"Able Danger"

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The following article has been reprinted from the archives of the Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2005

An Incomplete Investigation: Why Did the 9/11 Commission Ignore "Able Danger"?

by Louis Freeh

"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).

Here is another article on the subject of "Able Danger" reprinted from the archives of the New York Times, September 22, 2005:

Senators Accuse Pentagon of Obstructing Inquiry on Sept. 11 Plot

By Douglas Jehl

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."

More articles about Able Danger:

Military Bars 9/11 Intel Testimony
2005-09-21, CBS/Associated Press
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/21/terror/main871800.shtml

More than half of the U.S. House of Representatives wants open hearings on Able Danger
2005-11-18, US House of Representatives Website of Curt Weldon (R-Pa)
http://curtweldon.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=37076

Congressman Curt Weldon's Speech to Congress
2005-10-19, Official Website of Congressman Weldon (R-Pa)
http://curtweldon.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=35792

National Security Watch: Disquieted Whistleblowers
2005-10-11, U.S. News and World Report
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/051011/11natsec.htm

Atta known to Pentagon before 9/11
2005-09-28, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509280150sep28,1,3686073....

Pentagon Revokes 9/11 Officer's Clearance
2005-09-30, ABC/Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1173334

Panel rejects assertion US knew of Atta before Sept. 11
2005-09-15, Boston Globe/Associated Press
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/09/15/panel_reject...

Pentagon Finds More Who Recall Atta Intel
2005-09-02, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/02/AR20050902005...

Pentagon, Senate committee bicker over 9/11 probe
2005-09-23, ABC/Reuters
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1154206

Able Danger disabled
2005-08-13, Toledo Blade
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050813/COLUMNIST14/508130...

Pentagon Employee Was Ordered to Destroy Data Identifying Atta As a Terrorist
2005-09-15, ABC/Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1131137

More remember Atta ID’d as terrorist pre-9/11
2005-09-01, MSNBC/Associated Press
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9163145

The suppression of Able Danger
2006-02-18, Toledo Blade
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060218/COLUMNIST14/602180...

Suit airs Able Danger claims
2006-03-04, Sacramento Bee (Leading newspaper of California's capital city)
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14225641p-15049903c.html

Panel Weighs Whistleblower Law Changes
2006-02-14, Washington Post/Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/14/AR20060214015...

F.A.A. Alerted on Qaeda in '98, 9/11 Panel Said
2005-09-14, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/14/politics/14terror.html?ex=1284350400&en=de7...

9/11 Commission's Staff Rejected Report on Early Identification of Chief Hijacker
2005-08-11, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/11/politics/11intel.html?ex=1281412800&en=3c4c...

National security whistle-blowers allege retaliation
2006-02-16, Sacramento Bee (leading newspaper of California's capital city)
http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/politics/story/3168792p-11877323c.html

Weldon doubts DOD on Able Danger
2005-09-08, UPI
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20050908-122856-3635r

'Able Danger' Could Rewrite History
2005-08-12, Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,165414,00.html

Naval officer says Atta's identity known pre-9/11
2005-08-23, San Francisco Chronicle/New York Times
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/08/23/MNG66EBPJ71.DTL

Four in 9/11 Plot Are Called Tied to Qaeda in '00
2005-08-09, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/politics/09intel.html?ex=1281240000&en=bc4d...

NOTE: The following article is a prime example of how the media can be seriously biased to support the official story of 9/11:

Hijackers Were Not Identified Before 9/11, Investigation Says
2006-09-22, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/21/AR20060921018...