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Jewish World Review Oct. 3, 2005 / 29 Elul, 5765 Defense speaks out on Able Danger By Jonathan Gurwitz
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The Defense Department now acknowledges, counter to prior denials, the existence of the Able Danger program.
Begun in 1999 and run from the Pentagon's Special Operations Command, its purpose was to identify potential terrorist threats to the United States by mining data from public sources of information. It ceased operation in January 2001.
Five members of the Able Danger team have come forward in recent months to claim they identified 9-11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and other participants in the al-Qaida plot during the summer of 2000.
Assuming their recollections are accurate, there's reason to treat the Atta correlation with skepticism. The Mohamed Atta who allegedly showed up on an Able Danger chart of 60 potential terrorists may not have been the 9-11 death pilot. Similarities and irregular transliterations of Arabic names in English have caused confusion in the past.
Federal authorities detained Dr. Al-Badr M.H. Al-Hazmi, a Saudi radiologist who lived in San Antonio, as a material witness shortly after the 9-11 attacks. The FBI eventually released him without charge. One of the hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77 was Nawaf al-Hazmi. Another Saudi national named Sultan Salem Al-Hazmi received pilot training at Alpha Tango Flying Services in San Antonio.
In the case of Atta, the confusion may derive from similarities between his full Arabic name and that of an Egyptian arms smuggler whose brother allegedly had financial ties to Osama bin Laden and Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheik who inspired the first plot against the World Trade Center in 1993.
If the mistaken identities are confusing, they also contain unusual parallels.
Abdul Hakim Murad, another terrorist with a critical link to the blind sheik, is serving a life sentence for plotting to blow up a dozen passenger planes over the Pacific and pilot a suicide attack on CIA headquarters. By coincidence, he also received pilot training at San Antonio's Alpha Tango Flying Services.
Members of the Able Danger team have publicly stated there is no confusion. According to them, they fingered Atta and three members of his team a full year before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Moreover, Navy Capt. Scott Philpott, a leader of the Able Danger effort, claims he told the 9-11 commission about the Atta identification. The heralded commission report flatly states U.S. intelligence failed to identify members of the U.S.-based al-Qaida cell. It doesn't mention Able Danger, not even to dispel its findings in a footnote.
Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the commission's chairman and vice chairman, issued a statement saying the Able Danger allegations lacked sufficient credibility and documentary evidence to be included.
About that documentary evidence — well, it might have vanished.
At a Sept. 1 media briefing, a Defense Department spokesman acknowledged that at least some Able Danger documentation had been destroyed. Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., who has led the effort to shed light on Able Danger, says an Army officer will testify he was ordered to destroy 2.5 terabytes of data related to the effort.
Well, he might testify.
The Senate Judiciary Committee tried to begin a public hearing on Sept. 21 to get to the bottom of the Able Danger mystery. But the Pentagon issued a gag order on five key witnesses, including Philpott, preventing them from testifying.
They'll have a second chance to testify on Wednesday, when the committee reconvenes. The Defense Department must let them speak, and not only to put a damper on the wild conspiracy theories circulating around Able Danger. The American people need to know if the findings of the 9-11 Commission Report are as thorough and accurate as they would like to believe.
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JWR contributor Jonathan Gurwitz, a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, is a co-founder and twice served as Director General of the Future Leaders of the Alliance program at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. In 1986 he was placed on the Foreign Service Register of the U.S. State Department.Comment by clicking here.
© 2005, Jonathan Gurwitz |
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