CIA Report on 9/11 Is Complete

By Walter Pincus

The CIA inspector general's report on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has finally been completed -- nearly two years after its congressionally set deadline -- but has yet to be sent to Capitol Hill because CIA Director Porter J. Goss is still deciding how to respond to its findings, according to administration and congressional sources.

Inspector General John L. Helgerson's voluminous report, triggered in December 2002 by a recommendation of the House-Senate inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks, was completed in June and delivered last month to Goss for his review, according to a note sent by the CIA to members of Congress on July 22. It is expected to go to the House and Senate intelligence committees soon, according to one senior administration official.

Under the joint committee mandate, the CIA director is to report back to the House and Senate intelligence committees on the steps taken to assign responsibility for poor performance and to reward excellence.

One reason for the long delay in producing the report, according to present and former agency officials, has been the original requirement by the joint committee that Helgerson "determine whether and to what extent personnel at all levels should be held accountable for any omission, commission or failure to meet professional standards" in relation to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

When Goss received a draft of the report last October, he sent it back because performance failures were attributed to individuals without giving them the chance to respond to those findings or have the matter adjudicated by an accountability panel, according to an October letter sent by Goss to intelligence committee members. The communication was made available to The Washington Post.

Over the past months, individuals named in the report were given opportunities to respond to the sections that mention them, and a few were allowed to read the entire report, according to present and former intelligence officials.As a result, some changes have been made in the report, the officials said.

Goss, however, has yet to decide what if any steps he will take before he sends the report to the congressional intelligence committees, the officials said. The CIA director could create an internal panel to look at each case and submit recommendations to him. Such a group is typically made up of senior agency officials and chaired by the CIA's executive director, the third-ranking official in the agency.

Officials said Goss could establish additional procedures to deal with any systemic problems uncovered in the report. Or he could send the IG report to the Hill, noting the many changes that have already been made, and indicate that many of the senior officials at the time of the attacks have left the agency.

Some present and former agency officials have been upset that four years after the attacks, the CIA is still being criticized despite having been the loudest voice in government to warn Presidents Bill Clinton and Bush of the terrorist threat.

"What about Congress and the White House not paying attention, or even the Federal Aviation Administration?" one former agency official asked yesterday.

Inspector general reports for the Defense Department and the FBI had been delivered previously. The declassified version of the report of Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine noted a "significant failure" by the bureau, caused in large part by "widespread and longstanding deficiencies" in the way the agency handled terrorism and intelligence cases.

The FBI said that it agrees with many of Fine's conclusions and that it "has taken substantial steps to address the issues presented in the report."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0534,mondo1,67096,6.html
Mondo Washington
Errors of Commission
The hijacking of the probe into the 9-11 hijackers

by James Ridgeway, with Natalie Wittlin
August 23rd, 2005 11:49 AM


Whether or not U.S. military intelligence was prevented by Pentagon superiors from alerting the FBI to the presence of Mohammed Atta in 1998, there is little doubt the U.S. was well aware of the infamous hijacker by then. The Republican right wing is raising the Atta issue at a time when Bush is sinking in the polls, people are fed up with Iraq, and there are continuing questions about the administration's handling of 9-11 and the war on terror. One way to take some of the heat off is to shift the blame to Bill Clinton.
In his book Countdown to Terror, Republican Congressman Curt Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, lays the blame for our lousy intelligence on Clinton: "Given the intelligence community's poor track record and the political corruption of the intelligence process during the Clinton administration, the intelligence community's failure to detect and stop the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington seems inevitable. "

By 1998, Atta was living in a Hamburg apartment (later found to be an Al Qaeda cell) and under surveillance by German intelligence. The Germans were passing along what they knew to the CIA. There are suggestions that Atta may have been known to U.S. intelligence as far back as 1993 and, according to the German press, the CIA itself had other people in the apartment under surveillance. This raises the question of whether this cell might not have been taken out well before 9-11.

In 2004, the German prosecutor who was in charge of the investigation was scheduled to testify about this Hamburg cell to the 9-11 Commission. But his testimony was unexpectedly canceled. The documents from the investigation are reported to be missing.

Last week, Mounir al-Motassadek, one of Atta's associates, was convicted of belonging to a terrorist organization in a German court and sentenced to seven years in prison. He had been acquitted in another court on charges related to whether he knew anything about the 9-11 attacks. The Germans had him under surveillance and had been tapping his phones since August 1998. He was an associate of Atta's in the Hamburg apartment. He witnessed Atta's will and had power of attorney over the hijackers' bank accounts, shifting money to them while they took flying lessons in the U.S. He trained with them in Afghanistan.

What Weldon and Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer are claiming is that the Army Intelligence and Special Operations Command in 1998-1999 launched a secret program, Able Danger, to map out the international Al Qaeda network. One Defense official has said the project was approved by General Henry H. Shelton, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Shelton said recently that he does not remember the project but that "we had lots of initiatives to find out where Al Qaeda was."

By September 2000, so the story goes—and much of it depends on Shaffer's shaky memory—Able Danger had discovered Atta and other hijackers working out of a "Brooklyn cell." They wanted to tell the FBI about their findings in hopes the Bureau would take out the cell. But military lawyers blocked them from doing so on grounds it would reveal the existence of illegal military intelligence operations within the U.S., and that would cause controversy for Clinton—and perhaps damage Al Gore's campaign against George W. Bush.

In July 2004, a naval officer testified to the 9-11 Commission that he saw an Able Danger document in 2000 that linked Atta to the Al Qaeda cell. Commission chair Thomas Kean and vice-chair Lee Hamilton later said that one piece of testimony had not been "sufficiently reliable" to merit further investigation.

This month Weldon asked the commission how come it had not pursued Able Danger, and Hamilton replied, "The 9-11 Commission did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9-11 of surveillance of Mohammed Atta or of his cell. Had we learned of it, obviously it would've been a major focus of our investigation." Later both said Able Danger "did not turn out to be historically significant."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even if the Pentagon's supposed discovery of Atta before 9-11 succeeds in shifting some of the political blame from Bush to Clinton, it also raises new questions about the role of the Pentagon and especially that of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 9-11 and the war on terror. And this comes at a time when the military is clamoring for a greater role in intelligence gathering.

At 9:53 on the morning of 9-11, the National Security Agency intercepted a call from an Osama bin Laden operative in Afghanistan to a person in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, as noted in the 9-11 Timeline compiled by Paul Thompson at cooperativeresearch.org. The caller said he had "heard good news" and another target was still to be hit (apparently by the plane that was brought down in the Pennsylvania countryside). This was the first firm indication the government had that bin Laden was behind the attack. Two hours later, at 12:05, CIA director George Tenet told Rumsfeld about the NSA intercept.

As reported by CBS News, based on leaked notes from a National Military Command Center teleconference, the Secretary of Defense was surprisingly reluctant to make much of the call: "Rumsfeld felt it was 'vague,' that it 'might not mean something,' and that there was 'no good basis for hanging hat.' In other words, the evidence was not clear-cut enough to justify military action against Bin Laden. But later that afternoon, the CIA reported the passenger manifests for the hijacked airliners showed three of the hijackers were suspected Al Qaeda operatives."

According to the notes, Rumsfeld learned that "one guy is associate of bomber"—the Al Qaeda suicide bomber who attacked the U.S. warship in Yemen in 2000.

At 2:40, the notes report, Rumsfeld was beginning to take aim at the target close to his heart: He wants the "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only UBL [Osama Bin Laden]. Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not." This was the first indication that Rumsfeld was disregarding specific intelligence clearly linking the attack to Al Qaeda and instead had begun to fantasize about getting Saddam Hussein.

Hours later, White House terrorism adviser Richard Clarke went to the White House for meetings that Clarke believed would concern U.S. vulnerabilities, possible future attacks, and what might be done to prevent them. As he writes in one of the most famous passages from his book, Clarke "instead walked into a series of discussions about Iraq."

"At first," Clarke writes, "I was incredulous that we were talking about something other than getting Al Qaeda. Then I realized with almost a sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and [Deputy Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz were going to try to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq. Since the beginning of the administration, indeed well before, they had been pressing for a war with Iraq. My friends in the Pentagon had been telling me that the word was we would be invading Iraq sometime in 2002."

Rumsfeld's breezy dismissal of Al Qaeda's involvement in the attacks in the face of specific intelligence is hard to fathom. And if there is buried somewhere in the Pentagon a military intelligence operation—its existence approved at the highest levels—that knew all about Atta and Al Qaeda, then Rumsfeld's behavior is indefensible.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The 9-11 Commission was established to get to the bottom of the attacks that day. However, it often skipped over key issues:

*Bush and Cheney were interviewed together, in secret, with no record of the meeting.

*Florida senator Bob Graham's joint congressional inquiry had unearthed the outlines of what may have been a Saudi spy operation linked to Al Qaeda and operating in the U.S. But the commission dismissed Saudi involvement and cleared the royal family.

*The commission never seriously inquired into the activities of Pakistan, whose secret intelligence agency had created the Taliban and subsequently backed Al Qaeda.

*The commission had no time for FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, who came up with one tale after another of fishy operations in the FBI translations section, including the mind-boggling information that FBI interpreters were being sent to Guantбnamo to translate languages they could not speak.

*The congressional joint inquiry discovered that an FBI informant on the West Coast, unbeknownst to the Bureau, rented an apartment to two hijackers. When Graham tried to interview the landlord, the FBI refused. Later a top FBI official told Graham that the White House had blocked the informant's testimony. The commission dismissed all this.

*The commission skipped over the scandalous mess at the FAA, suppressing a staff study saying that the agency had ignored numerous warnings issued in the months before the attack. After the election, the commission released parts of this study, leaving some of it classified.

*The commission never seriously inquired into intelligence failures at the Hamburg cell where Atta lived off and on and which was a key center for planning the attacks.

Every day it looks as if the government's main probe of 9-11 has turned into a political fix.

Cynthia McKinney - D-GA held a hearing on the 9-11 report in July, 2005. The taped program is now on C-span 1. Some family members are on the panel.

The four 9-11 "Jersey girls" are on the first panel to discuss the 9-11 report.

C-span showed the hearing twice yesterday. Check the schedule, it may replay over the weekend. http://www.c-span.org

One witness who was a former National Security Analyst said that the 9-11 report did not mention the true financial officer of Alqaeda who was supported by the Pakistani intelligence police. Mushariff would have known about this. We gave $billions to him since 9-11 and he won't let us go after Osama.

This witness also said the Saudis knew about the attack one week prior and fired Prince Turkey Fisal ? who had ties to Osama. Now Prince Turkey is the Saudi ambassador to the U.S (and meets with Bush)

This or another witness said that the CIA was in charge of the Saudi embassy that gave VISAs to most of the 9-11 hijackers. This embassy was used in the 1980s and 90s to bring fighters to the U.S military bases to learn how to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. There are records of these people in the U.S. at the bases. Mohammed Atta went through this training. He was on the terror list.
The VISA forms were spotted as fake when immigration people looked at them after the fact. Atta should not have been let back in in 2001.

Most of these records were from public sources.

Another man said that on 9-11, there were 6 military defense exercises which left no jet planes to respond to the attack. The exercises were to take place in October 2001, but all were moved to 9-11.

The WH also had at least 15 warnings in the summer of 2001 that Algaeda wanted to fly planes into landmarks or buildings. Condi Rice said they had no idea that this would happen. George Tenant, the CIA director, did and he knew about Moussoui, the other flight student. He briefed Bush every day except when Bush was on vacation.

There is supposed to be a DVD of the hearing at McKinney's web site but I did not find it. Also, someone taped it to sell? Check other 9-11 websites.

http://www.house.gov/mckinney/

news brief

http://www.house.gov/mckinney/news/pr050722.htm

July 22nd Congressional Briefing: The 9/11 Commission Report One Year Later: A Citizens' Response - Did They Get It Right?

July 22, 2005

On July 22, 2005, Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) will host a full-day briefing, co-sponsored by Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), and other sponsors, for Members of Congress and their staffs in the Caucus Room, Cannon House Office Building, Room 345, Independence Ave. & First Street SE, from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.

One year after the release of the 9/11 Commission Final Report many questions about what transpired on September 11, 2001 and who should be held accountable still remain unanswered. Serious flaws and omissions in the Report have been addressed by whistleblowers and academics. Well known researchers and authors have put the evnts of that day into historical perspective, and have suggested possible alternatives to the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission regarding intelligence reform, domestic and foreign policy. The hard evidence has yet to be properly evaluated, and points to the need for full transparency, release of information, and continued probative investigations to have an effective, democratic response to the crisis that confronts all of us.

Family members of the victims of 9/11 will present a “Report Card” to address their still unanswered questions about the events of 9/11 and the lack of accountability for the security and intelligence failures that may have allowed these events to happen. Other experts will speak to the flaws in the 9/11 Commission’s process, including conflicts of interest, lack of transparency, investigative rigor and public input, and the many whistleblowers ignored by the Commission.

One panel of experts will explore the omissions and errors in the Commission’s Final Report, including the timeline of NORAD/FAA and P-56 defense responses that day, the suspects and plot, the background of Al Qaeda and bin Laden, the involvement of other countries, the obstruction of investigations by the FBI and CIA, and foreknowledge and forewarnings prior to the attacks. Another panel will place 9/11 into historical perspective and looka t the flawed assumptions that misled the Commission’s work, including the politics of illegal drugs, oil investments, covert operations and terrorism, as well as past covert operations like Contragate and the rise of the neo-conservatives and their agenda.

The last half of the day will be a critical examination by experts of the Commission’s recommendations concerning domestic and foreign policy and intelligence reforms, suggesting other alternatives and policies that could lead to real security and preserve civil liberties and democracy. Rep. McKinney will also address the need for further investigation and opening the evidence for public scrutiny.

A list of confirmed speakers so for includes:

Rober McIlvaine, father of 9/11 victim, member of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
Marilyn Rosenthal, mother of 9/11 victim, professor at U. of Michigan, expert on forewarnings to 9/11
Robert Baer, author of Sleeping with the Devil and See No Evil, former CIA
Nafeez Ahmed, author of The War on Truth, Director, Institute for Policy Research & Development
Jumana Musa, Amnesty International
Melvin Goodman, Fellow, Center for International Policy, former CIA
John Newman, Ph.D., professor University of West Virginia, former NSA analyst
Paul Thompson, author of The Terror Timeline
Elaine Cassel, author of The War on Civil Liberties, legal expert
William Michaels, author of No Greater Threat
Lauretta Napoleoni, author of Terror Incorporated: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks
Anne Norton, author of Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire
Mary Rose Oaker, President, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, legal expert
Peter Dale Scott, Ph.D., professor UC Berkeley, author of Drugs, Oil and War, former Canadian diplomat
Murray Weiss, author of The Man Who Warned America concerning FBI agent John O’Neill who died on 9/11

Senator Specter said he will hold hearings on this: The McKinney panels said that Atta was known to the CIA in the mid 1990s far before the pentagon intel found him.

Pentagon Finds More Who Recall Atta Intel

Updated 7:00 AM ET September 2, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8cc31fg6&src=ap

By ROBERT BURNS

WASHINGTON (AP) - Pentagon officials said Thursday they have found three more people who recall an intelligence chart that identified Sept. 11 mastermind Mohamed Atta as a terrorist one year before the attacks on New York and Washington. But they have been unable to find the chart or other evidence that it existed.

Last month, two military officers, Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and Navy Capt. Scott Philpott, went public with claims that a secret unit code-named Able Danger used data mining _ searching large amounts of data for patterns _ to identify Atta in 2000. Shaffer has said three other Sept. 11 hijackers also were identified.

In recent days Pentagon officials have said they could not yet verify or disprove the assertions by Shaffer and Philpott. On Thursday, four intelligence officials provided the first extensive briefing for reporters on the outcome of their interviews with people associated with Able Danger and their review of documents.

They said they interviewed at least 80 people over a three-week period and found three, besides Philpott and Shaffer, who said they remember seeing a chart that either mentioned Atta by name as an al-Qaida operative or showed his photograph. Four of the five recalled a chart with a pre-9/11 photo of Atta; the other person recalled only a reference to his name.

The intelligence officials said they consider the five people to be credible but their recollections are still unverified.

"To date, we have not identified the chart," said Pat Downs, a senior policy analyst in the office of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence. "We have identified a similar chart but it does not contain the photo of Mohamed Atta or a reference to him or a reference to the other (9/11) hijackers."

She said more interviews would be conducted, but the search of official documents is finished.

Downs and the other officials said they could not rule out that the chart recalled by Shaffer, Philpott and three others had been destroyed in compliance with regulations pertaining to intelligence information about people inside the United States. They also did not rule out that the five simply had faulty recollections.

Navy Cmdr. Christopher Chope, of the Center for Special Operations at U.S. Special Operations Command, said there were "negative indications" that anyone ever ordered the destruction of Able Danger documents, other than the materials that were routinely required to be destroyed under existing regulations.

Shaffer, who is now a civilian employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency, also has publicly asserted that military lawyers stopped the Able Danger staff from sharing the information on Atta with the FBI out of concern about gathering and sharing information on people in the United States legally.

Chope said there is no evidence that military lawyers blocked the sharing of Able Danger information with the FBI.

Chope also said the nature of Able Danger has been misrepresented in some news stories. He said it was created as a result of a directive in early October 1999 by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to U.S. Special Operations Command to develop a campaign plan against transnational terrorism, "specifically al-Qaida."

He called it an internal working group with a core of 10 staffers at Special Operations Command. Philpott was the "team leader," he said. "Able Danger was never a military unit," and it never targeted individual terrorists, he said. It went out of existence when the planning effort was finished in January 2001, he said.

Able Danger's purpose was to "characterize the al-Qaida network," Chope said, and determine the terror network's vulnerabilities and linkages at a time when U.S. officials were unaware that al-Qaida members were operating inside the United States.

"The effort was never: Determine which individuals we ought to roll up," he said. "Did Osama bin Laden's name come up? Of course it did." But it was not primarily aimed at identifying individual terrorists, he added.

Of the five people who told Pentagon interviewers they recalled a pre-9/11 chart that either named Atta or showed his photograph, two were on the staff of U.S. Special Operations Command: Philpott and an unidentified civilian analyst. Besides Shaffer, the others were an unidentified private contractor and an analyst with the Army's Land Information Warfare Activity, Downs said.

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...05-102323-1829r

9-11 Commission 'swinging in the wind' on Abel Danger
Shaun Waterman

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/14/politics...i=5070&emc=eta1

F.A.A. alerted on Qaeda in '98, 9/11 Panel Said

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: September 14, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 - American aviation officials were warned as early as 1998 that Al Qaeda could "seek to hijack a commercial jet and slam it into a U.S. landmark," according to previously secret portions of a report prepared last year by the Sept. 11 commission. The officials also realized months before the Sept. 11 attacks that two of the three airports used in the hijackings had suffered repeated security lapses.

A Less Edited Report
Federal Aviation Administration officials were also warned in 2001 in a report prepared for the agency that airport screeners' ability to detect possible weapons had "declined significantly" in recent years, but little was done to remedy the problem, the Sept. 11 commission found.

The White House and many members of the commission, which has completed its official work, have been battling for more than a year over the release of the commission's report on aviation failures, which was completed in August 2004.

A heavily redacted version was released by the Bush administration in January, but commission members complained that the deleted material contained information critical to the public's understanding of what went wrong on Sept. 11. In response, the administration prepared a new public version of the report, which was posted Tuesday on the National Archives Web site.

While the new version still blacks out numerous references to particular shortcomings in aviation security, it restores dozens of other portions of the report that the administration had been considered too sensitive for public release.

The newly disclosed material follows the basic outline of what was already known about aviation failings, namely that the F.A.A. had ample reason to suspect that Al Qaeda might try to hijack a plane yet did little to deter it. But it also adds significant details about the nature and specificity of aviation warnings over the years, security lapses by the government and the airlines, and turf battles between federal agencies.

Some of the details were in confidential bulletins circulated by the agency to airports and airlines, and some were in its internal reports.

"While we still believe that the entire document could be made available to the public without damaging national security, we welcome this step forward," the former leaders of the commission, Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, said in a joint statement. "The additional detail provided in this version of the monograph will make a further contribution to the public record of the facts and circumstances of the 9/11 attacks established by the final report of the 9/11 commission."

Bush administration officials said they had worked at the commission's request to restore much of the material that had been blacked out in the original report. "Out of an abundance of caution, there are a variety of reasons why the U.S. government would not want to disclose certain security measures and not make them available in the public domain for terrorists to exploit," said Russ Knocke, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.

Commission officials said they were perplexed by the administration's original attempts to black out material they said struck them as trivial or mundane.

One previously deleted section showed, for instance, that flights carrying the author Salman Rushdie were subjected to heightened security in the summer of 2001 because of a fatwa of violence against him, while a previously deleted footnote showed that "sewing scissors" would be allowed in the hands of a woman with sewing equipment, but prohibited "in the possession of a man who possessed no other sewing equipment."

Other deletions, however, highlighted more serious security concerns. A footnote that was originally deleted from the report showed that a quarter of the security screeners used in 2001 by Argenbright Security for United Airlines flights at Dulles Airport had not completed required criminal background checks, the commission report said. Another previously deleted footnote, related to the lack of security for cockpit doors, criticized American Airlines for security lapses.

Much of the material now restored in the public version of the commission's report centered on the warnings the F.A.A. received about the threat of hijackings, including 52 intelligence documents in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks that mentioned Al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden.

A Less Edited Report
A 1995 National Intelligence Estimate, a report prepared by intelligence officials, "highlighted the growing domestic threat of terrorist attack, including a risk to civil aviation," the commission found in a blacked-out portion of the report.

And in 1998 and 1999, the commission report said, the F.A.A.'s intelligence unit produced reports about the hijacking threat posed by Al Qaeda, "including the possibility that the terrorist group might try to hijack a commercial jet and slam it into a U.S. landmark."

The unit considered this prospect "unlikely" and a "last resort," with a greater threat of a hijacking overseas, the commission found.

Still, in 2000, the commission said, the F.A.A. warned carriers and airports that while political conditions in the 1990's had made a terrorist seizure of an airliner less likely, "we believe that the situation has changed."

"We assess that the prospect for terrorist hijacking has increased and that U.S. airliners could be targeted in an attempt to obtain the release of indicted or convicted terrorists imprisoned in the United States."

It concluded, however, that such a hijacking was more likely outside the United States.

By September 2001 the F.A.A. was receiving some 200 pieces a day of intelligence from other agencies about possible threats, and it had opened more than 1,200 files to track possible threats, the commission found.

The commission found that F.A.A. officials were repeatedly warned about security lapses before Sept. 11 and, despite their increased concerns about a hijacking, allowed screening performance to decline significantly.

While box cutters like those used by the hijackers were not necessarily a banned item before Sept. 11, some security experts have said that tougher screening and security could have detected the threat the hijackers posed. But screening measures at two of the three airports used by the hijackers - Logan in Boston and Dulles near Washington - were known to be inadequate, the commission found. Reviews at Newark airport also found some security violations, but it was the only one of the three airports used on Sept. 11 that met or exceeded national norms.

Richard Ben-Veniste, a former member of the Sept. 11 commission, said the release of the material more than a year after it was completed underscored the over-classification of federal material. "It's outrageous that it has taken the administration a year since this monograph was submitted for it to be released," he said. "There's no reason it could not have been released earlier."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...ept11_hijackers

Weldon: Atta Papers Destroyed on Orders
By DONNA DE LA CRUZ, Associated Press Writer
Thu Sep 15, 7:43 PM ET



WASHINGTON - A Pentagon employee was ordered to destroy documents that identified Mohamed Atta as a terrorist two years before the 2001 attacks, a congressman said Thursday.

The employee is prepared to testify next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee and was expected to name the person who ordered him to destroy the large volume of documents, said Rep. Curt Weldon (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa.

Weldon declined to name the employee, citing confidentiality matters. Weldon described the documents as "2.5 terabytes" — as much as one-fourth of all the printed materials in the Library of Congress, he added.

A Senate Judiciary Committee aide said the witnesses for Wednesday's hearing had not been finalized and could not confirm Weldon's comments.

A message left Thursday with a Pentagon spokesman, Army Maj. Paul Swiergosz, was not immediately returned.

Weldon has said that Atta, the mastermind of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and three other hijackers were identified in 1999 by a classified military intelligence unit known as "Able Danger," which determined they could be members of an al-Qaida cell.

On Wednesday, former members of the Sept. 11 commission dismissed the "Able Danger" assertions. One commissioner, ex-Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., said, "Bluntly, it just didn't happen and that's the conclusion of all 10 of us."

Weldon responded angrily to Gorton's assertions.

"It's absolutely unbelievable that a commission would say this program just didn't exist," Weldon said Thursday.

Pentagon officials said this month they had found three more people who recall an intelligence chart identifying Atta as a terrorist prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Two military officers, Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott, have come forward to support Weldon's claims.

http://www.alternet.org/story/25697/

Pentagon Pushes to Hide 9/11 Mistakes

By Rory O'Connor, AlterNet. Posted September 20, 2005.


The military hopes to keep the press and public from this week's long-awaited Congressional hearings about intelligence failures before the attacks.

Will the press and the public be excluded from this week's Senate Judiciary Committee hearings concerning a once-secret military intelligence unit called "Able Danger" that identified four of the 9/11 hijackers in 2000?

Yes, if the Pentagon has its way. According to Fox News, military officials have been exerting pressure to close the hearings for at least a week. But Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Penn., is said to be resisting their request to classify the "intelligence information sharing" hearings, expected to feature testimony from several Pentagon sources.

Why should you care? In addition to the fact that members of the once clandestine intelligence unit say they identified Mohammed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers as threats a year before the attacks, former Able Danger analysts also claim that they tried to turn the information over to the FBI -- but were repeatedly ignored.

Although Pentagon officials originally cast doubt on Able Danger's very existence, they now confirm that five former members of the unit remember Atta's picture or name being on a chart in 2000.

Rep. Curt Weldon -- a Republican from Pennsylvania -- has been pushing the issue for weeks. Now he appears to have succeeded in persuading Congress to look into what the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States, (informally known as the Sept. 11 Commission) knew about the Able Danger intelligence group, and whether the Commission ignored evidence about the hijackers' presence in the United States.

Weldon has also been critical of the Commission for not including the Able Danger project in its report on the attacks. But Commission Chairman Thomas Kean maintains the panel acquired no evidence indicating that anyone in the government knew about Atta in advance of the attacks.

"The Sept. 11 commission's statement that it does not believe a secret military intelligence unit discovered a group of future hijackers more than a year before the terrorist attacks is a total denial of the facts," Weldon says. "For the 9/11 commission to say that this did not exist is just absolutely outrageous."

Members of Able Danger say their group identified Atta and three other hijackers as potential members of a terrorist cell in New York City. Able Danger analysts Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott add that Pentagon lawyers rejected a recommendation that the information be turned over to the FBI in 2000. Shaffer and Phillpott also say they met with staff members on the Sept. 11 Commission about their findings. But commission members say Atta was never mentioned by name at those meetings.

No one questions the credibility of Shaffer and Phillpott, but Defense Department officials can find no documents to back up the claims, have not found the chart and don't even know if it exists, despite having reviewed hundreds of thousands of documents. Since the Pentagon confirmed this month that documents associated with Able Danger were destroyed (because of strict regulations governing the collection of data on foreign visitors in the United States) this is not surprising. Nor, given the volatile subject matter, is the Pentagon pressure to close the judiciary hearings to the press and public.

What is surprising, however, is the fact that former members of the Sept. 11 commission roundly reject the claim that the Able Danger group identified the hijackers so early. Commissioner Slade Gorton, a former Republican senator from Washington, for example, dismissed it out of hand. "Bluntly, it just didn't happen and that's the conclusion of all 10 of us," Gorton said.

Senator Specter's Communications Director says that no decision on whether to classify the hearings or not has been made and that discussions with the Defense Department continue. Speaking on behalf of Rep. Weldon, Communications Director John Tomaszewski said the Congressman "would be disappointed" if Pentagon pressure led to the closing of the hearings. "We all want to get to the bottom of this," Tomaszewski told me. "We need to bring these issues before the public, not to hide them."

Maybe it will all be sorted out in front of Arlen Specter and his committee this week. But if the hearings are in fact closed, we the people may never know the truth.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/politics...html?oref=login

Pentagon Blocks Testimony at Senate Hearing on Terrorist

By PHILIP SHENON
Published: September 20, 2005

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 - The Pentagon said today that it had blocked a group of military officers and intelligence analysts from testifying at an open Congressional hearing about a highly classified military intelligence program that, the officers have said, identified a ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks as a potential terrorist more than a year before the attacks.

The announcement came a day before the officers and intelligence analysts had been scheduled to testify about the program, known as Able Danger, at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bryan Whitman, a Defense Department spokesman, said in a statement that open testimony about the program "would not be appropriate - we have expressed our security concerns and believe it is simply not possible to discuss Able Danger in any great detail in an open public forum." He offered no other detail on the Pentagon's reasoning in blocking the testimony.

Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the committee, said he was surprised by the Pentagon's decision because "so much of this has already been in the public domain, and I think that the American people need to know what happened here."

Mr. Specter said in a telephone interview that he intended to go ahead with the hearing on Wednesday and hoped that it "may produce a change of heart by the Department of Defense in answering some very basic questions."

Two military officers - an active-duty Navy captain and a reservist Army lieutenant colonel - have said publicly in recent weeks that they were involved with Able Danger and that the program's analysts identified Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian-born ringleader of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, by name as a potential terrorist by early 2000.

They said they attempted to share the information with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the summer of 2000, more than a year before the terrorist attacks, but were blocked by Defense Department lawyers. F.B.I. officials, who answer to the jurisdiction of Senator Specter's committee, have confirmed that Defense Department abruptly canceled meetings in 2000 between the bureau's Washington field office and representatives of the Able Danger team.

The Pentagon has said that it has interviewed three other people who were involved with Able Danger and who said that they, too, recalled the identification of Mr. Atta as a terrorist suspect. But Defense Department investigators said they could find no documentary evidence to back up the assertion; they acknowledged that much of the information might have been routinely destroyed.

Mr. Specter said his staff had talked to all five of the potential witnesses and found that "credibility has been established" for all of them.

"There are quite a few credible people who are prepared to testify that Mohamed Atta was identified long before 9/11," he said. "Now maybe there's more than one Mohamed Atta. Or maybe there's some mistake. But that's what we're trying to find out."

Mr. Whitman, the Pentagon spokesman, said that in place of members of the Able Danger team, a senior defense official would be sent to the Wednesday hearing to discuss "what the law and policies are on domestic surveillance and to provide some insights about information-sharing between agencies."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/22/politics/22intel.html

Senators Accuse Pentagon of Obstructing Inquiry on Sept. 11 Plot
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: September 22, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 - Senators from both parties accused the Defense Department on Wednesday of obstructing an investigation into whether a highly classified intelligence program known as Able Danger did indeed identify Mohamed Atta and other future hijackers as potential threats well before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The complaints came after the Pentagon blocked several witnesses from testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee at a public hearing on Wednesday. The only testimony provided by the Defense Department came from a senior official who would say only that he did not know whether the claims were true.

But members of the panel, led by Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said they regarded as credible assertions by current and former officers in the program. The officers have said they were prevented by the Pentagon from sharing information about Mr. Atta and others with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

A Pentagon spokesman had said the decision to limit testimony was based on concerns about disclosing classified information, but Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said he believed the reason was a concern "that they'll just have egg on their face."

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, accused the Pentagon of "a cover-up" and said, "I don't get why people aren't coming forward and saying, 'Here's the deal, here's what happened.' "

The Pentagon has acknowledged that at least five members of Able Danger have said they recall a chart produced in 2000 that identified Mr. Atta, who became the lead hijacker in the Sept. 11 plot, as a potential terrorist, but they have said that others with knowledge of the project do not remember that.

"Did we have information that identified Mohamed Atta?" said William Dugan, an assistant to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld for intelligence oversight, restating a question put to him. "I've heard the testimony presented, but I don't know."

Among those who testified about Able Danger was Representative Curt Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania, who has mounted an aggressive campaign to call public attention to the program, which used computers to sift through volumes of unclassified data in an effort to identify people with links to Al Qaeda.

Another witness, Mark S. Zaid, a Washington lawyer, testified on behalf of two clients whom the Pentagon barred from speaking at the hearing. The clients, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, an Army Reserve officer, and J. D. Smith, a former contractor on the project, were in the audience.

Erik Kleinsmith, a former Army major who was involved in early stages of Able Danger, told the committee that, by April 2000, the program had collected "an immense amount of data for analysis that allowed us to map Al Qaeda as a worldwide threat with a surprisingly significant presence within the United States." Mr. Kleinsmith said that his affiliation with the project ended about that time and that he had no recollection of information that identified Mr. Atta.

But Mr. Kleinsmith told the committee that he had been "forced to destroy all the data, charts and other analytical product" in compliance with Army regulations that prohibit keeping data related to American citizens and others, including permanent residents who have legal protections, unless the data falls under one of several restrictive categories.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/sta...0922atta.shtmlT


hursday, September 22, 2005

Sept. 11 military cover-up alleged


By BART JANSEN Washington D.C. Correspondent,


WASHINGTON — Pentagon researchers linked Sept. 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta to a New York group of al-Qaida terrorists a year before the 2001 attacks, but the military destroyed the evidence after the hijackings, witnesses testified Wednesday. The Defense Department has refused to discuss the intelligence program called "Able Danger" and prohibited those who were involved from testifying at Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The refusal has fueled talk about whether the military could have prevented the attacks.

A Pentagon official acknowledged at the hearing that officials should have shared the information with the FBI if it was gathered in an acceptable manner.

Committee members called the destruction of paperwork a cover-up of missed opportunities. More urgently, lawmakers questioned what other information was destroyed that could have helped prevent future terrorist attacks.

"Terrorism remains the No. 1 problem in the United States today," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. and committee chairman. "It is not a matter of attaching blame, it is a matter of correcting any errors so that we don't have a repetition of 9/11. If there is intelligence available, it ought to be shared."

Atta was the apparent leader of 19 hijackers aboard four planes Sept. 11 that crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing about 3,000 people. Atta is of great interest in Maine because he and another hijacker passed through Portland International Jetport the morning of the attacks, flying to connections in Boston.

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., and vice chairman of the Armed Services Committee, sparked the investigation of Able Danger after learning about the secret program through his congressional work. He lost a neighbor and military colleagues in the attacks.

"There's something wrong with the system, and we should be able to discuss that," he said.

Weldon has found five military officials who described seeing Atta among Able Danger records.

One was Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a civilian at the Defense Intelligence Agency and Army reserve officer who tried to pass along warnings to the FBI three times and was rebuffed.

Another was James Smith, a defense contractor who kept a chart on his office wall that linked pictures of suspected terrorists including Atta with text about them.

Both men attended the hearing, but the Pentagon ordered Shaffer not to testify. His security clearance, which was suspended after he spoke to the Sept. 11 Commission about Able Danger, was fully revoked Monday.

His lawyer, Mark Zaid, also urged Smith not to testify for fear of losing his own security clearance.

But Zaid described what they would have said. He compared Able Danger to the game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," where players name actors or movies connected to the prolific actor.

At Able Danger, researchers started with links to Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Atta, who wasn't known to be in the United States, was linked to Abel-Rahman's Brooklyn group of al-Qaida, placing his picture on Smith's giant chart, Zaid said.

"It was grainy photograph," Zaid said. "He remembered it vividly because of the potentially evil, death look in Mohamed Atta's eyes, and his narrow, drawn face."

The Pentagon has refused to discuss Able Danger for fear of revealing classified secrets. But Specter said he would continue pressing for answers.

"This looks to me like it may be obstruction of the committee's activities," Specter said.

Able Danger operated primarily in 1999 and 2000, although briefings based on the program's research continued in early 2001, according to witnesses. When the program ended, the military destroyed 2.5 terabytes of documentation, which Weldon said equals one-quarter of the books at the Library of Congress.

Erik Kleinsmith, who trains others in intelligence gathering for Lockheed Martin Information Technology, was an Army major in intelligence who worked on Able Danger. He said the data "allowed us to map al-Qaida as a worldwide threat with a surprisingly significant presence within the United States."

But he told the committee that he ordered the destruction of the program's documents based on military regulations calling for routine elimination. "This destruction was dictated by and conducted in accordance with intelligence oversight procedures that we lived by," Kleinsmith said.

In another twist, witnesses at the hearing said the documents could be destroyed easily because they were not secret. Weldon said military officials acknowledged to Armed Services Committee members two weeks ago at an informal meeting that Able Danger had used voting records that were publicly available.

Lawmakers voiced frustration with the destruction of the intelligence. "I don't get the purpose of the cover-up," said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.

After highlighting the public nature of the information, Specter asked William Dugan, acting assistant to the defense secretary for intelligence oversight, whether it was a mistake for the Pentagon not to share the information with the FBI. Dugan said he wasn't sure whether it was properly collected.

But Specter pressed, asking what should happen if information was properly collected.

"If it's properly collected, yes," Dugan said.

Washington Correspondent Bart Jansen can be contacted at 202-488-1119 or at:

bjansen@pressherald.com

http://www.aclu.org/court/court.cfm?ID=19163&c=317

Sibel Edmonds v. Department of Justice: A Patriot Silenced, Fighting to Keep America Safe

September 26, 2005



FOR IMMEDIATE RLEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org

By ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson

WASHINGTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court's dismissal of the case of Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator who was fired in retaliation for reporting security breaches and possible espionage within the Bureau. Lower courts dismissed the case when former Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the rarely used "state secrets" privilege.


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Sibel Edmonds, a Turkish-American woman, was hired as a translator by the FBI shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 because of her knowledge of Middle Eastern languages. Judge Reggie Walton in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed Edmonds retaliation case, citing the government's “states secrets privilege.” The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling, and on August 4, 2005, the American Civil Liberties Union petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Edmonds' case.

The Supreme Court created the so-called state secrets privilege more than 50 years ago but has not considered it since. The privilege, when properly invoked, permits the government to block the release in litigation of any material that, if disclosed, would cause harm to national security. The need for clarification of the doctrine is acute because the government is increasingly using the privilege to cover up its own wrongdoing and to keep legitimate cases out of court.

History has shown that the government has relied on the state secrets privilege to cover up its own negligence. In the 1953 Supreme Court case that was the basis for today's state secrets privilege doctrine, United States v. Reynolds , the government claimed that disclosing a military flight accident report would jeopardize secret military equipment and harm national security. Nearly 50 years later, in 2004, the truth came out - the accident report contained no state secrets, but instead confirmed that the cause of the crash was faulty maintenance of the B-29 fleet.

The government is engaged in a similar cover-up in the Edmonds case. In 2002, at the request of Senate Judiciary Committee members Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the FBI provided several unclassified briefings to Members of Congress in which it confirmed many of Edmonds' allegations.

More than two years later, the Justice Department retroactively classified those briefings, which were reported in the Congressional Record, and asked Members who had the information posted on their web sites to remove certain documents. This move was a blatant attempt to bolster the government's efforts to dismiss Edmonds' case on state secrets grounds. After the Project On Government Oversight filed a separate lawsuit challenging the retroactive classification, the Justice Department agreed the information could be distributed.

An unclassified summary of a report by the DOJ's Inspector General, released in January 2005, corroborates Edmonds' allegations . The IG report concludes that the FBI had retaliated against Edmonds for reporting serious security breaches, stating that “many of her allegations were supported, that the FBI did not take them seriously enough, and that her allegations were, in fact, the most significant factor in the FBI's decision to terminate her services.”

Edmonds' case is not an isolated incident. The federal government is routinely retaliating against government employees who uncover weaknesses in our ability to prevent terrorist attacks or protect public safety.

The states secrets privilege should be used as a shield for sensitive evidence, not a sword the government can use at will to cut off argument in a case before the evidence can be presented. We are urging the Supreme Court, which has not directly addressed this issue in 50 years, to rein in the government's misuse of this privilege.

The outcome in Edmonds' case could significantly impact the government's ability to rely on secrecy to avoid accountability in future cases, including one pending case charging the government with “rendering” detainees to be tortured.

We are asking the Supreme Court to reverse the D.C. appeals court's decision to exclude the press and public from the court hearing of Edmonds' case last April. The appeals court closed the hearing at the eleventh hour without any specific findings that secrecy was necessary.

Fourteen 9/11 family member advocacy groups and public interest organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Edmonds case before the District Court, and many are expected to join an amicus brief supporting Supreme Court review of the case, including the National Security Archive.

Edmonds' ordeal is highlighted in a 10-page article in the September 2005 issue of Vanity Fair titled “An Inconvenient Patriot.” The article, which chronicles FBI wrongdoing and possible corruption charges involving a high-level member of Congress, further undercuts the government's claim that the case can't be litigated because certain information is secret.

If you get the chance to read 911 On Trial, which is a topic I posted recently, it is full of interesting questions.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/na...0,1493600.story

Atta known to Pentagon before 9/11

By John Crewdson and Andrew Zajac
Washington Bureau

September 28, 2005


WASHINGTON -- Four years after the nation's deadliest terror attack, evidence is accumulating that a super-secret Pentagon intelligence unit identified the organizer of the Sept. 11 hijackings, Mohamed Atta, as an Al Qaeda operative months before he entered the U.S.

The many investigations of Sept. 11, 2001, have turned up a half-dozen instances in which government agencies possessed information that might have led investigators to some part of the terrorist plot, although in most cases not in time to stop it.

But none of those leads likely would have taken them directly to Atta, the Egyptian architecture student who moved to the U.S. from Germany to take flying lessons and later served as Al Qaeda's U.S. field commander for the attacks.

Had the FBI been alerted to what the Pentagon purportedly knew in early 2000, Atta's name could have been put on a list that would have tagged him as someone to be watched the moment he stepped off a plane in Newark, N.J., in June of that year.

Physical and electronic surveillance of Atta, who lived openly in Florida for more than a year, and who acquired a driver's license and even an FAA pilot's license in his true name, might well have made it possible for the FBI to expose the Sept. 11 plot before the fact.

Atta is presumed to have been at the controls of American Airlines Flight 11 when it struck the north tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

The FBI has reviewed the voluminous records of its extensive Sept. 11 investigation and can find no mention of Atta before Sept. 11, a senior FBI official said. If the Pentagon knew about Atta in 2000 and failed to tell the FBI, the official said, "It could be a problem."

Anthony Shaffer, a civilian Pentagon employee, says he was asked in the summer of 2000 by a Navy captain, Scott Phillpott, to arrange a meeting between the FBI and representatives of the Pentagon intelligence program, code-named Able/Danger.

But he said the meeting was canceled after Pentagon lawyers concluded that information on suspected Al Qaeda operatives with ties to the U.S. might violate Pentagon prohibitions on retaining information on "U.S. persons," a term that includes U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens.

Information unearthed

The Washington-based FBI agent who was Shaffer's liaison has recalled, in interviews with her superiors, that Shaffer told her his group had unearthed important information on suspected Al Qaeda operatives with links to the U.S., but without mentioning Atta's name.

When Shaffer, who is also a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, asked to whom at the FBI that information should be communicated, the agent gave him the name and phone number of an official at FBI headquarters, according to the senior FBI official.

Shaffer explained in a telephone interview that although Able/Danger never had knowledge of Atta's whereabouts, it had linked him and several other Al Qaeda suspects to an Egyptian terrorist, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who had been linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and later was convicted for conspiring to attack the U.S. Atta arrived in the U.S. some seven years after that bombing. But Shaffer and his attorney, Mark Zaid, emphasize that Able/Danger never knew where Atta was, only that he was connected to Abdel-Rahman and Al Qaeda.

"Not to say they were physically here, but the data led us to believe there was some activity related to the original World Trade Center bombing that these guys were somehow affiliated with," Shaffer said.

Asked by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, at a hearing last week whether Atta, who lived for 15 months in Florida under a temporary student visa, was a "U.S. person," a senior Pentagon official answered, "No, he was not."

The official, William Dugan, was asked why the Pentagon had not given the Able/Danger data to the FBI.

"We're a lot smarter now than we were in 1999 and 2000," replied Dugan, who testified that the Pentagon instead destroyed the huge volume of material gathered by Able/Danger, which was disbanded in late 2000.

Erik Kleinsmith, a former Army major who worked with Able/Danger, testified at the hearing that he continued to wonder whether, if Able/Danger "had not been shut down, [whether] we would have been able to assist the United States in some way" to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks.

Zaid, who also represents James D. Smith, a private contractor employed by the Pentagon to work on Able/Danger, said that until last summer Smith had on his office wall a copy of a chart of Al Qaeda suspects, produced more than a year before Sept. 11, that had Atta's name and photograph.

"He showed it to anybody who came by--`Look what we had,'" Zaid testified. "And he would just shake his head, `What if, what if, what if....'"

Specter sharply criticized the Pentagon for refusing to allow Shaffer, Phillpott, Smith and others who recall seeing the chart to appear and answer the committee's questions.

"It looks to me as if it could be obstruction of the committee's activities," the senator said.

Specter added that he was especially "dismayed and frustrated" by the committee's inability to hear from Shaffer and Phillpott, whom he described as "two brave military officers [who] have risked their careers to come forward and tell America the truth."

Pentagon to permit testimony

Following the hearing, Specter announced that the Pentagon had agreed to allow Shaffer, Phillpott and three other witnesses to testify in public next month, though a Specter aide said Tuesday that the Pentagon now insisted the hearings be closed.

The Defense Department initiated its own investigation of Able/Danger's activities several weeks ago. After more than 80 interviews with Pentagon personnel, investigators reported that two individuals in addition to Shaffer, Phillpott and Smith recalled seeing the Atta chart before Sept. 11.

Kleinsmith, who is no longer affiliated with the Pentagon, testified that he was ordered by a Defense Department lawyer to comply with Pentagon regulations by destroying the Able/Danger data. He said he did not remember seeing Atta's name or photo on the materials he destroyed, but that he believed Shaffer, Phillpott and the three other employees "implicitly when they say they do."

Shaffer said that before Sept. 11 neither he nor anyone else associated with Able/Danger attached any special significance to Atta, or to any of the other Al Qaeda suspects the intelligence effort had unearthed.

Nor would they have had reason to. In early 2000, when Shaffer said he first saw Able/Danger charts identifying suspected Al Qaeda members with links to the U.S., Atta and two other Sept. 11 hijack pilots, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, were living and studying in Hamburg, Germany.

"I was the one that carried the charts down to Tampa, to Capt. Phillpott," then Able/Danger's operations officer, Shaffer said.

Able/Danger was an experiment in a new kind of warfare, known as "information warfare" or "information dominance." One of the program's missions was to see whether Al Qaeda cells around the world could be identified by sifting huge quantities of publicly available data, a relatively new technique called "data mining."

The data miners used complex software programs, with names like Spire, Parentage and Starlight, that mimic the thought patterns in the human brain while parsing countless bits of information from every available source to find relationships and patterns that otherwise would be invisible.

Over its 18-month lifetime, Able/Danger gathered an immense amount of data, the equivalent, Specter said, of one-quarter of the contents of the Library of Congress.

Although data mining can be a powerful technique, there is a danger that false connections will be made along the lines of "six degrees of separation," the popular theory that any two people on Earth can be linked through their relationships to no more than six other people.

Data points matched

The Atta-Al Qaeda connection, Shaffer said, was made by Smith, who then worked for a Pentagon contractor named Orion Scientific. Atta's photo, Shaffer said, was obtained by Smith from someone in California who had connections to "a foreign source" who monitored radical mosques in Europe.

"J.D. Smith took eight data points that were common to the original World Trade Center bombers in 1993," with whom Abdel-Rahman had been associated, Shaffer said. "From those eight data points, he matched the profile."

Atta, whose full name was Mohammed El-Amir Awad el Sayid Atta, called himself Mohamed el-Amir while living in Germany, and thus would not have been readily identifiable as "Mohamed Atta."

He switched to the surname Atta as he prepared to move to the U.S., according to German police documents. A Senate aide said Specter was negotiating with the Defense Department over the conditions under which Shaffer and the other Pentagon witnesses would be permitted to appear before the Judiciary Committee and answer the senators' questions.

"I think the Department of Defense owes the American people an answer about what went on here," Specter declared.

Clues pieced together in years following attacks

Post-Sept. 11 investigations have revealed instances that seem, in hindsight, to have been chances for the CIA or FBI to thwart the attacks.

1. MAY 1998

HIJACK WARNING

- In September 2005 it was revealed that the independent
commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks found that the
Federal Aviation Administration had been warned as early as 1998 that Al Qaeda "might try to hijack a commercial jet and slam it into a U.S. landmark." The FAA viewed this possibility as "unlikely" and a "last resort," the report said.

2. JAN. 15, 2000

THE CIA AND FBI

- Investigations into Sept. 11 paid much attention to the CIA's failure to tell the FBI that one of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar, had apparently moved to the U.S., where he was taking flying lessons with another hijacker, Nawaf al-Hazmi, in San Diego.

3. JAN. 31, 2000

DUBAI ARREST

- One of the most promising leads came from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, where in January 2000 authorities detained Sept. 11 hijack pilot Ziad Jarrah as he was returning to Hamburg from a twomonth sojourn with Mohamed Atta and fellow hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi in Osama bin Laden's Afghan training camps.

It was during those two months that bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed decided that Atta and his friends were the ideal candidates to conduct the operation, according to the Sept. 11 commission report.

As Jarrah was questioned by the Dubai airport police, he knew the general outlines of the plot, though the date and targets would not be decided for more than a year.

According to a senior UAE official who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, while Jarrah was in custody the Dubai police informed the American Embassy that a young Lebanese student had been detained on his way back to Europe from Afghanistan. The embassy contact, the official said, asked that Jarrah be arrested.

When the Dubai police explained they had no grounds for an arrest, the embassy contact replied that the police should let Jarrah go.

Jarrah flew from Dubai to Amsterdam and then to Hamburg, where he reconnected with Atta, al-Shehhi and Ramzi Binalshibh.

U.S. officials dispute the UAE official's account, saying they never learned of the Jarrah airport stop until Sept. 18, 2001.

4. JULY 5, 2001

THE "PHOENIX MEMO"

- What has become known as "the Phoenix memo" was written in July 2001 by an FBI agent in that city who took notice of the number of Middle Eastern students enrolling in Arizona flight schools and wondered whether some of them might be terrorists.

The agent suggested the FBI compile visa information on foreigners applying to flight schools, although such an effort would have missed the Sept. 11 hijackers, who had graduated from flight school months before.

5. AUG. 15, 2001

MOUSSAOUI'S ARREST

- Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested on immigration charges in Minneapolis three weeks before Sept. 11 after he raised the suspicions of a flight school instructor by paying for his lessons in cash and demanding to learn to fly a Boeing 747.

When Minneapolis FBI agents asked FBI headquarters in Washington for permission to see what was on Moussaoui's laptop, they were denied. In fact, Moussaoui had been sent to the U.S. by Al Qaeda to undergo flight training, and aides to bin Laden had arranged for Moussaoui to receive at least $15,000, according to the Sept. 11 commission report.

When the laptop was finally searched in the wake of Sept. 11, it contained nothing linking Moussaoui to the plot.

6. SEPT. 10, 2001

SATELLITE CALLS

- Investigators have made much of two satellite telephone calls between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, monitored and recorded the day before the hijackings by the U.S. National Security Agency.

In one conversation, a party in Afghanistan announces that "The match begins tomorrow." In the second conversation, a different person warns that "Tomorrow is zero hour."

The conversations, in Arabic, weren't translated by the NSA until Sept. 12, but were probably too general to have led investigators to the plot.

----------

jcrewdson@tribune.com

azajac@tribune.com

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/ne...t_id=1001221205


Miers Briefed Bush on Bin Laden PDB, But Papers Handle Photo From That Day Quite Differently

By E&P Staff

Published: October 04, 2005 10:45 AM ET

NEW YORK On its front page Tuesday, The New York Times published a photo of new U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers going over a briefing paper with President George W. Bush at his Crawford ranch “in August 2001,” the caption reads.

USA Today and the Boston Globe carried the photo labeled simply “2001,” but many other newspapers ran the picture in print or on the Web with a more precise date: Aug. 6, 2001.

Does that date sound familiar? Indeed, that was the date, a little over a month before 9/11, that President Bush was briefed on the now-famous “PDB” that declared that Osama Bin Laden was “determined” to attack the U.S. homeland, perhaps with hijacked planes. But does that mean that Miers had anything to do with that briefing?

As it turns out, yes, according to Tuesday's Los Angeles Times. An article by Richard A. Serrano and Scott Gold observes that early in the Bush presidency “Miers assumed such an insider role that in 2001 it was she who handed Bush the crucial 'presidential daily briefing' hinting at terrorist plots against America just a month before the Sept. 11 attacks.”

So the Aug. 6 photo may show this historic moment, though quite possibly not. In any case, some newspapers failed to include the exact date with the widely used Miers photo today. A New York Times spokesman told E&P: "The wording of the caption occurred in the course of routine editing and has no broader significance."

The photo that ran in so many papers and on their Web sites originally came from the White House but was moved by the Associated Press, clearly marked as an “Aug. 6, 2001” file photo. It shows Miers with a document or documents in her right hand, as her left hand points to something in another paper balanced on the president's right leg. Two others in the background are Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin and Steve Biegun of the national security staff.

The PDB was headed “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.,” and notes, among other things, FBI information indicating “patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks.”




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E&P Staff

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20051010/index.htm

Archive and Openness Advocates Urge Supreme Court:
Tell Lower Courts to Scrutinize Government Secrecy Claims

Amicus Brief Requests Review of Dismissal of Whistle Blower Case

For more information contact
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000

October 10, 2005



Read the amici curiae brief, filed October 10, 2005


Washington, D.C., October 10, 2005 - The National Security Archive, along with other openness advocates, today filed a "friend of the court" brief with the United States Supreme Court asking the Court to review the summary dismissal, on secrecy grounds, of a lawsuit filed by an FBI whistleblower.

The Archive's General Counsel Meredith Fuchs explained: "Potential whistleblowers who work in military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies will almost always come into contact with classified information. The problem is that courts today simply are accepting the government claims that the need for secrecy of such information outweighs strong interests, including constitutional interests, in addressing the claims in the lawsuits. We are asking courts to take a harder look." In the case of Sibel Edmonds, the contract linguist who sought to blow the whistle on improprieties in the FBI's translation unit, there are facts that support her claims of wrongdoing, including a Department of Justice Office of Inspector General Report that concludes that Ms. Edmonds' whistleblowing was "the most significant factor" in her termination.

Amici argue that secrecy does not always serve the goal of protecting national security, as the numerous investigations into the September 11 attacks on the United States all concluded. Noting that there has been an upsurge in secrecy over the last four years--and that military and intelligence officials ranging from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to now-Director of the CIA Porter Goss all admit that a significant amount of the secrecy is unnecessary--the brief argues that the judiciary must provide a meaningful review of government claims for secrecy.

In addition to the Archive, the brief was filed on behalf of the Project on Government Secrecy of the Federation of American Scientists, the National Whistleblower Coalition, the Project on Government Oversight, Public Citizen, Inc., The Government Accountability Project, The National Freedom of Information Coalition, American Library Association, the National Air Disaster Alliance, and September 11th Advocates.

More information about the lawsuit is available at www.aclu.org.

imesherald.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15445995&BRD=1672&PAG=461&dept_id=33380&rfi=6


Able Danger warned of attack on USS Cole
By: KEITH PHUCAS, Times Herald Staff
10/25/2005
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NORRISTOWN - Senior Pentagon officials were warned not to let the USS Cole dock in Yemen two days before terrorists attacked the ship five years ago killing 17 sailors, according to Congressman Curt Weldon, who said the crucial intelligence was gleaned from the former secret defense operation, "Able Danger."



Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, revealed the information in a House speech last Wednesday evening that blasted the Defense Intelligence Agency's (DIA) attempts to discredit Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a DIA employee who worked as a liaison with the "Able Danger" team.
In June, Shaffer told The Times Herald during an interview on Capitol Hill that the now-defunct data mining operation had linked Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta to an al-Qaida cell in Brooklyn in 2000 - more than a year before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The military's Special Operations Command ran the high-tech dragnet that searched for terrorist linkages. The terrorist associations were mapped out on large charts, according to Shaffer and other of "Able Danger" colleagues, during the program that operated between 1999 and 2001.
However, following Shaffer's attempts to broker an arrangement that would draw the FBI into the operation, the program was shut down.
Weldon and Shaffer believe "Able Danger" intelligence may have disrupted - or even prevented - the Sept. 11 attacks if it had continued.
In August, Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott and James D. Smith, a defense contractor, corroborated Shaffer's story.
On Wednesday, Weldon again criticized the Pentagon for dragging its feet in its probe of the defense program's history, and continued his criticism of the CIA, which he said tried to protect its own intelligence turf from other government intelligence agencies.
"What we have here, I am convinced of this now, is an aggressive attempt by CIA management to cover up their own shortcomings in not being able to do what the Able Danger team did," he said.
Besides claiming to identifying Atta from a grainy photograph prior to Sept. 11, the intelligence team also tried to warn the Pentagon not to allow the USS Cole to make a refueling stop in Yemen five years ago, Weldon said.
On Oct. 12, 2000, a small boat loaded with explosives rammed into the side of the USS Cole as the ship refueled in port at Aden, killing the 17 Navy personnel.
"(Able Danger members) also identified the threat to the USS Cole two weeks before the attack, and two days before the attack were screaming not to let the (ship) come into the harbor at Yemen, because they knew something was going to happen," he said.
The "Able Danger" group operated at the Army's former Land Information Warfare Center (LIWA), in Ft. Belvoir, Va. After LIWA's intelligence gathering capability impressed Weldon, he tried to pitch the idea of a collaborative intelligence center to the CIA in 1999, but was rebuffed.
Also in his speech, Weldon accused the DIA of trying to smear Shaffer rather than come clean on why "Able Danger" was shut down.
Shaffer, who was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in Afghanistan, had his top-secret security clearance suspended in 2004 allegedly because of disputes over travel expenses and phone bills.
But his supporters suggest Shaffer is being made a scapegoat for going public with the "Able Danger" revelations in August.
Two days before he was set to testify about the program before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 21, the Reserve officer's secret clearance was revoked, and the Defense Department barred him, Phillpott and Smith from testifying at the hearing.
Also in August, Pentagon officials told reporters at a press conference that "Able Danger" data had been deleted from computers. A former Army intelligence officer, Erik Kleinsmith, confirmed this at the Judiciary Committee hearing, testifying he was ordered to destroy information.
During the life of the program, the operation's team members created charts linking terrorists. However, during the recent investigation, none have been found.
The Pentagon, which claimed it is restricted from retaining intelligence on United States citizens and foreign residents living in the U.S., so-called "U.S. persons," for more than 90 days.
However, Weldon has previously said most of the program's data was open source information and not classified. According to guidelines in Army Regulation 381-10, intelligence data can be kept indefinitely if it was culled from open sources.
An unnamed "Able Danger official," Weldon said, was told by a Pentagon lawyer that it's okay to extend the time intelligence information is stored.
A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Chris Conway, said recently that Defense Department officials worried that any public testimony given about "Able Danger" risked revealing classified information.
"Prior to any testimony, we expressed our security concerns with Congress," Conway said. "We said in discussing Able Danger, (it) could inadvertently reveal classified information."
Defense officials said they would allow military personnel to testify about the program behind closed doors.
Previously, Shaffer said that Atta, an Egyptian, had been linked to the El Farouq mosque in Brooklyn, N.Y., a hotbed of anti-American sentiment once frequented by Sheik Omar Ahmed Abdul Rahman, know as the "Blind Sheik." Rahman is also Egyptian. Atta was not believed to be in the U.S., however, when he came to the attention of the team.
In 1995, Rahman was convicted of plotting to bomb various sites in New York City. Four of Rahman's associates were convicted in 2002 of conspiring with him to commit terrorist acts while he was in prison.
Though Shaffer was not allowed to give testimony at the Sept. 21 committee hearing, his attorney, Mark Zaid, did testify.
As a sobering reminder of "Able Danger's" unfulfilled promise, Zaid said the missing charts showing terrorist links likely still contained "several dozen" individuals yet to be captured.
"There are terrorist on the chart who may still be out there and planning attacks," Zaid said.
Keith Phucas can be reached at kphucas@timesherald.com or 610-272-2500, ext. 211.

A republican congressman, Wilson - NC was on C_span today with a democrat to discuss the Iraq war and the 2000 dead soldiers.

Wilson kept insisting that Alqaeda was in Iraq (and had active cells) before the war and Iraq was tied to 9-11. He said a lot more republican talking points including we need to fight them there rather than here.

After many callers complained that our borders are wide open, Wilson said he supports a new budget bill for $2 billion to protect our borders. That is peanuts since we spend $2 billion per week in Iraq.

Complete 911 Timeline: Able Danger program


Project: Complete 911 Timeline
Open-Content project managed by Paul Thompson


Mid-1999-November 1999: LIWA Data Mining Study Causes Controversy After Connecting Prominent US Figures to Weapons Purchases for Chinese Military

A report commissioned in mid-1999 by Rep. Curt Weldon ® looks into possible Chinese front companies in the US seeking technology for the Chinese military. Dr. Eileen Preisser and Michael Maloof are commissioned to make the report. Dr. Preisser, who runs the Information Dominance Center at the US Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) and will later become closely tied to Able Danger, uses LIWA's data mining capabilities to search unclassified information. According to Maloof, their results show Chinese front companies in the US posing as US corporations that acquire technology from US defense contractors. When the study is completed in November 1999, the General Counsel's office in the Office of the Defense Secretary orders the study destroyed. Weldon complains about this to Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, and apparently delays the destruction of the report. Weldon also writes a letter to FBI Director Louis Freeh requesting an espionage investigation into these Chinese links, but Freeh never responds to this. [Washington Times, 10/9/05] As part of this report, LIWA analysts had produced a chart of Chinese strategic and business connections in the US. But this data mining effort runs into controversy when the chart apparently shows connections between future National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, former Defense Secretary William Perry, and other prominent US figures, and business deals benefiting the Chinese military. [New York Post, 8/27/05; Washington Times, 9/22/05] The China chart was put together by private contractor James D. Smith, who will come forward in August 2005 to corroborate revelations about the Able Danger unit and its findings (see August 22-September 1, 2005). The New York Post later says there is “no suggestion that Rice or any of the others had done anything wrong.” [New York Post, 8/27/05] However, articles first appear one month later and through 2001 in the conservative publications WorldNetDaily and NewsMax, which connect Perry and Rice to Hua Di, a Chinese missile scientist and possible spy, and question the nature of their relationship with him. [WorldNetDaily, 12/21/99; WorldNetDaily, 4/5/00; NewsMax, 1/24/01] Di defected to the US in 1989 and worked most of the 1990s at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control, which was co-directed by Perry. Di later returned to China and is subsequently sentenced to ten years in prison for writing influential articles said to reveal vital Chinese state secrets. [Stanford Report, 2/7/01] However, other accounts claim that he was in fact passing on disinformation through these articles, successfully misleading the US military for a couple of years about the abilities of certain Chinese missile programs. [WorldNetDaily, 12/21/99] Additionally, Hua Di teamed in 1994 with Stanford professor Dr. John Lewis and William Perry to buy an advanced AT&T fiber-optic communications system for “civilian” use inside China that instead is used by the Chinese army. The General Accounting Office later criticized the sale. In 1997, Stanford University investigated Dr. Lewis for his role in it, but Condoleezza Rice, serving as a Stanford provost at the time, apparently stopped the investigation. [WorldNetDaily, 4/5/00; NewsMax, 1/24/01] Able Danger and LIWA's data mining efforts will be severely proscribed in April 2000 as part of the fallout from this China controversy (see April 2000), and the destruction of their collected data will follow shortly thereafter (see May-June 2000).
People and organizations involved: China, Eric Shinseki, James D. Smith, Land Information Warfare Activity, Louis J. Freeh, Condoleezza Rice, Hua Di, William Perry, F. Michael Maloof, Eileen Preisser, Curt Weldon


Fall 1999: Army Intelligence Program Is Set Up to Gather Information on Al-Qaeda

On the orders of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the head of the military's Special Operations Command (SOCOM), sets up an intelligence program called Able Danger, to assemble information about al-Qaeda networks around the world. SOCOM, based in Tampa, Florida, is responsible for America's secret commando units. [Government Security News, 9/05] At least some of the data is collected on behalf of Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Lambert, the J3 at US Special Operations Command. [Curt Weldon Statement, 9/21/05] Mark Zaid, a lawyer for several Able Danger whistleblowers in 2005, will give this description of Able Danger: “In the most understandable and simplistic terms, Able Danger involved the searching out and compiling of open source or other publicly available information regarding specific targets or tasks that were connected through associational links. No classified information was used. No government database systems were used. In addition to examining al-Qaeda links, Able Danger also handled tasks relating to Bosnia and China. The search and compilation efforts were primarily handled by defense contractors, who did not necessarily know they were working for Able Danger, and that information was then to be utilized by the military members of Able Danger for whatever appropriate purposes.” [Mark Zaid Testimony, 9/21/05] Eleven intelligence employees are directly involved in Able Danger's work. Six are with SOCOM's Able Danger unit. Four more, including Dr. Eileen Preisser and Maj. Eric Kleinsmith, are with the US Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA), which joins the effort in December 1999. LIWA had been conducing data mining already on a wide variety of topics, including international drug cartels, corruption in Russia and Serbia, terrorist linkages in the Far East, and the proliferation of sensitive military technology to China (see April 2000). Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer running a unit called Stratus Ivy in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) will also take part in the effort. [Norristown Times Herald, 6/19/05; Government Security News, 8/05; New York Times, 8/9/05; St Petersburg Times, 8/10/05; Bergen Record, 8/14/05; Government Security News, 9/05; Erik Kleinsmith Statement, 9/21/05; Curt Weldon Statement, 9/21/05] Using computers, the unit collects huge amounts of data in a technique called “data mining.” They get information from such sources as al-Qaeda Internet chat rooms, news accounts, web sites, and financial records. Using sophisticated software, they compare this with government records such as visa applications by foreign tourists, to find any correlations and depict these visually. [Bergen Record, 8/14/05; Government Security News, 9/05] The program lasts for 18 months, and is shut down early in 2001 (see Early 2001).
People and organizations involved: Special Operations Command, Mark Zaid, Hugh Shelton, China, Bosnia, Russia, Curt Weldon, al-Qaeda, Peter J. Schoomaker, Able Danger, Geoffrey Lambert, Eileen Preisser, Eric Kleinsmith, Anthony Shaffer


October 1999: CIA Does Not Share Information with Able Danger Program

Capt. Scott Phillpott, head of the Able Danger program, asks Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer to talk to a representative of CIA Director George Tenet and attempt to convince him that the new Able Danger program is not competing with the CIA. Shaffer later recalls the CIA representative replying, “I clearly understand the difference. I clearly understand. We're going after the leadership. You guys are going after the body. But, it doesn't matter. The bottom line is, CIA will never give you the best information from ‘Alex Base’ [the CIA's covert action element targeting bin Laden] or anywhere else. CIA will never provide that to you because if you were successful in your effort to target al-Qaeda, you will steal our thunder. Therefore, we will not support this.” Shaffer claims that for the duration of Able Danger's existence, “To my knowledge, and my other colleagues' knowledge, there was no information ever released to us because CIA chose not to participate in Able Danger.” [Government Security News, 9/05]
People and organizations involved: George Tenet, Able Danger, Anthony Shaffer, Central Intelligence Agency, Scott Phillpott

January-February 2000: Secret Military Unit Identifies al-Qaeda ‘Brooklyn’ Cell; Mohamed Atta is a Member


A blurry photograph of a 2005 reconstruction of the pre-9/11 Able Danger chart showing Mohamed Atta and others.
A US Army intelligence program called Able Danger identifies five al-Qaeda terrorist cells; one of them has connections to Brooklyn, New York and will become informally known as the “Brooklyn” cell by the Able Danger team. This cell includes 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta, and three other 9/11 hijackers: Marwan Alshehhi, Khalid Almihdhar, and Nawaf Alhazmi. According to a former intelligence officer who claims he worked closely with Able Danger, the link to Brooklyn is not based upon any firm evidence, but computer analysis that established patterns in links between the four men. “[T]he software put them all together in Brooklyn.” [New York Times, 8/9/05; Washington Times, 8/22/05; Fox News, 8/23/05; Government Security News, 9/05] However, that does not necessarily imply them being physically present in Brooklyn. A lawyer later representing members of Able Danger states, “At no time did Able Danger identify Mohamed Atta as being physically present in the United States.” Furthermore, “No information obtained at the time would have led anyone to believe criminal activity had taken place or that any specific terrorist activities were being planned.” [CNN, 9/21/05; Mark Zaid Statement, 9/21/05] James D. Smith, a contractor working with the unit, discovers Mohamed Atta's link to al-Qaeda. [WTOP News, 9/1/05] Smith has been using advanced computer software and analysing individuals who are going between mosques. He has made a link between Mohamed Atta and Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, ringleader of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. [Fox News, 8/28/05; Government Security News, 9/05] Atta is said to have some unspecified connection to the El Farouq mosque in Brooklyn, a hotbed of anti-American sentiment once frequented by Abdul-Rahman. [Norristown Times-Herald, 9/20/05] Smith obtained Atta's name and photograph through a private researcher in California who was paid to gather the information from contacts in the Middle East. [New York Times, 8/22/05] Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer claims the photo is not the well-known menacing Florida driver's license photo of Atta. “This is an older, more grainy photo we had of him. It was not the best picture in the world.” It is said to contain several names or aliases for Atta underneath it. [Chicago Tribune, 9/28/05; Jerry Doyle Show, 9/20/05] LIWA analysts supporting Able Danger make a chart, which Shaffer describes in a radio interview as, “A chart probably about a 2x3 which had essentially five clusters around the center point which was bin Laden and his leadership.” [Savage Nation, 9/16/05] The 9/11 Commission later claims that Atta only enters the United States for the first time several months later, in June 2000 (see June 3, 2000). [9/11 Commission Final Report, 7/24/04, p. 224] However, investigations in the months after 9/11 find that Mohamed Atta and another of the hijackers rented rooms in Brooklyn around this time (see Spring 2000). Other newspaper accounts have the CIA monitoring Atta starting in January 2000, while he is living in Germany (see January-May 2000).
People and organizations involved: Marwan Alshehhi, Able Danger, Mohamed Atta, Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, al-Qaeda, Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, El Farouq


Mid-1999-November 1999: LIWA Data Mining Study Causes Controversy After Connecting Prominent US Figures to Weapons Purchases for Chinese Military

A report commissioned in mid-1999 by Rep. Curt Weldon ® looks into possible Chinese front companies in the US seeking technology for the Chinese military. Dr. Eileen Preisser and Michael Maloof are commissioned to make the report. Dr. Preisser, who runs the Information Dominance Center at the US Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) and will later become closely tied to Able Danger, uses LIWA's data mining capabilities to search unclassified information. According to Maloof, their results show Chinese front companies in the US posing as US corporations that acquire technology from US defense contractors. When the study is completed in November 1999, the General Counsel's office in the Office of the Defense Secretary orders the study destroyed. Weldon complains about this to Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, and apparently delays the destruction of the report. Weldon also writes a letter to FBI Director Louis Freeh requesting an espionage investigation into these Chinese links, but Freeh never responds to this. [Washington Times, 10/9/05] As part of this report, LIWA analysts had produced a chart of Chinese strategic and business connections in the US. But this data mining effort runs into controversy when the chart apparently shows connections between future National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, former Defense Secretary William Perry, and other prominent US figures, and business deals benefiting the Chinese military. [New York Post, 8/27/05; Washington Times, 9/22/05] The China chart was put together by private contractor James D. Smith, who will come forward in August 2005 to corroborate revelations about the Able Danger unit and its findings (see August 22-September 1, 2005). The New York Post later says there is “no suggestion that Rice or any of the others had done anything wrong.” [New York Post, 8/27/05] However, articles first appear one month later and through 2001 in the conservative publications WorldNetDaily and NewsMax, which connect Perry and Rice to Hua Di, a Chinese missile scientist and possible spy, and question the nature of their relationship with him. [WorldNetDaily, 12/21/99; WorldNetDaily, 4/5/00; NewsMax, 1/24/01] Di defected to the US in 1989 and worked most of the 1990s at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control, which was co-directed by Perry. Di later returned to China and is subsequently sentenced to ten years in prison for writing influential articles said to reveal vital Chinese state secrets. [Stanford Report, 2/7/01] However, other accounts claim that he was in fact passing on disinformation through these articles, successfully misleading the US military for a couple of years about the abilities of certain Chinese missile programs. [WorldNetDaily, 12/21/99] Additionally, Hua Di teamed in 1994 with Stanford professor Dr. John Lewis and William Perry to buy an advanced AT&T fiber-optic communications system for “civilian” use inside China that instead is used by the Chinese army. The General Accounting Office later criticized the sale. In 1997, Stanford University investigated Dr. Lewis for his role in it, but Condoleezza Rice, serving as a Stanford provost at the time, apparently stopped the investigation. [WorldNetDaily, 4/5/00; NewsMax, 1/24/01] Able Danger and LIWA's data mining efforts will be severely proscribed in April 2000 as part of the fallout from this China controversy (see April 2000), and the destruction of their collected data will follow shortly thereafter (see May-June 2000).
People and organizations involved: China, Eric Shinseki, James D. Smith, Land Information Warfare Activity, Louis J. Freeh, Condoleezza Rice, Hua Di, William Perry, F. Michael Maloof, Eileen Preisser, Curt Weldon



January-May 2000: CIA Has Atta Under Surveillance

Hijacker Mohamed Atta is put under surveillance by the CIA while living in Germany. [Agence France-Presse, 9/22/01; Focus, 9/24/01; Berliner Zeitung, 9/24/01] He is “reportedly observed buying large quantities of chemicals in Frankfurt, apparently for the production of explosives [and/or] for biological warfare.” “The US agents reported to have trailed Atta are said to have failed to inform the German authorities about their investigation,” even as the Germans are investigating many of his associates. “The disclosure that Atta was being trailed by police long before 11 September raises the question why the attacks could not have been prevented with the man's arrest.” [Observer, 9/30/01] A German newspaper adds that Atta is able to get a visa into the US on May 18. According to some reports, the surveillance stops when he leaves for the US at the start of June. However, “experts believe that the suspect [remains] under surveillance in the United States.” [Berliner Zeitung, 9/24/01] A German intelligence official also states, “We can no longer exclude the possibility that the Americans wanted to keep an eye on Atta after his entry in the US” [Focus, 9/24/01] This correlates with a Newsweek claim that US officials knew Atta was a “known [associate] of Islamic terrorists well before [9/11].” [Newsweek, 9/20/01] However, a congressional inquiry later reports that the US “intelligence community possessed no intelligence or law enforcement information linking 16 of the 19 hijackers [including Atta] to terrorism or terrorist groups.” [9/11 Congressional Inquiry, 9/20/02] In 2005, after accounts of the Able Danger program learning Atta's name become news, newspaper account will neglect to mention this prior report about Atta being known by US intelligence. For instance, the New York Times will report, “The account [about Able Danger] is the first assertion that Mr. Atta, an Egyptian who became the lead hijacker in the plot, was identified by any American government agency as a potential threat before the Sept. 11 attacks”(see August 9, 2005) . [New York Times, 8/9/05]
People and organizations involved: Mohamed Atta, Central Intelligence Agency

Spring 2000: Atta and Alshehhi Rent Rooms in Brooklyn and the Bronx


Mohamed Atta and another of the 9/11 hijackers (presumably Marwan Alshehhi) rent rooms in New York City, according to a federal investigator. These rooms are in the Bronx and Brooklyn. Following 9/11, Atta is traced back to Brooklyn by a parking ticket issued to a rental car he was driving. However, immigration records have Mohamed Atta entering the US for the first time on June 3, 2000 (see June 3, 2000). The Associated Press article on this subject does not specify if Atta first stayed in New York before or after that date. [Associated Press, 12/8/01] According to a brief mention in the 9/11 Commission's final report, in the month of June, “As [Atta and Marwan Alshehhi] looked at flight schools on the East Coast, [they] stayed in a series of short-term rentals in New York City.” [9/11 Commission Final Report, 7/24/04, p. 224; Washington Post, 8/13/05] Earlier in 2000, a US Army intelligence program called Able Danger identified an al-Qaeda terrorist cell based in Brooklyn, of which Atta is a member (see January-February 2000). Also, a number of eyewitnesses later report seeing Atta in Maine and Florida before this official arrival date (see April 2000; Late April-Mid-May 2000).
People and organizations involved: Able Danger, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, al-Qaeda

April 2000: LIWA Support For Able Danger Program Ends; It Later Restarts

Four analysts from the US Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) unit are forced to stop their work supporting the Able Danger program. At the same time, private contractors working for Able Danger are fired. This occurs around the time that it becomes known by some inside the military that LIWA had identified future National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Defense Secretary William Perry, and other prominent Americans as potential security risks (see April 2000). It was apparently these LIWA analysts (such as Dr. Eileen Preisser) and contractors (such as James D. Smith) who conducted most of the data mining and analysis of al-Qaeda in the preceding months. One of the four LIWA analysts, Maj. Erik Kleinsmith, will later be ordered to destroy all the data collected (see May-June 2000). LIWA's support for Able Danger will resume a few months later (see Late September 2000). [Erik Kleinsmith Statement, 9/21/05; Washington Times, 9/22/05; New York Post, 8/27/05]
People and organizations involved: William Perry, Able Danger, James D. Smith, Eileen Preisser, Condoleezza Rice, Land Information Warfare Activity


April 2000: LIWA and Able Danger Face Trouble After LIWA Connects Prominent US Figures to Chinese Military

A 1999 study by the US Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) to look into possible Chinese front companies in the US seeking technology for the Chinese military created controversy and was ordered destroyed in November 1999 (see Mid-1999-November 1999). However, apparently Rep. Curt Weldon ® protests, and the issue finally comes to a head during this month. One result of this controversy will be what Maj. Erik Kleinsmith will later call “severely restricted” support for Able Danger, including a temporary end to LIWA support (see April 2000) In an April 14, 2000 memorandum from the legal counsel in the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Capt. Michael Lohr writes that the concern over the LIWA data mining study raises privacy concerns: “Preliminary review of subject methodology raised the possibility that LIWA ‘data mining’ would potentially access both foreign intelligence (FI) information and domestic information relating to US citizens (i.e. law enforcement, tax, customs, immigration, etc... ... I recognize that an argument can be made that LIWA is not ‘collecting’ in the strict sense (i.e. they are accessing public areas of the Internet and non-FI federal government databases of already lawfully collected information). This effort would, however, have the potential to pull together into a single database a wealth of privacy-protected US citizen information in a more sweeping and exhaustive manner than was previously contemplated.” Additionally, the content of the study is another reason why it caused what Weldon calls a “wave of controversy.” The study had connected future National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Defense Secretary William Perry, and other prominent US citizens to business transactions with Chinese military officials.(see Mid-1999-November 1999). [New York Post, 8/27/05; Washington Times, 9/22/05; Curt Weldon Press Conference, 9/17/05; Washington Times, 10/9/05; Erik Kleinsmith Statement, 9/21/05] One article on the subject will comment, “Sources familiar with Able Danger say the project was shut down because it could have led to the exposure of a separate secret data mining project focusing on US citizens allegedly transferring super-sensitive US technology illegally to the Chinese government.” [WTOP, 9/1/05] A massive destruction of data from Able Danger and LIWA's data mining efforts will follow, one month later (see May-June 2000).
People and organizations involved: Land Information Warfare Activity, Able Danger, Michael Lohr, Curt Weldon, Condoleezza Rice, William Perry


May-June 2000: Army Officer Told to Destroy Able Danger Documents

Maj. Eric Kleinsmith, chief of intelligence for the Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) unit, is ordered to destroy data and documents related to a military intelligence program set up to gather information about al-Qaeda. The program, called Able Danger, has identified Mohamed Atta and three other future hijackers as potential threats (see January-February 2000). According to Kleinsmith, by April 2000 it has collected “an immense amount of data for analysis that allowed us to map al-Qaeda as a worldwide threat with a surprisingly significant presence within the United States.”(see January-February 2000) [Fox News, 9/21/05; New York Times, 9/22/05] The data is being collected on behalf of Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Lambert, the J3 at US Special Operations Command, who is said to be extremely upset when he learns that the data had been destroyed without his knowledge or consent. [Curt Weldon Statement, 9/21/05] Around this time, a separate LIWA effort showing links between prominent US citizens and the Chinese military has been causing controversy, and apparently this data faces destruction as well (see April 2000). The data and documents have to be destroyed in accordance with Army regulations prohibiting the retention of data about US persons for longer than 90 days, unless it falls under one of several restrictive categories. However, during a Senate Judiciary Committee public hearing in September 2005, a Defense Department representative admits that Mohamed Atta was not considered a US person. The representative also acknowledges that regulations would have probably allowed the Able Danger information to be shared with law enforcement agencies before its destruction. Asked why this was not done, he responds, “I can't tell you.” [CNET News, 9/21/05] The order to destroy the data and documents is given to Kleinsmith by Army Intelligence and Security Command General Counsel Tony Gentry, who jokingly tells him, “Remember to delete the data—or you'll go to jail.” [Government Executive, 9/21/05] The quantity of information destroyed is later described as “2.5 terabytes,” about as much as one-fourth of all the printed materials in the Library of Congress. [Associated Press, 9/16/05] Other records associated with the unit are allegedly destroyed in March 2001 and spring 2004 (see Spring 2004). [Associated Press, 9/21/05; Mark Zaid Statement, 9/21/05; Fox News, 9/24/05]
People and organizations involved: Mohamed Atta, al-Qaeda, Tony Gentry, Eric Kleinsmith, Land Information Warfare Activity, Able Danger, Geoffrey Lambert


May 2000-Late September 2000: Defense Agency Analyst Assembles Unheeded Attack Warning; Able Danger Information May Be One Source


Kie Fallis, a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) terrorism intelligence analyst, has been gathering evidence of an upcoming al-Qaeda attack or attacks. In 2002, he will describe to the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry a research process similar to what Able Danger is using at the same time: “I began to notice there was a voluminous amount of information, as others have testified, regarding al-Qaeda. Most of it appeared to be unrelated to other pieces of information. It appeared to be almost chat. By using a piece of [commercial software called ‘Analyst's Notebook’] I was able to put these small snippets of information into, and graphically represent them as well, I was able to, over a course of many months, to determine certain linkages between these items—linkages that would never be apparent without the use of this tool. It would be lost in the weeds. And there were a lot of weeds to look through.” [Washington Times, 8/26/02; 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, 10/8/02] In his research, he claims to find links between al-Qaeda and Iranian intelligence. By May 2000, he writes a classified report on his conclusion that “terrorists were planning two or three major attacks against the United States. The only gaps were where and when.” Apparently, he envisions at least one of these attacks will use a small boat to blow up a US warship. However, the DIA has already issued a report concluding that such a method of attack would be impossible to carry out successfully, and the agency sticks by this assessment. A video message put out by bin Laden in mid-September convinces Fallis that an al-Qaeda attack will happen in the next month or two.(see Mid-September 2000). Shortly after learning about this message, Fallis reaches “the ‘eureka point’ ... in determining an impending terrorist attack.” This comes “from a still-classified intelligence report in September 2000, which he will not discuss.” [Washington Times, 8/26/02] This may be a reference to a lead by the Able Danger team on increased al-Qaeda activity in Yemen at this time (see Late September 2000), and/or it may refer to other intelligence leads. Fallis goes to his supervisor and asks that at least a general warning of an attack in the Middle East be issued. He hopes such a warning will at least put US military forces in the region on a higher alert. His superior turns him down, and other superiors fail to even learn of his suggested warning. The USS Cole will be successfully attacked in the port of Aden, Yemen, by a small boat of terrorists on October 12, 2000 (see October 12, 2000) . [Washington Times, 8/26/02] One day after the Cole attack, Fallis will resign in protest. According to Sen. John Warner ®,“What [Fallis] felt is that his assessment was not given that proper level of consideration by his superiors and, as such, was not incorporated in the final intelligence reports provided to military commanders in the [Middle East region].” [CNN, 10/25/00]
People and organizations involved: Kie Fallis, al-Qaeda, Iran, John W. Warner, Osama bin Laden, Able Danger


Mid-September 2000: Bin Laden Message Gives Hint of Upcoming USS Cole Attack


A videotape message featuring bin Laden calling for more attacks on the US is aired on al-Jazeera. The video ends with al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri saying, “Enough of words, it is time to take action against this iniquitous and faithless force [the United States], which has spread troops through Egypt, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.” DIA analyst Kie Fallis later recalls, “Every time he put out one of these videotapes, it was a signal that action was coming.” He claims that after hearing of the video, he “knew then it would be within a month or two.” But nonetheless, his suggestion to put out a general attack warning will go unheeded (see May 2000-Late September 2000). An al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole follows less than a month later (see October 12, 2000). [Washington Times, 8/26/02]
People and organizations involved: United States, Kie Fallis, Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri

(Before September 2000-12 Months Later): Mohamed Atta Has Long Term Stay in Wayne, New Jersey; Other Hijackers Seen There


In 2003, New Jersey state police officials say Mohamed Atta lived in the Wayne Inn, in Wayne, New Jersey, for an unspecified 12-month period prior to 9/11. He lives with one other hijacker who is presumably his usual partner Marwan Alshehhi (Alshehhi is seen eating in nearby restaurants with Atta). [Bergen Record, 6/20/03] In 2004, an unnamed whistleblower involved in the Able Danger program will claim that prior to 9/11, Able Danger discovered that Atta and Alshehhi were renting a room at the Wayne Inn, and occasionally meeting with Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar at the inn or near it (see (Before September 2000)). From March 2001 onwards, other hijackers, including Alhazmi and Almihdhar, live in Paterson, New Jersey, only one mile away from Wayne (see March 2001-September 1, 2001). Nawaf Alhazmi and Salem Alhazmi rent mailboxes in Wayne at some unknown point before 9/11. Nawaf Alhazmi and Hani Hanjour rent cars from a Wayne car dealership between June and August 2001. There is also evidence Nawaf Alhazmi and Marwan Alshehhi shop in Wayne. [CNN, 9/27/01] The 9/11 Commission does not mention any hijacker connection to Wayne. This long-term stay in Wayne is surprising because Atta and Alshehhi have generally been placed in Florida most of the time from July 2000 until shortly before 9/11. However, this discrepancy may be explained by one account which states Atta had “two places he lived and 10 safe houses” in the US (see Mid-September 2001).
People and organizations involved: Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi

(Before September 2000): Army Intelligence Unit Said to Discover Hijackers Renting Rooms at New Jersey Motels

According to an anonymous Able Danger official speaking to the Bergen Record, a US Army intelligence unit tasked with assembling information about al-Qaeda networks worldwide discovers that several of the 9/11 hijackers are taking rooms at motels in New Jersey and meeting together there. The intelligence unit, called Able Danger, which uses high-speed computers to analyze vast amounts of data, notices that Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi take a room at the Wayne Inn (see (Before September 2000-12 Months Later)). After the existence of the Able Danger unit comes to light in 2005, Bergen Record columnist and reporter Mike Kelly says, “The connect-the-dots tracking by the team was so good that it even knew Atta conducted meetings with the three future hijackers. One of those meetings took place at the Wayne Inn. That's how close all this was—to us and to being solved, if only the information had been passed up the line to FBI agents or even to local cops. This new piece of 9/11 history, revealed only last week by a Pennsylvania congressman and confirmed by two former members of the intelligence team, could turn out to be one of the most explosive revelations since the publication last summer of the 9/11 commission report.” [Bergen Record, 8/14/05] The other two hijackers said to be present at the meetings, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, periodically live in the town of Paterson, only one mile away from Wayne (see March 2001-September 1, 2001). However, contradicting this account, a lawyer representing members of Able Danger later testifies, “At no time did Able Danger identify Mohamed Atta as being physically present in the United States.” [CNN, 9/21/05; Mark Zaid Statement, 9/21/05] Some media accounts have stated that the Able Danger program determined Atta was in the US before 9/11. For instance, Fox News reported in August 2005, “[Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer] is standing by his claim that he told them that the lead hijacker in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks had been identified in the summer of 2000 as an al-Qaeda operative living in the United States.” [Fox News, 8/17/05]
People and organizations involved: Able Danger, Khalid Almihdhar, Anthony Shaffer, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Nawaf Alhazmi, al-Qaeda


September 2000: Chart With Mohamed Atta's Photo Presented by Able Danger at SOCOM Headquarters; Meetings With FBI Cancelled

Members of a US Army intelligence unit tasked with assembling information about al-Qaeda have prepared a chart that includes the names and photographs of four future hijackers, who they have identified as members of an al-Qaeda cell based in Brooklyn, New York. The four hijackers in the cell are Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Khalid Almihdhar, and Nawaf Alhazmi. The members of the intelligence unit, called Able Danger, present their chart at the headquarters of the US military's Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Tampa, Florida, with the recommendation that the FBI should be called in to take out the al-Qaeda cell. Lawyers working for SOCOM argue that anyone with a green card has to be granted the same legal protections as any US citizen, so the information about the al-Qaeda cell cannot be shared with the FBI. The legal team directs them to put yellow stickers over the photographs of Mohamed Atta and the other cell members, to symbolize that they are off limits. [Norristown Times Herald, 6/19/05; Government Security News, 8/05; New York Times, 8/9/05; St Petersburg Times, 8/10/05; New York Times, 8/17/05; Government Security News, 9/05] Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer later says that an unnamed two-star general above him is “very adamant” about not looking further at Atta. “I was directed several times [to ignore Atta], to the point where he had to remind me he was a general and I was not ... [and] I would essentially be fired.” [Fox News, 8/19/05] Military leaders at the meeting take the side of the lawyers and prohibit any sharing of information about the al-Qaeda cell. Shaffer believes that the decision to side with the lawyers is made by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Lambert (who had previously expressed distress when Able Danger data was destroyed without his prior notification (see May-June 2000)). He also believes that Gen. Peter Schoomaker, head of SOCOM, is not aware of the decision. [Government Security News, 9/05]
People and organizations involved: Peter J. Schoomaker, Able Danger, Special Operations Command, Anthony Shaffer, Geoffrey Lambert, Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, al-Qaeda



September 2000: Military Lawyers Prevent Able Danger From Sharing Information about Atta and Others with FBI

On three occasions, military lawyers force members of Able Danger to cancel scheduled meetings with the FBI at the last minute. Able Danger officials want to share information about the Brooklyn al-Qaeda cell they believe they've discovered which includes Mohamed Atta and other hijackers (see January-February 2000). The exact timing of these meetings remains unclear, but they appear to happen around the time military lawyers tell Able Danger they are not allowed to pursue Mohamed Atta and other figures (see September 2000) . [Government Security News, 9/05] In 2005, it will be reported that Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer contacted FBI agent Xanthig Magnum in attempts to set up these meetings. Magnum is willing to testify about her communications with Shaffer, but apparently she has not yet been able to do so. [Fox News, 8/28/05] Rep. Curt Weldon ®, who in 2005 helps bring to light the existence of the program, says, “Obviously, if we had taken out that cell, 9/11 would not have occurred and, certainly, taking out those three principal players in that cell would have severely crippled, if not totally stopped, the operation that killed 3,000 people in America.” [Government Security News, 8/05]
People and organizations involved: Able Danger, Special Operations Command, Anthony Shaffer, Xanthig Magnum, Mohamed Atta, Curt Weldon, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer will later claim that Capt. Scott Phillpott, leader of the Able Danger program, briefs Gen. Peter Schoomaker, head of Special Operations Command (SOCOM), that Able Danger has uncovered information of increased al-Qaeda “activity” in Aden harbor, Yemen. Shaffer, plus two other officials familiar with Able Danger later tell the New York Post that this warning was gleaned through a search of bin Laden's business ties. Shaffer later recalls, “Yemen was elevated by Able Danger to be one of the top three hot spots for al-Qaeda in the entire world.” This warning, plus another possibly connected warning from Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst Kie Fallis (see May 2000-Late September 2000), go unheeded and no official warning is issued. The USS Cole is attacked by al-Qaeda terrorists in Aden harbor in October 2000 (see October 12, 2000). Shaffer later claims that Phillpott tells the 9/11 Commission about this warning in 2004 to show that Able Danger could have had a significant impact, but the Commission's findings fail to mention the warning, or in fact anything else about Able Danger (see July 12, 2004). [New York Post, 9/17/05; Jerry Doyle Show, 9/20/05 Sources: Anthony Shaffer] Rep. Curt Weldon ® will similarly tell Fox News,“[T]wo weeks before the attack on the Cole, in fact, two days before the attack on the Cole, [Able Danger] saw an increase of activity that led them to say to the senior leadership in the Pentagon at that time, in the Clinton administration, there's something going to happen in Yemen and we better be on high alert, but it was discounted. That story has yet to be told to the American people.” [Fox News, 10/8/05]
People and organizations involved: Scott Phillpott, Peter J. Schoomaker, al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, Able Danger, Curt Weldon, Clinton administration


Late September 2000: LIWA Support for Able Danger Is Renewed

The US Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) unit had been providing important support for Able Danger until about April 2000 (see April 2000). Near the end of September 2000, that support is renewed. In the wake of the loss of LIWA's help, Able Danger utilizes additional private contractors. This new composition of Able Danger in late 2000 is called Able Danger II by some. The first version of Able Danger utilized only unclassified information; this second version uses a significant amount of classified information as well. [Erik Kleinsmith Statement, 9/21/05; Mark Zaid Statement, 9/21/05]
People and organizations involved: Land Information Warfare Activity, Able Danger

December 30, 2000: Evidence Almihdhar in New Jersey Area Despite Immigration Records

According to US immigration records, the FBI, and the 9/11 Commission, hijacker Khalid Almihdhar left the US in June 2000 (see June 10, 2000) and didn't return until July 2001 (see July 4, 2001). However, USAID, a Florida ID firm, confirms in 2005 that Almihdhar was issued a card in New York or New Jersey on this date. Time magazine calls this, “another possible gap in the 9/11 report.” [Time, 8/21/05]
People and organizations involved: Khalid Almihdhar

January-March 2001: Intelligence Unit Tracking Al-Qaeda is Closed Down; Change in Leadership Factors in Closure


A secret military intelligence unit called Able Danger, which is tasked with assembling information about al-Qaeda networks around the world, is shut down. Some accounts say the program is shut down in January, some say February, and some say March. [Norristown Times Herald, 6/19/05; Norristown Times Herald, 9/12/05; Mark Zaid Statement, 9/21/05] The unit has identified Mohamed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers as members of an al-Qaeda cell operating in the United States. According to James D. Smith, a Pentagon contractor involved with the unit, the inspector general shuts down the operation “because of a claim that we were collecting information on US citizens,” and it is illegal for the military to do this. [WTOP News, 9/1/05 (] Others familiar with the unit later say it is closed down because it might have led to the exposure of another data mining project that was investigating US citizens allegedly illegally transferring sensitive US technology to the Chinese government. [WTOP News, 9/1/05 ©] Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer also blames the change in leadership brought by the new Bush administration. “Once the four star [General Schoomaker] went away, it was pretty much like the world closing around us [Schoomaker retired in November 2000, but returned as Army Chief of Staff in 2003]. There was no political will to continue this at that point in time. Plus, my direct leadership: Colonel [Jerry] York and General [Bob] Harding had moved on as well. Therefore, I had a new chain of command above me. They were very risk adverse. This [Able Danger] operation, as with other operations which were very high risk / high gain, some of which are still ongoing—seemed to not be appreciated by the incoming leadership.” [Government Security News, 9/05; American Forces Press Service, 6/17/03]
People and organizations involved: James D. Smith, al-Qaeda, Able Danger


Early 2001: Top Military Leaders Attend Briefings on Able Danger

In January, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Henry Shelton is given a three hour briefing on Able Danger. Shelton supported the formation of Able Danger back in 1999 (see Fall 1999). The content of the briefing has never been reported. Then in March, during a briefing on another classified program called Door Hop Galley, Able Danger is again brought up. This briefing, given by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, is attended by Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Richard Schiefren, an attorney at DOD; and Stephen Cambone, Special Assistant to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense. [Government Security News, 9/05; Curt Weldon Press Conference, 9/17/05 Sources: Curt Weldon] In mid-September 2005, Weldon will say, “I knew that the Clinton administration clearly knew about this. Now I know of at least two briefings in the Bush administration.” He calls these two briefings “very troubling.” He wants to know what became of the information presented in these briefings, suggesting it shouldn't have been destroyed as part of the other Able Danger data purges. [Delaware County Daily Times, 9/16/05; Curt Weldon Press Conference, 9/17/05]
People and organizations involved: Richard Schiefren, Able Danger, Anthony Shaffer, Thomas Wilson, Stephen A. Cambone, Henry H. Shelton, Clinton administration, Bush administration


February 2001-March 2001: Withdrawal of DIA Support Contributes to End of Able Danger Program


Maj. Gen. Rod Isler.
The new Director of Operations for the DIA, General Ron Isler, has Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer brief him on a series of operations. According to Shaffer, Isler strongly objects to Shaffer assisting Able Danger. “I said, ‘Well, sir, with all due respect, this is an important operation focused on the global al-Qaeda target,’ and he said, ‘You're not hearing me, Tony. This is not your job.’” After further disagreement, Shaffer recalls the argument ending, “‘Tony, I'm the two star here. I'm the two star. I'm telling you I don't want you doing anything with Able Danger.’ ‘Sir, if not us then who?’ ‘I don't know, but it's not your job.’ And that effectively ended my direct support and my unit's [Stratus Ivy] support to Able Danger.” Recalling how this helped end Able Danger, Shaffer says, “I remember the last conversation I had with Captain Scott Phillpott on this was a desperate call from him asking me to try to help use one of my operational facilities to at least try to exploit the information [Able Danger had collected] before it got lost.” However, Isler says he cannot recall any discussion with Shaffer about Able Danger. [Government Security News, 9/05]
People and organizations involved: Anthony Shaffer, Ron Isler, Scott Phillpott, Able Danger

March 2001-September 1, 2001: Hani Hanjour and Other Hijackers Live in Paterson, New Jersey


The apartment building in Paterson, New Jersey, where some of the hijackers lived.
Hani Hanjour and Salem Alhazmi rent a one-room apartment in Paterson, New Jersey. Hanjour signs the lease. Nawaf Alhazmi, Saeed Alghamdi, and Mohamed Atta are also seen coming and going by neighbors. One unnamed hijacker has to be told by a neighbor how to screw in a light bulb. [Associated Press, 10/7/01 (; Washington Post, 9/30/01] The 9/11 Commission's account of this differs from previous press accounts, and has Hanjour and Nawaf Alhazmi (instead of his brother Salem) first moving to Paterson in mid-May. Salem Alhazmi, Majed Moqed, Abdulaziz Alomari, Khalid Almihdhar, and probably Ahmed Alghamdi are all seen living there as well during the summer. [9/11 Commission Final Report, 7/24/04, p. 230] Other reports have Hani Hanjour and Nawaf Alhazmi living periodically in Falls Church, Virginia, over nearly the exact same time period, from March through August 2001 (see March 2001). During this time, Mohamed Atta and other hijackers live in Wayne, New Jersey, a town only one mile from Paterson (see (Before September 2000-12 Months Later)).
People and organizations involved: Salem Alhazmi, William Safire, Saeed Alghamdi, Nawaf Alhazmi, Mohamed Atta, Ahmed Alghamdi, Majed Moqed, Abdulaziz Alomari, Khalid Almihdhar


September 25, 2001: Rep. Curt Weldon Gives Able Danger Chart to Deputy National Security Advisor, Mention of Atta on Chart Is Uncertain


Rep. Curt Weldon ® later claims that about two weeks after 9/11, he is given a chart by friends of his from the Army's Information Dominance Center, in cooperation with special ops. The chart indicates various al-Qaeda cells that were identified by a military intelligence unit called Able Danger. Early in 2000, this unit identified, amongst others, an al-Qaeda cell based in Brooklyn, New York, which included Mohamed Atta and three other future 9/11 hijackers (see January-February 2000). Atta's name is said to be on the chart given to Weldon. Shortly after being given the chart, Weldon meets with Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, and shows the chart to him. Weldon claims, “Hadley looked at the chart and said, Congressman, where did you get that chart from? I said, I got it from the military. ... Steve Hadley said, Congressman, I am going to take this chart, and I am going to show it to the man. The man that he meant ... was the President of the United States. I said, Mr. Hadley, you mean you have not seen something like this before from the CIA, this chart of al-Qaeda worldwide and in the US? And he said, No, Congressman. So I gave him the chart. ” [Congressional Record, 6/27/05; Delaware County Daily Times, 8/12/05; Fox News, 8/22/05] However, a spokesman for Hadley later disputes this account, and says, “Mr. Hadley does not recall any chart bearing the name or photo of Mohamed Atta. [National Security Council] staff reviewed the files of Mr. Hadley as well as of all [National Security Council] personnel... That search has turned up no chart.” [Washington Post, 9/24/05] Rep. Dan Burton ® later recalls attending the meeting and remembers the chart, but can't recall if Atta was on it or not. [New York Times, 10/1/05] Curt Weldon also later claims that the copy of the chart he gives to Hadley is his only one. [Time, 8/14/05] However, apparently contradicting this, Weldon will give a speech in 2002 showing the chart.
People and organizations involved: Able Danger, Mohamed Atta, al-Qaeda, Dan Burton, Stephen Hadley, Central Intelligence Agency, Special Operations Command, Curt Weldon, Information Dominance Center

October 11, 2001: Early Account of Able Danger Remains Classified


Dr. Eileen Preisser testifies before a congressional briefing. Dr. Preisser was one of four analysts in the US Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) supporting Able Danger in late 1999 and 2000 (see Fall 1999). While her testimony remains classified, the next day, Representative Christopher Shays ® gives a brief summary: “In a briefing we had yesterday, we had Eileen [Preisser], who argues that we don't have the data we need because we don't take all the public data that is available and mix it with the security data. And just taking public data, using, you know, computer systems that are high-speed and able to digest, you know, literally floors' worth of material, she can take relationships that are seven times removed, seven units removed, and when she does that, she ends up with relationships to the bin Laden group where she sees the purchase of chemicals, the sending of students to universities. You wouldn't see it if you isolated it there, but if that unit is connected to that unit, which is connected to that unit, which is connected to that unit, you then see the relationship. So we don't know ultimately the authenticity of how she does it, but when she does it, she comes up with the kind of answer that you have just asked, which is a little unsettling.” [House of Representatives Hearings, 10/12/01 Sources: Christopher Shays] Note that according to some media accounts, the CIA monitored Mohamed Atta purchasing large quantities of chemicals in Germany in the spring of 2000 (see January-May 2000). Atta also sends a series of e-mails to the US in the spring of 2000, inquiring about flight school opportunities for himself and a “small group” of his associates (see January-March 2000). Dr. Preisser is apparently willing to testify about her role in how Able Danger uncovered Atta's name, but in September 2005 she is prohibited from publicly testifying before Congress (see September 21, 2005).
People and organizations involved: Eileen Preisser, al-Qaeda


May 23, 2002: Rep. Curt Weldon Said to Show Able Danger Chart in Public Speech


A blurry image of the chart Rep. Curt Weldon presented to the Heritage Foundation in 2002.
During a speech before the Heritage Foundation, Rep. Curt Weldon ® unfurls a chart, which, his comments suggest, was produced by Able Danger. He says it is “the unclassified chart that was done by the Special Forces Command briefing center one year before 9/11. It is the complete architecture of al-Qaeda and pan-Islamic extremism. It gives all the linkages.” However, he does not mention Mohamed Atta or any other 9/11 hijackers during the speech. Video footage of the speech shows the chart, but picture quality is too poor to determine whether Atta is on it. [NewsMax, 8/29/05] Weldon later claims to have given up his only copy of the chart showing Atta's face in late 2001. [Time, 8/14/05] In September 2005, Weldon will refer to the chart shown in this 2002 speech and suggest it may not have been the same chart that contained Atta's face. He also says he can't find the chart used in the speech anymore. [Curt Weldon Press Conference, 9/17/05]
People and organizations involved: Curt Weldon, Heritage Foundation, Able Danger, al-Qaeda, Special Operations Command


October 21, 2003: 9/11 Commission Staff Meet Member of Able Danger Unit


Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, along with two members of the commission's staff, meets at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan with three individuals doing intelligence work for the US Defense Department. [CNN, 8/17/05] Among these is Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, an Army intelligence officer who worked closely with a military intelligence unit called Able Danger, which between fall 1999 and spring 2001 was tasked with assembling information about al-Qaeda networks around the world (see Fall 1999; Early 2001) . According to Shaffer's own later account, he gives the commission staff a detailed account of what Able Danger was, and tells them, “We found two of the three cells which conducted 9/11, to include [Mohamed] Atta.” At the end of the meeting, Philip Zelikow approaches him and says, “This is important. We need to continue this dialogue when we get back to the states. ” [Government Security News, 9/05] Following the meeting, Zelikow calls back to the 9/11 Commission's headquarters in Washington to request that staff draft a document request, seeking information on Able Danger from the Department of Defense. [Kean-Hamilton statement, 8/12/05] According to Anthony Shaffer, “My understanding from talking to another member of the press is that [Zelikow's] call came into America at four o clock in the morning. He got people out of bed over this.” [Government Security News, 9/05] Shaffer subsequently tries contacting Philip Zelikow in January 2004 (see Early January 2004). Spokesmen for the commission members contradict Shaffer's account, claiming that, while they are told of the existence of Able Danger at this briefing, they aren't informed that it had identified Mohamed Atta and the other hijackers as threats. [New York Times, 8/10/05] An official statement says that a memorandum prepared by the commission staff after the meeting “does not record any mention of Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers, or any suggestion that their identities were known to anyone at DOD before 9/11. Nor do any of the three Commission staffers who participated in the interview, or the executive branch lawyer, recall hearing any such allegation.” [Kean-Hamilton statement, 8/12/05]
People and organizations involved: US Department of Defense, Anthony Shaffer, Able Danger, Mohamed Atta, 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow


Early 2004: Weldon Fails to Convince 9/11 Commission to Look into Data Mining Programs

Rep. Curt Weldon ® is not yet familiar with Able Danger, though he will help bring information about the program to light in 2005. However, he is familiar with the closely related Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) program, having had dealings with it before 9/11. He says he is frustrated at the apparent lack of understanding about programs like LIWA based on the lines of questioning at public 9/11 Commission hearings in early 2004, so, “On at least four occasions, I personally tried to brief the 9/11 Commissioners on: NOAH [Weldon's pre-9/11 suggestion to have a National Operations and Analysis Hub]; integrative data collaboration capabilities; my frustration with intelligence stovepipes; and al-Qaeda analysis. However, I was never able to achieve more than a five-minute telephone conversation with Commissioner Thomas Kean. On March 24, 2004, I also had my Chief of Staff personally hand deliver a document about LIWA, along [with] questions for George Tenet to the Commission, but neither was ever used.” [Curt Weldon Statement, 9/21/05] He says, “The next week, they sent a staffer over to pick up some additional materials about the NIWA, about the concept, and about information I had briefed them on. They never followed up and invited me to come in and meet with them. So they can't say that I didn't try.” [Curt Weldon Press Conference, 9/17/05]
People and organizations involved: Land Information Warfare Activity, 9/11 Commission, Curt Weldon, George Tenet, Thomas Kean

Early January 2004: Able Danger Intelligence Officer Tries Contacting 9/11 Commission


Following an October 2003 meeting with three members of the 9/11 Commission's staff (see October 21, 2003), Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer tries contacting Philip Zelikow, the commission's executive director, as requested by Zelikow himself. Shaffer is an Army intelligence officer who worked closely with a military intelligence unit called Able Danger, which identified Mohamed Atta and three other future 9/11 hijackers in early 2000 (see January-February 2000). He phones Zelikow's number the first week of January 2004. The person who replies tells him, “I will talk to Dr. Zelikow and find out when he wants you to come in.” However, Shaffer receives no call back, so a week later he phones again. This time, the person who answers him says, “Dr. Zelikow tells me that he does not see the need for you to come in. We have all the information on Able Danger.” [Government Security News, 9/05] Yet the commission doesn't even receive the Able Danger documentation they had previously requested from the Defense Department until the following month (see February 2004). [Kean-Hamilton statement, 8/12/05]
People and organizations involved: Anthony Shaffer, Philip Zelikow, 9/11 Commission, Able Danger, Philip Zelikow


February 2004: 9/11 Commission Receives Documentation Relating to Able Danger Program


The 9/11 Commission receives documents that it had requested from the Department of Defense, relating to a military intelligence unit called Able Danger, which had allegedly identified Mohamed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers more than a year before the attacks. [New York Times, 8/9/05; Norristown Times Herald, 8/13/05] The commission requested the documents in November 2003, after a meeting in Afghanistan with Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, an Army intelligence officer who had worked closely with the unit (see October 21, 2003). Some documents are given directly to the commission, others are available for review in a Department of Defense reading room, where commission staff make notes summarizing them. Some of the documents include diagrams of Islamic militant networks. However, an official statement later claims, “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. ” [Kean-Hamilton statement, 8/12/05; Washington Post, 8/13/05] Shaffer responds, “I'm told confidently by the person who moved the material over, that the Sept. 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.” [Fox News, 8/17/05]
People and organizations involved: Anthony Shaffer, Able Danger, 9/11 Commission, US Department of Defense


This page shows all events that either reference, or are referenced by, the event 'March 2004'.


March 2004: Able Danger Intelligence Officer Has Security Clearance Suspended Complete 911 Timeline


Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, an Army intelligence officer who worked closely with a military intelligence unit called Able Danger, has his security clearance suspended for what his lawyer later describes as “petty and frivolous” reasons, including a dispute over mileage reimbursement and charges for personal calls on a work cell phone. [Fox News, 8/19/05] According to Shaffer, allegations are made against him over $67 in phone charges, which he accumulated over 18 months. He says, “Even though when they told me about this issue, I offered to pay it back, they chose instead to spend in our estimation $400,000 to investigate all these issues simply to drum up this information.” No formal action is ever taken against Shaffer, and later in the year the Army promotes him to lieutenant colonel. [Fox News, 8/17/05; Government Security News, 9/05] A few months previous, Shaffer had met with staff from the 9/11 Commission, and allegedly informed them that Able Danger had, more than a year before the attacks, identified two of the three cells which conducted 9/11, including Mohamed Atta (see October 21, 2003). According to Shaffer's lawyer, it is because of him having his security clearance suspended that he does not later have any documentation relating to Able Danger. [Fox News, 8/19/05] Rep. Curt Weldon ® will later comment, “In January of 2004 when [Shaffer] was twice rebuffed by the 9/11 Commission for a personal follow-up meeting, he was assigned back to Afghanistan to lead a special classified program. When he returned in March, he was called in and verbally his security clearance was temporarily lifted. By lifting his security clearance, he could not go back into DIA quarters where all the materials he had about Able Danger were, in fact, stored. He could not get access to memos that, in fact, he will tell you discussed the briefings he provided both to the previous administration and this administration.” [Fox News, 8/19/05] These documents Shaffer are trying to reach are destroyed by the DIA roughly around this time (see Spring 2004). In September 2005, Shaffer has his security clearance revoked, just two days before he is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about Able Danger's activities (see September 19, 2005).
People and organizations involved: Curt Weldon, Anthony Shaffer, Able Danger


Spring 2004: DIA Destroys Copies of Able Danger Documents


The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in Washington, DC apparently destroys duplicate copies of documentation relating to a military intelligence unit called Able Danger, for unknown reasons. The documents had been maintained by one of the DIA's employees, intelligence officer Anthony Shaffer. [Mark Zaid Statement, 9/21/05] The Able Danger unit was established in fall 1999, to assemble information about al-Qaeda networks worldwide (see Fall 1999). Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer had served as a liaison officer between the unit and the DIA. [New York Times, 8/17/05; Guardian, 8/18/05] Able Danger allegedly identified Mohamed Atta and three other future 9/11 hijackers more than a year before the attacks (see January-February 2000). Other rec

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635160132,00.html

BY. professor thinks bombs, not planes, toppled WTC

By Elaine Jarvik
Deseret Morning News
The physics of 9/11 — including how fast and symmetrically one of the World Trade Center buildings fell — prove that official explanations of the collapses are wrong, says a Brigham Young University physics professor.
In fact, it's likely that there were "pre-positioned explosives" in all three buildings at ground zero, says Steven E. Jones.
In a paper posted online Tuesday and accepted for peer-reviewed publication next year, Jones adds his voice to those of previous skeptics, including the authors of the Web site www.wtc7.net, whose research Jones quotes. Jones' article can be found at www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html.
Stuart Johnson, Deseret Morning News"It is quite plausible that explosives were pre-planted in all three (WTC) buildings," BYU physics professor Steven E. Jones says. Jones, who conducts research in fusion and solar energy at BYU, is calling for an independent, international scientific investigation "guided not by politicized notions and constraints but rather by observations and calculations.
"It is quite plausible that explosives were pre-planted in all three buildings and set off after the two plane crashes — which were actually a diversion tactic," he writes. "Muslims are (probably) not to blame for bringing down the WTC buildings after all," Jones writes.
As for speculation about who might have planted the explosives, Jones said, "I don't usually go there. There's no point in doing that until we do the scientific investigation."
Previous investigations, including those of FEMA, the 9/11 Commission and NIST (the National Institutes of Standards and Technology), ignore the physics and chemistry of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, to the Twin Towers and the 47-story building known as WTC 7, he says. The official explanation — that fires caused structural damage that caused the buildings to collapse — can't be backed up by either testing or history, he says.
Jones acknowledges that there have been "junk science" conspiracy theories about what happened on 9/11, but "the explosive demolition hypothesis better satisfies tests of repeatability and parsimony and therefore is not 'junk science.' "
In a 9,000-word article that Jones says will be published in the book "The Hidden History of 9/11," by Elsevier, Jones offers these arguments:
• The three buildings collapsed nearly symmetrically, falling down into their footprints, a phenomenon associated with "controlled demolition" — and even then it's very difficult, he says. "Why would terrorists undertake straight-down collapses of WTC-7 and the Towers when 'toppling over' falls would require much less work and would do much more damage in downtown Manhattan?" Jones asks. "And where would they obtain the necessary skills and access to the buildings for a symmetrical implosion anyway? The 'symmetry data' emphasized here, along with other data, provide strong evidence for an 'inside' job."

• No steel-frame building, before or after the WTC buildings, has ever collapsed due to fire. But explosives can effectively sever steel columns, he says.

• WTC 7, which was not hit by hijacked planes, collapsed in 6.6 seconds, just .6 of a second longer than it would take an object dropped from the roof to hit the ground. "Where is the delay that must be expected due to conservation of momentum, one of the foundational laws of physics?" he asks. "That is, as upper-falling floors strike lower floors — and intact steel support columns — the fall must be significantly impeded by the impacted mass. . . . How do the upper floors fall so quickly, then, and still conserve momentum in the collapsing buildings?" The paradox, he says, "is easily resolved by the explosive demolition hypothesis, whereby explosives quickly removed lower-floor material, including steel support columns, and allow near free-fall-speed collapses." These observations were not analyzed by FEMA, NIST nor the 9/11 Commission, he says.

• With non-explosive-caused collapse there would typically be a piling up of shattering concrete. But most of the material in the towers was converted to flour-like powder while the buildings were falling, he says. "How can we understand this strange behavior, without explosives? Remarkable, amazing — and demanding scrutiny since the U.S. government-funded reports failed to analyze this phenomenon."

• Horizontal puffs of smoke, known as squibs, were observed proceeding up the side the building, a phenomenon common when pre-positioned explosives are used to demolish buildings, he says.

• Steel supports were "partly evaporated," but it would require temperatures near 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit to evaporate steel — and neither office materials nor diesel fuel can generate temperatures that hot. Fires caused by jet fuel from the hijacked planes lasted at most a few minutes, and office material fires would burn out within about 20 minutes in any given location, he says.

• Molten metal found in the debris of the World Trade Center may have been the result of a high-temperature reaction of a commonly used explosive such as thermite, he says. Buildings not felled by explosives "have insufficient directed energy to result in melting of large quantities of metal," Jones says.

• Multiple loud explosions in rapid sequence were reported by numerous observers in and near the towers, and these explosions occurred far below the region where the planes struck, he says.

Jones says he became interested in the physics of the WTC collapse after attending a talk last spring given by a woman who had had a near-death experience. The woman mentioned in passing that "if you think the World Trade Center buildings came down just due to fire, you have a lot of surprises ahead of you," Jones remembers, at which point "everyone around me started applauding."
Following several months of study, he presented his findings at a talk at BYU in September.
Jones says he would like the government to release 6,899 photographs and 6,977 segments of video footage for "independent scrutiny." He would also like to analyze a small sample of the molten metal found at Ground Zero.



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E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com

9/11 Panel Gives White House Mixed Review

By BARRY SCHWEID

WASHINGTON -- Reviewing action on recommendations it made last year, the Sept. 11 commission on Monday criticized the Bush administration for not adopting standards for treatment of captured terror suspects.

The administration was given a mixed review in a report on the commission's key recommendations that were designed to help the United States better prepare for and respond to a terror attack.

There was high praise for U.S. attempts to integrate the Arab and Muslim world into the global trading system and in fighting terrorism financing.

But former commission chairman Thomas Kean, former vice chairman Lee Hamilton and the eight other members who formed the 9-11 Public Disclosure Project found much to criticize.

Their review gave the administration the grade "unfulfilled" on the commission's recommendation that the United States develop a common approach with friendly nations on the treatment of captured terror suspects. The commission also had suggested the Geneva Conventions on the law of armed conflict should be applied to military prisons and secret detention centers.

What the Bush administration still needs to do, the review said, is to adopt standards for terror suspects that are in accord with international law.

"These standards should cover the treatment of detainees held by all elements of the U.S. government," the former commission members said.

And, they said, "the United States should work with its allies to develop mutually acceptable standards for terrorist detention."

President Bush last week defended U.S. interrogation practices and called the treatment of terrorist suspects lawful. "We do not torture," Bush declared.

Congress, meanwhile, is engaged in a high-profile debate over the handling of detainees. The Senate twice has signed off on legislation to ban the cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody.

The provision is included in two defense bills. The House versions of the bills do not include the language, which the White House opposes.

At Monday's presentation, commission member Richard Ben-Veniste said Iraq is on track to succeed Afghanistan as a terrorist training ground. "How much this trend has been fueled by the highly publicized reports of brutalization, humiliation and desecration cannot be measured accurately," he said.

"But the flames of extremism undoubtedly burn more brightly when we are the ones who deliver the gasoline," Ben-Veniste said.

On another front, the former commission members found insufficient progress on thwarting attempts by the al-Qaida network to acquire or make weapons of mass destruction.

On the positive side, the review cited an agreement reached last February by Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin to secure nuclear warheads and material.

Russia, for instance, has made several dozen additional nuclear warhead storage sites available for inspection and improvement, the review said.

But more than 100 research facilities worldwide _ in some 40 countries _ contain enough highly enriched uranium to fashion a nuclear device, and this is troubling, the report said.

"Preventing terrorists from gaining access to weapons of mass destruction must be elevated above all other problems of national security," the former commission members said. "It represents the greatest threat to the American people" and President Bush should publicly make this goal his top priority, the review said.


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http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0546,ridgeway,70020,6.html
Mondo Washington
Feeling Insecure
There's no defense for some of the government's defense plans, even for D.C.

by James Ridgeway
November 15th, 2005 11:39 AM

As time passes, more details of what happened before and after 9-11 become known. Here are three examples of the government's outright failure before and after the attacks to take action—including an instance of a startling new policy to defend the capital city of Washington:
ABLE DANGER: The 9-11 Commission ignored reports that lead hijacker Mohammed Atta had been recognized and placed under surveillance long before the attack by a special secret Pentagon unit called Able Danger.

People from Able Danger actually briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff on what they had discovered in January 2001. Pentagon lawyers prevented them from telling the FBI what they knew, apparently on the theory that it didn't want anyone to know military intelligence was operating illegally within the U.S. It also happens that the secret unit wanted to surface its findings during the Gore-Bush presidential campaign. The revelation of a secret military intelligence unit operating against the law within the U.S. probably wouldn't have helped Gore.

During its own investigations, the 9-11 Commission took testimony from a naval officer who described seeing an Able Danger document in 2000 that linked Atta to Al Qaeda. However, commission chair Thomas Kean and vice chair Lee Hamilton claimed that this one bit of testimony was not "sufficiently reliable" and not worth following up. Hamilton later explained, "The 9-11 Commission did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9-11 of surveillance of Mohammed Atta or of his cell. Had we learned of it, obviously it would've been a major focus of our investigation."

Recently on CNN, Lou Dobbs asked Slade Gorton, the former Republican senator from Washington State and member of the commission, why it had omitted mention of Able Danger. Gorton explained, "Well, Able Danger worked out very interesting. It didn't identify Mohammed Atta a year beforehand. Unfortunately, no one identified Mohammed Atta beforehand. Able Danger was simply irrelevant to our report and still is. ''

Last week Dobbs replayed Gorton's remarks and, turning to Republican congressman Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania—the man who has been haranguing the commission about covering up Able Danger—said, " 'Simply irrelevant' how Slade Gorton describes Able Danger. What's your reaction?"

"Unbelievable," replied Weldon, a member of the House Armed Services Committee. "Slade Gorton has never talked to any principal involved with Able Danger. And how he can go off and profess to know something about something that he's never talked to anyone about is beyond me."

But Gorton isn't the only one. Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense when the Joint Chiefs were briefed in January 2001, had this to say: "It's such an interesting story. Of course, it's something that occurred well before this administration came in. Back in the '90s, as I understand it, and it's an interesting story."

Able Danger ended in 2000, before Rumsfeld took office, but people involved remained in place and knew about the project—including the Joint Chiefs.

In fact, the U.S. knew about Mohammed Atta in 1998. At that time he was living in Hamburg as part of an Al Qaeda cell. There is a possibility Atta might have been known to U.S. intelligence as far back as 1993. In 2004, the German prosecutor overseeing the investigation of the Hamburg cell was scheduled to testify before the 9-11 Commission, but his testimony was unexpectedly canceled.



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AIR SECURITY: The theory is that following the attacks, the U.S. beefed up its lax air security, as did other countries whose airlines come and go in the U.S. The Canadian border is of special concern, as are Canadian airports—a recent documentary on Canadian TV's The Fifth Estate found that airport security was virtually nonexistent. After 9-11 the Canadians put up $9 billion for security measures, $2 billion of which was for airport security. The documentary show ran an undercover operation to test it.

Steve Elson, a member of the FAA's Red Team, a group of former special-ops personnel employed by the U.S. government to test our air security, was asked by CBC to run the undercover operation on Canadian air security. Arriving in Toronto, the former Navy SEAL deciphered all the Toronto airport-access codes within 20 minutes, and with The Fifth Estate's hidden camera in tow, walked through Toronto's Pearson Airport "opening one door after another." The doors all seemed to have the same codes. "That means I can get access to airplanes, to the ramp, literally get into a jetway door in a few seconds," said Elson.

This means that any terrorist could plant a bomb on a plane sitting in Toronto and destined for, say, Washington, and blow it up in the air while it was landing, or just after it landed.

Canadian officials didn't blink an eye. Mark Duncan, who heads the country's Air Transport Security Authority, said not to worry. "Our last public-opinion survey showed that 90 percent of the people were satisfied with the security process," he said. "So we think we've delivered on the mandate we were given."

Elson later told the Voice via e-mail, "The big problem is not that one can get explosives aboard aircraft in Canada or U.S., because there are so many ways to do it. The problem is the absolutely absurd ease with which it can be done, repetitively . . . Billions spent, yet other dimwits besides me could waltz through 'security' with 20 pounds of explosive, go aboard, and take down 50 planes in an hour. Yet they wouldn't have to be aboard when the planes blow. It is so very, very easy—the government makes it that way. That's the problem."



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Defending D.C.: During the 9-11 attacks, with President George W. Bush holding a bum phone in Air Force One, Dick Cheney in the bunker shouting out orders to take down planes that had already crashed, and Don Rumsfeld AWOL, the job of protecting the capital city fell not to the military, but to the Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting the president.

The Secret Service apparently ordered the D.C. National Guard to scramble fighters into a CAP (combat air patrol) with fire-at-will instructions. The Secret Service is not in the chain of command for defense of the nation and operates on its own authority.

Rumsfeld later told the 9-11 Commission that protecting the U.S. within the nation's borders was not his responsibility but fell to some other government law enforcement agency. The 9-11 commissioners listened in rapt attention as this novel interpretation of the nation's laws was explained to them.

Anyhow, the situation is now rectified with the announcement that the Coast Guard will defend the capital. (It takes over from Customs, which has been doing the job since 2003.) On the surface this is a welcome move, since the Coast Guard was the only effective government agency during the recent hurricanes. But the Coast Guard's fleet of planes and ships is woefully outmoded, and it is not known for its firepower.

But that's not the real problem. Putting the Coast Guard in charge means putting Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff in permanent charge. Chertoff is not a military man but a former Justice Department lawyer and judge. He ran a feeble, incompetent government hurricane response. Bush has been pressured to get rid of him and install Rudy Giuliani instead. But he survives and now is commander in chief of the nation's capital.

http://fpiarticle.blogspot.com/2005/11/inc...hy-did-911.html

Thursday, November 17, 2005
An Incomplete Investigation. Why did the 9/11 Commission ignore "Able Danger"?
Opinion Journal
11/17/2005

It was interesting to hear from the 9/11 Commission again on Tuesday. This self-perpetuating and privately funded group of lobbyists and lawyers has recently opined on hurricanes, nuclear weapons, the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel and even the New York subway system. Now it offers yet another "report card" on the progress of the FBI and CIA in the war against terrorism, along with its "back-seat" take and some further unsolicited narrative about how things ought to be on the "front lines."

Yet this is also a good time for the country to make some assessments of the 9/11 Commission itself. Recent revelations from the military intelligence operation code-named "Able Danger" have cast light on a missed opportunity that could have potentially prevented 9/11. Specifically, Able Danger concluded in February 2000 that military experts had identified Mohamed Atta by name (and maybe photograph) as an al Qaeda agent operating in the U.S. Subsequently, military officers assigned to Able Danger were prevented from sharing this critical information with FBI agents, even though appointments had been made to do so. Why?

There are other questions that need answers. Was Able Danger intelligence provided to the 9/11 Commission prior to the finalization of its report, and, if so, why was it not explored? In sum, what did the 9/11 commissioners and their staff know about Able Danger and when did they know it?

The Able Danger intelligence, if confirmed, is undoubtedly the most relevant fact of the entire post-9/11 inquiry. Even the most junior investigator would immediately know that the name and photo ID of Atta in 2000 is precisely the kind of tactical intelligence the FBI has many times employed to prevent attacks and arrest terrorists. Yet the 9/11 Commission inexplicably concluded that it "was not historically significant." This astounding conclusion--in combination with the failure to investigate Able Danger and incorporate it into its findings--raises serious challenges to the commission's credibility and, if the facts prove out, might just render the commission historically insignificant itself.

The facts relating to Able Danger finally started to be reported in mid-August. U.S. Army Col. Anthony Shaffer, a veteran intelligence officer, publicly revealed that the Able Danger team had identified Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers by mid-2000 but were prevented by military lawyers from giving this information to the FBI. One week later, Navy Capt. Scott J. Phillpott, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who managed the program for the Pentagon's Special Operations Command, confirmed "Atta was identified by Able Danger by January-February of 2000."

On Aug. 18, 2005, the Pentagon initially stated that "a probe" had found nothing to back up Col. Shaffer's claims. Two weeks later, however, Defense Department officials acknowledged that its "inquiry" had found "three more people who recall seeing an intelligence briefing slide that identified the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks a year before the hijackings and terrorist strikes." These same officials also stated that "documents and electronic files created by . . . Able Danger were destroyed under standing orders that limit the military's use of intelligence gathered about people in the United States." Then in September 2005, the Pentagon doubled back and blocked several military officers from testifying at an open Congressional hearing about the Able Danger program.

Two members of Congress, Curt Weldon and Dan Burton, have also publicly stated that shortly after the 9/11 attacks they provided then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley with a "chart" containing preattack information collected by Able Danger about al Qaeda. A spokesperson for the White House has confirmed that Mr. Hadley "recalled seeing such a chart in that time period but . . . did not recall whether he saw it during a meeting . . . and that a search of National Security Council files had failed to produce such a chart."

Thomas Kean, the chairman of the 9/11 Commission, reacted to Able Danger with the standard Washington PR approach. He lashed out at the Bush administration and demanded that the Pentagon conduct an "investigation" to evaluate the "credibility" of Col. Shaffer and Capt. Phillpott--rather than demand a substantive investigation into what failed in the first place. This from a former New Jersey governor who, along with other commissioners, routinely appeared in public espousing his own conclusions about 9/11 long before the commission's inquiry was completed and long before all the facts were in! This while dismissing out of hand the major conflicts of interest on the commission itself about obstructions to information-sharing within the intelligence community!

Nevertheless, the final 9/11 Commission report, released on July 22, 2004, concluded that "American intelligence agencies were unaware of Mr. Atta until the day of the attacks." This now looks to be embarrassingly wrong. Yet amazingly, commission leaders acknowledged on Aug. 12 that their staff in fact met with a Navy officer 10 days before releasing the report, who "asserted that a highly classified intelligence operation, Able Danger, had identified Mohammed Atta to be a member of an al Qaeda cell located in Brooklyn." (Capt. Phillpott says he briefed them in July 2004.) The commission's statement goes on to say that the staff determined that "the officer's account was not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the report or further investigation," and that the intelligence operation "did not turn out to be historically significant," despite substantial corroboration from other seasoned intelligence officers.

This dismissive and apparently unsupported conclusion would have us believe that a key piece of evidence was summarily rejected in less than 10 days without serious investigation. The commission, at the very least, should have interviewed the 80 members of Able Danger, as the Pentagon did, five of whom say they saw "the chart." But this would have required admitting that the late-breaking news was inconveniently raised. So it was grossly neglected and branded as insignificant. Such a half-baked conclusion, drawn in only 10 days without any real investigation, simply ignores what looks like substantial direct evidence to the contrary coming from our own trained military intelligence officers.

No wonder the 9/11 families were outraged by these revelations and called for a "new" commission to investigate. "I'm angry that my son's death could have been prevented," seethed Diane Horning, whose son Matthew was killed at the World Trade Center. On Aug. 17, 2005, a coalition of family members known as the September 11 Advocates rightly blasted 9/11 Commission leaders Mr. Kean and Lee Hamilton for pooh-poohing Able Danger's findings as not "historically significant." Advocate Mindy Kleinberg aptly notes, "They [the 9/11 Commission] somehow made a determination that this was not important enough. To me, that says somebody there is not using good judgment. And if I'm questioning the judgment of this one case, what other things might they have missed?" This is a stinging indictment of the commission by the 9/11 families.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, has led the way in cleaning up the 9/11 Commission's unfinished business. Amid a very full plate of responsibilities, he conducted a hearing after noting that Col. Shaffer and Capt. Phillpott "appear to have credibility." Himself a former prosecutor, Mr. Specter noted: "If Mr. Atta and other 9/11 terrorists were identified before the attacks, it would be a very serious breach not to have that information passed along . . . we ought to get to the bottom of it." Indeed we should. The 9/11 Commission gets an "I" grade--incomplete--for its dereliction regarding Able Danger. The Joint Intelligence Committees should reconvene and, in addition to Able Danger team members, we should have the 9/11 commissioners appear as witnesses so the families can hear their explanation why this doesn't matter.

Mr. Freeh, a former FBI director, is the author of "My FBI" (St. Martin's, 2005).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051128/pl_nm/...fbi_linguist_dc

Supreme Court rejects FBI linguist's appeal By James Vicini

The U.S. Supreme Court let stand on Monday the dismissal of a lawsuit by a former FBI linguist who said she had been fired in 2002 for speaking out about possible security breaches, misconduct and incompetent translation work.

Without any comment, the justices rejected an appeal by Sibel Edmonds, who worked as a contract linguist at the FBI's Washington field office from shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks until her dismissal the following March.

Edmonds had reported to FBI management her concerns about the quality of the translations, accusing fellow translators of willful misconduct and gross incompetence. She also accused a co-worker of possible espionage.

A specialist in Middle Eastern languages, she said that numerous communications had been left untranslated or had been mistranslated.

The FBI has said that Edmonds was disruptive and that her allegations were not credible.

In July 2002, she sued the FBI, the U.S. Justice Department and various high-level officials in challenging her dismissal.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton dismissed the case after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the rarely used "state secrets privilege."

He warned that further disclosure of the duties of Edmonds and other translators could cause "serious damage to the national security interests of the United States."

Walton ruled that secret declarations from Ashcroft and a top FBI official demonstrated that the lawsuit could reveal classified information about intelligence-gathering methods and could disrupt diplomatic relations with foreign governments.

A U.S. appeals court, in a three-paragraph judgment, upheld the dismissal.

"This case was never about me; it was about the FBI's attempt to cover up wrongdoing and mismanagement," Edmonds said in a statement issued after the high court rejected her appeal.

"I am disheartened that the legal system has failed to hold the FBI accountable for its actions, but I will continue to press Congress to fully investigate security breaches within the Bureau," she said.

In appealing to the Supreme Court, attorneys for Edmonds described her as a whistle blower. They said the justices should clarify the proper scope and application of the state secrets privilege.

They also argued that the appeals court violated the First Amendment when it excluded the press and the public from the arguments in the case in April, without any specific findings that secrecy was necessary.

A number of news media companies and groups supported that part of the appeal and said the public's First Amendment right of access to criminal cases should also apply to civil cases, including appellate oral arguments.

Justice Department attorneys said the appeals court's decision upholding the dismissal of the lawsuit was correct and that further review of the case was unwarranted. They said Ashcroft properly invoked the state secrets privilege after personally considering the matter.




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Commercial Pilot &
Aeronautical Engineer
Explains Why Official 9/11
Story About Pentagon Is Bogus

Nila Sagadevan sets the record straight about Pentagon crash while 9/11 fringe movement meets Dec. 7 in Tampa for beginning of five-day rally.


By Greg Szymanski
12-6-5

It's impossible to fit a square peg in a round hole. It's equally as impossible to fit a large 757 airliner through a small hole like left in the Pentagon wall after 9/11.

And this is just one of the many examples that the official 9/11 story makes no sense. In fact, it makes about as much sense as trying to keep jamming that square peg into that proverbial round hole.

However, while the feds fiddle with pegs that don't fit, the 9/11 debate rages on across the country, mainly among the fringe truth movement groups whose numbers are small.

And this is precisely where politicians want the debate to remain, away from the public's ear, since so far they have been dealt a winning 9/11 hand, knowing any serious measure to bring justice has been effectively cut-off.

So this week the fringe 9/11 movement takes its "forces and soldiers of truth" to Tampa and Miami, Florida, staging a five day assembly starting Dec 7 with the intent to spark a larger public debate and bring the "enemy within" to justice.

Millionaire Jimmy Walter is footing the bill and hosting the event with speakers to include Dave von Kleist, Joyce Riley, Morgan Reynolds, Eric Hufschmid, William Rodriguez and others. There is an $11 entry fee and it will be interesting to see the turn-out, including the media coverage which in the past has been sporadic at best for 9/11 truth events.

Although the speakers bring to the table interesting facts discounting the official story, Rodriguez will be the most compelling, telling his tale of hearing explosions in the basement prior to the airplane hitting the North Tower.

But one person in attendance not on the speaker's list is commercial pilot and aeronautical engineer, Nila Sagedevan. And the reason he should be speaking, at least about the Pentagon crash, is because once he gives his technical rendition of why the government story is bogus, it's like someone finally held up, for the whole world to see, the round peg fitting perfectly into the round hole.

In the past, many pilots and other experts have tried to communicate the impossibility of the flight pattern taken by an inexperienced Arab terrorist in the cockpit, but none have done a better job than Sagedevan, telling the story from an expert's pint of view but communicating so the layman has no trouble understanding.

Recently, Sagadevan spent two hours on Greg Szymanski's radio show, The Investigative Journal, on the Republic Broadcast Network at
www.rbnlive.com, leaving the audience nodding their heads in agreement that the Pentagon crash couldn't have happened the way the government contends.

"Let's look at it plain and simple," said Sagadevan in an extended telephone conference this week from his home near San Diego. "The government wants us to believe that a person who couldn't even solo a small Cessna took over the controls of a Boeing 757 jetliner and performed complicated maneuvers even myself or other experienced pilots could have never performed.

"It's just not going to happen and, from my point of view, is impossible. If this was fabricated by the government so was the rest of the 9/11 story."

But staying on point, Sagadevan wanted to further illustrate the absurdity of a small, inexperienced 5'8" Arab terrorist, taking over the controls of the jetliner from a burly, well-trained former military pilot.

"You mean to tell me, the supposed terrorist overpowered the pilot, who weighed more than 185 lbs and trained in the military. And then after that overpowered the co-pilot in the same manner, a person who also weighed upwards of 185 lbs," said Sagadevan, emphasizing experts aren't needed to explain the absurdity of this portion of the government story.

"I am not sure if anyone has been in the cockpit of one of one of these big jets, but I will tell you there isn't much space. How in the world would one man pull out two big pilots in cramped quarters while, at the same time, maintaining control of the airliner. Again, it's just not going to happen.

"In the beginning right after 9/11, like most people, I believed most of what I heard about 9/11, not really giving much thought to a government conspiracy. However, about a year ago when I began gathering information related to my expertise as an aeronautical engineer and pilot, I began to see clearly how the government story regarding the four flights, their paths and their pilots didn't make sense.

"Now I am firmly convinced after looking at an enormous amount of evidence, as well as using well-establishing aviation principles, that something else crashed into the Pentagon since it couldn't have been a commercial jetliner."

Besides calling attention to the impossibility of a untrained pilot performing complex flight maneuvers and navigation, Sagadevan said the flight path taken near the Pentagon was also impossible for a large jetliner to perform without crashing before reaching the Pentagon.

"First of all, the supposed pilot would have been overwhelmed just looking at the complexity of the cockpit controls," said Sagadevan. "He would have had no idea what to do, but we are led to believe that he was able to turn the jet around, head back to Washington D.C. and then bank at high speeds and at a low altitude, hitting a target which would have looked as small as thimble from the air. Again, it's impossible and you don't really need an expert to make this final determination."

Sagadevan was quick to point out one of the main problems with the government story is the low trajectory of the airplane, flying at high speeds and roughly only 20 feet off the ground for a long distance, another impossibility defying the standard principles of aviation.

"The evidence indicates that the airplane was flying low before it reached the Pentagon lawn since several light poles were sheared off several hundred yards away form the building," explained Sagadevan. "With that in mind, the plane was traveling at about 400 knots at about 20 feet off the ground for a long distance prior to hitting the Pentagon.

"This in itself is an impossibility since the airplane would have been kept from hitting the ground by a cushion of air termed 'ground effect.' No pilot in the world would have been able to control the plane while maintained that air speed at 20 feet off the ground for that long a distance. Again, it's just impossible but here I will admit that an expert is needed in order to explain the standards of lift and drag associated with flying a large airliner.

From the beginning of the supposed hijacking of Flight 77 and to its eventual crash into the Pentagon wall, Sagadevan presents a compelling case, essentially crushing the official story. He also mentioned the what's also overlooked is the 'jet wash' from the airplane would have caused tremendous ground damage on the approach, something not evident in the aftermath of the Pentagon crash.

"I really don't understand how anyone could give the government's story any credibility after seeing the original pictures taken of the small hole left in the Pentagon wall by whatever flew into it," said Sagadevan. "I am not totally sure what the military used but one thing for sure, it wasn't a 757 jetliner."

Sagadevan is referring to the tiny circumference of the hole left in the Pentagon wall, illustrated on pictures taken right after the crash scene, but immediately taken out of circulation and never widely distributed by the news media to the American people.

"I think if someone just looks at the hole left and then looks at the size of 757, experts aren't needed to determine it was an impossibility that a big jet hit the Pentagon wall, especially when there was very little wreckage visible after the crash," added Sagadevan.

Regarding the Pentagon crash, as Sagadevan aptly points out, there are "so many holes in the story" that it becomes, as the English say, rather a laughing matter, making one believe even the bungling Inspector Clouseau, made famous by Peter Sellers, could crack the case wide open if given half a chance.

But the problem is Inspector Clouseau, Sagadevan and every other independent investigator haven't been given the chance, leaving the case to be investigated and tried in the court of public opinion, a place where politicians like it and know they are safe from prosecution.


For more informative articles, go to www.arcticbeacon.com

http://infowars.net/articles/december2005/...5foundbombs.htm



Police Found Suspected Bombs In WTC On 9/11
Reports surfaced of truck parked in building

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet | December 5 2005

The report you're watching and hearing was filed by an MSNBC news anchor Rick Sanchez on the morning of September 11th 2001. It can be downloaded here.

The details contained therein seem to have slipped under the radar amidst the huge body of evidence proving controlled demolition brought down both the twin towers and Building 7.

Sanchez states,

”Police have found what they believe to be a suspicious device and they fear that it may lead to another explosion."

"I spoke with some police officials moments ago, Chris, and they told me they have reason to believe that one of the explosion at the besides the ones made with the planes, may have been caused by a van that was parked on the building that may have had an explosive device in it.”

It would make sense that police would find at least some of the bombs that tore down the only steel buildings to collapse from fire damage in history at speeds that defied physics. There would have been so many devices involved in the demolition that stumbling across some was inevitable.

This report mirrors those that emerged in the hours following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, where bomb squads removed numerous unexploded secondary devices from the Alfred P. Murrah building.



The twin towers were wired to the brim with highly powerful explosives, some of which exploded before the collapse of the buildings and some during.

This is why people like construction worker Philip Morelli, working in the fourth sub-basement of the north tower, were thrown around like rag dolls in an earthquake.

With the sheer volume of evidence and basic straightforward common sense proving controlled demolition, the possibility still remains that the federal government, backed by FEMA, will come forward and announce that another Al-Qaeda cell placed the explosives days before the attack.

This of course is ridiculous, it takes highly trained explosives experts weeks and sometimes months to correctly rig buildings many times smaller than the twin towers, and with varying degrees of success. The towers imploded perfectly and fell down right in their own footsteps, as did Building 7 which wasn't hit by a plane. Any building not owned by Larry Silverstein, despite having closer proximity to the towers, strangely stood its ground.

Larry Silverstein admitted that Building 7 was "pulled," an industry term for demolition, in a September 2002 PBS documentary, but has failed to respond to a firestorm of subsequent questions.



Others argue that the powers that be will simply continue to ignore the evidence now being certified by such credible individuals as Professor Steven Jones and former chief economist for the US Department of Labor under George W. Bush, Morgan Reynolds.

To change such a major element of the official version of events would throw into question all the other pieces of the puzzle and the whole house of cards would come tumbling down.

Nevertheless, the report that police did find explosives in the World Trade Center before the collapse of the towers is another giant smoking gun to add to all the rest proving that the collapse of the buildings and 9/11 was an inside job.

----------------------------------------

Related: Alex Jones at Ground Zero: The Use Of Explosives In the 9/11 Attack
In this 22 minute clip Alex reports from ground zero and talks to eyewitnesses who were there on the day who reported bombs.

Related: Bombs in the World Trade Center

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...eadlines-nation

9/11 Panel Says U.S. Fails Terror Readiness Checkup
Four years after the attacks, the government is 'moving at a crawl,' a top member declares.

By Greg Miller, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON — The commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks issued a harsh report card Monday on the federal government's efforts to shore up defenses and protect the nation against future terrorist strikes.

More than four years after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the United States does not check identities of air travelers against a complete terrorism watch list and continues to dole out domestic security funds without regard for the fact that certain parts of the country are at greater risk of attack than others, former members of the Sept. 11 panel said.

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They also criticized the United States' handling of detainees, persistent problems in communication systems for first responders and excessive secrecy surrounding intelligence spending. In all, the panel issued more failing grades than A's or Bs in the report card on the government's efforts to implement commission recommendations.

"While the terrorists are learning and adapting, our government is still moving at a crawl," said Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey who served as chairman of the Sept. 11 panel. "Four years after 9/11, we are not as safe as we could be, and that's simply not acceptable."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan defended the administration's post-Sept. 11 efforts, saying that it has acted on 37 of the 39 recommendations that applied to the executive branch. He also pointed to the war in Iraq and efforts to capture Al Qaeda operatives overseas, saying: "The best way to protect the American people is to take the fight to the enemy, to stay on the offensive."

But commission members thought the White House and Congress had not done enough to implement many of the recommendations.

"Fs and Ds and incompletes aren't the American ideal and the American standard of excellence, not when it comes to protecting our people," said Timothy J. Roemer, a former Democratic House member from Indiana and a former Sept. 11 panel member. "We can do better. We must do better than that."

The commission ceased operation after issuing a 567-page report last year, a document that recounted in detail the failures leading up to Sept. 11 and which inspired an array of reforms — including a major restructuring of the U.S. intelligence community.

Afterward, its members formed a privately funded foundation to monitor the government's progress. The document released Monday was the group's last project, members said, adding that the foundation would disband.

The Sept. 11 commission, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, earned a rare reputation in the history of Washington's blue-ribbon panels. Formed in the year after the attacks, its 10 members — five Democrats and five Republicans — grew into a close-knit fraternity that dissected U.S. preparedness, confronted the Bush administration and worked smoothly across party lines.

With its singular focus on readiness, the panel won the admiration of families of many victims of the attacks, who saw commission members as more devoted to their cause and more sympathetic to their pain than others in government.

"You've been unlike any other commission," said a tearful Mary Fetchet, who lost her son at the World Trade Center and who is director of a victims group, addressing commission members Monday.

"I mean, you didn't just do the investigation and then release a report; you stuck with it for a full another year to make sure it was legislated and to get to where we are today, to really evaluate where we stand."

The report card assigned letter grades in 41 categories, including border security to civil liberties protections.

Members directed some of their sharpest criticism at what they described as a failure to make sure federal domestic security money was spent wisely.

Beyond the way the money is distributed, Kean and the former vice chairman of the panel, former Democratic Rep. Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana, said local governments were squandering much of the money they got.

In an opinion column published Monday in the New York Times, Kean and Hamilton said the District of Columbia had used federal domestic security funds to "buy leather jackets and to send sanitation workers to self-improvement seminars."

The city of Newark, N.J., bought air-conditioned garbage trucks, while Columbus, Ohio, used funds to purchase armor for fire department dogs.

"These are not the priorities of a nation under threat," Kean and Hamilton said.

In their latest report, former commission members praised a measure passed by the House this year to change the way funds were allocated so that more money was earmarked for regions considered at greater risk of attack.

The Bush administration favors altering the funding formula to account for risk, McClellan said.

But a House Republican aide said that the threat-based allocation provision had been dropped from a House-Senate compromise on the bill, mainly because of opposition from senators from less-populous regions who objected to seeing funding for their states diminished.

The White House detailed billions spent in security in the United States and abroad. But although there is no official price tag for the recommendations, experts have said the outstanding recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission could cost billions more. For instance, some have estimated that utility companies would have to spend $300 million or more on each nuclear plant to protect against air attacks.

In other areas, the commission members said they continued to find breakdowns in the sharing of information among intelligence agencies, "inertia and complacency" undermining reforms at the FBI, and a failure to adopt common standards for handling prisoners.

"U.S. treatment of detainees has elicited broad criticism and makes it harder to build the necessary alliances to cooperate effectively with partners in a global war on terror," the report said.

The highest mark in the report card — an A minus — was given for efforts to target terrorist financing. The commission noted that the government "has made significant strides in using terrorism finance as an intelligence tool," but added that turf battles between the State and Treasury departments continued.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

It's no honor roll

The commission that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks graded the government on how well it had or had not carried out the panel's recommendations. Some of the grades:

A minus: Making efforts with other countries to crack down on terrorist financing.

B: Finding a balance at home between security and civil liberties.

C: Getting private businesses to be prepared to respond in case of an emergency.

D: Making improvements in screening checked bags and cargo on flights.

F: Helping emergency agencies acquire radios and other equipment that would let them communicate with each other during a disaster.

Incomplete: Revamping the CIA, including improvements in its use of human intelligence operations.

Source: Associated Press

9/11 Commission: 'Another Attack Will Occur'

POSTED: 3:13 pm EST December 4, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. is at great risk for more terrorist attacks because Congress and the White House have failed to enact several strong security measures, members of the former Sept. 11 commission said Sunday.

"It's not a priority for the government right now," said the former chairman, Thomas Kean, ahead of the group's release of a report Monday assessing how well its recommendations have been followed.

"More than four years after 9/11 ... people are not paying attention," the former Republican governor of New Jersey said. "God help us if we have another attack."

Added Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic vice chairman of the commission: "We believe that another attack will occur. It's not a question of if. We are not as well-prepared as we should be."

The five Republicans and five Democrats on the commission, whose recommendations are now promoted through a privately funded group known as the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, conclude that the government deserves "more Fs than As" in responding to their 41 suggested changes.

Since the commission's final report in July 2004, the government has enacted the centerpiece proposal to create a national intelligence director. But the government has stalled on other ideas, including improving communication among emergency responders and shifting federal terrorism-fighting money so it goes to states based on risk level.

"There is a lack of a sense of urgency," Hamilton said. "There are so many competing priorities. We've got three wars going on: one in Afghanistan, one in Iraq and the war against terror. And it's awfully hard to keep people focused on something like this."

National security adviser Stephen Hadley said Sunday that President Bush is committed to putting in place most of the commission's recommendations.

"Obviously, as we've said all along, we are safer, but not yet safe. There is more to do," Hadley said on "Fox News Sunday."

Ex-commissioners contended the government has been remiss by failing to act more quickly.

Kean said the Transportation Security Administration was wrong to announce changes last week that will allow airline passengers to carry small scissors and some sharp tools. He also said the agency, by now, should have consolidated databases of passenger information into a single "terror watch list" to aid screening.

"I don't think we have to go backward here," said Kean, who appeared with Hamilton on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"They're talking about using more money for random checks. Terrorists coming through the airport may still not be spotted," Kean said.

Kean and Hamilton urged Congress to pass spending bills that would allow police and fire to communicate across radio spectrums and to reallocate money so that Washington and New York, which have more people and symbolic landmarks, could receive more for terrorism defense.

Both bills have stalled in Congress, in part over the level of spending and turf fights over which states should get the most dollars.

"This is a no-brainer," said Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman.

"From the standpoint of responding to a disaster, the key responders must be able to talk with one another. They could not do it on 9/11, and as a result of that, lives were lost. They could not do it at (Hurricane) Katrina. They still cannot do it."

As for the dollar dispute, Hamilton said, "We know what terrorists want to do: they want to kill as many Americans as possible. That means you protect the Washington monument and United States Capitol, and not other places."

Congress established the commission in 2002 to investigate government missteps that led to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Its 567-page final report, which became a national best seller, does not blame Bush or former President Clinton for missteps contributing to the attacks but did say they failed to make anti-terrorism a higher priority.

The commission also concluded that the Sept. 11 attack would not be the nation's last, noting that al-Qaida had tried for at least 10 years to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

Calling the country "less safe than we were 18 months ago," former Democratic commissioner Jamie Gorelick said Sunday the government's failure to move forward on the recommendations makes the U.S. more vulnerable.

She cited the failure to ensure that foreign nations are upgrading security measures to stop proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical materials, as well as the FBI's resistance to overhauling its anti-terror programs.

"You remember the sense of urgency that we all felt in the summer of 2004. The interest has faded," the Washington lawyer said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "You could see that in the aftermath of Katrina. We assumed that our government would be able to do what it needed to do and it didn't do it."
Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

General gave OK for Able Danger

Former military chief confirms al-Qaida mission

By James Rosen

Gen. Hugh Shelton, who was the military's top commander during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, confirmed that four years before the tragedy he authorized a secret computer data-mining initiative to track down Osama bin Laden and operatives in the fugitive terrorist's al-Qaida network.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11244.htm

Open and Shut

Four years later, we still have ten big questions

By Jarrett Murphy

On Monday, December 5, the 9-11 Public Discourse Project—a private group formed by 9-11 Commission members after their official mandate lapsed in 2004—held a wrap-up press briefing in Washington, signaling the last gasp of official inquiries into the attacks four years ago. People who lost loved ones will never know exactly how the end came, if it hurt, what the final thoughts and words were. But other questions are more tractable. Here are 10 of them:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11249.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 9, 2005
Before 9/11, Warnings on bin Laden
By SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - More than three years before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, American diplomats warned Saudi officials that Osama bin Laden might target civilian aircraft, according to a newly declassified State Department cable.

The cable was one of two documents released Thursday by the National Security Archive, a research organization at George Washington University that obtained them under the Freedom of Information Act. The other was a memorandum written five days after the 2001 attacks by George J. Tenet, then director of central intelligence, to his top deputies, titled "We're at War."

The June 1998 cable reported to Washington that three American officials, the State Department's regional security officer, an economics officer and an aviation specialist had met Saudi officials at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh to pass along a warning based on an interview Mr. bin Laden, the Saudi-born leader of Al Qaeda, had just given to ABC News.

They said he had threatened in the interview to strike in the next "few weeks" against "military passenger aircraft," mentioning surface-to-air missiles. The cable said there was "no specific information that indicates bin Laden is targeting civilian aircraft," but added, "We could not rule out that a terrorist might take the course of least resistance and turn to a civilian target."

Part of the Tenet memo had been reported previously in Bob Woodward's 2002 book, "Bush At War." The eight-paragraph Tenet letter was a call to arms, declaring "a worldwide war against Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations" and saying that the effort would require "our absolute and total dedication."

The 2001 document echoed an earlier memo about Al Qaeda that Mr. Tenet had sent on Dec. 4, 1998, to top C.I.A. officials and other intelligence agencies, stating: "We are at war. I want no resources or people spared in this effort." But the national 9/11 commission concluded last year that the 1998 memo had "little overall effect" on mobilizing the agencies to fight terrorism.



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http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_301.shtml

Analysis
9/11 Commission continues cover-up, circles wagons for stumbling empire
By Larry Chin
Online Journal Associate Editor
Dec 7, 2005, 01:11




In a newly issued report card on "national security", the bipartisan Kean-9/11 Commission has dutifully reinforced its official cover-up of 9/11, reinflating the 9/11 "war on terrorism" myth, and restoking terrorism propaganda and mass fear at the precise moment that the Bush administration itself is losing its credibililty and sway over the public, and the flagging US war of conquest is in desperate need of a boost.

Under the guise of a "blistering condemnation" of the administration, the 9/11 Commission panel (which continues to conduct its dirty work as the "9/11 Public Discourse Project") has circled the wagons for the New World Order, refreshing and refining the propaganda as needed with their self-congratulatory road shows, media events and bluster. The Bush administration, and all who were involved with the 9/11 crime, could ask for no greater friends.

The report, like the Commision's original 9/11 report, is an abomination that pushes the "war on terrorism" into hyperdrive, making sure that its draconian "reforms" are enacted by this, and successive, administrations. Among the specific horrors, the report card gives high grades to the creation of the office of National Intelligence, the National Counterterrorism Center, and various aspects of the Bush administration's "anti-terror" operations (Afghanistan, attacks on so-called "terrorist sanctuaries) and a myriad of "homeland security" measures. Low marks are given for the administration's slow enactment of the (more "nuanced") war policy endorsed by neoliberal elites.

Congressional Democrats (and their legions of "make us safe" believers), most of whom have enthusiastically supported the Bush administration on 9/11 and every draconian war and "anti-terror" policy since 2001, are as complicit and criminal as the Bush neocons themselves for catastrophic pillage of the United States and the entire world. They have fully cooperated with the Bush faction on "national security" (militarization), the expansion, centralization, and deepening of the power of the US "national security" apparatus, the USA PATRIOT Act, support for the genocidal wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, support for tomorrow's wars (against Iran, Syria, Venezuela, etc.), militarized "first response" to disasters, and other unprecedented abominations. All that is taking place now is that the Democrats are seizing the opportunity to steal back political power from the Republican faction, ahead of the 2006 elections.

Jumping immediately on the official deception bandwagon, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi declared that "the 9/11 commission's final report card is an indictment of the continued failure by the Bush administration and the Republican Congress to meet the security needs of our nation and make Americans safer." This is a repeat of the familiar and original lie. September 11 was not an "intelligence failure" but a smashing "intelligence success" for the New World Order.

Those who are administering the recipe for "making America safe" are doing the Orwellian opposite, fomenting continued war, violence and tragedy for the entire world, and furthering the installation of a police state within US borders.

To pierce this thick propaganda smoke, one need only read Michel Chossudovsky's book, America's "War on Terrorism" , Mike Ruppert's Crossing the Rubicon, and these articles on the 9/11 Commission:

Cover-up and propaganda: The 9/11 Commission finishes its dirty work

9/11 Report: The Final Fraud

Analyzing the 9/11 Report: Omissions, Contradictions and Falsehoods

9/11 Report: a 571-page lie

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