An Able Danger Member Goes Public

The big one has now dropped on the Able Danger story.

When we last left this story, the 9/11 Commission had put out a detailed, 4-page rebuttal that basically said that Representative Weldon was wrong. That rebuttal was a backtracking from its earlier contentions that it had never heard anything from members of Able Danger, and later that what it had heard from Able Danger wasn’t important.

Well, now one of Weldon’s sources has come forward, on the record, and put his integrity and career on the line in an article in the New York Times.

The officer, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, said military lawyers later blocked the team from sharing any of its information with the F.B.I.

Colonel Shaffer said in an interview that the small, highly classified intelligence program known as Able Danger had identified by name the terrorist ringleader, Mohammed Atta, as well three of the other future hijackers by mid-2000, and had tried to arrange a meeting that summer with agents of the F.B.I.’s Washington field office to share the information.

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

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

He said he learned later that lawyers associated with the Defense Department’s Special Operations Command had canceled the F.B.I. meetings because they feared controversy if Able Danger was portrayed as a military operation that had violated the privacy of civilians who were legally in the United States. “It was because of the chain of command saying we’re not going to pass on information – if something goes wrong, we’ll get blamed,” he said.

A few observations.

1) This man is no low-level flunky malcontent. He’s a Lieutenant Colonel who, apparently, had ben promoted since his time in Able Danger.

2) The Pentagon hasn’t confirmed nor denied his statement. The way the Times has reported it, they’re looking for information to either corroborate or refute his statement.

3) Shaffer doesn’t seem to have a reason to be lying about this. In fact, he looks to have much to lose if his allegations are false.

This is a big allegation, right from a primary source. If Shaffer is correct, the 9/11 Commission and every member of it is in hot water. Jamie Gorelick, especially, is in hot water up to her eyebrows since not only did she build the “wall” that prevented the information from flowing to the FBI, but she was a member of the Commission that engineered the later cover-up of that information.

The fallout from this could on a lot of people. The DoD could be blamed for sitting on the information it had while the Commission was proceeding and not being more adamant that it be brought forward. The previous administration, especially Gorelick and President Clinton, would catch ever-loving hell for being the agents who ensured that 9/11 could never have been prevented. This could even affect Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign since she was influential in the last administration and because she essentially hand-picked Gorelick to the position she was in at the Justice Department. In fact, aside from Gorelick, Senator Clinton could be the person damaged most by the Able Danger revelations.

But we’ll have to see how this plays out in the next couple of weeks. The story is finally, though not fully, in the hands of the MSM where it will at least get out to the public.

One last note. Richard BenVeniste, the super-partisan member of the Commission had already started spinning events to the point of ruination.

A Democratic member of the commission, Richard Ben Veniste, the former Watergate prosecutor, said in an interview today that while he could not judge the credibility of the information from Colonel Shaffer and others, the Pentagon needed to “provide a clear and comprehensive explanation regarding what information it had in its possession regarding Mr. Atta.”

“And if these assertions are credible,” he continued, “the Pentagon would need to explain why it was that the 9/11 commissioners were not provided this information despite request for all information regarding to Able Danger.”

Already he’s laying the blame on the Pentagon, which is perhaps the most scurrilous thing he could do. What BenVeniste needs to do is start asking why the Commission on which he served put the Able Danger information on the back shelf not once or twice, but three times, and why the public is only finding out about it now. He also needs to explain why he put his partisan ambitions above his mission as a Commissioner. Then he needs to sit down and shut up until he’s called as a witness before Congress to answer these questions once more.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it here again. We need to break out the summonses and get every one of the people involved with the Able Danger revelations in front of Congress and the American people, under oath. Nothing less will suffice.

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