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August 17, 2005

Intel Officer Stands By Story: Able Danger Info Blocked

Thrice, as a matter of fact. I love saying that. Thrice. It just feels so satisfying.

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.

But he said military lawyers forced members of the intelligence program to cancel three scheduled meetings with the F.B.I. at the last minute, which left the bureau without information that Colonel Shaffer said might have led to Mr. Atta and the other terrorists while the Sept. 11 attacks were still being planned.

"I was at the point of near insubordination over the fact that this was something important, that this was something that should have been pursued," Colonel Shaffer said of his efforts to get the evidence from the intelligence program to the F.B.I. in 2000 and early 2001.

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.

The Defense Department did not dispute the account from Colonel Shaffer, a 42-year-old native of Kansas City, Mo., who is the first military officer associated with the program to acknowledge his role publicly.

Jim Geraghty of TKS is invaluable, of course, but honestly, in the words of Margaret Thatcher, this is no time to go all wobbly.

The intelligence officer and Able Danger team-member who's come forward -- a Lt. Col. Schaeffer -- gave CNN an interview and suggested the 9/11 Commission didn't seem very interested in getting the documents from the DOD; or at least they weren't interested enough to submit their request to the agency actually running Able Danger:

S. O'BRIEN: But I was essentially asking you if they were lying, which is sort of a yes or no answer there.
SHAFFER: I can't — I'm just letting you know what I — what I said. I said, specifically, that we, as through the Able Danger process, discovered two of the three cells which conducted 9/11, to include Atta. Now — and I — that was, to me, significant, in that they actually pulled me aside after the meeting and said, "Please come talk to us and give us more details."

Now, back to the information that DOD passed to them. DOD passed two containers, approximately briefcase-sized containers over to them in the February-March time frame of '04. That is not one-twentieth of the information which was available out there on Able Danger and the project.

And plus, they asked DIA for it. It was not a DIA project. And I think they asked the wrong questions of DOD in some cases. And I know for a fact right not DOD is trying to get to the bottom of this.

State Department Warned Clinton Too: When even the milquetoast ninnies at State are warning you, it's probably a good idea to listen:

State Department analysts warned the Clinton administration in July 1996 that Osama bin Laden's move to Afghanistan would give him an even more dangerous haven as he sought to expand radical Islam "well beyond the Middle East," but the government chose not to deter the move, newly declassified documents show.
In what would prove a prescient warning, the State Department intelligence analysts said in a top-secret assessment on Mr. bin Laden that summer that "his prolonged stay in Afghanistan - where hundreds of 'Arab mujahedeen' receive terrorist training and key extremist leaders often congregate - could prove more dangerous to U.S. interests in the long run than his three-year liaison with Khartoum," in Sudan.

BONUS! Judicial Watch got a hold of this document through a FOIA request.

As per the NY Times stylebook, when Judicial Watch nettles the Bush Administration, they're just a public-policy watchdog.

But, as usual, when they go after the Clintons or Democrats, they're a

conservative legal advocacy group

Dang, they're clever. They've made themselves impossible to parodize.

posted by Ace at 11:42 AM

Comments

Ah, we've officially crossed the line from scandal to cluster$@^k. Everyone is going to be busy CYA as opposed to getting to the bottom of the issue. Podhoretz and Geraghty are rightfully concerned about vetting the story for accuracy, and the Colonel's statements definitely support Weldon's original assertions, but I still have one question - is Shaffer Weldon's source, and if so, has the story changed other than pointing to the origination of the story?

Getting past that question, we still need to know more about Gorelick, Reno, and everyone else involved in the decision making process that created the environment that led to the decision to spike the Able Danger intel before it could reach law enforcement.

Then, there's the separate issue of what the heck the 9/11 Commission did with its time and our tax dollars coming up with a ludicious document in light of the Able Danger revelations. All of their (the Commission's) intel conclusions must be reconsidered in light of the omissions by the Commission.

Posted by: lawhawk on August 17, 2005 11:50 AM

"The Defense Department did not dispute the account from Colonel Shaffer, a 42-year-old native of Kansas City, Mo., who is the first military officer associated with the program to acknowledge his role publicly."

Not sure why you bolded this. Without the quote from the DoD official this paragraph is not really meaningful. It could just mean that the DoD spokesman refused to answer questions on the matter (for example because there is an on-going investigation).

I read this paragraph as a classic journalistic trick which is used to make your information appear to be validated when it really isn't. If the spokesperson can't answer the questions about an investigation, you can ask anything you want and then say it wasn't disputed.

Posted by: Patrick on August 17, 2005 11:54 AM

Hey, let's not lose our sense of perspective. According to Michael Wolff at Vanity Fair, the Valerie Plame case is still the biggest story of our age.

Posted by: utron on August 17, 2005 11:56 AM

This tidbit is new (to me):

we ... discovered two of the three cells which conducted 9/11

I understand the need for some media restraint, from a PR perspective. The bigger the story (i.e., the more vigorously it will be opposed by ass-munch partisan Democrats who don't give a shit about national security or the military, all of whom are desperately eager to polish Clinton's knob yet again), the the more important it is to be sure the story is air-tight.

But, on the scale of bombshell stories, this one is fucking atomic.

Posted by: Phinn on August 17, 2005 12:14 PM

Just an aside, but how come her name is pronounced
"Go-Rel-ick" instead of "Gore-lick"?
Just wondering.

Posted by: Iblis on August 17, 2005 12:28 PM

"State Department analysts warned the Clinton administration in July 1996 that Osama bin Laden's move to Afghanistan would give him an even more dangerous haven"

So did the CIA, which is why they were hatching a plan to have him killed, i mean kidnapped, by gun toting tribal henchmen. Not a big news flash here. Ever read Ghost Wars?

Posted by: thomas on August 17, 2005 12:29 PM

At last! The exact data and content used to puff up Sandy Berger's pants is revealed. At first I thought he was tryin' to impress the gals, just like his boss.

Keep your eyes on EBAY. If 'ol Sandy gets to sellin' clothes, go for the pants and socks. If he mistakenly stuffed the documents into his clothes he probably fogot to take them back out too. He's just such an airhead sometimes, I swear......

Posted by: Len on August 17, 2005 12:32 PM

Not that I'm fond of defending the Times here, but Judicial Watch actually calls itself a conservative group.

Posted by: Jimmie on August 17, 2005 12:38 PM

Judicial Watch was pretty heavily funded and promoted by folks on Free Republic during the days of the Clinton impeachment. Then, after a few years, everyone started to notice that JW got lots of press and made lots of noise and consumed lots of dollars, but nothing was really coming of anything they did. At some point, they involved themselves on the wrong side of some dubious cause (the Florida recount, maybe?) and there was some flamage and...

...shoot, I'm forgetting the story. But they really did start out with the solidly righties before they became sort of freelance Agents of Mischief.

Posted by: S. Weasel on August 17, 2005 12:46 PM

Thomas,

No "plot" was "hatched" - if anything existed it was obviously stillborn.

The only "plots" the Clinton administration seems capable of hatching are coverups and whitewashes.

Posted by: tony on August 17, 2005 05:34 PM

Jack Cashill has a good article today on WorldNetDaily about the State Dept. warning's connection to TWA 800.

Check the bottom of the page for more of Cashill's TWA 800 articles.

Posted by: Sue Dohnim on August 18, 2005 11:21 AM

July 1996. Hmmmm... what was happening in July 1996? And where did I put that blue dress from the Gap?

Posted by: ken on August 18, 2005 02:45 PM

Alan Colmes tried to get sassy with the Colonel last night on H&C, and got himself ripped a nice shiny new bunghole. First time I think I've seen that punk speechless.

Good job, Colonel!

Posted by: Bane on August 19, 2005 05:52 PM

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What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV.
Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.

A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR.
Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too.
LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.

The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
"But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said."
In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring.
I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do.
But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.

Finish the job, Mr. President!
Melanie Phillips lays out the case for the total destruction of the Iranian government and armed forces. [CBD]

TJM acts like he knows anything about John Wick and screenwriting. It's embarrassing, really.

Podcast: Sefton and CBD talk about how would a peace treaty with Iran work, Democrats defending murderers and rapists, The GOP vs. Dem bench for 2028, composting bodies? And more!

Oh, I forgot to mention this quote from Pete Hegseth, reported by Roger Kimball: "We are sharing the ocean with the Iranian Navy. We're giving them the bottom half."

Batman fires The Batman
Batman is disgusted by the Joachim Phoenix version of Joker
Batman tries to fire Superman
Batman is still workshopping his Bat-Voice

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: Red Leather Suit and Sweatband Edition
And I was here to please
I'm even on knees
Makin' love to whoever I please
I gotta do it my way
Or no way at all

Tomorrow is March 25th, "Tolkien Reading Day," because March 25th is the day when the Ring is destroyed in the book. I think I'm going to start the Hobbit tomorrow and read all four books this time.
The only bad part of the trilogy are the Frodo/Sam chapters in The Two Towers. They're repetitive, slow, and mostly about the weather and terrain. But most everything else is good. Weirdly, the Frodo-Sam chapters in Return of the King are exciting and action-packed and among the best in the trilogy. (Though the chapters with everyone else in Return of the King get pretty slow again. Mostly people talking about marching towards war, and then marching towards war.)

Sec. Army recognizes ODU Army ROTC cadets for their bravery and sacrifice in private ceremony
[Hat Tip: Diogenes] [CBD]

TJM gives you a brief tour of his movie collection.

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click
One day I'm gonna write a poem in a letter
One day I'm gonna get that faculty together
Remember that everybody has to wait in line
Oh, [Song Title], look out world, oh, you know I've got mine

US decimation of Iran's ICBM forces is due to Space Force's instant detection of launches -- and the launchers' hiding places -- and rapid counter-attack via missiles
AI is doing a lot of the work in analyzing images to find the exact hiding place of the launchers. Counter-strikes are now coming in four hours after a launch, whereas previously it might have taken days for humans to go over the imagery and data.

Robert Mueller, Former Special Counsel Who Probed Trump, Dies

“robert mueller just died,” trump wrote in a truth social post on march 21. “good, i’m glad he’s dead. he can no longer hurt innocent people! president donald j. trump.”

TJM has thoughts on Superheros and Iconography

Canadian School Designates Cafeteria And Lunchroom As "No Food Zones" For Ramadan
Canada and the UK are neck and neck in the race to become the first western country to fall to Islam [CBD]

Chuck Norris, Action Icon and 'Walker Texas Ranger' Star, Dies at 86

Podcast: Sefton and CBD have a short chat about Iran, the disgusting SAVE Act theater, Mamdani's politicizing of St. Patrick's Day, and more!

Official confirmation from the Joint Chiefs of Staff: the Warthog is now strafing Iranian fast attack boats