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Able Danger warned of attack on USS Cole
By: KEITH PHUCAS
Times Herald Staff
10/25/05 "Times
Herald" -- -- NORRISTOWN - Senior Pentagon officials
were warned not to let the USS Cole dock in Yemen two days before
terrorists attacked the ship five years ago killing 17 sailors,
according to Congressman Curt Weldon, who said the crucial
intelligence was gleaned from the former secret defense operation,
"Able Danger."
Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee,
revealed the information in a House speech last Wednesday evening
that blasted the Defense Intelligence Agency's (DIA) attempts to
discredit Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a DIA employee who
worked as a liaison with the "Able Danger" team.
In June, Shaffer told The Times Herald during an interview on
Capitol Hill that the now-defunct data mining operation had linked
Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta to an al-Qaida cell in Brooklyn in
2000 - more than a year before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The military's Special Operations Command ran the high-tech dragnet
that searched for terrorist linkages. The terrorist associations
were mapped out on large charts, according to Shaffer and other of
"Able Danger" colleagues, during the program that operated between
1999 and 2001.
However, following Shaffer's attempts to broker an arrangement that
would draw the FBI into the operation, the program was shut down.
Weldon and Shaffer believe "Able Danger" intelligence may have
disrupted - or even prevented - the Sept. 11 attacks if it had
continued.
In August, Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott and James D. Smith, a defense
contractor, corroborated Shaffer's story.
On Wednesday, Weldon again criticized the Pentagon for dragging its
feet in its probe of the defense program's history, and continued
his criticism of the CIA, which he said tried to protect its own
intelligence turf from other government intelligence agencies.
"What we have here, I am convinced of this now, is an aggressive
attempt by CIA management to cover up their own shortcomings in not
being able to do what the Able Danger team did," he said.
Besides claiming to identifying Atta from a grainy photograph prior
to Sept. 11, the intelligence team also tried to warn the Pentagon
not to allow the USS Cole to make a refueling stop in Yemen five
years ago, Weldon said.
On Oct. 12, 2000, a small boat loaded with explosives rammed into
the side of the USS Cole as the ship refueled in port at Aden,
killing the 17 Navy personnel.
"(Able Danger members) also identified the threat to the USS Cole
two weeks before the attack, and two days before the attack were
screaming not to let the (ship) come into the harbor at Yemen,
because they knew something was going to happen," he said.
The "Able Danger" group operated at the Army's former Land
Information Warfare Center (LIWA), in Ft. Belvoir, Va. After LIWA's
intelligence gathering capability impressed Weldon, he tried to
pitch the idea of a collaborative intelligence center to the CIA in
1999, but was rebuffed.
Also in his speech, Weldon accused the DIA of trying to smear
Shaffer rather than come clean on why "Able Danger" was shut down.
Shaffer, who was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in
Afghanistan, had his top-secret security clearance suspended in 2004
allegedly because of disputes over travel expenses and phone bills.
But his supporters suggest Shaffer is being made a scapegoat for
going public with the "Able Danger" revelations in August.
Two days before he was set to testify about the program before the
Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 21, the Reserve officer's secret
clearance was revoked, and the Defense Department barred him,
Phillpott and Smith from testifying at the hearing.
Also in August, Pentagon officials told reporters at a press
conference that "Able Danger" data had been deleted from computers.
A former Army intelligence officer, Erik Kleinsmith, confirmed this
at the Judiciary Committee hearing, testifying he was ordered to
destroy information.
During the life of the program, the operation's team members created
charts linking terrorists. However, during the recent investigation,
none have been found.
The Pentagon, which claimed it is restricted from retaining
intelligence on United States citizens and foreign residents living
in the U.S., so-called "U.S. persons," for more than 90 days.
However, Weldon has previously said most of the program's data was
open source information and not classified. According to guidelines
in Army Regulation 381-10, intelligence data can be kept
indefinitely if it was culled from open sources.
An unnamed "Able Danger official," Weldon said, was told by a
Pentagon lawyer that it's okay to extend the time intelligence
information is stored.
A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Chris Conway, said recently that
Defense Department officials worried that any public testimony given
about "Able Danger" risked revealing classified information.
"Prior to any testimony, we expressed our security concerns with
Congress," Conway said. "We said in discussing Able Danger, (it)
could inadvertently reveal classified information."
Defense officials said they would allow military personnel to
testify about the program behind closed doors.
Previously, Shaffer said that Atta, an Egyptian, had been linked to
the El Farouq mosque in Brooklyn, N.Y., a hotbed of anti-American
sentiment once frequented by Sheik Omar Ahmed Abdul Rahman, know as
the "Blind Sheik." Rahman is also Egyptian. Atta was not believed to
be in the U.S., however, when he came to the attention of the team.
In 1995, Rahman was convicted of plotting to bomb various sites in
New York City. Four of Rahman's associates were convicted in 2002 of
conspiring with him to commit terrorist acts while he was in prison.
Though Shaffer was not allowed to give testimony at the Sept. 21
committee hearing, his attorney, Mark Zaid, did testify.
As a sobering reminder of "Able Danger's" unfulfilled promise, Zaid
said the missing charts showing terrorist links likely still
contained "several dozen" individuals yet to be captured.
"There are terrorist on the chart who may still be out there and
planning attacks," Zaid said.
Keith Phucas can be reached at kphucas@timesherald.com or
610-272-2500, ext. 211.
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