Whitewashing the Protection of Terrorists on US Soil

[steve2470]

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/WhitewashingProtection_of__0818.html

Nafeez Ahmed

Exclusive: Well known Mid-East expert questions omission of "Able Danger" by 9/11 Commission

Exactly one year before 9/11, a highly classified US Army intelligence unit known as "Able Danger" had already pinpointed four of the 9/11 hijackers. Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid Almidhar, and Nawaf Alhamzi were identified as members of a "Brooklyn" al-Qaeda cell on a detailed chart that included visa photographs. The Army unit was established by the Special Operations Command in 1999 by Gen. Hugh Shelton, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The startling revelations first surfaced in late June, from Congressman. Curt Weldon (R-PA), Vice-Chairman of the House Homeland Security and Armed Services Committees, citing at least three active military and intelligence officials. The story eventually made the New York Times headlines, thrice, the latest report on Tuesday quoting Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, who was a liaison with the Able Danger unit at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Lt. Col. Shaffer gave on the record confirmation of the details revealed by Rep. Weldon, but further stated that Able Danger had scheduled three meetings in the summer of 2000 with the FBI's Washington field office to share the findings and recommend to "take out that cell."
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Those meetings were unilaterally cancelled by military lawyers at the Defense Department's Special Operations Command, and information sharing was blocked.

The stated reason? Apparently, Atta and his comrades were in the US on "valid entry visas" - the law, it was claimed, bars US citizens and green-card holders from being targeted for intelligence-collection operations. Although, this does not include visa holders, the law supposedly provided a disincentive for sharing intelligence with law enforcement. "We were directed to take those 3M yellow stickers and place them over the faces of Atta and the other terrorists and pretend they didn't exist," said another defense intelligence official.

Terrorists don't get and keep visas:

The explanation was disingenuous. "Mohammed Atta and his terrorist cohorts were clearly and factually established as Al-Qaeda functionaries of a foreign government with Al-Qaeda itself being a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (DFTO)", noted Sean Osborne of the US Army's Program Executive Office - Command, Control, Communications Tactical (PEOC3T) within the Special Project Office (SPO).



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[librechik]

1. so, why did the 9/11 commission omit that info?

who were they protecting?

someone who is in power today, no doubt, otherwise why bother?

And who might that be? Unless they are simply looking for a convenient scapegoat --oh, and how convenient it is that the time period points to the Clinton administration, although Military Special Ops would be suspect of operating under the radar of even the CiC.

[wli]

2. what about the rest of the dirt on Atta?

Like the CIA->ISI->Atta payment? And the boozing Vegas vacation? Not 100% sure of the sources saying this, but there's even supposedly dirt saying he was trained at the School of the Americas (whatever its new name is now).

[Garbo 2004]

3. So what's the deal with Shaffer? His claims are based on what others told

him after Sept 11?

Officer Says 2 Others Are Source of His Atta Claims

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 19, 2005; A11


The former intelligence officer who says that a Defense Department program identified Mohamed Atta and three other hijackers before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks said yesterday that many of his allegations are not based on his memory but on the recollections of others.

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, who has been on paid administrative leave from the Defense Intelligence Agency since his security clearance was suspended in March 2004, said in a telephone interview that a Navy officer and a civilian official affiliated with the Able Danger program told him after the attacks that Atta and other hijackers had been included on a chart more than a year earlier.

But because he was not intimately familiar with the names and photographs of suspected terrorists, he did not realize that hijackers were listed until it was alleged to him after the attacks, Shaffer said. All of the charts that could support his claims have disappeared, he said.

"I did see the charts and I did handle the charts, but my understanding of them was like a layman," Shaffer said. "We had identified them as terrorists. . . . But even now I do not remember all the names." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/18/AR2005081801751_pf.html