LTC Shaffer posts at Intel Dump
[Jon Holdaway,
Wednesday August 17, 2005 at 9:41pm ]
I put up a post last week about Able Danger and some concerns I had with the story. In the comments section, I received comments from an "Anon" who provided what looked like an insider's perspective on Able Danger. Some of his allegations were potentially explosive (such as briefing AD to senior DOD officials who then blew it off or failed to pass the into to FBI).
According to LTC Tony Shaffer, the individual who has come forward in the press with much of the Able Danger info we have now, he was our own "Anon" (hat tip: Laura Rozen, with an assist to Mickey Kaus). Captain V (aka Voice of the Taciturn) knows Shaffer and vouches for his credibility, and his public statements seem consistent with what I've seen in CT operations. Here's what he wrote:
Based on his comments on this blog, and further comments he's made elsewhere, this is where I see the controversy currently sitting:
1. Able Danger was a SOCOM operation. When Shaffer says "Pentagon lawyers" tanked FBI cooperation, my understanding is that it was SOCOM lawyers and leaders (including staffers for current Army Chief of Staff and then-SOCOM commander, GEN Pete Schoomaker) who prevented FBI coordination. From Shaffer's statements, it appears that the concern was not necessarily the "wall", but a fear that this support would lead to a "Waco" style controversy. Remember that SOCOM units were involved in giving advice to FBI and BATF during the Waco siege, and that they took a lot of heat for their participation. It is reasonable that SOCOM would fear getting involved in another domestic incident, but Able Danger was not a threat (FBI terrorism cases in Brooklyn are apples compared to BATF in Waco oranges). My hunch is that what Shaffer is talking about is efforts by either he or Able Danger to talk to FBI directly. I also suspect that the Pentagon and DIA were not fully briefed on Able Danger and had no clue about its full mission until about 2 weeks ago. That would explain the current deer-in-the-headlights response we're getting from them.
2. That said, SOCOM is out of its league when dealing with counterterrorism investigations. It may have the mission and assets to hunt down and kill terrorists in the field, but it is not their mission to conduct CT at a strategic level or from a homeland security perspective. SOCOM attorneys may have felt that there were legal problems in coordinating with the FBI (ignorance of what EO 12333 authorizes, misreading of the "wall", misapplication of Posse Comitatus), but that's because they don't normally coordinate with the FBI. However, lawyers at the Army INSCOM, Department of the Army, and DIA levels are very familiar with how to share information with the FBI. Pentagon lawyers familiar with CT and espionage investigations have FBI intelligence officials on their speed-dial. As a former colleague pointed out the other day, Army intel would have gotten material relating to the Atta group in Brooklyn off their desk and into FBI hands immediately.
I still have concerns with the overall story. LTC Shaffer, who by all accounts is an outstanding officer and straight shooter, may only be able to provide a limited, albeit important, side of the story. Further investigation needs to take place, and it sounds like the questions ought to start with whoever stopped coordination. I've previously speculated that it might have been civilian politicos (SECDEF, NSA) who stopped it, but the SOCOM angle makes more sense. Their attorneys would be normal senior judge advocates, and based on what I've seen of training on intelligence oversight and FBI coordination issues in the Army JAG Corps, these guys most likely didn't know what laws and policies out there actually impinged on intelligence sharing operations.
Investigators also need to look at SOCOM leadership, including GEN Schoomaker. If they kept the rest of the Army and DOD in the dark on Able Danger and the results of their investigation, preventing effective FBI coordination, then they ought to be identified and questioned as to their reasoning for that decision. And finally, there needs to be a look into what the Army's Information Dominance Center knew about Atta pre-9/11. I know there was an effort after 9/11 to check all databases to make sure this sort of problem didn't occur, but INSCOM may need to check again to see what they put together in support of Able Danger.
LTC Shaffer has gotten the ball rolling. Unfortunately, he's probably just tanked whatever career he has left. Whistleblower protection only goes so far, and the best he'll probably get is some sort of promise not to prosecute for leaking potentially classified information. DOD would do well not to shoot the messenger this time (a familiar military habit) and start look at whether what he's saying is actually true.
One other issue. Laura Rozen points out that one concern by SOCOM may have been over getting caught spying on a US Person. This is a fallacy, either by the original lawyers/leaders who may have thought it or by the rest of us trying to figure out why SOCOM didn't coordinate with FBI. First, Atta and his group, by any legal reading, was not a US Person. He didn't even warrant "special sensitivity". As far as individuals go, only US citizens and Permanent Resident Aliens get protections from intel collection. Atta was a mere tourist. There are no reasonable legal grounds to give a tourist "US Person" status. Second, even if he had protections, there is a glaring exception for investigations into those reasonably believed to be engaged in international terrorist activities (or affiliated with the same). To be overly cautious two levels of analysis deep is not good application of policy to facts and a bad business practice in the CT line of work.
As I've said before, we're still in wait-and-see mode.
According to LTC Tony Shaffer, the individual who has come forward in the press with much of the Able Danger info we have now, he was our own "Anon" (hat tip: Laura Rozen, with an assist to Mickey Kaus). Captain V (aka Voice of the Taciturn) knows Shaffer and vouches for his credibility, and his public statements seem consistent with what I've seen in CT operations. Here's what he wrote:
OK smart guys - with your "smell tests" and "Thats just flat out wrong" opinions shown above - I hope you don't mind, but let me clear up a few things - I was there and I lived through the ABLE DANGER nightmare.
First - yes - The lawyers involved in this (and similar projects) did interpret the 9-11 terrorists as "US persons" - so while you can second guess them all you want - but that was their "legal" call as wrong as it was and is. Unfortunately, the chain of command at SOCOM went along with them (and this, I expect, will be a topic that will become more clear in the near future).
And lawyers of the era also felt that any intelligence officer viewing open internet information for the purpose of intelligence collection automatically required that any "open source" information obtained be treated as if it was "intelligence information"...does this sound like idiocy to you? It did to me - and we fought it - and I was in meetings at the OSD level, with OSD laywers, that debated this - and I even briefed the DCI George Tenet on this issue relating to an internet project.
And yes, Virgina - we tried to tell the lawyers that since the data identified Atta and the others as linked to Al Qaeda, we should be able to collect on them based on SecState Albright's declaration of Al Qaeda as transnational terrorist threat to the US...well the lawyers did not agree...go figure...so we could not collect on them - and for political reasons - could not pass them to the FBI...I know because I brokered three meetings between the FBI and SOCOM to allow SOCOM to pass the informaton to the FBI. And, sadly, SOCOM cancelled them every time...
Oh - and as to your opinion that ABLE DANGER was a precursor to the IDC - you are flat out wrong - and obviously not keeping up with what is coming out in the press. ABLE DANGER partnered with LIWA/IDC to use the LIWA/IDC capability to obtain the data on Atta and the other 9-11 terrorists. I brokered the relationship...
And - wrong again on the IDC using only "classified" databases - IDC used 2.5 terabytes (a whole hell of a lot of data) - all open source - to identify Atta and the others that have been identified. Classified data bases were only use to "confirm" the links subsequent to the open source data runs.
Oh - and DATA MINING is not overt or clandestine - it just "is" - it is something that is done with either open source or classified information. ABLE DANGER used an array of both open and close databases...
So...good try, gentlemen - good to see there is intellectual riggor here...but before you start doubting the story, perhaps you need to do better research.
8.12.2005 11:27pm
Based on his comments on this blog, and further comments he's made elsewhere, this is where I see the controversy currently sitting:
1. Able Danger was a SOCOM operation. When Shaffer says "Pentagon lawyers" tanked FBI cooperation, my understanding is that it was SOCOM lawyers and leaders (including staffers for current Army Chief of Staff and then-SOCOM commander, GEN Pete Schoomaker) who prevented FBI coordination. From Shaffer's statements, it appears that the concern was not necessarily the "wall", but a fear that this support would lead to a "Waco" style controversy. Remember that SOCOM units were involved in giving advice to FBI and BATF during the Waco siege, and that they took a lot of heat for their participation. It is reasonable that SOCOM would fear getting involved in another domestic incident, but Able Danger was not a threat (FBI terrorism cases in Brooklyn are apples compared to BATF in Waco oranges). My hunch is that what Shaffer is talking about is efforts by either he or Able Danger to talk to FBI directly. I also suspect that the Pentagon and DIA were not fully briefed on Able Danger and had no clue about its full mission until about 2 weeks ago. That would explain the current deer-in-the-headlights response we're getting from them.
2. That said, SOCOM is out of its league when dealing with counterterrorism investigations. It may have the mission and assets to hunt down and kill terrorists in the field, but it is not their mission to conduct CT at a strategic level or from a homeland security perspective. SOCOM attorneys may have felt that there were legal problems in coordinating with the FBI (ignorance of what EO 12333 authorizes, misreading of the "wall", misapplication of Posse Comitatus), but that's because they don't normally coordinate with the FBI. However, lawyers at the Army INSCOM, Department of the Army, and DIA levels are very familiar with how to share information with the FBI. Pentagon lawyers familiar with CT and espionage investigations have FBI intelligence officials on their speed-dial. As a former colleague pointed out the other day, Army intel would have gotten material relating to the Atta group in Brooklyn off their desk and into FBI hands immediately.
I still have concerns with the overall story. LTC Shaffer, who by all accounts is an outstanding officer and straight shooter, may only be able to provide a limited, albeit important, side of the story. Further investigation needs to take place, and it sounds like the questions ought to start with whoever stopped coordination. I've previously speculated that it might have been civilian politicos (SECDEF, NSA) who stopped it, but the SOCOM angle makes more sense. Their attorneys would be normal senior judge advocates, and based on what I've seen of training on intelligence oversight and FBI coordination issues in the Army JAG Corps, these guys most likely didn't know what laws and policies out there actually impinged on intelligence sharing operations.
Investigators also need to look at SOCOM leadership, including GEN Schoomaker. If they kept the rest of the Army and DOD in the dark on Able Danger and the results of their investigation, preventing effective FBI coordination, then they ought to be identified and questioned as to their reasoning for that decision. And finally, there needs to be a look into what the Army's Information Dominance Center knew about Atta pre-9/11. I know there was an effort after 9/11 to check all databases to make sure this sort of problem didn't occur, but INSCOM may need to check again to see what they put together in support of Able Danger.
LTC Shaffer has gotten the ball rolling. Unfortunately, he's probably just tanked whatever career he has left. Whistleblower protection only goes so far, and the best he'll probably get is some sort of promise not to prosecute for leaking potentially classified information. DOD would do well not to shoot the messenger this time (a familiar military habit) and start look at whether what he's saying is actually true.
One other issue. Laura Rozen points out that one concern by SOCOM may have been over getting caught spying on a US Person. This is a fallacy, either by the original lawyers/leaders who may have thought it or by the rest of us trying to figure out why SOCOM didn't coordinate with FBI. First, Atta and his group, by any legal reading, was not a US Person. He didn't even warrant "special sensitivity". As far as individuals go, only US citizens and Permanent Resident Aliens get protections from intel collection. Atta was a mere tourist. There are no reasonable legal grounds to give a tourist "US Person" status. Second, even if he had protections, there is a glaring exception for investigations into those reasonably believed to be engaged in international terrorist activities (or affiliated with the same). To be overly cautious two levels of analysis deep is not good application of policy to facts and a bad business practice in the CT line of work.
As I've said before, we're still in wait-and-see mode.
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1. SOCOM creates Able Danger. AD is outside of the normal scope of SOCOM missions because it involves counter intelligence on US soil.
2. SOCOM doesn't bother to get lawyer approvalor their lawyers approve it even though it is outside SOCOM's scope.
3. Able Danger does CI work against foreign nationals on US soil without ever involving the FBI?
4. Able Danger gets stunning intelligence.
5. Able Danger wants to use this intelligence but SOCOM lawyers nix it.
6. All other attempts to use the information are shot down.
That doesn't make sense to me.
Even if Atta was suspected to be a foreign national engaged in terrorist activities why wasn't the FBI brought in? Doesn't the FBI still have to be the primary method on US soil?
Regardless, I worked at the OT&E office of OSD and our attorney was an AF JAG.
To "Able Danger's" comments, we don't know the scope or metrics of the the operation yet so you can't call for conclusions. Your points are hypothesis based on the results. I suspect that the program was used to develop operational intel for knows outside the US and they pulled in more data sources and found out one of the guys the program had interest in was here. However, we don't know yet.
Furthermore it would have been carried out within the CT mission, and CI to support CT is one of SOCOM's baliwicks.
I don't know what accounts have him as an "outstanding officer and straight shooter", but looking at his account above it seems obvious he is a guy with an axe to grind. Its hard to see how his writing reflects that description.
"And yes, Virgina - we tried to tell the lawyers that since the data identified Atta and the others as linked to Al Qaeda, we should be able to collect on them based on SecState Albright's declaration of Al Qaeda as transnational terrorist threat to the US...well the lawyers did not agree...go figure...so we could not collect on them - and for political reasons - could not pass them to the FBI..."
So what were the reasons, legal opinions or "political"? It seems to me what we have is someone who was frustrated at not being able to pass along information that in retrospect we all wish had been shared. That doesn't mean it was legal. It doesn't mean it was blocked by "politics". It may mean we need to change the rules under which information is shared if we haven't already. Aside from that - what is his point?
Its also not at all clear that we want the military able to collect and pass along information on anyone they determine is associated with a group based solely on the Secretary of State declaring that group a terrorist organization. If that is going to be the case, we probably want some fairly tight oversite of what groups are placed on the list and what level of association is needed to allow intelligence to be collected. Without some oversite, we would have military intelligence collecting information on everyone in the United States, including many of our elected leaders, who has contact with a Sinn Fein politician since they are "associated" with the IRA.
But, wouldn't there be legal issues as to the program in general? Are all 60 individuals identified non-US persons? How many other people were looked that got filtered out to get to the 60? If any of them were US persons, AD would have run afoul of the applicable EO or Posse Comitatus, right?
That seems to be a good explanation for the failure to share. Atta may not have been protected, but the 60 and any others considered as part of the AD data-mining process may well have been.
Look at it this way and assume you are an investigator: If AD approaches you about only non-US persons discovered as part of their work, wouldn't you want to inquire how they identified these people? Wouldn't the AD folk then worry about having to explain the process to someone from FBI when that explanation could easily mean that you are admitting spying on US persons?
Obviously the premise of my question is that the overall AD project must have caught up many US persons as part of their mining project. And, my theory is this: SOCOM lawyers or OSD lawyers are then caught in a bind. How do you turn over limited information on non-US persons while hiding the fact that your intel project collected on US persons?
I'll repeat what I wrote on my blog:
It'd be nice to have the rest of the other side of the story. Whether or not these are SOCOM or OSD attorneys, they're not idiots. What were the reasons for the policy?
My guesses:
What we think of as relevant "open source information" would be fine - arabic language newspapers, etc. - even if you're pulling the articles off the web. But the internet is so huge (even in 1999) that a very large part of it is terribly obscure. Obscurity is always an ally of the terrorists (and also of perfectly innocent privacy-seeking citizens of all kinds); like the purloined letter, they hide in plain sight, betting that we do not have the resources to examine every message, every cell-phone call, every "fraternal association", every "school", "tourist", or "visiting student". One can only assume that the 2.5 Terabytes of information would have included VAST amounts of the "deeper web". By revealing this information, even though ostensibly open source, we would have revealed our ability to monitor and process it.
Recall the cell-phone tracking debacle: there were actually two related intel secrets blown by Sen. BigMouth. One was that we could hear all the cell-phone conversations in a distant part of the world. But anyone with half a brain who had read about our El-Int capability against the Soviets (hell - just read Red Storm Rising or Cardinal of the Kremlin!) would have guessed we could do that. The second - and more important - secret was that we could process all that information into actionable intelligence.
The problem is even when they give good advice it slows down the OODA loop on an op, and people get away and opportunities are lost. Nobody can tell me the Stans are a better place today because some JAG in Tampa wouldn't let a team drop the hammer on Mullah Omar three years ago because they couldn't give her an iron-clad guarantee that no non-combatants were in a house with him. She may have made the correct legal call, but in the long run it's cost lives and prolonged the fighting.
I'm reminded of the final scene in The Devil's Advocate where Satan says he chose law because attorneys are into everything.
Not exactly. Spec Ops outfits barely tolerate intelligence personnel and rarely trust their CI/HUMINT personnel to work to their full capabilities. JAG officers working with these units spend 99% of their time working on standard operational issues; it would be very easy to have a situation where JAG officers not familiar with intel-oversight nixed information sharing due to imperfect understanding of the oversight rules and the politics at the time (you all know very well that the senior chains of command are hyper aware of the political climate of any administration).
Don't government lawyers, whether military or civilian, work for all of us? Aren't we the decision makers in a democracy and aren't those decisions expressed through the laws passed? Isn't that what we mean when we say we are a government of laws? The idea that military decision makers are some sort of free agents who can ignore those constraints when they are inconvenient is dangerous.
To my point any CI SOCOM does is to support CT. CT is SOCOM's baliwick by charter.
You wrote: Able Danger was a SOCOM operation. When Shaffer says "Pentagon lawyers" tanked FBI cooperation, my understanding is that it was SOCOM lawyers and leaders (including staffers for current Army Chief of Staff and then-SOCOM commander, GEN Pete Schoomaker) who prevented FBI coordination.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Gen. Tommy Franks in command of CENTCOM, to which SOCOM was attached, from 07/00 - 07/03? Wouldn't that have put Franks at the top of the immediate chain of command of the lawyers in question at MacDill AFB during that period? Who was the commander of local JAG corps, Franks or Schoomaker, or both?
This on Franks from Wikepedia:
Tommy Ray Franks KBE, (born June 17, 1945) is a retired General in the United States Army, previously serving as the Commander-in-Chief of United States Central Command, overseeing United States Armed Forces operations in a 25-country region, including the Middle East. Franks succeeded General Anthony Zinni to this position on July 6, 2000 and served until his retirement on July 7, 2003. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Franks
And, this from Schoomaker's official biography:
General Schoomaker served as the Commanding General of the Joint Special Operations Command from July 1994 to August 1996, followed by command of the United States Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina through October 1997. His most recent assignment prior to assuming duties as the Army Chief of Staff was as Commander in Chief, United States Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, from November 1997 to November 2000. http://www.army.mil/leaders/csa/bio.htm
Finally, this whole thing was under an Executive Order. It is not a law that the President and his subordaintes are bound by if they choose not to; this could have and should have been brought up with the entire chain of command by the SOCOM/DoD lawyers if they had an ounce of brains and judgment.
You're correct that there is CI supporting a Group, with the layout varying from group to group (ie, CI in an MI det, others have them spread to the BNs). But to the Group itself, it'll be the Fox that is trusted to do any real intel work - though his training is brief compared to a real agent and he won't have an MI background in most incidences (I just spent a year with a CW4 Fox, and his background was Bravo for 15 of his 20 years). The reality is, that the CI/HUMINT personnel are as likely to be clerking for the rear det CSM than conducting a CTVA or other collection activities.
Anyway, the point I'm making is that SOCOM, just like any other SF outfit will have JAG representatives...who, 99% of the time will, be concerned with a rigger or some MSG that beat his wife or came up hot on a urinalysis - or a lot these days, determining if a shooting was legal. The
JAG officers that are on hand with intelligence gathering activities (in an intelligence unit) are dedicated to those activities - and not on DUI, domestics, combat operations, etc. That JAG officers working in SOCOM might have made a bad decision due to lack of familiarity with the regulations is entirely believable and very likely. I can't think of a reason (or instance) where the commander said, "I don't think my legal advice is good, I'm going to get a second opinion."
As to some other posts: I've briefed Rumsfeld and Franks and the CENTCOM G2 directly. The JAG corps at CENTCOM is entirely organic to CENTCOM. SOCOMs JAG is organic to SOCOM (and support their parent organizations exclusively) and there would in most cases be no reason for these entities to interact, despite being located at the same installation.
No. It is a statement about how the law is supposed to work. People break laws and get away with it. But government attorneys' client is the government itself, not the people in it.
"There are things more important than fidelity to one or another petty regulation in the Federal Register, like, oh, I don't know, preventing al Qaeda from operating in the US."
I understand that argument, but I don't think it is the job of government lawyers to make that judgement. Their job is to tell people what the law is. It sounds like the people who got the advice didn't consider it important enough at the time to ignore the "petty regulation", I don't know why that is the lawyer's fault.
" It is not a law that the President and his subordaintes are bound by if they choose not to;"
I don't think that is true. Certainly a President can change an executive order, but his subordinates can't just choose to ignore it.
Shaffer doesn't come out and explicitly state that Able Danger was targetting terrorists in the US. How ever the NY Times article says:
"But he said he did know that Able Danger had made use of publicly available information from government immigration agencies, from Internet sites and from paid search engines like LexisNexis."
How is a MI/CI/CT group accessing domestic law enforcement database if they are targetting foreign operations? To me it blows the "Oops, Able Danger caught US residents by mistake" theory out of the water.
I've also heard from people with MI experience that once the target is in the US they have to hand off the operation pronto. AD seems to have continued for months with the program though.
Like another poster said I think the questions being asked are off track. Instead of "What did the Democrats screw up, why did the lawyers not let the data be passed, who has an axe to grind?" I think we need to know who authorized AD, who were the targets, where were the targets operating and what was the data being mined.
If I am full of it or drinking Kool-Aid would someone with MI/CT/CI/intel law experience say what the most likely explanation is?
Until 2003, SOCOM was a supporting command, meaning that it had a separate chain of command and mission, but its mission was to provide supporting troops to the Combatant Commanders (SOUTHCOM, EUCOM, CENTCOM, PACOM). Each COMCOM has its Special Ops Command (SOCEUR, SOCPAC, SOCCENT, etc.), and he had tasking authority over those assets, plus the other assets that would come into his AO from SOCOM (SEALs, Delta, etc.)
In 2003, SOCOM became a supported command, elevating it to Combantant Command status. Others out there can probably give a better definition of what that means, but from my perspective, it meant that SOCOM could deploy assets into a region and those assets coordinated with the Combantant Commander, but SOCOM had more control over the assets. I didn't work much with these folks, but once in a while legal issues came across because SOCOM started telling units in theater they were conducting certain ops, without asking for permission or fully coordinating, like they used to do.
Able Danger:
I can datamine a non-US Person who I think is living overseas and dip into unclassified government databases which may information on his US-based activity. Even if he lands on US soil, I can probably still run his name through US-owned databases since that isn't technically an intel collection activity and is a pretty unintrusive activity. But you're right -- once I have information the target is coming to the US, the first place I call is the FBI, because any actual investigatory action is going to be their responsibility. I'd like to give them the opportunity to track this guy straight out of the airport.
I could probably even check databases on a US Person, as long as I reasonably believe he is related in some way to international terrorism. When it comes to counterterrorism, there's no magic privacy shield over most of the critical information (INS, FBI, State, Treasury, local law enforcement) owned by the US or state/local governments (or at least there ought not be).
Everyone else:
There's been a minor debate here over SOCOM's CT mission. Obviously, they conduct CT, but only in the sense that they are shooters, not investigators. While there are 18-series intell officers and each organization has a robust S-2 or J-2 shop, their mission is to indentify and kill terrorists. Traditional CI support to CT is more investigative in nature and requires a whole different legal analysis. Special Ops CT missions don't usually involve surveillance of US Persons or wiretaps or physical searches, and if they did, it's non-intel soldiers doing the work, meaning that its not intel collection. The plain language of intel oversight regulations (DOD 5240.1R and AR 381-10) state that intel oversight rules (that is, US Person protection from intel collection activities) apply only to intel units. Examples of intel units are: 66th MI Group, 902nd MI Group, NSA, AFOSI, NCIS, some Special Mission Units with intel collection missions (which only recently are being commanded out of SOCOM). Non-intel units: SEALs, Rangers, Delta.
SOCOM lawyers would not be well-versed in Intel Oversight to the extent that an INSCOM or AFOSI lawyer would.
Jon Holdaway I read your piece and appreciate the citations of the regulations. But even though those regulations are directed at MI personnel, it does not follow that non-intel people are not bound by them at all. That would be a pretty screwy exception, because the only thing you would need to do is have a nonspecialist do your dirty work whenever you ran afoul of the regs. That all said, they're restricted to US persons and there are other means to conduct domestic counterintelligence operations, like using the FISA court and the FBI.
I realize there are good reasons to keep the military out of the business of US citizens. But hasn't this gotten out of hand that enemies of the US in our borders are treated better than ordinary criminal suspects. What's next, the army calling the FBI when an amphibious invasion force shows up on one of our shores? The pre-9/11 culture of the DoD that put almost zero thought into domestic security is the real apotheosis of our galavanting, post-WWII foreign policy.
Apparently LTC Shaffer did not actually have any personal knowledge that Able Danger identified Atta but was relying on the memory of others. Combined with the tone of his comments above, I am not sure I would attach much credibility to him.
I think that's the piece that's being overlooked here. There are at least 3 places that the story could have changed or been embellished on it's path to the public:
The good colonel. In my 5 year military career, I never knew anybody's security clearance to be pulled over $70 in cellphone charges. It's probably happened, but out of the blue to a LTC? Again, it's probably happened, but has to be rare. A more likely scenario is that somebody wanted rid of him and that was a convenient way to do it. So a badly misused LTC thinks of how important was way back in the day, embellishes a minor detail or 2, and presto! he's a hero to some. He knows he'll never get a bird after having his clearance pulled, so what's to lose?
LTC Schaffer was a liason officer. He probably didn't really know what was going on any more than people chose to tell him. He wouldn't be the first staff officer that a tekkie would try to impress by saying "Oh yeah, we knew that way back". I won't believe any of this is true until the actual database geeks come forward with substantial information.
Memories of Mohammed. Prior to September, 2001, Mohammed Atta's name was unknown to all but a very few people. Now virtually everybody in the US has heard it hundreds of times. If there was a chart with Middle Eastern names on it, the probability that a good percentage had some variation of Mohammed (Muhammed, M'hammed, etc.) as a given name. The mind can play tricks over time. A couple of Mohammeds go to Mohammed Atta after it's heard enough times.
Occam's Razor says that the simplest explaination is usually best. Right now the simplest explaination is that LTC Shaffer has embellished, was lied to, or has a faulty memory, or some combination of the 3. Until further evidence comes out, that's where my money would be.
1." No evidence has been found that Atta was in the Czech Republic in April 2001".(pg. 228)
2. "He could have used an alias to travel and a passport under that alias,but this would be an exception to his practice of using his true name while traveling (as he did in January and would in July when he took his next overseas trip).The FBI and CIA have uncovered no evidence that Atta held any fraudulent passports."(pg. 229)
3. "The Hamburg Pilots Arrive in the United States", "In the early summer of 2000...", "On June 2,Atta traveled to the Czech Republic by bus from Germany and then flew from Prague to Newark the next day". (pg. 223-224)
4. "According to Ramzi Binalshibh,Atta did not meet with anyone in Prague;he simply believed it would contribute to operational security to fly out of Prague rather than Hamburg,the departure point for much of his previous international travel."(pg.224)
"A more likely scenario is that somebody wanted rid of him and that was a convenient way to do it.
Why would someone want to get rid of him so badly? Because he's a screw-up? Then wouldn't it be easy to dig up something more substantial than a goofy Cellphone irregularity?
So a badly misused LTC thinks of how important was way back in the day, embellishes a minor detail or 2, and presto! he's a hero to some.
The only problem with your conclusion is that the 9/11 Commission has made numerous contradictory statements. There's something to what he's said.
Washington Monthly also pointed out the timeline remains very fuzzy.
Col. Tony Shaffer's appearance on Hannity and Colmes last night on Fox has people on all sides of the Able Danger thread scratching their heads. Initial news reports about this interview claim that Shaffer denied naming Atta to the Commission staffers in October 2003. However, it appears that Shaffer said he didn't discuss the names of any other hijackers except Atta,
Here is the
Fox News Channel transcript:
LT. COL. ANTHONY SHAFFER, ABLE DANGER TEAM MEMBER: Well, I don't know how they can overlook that, because the fact is this: They were told not once but twice by a fellow officer, a Navy captain, later on in 2004.
In my October discussion with him, I did not discuss the names of the terrorists. I'm not saying that. I never said that. I did talk about the fact that we found three cells through the use of some advanced technology, two to three cells which conducted 9/11 attacks, to include Atta.
Now, that was the only name I remembered.
Able Danger identified a Brooklyn cell that was not in any sense of the term actually located in Brooklyn "but ... a computer analysis seeking to establish patterns in links between the four men had found that 'the software put them all together in Brooklyn.'"
The congressman who is pushing the story is most well known for having hosted the "coronation" of convicted felon and... um... Messiah...Sun Myung Moon and then lying about it to a member of the press.
A former intelligence official said that Able Danger was established by Gen. Hugh Shelton. Shelton denies he established the unit.
LTC Schaffer was not an intelligence analyst nor did he have any details about the techniques used to gather information but he is certain that the information was of a quality that it should have been acted upon.
Col. Samuel Taylor of Special Operations Command "said no one at the command now had any knowledge of the Able Danger program, its mission or its findings. If the program existed, Colonel Taylor said..." [fill in your preferred punchline].
LTC Schaffer says he met with 9/11 Commission staff. The leaders of the 9/11 Commission stated that the commission received information about Able Danger from a captain.
The leaders of the 9/11 Commission stated that the information they received was not historically relevant.
The leaders of the 9/11 Commission stated that they requested further information from the Pentagon, the Pentagon complied, but provided nothing further of interest.
The stories of both Weldon and Schaffer, as Kevin Drum has documented, have steadily shifted. This could due to the vagaries of the witness or of his interlocutor.
Or it could be a Boojum.
An investigation is certainly in order. I, for one, would like to know whether Able Danger was a rogue operation claiming an authorization that did not exist, an operation that did not understand *why* there are rules on sharing intelligence, dating back two decades. Rules established under Reagan and confirmed not only by GHW Bush and Clinton but also Dubya.
I would like to know why a supersecret operation is shared with a congressman of such odor as Weldon, but somehow (despite appearing in a Special Order) never makes it to the House Intelligence Committee.
And I would like to know why the announcement of this information seems to have coincided with the marketing of a book by said congressman.
Without referencing Able Danger, the 9/11 Commission has said that the attack could have been prevented. Even if Schaffer is correct, then this is only one of almost two dozen major failures to share intelligence. And if Able Danger was so successful, why hasn't it been pushed by advocates of data mining like John Poindexter?
It smells like a Boojum to me.
On the clearance issue: Yanking somebody's clearance is a common punishment tactic (especially in MI) for people that piss you off, but aren't doing anything that would warrant criminal charges. This is no different that using psych evals to get rid of problem soldiers. My guess is that this guy is speaking out now because he's got a retirement packet in, and they yanked his clearance to try to keep him from talking to the press/congressmen.
Is this the denial you're talking about?:
In interviews, former military officers have said the Able Danger unit was established in September 1999 by Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, then the head of the Special Operations Command, under a charter issued by Gen. Hugh Shelton, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Shelton, now retired, has said he does not recall the program; General Schoomaker, now the Army chief of staff, has declined to comment, as has Gen. Charles R. Holland, who took over the Special Operations Command in October 2000.
Not recalling isn't a denial and he might not have know it because Schoomaker established it. Has Schoomaker made any statement yet?
LTC Schaffer says he met with 9/11 Commission staff. The leaders of the 9/11 Commission stated that the commission received information about Able Danger from a captain.
And how does Shaffer meeting with the staff and the Commission leaders meeting with some Captain discredit Shaffer? Nobody is claiming Shaffer met with the Commission leaders.
The leaders of the 9/11 Commission stated that the information they received was not historically relevant.
Shaffer wasn't involved with this. How does this detract from his claim?
The leaders of the 9/11 Commission stated that they requested further information from the Pentagon, the Pentagon complied, but provided nothing further of interest.
Again, Shaffer wasn't involved with this. We don't know what information they received or should have received.
LTC Schaffer was not an intelligence analyst nor did he have any details about the techniques used to gather information but he is certain that the information was of a quality that it should have been acted upon.
We won't know until the info Shaffer has is revealed. I've posted 4 questions in this thread that Shaffer can start with answering.
If this were the only wrinkle in the story, it wouldn't trouble me. But it certainly looks as if someone is playing fast and loose with the truth. I see no reason to credit Schaffer.
You've misread my point about the meeting with the 911 Commission. I don't think that Schaffer has claimed to have met directly with the Commissioners, nor is there any indication the captain met directly with Commissioners. Shenon, 8/17: "Colonel Shaffer said he had provided information about Able Danger and its identification of Mr. Atta in a private meeting in October 2003 with members of the Sept. 11 commission *staff*..." (emphasis added)
Similarly on the issue of the relevance of the information. The leaders of the 911 Commission are speaking for the staff when they say that the information was not "historically relevant." I am sure that they either saw or got a complete summary of the staff notes on the meeting with the captain before saying that. It's just too explosive an issue that they would get it wrong.
As for whether Schaffer was an analyst, it is explicitly stated in press accounts that he is not. This segues into John's comment.... If the LTC was in charge of a bunch of analysts, I'm pretty sure he would know what they were doing - he has to brief his superior officer.
John, this is one of the main problems I have with this story. We have an excellent example in Douglas Feith's OSP group of what happens when guys who don't understand intelligence are overseeing it. They create patterns to fit their preconceptions. When those patterns turn out to be wrong, they invent a whole new reality to explain it.
We've seen it again and again with the WMD claims: confident assertions that WMDs will be found in Iraq, satellite photos purporting to show actual WMD facilities, news reports trumpeting WMD finds (claims which are quickly found to be overblown or false), and then finally the official report that says the most dangerous things they found were an anthrax vaccine, rusty artillery shells that once contained chemical agents, and scientists who by God *could* have made WMDs if only they had had facilities and materials! And then the reality invention goes into high gear, with tales of WMDs magically teleporting into Syria or Iran.
Seasoned analysts know that there are many false leads in data. They know there are guys like the notorious Curveball putting out disinformation. I have my suspicions that Manuchar Ghorbanifar is the Iranian source mentioned in Jehl's first piece. He would certainly fit the description of "completely unreliable." Seasoned analysts also have some humility. They know that US intelligence completely missed big developments like the 1967 War, the fall of the Soviet Union, and so on.
From what we know of AD, there is no reason why their whole megillah could not be laid out on the table for the American people to see and judge. When they do, I will be persuaded.
Until then, a much more plausible explanation is that a Congressman trying to sell a book, an LTC who really believes in data mining, and journalists from the same newspaper that gave us Jayson Blair and Judy Miller are wrong again.
You're welcome to believe different.
"I think AD is one of those memorable events that a senior officer would remember creating."
"Surely he would do that to avoid the inevitable suspicions that there may be rogue programs in the Pentagon?"
AD may have been in a gray area or may have been illegal. Shelton is conveniently in a position to NOT know about it, because it was below him. The person who should know about it is Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker (according to the article cited above) and he's not commenting on it.
"with tales of WMDs magically teleporting into Syria or Iran."
General Michael DeLong, former 2nd in Command of Centcom (during the war) said in his book "Inside Centcom", that the weapons went to Syria. I haven't seen him back down from it. What I don't get is why the media simply ignored it.
"From what we know of AD, there is no reason why their whole megillah could not be laid out on the table for the American people to see and judge. When they do, I will be persuaded. "
The reason I posted the 4 questions above regarding the 9/11 Commission's final conclusions was so the Colonel can answer them. The bottom line is if his info doesn't contradict the Commission's final conclusions, then what's the point of bringing this up? He's put himself on the line already. He might as well go all the way if he's got something.
The Duelfer report, which was commissioned by the Administration and involved thousands of man-days researching everything from documentary evidence to facilities to scientists to intelligence reports made it very clear that there were no WMDs in Iraq. They put a fig leaf labeled "programs" over it for family viewing, but what "programs" means is desire + scientists and engineers capable of doing such a thing if they only had the facilities and the materials.
And of course, we now know that the documents claiming an attempt to import uranium from Niger were fabrications. We know that the "UN oil-for food scandal" actually largely profited certain Texas-based oil companies such as Bayoil and other corporations, many of which were American. We-- those of us who were paying attention-- knew all along that some of the "prohibited goods" Duelfer discusses were vials of medical atropine and other commonly-used medical items, which two US Administrations perversely labeled "dual use."
And yet Duelfer concluded "Key Findings
Iraq Survey Group (ISG) discovered further evidence of the maturity and significance of the pre-1991
Iraqi Nuclear Program but found that Iraq’s ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively
decayed after that date.
• Saddam Husayn ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG found no evidence to suggest
concerted efforts to restart the program.
• Although Saddam clearly assigned a high value to the nuclear progress and talent that had been developed up
to the 1991 war, the program ended and the intellectual capital decayed in the succeeding years....
While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq
unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications
that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter...
With the economy at rock bottom in late 1995, ISG judges that Baghdad abandoned its existing BW program
in the belief that it constituted a potential embarrassment, whose discovery would undercut Baghdad’s ability
to reach its overarching goal of obtaining relief from UN sanctions.
In practical terms, with the destruction of the Al Hakam facility, Iraq abandoned its ambition to obtain
advanced BW weapons quickly. ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW
program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes...."
Hokay. No nuclear. No chemical. No biological.
So, now we are asked to believe that what didn't exist went to Syria.
Although the subject matter is off the direct line of the thread, the point is highly relevant to LTC Schaffer: I'm sure Gen. DeLong is an honorable man. He's just wrong about WMDs.
Likewise, I'm sure LTC Schaffer is an honorable man. But his story is riddled with contradictions and implausibilities.
As for the value of LTC Schaffer's "revelations," the 911 Commission has already concluded that there were numerous opportunities to disrupt the plot. While some of the missed opportunities were long shots, several were not. One of the most egregious was the refusal at high levels of the Justice Department to permit Colleen Rowley to file a request for a FISA warrant to search Zacarias Moussaoui's computer. This was a guy who had said he had no interest in learning how to land an aircraft-- just fly it-- and was on an international watchlist because he had attended bin Laden's training camps.
If we couldn't even get DOJ to search the computer hard drive of a man who rather obviously was a terrorist (albeit a pretty stupid one), why should we think that the magic wand called Able Danger would have been able to make 9/11 go away?
Delong wasn't some anonymous General, he was directly under Tommy Franks. He was part of a very select few that had direct access to satellite and Humint prior to the war. He either is lying or he's telling the truth. You can choose to simply believe he is wrong, but have you had access to the same intel he did?
According to the Duelfer report, Saddam Hussein wanted the sanctions to end. The reality is that Saddam Hussein continually obstructed having those very sanctions lifted. Why? If Saddam's regime would have come clean, the sanctions would have ended, a long time ago. So what was the point in Saddam pulling the charade when the gig was up in November of 2002? The final result is that his two sons are dead and he is in a jail cell and not in a palace. So Saddam Hussein just pretended to have WMD to make Bush look like an a-hole?
Whether Shaffer's info could have prevented 9/11 isn't relevant because as someone in the blogosphere somewhere pointed out, what would the FBI have done with the info? And as you've mentioned with Moussaoui, most likely nothing.
The relevance is that all of the 9/11 intelligence was supposed to be put on the table in one place, with the 9/11 Commission. If Shaffer is telling the truth, that didn't happen. That means that there is still a catastrophic problem with intelligence sharing and/or individuals in the Government are playing around with secret info for what purpose?
I doubt that Saddam belived that.
As for the WMD that were shipped to Syria - is there any reason to believe that other than someone who is just unwilling to admit they are wrong? There are a lot of people who repeated the WMD claim before the war. Its not surprising there are a good many who will believe almost anything rather than admit it just wasn't true and all those lives are being lost for their mistake.
Lets be clear. Knowing what we know now, would you still invade Iraq even if there were no weapons of mass destruction and no connection between Saddam and 911? I think for many people the answer is no - getting rid of Saddam was not reason enough. So some of those people now regret the decision to invade, others pretend those things were true all evidence to the contrary. Of course others, like the President, maintain that creating a democracy in Iraq will make it all worthwhile. They need neither regret nor denial to deal with what has happened.
It isn't clear whether this is a new source or the source of Shaffer's claim which seemed to be based on the accounts of others.
How did AD connect Mohamed Atta by name to the Brooklyn cell in late 1999 or early 2000. Mohamed Atta spent most of 1999 in Germany where he used the name Mohamed el-Amir. Around October 1999 he left Germany for Afghanistan. It was not until he returned to Germany in February of 2000, requested a new passport claiming his old passport had been lost (this was presumably to hide his tip to Afghanistan and Pakistan), and latter applied for a visa using the name Mohamed Atta.
Also, Mohamed Atta did not arrive in the US until early June 2000. So in January – April 2000 there would have been no issue with passing Mohamed Atta’s name to the FBI because he was not in the US at all.
JS: Good call. They briefed the senior staffers not the commission members. Here in DC the word going around is the Lee Hamilton's lead kept it from going futher. He was a former DAS at INR, appointed by Clinton, held over by Bush and has a rep for not wanting any adverse info about Clinton in the report.
And the papers today say that the Pentagon is now saying that there's no evidence of AB, while at the same time the Navy O-6 who briefed the commission has come forward.
Obviously an investigation is in order.
I guess I am missing something. Are you talking about an investigation of intelligent failures on 911? I thought that is what the commission did. At what point do we stop investigating the investigations?
What appears to be happening here is that some proponents of data-mining say that they had Atta. Investigating what they actually had and whether it was actionable may or not may be useful. It can't be that tough to find the attorney who blocked whatever information they had.
However, that isn't why it should be investigated. It should be investistigated to determine if it is a true account and if true it should be determined if the same result would occur today with all the new rules in place that are supposed to keep things like this from happening.
I'll concede that because of the wall between intel, justice and the FBI in '01 it probably wouldn't have made any difference if AD was allowed to hand over their info to the FBI in 2000, but it should make a difference if it happened today.
Indeed, thanks to the St. Petersburg Times, we know that the American people were brought into the first Gulf War on false pretenses, on the claim that satellite imagery showed Saddam's troops massed on the Saudi border. They did not, as has been grudgingly acknowledged by Secretary Powell.
This time we were brought into war in part because of satellite photos of weapons facilities that were not what Colin Powell said they are. That's one thing the Duelfer report accomplished.
The fruits of intelligence are only as good as the wisdom of the person intepreting it. I've linked you to the report commissioned by President Bush as the definitive report on WMDs in Iraq. You are welcome to ignore it if that's what you think is appropriate.
I don't think it's appropriate.
It's true that Saddam Hussein violated sanctions (I think that's what you mean by saying he "obstructed" them). So were plenty of American corporations.
It's not my burden to explain Saddam Hussein's actions. It is the burden of those who wish to claim that there was a cause for war to show it.
I don't agree that it's certain the FBI could have done nothing with information about Atta. It depends on what that information was. When a referral is made to a law enforcement agency, there has to be reasonable specificity. This is what everyone outside of Able Danger who has looked at their information, including Lawrence DiRita, has said was lacking.
Liontooth and Ross Williams: It is not correct that the 9/11 Commission is the definitive report on intelligence. It was a presidential commission, under White House control. Its work was delayed, limited, and manipulated by the Administration (remember the flaps over whether Condoleeza Rice would testify, whether Bush would testify, and if he did testify, whether it would be under oath? He wasn't, by the way, and what he said can't be called testimony, since it was unsworn and has been kept secret).
What the Commission did accomplish is to produce a useful outline of what happened and suggest other areas of investigation. There were indications of false statements by the FAA, for example, that probably should be the subject of a criminal investigation.
After Pearl Harbor, there were-- depending on who's counting-- up to ten official investigations. And of course that's appropriate. A major function of investigations is to assure the public that nothing is being covered up. By letting different groups look at the information over time, all theories get explored. There have been two official investigations of 911, by the Commission and by the Senate. Another six and I might believe we're getting the full picture.
The Senate Intelligence committee is the proper venue for an investigation of intelligence failures leading up to 9/11. Unfortunately, the chairman of the committee, Pat Roberts, is not an honorable man. He promised that there would be an investigation into how intelligence was used. He has not fulfilled his promise.
signa, I have my doubts about the word you are getting on "Lee Hamilton's lead". The Deputy Director has a name. It is Chris Kojm. The chief of staff of the 9/11 Commission, Phil Zelikow, was a close associate of Condoleeza Rice and a strong Bush supporter. Indeed, this was a presidential commission, controlled by the president. It's difficult to believe that one man, acting in a subordinate position, could have managed to falsify the legal record of interviews.
So, this sounds like more of the farm products DC is so famous for producing and talk radio is so famous for disseminating. Is Larry DiRita supposed to be in on the conspiracy, too?
_______________
Let me re-state, just in case it's not clear: I don't deny the possibility that an intelligence group identified one or more hijackers ahead of time. In fact, we know that actually happened (except the people on the ball were law enforcement) in the Moussaoui case, where the facts are on the table. What I have heard to date about Able Danger makes me skeptical, leaving me with more questions than answers.
There's no requirement that people swallow what they hear whole, you know. You can chew first.
Liontooth, I am not one to be impressed by satellite imagery or intelligence. They can be wrong. They can be manipulated.
Prior to the war, Special Forces were operating in Western Iraq. Delong wouldn't have been relying just on satellite imagery, but on observers confirming on the ground what was being seen.
It's true that Saddam Hussein violated sanctions (I think that's what you mean by saying he "obstructed" them). So were plenty of American corporations.
I'm referring to the inspections only. Saddam obstructed the inspectors. If the inspectors would have completed their work the sanctions would have ended years ago. If he had nothing to hide and he didn't want the sanctions (according to Duelfer), why didn't he comply with the UN resolutions and end it?
It's not my burden to explain Saddam Hussein's actions. It is the burden of those who wish to claim that there was a cause for war to show it.
I believe it's completely reasonable to cite Saddam Hussein's lack of cooperation as a factor in deducing that he actually possessed WMD. In March of 2003, Hans Blix concluded, "these initiatives 3-4 months into the new resolution cannot be said to constitute “immediate” cooperation."
September 11, 2001, was a day of unprecedented shock and suffering in the history of the United States. The nation was unprepared. How did this happen, and how can we avoid such tragedy again?
To answer these questions, the Congress and the President created the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Public Law 107-306, November 27, 2002).
Our mandate was sweeping. The law directed us to investigate "facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001," including those relating to intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, diplomacy, immigration issues and border control, the flow of assets to terrorist organizations, commercial aviation, the role of congressional oversight and resource allocation, and other areas determined relevant by the Commission.
Perhaps. But it turned out there weren't any.
Logic led Ptolemy to conclude that the earth was the center of the universe. But he was wrong and people should have know. This logical Charlie Foxtrot went on merrily for a few millenia.
In 2001,Colin Powell said that Saddam Hussein didn't have WMDs. Suddenly, a year later, he's singing another tune.
Ya know?
And anyone reading the British press knew that the books were cooked. Even Tony Blair.
The case for war carefully omitted key, well-known facts and included "facts" that were known-- or should have been known-- to be false.
I think the most likely explanation for Saddam's behavior always was that he wanted uncertainty over whether he had WMD since that would deter an attack. In other words, he wanted enough uncertainty that he could at least bluff.
It is likely he thought that was a major factor in the United States not finishing the job in the Gulf War. There are reports that he didn't use chemical weapons then because he was told in no uncertain terms that if he did the United States would take him out. The flip side of that is an implied committment that if he didn't use them, we wouldn't.
And I am not certain that events haven't proven him correct in believing that they were a deterrent. It may be that the intelligence gathered through weapons inspections had made it clear that whatever capability he still had was not going to be militarily significant. Had he retained the ability to make a significant chemical attack on US troops or Israel or someone else we may have been less likely to invade, not more. That certainly is the lesson that seems to have been drawn by the other two members of the "axis of evil", NOrth Korea and Iran.