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General gave OK for Able Danger
Former military chief confirms al-Qaida mission
By James Rosen
12/08/05 "Knight
Ridder" -- -- 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."
Copyright Knight Ridder
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