Pentagon's Able Danger Report

Details aside, the CTists will dismiss it because of
a) the source and
b) the summary
The investigation addressed nine specific allegations raised by the media and by various members of Congress. We did not substantiate those allegations. The evidence did not support assertions that Able Danger identified the September 11, 2001, terrorists nearly a year before the attack, that Able Danger team members were prohibited from sharing information with law enforcement authorities, or that DoD officials reprised against LTC Shaffer for his disclosures regarding Able Danger.
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I'll look it over this afternoon; got about an hour to kill before my next appointment. I'm already wincing; the report starts of with a "Forward". Uh, it's "Foreword", guys!
 
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2573663&page=2

This was contained on page 2 of the above story which came out today:

The search warrants were executed, in part, because of news reports over the weekend exposing the federal investigation, according to the Washington official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing inquiry. Typically, such searches are sped up to prevent any evidence from being destroyed.

Weldon, regarded by some as a foreign policy expert, has clashed at times with the Bush administration. In the last year, he has repeatedly said a secret military unit called "Able Danger" used data-mining to link four Sept. 11 hijackers to al-Qaida more than a year before the attacks. A Pentagon report rejected the idea.
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The FBI conducted the raids of Rep Weldon (R-PA)’s daughter and her business partner’s office and homes in Florida ostensibly in conjunction with other charges involving Weldon’s influence in getting his daughter and her partner foreign lobbying contracts.
 
SteveGrenard said:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2573663&page=2

This was contained on page 2 of the above story which came out today:

The FBI conducted the raids of Rep Weldon (R-PA)’s daughter and her business partner’s office and homes in Florida ostensibly in conjunction with other charges involving Weldon’s influence in getting his daughter and her partner foreign lobbying contracts.
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Uh-oh. Hey, DR and Brainster, remember: if you can't say anything nice about the report, don't say anything at all!
 
Gravy said:
Good man!
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Gravy

I hate reading IG reports. This is not the first I have ever read. Remembered pain still hurts. I have writen appendices for two IG reports. My brain hurts, Mr Gravy! :(

1. The report is unclassified. The DoD IG admits as much up front, and points out that certain detail remains classified. Those details lead us to believe . . . I am not sure what. Most names redacted. Some paragraphs redacted. (Late pages) I saw EEFI all over that was not redacted. I am irritated at the IG for leaving personal identification info so brazenly unprotected in a public document. That sloppiness does not influence the credibility of the report.

2. Pages 63-88 of the report are still held up in a FOIA request. There should be more to come. I expect some of that is also classified.

3. The report conclusively shows nothing, but reasonably demonstrates the following

-- LTC Schaeffer and some others involved in that project had problems handling classified information at levels above Secret. :mad:

-- The government JAG corps was all over Able Danger due to the collection activity (this was pre 9-11, mostly in 2000) that included info on US persons. The info/classified/privacy act destruction criterion was overseen with brute force. A three star got personally interested in all Able Danger data being destroyed (before 9-11) to ensure prohibitions on retaining info on US persons was complied with, without error.

-- Atta's name cropping up during that program left the investigators a bit leary of the "post hoc" nature of recollections. Nowhere in the paper did I see a linkage to USCENTCOM, the combatant commander whose AOR Osama played in pre 9-11. CENTCOM would be who acted on actionable intelligence versus Osama, unless a super-black-green-door-secret-op by "those who shall not be named" (Delta Force) under USSOCOM were to be undertaken. Col Flagg, where are you? ;) FBI would act on a US cell, like Atta's, and DoD FBI liaison was rough.

-- FBI-DoD interface appears to have been clumsy. Conflicting evidence in the interviews.

-- Able Danger was for its short life a proof of concept project that terminated for reasons that included budget, and the thorny problem of collecting data in the method proposed on US persons. LIWA (one of the groups Able Danger worked with) and the military JAGs seem to have tipped the balance toward termination. Again, this is pre 9-11, with generals and JAGs frowning at passing data on US persons. (Stovepipe problem) I infer that USCENTCOM and USSOCOM were unable to overcome that hurdle (from their own JAGs' advice?) with sufficient confidence to continue the program as initially conceived.

-- The briefings to Scooter Libby were after 9-11, (25 Sept) at which point Atta's identification was / is moot. Some in the intelligence community were most likely unwilling to admit "we knew who this guy was, but we were unable to put all the puzzle pieces together and pre empt his moves." No evidence of that level of detail, based on this unclassified report.

Note: Consider the climate immediately post 9-11. I expect a lot of intel folks were attempting to duck the Pointed Finger of Scapegoating Shame. Troofers read "cover up" when it is really "arse covering."

-- The data analysis tools were apparently something USSOCOM wanted. I am guessing Raytheon (who had about a 5 month contract to develop the tools and methods during th eproject) got a follow-on contract to use the tools and methods to support SOCOM (perhaps even NSA). Recall last year's hullaballoo over collecting data on US persons. (FISA)

-- The testimony of various witnesses and interviewees conflicted. The documentary data, memos, emails, records, MOR's, are Not In The Package. Most are probably classified. With interview data alone, you have people relying on memory of 3 years back, with the expected mismatches of recollection, "he said she said," and "he's full of BS" cropping up rather frequently.

-- LTC Schaeffer was not in charge of much of anything on that project, though he was apparently involved in a lot of interesting projects and coordination at various points in the program's life. He spent some months in Afghanistan 2003-2004, in Bagram and Kabul. While overseas, he apparently got his clearance for TS/SCI pulled. Redacted are some paragraphs that tell why, though the unclass words say "he had his clearance pulled for a legal and sufficient reason" rather than for anything he told Curt Weldon.

Note: If I had ever handled TS material the way the IG report says Schaeffer did, I'd be in jail. :mad:

Bottom line:

-- Details still classified
-- No smoking gun
-- Schaeffer's career is over
-- Not a few people (just a sense from reading the packaged writing of the IG team) playing "I don't recall" a la Reagan in self defense.
-- A comedy of errors in the reading, due to "he said, she said."

Consider: One of the persons (now retired) on the program was able to refuse the IG's request for an interview. I found that strange. I am not sure DoD had a motive for wanting to look like a gang of fools. How far the IG was told to dig is a mystery to me. Their TOR was not part of the package.

-- No evidence that Able Danger's folding prevented assessment of actionable intelligence on Mohammed Atta from reaching FBI in a form that would have been the golden straw that broke Osama's Camel's Back for the 9-11 op. Post hoc remembrances of Atta on a chart with 50 faces, or a name, is not actionable intelligence. Example: The toughest part of getting Zarqawi was actionable intelligence. (It took two years)

Caveat: Since this unclassified report is a partial look, the Troofers will quote mine a bit here and there about FBI-DoD communication failures and claim conspiracy. (I tried to C & P but Adobe would not let me text select.) Some interviewees asserted that FBI and DoD cooperation was explicitly hindered.

The matter of collecting data on US persons appears to be a contributing factor there, and one Colonel who missed some FBI-DoD meetings. A request to DoD secretariat level was apparently made, or was needed, to allow that info transfer. DoD counsel or the JAG's seemed to advise that due to DoD regs 5240-1R, the bulk of the info could not be passed for fear of breaking the law. (FISA?) So, it was destroyed in accordance with DoD regulations. Before 9-11. Protecting citizens' privacy will doubtless be construed as a cover up by the Troofer idiots.

DR
 
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I read through the Atta section of the report. Essentially what it boils down to is people recollecting after 9-11 that they had seen his photo and/or his name on a chart that had been prepared for Able Danger using software, as part of a "Brooklyn Cell" that was linked to Al Qaeda. However, the people are maddeningly inconsistent on the details; one Dr (a woman) first claimed that she'd seen a picture and then later that she'd just seen the name Atta, which had stuck with her for over a year until 9-11.

One guy claimed to have gotten a bunch of charts that were moderately spoiled during the printing process and that one of those was the Able Danger chart including Atta's name and photo. He said that after 9-11 he put the chart up on his office wall and showed it to many people, but none could be located who recalled Atta's name and face--highly unlikely, as remember, this was well after 9-11. He also claimed that the chart "disintegrated" when he tried to take it down off the wall.

I suspect what we have here is a couple people BSing to make themselves sound like big shots, and a bunch of other people who were told after 9-11 that other people had seen a chart, and that morphing into them recollecting seeing the chart themselves.

Some telling points:

1. Wouldn't the Able Danger people have made a big stink at the time within the military that they had identified the terrorists? The program had been shuttered; this would have been an excellent opportunity to get it up and running again.

2. The people most intimately involved with Able Danger did not recall Atta's name coming up; it was two people who were only peripherally involved. LTC Schaffer, one of those recalling Atta's name and picture, claimed to have seen the chart on September 18, 2001. If that was so, wouldn't he have provided the chart to intelligence and law enforcement officials, who at the time were concerned with the possibility that other hijackers were out there who had been prevented from boarding flights by the nationwide groundstop?
 
Thanks for the in-depth analysis, DR and Brainster. I sounds as if the CTs have no right to use this in their (ahem!) arsenal, but that things were mucked up enough, and will remain secret enough, to feed their fantasies.
 
Gravy said:
Thanks for the in-depth analysis, DR and Brainster. I sounds as if the CTs have no right to use this in their (ahem!) arsenal, but that things were mucked up enough, and will remain secret enough, to feed their fantasies.
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Their whole *ahem* "arsenal" is made up of such things Gravy. This thing is tailor made to set their little paranoid heads a-spinning. It appears to me that at this point we're not debunking anything anymore. To me it feels more like a psychological autopsy. Actually that's the only compellingly interesting thing left about this entire subject.

-z
 
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