Atta, Weldon and Able Danger

The only thing that stinks worse than my vegetable bin is the latest attempt to spin away the Able Danger claim. For those of you who do not recall, Able Danger was the name of the Pentagon "data mining" unit which identified Mohammed Atta as a potential terrorist threat -- and even had his picture up on a flow chart -- well before 9/11. In fact, the team had placed Atta in the United States at a time when he was, according to the official chronology, in Germany.

That claim made Able Danger dangerous -- especially for Homeland Security head honcho Michael Chertoff. We'll get to that part of the story soon.

As long-time readers may recall, there was a period when I expressed some doubt about these allegations. They were first aired by a loose-cannon GOP congressman named Curt Weldon, whom the intelligence community obviously views as a useful idiot. If you are a military intelligence officer and you want to spread some alarming declaration (true or otherwise) about a proposed enemy du jour, simply schedule a "private" meeting with Weldon. Impressed by rank and tickled to be "on the inside," he'll rush to the nearest microphone.

The great virtue of such a tactic is that if a fake story falls apart -- or if a true story proves embarrassing and needs to be reeled back in -- all blame will go to Weldon. Not to his informants.

And that, apparently, is what's going on right now. The media tells us that the Able Danger tale has unraveled -- and sure enough, Curt Weldon finds himself on the business end of many an accusatory finger. It's all his fault.

Conveniently, the Pennsylvanian congressman now parrots an unbelievable yarn about Osama Bin Laden having died in Iran -- and never mind the fact that the Shi'ites of Iran have little love for a Sunni fanatic like Osama. If you've done any reading in the history of disinformation, you'll recognise this tactic. Having decided that the Able Danger story needed squelching, the Pentagonian Powers-That-Be tasked someone to keep a straight face while feeding Weldon horseshit. Newsfolk then printed "wacky Weldon" pieces intended to convince the public that the Pennsylvania congressman is both a serial fabricator and the "onlie begettor" of the Atta identification tale.

Trouble is, Weldon was just the conduit. If someone poisons your well, don't blame the pipes that bring the water to your kitchen sink.

Weldon's source for the Able Danger story was Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer. Most of the latest news pieces do not mention him -- or the harrassment he has undergone since going public -- although this column in the Washington Post resorts to smears and name-calling:

And then there's Shaffer, who offered a rambling, paranoid, messianic story in his testimony claiming again not only the existence of the chart, but also Defense Department efforts at cover-up and retribution against him for revealing the TRUTH.

Just read Shaffer's testimony and you'll see what I mean. He is his own worst enemy.

Really? That testimony is here. Read it with an open mind. I don't think Shaffer's historical allusions serve his purposes; even so, this testimony hardly seems paranoid or messianic -- especially if you compare it to, say, Oliver North's blatherings before the Iran/contra committee.

The current news stories do not mention the confirmation Shaffer received. Xymphora summarizes a fair amount of the counter-argument:

Of course, more than one person saw the picture, and defense contractor J.D. Smith recognized Atta's picture on the chart by his distinctive cheekbones. Weldon had previously indicated that the picture stood out because lawyers had put yellow stickies over it, an odd thing to do if the picture didn't exist. The reason they put the stickies over it, and the whole basis for Weldon's original comments, was that they were using legal technicalities to thwart the Pentagon's efforts to prevent a terrorist attack. The legal technicalitites were based on the fact that Atta's green-card status protected him from further investigation, which of course meant that they had to know who Atta was, know he had a green card, and know that the picture they were covering with stickies was a picture of Atta.

The writers of the current stories would rather chug a bottle of Dave's Insanity Sauce than mention James D. Smith. Neither will you see any mention of another Able Danger insider, Navy Captain Scott Philpott, who has declared: "My story has remained consistent. Atta was identified by Able Danger in January/February 2000."

And that's not all:

The Defense Department announced its findings on September 1, 2005, after a three-week investigation into Able Danger... The DoD admitted they have found three other witnesses in addition to Shaffer and Philpott who confirm Able Danger had produced a chart that "either mentioned Atta by name as an al-Qaida operative [and/or] showed his photograph." Four of the five remember the photo on the chart. The fifth remembers only Atta being cited by name. The Pentagon describes the witnesses as "credible" but did not rule out the possibility their recollections were faulty.

What evidence backs the current attacks on the "Atta identification" story? It's pretty thin.

1. Weldon reported that, within days of the attack, he gave the chart (the one identifying Atta) to Stephen Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser. Hadley denies that he ever saw such a chart. As though that settles that.

2. Weldon is not sure whether he saw Atta's face on the chart; he relies on the memory of his sources.

3. Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone told the House Armed Services Committee that

The Department undertook its recent review of Able Danger in good faith and with due diligence. No chart or charts with Mohammed Atta’s name or photo have been found.

Well, duh. Army Intelligence officer Major Eric Kleinsmith has elsewhere testified that he, acting under orders, deleted all the data.

And that, my friends, is pretty much it. Based on points one, two and three above, we are now supposed to toss the "Atta spotter" allegation into the "hoax" file.

Pro-Bush propagandists tolerated the Able Danger revelations only to the extent that they could twist it into an excuse to attack those awful, awful Clintons. That "spin" didn't take. The attempt to blame Jamie Gorelick never held water, and no-one could explain why Bushco sat on the information for so many months.

The administration could not afford to have the tale of Atta's identification officially confirmed. Doing so would force the official story into rewrite -- and the rewritten tale might prove highly embarrassing to Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff.

Why? Because James D. Smith, referenced above, also reported that Atta's name emerged during an examination of individuals connected to Omar Abdul Rahman, the "blind sheik" who helped mastermind the first World Trade Center bombing. That allegation sent the G.O.P. flacks into a spin-frenzy; for a while, they floated a "two Attas" theory. This absurd panic reaction occurred because Michael Chertoff, in private practice, represented one Magdy El-Amir, a New Jersey businessman long believed to have funded both Rahman and Al Qaida.

If we can tie Magdy El-Amir to Atta (and evidence does indeed point in that direction), then the Bush administration will face its worst scandal yet. Even the red-staters might awaken from their intellectual slumber if they learn that Bush appointed as Homeland Security Director the lawyer for one of Mohammed Atta's co-conspirators.