Interesting news on Able Danger

The following is an E-mail I received just a bit ago that has had all E-mail addresses expunged:

> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 17:22
> To:
> Subject: FW: [Fwd: GENERAL HUGH SHELTON GAVE OK FOR ABLE DANGER]
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 17:12
> To:
> Subject: [Fwd: GENERAL HUGH SHELTON GAVE OK FOR ABLE DANGER]
>
>
> ---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
> Subject: GENERAL HUGH SHELTON GAVE OK FOR ABLE DANGER
> From:
> Date: Thu, December 8, 2005 5:04 pm
> To:
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Posted on Thu, Dec. 08, 2005
>
> General gave OK for Able Danger
>
>
> Former military chief confirms al-Qaida mission
>
> By James Rosen
>
>
> McClatchy News Service
>
> WASHINGTON -- Gen. Hugh Shelton, who was the military's top commander
> during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, confirmed that four years before the
> tragedy he authorized a secret computer data-mining initiative to track
> down Osama bin Laden and operatives in the fugitive terrorist's al-Qaida
> network.
>
> 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 the Sept. 11 attacks.
>
> "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 Monday in an interview.
>
> "It was just kind of an experiment," Shelton said. "What can we do? So, he
> pulled together a bunch of really bright, computer-literate guys from
> across the services."
>
> Shelton's assertions are significant because they raise new questions
> about the government's knowledge of the al-Qaida network before the Sept.
> 11 attacks and about the subsequent findings of a commission that
> Congress set up to probe the attacks.
>
> Shelton was responding to claims by former Pentagon intelligence officers,
> who say they used a data-mining program code-named Able Danger to
> identify ringleader Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers in early 2000
> but that Pentagon lawyers blocked them from relaying their findings to
> the FBI.
>
> Before the Defense Department issued a gag order that prevented them from
> testifying to Congress in September, the former intelligence officers said
> they were assigned to use sophisticated software to perform complex
> computer searches of "open-source" data in a bid to locate links among
> al-Qaida operatives.
>
> Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott said he led the program that identified Atta in
> January or February 2000. Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer said Shelton had
> issued a directive establishing Able Danger, and that he and other
> intelligence officers on the top-secret program briefed Shelton on its
> findings in early 2001.
>
> In its final report last year, the Sept. 11 commission spread blame across
> the government but said it had not identified any of the 19 hijackers
> before the attacks. The panel Monday gave the government poor grades on
> implementing its post-Sept. 11 recommendations, some of which aimed at
> increasing the sharing of potential terrorism intelligence among
> different agencies.
>
> Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., who has led a congressional push for the Pentagon
> to allow open Able Danger hearings, said the Sept. 11 commission failed
> to adequately investigate the program or its findings.
>
> "This is not Curt Weldon speaking," Weldon told Fox News on Monday. "These
> are senior military intelligence officers. These are not people off the
> street. One's a Naval Academy graduate. Both of them have 23 years of>
> experience. The analysts who worked this program are all in sync."
>
> Lee Hamilton, a former Indiana Democratic lawmaker who was vice chairman
> of the Sept. 11 panel, said its staff interviewed the intelligence
> officers at the center of the Able Danger saga.
>
> "They claim to have information about Mohammed Atta, and they claim to
> have this chart, but they cannot produce it," Hamilton said Monday in an
> interview. "If these folks have documentary evidence, let's bring it
> forward."
>
> Despite an exhaustive two-year probe, Hamilton said, the commission might
> have missed important clues about the Sept. 11 attacks.
>
> "We're still looking at the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F.
> Kennedy," he said. "That's OK. And it may very well be that there are
> documents (related to Sept. 11) that we missed. We looked at over 2
> million documents and had a very good staff, but it's possible we missed
> something."

Make of it what you will...

--WP