re-evaluate various statements made by the Bush administration. Nobody could have imagined… NOT!
Comment by Bill Batten — 8/18/2005 @ 6:12 pm
Round the Reader - This Time Edition… Happy Thursday!! It looks like I am again a night time blogger. All good that, as I get to see what has happened during the day and post about it. I only tell you that so you know when to expect new posts. Let’s see what the reader has for us t…
Trackback by Speed of Thought — 8/18/2005 @ 11:32 pm