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A secret military unit repeatedly tried to arrange meetings with the FBI in the year before the September 11 attacks to warn them about the men who went on to lead the hijackers, an former intelligence officer has said. According to Colonel Shaffer, a small, highly secret intelligence unit known as Able Danger had used data-sorting techniques to identify Atta and his accomplices as possible US-based terrorists by mid-2000, but military lawyers prevented the team from sharing their information. Colonel Shaffer said that lawyers working for the Special Operations Command of the Defence Department, cancelled the meetings because they believed that the surveillance techniques used by Able Danger could be understood as a violation of the rights of people who were living legally in the US. "I was at the point of near insubordination over the fact that this was something important, that this was something that should have been pursued," Colonel Shaffer told The New York Times and Fox News. "It was because of the chain of command saying we're not going to pass on information - if something goes wrong, we'll get blamed," said Colonel Shaffer, whose job was to liaise between Able Danger and other agencies, rather than analyse the intelligence himself. Colonel Shaffer, 42, is the first intelligence officer to publicly identify himself in the growing controversy over how information gathered on the 9/11 hijackers was not shared by American government agencies or passed on to the 9/11 Commission which investigated the attacks. According to Colonel Shaffer and Congressman Curt Weldon, the Republican politician who has brought to light the work of Able Danger, the full extent of the unit's findings were not passed on to the 9/11 Commission even after members of the Commission met Colonel Shaffer in Afghanistan in 2003. Last week, the leaders of the Commission said that the panel had concluded that the intelligence programme "did not turn out to be historically significant." But in his interview on Monday, Colonel Shaffer challenged that view, saying: "I would implore the 9/11 commission to support a follow-on investigation to ascertain what the real truth is. I do believe the 9/11 Commission should have done that job: figuring out what went wrong with Able Danger." A former member of the Commission, Richard Ben-Veniste, the former Watergate prosecutor, yesterday called on the Pentagon hand over all the information that the Army possessed about Atta and the other hijackers. "If these assertions are credible," said Mr Ben-Veniste, "the Pentagon would need to explain why it was that the 9/11 commissioners were not provided this information despite requests for all information regarding Able Danger." The Defence Department has not disputed Colonel Shaffer's account of the work of Able Danger and its attempts to share its findings. The Pentagon said in a statement that it was "working to gain more clarity on this issue" and that "it's too early to comment on findings related to the program identified as Able Danger." ************** Sgt. Samuel Provance (coverup re Abu Ghraib: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/galland.php?articleid=3529 Sgt. Samuel Provance sealed his fate as a soldier on May 21, 2004, when he went on record with ABC News. His experiences as a U.S. Army junior noncommissioned officer since committing one of the greatest imaginable mistakes in service – speaking out to the news media – have left him dazed, afraid, wondering and confused. Today, finally, Sgt. Provance is in Washington, D.C., upon the request of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D, Mass.). Kennedy invited Provance to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee to hear of his experiences on the ground at the Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere in Iraq. The road to Washington for this young Army NCO has not been pleasant. It has been a case study in how the Army deals with soldiers who struggle with conscience, when morality and the sense to "do the right thing" win out over going along. What did Sam Provance do? He told the truth! In so doing he has indicted, as we come to learn, his military chain of command and many others who have been blamed for the "animal house" conditions of the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. One of the most guilty of all is his own brigade commander, Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the embattled 205th Military Intelligence (MI) Brigade, headquartered in Wiesbaden Germany. Since publicly telling the truth, Provance has experienced a number of incidents in which his Army superiors have attempted to break his will, embarrass and belittle him in the eyes of his peers, intimidate him to silence. The actual impact has been to further tar-brush the true guilty parties. Sgt. Provance has had the guts to speak from his heart and say that he believed that the Army was involved in a cover-up as to the extent of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. He also told ABC News that the sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib began as a technique ordered by military intelligence interrogators. Although he had not personally witnessed this abuse, he certainly heard the internal scuttlebutt. In fact, one evening earlier this year, Provance was driven home by Spc. Benjamin Heidenreich, also of the 205th M.I. Brigade. Heidenreich told Provance that he, Heidenreich, and Lt. Col. Steven Jordan – head of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib – had teamed up to beat up an Iraqi detainee at the prison. Provance had served in the facility with Heidenreich during the period when the alleged abuse and total chaos prevailed in 2003. As an intelligence soldier with a top secret security clearance, it was Provance's job to administer a highly classified MI computer communication and data retrieval system. This past spring Sgt. Provance found himself back at his home station in Weisbaden, Germany, with the 302nd MI Battalion. After he read Major Gen. Antonio Taguba's Article 15-6 investigation report, Provance became morally committed to exposing an Army whitewash and cover-up. He is not the only person so committed. Even when Maj. Gen. George Fay was appointed to investigate further on April 23, 2004, examining the role that Military Intelligence personnel may have played in the abuses, Provance justifiably suspected that Fay's findings would sweep the dirt much deeper under the proverbial carpet. He had good reason to believe this after a face-to-face meeting with Major Gen. Fay. When Fay interviewed Provance regarding what he saw, heard, or witnessed at Abu Ghraib, the young NCO stated that the general seemed interested in only the actions of the military police (MP) and not of the MI interrogators at the facility. It would be later on that same day that Heidenreich revealed to Provance the instances where MI personnel had abused prisoners. In an attempt to further intimidate and ultimately muzzle Sgt. Provance, Fay threatened to take action against him for failing to report what he had seen or heard of, sooner. Provance explained to the general that he said nothing because he had no firsthand knowledge of prisoner abuse, and that he had also feared that he would be ostracized for speaking out. The sergeant would eventually become intimately familiar with what ostracized really meant when the chain of command got serious about it. Fay gave Provance a gag order at this point and discouraged him from speaking to anyone or testifying at any time. Fay told Provance to keep his mouth shut about these things if he valued his career. As Provance and I both see it, keeping Provance silent would enable Fay to further shift the focus from the culpable MI personnel to the target audience of MPs that had already been portrayed by Army generals as "the real bad apples." The final release of the Fay and Schlesinger reports would bear out Provance's concern. The reports found that MI interrogators and many other MI personnel were knee-deep in inappropriate actions, neglect, criminal malfeasance and dereliction of duty at the highest levels. Following his first interview with Fay, and considering Fay's threats, Provance essentially considered himself the one who was inevitably going to carry some burden of punishment for "something" that the Army would devise. Thus, Provance felt that he had nothing to lose, and maybe justice and the truth to gain. Convinced that the truth would never come out otherwise, Provance resolved to expose the cover-up to the media. On May 18, Provance told ABC, "I feel like I'm being punished for being honest." With personal introspection, Provance noted, "If I didn't hear anything, I didn't see anything, I don't know what you're talking about, then my life would be just fine right now." This was not good enough for Sgt. Sam Provance. He was raised by a different standard. He is an honest man. Shortly after Provance talked to ABC and the stories broke in the media, I established personal contact with the sergeant and have maintained close contact to this day. I can confirm that the very predictable reprisals against Provance began to happen very quickly. The day after the ABC story was published, Sgt. Provance's chain of command (headed by Col. Pappas), suspended his access to classified material. A military intelligence soldier without access to classified material is virtually worthless in his or her profession. Next, his chain of command administratively "flagged" the sergeant. This is akin to setting a soldier's feet firmly in a vat of concrete as far as any personnel action is concerned. Sgt. Provance was now in a command-imposed limbo. His chain of command told him that he might face prosecution because his comments to ABC were not "in the national interest." Provance was then assigned duties as a helper in the unit's NBC (Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical) room. There, when left alone, he would be personally responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of sensitive accountable items and equipment designed to protect soldiers from chemical attacks in battle. (This is not usually where unreliable soldiers should be stationed for daily duties.) Then on July 23, Sgt. Provance's name appeared in the press again (following an interview months earlier) in a journalistic account of what may be the biggest story of the Iraq war, the torture of Iraqi children. Report Mainz, a German television station, exposed accusations from the International Red Cross against the United States to the effect that over 100 children are imprisoned in U.S.-controlled detention centers, including Abu Ghraib. "Between January and May of this year, we've registered 107 children, during 19 visits in 6 different detention locations," Red Cross representative Florian Westphal said in the report. The Red Cross report also delineated eyewitness testimony of the abuse of these children. Provance, who was stationed at Abu Ghraib, told the media that interrogating officers had gotten their hands on a 15- or 16-year-old girl. Military police apparently only stopped the interrogation when the girl was half undressed. A separate incident described a 16-year-old being soaked with water, driven through the cold, smeared with mud, and then presented before his weeping father, who was also a prisoner. After these came to light, Army CID then went back to work on Provance with a whole new list of questions to be answered such as: "How was the interview with ABC News conducted?" "Did you call them or did they call you?" "How soon after your questioning [by Maj. Gen. Fay] was the interview with the press done?" and "Why did you feel as if the [Taguba] 15-6 was focused more on the MPs instead of MI?" The summer months went by with the 205th MI Brigade nervously awaiting the results of the Fay report. For almost five months, the much-anticipated report has been thought to be a whitewash of accusations against senior MI officers that have been redirected at lower-ranking soldiers. During this time, political forces in Washington were gathering, and they wanted answers. On Aug. 13, Sgt. Provance was present at his unit's morning formation. Upon this occasion, his first sergeant, 1st Sgt. William Palenik, seized the opportunity to issue stern warnings to soldiers about talking to the press in light of the anticipated release of the Fay report. Palenik went on to advise the soldiers that Army Public Affairs would be coming to brief soldiers on how they should handle themselves in the eventuality that they may be queried by the press. Palenik then seized the opportunity to publicly and insultingly paint an analogy of a soldier at Abu Ghraib whose "only duty is to turn screws, and that such a soldier should only, 'talk about screws,'" while indirectly referring to Provance in front of his contemporaries. During the duty day of Aug. 13, numerous other soldiers asked Provance about his "screwing responsibilities." In view of a command climate rife with liars, self-aggrandizing and self-preserving leaders, Palenik's actions and his smart mouth are censurable at a minimum. On Aug. 19, Provance was informed by his platoon sergeant that he would become the noncommissioned officer in charge of his unit's orderly room. Provance expressed great concern to me and his attorneys at this sudden change of duty positions. Notwithstanding, during this entire period of time, Provance had come to the attention of many people through the media and his stalwart effort to tell the truth. Largely reliant on the coordination effected by civilian attorney Hardy Vieux, the Senate Armed Services Committee requested Sgt. Provance's appearance before the panel on Sept. 1. A letter from Sen. Kennedy asked Sgt. Provance to be in Washington, D.C., between Sept. 3-17 in order to be available for interviews by Kennedy, his staff, and possibly other members of the Senate and their staffs. The hearings at which Sgt. Provance is requested to testify begin on Thursday, Sept. 9. The lawmakers want the straight truth from Sgt. Provance, no matter who his testimony points to. That is how the system is supposed to work. Provance was scheduled to fly to Washington last week but his chain of command refused to allow him to depart Germany. At this point, it is unknown how high up the chain of command the no-fly order came from, but as of Sunday night (Sept. 5), Provance was still in Germany. According to sources involved in the legal representation of Sgt. Provance, he was due to land at Dulles Airport at 4:00 PM, Monday, Sept. 6, 2004. It appears that despite the Army's best efforts to silence him, Sgt. Sam Provance will finally get to speak the truth, in a forum that the U.S. Army cannot ignore.
#3. To: Zipporah (#2) Thanks Zip, lots of good info to mull over. "War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent." ~George Orwell #4. To: robin (#3) This thread is screwed up due to the HTML in one of the links .. I'm watching this on C-Span.. my gawd.. this is unreal what they've done to these people..
#5. To: Zipporah (#4) William Weaver just delivered a good rant. "War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent." ~George Orwell #6. To: robin (#5) Yes he did! .. I wonder if this will just be YET another investigation that goes nowhere.. What is happening now is that they're investigating themselves.. It seems as I said a lot of these people are tied to 9/11 and what col Shaffer said about Zelikow was interesting..
#7. To: Zipporah (#6) These hearings were on Tuesday. Have you seen any MSM coverage? Or even outside MSM coverage? "War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent." ~George Orwell #8. To: robin (#7) yes there has been some.. http://news.google.com/news?q=hearings+on+whistleblowers&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=nn&oi=newsr
#9. To: Zipporah (#8) Thanks, I'll look at it. There is wide agreement that the problems have to do with the Executive Branch overreaching into what should be the domain of Congress.
"War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent." ~George Orwell #10. To: Zipporah (#8) Zip, out of a total of 30 only ~6 were MSM, not blogs & not about something else. The Sac Bee was one of the few MSM that reported anything. I find that shocking.
"War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent." ~George Orwell #11. To: robin (#10) it is shocking for this is huge.. The testimony's have shown that there is a coverup.. and that there is corruption at the very top.. and it is very telling that there is very little coverage.. The so called liberal press??
#12. To: Zipporah (#11) Maybe the foreign press will have something. How pathetic. "War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent." ~George Orwell #13. To: robin (#12) it is pathetic.. all this testimony ties directly to current events.. the NSA, the Abu Ghraib torture, Able Danger and 9/11.. so this is not something that is on the back burner.
#14. To: robin (#12) here is Col Schaffer's prepared testimony: http://www.house.gov/hasc/schedules/2-15-06ShafferTestimony.pdf Now this is interesting on J. D. Smith: Civilian Able Danger personnel such as program manager JD Smith are also slated to appear before the Armed Service Committee on the 15th, and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone may also be asked to testify. Smith, who worked as a civilian defense contractor, supplied more details about Able Danger activities in an interview this week, including the revelation that the Able Danger program wasnt just doing terrorism and Al Qaeda. What else did the advanced data mining operation look into? We ran stuff on Bosnia, Serbia, drug cartels, China, lots of stuff, Smith told me. The point was that no one had ever done anything like this program before, and we were demonstrating that it could in fact be effective. So we were given multiple requests, and worked on a tasked basis. Everything was done off-the premises, on a tasked, daily basis, for a low amount of money. We were doing a really good job for very little money very quickly. My companys number one customer was the DIA. Smith was quick to point out that while he worked on it, Able Danger involved only open source stuff. Later, however, after the part of the program Smith worked on was shut down, that may have changed. In spring 2000, we made charts and some other deliverables relative to terrorism that piqued attention from the Army, Smith said. Then we were told that the Defense Department freaked out over U.S. persons who were named therein. In short order, they shut us down, cancelled the contract, and confiscated everything we had. As reported here earlier, the Able Danger program was later reconstituted at a top secret Raytheon black facility in Garland, Texas. Raytheon re-hired most of the personnel, Smith recalled, But not me, since I worked for another company. When I worked on it, we had nothing to do with anything classified. But I suspect that they later intermingled classified with open source in Garland. Ironically, while Smith was using revolutionary software to mine data and uncover links and patterns connecting possible terrorists, the US Army wasnt. I was using proprietary software, and they were using COTS (commercial off the shelf) because they were under funded and had no budget for software, Smith said. So every time I had to deliver a report, I had to print out everything on paper and bring over literally boxes of printouts. Among the materials he delivered was a copy of a photograph of Mohamed Atta. We had multiple names for him, and for many others, Smith said. I didnt have time to try to confirm any of them. Any name associated with a picture and any spelling variants thereof were attached to the picture. Few of the pictures had only one name attached, according to Smith. But our focus wasnt on the names, it was on the pictures. We clicked on a picture, and then all the names and links came up. After 9/11 took place, Smith saw Attas picture and thought, We HAD that guy! he told me. I remembered his picture because his face was unique. He had that haunting stare, and his facial structure was unique. I was just happy that we had at least one of the attackers. I assumed US intelligence had all this stuff, and the Atta picture would be enough to get them started. We had all this information and we had turned it over to them. But that was then, and this is now. As the fifth anniversary of the attacks approaches, Smith says hes increasingly worried that all the data he and others on the Able Danger team found was destroyed and may never be found again. Let me just note that Mohamed Atta was a Tier Three guy - not THAT important in the scale of things, he concluded. Sure, we had his picture - but we know where he is now dead and gone. But what about all the Tier Two and Tier One guys we identified? What about all the pictures of the other, more important people we identified? Where are THEY now? To me, thats the real danger.
#15. To: robin (#0) Few appreciate that under Title 18, it's a felony to NOT report a known felony; the legal term is "Misprision of a Felony."
#16. To: Zipporah (#14) Did Schaffer mention that Eliot Spitzer is applying pressure on him? Weldon mentioned it on Fox this past week.
#17. To: Zipporah (#14) This is dangerous and it's how the Bush admin is running things intentionally. BTW, did you see the thread on the Israeli companies now associated with U.S. broadband companies? 5,000 Israeli are working in Atlanta, all s/w, not unlike the s/w he's talking about.
"War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent." ~George Orwell #18. To: Jethro Tull (#16) He mentioned Spritzer but I dont recall the context.
#19. To: SKYDRIFTER (#15) Damned if they do and damned if they don't. I suspect most do not now, they know which side their bread is buttered on.
"War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent." ~George Orwell #20. To: robin (#17) BTW, did you see the thread on the Israeli companies now associated with U.S. broadband companies? 5,000 Israeli are working in Atlanta, all s/w, not unlike the s/w he's talking about. it's obvious it's intentional..this brings to mind the BS Rumsfeld said about al Qaeda having better technology than the US.. NO I didnt see that thread..
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