Stingray: Able Danger disclosure raises serious questions

August 27, 2005

Able Danger disclosure raises serious questions

by Michael McCullough at 11:42 PM

Gary Palmer’s article, Able Danger disclosure raises serious questions, appearing in The South Alabamian, of all places, makes some excellent points:

The recent disclosure that a covert military intelligence unit code named Able Danger had information about four of the 9 - 11 terrorists and therefore might have prevented the attacks has raised serious questions about the work of the 9 - 11 Commission and the report they issued last year.

As you may recall, the highly politicized 9 - 11 Commission spent several months investigating the events that led to the deadly terrorist attacks that took place on September 11, 2001. When the Commission finally published its report, it basically concluded that while there were intelligence and law enforcement lapses by both the Clinton and Bush administrations, no one could have prevented the attacks.

But that conclusion could change if the claims about Able Danger are verified. According to Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer, had the 9 -11 Commission thoroughly investigated the findings of Able Danger, the commission report would have focused on the legal obstacles put in place by the Clinton Administration that prevented the FBI, the CIA, and apparently the US military intelligence from exchanging information that could possibly have prevented the deaths of over 3,000 people.

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The fact that the chairman and vice-chairman would attempt to mislead the public about the Commission’s knowledge of the Able Danger information is more than a little troubling. Such denials give substantial credence to those that believe the Commission deliberately engaged in a cover up of information vital to understanding the full scope of the security lapses that allowed the attacks to succeed. Many people believe these security lapses were the result of legal barriers that were created between various federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies by 9 - 11 Commission member Jamie Gorelick while she served as Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton Administration.

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In addition, there may be other information in Able Danger that could have significant ramifications in regard to the war in Iraq. Specifically, there is speculation that Able Danger links the 9 - 11 hijackers and Osama bin Laden to Iraq. Apparently, Able Danger supports information from the Czech Republic’s intelligence service that Atta meet with the Iraqi ambassador at the Prague airport on April 9, 2001. The CIA and the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) dispute the Czech intelligence report.

Even so, Czech intelligence informed the U.S. about this meeting shortly after the 9 - 11 attacks. In addition, other intelligence documents indicate that two of the four terrorists that piloted the hijacked airliners were in Germany from late 2000 to early 2001. It was during that time that German authorities arrested two Iraqi agents on charges of spying. One of the hijacker pilots, Ziad Jarrah, left Germany the same week that the Germans arrested the Iraqi agents. Reporting on the arrests, the Paris-based Islamic newspaper al-Watan al-Arabi linked Iraq to radical Islamic groups and Osama bin Laden. The paper reported that the Iraqi agents were part of an Iraqi operation to form a network of terrorist alliances to strike US interests. This information is also not in the Commission’s report.