The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Which sources were used by the 9/11 Commission to Whitewash Able Danger testimony?
It really comes down to one question: regarding the whereabouts of Mohammed Atta, did the 9/11 Commission believe the testimony of Al Qaeda terrorists or did it believe the testimony of three Army Intelligence officers who gave conflicting testimony? Answer: they went with the terrorists. Ed Morrissey writes a full report for the Weekly Standard website, a portion of which is quoted below:
There are two timelines for Mohammed Atta's whereabouts in April 2001.
One is provided by American intelligence officers, the other by terrorists.
The ongoing controversy over the Able Danger project deepened this week when two more sources from the U.S. Army data-mining project came forward. Navy Captain Scott Phillpott and civilian contractor James Smith joined Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer in claiming that Able Danger identified Mohammed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers as potential al Qaeda operatives well before the attacks. Phillpott specifically told the New York Times when he went public that Able Danger made that connection between January and February of 2000, 19 months before the attack.
However, that puts the Able Danger scenario in conflict, again, with the 9/11 Commission's final report--this time on the Atta travel timeline. On pages 167-168 of the report, the Commission provides a narrative of the Hamburg cell movements during this period:
After leaving Afghanistan, the four began researching flight schools and aviation training. In early January 2000, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali--a nephew of KSM living in the UAE who would become an important facilitator in the plot--used Shehhi's credit card to order a Boeing 747-400 flight simulator program and a Boeing 767 flight deck video, together with attendant literature; Ali had all these items shipped to his employer's address. Jarrah soon decided that the schools in Germany were not acceptable and that he would have to learn to fly in the United States. Binalshibh also researched flight schools in Europe, and in the Netherlands he met a flight school director who recommended flight schools in the United States because they were less expensive and required shorter training periods.
In March 2000, Atta emailed 31 different U.S. flight schools on behalf of a small group of men from various Arab countries studying in Germany who, while lacking prior training, were interested in learning to fly in the United States. Atta requested information about the cost of the training, potential financing, and accommodations.
The Able Danger team has insisted it made the identification of Atta while he lived inside the United States, however. This created the problem that kept them from coordinating with the FBI when their analysis pointed out this potential terrorist cell. Had they identified Atta and his cohorts while in Hamburg, Able Danger could easily have notified the State Department of their suspicions and kept cell members from getting visas.
If Atta had already made it to the United States, how did the Commission establish this timeline? They deduced it from FBI interrogations of three sources: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, two of the plotters who helped create the 9/11 attacks, and Mohammed's nephew Ali Abdul Aziz Ali. The footnotes in the Report to the Atta timeline paragraphs give almost no corroborative evidence besides that of the testimony of these men--who have little motivation to cooperate honestly with American investigators.
Could the "intelligence" gleaned from the interrogations of these al Qaeda plotters and high-level terrorists have been an attempt at disinformation?
When you compare that "intelligence" to hard military intel that was also given to the 9/11 Panel, and which was basically ignored by the panel in favor of the testimony from terrorist enemies of the United States, something is decidedly rotten in Denmark.
There is much more to come on this story. There is only so long that the stench of a rotting and decomposing corpse can be hidden. And this one is already beginning to smell to the high heavens.
There are two timelines for Mohammed Atta's whereabouts in April 2001.
One is provided by American intelligence officers, the other by terrorists.
The ongoing controversy over the Able Danger project deepened this week when two more sources from the U.S. Army data-mining project came forward. Navy Captain Scott Phillpott and civilian contractor James Smith joined Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer in claiming that Able Danger identified Mohammed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers as potential al Qaeda operatives well before the attacks. Phillpott specifically told the New York Times when he went public that Able Danger made that connection between January and February of 2000, 19 months before the attack.
However, that puts the Able Danger scenario in conflict, again, with the 9/11 Commission's final report--this time on the Atta travel timeline. On pages 167-168 of the report, the Commission provides a narrative of the Hamburg cell movements during this period:
After leaving Afghanistan, the four began researching flight schools and aviation training. In early January 2000, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali--a nephew of KSM living in the UAE who would become an important facilitator in the plot--used Shehhi's credit card to order a Boeing 747-400 flight simulator program and a Boeing 767 flight deck video, together with attendant literature; Ali had all these items shipped to his employer's address. Jarrah soon decided that the schools in Germany were not acceptable and that he would have to learn to fly in the United States. Binalshibh also researched flight schools in Europe, and in the Netherlands he met a flight school director who recommended flight schools in the United States because they were less expensive and required shorter training periods.
In March 2000, Atta emailed 31 different U.S. flight schools on behalf of a small group of men from various Arab countries studying in Germany who, while lacking prior training, were interested in learning to fly in the United States. Atta requested information about the cost of the training, potential financing, and accommodations.
The Able Danger team has insisted it made the identification of Atta while he lived inside the United States, however. This created the problem that kept them from coordinating with the FBI when their analysis pointed out this potential terrorist cell. Had they identified Atta and his cohorts while in Hamburg, Able Danger could easily have notified the State Department of their suspicions and kept cell members from getting visas.
If Atta had already made it to the United States, how did the Commission establish this timeline? They deduced it from FBI interrogations of three sources: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, two of the plotters who helped create the 9/11 attacks, and Mohammed's nephew Ali Abdul Aziz Ali. The footnotes in the Report to the Atta timeline paragraphs give almost no corroborative evidence besides that of the testimony of these men--who have little motivation to cooperate honestly with American investigators.
Could the "intelligence" gleaned from the interrogations of these al Qaeda plotters and high-level terrorists have been an attempt at disinformation?
When you compare that "intelligence" to hard military intel that was also given to the 9/11 Panel, and which was basically ignored by the panel in favor of the testimony from terrorist enemies of the United States, something is decidedly rotten in Denmark.
There is much more to come on this story. There is only so long that the stench of a rotting and decomposing corpse can be hidden. And this one is already beginning to smell to the high heavens.
