Dieter Snell better watch out

His attempt to cover up the whole DeVecchio/Scarpa mess by keeping Ramzey Yousef's involvement out of the 9/11 Commission Report has failed miserably:

A former F.B.I. agent was accused in an indictment today of "acting in concert" with members of organized crime in the murder of four people during the 1980's and early 1990's, according to District Attorney Charles J. Hynes of Brooklyn.

"This is the most stunning example of official corruption I have ever seen," Mr. Hynes said in a statement. He said a federal agent whose job is to protect lives instead assisted in murder.

The retired agent, R. Lindley DeVecchio, 65, is charged with providing the gangster Gregory Scarpa Sr. with information that led to the killings.

Mr. DeVecchio, who retired in 1996, was the leader of the F.B.I. team that investigated the Colombo crime family and developed ties to Mr. Scarpa, a captain in the Colombo family, in investigating mob activities.

New information provided by Mr. Scarpa's longtime companion, Linda Schiro, led to the indictments, said a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the continuing nature of the investigation.

Mr. Hynes said the most recent investigation began in February 2005 after a member of the House Judiciary Committee, William Delahunt, Democrat of Massachusetts, brought allegations involving Mr. DeVecchio to his attention. Mr. Delahunt had been investigating F.B.I. involvement with organized crime.

UPDATE: Sorry for not explaining this better. Here is a short refresher course from January 30th:

DOBBS: Tonight, an organized crime investigation under way now in New York City could shed new light into the controversy over Able Danger and uncover new U.S. intelligence failures leading up to September 11.

Joining me now to discuss his findings, Emmy award winning journalist Peter Lance. He's the author on of the book "Cover Up," with an extensive examination of this investigation, now under way in Brooklyn as well. Peter, good to have you here. What's the connection between this case in Brooklyn and 9/l1 and Able Danger?

PETER LANCE, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: Try to do it in three dots, OK. Dot number one, 1996, Ramsi Yusef, the original World Trade Center bomber. The man who I say is the architect of 9/11, he's in federal jail in lower Manhattan, awaiting trial. In the cell next to him, Gregory Scarpa Jr. Greg Scarpa Jr. is awaiting racketeering charges. He's a wise guy for the Colombo crime family.

DOBBS: A hit man.

LANCE: No, he sold marijuana. He was a relatively benign organized crime figure. RICO charges. Nothing heavy.

DOBBS: Minor item?

LANCE: Pardon me?

DOBBS: A minor item?

LANCE: Well, when you compare it to what he uncovered for this country it was amazing. What he did, Lou, over 11 month, he risked his life. Ramsi Yusef is passing him notes with extraordinary pieces of information about al Qaeda: admissions that there's an al Qaeda cell in New York City in 1996. Admissions they want to hijack a plane to free blind Sheikh Rahman, et cetera. And --

DOBBS: How could this tie to Able Danger.

LANCE: Dietrich Snell. Our friend, Dietrich Snell. Dietrich Snell is the prosecutor of Yusef in this upcoming case. He's the man that is privy to all of this intelligence and ultimately what happens is, because Scarpa Jr.'s father was involved in a relationship with an FBI agent named DeVecchio, and that's what the Brooklyn D.A. is looking into now, this alleged corrupt relationship.

The FBI and the Justice Department, I say, made an end's means decision. If they believed young Greg Jr for the intelligence about Yusef, he would be credible. And if he's credible in that case, he will be credible when he went to expose later on, his father and this corrupt FBI agent. And therefore, they made an end's means decision. Let's flush this intelligence on al Qaeda so we can preserve 60 mob cases in the Eastern District in Brooklyn.

DOBBS: So that's the reason you think they basically were discrediting?

LANCE: Absolutely. The proof of it is on my Web site peterlance.com, Lou, I have dozens of FBI 302 memos that prove the intelligence from Ramsey Yusef to Greg Scarpa in 1996, including --

DOBBS: Are we going it see much this much come out into you think in the Able Danger hearings or are we going to be focused otherwise?

LANCE: I believe Congressman Curt Weldon.

DOBBS: The leading to the charge. Trying to get to the truth.

LANCE: And now his staff in particular sees the connection and the value in the Brooklyn's D.A.'s really courageous investigation.

Ferrick admits defeat

UPDATE: Dana points out that Ferrick still tried to get in some parting shots. Upon further review, I updated the title of my post.

First, I want to clarify one point. While Dana and Antimedia had speculated that the Inquirer edited down Weldon's original letter for him and twisted his words, the truth is that they told Weldon he only gets 600 words, so he scaled down the letter himself. I had been wondering about that point since yesterday and got a confirmation from Weldon's office this afternoon. In the meantime, Rory O'Connor alerted me to a new column by Ferrick, which I can only describe as Ferrick's Waterloo:

I want to go on record as saying I am never going to tussle with U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon again....

The boiled-down version appeared on yesterday's editorial page. I am, according to the congressman, wrong-headed, ignorant of the facts, and - above all - out of touch.

Among other things, the columnist admits to being a high school classmate of Sestak:

I was born in Philly but was raised in Delaware County. I went to Sacred Heart School, Manoa, and graduated from Cardinal O'Hara High School. My family lived in Havertown for nearly 50 years, not far from the bubble gum factory. My mother still lives in Delaware County, as do my sisters and assorted nephews and nieces.

In my 30 years covering politics, I have had frequent contact with the county and its politicos, a list that includes John McNichol, various Nacrellis and Judges and Charlie Sexton.

From Sestak's biography:

After graduating from Cardinal O’Hara High School, Joe Sestak entered the U.S. Naval Academy from his hometown of Springfield, Pa., and graduated with the class of 1974 with a Bachelor of Science degree. He left the naval service after almost 31 years in January 2006, after having reached the rank of Vice Admiral.

What a coincidence....

Sestak making Able Danger a campaign issue?

I was doing my usual search at Google for news on Able Danger, when I realized Weldon's Democratic challenger Joe Sestak had used some of his new John Kerry fundraising money to purchase internet advertising on the keyword "Able Danger":

Sponsored Links

Sestak for Congress
Retired Admiral Joe Sestak
running against Curt Weldon, PA 07

Good grief. If Sestak thinks anyone interested in Able Danger is not going to support Weldon as a result, he is mistaken. He is also making a mistake by claiming on his web site to be an "Iraq war veteran" when the truth is that he returned home to the US three months before the invasion began:

Support Murphy, Sestak and other Iraq war veterans running for Congress

Joe Sestak has served America in the White House and on the battlefield. He worked for President Clinton as Director of Defense Policy. And, as a Vice Admiral, he led an Aircraft Carrier Battle Group of 30 ships and 15,000 men and women in combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Joe wants to bring the accountability he learned in the military to Congress where it is sorely lacking. You can help him do it by acting right now.

UPDATE: Another article on his own website makes it clear that Sestak was not actually in theater during the Iraq War:

Sestak later took control of the George Washington Battle Group, conducting air-combat operations over Afghanistan. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, the group participated in Operation Southern Watch, monitoring the no-fly zone.

You can confirm that here and here.

Commanding a Battle Group for six months with missions in Afghanistan and Iraq is something Sestak should be proud to talk about. Why embellish the story and claim to be an Iraq War veteran if he is not? The answer is that they think an Iraq War veteran running for Congress makes a better candidate. Of course, if you ask Sestak what he thinks of the war that he is now saying he fought in, you don't get a clear answer there either:

Joe Sestak's argument with the Iraq war is standard John Kerry fare: The Iraq war was not wrong per se, it was just undertaken at "the wrong time," according to Sestak's campaign website. The United States should have finished the job in Afghanistan -- "win the peace" -- and then turned its attention to Iraq.

And that's not all. If the United States had finished its objective in Afghanistan first, Sestak says, "we could have later brought, if needed, an undivided U.S. force to Iraq within a large Arab-led regional coalition."

Huh? At what point in time does Sestak think that the United States could have cobbled together a "large Arab-led regional coalition" to undertake preemptive war against Iraq?

Philadelphia Inquirer prints Weldon response

The Inquirer printed Congressman Weldon's letter to the editor today:

One Reader Responds Inquirer is out of touch with the suburbs

Tom Ferrick's March 22 column about my work ("Weldon's interests must return home") demonstrates how out of touch he and The Inquirer have become with the Philly suburbs. Ferrick's failure to speak with me resulted in a column of lies and distortions. It's no wonder The Inquirer is on the auction block.

1999 Orion China Study Chart

Several commenters and fellow bloggers have asked if any of the China Study charts produced by Orion for LIWA still exist. Well, here is one of the charts. Both Standford University and Loral Corporation are shown on the chart, and it does not take much to extrapolate how names like Perry, Rice, Clinton, or Gore could emerge simply because of those connections.

Weldon responds to the Inquirer

To the Inquirer:

On March 22, Tom Ferrick wrote a column entitled “Weldon’s Interests Must Return Home.” His column reads more like fiction, and if anything, is a prime example of why The Philadelphia Inquirer was recently put on the auction block. If Mr. Ferrick would leave the Inquirer’s Ivory Tower on Broad Street for one minute and actually go into the Philadelphia suburbs, not only would the Inquirer garner more respect, but perhaps it would prevent Mr. Ferrick from putting his foot into his mouth.

In his column, Ferrick refers to an incident in Washington, D.C. a few years back, where I gave an afternoon speech on the Senate-side of the U.S. Capitol on peace strategies just several days after leading the first delegation to Libya in nearly 40 years. The point of the trip, and the crux of the speech, was to detail my successful efforts in reaffirming Ghadaffi’s commitment to voluntarily give up his weapons of mass destruction. Without checking his facts, Ferrick states that I attended an event that evening in which Reverend Sun Myun Moon appeared with several Democrat Members of Congress. In actuality, Rev. Moon was not present at the earlier event in which I spoke. If he had checked his facts, Ferrick would have known that I was not even there.

I am proud of my national leadership for America’s first responders, and my authorization of programs that have funded over $3 billion directly to America’s 32,000 fire and EMS Departments. Furthermore, I am proud that on April 6th, over 2,000 national fire and EMS leaders will convene on the nation’s capital for their 17thannual national gathering that I have organized to honor their service to America.

Mr. Ferrick’s primitive analysis of Able Danger mirrors that of his colleagues Goldstein and Mondics at the Washington Bureau. It is amazing how so many writers from the Inquirer claim to speak with authority on Able Danger, yet have never taken the time to speak with a single member of the highly talented unit tasked by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to track al-Qaeda worldwide prior to 9/11. Ferrick fails to mention that 248 Members of the House of Representatives, including over 100 Democrats, signed a letter to Secretary Donald Rumsfeld demanding open hearings on Able Danger. He also doesn’t mention that this critical issue of pre-9/11 intelligence caused former FBI Director Louis Freeh to publicly ask for explanations about Able Danger on Meet the Press and in a Wall Street Journal editorial last fall. Nor does Ferrick mention the fact that five career national intelligence officials swore under oath about the cover-up that followed Able Danger’s findings. I pursued this issue so that the American people would know all of the facts about our intelligence failures prior to 9/11.

Ferrick should leave his Ivory Tower and visit my District, which I have served faithfully for 20 years. He could then visit with the 5,000 workers at the Boeing Plant in Ridley whose jobs are now safe because of my efforts. There are also 25 new and expanding companies he could visit, that through my efforts have created thousands of new jobs in the region. Ferrick could see one of the two playgrounds at local schools I helped build in honor of two local 9/11 heroes, and visit one of the 47 local fire companies that have directly received more than $5 million from a national grant program that I fathered. His next stop could be one of the sites of the most successful Community Action Agency in Pennsylvania serving the poor in Delaware County, of which I am the founder. There are also several colleges and universities he could visit like Villanova, Neumann, Widener, West Chester, Cheney, Eastern, Penn State, Drexel and Delaware Community that I have helped get funding for specific and expanded programs for their students. It’s not hard for Mr. Ferrick to come and look at these things, but he chooses not to.

If Ferrick came to my District, he could also witness how it has benefited from the SMART Regional initiative I created that has brought together major institutions in the four-state region of Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland to allow our region to lead the nation in science, technology and research. Perhaps Ferrick could take time out of his busy day to learn about the “Dime-Out-A Dealer” Program I created and raised funds for in cooperation with the District Attorney’s Office. He could also then receive a briefing on the International Center for Rotorcraft Innovation that was also initiated right here in the Delaware Valley.

If that’s not enough, Ferrick could take a trip out to the recently protected land acquisitions at Brandywine and Paoli Battlefields, which I successfully engineered. Ferrick also might want to stop at the new Pennsylvania Veterans Museum in Media that I helped fund with a $1 million infusion, or talk to the six busloads of WWII Veterans and their friends for whom I arranged travel to Washington, D.C. to see the new WWII Monument. He could also interview the local veteran leaders who joined me in our recent visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center to thank our wounded troops. I welcome Ferrick to stop by the John Heinz Wildlife Refuge and ask them who their champion has been over the last decade, even though the Refuge is not in my District. He can ask the Chester County Commissioners about the effort I led to protect hundreds of acres of open space along the Schukyll River.

For his last stop, Ferrick can visit my hometown of Marcus Hook to which he refers in his column, and ask the Mayor and Council Members who obtained the transfer of ownership of the Riverfront Federal property that now houses the finest waterfront park on the Delaware River.

I could go on and on, but why waste my time? The Inquirer is completely out of touch with the suburbs and Mr. Ferrick is a symbol of why this newspaper is in trouble. The local suburban newspapers, talk radio (like BigTalker 1210), and our local television stations get it, why not the Inquirer?

CONGRESSMAN CURT WELDON

2000 Analyst Notebook Link Chart

UPDATE: These charts were produced with Orion Magic, not Analysts Notebook, although both tools are compatible.

If you look at this chart from February 2000, you will notice some similarities and some differences between it and the unclassified chart from Peter Lance shown below.

An email from Peter Lance

I emailed him about the unclassified testimony at the closed session of the hearing, and he gave me permission to post his reply:

Mike,

I had heard about the exchange at the hearing but not in such detail. Do you have a transcript of the public session? If so, please forward it.

My dealings with Jacob L. "Jay" Boesen came as I was pursuing the story of FDNY Fire Marshal Ronnie Bucca in 2002 and early 2003.

Boesen knew and worked with Ronnie at DIAC (the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center at Bolling AFB in D.C.) when Bucca was tasked there by his Army Reserve unit.

I had hours and hours of discussions with Boesen over many months.

He personally sent me the hard copy of his link chart (below).

It shows a DIRECT link (as of August 10, 1999) between al Qaeda (bin Laden) and the Brooklyn/New York cell of blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (OAR) and Ramzi Yousef. I published it in both 1000 YEARS FOR REVENGE and COVER UP, I felt that it was so significant.

As you know my central thesis is that Yousef, the original WTC bomber was the primary architect of the 9/11 plot and that both attacks on the WTC were directly funded and tightly controlled by al Qaeda.

You don't NEED Atta's picture to prove the al Qaeda/Sheikh Omar/Yousef link if you have that chart, prepared by Boesen just four months before the Able Danger data mining operation is said to have commenced.

You have my permission to use it on your site:



As you know, according to Curt Weldon, Boesen went on to do many, if not most of the Able Danger link charts.

Further, I have a booklet on al Qaeda that he co-wrote with Dr. Preisser in 2002. It's a little known monograph that he autographed for me.

I tried for weeks to reach Boesen after Cong. Weldon broke the Able Danger story in August. On the eve of the Specter Hearing in Sept. Boesen's son told me that his father couldn't talk to me because his "company" forbade him too, since I was a member of "the press."

Boesen's position is that the alleged Atta picture was really that of another Egyptian (Mohammed Atef) --

But even if that's true, it in no way invalidates the strength of the al Qaeda/OAR/Yousef ties uncovered by the A.D. unit at Fort Belvoir and its successor in Garland, Texas.

My new book TRIPLE CROSS will document even more links between both attacks on the WTC (1993 and 9/11)

My findings, once and for all, will decimate the falacious allegation by the 9/11 Commission (per Dietrich Snell) that the origin of the "planes as missiles" plot was Afghanistan in 1996 and that KSM was merely a freelancer at the time; not affilidated with al Qaeda.

In contrast, I've proven that was the plot began in Manila in 1994 with Ramzi Yousef as its principal architect.

Yousef,a criminal genius whom other al Qaeda operatives referred to as "The Great One," designed the "planes operation." His uncle KSM merely carried it out after Ramzi's capture on February 7th, 1995 in Islamabad --

At that takedown, KSM was in a downstairs room at the Su Casa Guesthouse, a bin Laden NGO-controlled rest stop for jihadis.

But, as I've documented in both books, he hung around long enough after the Yousef seizure to comment on it. He even disclosed his own name to a stringer for TIME and the L.A. Times.

Nonetheless, KSM was missed by FBI agent Bradley Garrett who got to the guest house late. He escaped and went on to carry out his nephew's deadly plan on Sept. 11th 2001.

That incredible "miss" was the first of two opportunities the FBI had to capture KSM prior to 1996. In both cases they blew it.

I'll have more on the second incident in TRIPLE CROSS.

My sense now is that re: the Able Danger scandal, the fix is in.

Efforts have been made to discredit Cong Weldon on multiple fronts and silence other key witnesses. The House Hearing you refer to was a disgrace and clearly intended by DOD to placate critics in the House.

It's up to reporters like you and your readers to keep this issue alive and I applaud your work.

You have my permission to use this "post" in its entirety.

Best,

Peter Lance

http://www.peterlance.com

UPDATE: I added a scanned copy of the chart in question. The online version was not very readable, but you can make out most of this copy.

Now this is getting personal

UPDATE: Dana at Common Sense Political Thought has more details on the Philadelphia Inquirer's latest attempt to use Able Danger to discredit Weldon:

At times, he acts less like a congressman and more like a shadow secretary of state or head of the CIA.

Among Weldon's notable forays into the world of spies is the Able Danger speech he made on the House floor last year.

In that speech, Weldon asserted that a secret intelligence program called Able Danger had fingered three of the 9/11 hijackers before the deed, but that the government failed to act on the information - thus losing a chance to prevent the attacks.

As my colleagues Chris Mondics and Steve Goldstein reported in these pages last week, no credible evidence has been found to verify Weldon's Able Danger theory.

So Tony Shaffer, JD Smith, Scott Phillpott, and Eileen Preisser have no credibility?

A theory is merely speculation. Facts are details of real events. Facts can either be proven or disproven. None of these four individuals are speculating or proposing theories. They have all testified to the facts as they know them from personal, first hand experience. If someone can show they are all either lying or delusional, then they can all start calling Weldon "wacky". Until then, they have no damn right.

Stratus Ivy holdings of Able Danger documents

This unclassified supplement to the testimony at the open hearing in the House Armed Services Committee was submitted for the record, but not posted on their web site. Of particular interest is the fact that there were between 8 and 12 large charts, plus 4 to 6 targeting binders, still in existence as of March 2004:

ABLE DANGER was a planning effort, tasked to SOCOM by JCS. The task was to identify and target Al Qaeda on a global basis and, using advanced technology (data mining; massive parallel processing; complex algorithmic refining tools, etc) and enhanced visualization tools, present options for leaders (national command authority) to manipulate, degrade or destroy Al Qaeda.

STRATUS IVY became SOCOM ABLE DANGER Teams Forward Support center. As ABLE DANGER was based in Tampa and, at one point, Garland, TX, to minimize the amount of classified and large charts they had to transport back and forth to conduct meetings at the Pentagon, a full set of documents was left with STRATUS IVY. There are e-mail strings on the TS/SCI DIA LAN on this too.

Last Known Location of Full Copy of Material: 3rd Floor of DIA Facility Clarendon VA in the DHO-3 (Pacific Division) area – on east side wall cubicle.

Last Known Time Material Was There: 1st Week of March 2004.

Alternate location: Defense Intelligence Agency Inspector General Office, Bolling AFB, DC – should be part of investigative files. Operational, Authority, Approval and Coordination documents only – not the entire set.

Document list for ABLE DANGER:

Stored in a brown leather strap briefcase was the following:

- Chairman JCS Planning Order to CINC SOCOM to plan to conduct offensive operations against Al Qaeda under the nickname Operation ABLE DANGER.
- Operational Authority Documents for SOCOM and DIA to conduct planning and intelligence collection to support ABLE DANGER.
- Cover Plans and related background documents for ABLE DANGER to conduct intelligence collection and protect operational activities.
- All related official message traffic between SOCOM and Army on the LIWA support issue.

Stored outside but near the brown briefcase:

- Between 8 and 12 large “charts” – most if not all unclassified that showed the Al Qaeda targeting results (graphic representation/summary of all the 2.5 Terabytes of data that was used by the ABLE DANGER targeteers.
- 4 to 6 White plastic binders of Data Base array plans and methods and related charts.

Blogger problems

It looks like something I did around 10pm last night led blogger to overwrite my homepage with an empty file. Still not sure how it happened, but I apologize for the outage. I should have double checked the site when I logged out of Blogger.

An update from Mark Zaid

On Friday, I had a conversation with Tony's attorney Mark Zaid about both the latest and the next developments in the case. Among other things we discussed his rare comic books business, EsquireComics.com. He appreciated our donations, but so far they amount to less than five percent of Tony's legal bills to date. If you have not made a donation, please consider it.

Friday morning, Mark was in court again on the recent suit they filed to attempt to win legal representation for Tony and JD in any future closed hearings before Congress. In summary, he said the government is "throwing the kitchen sink at us" and will file a motion to dismiss on multiple grounds by April 7th. Among other things, the DoD attorneys are claiming the court has no jurisdiction or standing to take the case and has raised "service of process" issues, as well. This after they blocked Mark from representing Tony in closed session the morning of the Armed Services hearing.

Anyway, Mark will have up to a month to respond to the motion to dismiss, at which point the government will have two weeks to reply to his response. The earliest it could even go to trial is June, but it will probably be much later. In the meantime, he will be back in court March 21st filing document production requests and interrogatories. None of these documents involve the critical Able Danger documents, but rather documents involved in the DoD effort to deny legal counsel to Tony. Again, the government will have thirty days to respond. The main problem from Mark's point of view, is not that they are making this prohibitively expensive for him to pursue, but rather that Congressional hearings are pending and this needs to be resolved right away. If the judge rules that Tony and JD have a right to counsel after all the hearings are over, it will not make much of a difference.

As he had discussed on our conference call in February, Mark said the four things bloggers could help with the most were the following. First, provide as much data and analysis as we can, since the media is not covering it so there is no where else people can go to learn the facts. Second, encourage as many people as possible to contact their Congressional representatives and ask them to take an active role in getting to the bottom of this. Third, contact their local newspapers, radio stations, and talk shows. Ask them to start covering Able Danger. Fourth, as I mentioned above, the more financial support we can give to the legal battle he is waging against an army of DoD lawyers, the more likely it is that he can succeed.

Unfortunately, this is not just an academic argument. As Tony makes clear in his written testimony, the capability that Able Danger had does not exist today. When he was deployed in Afghanistan, based out of Bagram Airbase, pursuing High Value Targets along the border with Pakistan, he did not have the kind of actionable intelligence that Able Danger had provided years before 9/11. That is why the Able Danger team is so adamant this needs to be pursued. The fact that some officials are still more interested - five years later - in covering up their mistakes than in preventing the next attack, makes you understand why Curt Weldon chose the title for his book that he chose - "Countdown to Terror". Clearly, the clock is still ticking.

Unfortunately, a lot of high level bureaucrats are betting they can wait it out.

2004 Raytheon Genesis Link Chart

Just got these. I believe it is one of the posters Weldon used in his June 2005 speech. Based on who created it, J. L. Boesen, I'm fairly sure it was created using Raytheon Genesis. I always wanted to have someone send me a close up, so we could see what is says, and here it is. The main thing it shows is an approximation of what an Able Danger chart might have looked like, although this was made in 2004.

I've got more photos of more charts where these came from, but these are the only ones that I've cleaned up to post so far.

Goldstein Strikes Back

In our conference call with Congressman Weldon, he told us that he had embarassed Steve Goldstein of the Philadelphia Inquirer in a speech at a national press event, by explaining that he had offered Steve the Able Danger story, but Steve turned him down. Then when it showed up on the front page of the New York Times three days in a row, the Philadelphia Inquirer had to run the New York Times byline, instead. Well, Steve hasn't bothered to look into the story much since then either, but that hasn't stopped him from declaring that the Able Danger story is now "unraveling".

From today's issue of the Philadephia Inquirer:

But Weldon's story, which unleashed a wave of national media attention as well as probes and congressional hearings, is unraveling.

He now says that he's not sure the chart had a picture of Atta, as he has sometimes maintained, and that he has been relying on the memory of an intelligence analyst who helped produce it.

Weldon has always explained that he is telling the stories of the intelligence analysts who produced the charts. He did not produce the chart himself. Two of them have now testified before Congress, under oath, that they saw the name and photo of Mohamed Atta on that chart. That would seem to add to the credibility of the story - not unravel it - but hey, I guess I'm not the professional journalist.

From Tony Shaffer's sworn testimony:

Late September 2001. Eileen Preisser calls me for coffee and tells me she has something she needs to show me. At coffee she shows me a chart she had brought with her – a large desk top size chart. On it she has me look at the ‘Brooklyn Cell’ – I was confused at first – but she kept telling me to look – and in the “cluster” I eventually found the picture of Atta. She pointed out (and I recognized) that this was one of the charts I LIWA had produced in Jan 2000, and had a sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach – I felt that we had been on the right track – and that because of the bureaucracy we had been stopped – and that we might well have been able to have done something to stop the 9/11 attack. I ask Eileen what she plans to do with the information/chart – she tells me that she does not know but she plans to do something.

Last week of September 2001. I am on my normal afternoon run from the Pentagon to the Lincoln Memorial – and I receive a call from Dr. Preisser. She tells me “you’ll never guess where I am” – she tells me about sitting in the outer office of Scooter Libby and the fact that she, Congressman Curt Weldon, Congressman Chris Shays and Congressman Dan Burton are going in to brief Steven Hadley on the Atta chart. I am both amazed and satisfied that the Atta information and our work on ABLE DANGER had been provided to proper government leadership and fully expected that the ABLE DANGER team might even be reconstituted. It was not.

From JD Smith's sworn testimony:

SMITH: I have two people presently that have contacted my counsel, who are willing to sign affidavits. There are others that work in the intelligence community who choose not to partake of this.

WELDON: But they also saw it?

SMITH: They also saw it.

WELDON: How sure are you that it was Mohammed Atta's name and picture?

SMITH: I'm absolutely certain. I used to look at it every morning.

WELDON: You looked at it every morning. So it wasn't a one time deal?

SMITH: No, sir.

WELDON: And was that the chart you think that was given to me that I gave to the White House?

SMITH: Yes, sir. It was.

WELDON: And you're aware that when I gave that chart to the White House, Dan Burton, the chairman of the Government Ops Committee, was with me and stated to the New York Times, that he actually showed the chart to Steve Hadley and explained the linkages?

SMITH: Yes, sir.

WELDON: You're aware of all that?

SMITH: Yes, sir. I am.

Not content with passing off spin as news, now Goldstein attacks Weldon:

But often Weldon's nightmare scenarios seem little more than daydreams.

That was the case last year when he said a source told him that the Iranian government had set in motion a plot to crash hijacked planes into the Seabrook reactor in New Hampshire. The CIA quickly debunked the story, saying Weldon's source was unreliable.

This has nothing to do with Able Danger. Finally, they return to the subject, with a few haphazard attempts to debunk the story without bothering to do any research:

The fact that Phillpott and Shaffer were of relatively high rank and held responsible positions added weight to the allegations.

But problems soon began to develop with the story.

The 9/11 commission said its executive director, Philip Zelikow, and three others had met with Shaffer at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where he was on assignment, in October 2003 as part of its probe. Contradicting Shaffer, the 9/11 commission said that during this meeting, he never mentioned that Able Danger had identified Atta and other hijackers before the plot, the commission said.

Commission members now believe it is a case of mistaken identity, because military data-mining programs before 9/11 produced charts with the names and pictures of other al-Qaeda members who were not part of the plot, but whose names and pictures resemble Atta's.

Other senior government officials and key players in the 9/11 aftermath also have raised questions about Weldon's account. A source familiar with a Senate Intelligence Committee probe of the issue said that committee had turned up no documentation to support Weldon's story.

No documentation to support "Weldon's story"? What kind of false generalization is that? How about sworn congressional testimony from Stephen Cambone that supports "Weldon's story":

WELDON: Dr. Cambone, do you agree in your assessment — or your team here — that the Able Danger team identified five hotspots, what they called hotspots, which would include Malaysia, Mauritania, Hamburg, Germany, New York and Aden, Yemen?

CAMBONE: Yes, there’s said to be that sort of designation of places, to include the Brooklyn cell issue.

Or this guy testifying to warnings before the attack on the USS Cole:

WELDON: And I would also ask you, Dr. Cambone, have you, in fact, talked to any of the witnesses about information that Able Danger had relative to the Port of Aden in Yemen, two weeks and two days before the attack on the USS Cole?

CAMBONE: I did not, but my colleague did.

CHOPE: Sir, in the days preceding 12 October 2000, which was the day the Cole was attacked in Aden harbor, one of the intelligence analysts assigned to the Able Danger effort began to get what he calls gut feel that things were going awry in Yemen; he didn't have any hard intelligence.

He asked then Commander Scott Philpot if that could be briefed at a high level briefing that took place on 10 October, during a VIP visit to the Garland facility, and it was.

Needless to say, Steve Goldstein is not interested in all this. He concludes:

Even so, the story has survived, reflecting the adage that it is impossible to prove that something didn't happen.

"How do you prove that pink elephants did not dance along your backyard last night?" said one frustrated former member of the 9/11 commission staff. "It would seem to me that if you are making an allegation, the burden of proof is on the person making the charges."

It would also appear that it's impossible to get a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter to investigate a story themselves, instead of attacking the Congressman who tries to get them to look into it.

Latest Able Danger Audio List

In case you have some time to spare, here is a list of all the latest audio we have available, compiled mainly from Vi's Able Danger Podcast.

02/25/06 - Curt Weldon Speech at Restoration Weekend
Download | Transcript

02/23/06 - Conference Call with Curt Weldon
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six

02/21/06 - Able Danger Bloggers Radio Roundtable
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five

02/17/06 - Curt Weldon Radio Interview with Tony Snow
Download | Transcript

02/15/06 - House Armed Services Committee Hearing
Part One | Part Two | Transcript

02/14/06 - House Government Reform Committee Hearing
Part One | Part Two

02/06 - Radio Interview with Rory O'Connor
Download

This is funny

From a blog called Vichy Democrats:

And if the President is censured but continues to pursue warrantless surveillance programs like the NSA’s, Able Danger, and others than some officials and whistleblowers have hinted at, the Republicans will have little choice but to accede to impeachment proceedings.

Impeached for pursuing Able Danger? Since when has Bush even pursued Able Danger? Weldon has compared the coverup of Able Danger to Watergate, but if people want to impeach Clinton again after the fact for pursuing the program, I guess they can try.

UPDATE: Thersites writes, "I thought AbleDanger was another surveillance program, when apparently it's not. I appreciate the info, and will edit my post accordingly." Now, if only Bill Arkin would listen to reason too, we might be making some progress here.

Able Danger Hearing Transcript

Curt at Flopping Aces has the completed transcript. You can also download it as a PDF file he created here.

Here is one of many interesting exchanges:

WELDON: I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

Dr. Cambone, do you agree in your assessment — or your team here — that the Able Danger team identified five hotspots, what they called hotspots, which would include Malaysia, Mauritania, Hamburg, Germany, New York and Aden, Yemen?

CAMBONE: Yes, there’s said to be that sort of designation of places, to include the Brooklyn cell issue.

WELDON: Now, I realize you can’t speak on behalf of the 9/11 Commission, obviously, and I’m not asking you to. But let me ask you this.

After having identified those five hotspots, and then having an attack on the USS Cole in the Port of Aden, Yemen, how could anyone in their right mind classify Able Danger as historically insignificant?

Seventeen sailors were killed in one of the five hotspots that the Able Danger team, you’ve just acknowledged identified?

How in the world could any commissioner on any — well, I’m asking you — could you think of how anyone could classify that work, after we had a warship, 17 sailors killed at one of those hotspots, and to call that work historically insignificant?

CAMBONE: Sir, I didn’t do the work for the 9/11 Commission, and I was not involved in that kind of effort.

WELDON: How about your own opinion?

CAMBONE: I don’t know how they would answer.

WELDON: I think that there’s a lot of information that was generated over that period of time. And I don’t know that the crew in the Able Danger exercise was the only one to have identified troubles in Yemen and Aden at the time.

And that, as a consequence of the investigations that were done, what we discovered is, information that might have been available through a variety of channels, hadn’t been made available. That’s a matter of record, sir.

And so, you know, there you are. I didn’t do the look at Brooklyn cell and the other cells. I mean, that was the 9/11 Commission’s function.

WELDON: But you know that they identified five cells. And one of those five cells was, in fact, a location of where 17 of our sailors were murdered.

The Department of Defense has conducted a search specifically for Able Danger products. Has any search of DOD databases been conducted, to determine if any Able Danger data was incorporated into other second and third order intelligence products? And if not, why not?

CAMBONE: Intelligence products as such, I don’t know that. I do know that — I know — what I’ve been told is, and I’ve mentioned this already, as the planning process moved forward in the 2001 timeframe, in the Joint Staff, information generated in the Able Danger project was taken into other planning efforts and documents. Substantially.

But in terms of an intelligence product, I don’t know the answer to that.

Network Theory and Able Danger

From the New York Times:

After Sept. 11, Valdis Krebs, a Cleveland consultant who produces social network "maps" for corporate and nonprofit clients, decided to map the hijackers. He started with two of the plotters, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, and, using press accounts, produced a chart of the interconnections — shared addresses, telephone numbers, even frequent-flier numbers — within the group. All of the 19 hijackers were tied to one another by just a few links, and a disproportionate number of links converged on the leader, Mohamed Atta. Shortly after posting his map online, Krebs was invited to Washington to brief intelligence contractors.

Announced in 2002, Adm. John Poindexter's controversial Total Information Awareness program was an early effort to mine large volumes of data for hidden connections. But even before 9/11, an Army project called Able Danger sought to map Al Qaeda by "identifying linkages and patterns in large volumes of data," and may have succeeded in identifying Atta as a suspect. As if to underline the project's social-network principles, Able Danger analysts called it "the Kevin Bacon game."

Of course, the author goes on to dismiss Able Danger's importance without even looking at the program in any depth, but I guess at least they mentioned it:

Able Danger analysts produced link charts identifying suspected Qaeda figures, but some charts were 20 feet long and covered in small print. If Atta's name was on one of those network maps, it could just as easily illustrate their ineffectiveness as it could their value, because nobody pursued him at the time.

One way to make sense of these volumes of information is to look for network hubs. When Barabasi mapped the Internet, he found that sites like Google and Yahoo operate as hubs — much like an airline hub at Newark or O'Hare — maintaining exponentially more links than the average. The question is how to identify the hubs in an endless flow of records and intercepted communications. Scientists are using algorithms that can determine the "role structure" within a network: what are the logistical and hierarchical relationships, who are the hubs?

Identifying these hubs is exactly what Able Danger did. They identified five hubs, or cells. One in Brooklyn, one in Hamburg, one in Malaysia, one in Yemen, and one in either Kenya or Mauritania depending who you ask. In addition to using computer models, they also used experienced analysts to make sense of the data and weed out the irrelevant links. In other words, the problems the author is trying to solve, are the ones Able Danger was able to work around. The chart Atta was on listed forty to eighty terrorist organized into five cells. You can't get much more specific than that, even if people want to keep dismissing it as insignificant.

The Perils We Face

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-PA, delivered a speech entitled "The Perils We Face" at Restoration Weekend, which took place in Phoenix, Arizona from February 23-26, 2006. Front Page Magazine has a full transcript of the speech. The audio of all but the first section of his speech was posted online and you can listen here. It starts at the segment titled "9/11: What I Saw at Ground Zero" and here are some of the new details he describes:

After talking to Ray’s sons, and sharing their grief for the loss of their father and my friend, they asked me to go back. I said, “I can’t go back, I’m all dirty, I don’t have a change of clothing.” They said, “Don’t worry, Curt. The firefighters want you to be there to greet the family members of the missing, because President Bush is arriving tonight and they want you to seat them until he arrives, and talk to them.”

I was reluctant, but I felt it was my responsibility, so I went. I cleaned up as best as I could, and with the president of the Firefighters’ Association of New York, we went into the Javitz Center. On one side of the room were the urban search and rescue teams arriving from all over America; on the other, 700 folding chairs, all neatly lined up in front of a podium, where President Bush would speak to the families that night. He was supposed to speak for 30 minutes. But, knowing the kind of human being our president is, he stayed for two-and-a-half hours. With no media, with no politicians in the room, he wept, he consoled, and he shared the grief of the families.

My job until the president arrived was to greet the family members, and two families will forever be blazoned into my memory. The first was a woman in her late 30s. She had a baby in her arms, and her brother and sister with her. When I went over to her, she was sobbing uncontrollably. I introduced myself, gave her a hug and said, “I’m terribly sorry, ma’am, who’s missing?” She said, “Congressman, my life’s over. He meant everything to me. He served his country in the military. When he got out, we got married. He’s not just my husband and the father of our children. He coached Little League for our kids. He was involved in our church. And when the neighbors had a problem with their car, he was the first one out early in the morning to get it started. Why did they take him away? He only wanted to help people.”

Here is his decription of Zelikow's testimony:

When Phil Zelikow came in, and he wouldn’t testify in open session – even though he gave us no classified information in closed session – I asked him, “Did you interview the Able Danger principals?” And he said, “No, Congressman.”

I said, “Why would you not do that? These were CIA-trained case officers and career military professionals. Why wouldn’t you want to get the facts?”

He replied, “Because we think we’ve gotten all the information we need.”

I asked, “And why would you not include that in the 9/11 Report?” He answered, “Because we thought it was historically irrelevant.”

Is the CIA hiding something about 9/11?

A retired State Department security officer says they are:

I know who the intelligence officials were at the U.S. embassy at the time of Murad's arrest and interrogation. These are the same officials who discounted the threat information I received about Rana. Do these people have something to hide? You bet they do!

There is a lot of information in there, so you need to read the whole thing. He also has more details about Dieter Snell and the 9/11 Commission:

Another prominent figure suspected of quashing the truth is Dietrich L. Snell, the Senior Counsel and Team Leader of the Official 9-11 Commission. Peter Lance writes extensively in his books Cover Up and 1000 Years for Revenge about Snell's shenanigans in cherry-picking evidence and excluding credible witness testimony, including information collected by the Defense Department's Able Danger Unit concerning pre-9/11 sightings of Mohammed Atta, one of the nineteen suspected hijackers. These allegations are now resurfacing in the news. The Associated Press (AP) reported on February 15, 2005 that U.S. Representative Curt Weldon, the vice Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee advised the public that the Able Danger Unit had identified Atta more than a dozen times before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Weldon also reportedly said the secret team found "a problem" in Yemen two weeks before the deadly Al Qaeda attack on the USS Cole in 2000, of which the ship commander was not told. Former (unidentified) members of the 9/11 Commission reportedly dismissed Weldon's findings.

My experience in the Philippines also appears to overlap Snell's involvement in the Murad case that Snell prosecuted. The Cooperative Research 9-11 Timeline (www.cooperativeresearch.org) contains a very peculiar account entitled: Early 1998:Prosecutors Turn Down Deal That Could Reveal Bojinka Third Plot.

The entry said: "Abdul Hakim Murad, a conspirator in the 1995 Bojinka plot with Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Shaik Mohammed, and others, was convicted in 1996 of his role in the Bojinka plot. He is about to be sentenced for that crime. He offers to cooperate with federal prosecutors in return for a reduction in his sentence, but prosecutors turn down his offer. Dietrich Snell, the prosecutor who convicted Murad, says after 9-11 that he doesn't remember any such offer. But court papers and others familiar with the case later confirmed that Murad does offer to cooperate at this time. Snell claimed he only remembers hearing that Murad had described an intention to hijack a plan and fly it into the CIA headquarters. However, in 1995 Murad had confessed to Philippine investigators that this would have been only one part of a larger plot to crash a number of airplanes into prominent U.S. buildings, including the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a plot that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed later adjusts and turns in the 9-11 plot. While Philippine investigators claim this information was passed on to U.S. intelligence, it's not clear just which U.S. officials may have learned this information and what they did with it, if anything. [New York Daily News, 9/25/01] Murad is sentenced in May 1998 and given life in prison plus 60 years. [Albany Times Union, 9/22/02] After 9-11, Snell goes on to become Senior Counsel and a team leader for the 9-11 Commission. Author Peter Lance later calls Snell "one of the fixers, hired early on to sanitize the Commission's final report." Lance says Snell ignored evidence presented to the Commission that shows direct ties between the Bojinka plot and 9-11, and in so doing covers up Snell's own role in the failure to make use of evidence learned from Murad and other Bojinka plotters. [FrontPage Magazine, 1/27/05].

Able Danger's Two Data Purges

Just to clarify, Keith Phucus at the Norristown Times Herald has written about 15 stories on Able Danger-here is his latest piece. He reports that there have been two Able Danger data purges:

Actually, data was purged in the spring of 2000 at the Land Information Warfare Activity, in Ft. Belvoir, Va., and then in 2004 at Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer's Defense Intelligence Agency office at another Virginia location.

Cross posted at QT Monster's Place.

Mohamed Atta Calling

Via CQ, new details are emerging from the Moussaoui trial:

The number 050-520-9905 is what several of the 9/11 hijackers dialed to establish contact with Mustafa al Hawsawi, a senior al Qaeda member in the United Arab Emirates.

Prosecutors said Tuesday that Hawsawi was one of the key financial contributors and travel coordinators for several of the 9/11 hijackers, and that the 9/11 investigation shows that Mohammed Atta was in regular contact with him in the weeks before the attack.

In laying out for the jury the specifics of how the 9/11 plot was hatched, prosecutors showed the jury a series of money transfer orders and records of calls to Hawsawi from Mohammed Atta, which he made using an AT&T calling card.

That seems to answer the question as to how the NSA program could have stopped 9/11.

Captain Ed also sees the connection to Able Danger:

Radical Islamists had publicly declared their intention to strike at American interests at home and abroad at least since the mid-1990s. A series of attacks followed afterwards, including the bombings of two of our embassies and a suicide attack on the USS Cole, all of which fall very clearly into the category of "acts of war". Had the US actually adopted a war footing and started tracking international communications that involved countries known to harbor radical Islamists, we may have discovered the actors of the 9/11 plot before the attacks could occur. Combined with the information coming from Able Danger, it would have given counterterrorism intelligence a large jump on Atta and his cohorts.

Instead, to this day, we're still trying to fit counterterrorism intelligence into the law-enforcement mode with FISA and the substitutes offered by Congress today. And thanks to the New York Times, the NSA tracking and intercept program is likely dead as terrorists will choose alternate methods by which to activate their plans and their members.

More Able Danger-Rep. Curt Weldon Conference Call Audio

Be sure to listen to the two latest audio clips (here and here) from the Able Danger conference call with Rep. Curt Weldon. (The previous clips are linked here and here.)

This is the link for subscribing to the Able Danger Podcast through iTunes.

This is the non-iTunes podcast feed for the Able Danger podcasts.

Cross posted at QT Monster's Place.

Follow the shredders

In some scandals, the key is to follow the money. In others, especially where criminal negligence is concerned, the rule should be to follow the coverup. AJ Strata points out similarities shared by Able Danger and another recent scandal. I'm hoping this is the type of thing Arlen Specter will look into when he holds hearings on Able Danger in the next few months. How can these people get away with destroying information to save themselves from blame, and not even get fired, much less charged with obstruction of justice or even destruction of government property?

Why Is This Not Public?

My problem with Able Danger is it appears a high level, poitical appointee was able to use his power to destroy information that was personally uncomfortable, but critical to national security and which could have detected and avoided 9-11. 3,000 people died on 9-11, and it is plausible to assume if the partisan purge of Able Danger’s analysis in early 2000, when Atta and his team were moving out and coming here, had not happened they might be alive today.

So when I see similar acts of coverup I am keenly aware we cannot afford to look the other way when people in power destroy information ‘we the people’ generated through the Federal government. Senators and Congressman and other pols should not be allowed to hide our information - we paid for it!

So how is it we let this happen?

...These CYA actions should be illegal - because they only serve to hide criminal acts (why else hide the information). And sometimes those criminal acts include criminal negligence that can lead to massive US death tolls. Hat Tip Jack Kelley.

From the Norristown Times Herald

Keith Phucas has a new article on the Able Danger court case:

In 2000 and 2004, the Pentagon ordered all "Able Danger" data purged from computer databases. In a Sept. 21, 2005, hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, attorney Mark Zaid said the Pentagon "too zealously applied" enforcement of legal rules governing intelligence.

In prior interviews with The Times Herald, Shaffer said information obtained from the Internet is public information, and therefore, should not be subject to government restrictions.

"I fundamentally disagree with the (Pentagon) policy," he said. "If it's on the Internet, there should be no expectation of privacy."

During the clamp-down on "Able Danger" in 2000, Shaffer vigorously protested the data retention restrictions with Pentagon attorneys.

"I didn't agree with them then, and I don't agree with them now," he said....

The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and House International Relations Committee are expected to hold future hearings on "Able Danger," according to the legal complaint.

Thanks to Dana at Common Sense Political Thought for a tip over the weekend that the article was on the way.

Hearings in International Relations Committee?

The House International Relations subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, chaired by Dana Rohrabacher, is considering holding hearings on Able Danger where Louis Freeh or Curt Weldon might be called to testify regarding how the information Able Danger had could have prevented 9-11, but why this information was never passed on or utilized. If you live in one of their districts you can contact the subcommittee members and ask them to go forward with hearings on this important subject.

(202) 225-2415 Dana Rohrabacher, CA
(202) 225-2411 Edward R. Royce, CA
(202) 225-3111 William D. Delahunt, MA
(202) 225-2635 Jeff Flake, AZ
(202) 225-4695 Howard L. Berman, CA
(202) 225-5665 Mark Green, WI
(202) 225-6631 Betty McCollum, MN
(202) 225-3021 Mike Pence, IN
(202) 225-4176 Adam B. Schiff, CA
(202) 225-2452 Joe Wilson, SC