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Fox News seems to have the latest on the state of play of the Able Danger claims, and there do seem to be some important inconsistencies:
For one, hasn't Shaffer said in other recent interviews that he himself didn't remember if Atta was on the Able Danger analyses, but was reminded of it after the September 11 attacks by a colleague? So is he now saying he directly was dissuaded by a SOCOM two star from focusing on Atta because he supposedly had the legal protections of a US person? Reported Dan Eggen today:...Shaffer said in an interview on FOX News' "Hannity and Colmes" Thursday night that he and a fellow officer — a Navy captain — briefed the commission on Able Danger's findings.
"The fact is this — they were told not once but twice," he said.
Although Shaffer conceded that during his own personal briefing of Sept. 11 commission staffers in Afghanistan in Oct. 2003, he didn't specifically name the terrorists. Instead, he detailed how Able Danger had uncovered information about three terror cells with the use of then-advanced data-mining techniques.
Shaffer also claims that Able Danger members were basically dissuaded from further investigating Atta because he was here as a foreign visitor. He said a two-star general above him was "very adament" about not looking further at Atta.
"I was directed several times [to ignore Atta], to the point where he had to remind me he was a general and I was not ... [and] I would essentially be fired," Shaffer told FOX News.
The former chairman of the Sept. 11 commission said in a telephone interview that he believes the onus is on the Pentagon to do a speedy evaluation of the claims by Shaffer and others that Atta and three other hijackers had been identified one year before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
"The files are in the possession of the Defense Department, so really nobody else besides the administration can get to the bottom of it ... if there exists a file on Able Danger," said Chairman Tom Kean.
While making no judgment on the veracity of the claims, former commissioner Tim Roemer said inconsistencies are appearing between the story and the facts that the commission knows.
For one, Roemer asked how Able Danger got a photo of Atta in 2000 for its alleged chart of terrorists when he had not yet applied for a U.S. visa.
"If Atta's name is mentioned, you send off a host of fire alarms, neon lights, people's hair gets on fire and you're going to find out what that's all about. But you also need evidence, you can't just say here's my recollection of something I thought I saw in a notebook. You've got to say, 'Here is the chart,'" Roemer said...
"We'll be mad as hell frankly if stuff was withheld from us. That would be terrible. So I, you know, until we have the answer from the administration, I don't think anybody is in a position to say something is true or not true," Kean said...
Kean said the commission had initially been promised a statement from the Defense Department last week.
...Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, who has been on paid administrative leave from the Defense Intelligence Agency since his security clearance was suspended in March 2004, said a Navy officer and a civilian official affiliated with the Able Danger program told him after the attacks that Atta and other hijackers had been included on a chart more than a year earlier.
But because he was not intimately familiar with the names and photographs of suspected terrorists, he did not realize that hijackers were listed until it was alleged to him after the attacks, Shaffer said. All of the charts that could support his claims have also disappeared, he said.
"I did see the charts, and I did handle the charts, but my understanding of them was like a layman," Shaffer said. "We had identified them as terrorists. But even now I do not remember all the names."