One of the two military intelligence officials alleging that the Defense Department had located Mohammed Atta and other hijackers in America in 2000 has come forward.
Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer went on the record tonight on FOX News with his claim that he told 9/11 commission staffers about Mohamed Atta's al Qaeda connection in the summer of 2000, more than a year before Atta flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the North tower of the World Trade Center.
WASHINGTON -- 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.
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.
At the same time, the department said in a statement that it was "working to gain more clarity on this issue" and that "it's too early to comment on findings related to the program identified as Able Danger."
...The interview with Colonel Shaffer on Monday was arranged for The New York Times and Fox News by Representative Curt Weldon, the Pennsylvania Republican who is vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a champion of data-mining programs like Able Danger.
...Colonel Shaffer said he had decided to allow his name to be used in part because of his frustration with the statement issued last week by the commission leaders, Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton.
The commission said in its final report last year that American intelligence agencies had not identified Mr. Atta as a terrorist before Sept. 11, 2001, when he flew an American Airlines jet into one of the World Trade Center towers in New York.
...Colonel Shaffer said he had provided information about Able Danger and its identification of Mr. Atta in a private meeting in October 2003 with members of the Sept. 11 commission staff when they visited Afghanistan, where he was then serving. Commission members have disputed that, saying that they do not recall hearing Mr. Atta's name during the briefing and that the name did not appear in documents about Able Danger that were later turned over by the Pentagon.
"I would implore the 9/11 commission to support a follow-on investigation to ascertain what the real truth is," Colonel Shaffer said in the interview this week. "I do believe the 9/11 commission should have done that job: figuring out what went wrong with Able Danger."
From FOX:
"None of the documents turned over to the commission mention Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers," the [9/11 commission] spokesman said. Shaffer said the commission never received the whole story.
"I'm told confidently by the person who moved the material over, that the 9/11 commission received two briefcase-sized containers of documents. I can tell you for a fact that would not be one-twentieth of the information that Able Danger consisted of during the time we spent" investigating, Shaffer said.
Shaffer said in the late summer of 2000, he tried three times to set up meetings between the FBI's Washington field office and officials with Able Danger who believed the information about Atta should be shared with domestic law enforcement.
Michael Mason, head of the FBI field office, said it's possible the meetings were arranged, but that cannot be verified by any means.
It is "premature at best to suggest that the information gathered at such a meeting would have prevented the events of 9/11," Mason added.
Shaffer said each of the meetings was cancelled on short notice — by members of the special operations command.
"On these occasions when we had set up these meetings between the FBI and special operations command, special operations command pulled out of all three. They decided not to show up," he said.
Shaffer said the meetings were canceled for a variety of reasons, including concern about the military investigating individuals who were in this country legally. Some of the hijackers had valid visas. They also were concerned that if any fallout came from the FBI's activities, the special operations people feared they would take the hit.
According to two sources, Able Danger was set up in the late 1990s to track Usama bin Laden's terror network worldwide. Shaffer said its omission from the final Sept. 11 commission report makes it a "partial record."
"Leaving out a project targeting Al Qaeda as a global threat a year before we're attacked by Al Qaeda is equivalent to having an investigation into Pearl Harbor and leaving, somehow, out the Japanese," Shaffer said.
Obviously, a lot more investigating needs to be done here.
There are parties involved that are intentionally not telling the truth or they are befuddled incompetents. It will take time to sort it out; but it needs to be done.
If Shaffer is giving an accurate account, then the 9/11 commission's report has been significantly discredited.
Personally, I believe Shaffer.
There is no question that the members of the 9/11 commission were engaged in political posturing rather than a study aimed at determining how terrorists managed to do such catastrophic damage to our country.
The commission wasn't nonpartisan. It was bipartisan.
The Dems sought to cover up for the Clinton administration and the Reno-Gorelick wall which proved to be so deadly.
The Republicans tried to prevent the Bush administration from being blamed.
Of course, the commission members were driven by political considerations.
I suspect that libs will do all they can to smear Shaffer. They will point out that Shaffer's security clearance was suspended last year over a disputed phone bill. They will focus on allegations that Shaffer didn't go through the proper chain of command to obtain an award for Able Danger. However, Shaffer's lawyer told FOX News that no formal action has ever been taken against Shaffer — and since then he was promoted by the Army to lieutenant colonel.
It doesn't appear that Shaffer has an axe to grind. He's been promoted. He doesn't fit the profile of a disgruntled employee.
Does he fit the liberals' criteria for being a heroic whistle-blower and courageous for coming forward? No. Only Bush-administration critics are elevated by the MSM to that lofty status.
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