Able Danger Blog

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.
Official Biography of General Peter J. Schoomaker, published 2004

In his first public comments on the initiative, which some former intelligence officers now say was code-named Able Danger, Shelton also confirmed that he received two briefings on the clandestine mission -- both well before Sept. 11.

"Right after I left SOCOM [Special Operations Command], I asked my successor to put together a small team, if he could, to try to use the Internet and start trying to see if there was any way that we could track down Osama bin Laden or where he was getting his money from or anything of that nature," Shelton said Tuesday in an interview. "It was just kind of an experiment. 'What can we do?' So he pulled together a bunch of really bright, computer-literate guys from across the services."

...Under his direction, Shelton said, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, now Army chief of staff, set up a team of five to seven intelligence officers after Shelton was promoted to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1997 and Schoomaker succeeded him as Special Operations commander.

The program began at Special Operations headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, Shelton said, but it was expanded and moved to Fort Belvoir, Va.
News & Observer Washington Bureau, published 12-07-2005

Mohamed Atta got to know Zammar in the Al Quds mosque in Hamburg, most likely in 1998, according to U.S., German and Arab sources. Atta had arrived in Hamburg in 1992 and later enrolled at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg. A disciplined student and pious Muslim, Atta was reserved and aloof, particularly in the company of Germans....

The Al Quds mosque opened in 1993 and became a center for incendiary views. "The Jews and crusaders must have their throats slit," said Imam Mohammed bin Mohammed al Fizazi in a pre-Sept. 11 sermon, which was videotaped.

Such preaching has continued. The Post last month purchased a video at the Al Quds mosque in which an Islamic preacher, identified as Sheik Azid al Kirani, shouts out a call for mortal combat against "Jews, Israel and all unbelievers."

...By 1998, when he met Zammar, Atta had been a regular at the mosque for at least four years. He also had attended study groups run by a local radical, Mohammed bin Nasser Belfas. Atta visited the Attawhid bookstore where literature and videos on jihad were sold from a backroom that the public could not enter.
Washington Post, published 09-11-2002

On January 8, 1998, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef -- the mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center -- was sentenced to 240 years in prison and ordered to pay a 4.5-million-dollar fine, as well as 250 thousand dollars in restitution for his role in the attack. Yousef was simultaneously sentenced to life plus 60 years in prison for his role in a plot to bomb U.S. commercial airliners transiting the Far East. The sentences are to run consecutively.

Also on January 8, an indictment charging Khalid Shaikh Mohammed with involvement in Yousef's plot to bomb U.S. airliners was unsealed in the Southern District of New York. By year's end Shaikh Mohammed remained a fugitive.
Federal Bureau of Investigation, published 08-18-2000

Just how and when the three of them first met remains unclear, although they seemed to know each other already when Shehhi relocated to Hamburg in early 1998. Atta and Binalshibh moved into his apartment in April.

The transfer to Hamburg did not help Shehhi's academic progress; he was directed by the scholarship program administrators at the Emirati embassy to repeat his second semester starting in August 1998, but back in Bonn. Shehhi initially flouted this directive, however, and did not reenroll at the University of Bonn until the following January, barely passing his course there.
9-11 Commission Report, p. 162, published 07-2004

Early this morning bombs exploded at the U.S. Embassy buildings in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, resulting in numerous injuries and in severe damage to both installations, and surrounding buildings.

There have been a number of deaths, including some U.S. Embassy personnel in Nairobi. This information is being confirmed and next-of-kin will be notified before the names of the victims are released publicly.

In Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, there were also many casualties. There are no reports that Americans were killed in that attack, however some were injured.
State Department, published 08-07-1998

By November, Atta was back in Harburg. He and two other men, Ramzi Binalshibh and Said Bahaji, rented a freshly remodeled apartment on Marienstrasse near the university. The apartment had three bedrooms, new paint and heating and a great many visitors. The tenants paid for installation of high-speed computer lines.

This was, investigators say, the formation of a new Al Qaeda terrorist cell and a central planning point for what would turn out to be the Sept. 11 attacks.

Binalshibh, a Yemeni national, had no apparent means of support and little interest in school. He attended Hamburg's University of Applied Sciences for a few months, didn't do well and quit. Bahaji, a German of Moroccan descent, studied computer engineering at Technical University. He and Atta petitioned the school for space to establish a Muslim meeting and prayer room....

In 1998, Bahaji came under the scrutiny of German police because of his association with a middle-aged Syrian businessman, Mamoun Darkazanli, whom he had met at the Al Quds mosque. Darkazanli had an odd, still-vague association with a man who had once been a financial officer for Bin Laden.
Los Angeles Times, published 01-27-2002

Turki claimed his intelligence service warned the CIA in late 1999 and early 2000 about two al-Qaida members, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who were later among the Sept. 11 hijackers. "What we told them was these people were on our watch list from previous activities of al-Qaida, in both the embassy bombings and attempts to smuggle arms into the kingdom in 1997," Turki told the Associated Press.

The CIA denied receiving any such information from Saudi Arabia until after 9/11, and Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S., admitted that "no documents" were sent. But Turki insisted his agency communicated the warning to the CIA, at least by word of mouth.
Salon, published 10-18-2003

Other intelligence sources say that the Germans in fact did have Bahaji (though not his cohorts) under observation for months if not years before September 11 because of his links to Mamoun Darkazanli, a Hamburg businessman.

Darkazanli was under observation because of his links to one of Osama bin Laden's finance chiefs, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, who was arrested in 1998.

According to a television programme for Germany's ARD public television shown last night, the national intelligence service monitored at least one conversation between Muslim extremists in Hamburg in 1999 in which a "Mohammed" was repeatedly mentioned.

The programme makers say it is now clear to the intelligence services that this was Mohammed Atta.
Telegraph, published 11-24-2001

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who authorities now believe conceived the Sept. 11 attacks, apparently met with the terrorist plot's chief suicide hijackers in 1999 in Hamburg, Germany, U.S. intelligence officials said Wednesday.

A senior intelligence official said "several different sources" had placed Mohammed at the Hamburg apartment that was used for meetings by three of the Arabs who are believed to have piloted the hijacked planes, as well as by several others implicated in planning and funding the operation.

The new intelligence may help to solve one of the major puzzles about Sept. 11—who outside the hijacking teams helped coordinate their actions and provided the link to senior Al Qaeda leaders. Mohammed is now believed to have filled at least part of that pivotal role....

Officials said it is still unclear precisely when Mohammed visited Hamburg, or which of the hijackers he met there. Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah—who are believed to have piloted three of the hijacked planes—lived in the northern German city for most of 1999.
Los Angeles Times, published 06-06-2002

In March 1999, German intelligence officials gave the Central Intelligence Agency the first name and telephone number of Marwan al-Shehhi, and asked the Americans to track him.

The name and phone number in the United Arab Emirates had been obtained by the Germans by monitoring the telephone of Mohamed Heidar Zammar, an Islamic militant in Hamburg who was closely linked to the important Qaeda plotters who ultimately mastermined the Sept. 11 attacks, German officials said.

After the Germans passed the information on to the C.I.A., they did not hear from the Americans about the matter until after Sept. 11, a senior German intelligence official said.

"There was no response" at the time, the official said. After receiving the tip, the C.I.A. decided that "Marwan" was probably an associate of Osama bin Laden, but never tracked him down, American officials say.
New York Times, published 02-24-2004

In April 1999, Nawaf al-Hazmi, Salem al-Hazmi, and Khalid al-Mihdhar obtained visas through the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi then traveled to Afghanistan and “participated in special training,” which, according to the DCI, may have been “facilitated by Khallad” (Tawfiq bin Attash who also directed the USS Cole operation). A USS Cole suicide bomber also participated in that training.
Joint Congressional Inquiry, p. 132, published 12-2002

By the end of July 1999, he had returned to Hamburg, applying to study shipbuilding at the Technical University and, more significantly, residing once again with Atta and Binalshibh, in an apartment at 54 Marienstrasse.
9-11 Commission Report, p. 162, published 07-2004

During a briefing to GEN Schoomaker in September 1999, he specifically assigned me and STRATUS IVY to “help out on a special project”. [ ] the DIA Representative went about making sure that DIA was specifically requested in the JCS planning order to assign STRATUS IVY to support this special project, which he did. The next day I was briefed by Captain, then Lieutenant Commander, Scott Phillpott on ABLE DANGER. When Scott briefed me, I felt that this was the “E” ticket mission – the ultimate assignment.
Prepared Statement of Anthony A. Shaffer, p. 21, published 02-15-2006

In October 1999, at the radical Quds mosque in Hamburg, several men attended the wedding of Said Bahaji, a German-born Muslim of Moroccan descent who is believed to have been in charge of logistics for the local cell of Al Qaeda. Looking back, investigators see it as a gathering of the most important of the Sept. 11 terrorist teams just as the plotting began.

Among the men at the wedding were Mr. Atta, who was from a middle-class family in Egypt; Ziad al-Jarrah, who had left his native Lebanon in April 1996 to fulfill a dream of studying aeronautical engineering in Europe; and Marwan al-Shehhi, a citizen of the United Arab Emirates who, also arriving in Germany in 1996, seems to have been almost inseparable from Mr. Atta. Investigators believe that the men were at the controls of three of the four planes that were commandeered on Sept. 11.

Others were at the ceremony as well, men from several countries who investigators believe were part of the plot's network of support.

Among them, for example, was Mohammed Heidar Zammar, a German of Moroccan ancestry who is believed to have recruited for Al Qaeda among the young radical Muslims who prayed at the Quds mosque. Another was Ramzi bin al-Shibh of Yemen, a roommate of Mr. Atta in Hamburg and a man who would most likely have been among the hijackers, except his repeated applications for visas to the United States were turned down.
New York Times, published 09-10-2002

On November 29, 1999, Mohammed Atta traveled from Hamburg to Karachi through Istanbul. Before that, on October 23, 1999, Atta submitted an application over the Internet to the National Visa Service, a company that for a $50 fee helps individuals enter into a lottery for permanent residence status in the United States, also known as a "green card". Atta returned to Hamburg on February 25, 2000....

Atta was unsuccessful in obtaining a visa through his lottery applications submitted in October and November 1999.
Government Exhibit ST00001 01-455-A in US vs Zacarias Moussaoui , published 07-31-2006

SHAFFER:
Essentially, at the beginning of the program we didn’t know where to start. It had never been done before. To define a global target of this magnitude, which changes and adapts, was daunting. Therefore, the first stop was the Joint Warfare Analysis Center at Dahlgren [VA]. There was a conference there in the November / December timeframe of 1999, which went nowhere. Those guys did not understand the scope of trying to do neural-netting, human factor relationships and looking at linkages. They just didn’t have the capability at the time. Therefore, it was kind of a bust.
Government Security News, published 09-2005

Based on my knowledge of US Army’s Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) and its Information Dominance Center (IDC), I recommended to SOCOM leadership that they look at IDC’s capabilities for potential use on ABLE DANGER. Capt Phillpott visited LIWA in the late November 1999 timeframe and accepted my recommendation – SOCOM chose to partner with LIWA/IDC for ABLE DANGER.
Prepared Statement of Anthony A. Shaffer, p. 22, published 02-15-2006

The first to leave Hamburg for Afghanistan was Jarrah on Nov. 25, 1999. He flew to Karachi, Pakistan, via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines. Four days later, Atta followed, taking the same route. Al-Shehhi and then Binalshibh went next, although German investigators have not uncovered exact routes for the last two. Bahaji, Essabar and Motassadeq would not follow until spring 2000, according to German officials.

In Afghanistan, the new arrivals were taken to a guesthouse in Kandahar, called the Al-Ghumad House after the Saudi Al-Ghamdi tribe, according to the al-Jazeera interviews. There they met three Saudis in what Binalshibh described to al-Jazeera as a shura, or council, of the future pilots and key players.

Waiting in Kandahar was Khalid Almihdhar, a former Red Sea fisherman who came from Mecca, and Nawaf Alhazmi, a merchant also from Mecca, according to interviews with officials at the Saudi Interior Ministry's offices in Jiddah.

Both of them would die on American Airlines Flight 77, which struck the Pentagon. Also present in Kandahar, the Arab network reported, was the pilot of that flight, Hani Hanjour, from Naif, southeast of Jiddah. A former resident of the United States, he was frustrated in his desire to become a pilot for Saudi Airlines.
Washington Post, published 09-11-2002

In late December, however, plans were made to send them to the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur for a secret and important meeting the following month, a meeting that may have dealt with both plots, the USS Cole and September 11. The travel arrangements for Almihdhar and Alhamzi's trip were being put together at a safe house in Yemen used by Al Qaeda for logistics, and as a sort of clearinghouse for information to be passed on to bin Laden.

The building was owned by Almihdhar's father-in-law, Ahmed Al-Hada, a Yemeni and a follower of bin Laden. In a lucky break, the CIA had obtained the address and phone number as a result of an interrogation of one of the terrorists involved in the embassy bombing in Nairobi. NSA put the phone on it's watchlist and began listening. Then, in late December, details of the meeting in Kuala Lumpur were mentioned on a cell phone call to the house, along with the name "Khalid Almihdhar" and Alhamzi's first name, "Nawaf." NSA was able to intercept the call and passed the details to a special CIA unit called Alec Station.
Pretext for War, James Bamford, p. 174, published 06-2004

Other evidence has surfaced to suggest something big was being planned. German media have reported that Atta and two other Hamburg plotters reported their passports lost or stolen within two months of one another in 1999. German police speculate that they may have wanted new documents, without entry and exit stamps from countries such as Iraq or Afghanistan, before applying for U.S. visas in 2000.
Washington Post, published 09-20-2001

In early 2000, just before he arrived in Malaysia, we acquired a copy of "Khaled's" passport, which showed a US multiple entry visa issued in Jeddah in April 1999 and expiring on 6 April 2000.

It is at this point that we learned that "Khaled's" name was Khalid bin Muhammad bin `Abdallah al-Mihdhar (#12). This was the first point at which CIA had complete biographic information on al-Mihdhar.
Congressional Testimony of George Tenet, published 06-18-2002

The importance of Binalshibh's role has been sharpened by the belief that he was at the Malaysia meeting that investigators say was critical to the Sept. 11 plot. The sighting, based on photographs, had been the subject of some debate within the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities, U.S. officials said. The meeting was photographed by Malaysian intelligence at the request of the CIA.

"I've seen the photographs and I don't think there's any doubt that it's him," said a Western intelligence official....

Among those attending the summit were Tawfiq bin Atash, a senior aide to Osama bin Laden, as well as two Sept. 11 hijackers, Saudi nationals Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi. The presence of Binalshibh is the earliest clear evidence of a link between the German-based hijackers and the larger group of Saudis.

"When Binalshibh went to the meeting in Malaysia in 2000, that's when they got the plans to go ahead with this thing," said the Western intelligence official.
Washington Post, published 07-14-2002

On 5 January 2000, the US intelligence community widely disseminated an information report advising that "Khaled", identified as an individual with ties to members of the Bin Ladin organization, had arrived in Malaysia.
Congressional Testimony of George Tenet, published 06-18-2002

It was not until 5 March 2000 that we obtained information from one of our overseas stations that enabled us to identify "Nawaf" as Nawaf al-Hazmi (#14). This was the earliest time that CIA had full biographic information on al-Hazmi (#14). By that time, both al-Hazmi (#14) and al-Mihdhar (#12) had entered the US, arriving on 15 January 2000 in Los Angeles.
Congressional Testimony of George Tenet, published 06-18-2002

January 18. Marwan al Shehhi, an Emirati, was issued a ten-year B-1/B-2 (tourist/business) visa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Shehhi submitted a new passport with his visa application. Although his application was destroyed prior to September 11, 2001, pursuant to routine document handling policies, an electronic record was maintained by State. The consular officer who issued the visa said Shehhi probably was not interviewed, explaining that UAE nationals were not interviewed in connection with their visa applications unless - as did not happen in this case - there was a watchlist “hit.” UAE nationals were considered good visa risks both on economic and on security grounds.
9-11 Commission Report, Terrorist Travel Monograph, published 08-21-2004

An active-duty Navy captain has become the second military officer to come forward publicly to say that a secret intelligence program tagged the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks as a possible terrorist more than a year before the attacks.

The officer, Scott J. Phillpott, said in a statement on Monday that he could not discuss details of the military program, which was called Able Danger, but confirmed that its analysts had identified the Sept. 11 ringleader, Mohamed Atta, by name by early 2000. "My story is consistent," said Captain Phillpott, who managed the program for the Pentagon's Special Operations Command. "Atta was identified by Able Danger by January-February of 2000."
New York Times, published 08-23-2005

In the late January early February 2000 timeframe, when SOCOM lawyers review the LIWA data, all information relating to Atta, and the other terrorists that are identified as working and living in the U.S. or have connections to U.S. Persons become “off limits” due to their “U.S. Person” status. The ABLE DANGER team members, according to Captain Phillpott, are restricted from review, use or exploitation of the information because of their (SOCOM Lawyers) policy that we could not use “U.S. Person” information in the planning effort. I witness this effect directly through my repeated reserve tours with ABLE DANGER and did see one of the original runs of LIWA information charts that had a quadrant of “yellow stickies” that covered the faces of the individuals whom the SOCOM lawyers had determined were “off limits” to the ABLE DANGER effort.
Prepared Statement of Anthony A. Shaffer, p. 22, published 02-15-2006

DCI Tenet testified that Atta may have traveled to Afghanistan for the first time in early 1998. In June 1998, he applied for a new passport in Egypt, although his old one had not expired. This suggested, according to the DCI, “that he might have been trying to hide evidence of his travel to Afghanistan.” On November 29, 1999, Atta flew from Hamburg to Istanbul and then to Karachi. He left Pakistan to return to Hamburg on February 25, 2000.
Joint Congressional Inquiry, p. 134, published 12-2002

ZAID: Mr. Smith would have indicated that he was tasked by individuals associated with Able Danger, again not knowing it was Able Danger, to compile unclassified information, that they then put into charts like Congressman Weldon had brought today and looked somewhat similar -- some were that size, some were smaller -- containing massive amounts of data; that these were associational links; that at least one chart in particular which he, in fact, kept on his office wall until the summer of 2004 when it had been destroyed after he tried to move it for an office move and then junked it, had Mohammed Atta and potentially -- according to other team members; he doesn't recall this -- three others of the 20 hijackers of 9/11.

In fact, as well, he would have made one mention that at some point in time -- he was not there at this time -- that armed federal agents came to Orion in around March or April of 2000 and confiscated many or much of the data that Orion had compiled with respect to this contract.

They never obtained his data or his charts because, given that it was unclassified, they actually were in the trunk of his car. And so that's why he was able to maintain these charts.

After the summer of 2000 or even the spring of 2000, that contract ceased to exist, so he no longer participated in any of the efforts.
Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing, published 09-21-2005

Atta returned to Germany from Afghanistan through Pakistan in February 2000. On
March 1, he sent the first of a series of e-mails to pilot training schools in Lakeland, Florida and
Norman, Oklahoma.
Joint Congressional Inquiry, p. 136, published 12-2002

Apr-May 2000. Army LIWA/IDC gets cold feet due to “oversight” and U.S. Person issues. Despite a “personal for” message from GEN Schoomaker, Commander SOCOM to GEN Shinseki, Chief of Staff of the Army, to allow LIWA/IDC to continue to support the ABLE DANGER effort, the message is never answered and Army lawyers (in particular, Tom Taylor from the information I was provided at the time by Army staff officers) effectively shuts down all army support. GEN Schoomaker directs the establishment of a replica of the LIWA/IDC technology – at a classified location.
Prepared Statement of Anthony A. Shaffer, p. 24, published 02-15-2006

KLEINSMITH: I deleted that data roughly May, June time frame of 2000.

SPECTER: May, June 2000.

And did somebody instruct you to delete the information?

KLEINSMITH: We were visited by INSCOM's general counsel, and the man was named Tony Gentry. But he was only there 10 days prior to remind me of the intelligence regulation that we are operating under....

So that while we were shut down, we were unable to do any other further analysis, vetting of data or investigation into the data that we had polled.

Because of that, the 90-day mark had hit and he came back down to remind me again, and it was more of a friendly visit not an adversarial visit, and that was when he told me jokingly, "Remember, delete this data, or you guys will go to jail." And that's ha-ha, very funny -- understanding completely we abide by the regulation so we deleted the data and destroyed the charts that we had also....
Judiciary Committee Hearing, published 09-21-2005

May 17. Mohammed Atta, an Egyptian, applied for and on the next day received a five year B-1/B-2(tourist/business) visa from the U.S. embassy in Berlin, Germany. The consular officer who adjudicated this visa said Atta “definitely” was not interviewed.

According to the officer, because he was a third country national who had long been resident in Germany (approximately five years), the visa interview requirement was waived, and Atta was “basically treated like” a German citizen. German citizens do not need visas, as they participate in a “visa waiver” program. Another factor in his favor was Atta’s strong record as a student in Germany. Atta’s visa application was destroyed prior to 9/11 pursuant to State Department policy then in effect, so we were able to review only the electronic record of his application.
9-11 Commission Report, Terror Travel Monograph, published 08-21-2004

Investigators confirmed that Atta and the second man rented rooms in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and are trying to identify anyone who might have supported them.

Atta's trail in Brooklyn began with a parking ticket issued to a rental car he was driving, said a senior Justice Department official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity....

Marwan Al-Shehhi, a hijacker believed to be a relative of Atta, entered the United States at about the same time. Atta and Al-Shehhi are believed to have been at the controls of the planes that hit the World Trade Center.

Atta, an Egyptian with ties to Islamic fundamentalists in Germany, flew to Newark, N.J., on June 2, 2000 from Prague in the Czech Republic, Czech authorities have said. The trip is his earliest confirmed visit to the United States.
Associated Press, published 12-08-2001

Aug 2000. DIA’s Directorate of Intelligence (DI) refuses at first to provide SOCOM 100% of all DIA information. Eventually, the DI gives in, but forces the DO to “pick up and sign for” the DIA information. The DIA/DI provides the information in a “unusable” format – but due to an experienced Raytheon programmer being assigned, she is able to create an algorithim that corrects the problem; it is believed that DIA provided the data in an unusable form intentionally.
Prepared Statement of Anthony A. Shaffer, p. 25, published 02-15-2006

WELDON: Yes. Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer was prepared to testify -- his lawyer will testify today -- that he on three occasions set up meetings with the FBI Washington field office.

The woman who set those meetings up is prepared to testify. Your staff has met with her and they've interviewed her. And she also was prohibited from testifying. But she knew the purpose of the meetings. The meetings were designed to allow the special forces unit of Able Danger to transfer relevant information they thought important to the FBI about the Brooklyn cell, which included Mohammed Atta and three of the terrorists.

This information was largely gathered from open sources. On three separate occasions in September [of 2000], at the last minute lawyers -- I assume from within DOD, and we still haven't determined who made the ultimate decision -- but lawyers determined that those meetings could not take place and they were shut down....

SPECTER: The FBI agent you referred to a few moments ago was Xanthig Mangum?

WELDON: Yes.
Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing, published 09-21-2005

Sep-Oct 2000. The ABLE DANGER effort is established and up and running. GEN Schoomaker retires in Oct 2000, to be replaced by Air Force GEN Holland.
Prepared Statement of Anthony A. Shaffer, p. 26, published 02-15-2006

Within the last three weeks I've had an extensive meeting with Doctor Bob Johnson. Doctor Bob Johnson is Sam Johnson's son. Doctor Bob Johnson is a professor and IT expert. Doctor Bob Johnson was the manager and operator of the Garland Unit of data mining separate from the Army's LIWA. Doctor Bob Johnson has not talked to any of the Able Danger players since the efforts that were taking place in '99 and 2000 and Doctor Bob Johnson told me that his unit also identified Mohamed Atta, not by photo but by name, before 9/11. So now we have two separate data mining efforts of the military openly and willingly stating on the record that they identified Mohamed Atta before 9/11.
Congressman Curt Weldon Press Conference, published 11-09-2005

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.

To the best of our knowledge, and through the course of our interviews, that information was not of actionable quality. It was not of predictive quality. It was a general feel and a general beginning of bad things, for lack of a better way to put it, in Yemen in general, sir.
House Armed Services Committee Hearing, published 02-15-2006

SHAFFER: My understanding -- and this is not my direct knowledge, but information I received from Captain Philpot -- they discovered information about two weeks before the Cole attack, about the 1st of October, that there was activities of interest within the Port of Aden in Yemen. That information was researched by the intelligence analysts, and two days before the attack, was briefed to General Schoomaker, the commander of Special Operations Command.

WELDON: Do you know what happened to it?

SHAFFER: I know that one of the individuals who was integrated within the Able Danger element at Garland, Texas, was a CENTCOM intelligence representative. It is my understanding that information was provided from Captain Philpot to the CENTCOM intelligence representative, at which time Captain Philpot requested they do something with it, they take action on it.
House Armed Services Committee Hearing, published 02-15-2006

The U.S. inquiry is under way into the Oct. 12 terrorist bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen told reporters here Oct. 16.

The toll in the Cole attack is seven sailors confirmed dead, 10 sailors missing and presumed dead, and more than 30 others injured. Navy officials estimated Oct. 16 that ongoing recovery operations would retrieve the remains of all the dead by Oct. 19.
American Forces Information Service, published 10-17-2000

The National Security Agency, which conducts electronic eavesdropping around the world, received an intelligence intercept about terrorists planning for an attack against the United States. On the day the Cole bombing was carried out, NSA produced a top secret intelligence report warning that terrorists were planning an attack on an American target in the Middle East. But the NSA report was not dispatched until several hours after the bombing. The report, according to officials who were familiar with the top secret intelligence, stated that unidentified terrorists were involved in "operational planning" for an attack on U.S. or Israeli personnel or property in the Middle East. One official said the warning was specific as to an attack in Yemen. Congressman Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican and a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, agreed that the NSA report was specific. He investigated the NSA warning and told me that the warning "related specifically to Yemen." But other officials claimed the NSA's intercept was more general and referred to the Persian Gulf region. Either way, it was accurate. The intercept stated that a member of a terrorist group had been tracked to Dubai and Beirut and was planning terrorist operations.
Breakdown, Bill Gertz, p. 51, published 09-2002

Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen will speak at the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) change of command ceremony at 10 a.m., Friday Oct. 27, 2000, at the Tampa Convention Center, Tampa, Fla. Air Force Gen. Charles R. Holland will assume command from Army Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker as commander in chief, U.S. SOCOM.
Department of Defense Press Advisory, published 10-26-2000

As best we can ascertain, U.S. SOCOM had Raytheon, at the end of its effort in November of 2000, take most of the data that had been generated at Raytheon, and take it out of its system, essentially to purge it. A small percentage of information, roughly about one percent of that developed at Garland, was in turn transferred over to U.S. Special Operations Command.
Congressional Testimony of Steve Cambone, published 02-15-2006

GEN Holland, in my judgment, did not understand the concept, and orders the effort (Dec 2000) to terminate its activities in Garland, TX and for the personnel to return to Tampa – there he directs the ABLE DANGER effort become a J2/intelligence effort and the Special Operations Joint Intelligence Center (SOJIC) is created in its place.
Prepared Statement of Anthony A. Shaffer, p. 26, published 02-15-2006

On the eve of the eight year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, an FBI informant who infiltrated alleged terrorist cells in the U.S. tells ABC News the FBI missed a chance to stop the al Qaeda plot because they focused more on undercover stings than on the man who would later become known as 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta.

In an exclusive interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC World News with Charles Gibson and Nightline, former undercover operative Elie Assaad says he spotted and became suspicious of Atta in early 2001, when he was sent by the FBI to infiltrate a small mosque outside Miami. Atta was there with Adnan Shukrujuman, an al Qaeda fugitive who now has a $5 million U.S. reward on his head.

"There was something wrong with these guys," Assaad, a 36-year-old Catholic native of Lebanon who pretended to be an Islamic extremist, says.

The FBI initially declined to comment but released a statement following the ABC News report, saying: "The 9/11 investigation, the most extensive ever conducted by the FBI, has been reviewed in its totality by the 9/11 Commission, Congress and others. The claims made in the news report and the factual conclusions contained in the story are not supported by the evidence."
ABC News, published 09-10-2009

January-March 2001. DIA is requested to provide updated info for the effort to be re-established in Tampa. DIA begins to drag its feet across the board with the departure of LTG Hughes, MG Harding and COL York. STRATUS IVY is prohibited by DIA/DO’s new leadership, MG Isler, from participating in the NSA and DIA data transfer.
Prepared Statement of Anthony A. Shaffer, p. 26, published 02-15-2006

MG Rod Isler, MG Bob Harding’s replacement as Deputy Director for Operations overseeing Defense HUMINT in the spring of 2001, who opposed every sensitive operation that my unit, STRATUS IVY, was conducting for DoD and other U.S. Government agencies. In a spring 2001 confrontation over several controversial, cutting edge operations, to include one directed by the then Vice Admiral Tom Wilson to seek out information on a specific classified target, a process that paralleled the ABLE DANGER methodology, MG Isler ordered STRATUS IVY and me to “cease all support” to ABLE DANGER in the February 2001 timeframe. At the point of near insubordination, I fought the decision – this action cost me my job as chief of STRATUS IVY.
Prepared Statement of Anthony A. Shaffer, p. 17, published 02-15-2006

Spring 2001. The Special Operations Joint Integration Center (SOJIC) is created – watered down by Mitre contractors – the teeth and operational focus were removed and the capability to do the complex data mining and mission planning support (leadership support) is eliminated.
Prepared Statement of Anthony A. Shaffer, published 02-15-2006

Scott Phillpott calls me in desperation in the May 2001 timeframe on my mobile phone. He asked if he can bring “the ABLE DANGER options” that ABLE DANGER had come up with to DC and to use one of my STRATUS IVY facilities to do the work. I tell him with all candor that I would love nothing better than to loan him my facility and work the options with him (to exploit them for both Intel potential and for actual offensive operations) but tell him that my DIA chain of command has directed me to stop all support to him and the project. In good faith, I ask my boss, COL Mary Moffitt if I can help Scott and exploit the options – and that there would be a DIA quid pro quo of obtaining new “lead” information from the project. She takes offense at me even mentioning ABLE DANGER in this conversation, tells me that I am being insubordinate, and begins the process of removing me from my position as chief of STRATUS IVY. As a direct result of this conversation, she directs that I be “moved” to a desk officer position to oversee Defense HUMINT operations in Latin America.
Prepared Statement of Anthony A. Shaffer, p. 28, published 02-15-2006

We are attacked.
CNN, published 09-11-2001