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Edited on Wed Sep-21-05 11:18 AM by leveymg
UPI reports second Able Danger data purge in 2003 by leveymg http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/21/11831/3427Wed Sep 21st, 2005 at 08:08:31 PDT The UPI reports that high Pentagon officials ordered a second round of data destruction from the Able Danger (AD) files in 2003. In a statement, Cong. Curt Weldon referred to "a second elimination of data in 2003." http://about.upi.com/products/perspectives/UPI-20050920-091827-1362RIn addition, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a former AD staff member, stated in a radio interview yesterday that the AD files contained information about the October 2000 al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole, as well as data linking Mohamed Atta to three other major 9/11 conspirators detected inside the US. http://qtmonster.typepad.com/qt_monsters_place/2005/09/shaffer_sources.html If accurate, these are VERY significant developments that establish that Pentagon officials conducted a cover-up of what US intelligence had on file about the identities and plans of terrorist cells known to be inside the U.S. before 9/11. It also shows that DoD destroyed relevant files that had been requested preserved by the 9/11 Commission after the panel's establishment in March 2002. ***** The second destruction of AD files came as Col. Shaffer and other AD staff members attempted to draw the Commission's attention to the AD findings. One of the key allegations made by Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer in the Able Danger affair is that even though he specifically told the 9/11 Commission that Able Danger had identified Mohamed Atta, they resisted efforts to make the project's findings part of the public record or to investigate the information after the Pentagon failed to turn over relevant records. The NYT reported on August 8: " said he was among a group that briefed Mr. Zelikow and at least three other members of the Sept. 11 commission staff about Able Danger when they visited the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in October 2003. said he had explicitly mentioned Mr. Atta as a member of a Qaeda cell in the United States."http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/politics/09intel.html?ei=5090&en=bc4d02afa0a46012&ex=12812 40000&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
In recent weeks, the 9/11 Commission issued this statement that confirms that the Pentagon, in response to its request for AD documents, failed to turn over any materials that contained reference to Atta and the 9/11 hijackers. The CIA, similarly, claims it was unable to locate any documents that referenced the Abel Danger program. The Commission's statement did not reference whether the FBI produced any records of the numerous conversations and meetings which AD staff had with Bureau representative:
"In November 2003, shortly after the staff delegation had returned to the United States, two document requests related to ABLE DANGER were finalized and sent to DOD. One, sent on November 6, asked, among other things, for any planning order or analogous documents about military operations related to al Qaeda and Afghanistan issued from the beginning of 1998 to September 20, 2001, and any reports, memoranda, or briefings by or for either the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the Commanding General of the U.S. Special Operations Command in connection with such planning, specifically including material related to ABLE DANGER. The other, sent on November 25, treated ABLE DANGER as a possible intelligence program and asked for all documents and files associated with "DIA's program `ABLE DANGER'" from the beginning of 1998 through September 20, 2001.
"In February 2004, DOD provided documents responding to these requests. Some were turned over to the Commission and remain in Commission files. Others were available for staff review in a DOD reading room. Commission staff reviewed the documents. Four former staff members have again, this week, reviewed those documents turned over to the Commission, which are held in the Commission's archived files. Staff who reviewed the documents held in the DOD reading room made notes summarizing each of them. Those notes are also in the Commission archives and have also been reviewed this week.
"The records discuss a set of plans, beginning in 1999, for ABLE DANGER, which involved expanding knowledge about the al Qaeda network. Some documents include diagrams of terrorist networks. None of the documents turned over to the Commission mention Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers. Nor do any of the staff notes on documents reviewed in the DOD reading room indicate that Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers were mentioned in any of those documents.
"A senior staff member also made verbal inquiries to the HPSCI and CIA staff for any information regarding the ABLE DANGER operation. Neither organization produced any documents about the operation, or displayed any knowledge of it."
The Commission's statement is silent as to whether the FBI produced any records of the numerous conversations and meetings which AD staff say they had with Bureau representatives, apparently both before and after 9/11.
Then, again in July 2004, AD staff members attempted to convince the 9/11 Commission staff director, Philip Zelikow, to get the commissioners to examine AD's findings. A NYT report (08/17/05) states:
"the commission did learn about Able Danger in 2003 and immediately requested Pentagon files about it, none of the documents turned over by the Defense Department referred to Mr. Atta or any of the other hijackers." http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9821.htm+9/11+Commission+requests+Pentagon+files& ;hl=en&ie=UTF-8
******
The second elimination of AD data in 2003 makes one wonder, what materials did the Pentagon destroy? Was it the matrix that linked Atta to the other intending hijackers that Col. Shaffer and his former colleagues recall creating? How might the AD project have come across the information upon which it was based to begin with?
The most likely source was once in the vast tape records of SIGINT intercepts held by the NSA, which is also under the command of Secretary Rumsfeld and his staff.
AD has been portrayed as some kind of immense search engine, an "open source" vacuum cleaner that scowered the net for information about al-Qaeda. That seems increasingly implausible.
The disclosure that AD had information about the attack on the USS Cole seems to confirm that the program was used to analyze the same classified NSA intercepts that led the CIA to track the Flt. 77 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar to an early January 2000 al-Qaeda planning summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where both the 9/11 operation and the Cole attacks were mapped out.
That meeting, which was monitored by the Agency and half a dozen allied intel services, was also attended by Mohamed Atta's roommate, Ramzi bin al Shibh, who returned afterwards to Hamburg. That would explain how DoD identified Atta and linked him to the others before he applied for a U.S. visa in March, 2000.
A few days ago, I wrote here that disclosure of the size of the AD data that was reportedly ordered destroyed, 2.5 terabytes (TB), is further evidence that the AD project computers were far better suited to mining and analyzing the NSA's own database, which is of the same scale, rather than the open internet which is far larger.
*****
Finally, there's a real conflict of interest in how the Pentagon is carrying out it's AD "investigation". Steve Cambone is in charge of those efforts which can't find the relevant files. He is also, apparently, the highest non-uniform DoD official who was briefed by the AD team before the project was shut down. Weldon says:
"I can tell you, to not have this covered by the 9/11 Commission, to not have it mentioned, for them to say, as they did initially, that it was historically insignificant -- 2.5 terabytes of data about Mohammed Atta and Al Qaida, a three-hour briefing for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is historically insignificant? A briefing that included Richard Schiefren (ph), with Steve Cambone, in March of 2001, five months before 9/11, is historically insignificant? I don't think so...." UPI, Ibid.
This whole thing is looking more and more like Cambone, the neo-cons, and Rummy made the decision to purge the DoD's Al-Qaeda domestic operations files, and have now been caught covering their tracks. The second AD file destruction will likely turn out to be VERY significant, and may be the "smoking gun" in the Pentagon's 9/11 coverup.
COPYRIGHT 2005, Mark G. Levey
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