| Cached/copied 09-25-10 for original link click here - http://911review.org/Wiki/AbleDanger.shtml The followng is from... www.dailykos.com/ Operation Able DangerShocking 9/11 Revelationsby BooMan23Tue Aug 9th, 2005 at 05:57:01 PDT[I know this touches on verboten conspiracy theories, but this is a front-page NYT article] According to today's New York Times, a top secret unit of military intelligence identified four of the 9/11 hijackers as Al-Qaeda members in the summer of 2000. More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small,
highly
classified military intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and
three other future hijackers as likely members of a cell of Al
Qaeda operating in the United States, according to a former defense
intelligence official and a Republican member of Congress.
In the summer of 2000, the military team, known as Able Danger, prepared a chart that included visa photographs of the four men and recommended to the military's Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the congressman, Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, and the former intelligence official said Monday. This is a huge story. It's mind-boggling, and I can't even begin to describe the implications in a diary. Before I even try, I am going to skip ahead in the article and then give you a segment of my Mohammed Atta timeline, for your consideration. Pay special attention to the word 'Brooklyn'. During the interview in Mr.
Weldon's
office, the former defense intelligence official showed a
floor-sized chart depicting Al Qaeda networks around the world that
he said was a larger, more detailed version similar to the one
prepared by the Able Danger team in the summer of 2000.
He said the original chart, like the new one, had included the names and photographs of Mr. Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, as well as Mr. Mihdhar and Mr. Hazmi, who were identified as members of what was described as an American-based "Brooklyn" cell, as one of five such Al Qaeda cells around the world. The official said the link to Brooklyn was meant as a term of art rather than to be interpreted literally, saying that the unit had produced no firm evidence linking the men to the borough of New York City but that a computer analysis seeking to establish patterns in links between the four men had found that "the software put them all together in Brooklyn." Okay. This top secret Pentagon unit used 'data mining' to establish the presence of all four hijackers in Brooklyn at the same time. We know this was sometime during, or before, the summer of 2000. Now, look at my Mohammed Atta timeline. Scan down to June 6th, 2000. This is three days after Mohammed Atta officially arrived in the United States for the first time. 1/17/1999 German intelligence hears the names Mohammed Atta,
Ramzi and Said on Zammar's phone.
6/1/1999 finishes thesis 6/15/1999 Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi, plus would-be
hijacker Ramzi Bin al-Shibh and associate Mounir El Motassadeq,
hold a meeting in Amsterdam, Netherlands 9/21/1999 German intelligence
hears Atta's
full name on a phone call from Zammar to Al-shehhi 10/12/1999 Gen. Musharraf takes
over Pakistan
in a coup 11/27/1999 Atta, Marwan Alshehhi
and Ziad
Jarrah and associates Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Said Bahaji (all
members of the same Hamburg, Germany cell) arrive separately in
Afghanistan around this time 12/14/1999 Millenium bomber is
arrested in
Washington State 1/1/2000 AFP, Beliner Zeitung
report Atta is
under CIA surveillance this year in Germany 3/1/2000 emails unidentifed
flight school in
Lakeland, Fl 3/22/2000 e-mails Airman Flight
School in
Norman, OK Now, let's continue with the article. The top secret unit informed the Special Operations Command about four of the hijackers and recommended the FBI be informed of their presence in the United States. The recommendation was rejected
and the
information was not shared, they said, apparently at least in part
because Mr. Atta, and the others were in the United States on valid
entry visas. Under American law, United States citizens and
green-card holders may not be singled out in
intelligence-collection operations by the military or intelligence
agencies. That protection does not extend to visa holders, but Mr.
Weldon and the former intelligence official said it might have
reinforced a sense of discomfort common before Sept. 11 about
sharing intelligence information with a law enforcement
agency.
This is grasping at straws. The law did not apply to mere visa holders. The bottom line is that there is no good reason for such a request to be rejected. But it goes further than that. A lot further. First of all, the 9/11 Commission was given this information and they covered it up. In fact, it appears the information was concealed from the full panel. A former spokesman for the Sept.
11
commission, Al Felzenberg, confirmed that members of its staff,
including Philip Zelikow, the executive director, were told about
the program on an overseas trip in October 2003 that included stops
in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But Mr. Felzenberg said the briefers
did not mention Mr. Atta's name.
The report produced by the commission last year does not mention the episode.[snip] The former intelligence official spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying he did not want to jeopardize political support and the possible financing for future data-mining operations by speaking publicly. He said the team had been established by the Special Operations Command in 1999, under a classified directive issued by Gen. Hugh Shelton, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to assemble information about Al Qaeda networks around the world. "Ultimately, Able Danger was going to give decision makers options for taking out Al Qaeda targets," the former defense intelligence official said. He said that he delivered the chart in summer 2000 to the Special Operations Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., and said that it had been based on information from unclassified sources and government records, including those of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. "We knew these were bad guys, and we wanted to do something about them," the former intelligence official said. [snip] Neither Mr. Shehhi nor Mr. Atta was identified by the American intelligence agencies as a potential threat, the commission report said. Mr. Shehhi arrived in Newark on a flight from Brussels on May 29, 2000, and Mr. Atta arrived in Newark from Prague on June 3 that year. The former intelligence official said the first Able Danger report identified all four men as members of a "Brooklyn" cell, and was produced within two months after Mr. Atta arrived in the United States. The former intelligence official said he was among a group that briefed Mr. Zelikow and at least three other members of the Sept. 11 commission staff about Able Danger when they visited the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in October 2003. The official said he had explicitly mentioned Mr. Atta as a member of a Qaeda cell in the United States. He said the staff encouraged him to call the commission when he returned to Washington at the end of the year. When he did so, the ex-official said, the calls were not returned. Mr. Felzenberg, the former Sept. 11 commission spokesman, said on Monday that he had talked with some of the former staff members who participated in the briefing. "They all say that they were not told anything about a Brooklyn cell," Mr. Felzenberg said. "They were told about the Pentagon operation. They were not told about the Brooklyn cell. They said that if the briefers had mentioned anything that startling, it would have gotten their attention." As a result of the briefing, he said, the commission staff filed document requests with the Pentagon for information about the program. The Pentagon complied, he said, adding that the staff had not hidden anything from the commissioners. "The commissioners were certainly told of the document requests and what the findings were," Mr. Felzenberg said. Someone is lying, and I doubt it is the former military intelligence officer. So, we have a cover-up. But even more important than the revelation that our Special Operations Command in TAMPA, was aware of al-Qaeda terrorists (living 45 minutes down the road in Venice) during the time of their flight training, and that they refused to inform the FBI about them, is the realization that they had connected the two San Diego hijackers, to the two WTC pilots. That's right. Think back. Only two of the hijackers were EVER put on a FBI watch list. Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi were wanted for their connection to the Cole Bombing through a planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur. Even though one of their names was in the San Diego phonebook, and even though they had lived briefly with an FBI informant, the FBI was unable to find them before 9/11. Much was made of the CIA's failure to inform the FBI that these men had arrived at Los Angeles Airport after leaving the meeting in Malaysia. But, it was asserted, these known al-Qaeda terrorists were never connected to the guys from Hamburg by our intelligence services. Now, we know they were linked up using open-source data-mining and reported AS A CELL, within two months of Atta and al-Shehhi arriving in the country. This is unbelieveable. From Team8+ www.larouchepub.com/other/2005/3232vs_cheney_war.html August 12, 2005 issue of Executive Intelligence Review. "...In April 2005, Regnery Publishing, Inc. released another fractured-fairy-tale propaganda piece, promoting pre-emptive war on Iran, this one by Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.). Sources familiar with the book report that Weldon was snookered by ex-CIA Director and leading neo-con war party operative James Woolsey, and self-proclaimed "universal fascist" Michael Ledeen, into buying fake intelligence, pushed through a former Iranian minister under the Shah, who has more recently been a business partner of discredited Iran-Contra gun dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. Representative Weldon concealed the identity of his high-level "source," referring to him only as "Ali." But "Ali" was soon identified as Fereidoun Mahdavi, a former commerce minister, who fled Iran shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and never looked back...." Reports: 9/11 clue hid in Tampa www.sptimes.com/2005/08/10/Worldandnation/Reports__911_clue_hid.shtml August 10, 2005 "... Weldon said a secret military unit known as "Able Danger" discovered a year before the attacks that ringleader Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers were in the United States. Weldon said the unit - created at SOCom under a classified directive in 1999 to take out al-Qaida targets - identified Atta and the others as likely members of the organization. In fall 2000, the unit recommended SOCom share the information with the FBI, Weldon said in an interview Tuesday. But lawyers at either the Pentagon or SOCom determined the men were in the country legally, Weldon said. He said he based his information on intelligence sources. When members of Able Danger made their presentation at command headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base, Weldon said, the legal team "put stickies on the faces of Mohammed Atta on the chart," to reinforce that he was off-limits. "They said, "You can't talk to Atta because he's here on a green card,"... ... A former spokesman for the Sept. 11 Commission said that members of its staff were told about the program but that the briefers did not mention Atta's name. The commission report produced last year did not mention Able Danger's findings. On Tuesday, commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton said that Weldon's information, which the congressman said came from multiple intelligence sources, warrants a review. He said he hoped the panel could issue a statement on its findings by the end of the week. "The 9/11 Commission did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of surveillance of Mohammed Atta or of his cell," said Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana. "Had we learned of it obviously it would have been a major focus of our investigation."..." ...On Tuesday, commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton said that Weldon's information, which the congressman said came from multiple intelligence sources, warrants a review. He said he hoped the panel could issue a statement on its findings by the end of the week. "The 9/11 Commission did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of surveillance of Mohammed Atta or of his cell," said Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana. "Had we learned of it obviously it would have been a major focus of our investigation." At least two congressional committees have begun looking into the episode. Rep. C.W. Bill Young, chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said he, too, had asked the Pentagon for information about the Able Danger program. The Indian Shores Republican said that in hindsight, it was easy to say that one thing or another could have disrupted the hijackers. "There should have been better sharing of information," he said. Young said that passage of the Patriot Act and appointment of John Negroponte as intelligence czar, which gives one person access to all information generated by the intelligence community, would help resolve future problems. "The tools weren't as good then as they are today," Young said. Sounding agitated by what he perceived as a missed opportunity, Weldon made a distinction between the military lawyers and Special Operations Forces, whom he praised. Gen. Pete Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, was SOCom commander at the time. The small military unit developed the information using mostly open sources, not classified channels, Weldon said. Weldon revealed the Able Danger findings in a little-noticed speech on the floor of the House in June. On Monday, Government Security News, a biweekly publication that covers homeland security, published a cover story on the subject, generating another article in the New York Times. Until now, Atta had not been identified publicly as a threat to the United States before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. According to Weldon, the military unit identified a terrorist cell in Brooklyn, N.Y., in September 2000. The individuals identified as members of the cell were Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhamzi. In late 1999 or 2000, the CIA had identified Almihdhar and Alhamzi as terrorist members who might be involved in a terrorist operation. The duo arrived in Los Angeles in early 2000, but the FBI was not warned about them until spring 2001. No efforts were made to track them until a month before the terrorist attacks. In the article published by Government Security News, a former defense intelligence official who worked with Able Danger said he alerted SOCom about the unit's findings. The publication said it interviewed the source in Weldon's office...." NOTE: The following postings (incl. sources) might show, how significant it is to distinguish between "9/11 plotline" and "military operation" of 9/11. "Able Danger", whether it's based on half fake info or not, proves exactly what all 9/11-patsie researchers, including me, already wrote between 2002 and 2004. POINT 1: The patsies are leading to the real perpetrators of 9/11! POINT 2: They all got observed. There are confirmed names of at least 5 informants Whether "Able Danger" was yet another observing team, is therefore already irrelevant but has to be investigated. POINT 3: The final military operation was planned since 1998, many significant developments of that year point strongly on that. POINT 4: Whether with Clinton's active or passive knowledge (or by deception), the Clinton admin logistically prepared or allow the PRE 9/11 homeland security, created by ANSER and some other important logistical tools and laws. An anti-paranoia spin on research facts is counterproductive IMO. POINT 5: Hugh Shelton obviously worked close with the real perpetrators of 9/11, because he was involved in the pre-planning of the invasion into Afghanistan. After he "retired", some months later, he 'fell' from a ladder... POINT 6: The coincidental significance ("Able Danger") of the tampa connection is also important, coz that's the air base, where they planned the final invasion of Afghanistan (Charles Holland) and flew out some bin laden familiy members.... POINT 7: Atta was already tracked by german intel since 1998. In 1999, german CIA officer Thomas Volz tried to hire Atta's buddy Marmoun Darkanzali as an informant, who was close to some fake-recruiters in europe... POINT 8: One can be sure, that the so called 4 ringleaders had been under the control from the real perpetrators of 9/11 and they made sure, that these 4 patsie leaders won't be involved into the actual planning of 9/11 itself. 1) At least one of the official Mohammad Atta's was involved in some CIA cover drug operations at Huffman Aviations. See Daniel Hopsicker at www.madcowprod.com We can conclude, that the real Atta never arrived in Boston on Sep11th. The Florida Atta was under control for the official "plotline" of 9/11. 2) Infos on the 9/11 patsie Informants and observants for the "plotline" 911review.org/Sept11Wiki/Informants.shtml 3) See inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=324 scroll to: The 1998 pattern By Ewing2001 4) ANSER and Homeland Security 1999 911review.org/Sept11Wiki/Anser.shtml 5) Hugh Shelton 911review.org/Sept11Wiki/Shelton,HenryH.shtml 6) Charles Holland, CENTCOM and the significance of Tampa for Afghanistan and 9/11: Commission in "private" meeting at CENTCOM April 28, 2004 inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=82 7) see Atta contact Darkanzali arrested in Germany inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=889 2004/10/15 8 ) see inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=324 The lost War/terror drill ? (Chapter 6-8) Chapter 6: The Perpetrators Here is a new claim by former 9/11 commissioner Felzenberg: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/11/AR2005081100684.html August 11, 2005 "...Felzenberg said an unidentified person working with Weldon came forward Wednesday and described a meeting 10 days before the panel's report was issued last July. During it, a military official urged commission staffers to include a reference to the intelligence on Atta in the final report. Felzenberg said checks were made and the details of the July 12, 2004, meeting were confirmed. Previous to that, Felzenberg said it was believed commission staffers knew about Able Danger from a meeting with military officials in Afghanistan during which no mention was made of Atta or the other three hijackers..." Did DoD lawyers blow the chance to nab Atta? www.gsnmagazine.com/aug_05/dod_lawyers.html By Jacob Goodwin In September 2000, one year before the Al Qaeda attacks of 9/11, a U.S. Army military intelligence program, known as “Able Danger,” identified a terrorist cell based in Brooklyn, NY, one of whose members was 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta, and recommended to their military superiors that the FBI be called in to “take out that cell,” according to Rep. Curt Weldon, a longtime Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who is currently vice chairman of both the House Homeland Security and House Armed Services Committees. The recommendation to bring down that New York City cell -- in which two other Al Qaeda terrorists were also active -- was not pursued during the weeks leading up to the 2000 presidential election, said Weldon. That’s because Mohammed Atta possessed a “green card” at the time and Defense Department lawyers did not want to recommend that the FBI go after someone holding a green card, Weldon told his House colleagues last June 27 during a little-noticed speech, known as a “special order,” which he delivered on the House floor. Details of the origins and efforts of Able Danger were corroborated in a telephone interview by GSN with a former defense intelligence officer who said he worked closely with that program. That intelligence officer, who spoke to GSN while sitting in Rep. Weldon’s Capitol Hill office, requested anonymity for fear that his current efforts to help re-start a similar intelligence-gathering operation might be hampered if his identity becomes known. The intelligence officer recalled carrying documents to the offices of Able Danger, which was being run by the Special Operations Command, headquartered in Tampa, FL. The documents included a photo of Mohammed Atta supplied by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and described Atta’s relationship with Osama bin Laden. The officer was very disappointed when lawyers working for Special Ops decided that anyone holding a green card had to be granted essentially the same legal protections as any U.S. citizen. Thus, the information Able Danger had amassed about the only terrorist cell they had located inside the United States could not be shared with the FBI, the lawyers concluded. “We were directed to take those 3M yellow stickers and place them over the faces of Atta and the other terrorists and pretend they didn’t exist,” the intelligence officer told GSN. DoD lawyers may also have been reluctant to suggest a bold action by FBI agents after the bureau’s disastrous 1993 strike against the Branch Davidian religious cult in Waco, TX, said Weldon and the intelligence officer. “So now, Mr. Speaker,” Weldon said on the House floor last June, “for the first time I can tell our colleagues that one of our agencies not only identified the New York cell of Mohammed Atta and two of the terrorists, but actually made a recommendation to bring the FBI in to take out that cell.” Weldon has developed a reputation for making bold pronouncements and, occasionally, ruffling the feathers of some of his colleagues. His recent non-fiction book, “Countdown to Terror,” which draws on information from an Iranian expatriate source Weldon has dubbed “Ali,” has drawn criticism from the CIA, others in the intelligence community and some congressional colleagues. A longtime champion of firefighters and first responders, Weldon has a particular interest in this subject because he has been openly and actively pushing since 1999 for the establishment of an integrated government-wide center that could consolidate, analyze and act upon intelligence gathered by dozens of U.S. agencies, armed services and departments. Weldon’s proposal was based on the innovative intelligence gathering capabilities he had witnessed at the U.S. Army’s Information Dominance Center, based at Fort Belvoir, VA, (which was formerly known as the Land Information Warfare Assessment Center.) This Army center had employed data mining, profiling and data collaboration techniques before several other intelligence agencies, and was using such cutting edge software tools as Starlight (developed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) and Spires. For years, the CIA resisted the congressman’s recommendation, Weldon told GSN in a telephone interview on August 1, claiming that his plan to integrate dozens of discrete and classified intelligence streams was both unworkable and unnecessary. Weldon had dubbed his proposed organization the National Operations and Analysis Hub, nicknamed NOAH, because the center was intended “to protect our nation from the flood of threats,” he explained. Sixteen months after 9/11, such a “data fusion center,” named the Terrorism Threat Integration Center (TTIC) was indeed established by the Bush Administration. At the urging of the 9/11 Commission, the TTIC has since been restructured and renamed the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC). Weldon is pleased that steps have been taken to unify the nation’s intelligence gathering and analysis capabilities, now headed by a newly established Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Negroponte, but Weldon remains concerned that the “stovepipe” mentalities that plagued the intelligence community in the past continue to inhibit true information sharing between intelligence agencies. He is also extremely frustrated by the fact that so little official attention seems to have been paid to the intelligence failure related to the Mohammed Atta cell in Brooklyn. Weldon contends that few in the Bush Administration seem interested in investigating that missed opportunity. “If we had had that [military intelligence] system in 1999 and 2000, which the military had already developed as a prototype, and if we had followed the lead of the military entity that identified the Al Qaeda cell of Mohammed Atta, then perhaps, Mr. Speaker, 9/11 would never have occurred,” Weldon said during his special order remarks. According to Weldon, staff members of the 9/11 Commission were briefed on the capabilities of the Able Danger intelligence unit within the Special Operations Command, which had been set up by General Pete Schoomaker, who headed Special Ops at the time, on the orders of General Hugh Shelton, then the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Staffers at the 9/11 Commission staffers were also told about the specific recommendation to break up the Mohammed Atta cell. However, those commission staff members apparently did not choose to brief the commission’s members on these sensitive matters. Weldon said he was told specifically by commission members, Tim Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana; and John Lehman, a former secretary of the Navy; that they had never been briefed on the Able Danger unit within Special Ops or on the unit’s evidence of a terrorist cell in Brooklyn. “I personally talked with [Philip] Zelikow [executive director of the 9/11 Commission] about this,” recalled the intelligence officer. “For whatever bizarre reasons, he didn’t pass on the information.” The State Department, where Zelikow now works as a counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said he was traveling and unavailable for comment. “Why did the 9/11 Commission not investigate this entire situation?” asked Weldon on June 27. “Why did the 9/11 Commission not ask the question about the military’s recommendation against the Mohammed Atta cell?” Weldon is also disappointed with himself for not pushing harder against the intelligence bureaucracy that he saw as resisting his proposal to set up a more integrated intelligence-gathering operation. But he saves some of his greatest ire for the lawyers within the Department of Defense -- he is not sure if they were working within the Special Operations Command or higher up the organizational chart, within the Office of the Secretary of Defense -- for their unwillingness to allow Able Danger to send to the FBI its evidence and its recommendation for immediate action. “Obviously, if we had taken out that cell, 9/11 would not have occurred and, certainly, taking out those three principal players in that cell would have severely crippled, if not totally stopped, the operation that killed 3,000 people in America,” said Weldon. Shining a spotlight on this intelligence gaffe has not been easy. Russ Caso, Weldon’s chief of staff, explained to GSN the steps his boss has taken to shed light on the situation. Weldon spoke with Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, about conversations he has had with several members of the Able Danger intelligence unit. Weldon has urged Hoekstra to investigate the reasons why Able Danger’s revelations were not shared with the FBI. Hoekstra looked into the matter at the Pentagon, but after several days of fruitless inquiries, was unable to find anyone at the Defense Department who seemed to know anything about Able Danger or would acknowledge the intelligence unit had ever existed, explained Caso in a telephone interview with GSN. Unwilling to let the matter drop, Weldon arranged for a face-to-face meeting in late July between Hoekstra, himself and the former intelligence officer who had worked with Able Danger, and who outlined his former unit’s evidence and recommendations for Hoekstra. “Congressman Weldon has met with several people who were working on Able Danger to identify where Al Qaeda was set up around the world,” said Caso. “They made the suggestion that this information be passed to the FBI, and lawyers within the Defense Department -- whether within Special Ops or within OSD, we don’t know -- and the lawyers said, ‘No’.” A report about some of these events appeared last June 19 in The Times Herald newspaper, of Norristown, PA, which is located in the Philadelphia suburbs that Rep. Weldon represents in Congress. Curt Weldon's Deep Throat www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=9836 The Pennsylvania Republican’s freelance spying has once again brought a discredited arms dealer's fabrications to the CIA. By Laura Rozen Web Exclusive: 06.10.05 Print Friendly | Email Article Countdown to Terror, Representative Curt Weldon's sensationalistic new book about his personal struggle to combat the Iranian terrorism threat despite the alleged resistance of the CIA, is based entirely on the Pennsylvania Republican's freelance communications with a secret source he code-named "Ali." Much of Weldon's book, which will be released next week by Regnery Publishing, consists of reproduced pages of comically overwrought "intelligence" memos faxed from the Iranian émigré’s Paris location to Weldon’s office between 2003 and 2004. “Dear Curt,” reads one memo excerpt from “Ali” published by Weldon. “An attack against an atomic plant by a plane, the name mentioned, but not clear it begins with ‘SEA’ … [Seattle?].” Another reads: “Dear Curt: … I confirm again a terrorist attack within the United States is planned before the American elections." But in an exclusive interview with The American Prospect, Weldon's "Ali" -- who was identified in an April article by me and Jeet Heer as Fereidoun Mahdavi, a frail, elderly former minister of commerce in the shah’s government and a longtime business associate of Iran-Contra arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar -- said he was stunned and perplexed to learn that Weldon had used his information to write a book, emphasizing that Weldon never even told him about the book. Mahdavi also said that the bulk of the information that he had provided to Weldon was originally sourced from none other than Ghorbanifar, the subject of a rare CIA “burn notice” after the agency found him to be a "fabricator" more than two decades ago during the Iran-Contra affair. “Many information that I have given to Weldon is coming from Ghorbanifar,” said Mahdavi, who was reached in Paris by telephone on June 6. “Because Ghorbanifar used me, in fact, to pass that stuff because I know he has problems in Washington.” The former minister continued: “I am well-known in Tehran. How can I call Tehran? But Ghorbanifar is something else. He has all the contacts within Iran. Nobody has so many information and contacts that he has. Now if he is using that information through me to try to buy power indirectly, that is his business. I do it because I have known him for many years.” Several Iranian exile associates of the pair have told the Prospect that Mahdavi, living in reduced circumstances and caring for his cancer-stricken wife, is in fact financially dependent on Ghorbanifar. They have been involved in various businesses together, from petroleum shipping to arms dealing to (more recently) intelligence peddling, since both washed up in Paris after the Iranian revolution in 1979. Although Mahdavi expresses understanding of the motives of his old pal and business partner Ghorbanifar, he says he is utterly baffled by Weldon’s decision to use his information as the foundation of a book that the congressman never once mentioned to him. “I assume that if [Weldon] wanted to publish a book, I assure you I would have heard it,” Mahdavi said initially, in disbelief that Weldon would publish the book without even a phone call. “I am just surprised that you tell me he has a book coming out … .” Hours later, after receiving a fax with a Congressional Quarterly article about Weldon’s forthcoming book and the amazon.com book description, Mahdavi spoke again in shock and anger. “Someone is using me for their purposes,” he raged. “How is it possible that something like that book comes out and the people who publish it don’t inform me? Don’t you think that’s strange? What I cannot understand is, if you had not called me and told me there is a book coming out from Weldon, I would have never known about it. You informed me. But this is now, I am sure, there is a fight between all these [U.S. government] organizations, and they are using this issue and using me.” Among those who agree is the former senior CIA official who met with Mahdavi in response to Weldon’s pressure on the agency to accept the Mahdavi/Ghorbanifar information. The tale of "Ali" suggests that the agency is assiduously seeking to weed out another fabricator like Ghorbanifar (or Iraqi fabulist Ahmad Chalabi) from corrupting U.S. intelligence information on Iran. Bill Murray, a former CIA station chief in Paris, met with me on June 9 at a northern Virginia shopping mall to talk about Weldon's assault on the agency. Still doing contract work for the CIA since his recent retirement, Murray chose to speak up about the agency’s role in vetting and determining “Ali’s” information to be fabrications -- “émigré babble" -- because Weldon has publicly savaged the CIA in his book. By speaking with reporters, Murray believes he could be risking his contract work, but he’s outraged over what he considers disingenuous attacks by the Pennsylvania congressman. “Someone’s got to stand up,” Murray said. “I spent 35 years doing this job, mainly in the Middle East. My guideline is well-sourced intelligence to help shape policy. That’s what I did; that’s what my people did. That is my standard, the integrity standard. And this man [Weldon] is attacking our integrity. And I’m not going to sit back and ignore it.” Indeed, Murray describes very extensive personal efforts to ascertain the quality of Mahdavi's information, including four meetings and many phone conversations, as well as the creation of a secure phone line for Mahdavi to transmit his material to the U.S. government. (As the chief of station at the U.S. Embassy, Murray would normally have sent a junior officer to meet with a potential source like Mahdavi; instead, Murray went himself.) According to Murray, Mahdavi only sent two faxes on the secure line -- one with all the information he had already sent Weldon and Michael Ledeen, the neoconservative scholar and longtime Ghorbanifar champion, and another with a plan to overthrow the mullahs in Tehran. Murray says he firmly told Mahdavi that he was not willing to receive such plans, because overthrowing the Iranian government is not U.S. policy. He also said that during those meetings and calls, several things became clear rather quickly about Weldon's informant. “Mahdavi works for Ghorbanifar,” said Murray, noting that the agency still forbids its employees from dealing with the colorful, fast-talking arms dealer. “The two are inseparable. Ghorbanifar put Mahdavi out to meet with Weldon … . Ghorbanifar decided to have a cutout.” When Mahdavi consistently refused to provide any information to verify the credibility of his sources or their increasingly outlandish allegations, Murray determined that the information was a mix of fabrications, babble, and useless political analysis. “I don’t feed sensationalistic garbage to American political leaders,” Murray said, “without some reason to believe that it is well-sourced or true. . . My generation is not risk-averse. We are just averse to feeding garbage into the system.” “This man [Mahdavi] never said a single thing that you could look back later and he said it would happen and it did happen,” the retired station chief continued. “He refused to give me any information that would indicate he actually had access to people in Iran who had access to that information.” Murray also indicated that Mahdavi repeatedly requested U.S. government payment of approximately $150,000 so that he could pay his debts in Iran and help institute political changes there. Despite Weldon's constant urgings, the CIA was unwilling to provide any such payment. Moreover, said Murray, Weldon himself violated U.S. government protocol by failing to report his encounters with Mahdavi in France to the U.S. ambassador when asked whether he planned any meetings there while being hosted by the embassy in April 2004. According to Murray, Weldon denied he had planned any meetings -- and then proceeded to meet with both Mahdavi and Ghorbanifar, the subject of the CIA burn notice, at the Sofitel hotel around the corner from the U.S. Embassy. Murray added that Weldon now plans to have his new book translated into Farsi and smuggled into Iran, as well as having it broadcast into Iran on the Los Angeles-based Iranian diaspora radio stations. This curious behavior raises questions about Weldon’s motives. Is he a naïf getting taken in by two geopolitical hucksters? Or is his treatment of Mahdavi a kind of political opportunism all its own? Apparently Weldon has treated his allies as poorly as his new enemies at the CIA. In March, his spokesman told the Prospect that Weldon’s book was being co-written by a former CIA analyst and longtime Weldon congressional staffer named Peter Vincent Pry. Indeed, Pry is the named recipient of several of the Mahdavi memos published in Weldon’s book, and Mahdavi acknowledges meeting with Pry and Weldon. But when copies of Weldon’s book appeared this week, Pry’s name was nowhere to be found in the author credits. Meanwhile another book on Iran and terrorism by Kenneth Timmerman, a right-leaning journalist long interested in Mideast affairs, is due to be published by Crown next week as Countdown to Crisis, a title almost identical to that of Weldon’s book. Timmerman told the Prospect that Regnery changed Weldon’s title to imitate Timmerman’s after publicity materials about the Timmerman book appeared on Crown’s Web site. So much for squabbling among right-wing authors. What’s far more important, says Murray, is that Weldon’s freelance 007 crusade to be his own spymaster has ultimately done a disservice to the American people and to national security. “Most of us [CIA officers] have been consumed with preventing real terrorist threats to the U.S. for the past four years,” he said with a fierce squint. “And virtually everything Ghorbanifar and his people come up with diverts us. I have hard-working people working for me, and they don’t have time for this bullshit.” Laura Rozen reports on national-security and foreign-policy issues from Washington, D.C., for The American Prospect, The Nation, and other publications. Her first article on Ghorbanifar and Mahdavi, “The Front,” co-authored with Jeet Heer, appeared in the Prospect’s April edition. Curt Weldon's new book warns of Iran Weldon Accuses CIA, Colleagues of Ignoring Secret Information By Dana Priest, Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, June 9, 2005; Page A08 www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/08/AR2005060802341.html NBC News Guests: Sen. Joe Biden, Rep. Curt Weldon, David Broder, John Harwood, Gwen Ifill, Judy Woodruff Updated: 11:10 a.m. ET June 12, 2005 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8130648/ WikiPedia: Curt Weldon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curt_Weldon WikiPedia: Manucher Ghorbanifar en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manucher_Ghorbanifar NOTE: We're talking here about the "plotline" identities!! Sources from "Tracking all hijackers" by ewing2001 www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0302/S00218.htm 28 February 2003 1) Mohammad Atta ("observed" since at least 1997, confirmed 1999, by BND, CIA, Mossad and various european police and intelligence) "...Mohammad Atta's telephone calls between him and another suspect, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarbas, were being intercepted. Yarbas is otherwise known as 'Abu Dahdah', a Palestinian with Spanish citizenship and connections with Bin Laden associates. Yarbas' phone was tapped since 1997. As later came out, not only the Spanish police, but also Spanish intelligence okayed the bugs..." 2) Marwan Al-Shehhi (observed together with Mohammad Atta since at least 1998/99, CIA, FBI) 3) Ziad Jarrah (observed together with Mohammad Atta) The CIA still claims, that Jarrah (pilot of the jetliner that crashed in Pennsylvania) was not on a terrorist watch list. However, according to motel records, a man by that name used a credit card to pay for a late August 2001 stay at the Pin Del motel in Laurel, Md., where Nawaq Alhamzi stayed in September. Alhamzi was on the CIA watch list. www.wbz.com/now/story/0,1597,311329-364,00.shtml Therefore it can be assumed, that Jarrah was observed as well. Another important detail: Ziad Jarrah's uncle Nazem Jarrah, worked for the East Germany intelligence service, in addition to being an agent for the Libyan services. 4) Hani Hanjour Hani Hanjour had been on a watch list since 1996. Due to information from a former muhjahadeen fighter of the CIA and former informant of the FBI, Aukai Collins, Hanjour had been observed by the FBI since 1996. 5-8) Waleed M. Alshehri Saeed Alghamdi Ahmed Alghamdi Ahmed Alhaznawi Tracked via military institutions, i.e. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach San Antonio Base at the Alpha Tango Air schools Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida 9) Salem Alhamzi Salem Alhamzi was being observed by the CIA and FBI, together with Khalid Al-Midhar, at this time. This became one of the most well publicized stories, but it is still blamed on just "incompetence". www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/inv.investigation.terrorism/ 10) Khalid Al-Midhar It has already been confirmed that Khalid Al-Midhar was observed by the CIA and FBI, and lived in Jersey City, New Jersey. www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/inv.investigation.terrorism 11) Nawaq Alhamzi Tracked via connected saudi intel (Prince Turki al Faisal ) and Saudi Ministry of Defense and Aviation 12) Abdulaziz Alomari One of the few multiple personalities, most obvious impostered more than once. One of his identities possibly tracked at Newark Airport and Saudi Flight Ops. 13) Majed Moqed Moqued "stayed" in Caldwell, New Jersey. Possibly impersonated or did not exiist, but profiled by someone of McGuire Air Force Base (305 Air Mobility Wing) in Fort Lee 14) Satam Al Suqami Lowest Profile. However, it was HIS passport (not Attas!) which was "found" in front of the former CIA office at WTC 7, Vesey street, which appears to me, that his identity was scripted from some neocon-cell inside the CIA as well. 15) Wail Alshehri His visa mentioned "wasantwn" (washington) as his alleged employer. Possibly scripted identity by a stand-in 16 -19) Fayez Ahmed Hamza Alghamdi Mohald Alshehri Ahmed Alnami 4 more scripted indentities, 2 of them at least already confirmed as being still alive. 20) Zacarias Moussaoui (observed by FBI) Lived 3 minutes away from David Boren (ex-CIA George Tenet's mentor) in Norman, Oklahoma Two "Hijackers" too much 21, 22) Ayub Ali Khan aka Gul Mohammed Shah Mohammed Jaweed Azmath Most obviously tracked by FBI, then later also by DIA A bizarre screw-up. 2 alleged hijackers (maybe scripted for another hijacked plane) got arrested and jailed for 1 year. globalfreepress.com/article.pl?sid=03/12/21/2043235 "...In an exclusive report and interview with Village Voice from October 2002, other fishy details of former "evidence" were revealed: "The hair dye was due to vanity (Azmath sported close-cropped, graying hair in court), the box cutters were tools of the men's newsstand trade" (Penn Station, New Jersey, sold in August 2001), and "the cash was for moving to Texas to find better-paying jobs." (to open a fruit stand) ... ...In the same article, Azmath announced to sue the US Government "for alleged physical and mental torture". The lawsuit never took place..." The theory about 19 alleged "hijackers" and more is a myth. The scripted "plotline" has nothing to do with the military operation of 9/11, which has been misinterpreted by a majority of 9/11 researchers. Please also check out the role of dutch intelligence at: The dutch 9/11 ties -from Eindhoven to the Magic Dutch Boys in Venice, FL www.globalfreepress.com/article.pl?sid=03/09/04/081209&mode=thread plus Mohammed Atta - Slips Under Radar of 6 Countries? http://tinyurl.com/c2yb The 9/11 NSA connection: At least six alleged 9/11 hijackers, including all of those who officially boarded Flight 77, lived in Laurel, Maryland, close to NSA. They reportedly include Hani Hanjour, Majed Moqed, Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, and Salem Alhazmi. The NSA confirmed, that they had been aware of a “Khalid,” “Nawaf Alhazmi,” and his brother “Salem” having communications with this safe house in 1999 and earlier in 1998. In summer 2000 there are additional communications to the safe house from “Khalid” and “Salem”. Actually it was also the NSA, who passed information to the CIA about the famous meeting in Malaysia. election.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/01/24/60II/main266857.shtml Like CIA and FBI, NSA also is using "negligence" as a cover for a controlled observation of a combination of pseudo-patsies, stand-ins, "phantoms" and other scripted personalities. In at least one german paper, DIE ZEIT, it was confirmed, that also MOSSAD supported the so called "observations", apparently also with the help of an alleged art students group, as reported by FOX TV: Aug. 23, 2001. "...The Israeli intelligence service Mossad presents to its American counterpart a list of names of terrorists who are living in the United States and seem to be planning to carry out an attack in the near future. According to documents obtained by DIE ZEIT, Mossad agents in the United States were following at least four of the 19 hijackers, including Almihdhar..." ..Yesterday, Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, former Chair and Vice Chair of the 9/11 panel released the following statement, in which they claimed, that Philip Zelikow, the former executive director of the 9/11 Commission, was aware of "Able Danger" since October 21, 2003. The statement also reinforces the official story of 9/11. However, please also note, that the former 9/11 panelists try to downplay the existence of ABLE DANGER. This comes as a surprise, because they're usually playing the bigger negligence card. The Commission did not mention ABLE DANGER in its report. The name and character of this classified operation had not, at that time, been publicly disclosed. The operation itself did not turn out to be historically significant The statement was forwarded to some mailing lists of 9/11 family members. I couldn't find it at http://www.9-11pdp.org/press/index.htm yet. August 12, 2005 Kean-Hamilton Statement on ABLE DANGER "...On October 21, 2003, Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, two senior Commission staff members, and a representative of the executive branch, met at Bagram Base, Afghanistan, with three individuals doing intelligence work for the Department of Defense. One of the men, in recounting information about al Qaeda's activities in Afghanistan before 9/11, referred to a DOD program known as ABLE DANGER. He said this program was now closed, but urged Commission staff to get the files on this program and review them, as he thought the Commission would find information about al Qaeda and Bin Ladin that had been developed before the 9/11 attack. He also complained that Congress, particularly the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), had effectively ended a human intelligence network he considered valuable. As with their other meetings, Commission staff promptly prepared a memorandum for the record. That memorandum, prepared at the time, does not record any mention of Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers, or any suggestion that their identities were known to anyone at DOD before 9/11. Nor do any of the three Commission staffers who participated in the interview, or the executive branch lawyer, recall hearing any such allegation. While still in Afghanistan, Dr. Zelikow called back to the Commission headquarters in Washington and requested that staff immediately draft a document request seeking information from DOD on ABLE DANGER. The staff had also heard about ABLE DANGER in another context, related to broader military planning involving possible operations against al Qaeda before 9/11. In November 2003, shortly after the staff delegation had returned to the United States, two document requests related to ABLE DANGER were finalized and sent to DOD. One, sent on November 6, asked, among other things, for any planning order or analogous documents about military operations related to al Qaeda and Afghanistan issued from the beginning of 1998 to September 20, 2001, and any reports, memoranda, or briefings by or for either the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the Commanding General of the U.S. Special Operations Command in connection with such planning, specifically including material related to ABLE DANGER. The other, sent on November 25, treated ABLE DANGER as a possible intelligence program and asked for all documents and files associated with DIA's program 'ABLE DANGERâ'? from the beginning of 1998 through September 20, 2001. In February 2004, DOD provided documents responding to these requests. Some were turned over to the Commission and remain in Commission files. Others were available for staff review in a DOD reading room. Commission staff reviewed the documents. Four former staff members have again, this week, reviewed those documents turned over to the Commission, which are held in the Commission's archived files. Staff who reviewed the documents held in the DOD reading room made notes summarizing each of them. Those notes are also in the Commission archives and have also been reviewed this week. The records discuss a set of plans, beginning in 1999, for ABLE DANGER, which involved expanding knowledge about the al Qaeda network. Some documents include diagrams of terrorist networks. None of the documents turned over to the Commission mention Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers. Nor do any of the staff notes on documents reviewed in the DOD reading room indicate that Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers were mentioned in any of those documents. A senior staff member also made verbal inquiries to the HPSCI and CIA staff for any information regarding the ABLE DANGER operation. Neither organization produced any documents about the operation, or displayed any knowledge of it. In 2004, Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) and his staff contacted the Commission to call the Commission's attention to the Congressman's critique of the U.S. intelligence community. No mention was made in these conversations of a claim that Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers had been identified by DOD employees before 9/11. In early July 2004, the Commission's point of contact at DOD called the Commission's attention to the existence of a U.S. Navy officer employed at DOD who was seeking to be interviewed by Commission staff in connection with a data mining project on which he had worked. The DOD point of contact indicated that the prospective witness was claiming that the project had linked Atta to an al Qaeda cell located in New York in the 1999-2000 time frame. Shortly after receiving this information, the Commission staff's front office assigned two staff members with knowledge of the 9/11 plot and the ABLE DANGER operation to interview the witness at one of the Commission's Washington, D.C. offices. On July 12, 2004, as the drafting and editing process for the Report was coming to an end (the Report was released on July 22, and editing continued to occur through July 17), a senior staff member, Dieter Snell, accompanied by another staff member, met with the officer at one of the Commission's Washington, D.C. offices. A representative of the DOD also attended the interview. According to the memorandum for the record on this meeting, prepared the next day by Mr. Snell, the officer said that ABLE DANGER included work on link analysis, ? mapping links among various people involved in terrorist networks. According to this record, the officer recalled seeing the name and photo of Mohamed Atta on an 'analyst notebook chart' assembled by another officer (who he said had retired and was now working as a DOD contractor). The officer being interviewed said he saw this material only briefly, that the relevant material dated from February through April 2000, and that it showed Mohamed Atta to be a member of an al Qaeda cell located in Brooklyn. The officer complained that this information and information about other alleged members of a Brooklyn cell had been soon afterward deleted from the document ("redacted") because DOD lawyers were concerned about the propriety of DOD intelligence efforts that might be focused inside the United States. The officer referred to these as posse comitatus restrictions. Believing the law was being wrongly interpreted, he said he had complained about these restrictions up his chain of command in the U.S. Special Operations Command, to no avail. The officer then described the remainder of his work on link analysis efforts, until he was eventually transferred to other work. The officer complained about how these methods were being used by the Defense Intelligence Agency, and mentioned other concerns about U.S. officials and foreign governments. At the time of the officer's interview, the Commission knew that, according to travel and immigration records, Atta first obtained a U.S. visa on May 18, 2000, and first arrived in the United States (at Newark) on June 3, 2000. Atta joined up with Marwan al-Shehhi. They spent little time in the New York area, traveling later in June to Oklahoma and then to Florida, where they were enrolled in flight school by early July. The interviewee had no documentary evidence and said he had only seen the document briefly some years earlier. He could not describe what information had led to this supposed Atta identification. Nor could the interviewee recall, when questioned, any details about how he thought a link to Atta could have been made by this DOD program in 2000 or any time before 9/11. The Department of Defense documents had mentioned nothing about Atta, nor had anyone come forward between September 2001 and July 2004 with any similar information. Weighing this with the information about Atta's actual activities, the negligible information available about Atta to other U.S. government agencies and the German government before 9/11, and the interviewer's assessment of the interviewer's knowledge and credibility, the Commission staff concluded that the officer's account was not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the report or further investigation. We have seen press accounts alleging that a DOD link analysis had tied Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi (who had arrived in the U.S. shortly before Atta on May 29) to two other future hijackers, Hazmi al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, in 1999-2000. No such claim was made to the Commission by any witness. Moreover, all evidence that was available to the Commission indicates that Hazmi and Mihdhar were never on the East coast until 2001 and that these two pairs of future hijackers had no direct contact with each other until June 2001. The Commission did not mention ABLE DANGER in its report. The name and character of this classified operation had not, at that time, been publicly disclosed. The operation itself did not turn out to be historically significant, set against the larger context of U.S. policy and intelligence efforts that involved Bin Ladin and al Qaeda. The Reportâ's description of military planning against al Qaeda prior to 9/11 encompassed this and other military plans. The information we received about this program also contributed to the Commission's depiction of intelligence efforts against al Qaeda before 9/11. Rudy Dekkers (Huffman Aviation) speaks out about Able Danger. Take it with a grain of salt www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050816/NEWS/508160425 Former flight school owner says U.S. intelligence failure ruined his life August 16, 2005 Daniel Hopsicker also released an article related to Able Danger : Army Intel Unit Exposes Massive FBI 9.11 Cover-Up August 12,2005-Venice, FL. by Daniel Hopsicker www.madcowprod.com/08122005.html ======== 5 part series here on Able Danger Able
Danger part
3 Rebuttal to the IG's Able Danger Report Cong. Curt Weldon to probe top-secret 9-11 Cambone notes? U.S. Government Caught Red-Handed Releasing Staged Al-Qaeda Videos Setting Up the 9/11 Patsies - hijackers blamed for Sept 11 were Oswalds. Inland Northwest Space Alliance/U.S.-Asia Network, Iraq Qualcomm ... Mohammad Atta - 9/11 Encyclopedia Mohamed Atta page1 Atta-Isi - 9/11Encyclopedia 911review
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