Able Danger: DIA Tracked the Terrorists
Defense Intel. Agency pre-9/11 surveillance of hijackers
Able Danger: a military intelligence operation that tracked Mohammed Atta and several other 9/11 conspirators in the years before the attack, revealed by (now muzzled) whistleblowers in late 2005. The best compilation of information about Able Danger is from the Center for Cooperative Research at www.cooperativeresearch.org
www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-breitweiser/enabling-danger-part-one_b_5951.html?view=print
KRISTEN BREITWEISER
Enabling Danger (part one)
Posted August 20, 2005
| whistleblower harassed by Defense Intelligence Agency |
February 15, 2006 -- National security whistleblowers testify to planted classified
documents and other abuses. Testifying before the House Subcommittee on National
Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations chaired by Connecticut
Republican Rep. Chris Shays, five national security whistleblowers testified
yesterday about malfeasance involving senior Bush administration officials.
The most stunning testimony came from Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA) officer who was involved in a Top Secret data mining operation
called Able Danger. Prior to 911, Able Danger identified Mohammed Atta and other
members of his hijacking team but were prevented from informing the FBI and
other agencies. Pennsylvania Republican Curt Weldon, who is not a member of
Shays's subcommittee but was invited to participate in the hearings, said that
Shaffer had been the victim of extreme retaliation by DIA and the Pentagon.
Two incidents Shaffer testified about point to malfeasance involving 911 Commission
Executive Director Phil Zelikow, a colleague and friend of Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, and CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
While Shaffer was stationed under cover and using an assumed name in Bagram,
Afghanistan in October 2003, he was interviewed by Zelikow about Able Danger.
After returning to the United States, Shaffer attempted to talk to Zelikow again.
There were no further meetings and Zelikow stated he never met with Shaffer
in the past. However, in testimony before Weldon and the House Armed Services
Committee today, Shaffer said he is prepared to produce a business card given
him by Zelikow in Afghanistan.
After Shaffer and Able Danger became public, Wolf Blitzer blindsided Shaffer
during his appearance on Blitzer's "Situation Room." Blitzer told
Shaffer that he had "information" that Shaffer was having an affair
with a member of Weldon's congressional staff. In a direct answer to Weldon's
question and under oath, Shaffer said he had no such relationship with a member
of Weldon's staff, female or male.
Shaffer also testified about the planting of classified documents in
a package sent by DIA to Shaffer's home. Shaffer said the package contained
five classified documents that he was not authorized to receive. In addition
to the five documents, the package contained a bag of 20 U.S. government "Skilcraft"
pens. The DIA also said that Shaffer was untrustworthy because of an accusation
that he took home government pens from the U.S. embassy where his father worked.
Shaffer was 13 years old at the time of the alleged "pen theft." [emphasis added]
The planting of classified documents in the homes of whistleblowing national
security personnel is a pattern with the neocons in the Bush administration.
WMR has reported on the case of former NSA analyst Ken Ford, Jr., who was wrongfully
convicted of taking home two boxes of NSA classified documents, which Assistant
US Attorney (AUSA) David I. Salem alleged that he was prepared to sell to an
unknown foreign diplomat during a rendezvous at Dulles Airport. In fact, the
FBI and NSA Security planted one classified document on an FBI confidential
informant that was planted in Ford's Waldorf, Maryland home. The government
never took photos of the boxes alleged to be in Ford's home nor did they produce
security videos of the parking lot and loading dock of the NSA building where
Ford worked. Ford faces up to 15 years in prison and a half million dollar fine
in sentencing on March 1. Salem has been linked to the same Washington-based
neocon networks that include Zelikow and Blitzer.
In August 2001, one month prior to 911, a wrongfully terminated National Ground
Intelligence Center (NGIC) analyst in Charlottesville, Virginia arranged to
have some of his NGIC paperwork sent to him at home by NGIC security. However,
when a clasped and taped enveloped arrived at his home, there were clear indications
that sometime during the passage of the documents through four levels of NGIC
management, including NGIC security, something was inserted into the files:
a SECRET NOFORN WINTEL document [NOFORN is "no foreign dissemination"
and WINTEL is "Warning - Intelligence Sources and Methods Revealed']. The
analyst dutifully informed the FBI and the Army Criminal Investigation Division
(CID) at Fort Monroe, Virginia about the incident. However, the analyst was
never asked to sign his statement about the incident and there was no follow
up by the government.
Army Sergeant Samuel Provance (since demoted to Specialist) testified about
the use of torture and sexual abuse on Iraqi prisoners, including minors, at
Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Provance was "gagged" by the Pentagon
but he testified that there was a cover-up of Abu Ghraib and that children were
abused, including the 16-year old son of an imprisoned Iraqi general. The boy
was splashed with cold water and then driven around in an open Humvee with his
father as a witness. The general, who had not been accused of any crimes, had
his will broken as a result of the incident.
Provance's written testimony was redacted by the Department of Defense just
prior to his appearance before the Shays subcommittee. The testimony [first
page] [second page] refers to the presence in Abu Ghraib of "Middle Eastern"
contractors who were not Iraqi but spoke Arabic who were involved in prisoner
hooding, placing of women's' underwear on the heads of prisoners, and abuse
and sexual humiliation of prisoners, including children. "Middle Eastern"
is U.S. government code for Israeli and the presence of Israelis at Abu Ghraib
has been confirmed by a number of U.S. military personnel who spoke on the condition
of anonymity to WMR.
Tennessee Republican John Duncan said he was particularly concerned about the
$44 billion "lost" by the Pentagon in Iraq.
Former NSA intelligence officer Russ Tice, in response to a question from Maryland's
Chris Van Hollen, said there was "scuttlebutt" at NSA before the 2004
election that if John Kerry was elected president, there would be consequences
as a result of the illegality of some of NSA's surveillance programs authorized
by the Bush administration. Dutch Ruppersberger, whose district includes NSA
and who serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said
he doubted the justification for the NSA domestic surveillance programs.
Former FBI Special Agent Michael German testified that the Tampa Division of
the FBI compromised a sensitive counterterrorism investigation. A January 2002
meeting between the leader of a "domestic terrorist organization"
and a supporter of an "international terrorist organization," recorded
by an FBI "Cooperating Witness." Part of the recorded evidence was
later found to have been recorded illegally in violation of Title III wiretap
regulations, thereby making it inadmissible in court. German specialized in
tracking and infiltrating extreme right-wing, white supremacist/Christian identity
movements in the United States.
A list of the members of the current members of the National Security Whistleblowers
Coalition lists other members of the intelligence community who were retaliated
against. These include John M. Cole, an intelligence operations specialist for
the FBI with 18 years in the FBI's Counterintelligence Division. In 1999, Cole
discovered "serious issues of mismanagement, gross negligence, waste of
government funds, security breaches, cover-ups, and intentional blocking of
intelligence that had national security implications." His informed all
levels of management, including Director Robert Mueller, of the problems but
was ignored. Cole left the FBI in March 2004.
Daniel Hirsch, an FS-01 (GS-15) Foreign Service officer with 26 years of experience
with the CIA and State Department, where he served in the Diplomatic Security
Service and at the UN, had his security clearance suspended in March 2003. Hirsch
was never told why his clearance was suspended.
Michael Levine, a retired supervisory agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA) ran afoul of CIA drug smuggling and money laundering during the time of
Iran-Contra. WMR has reported that Porter Goss has renewed CIA drug smuggling
operations using unsavory agency operatives active in the 1980s. Levine's short
biography states, "as an international undercover operative [Levine] witnessed
the intentional destruction of undercover investigations targeting major international
heroin and cocaine trafficking organizations whom also happened to be CIA assets.
Among the actions reported was blowing the cover of an undercover operation
-- Operation Trifecta -- that had penetrated the top of a corrupt Mexican government,
by Edwin Meese, the then U.S. Attorney General." [Meese is now a top operative
of the "Christian" Fellowship Foundation and a fellow traveler of
various neo-confederates active in the Bush administration, some of whom are
ardent admirers of Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth].
Shaffer concluded his testimony by stating, "I became a whistleblower not
out of choice, but out of necessity. Many of us have a personal commitment to
the truth -- and a commitment to defend the country, not simply by stating our
loyalty, but by action; by going forward into combat if called upon to do so;
by going forward to expose the truth and wrongdoing of government officials
who before and after the 9/11 attacks failed to do their job."