Michael Maloof, one of the original two analysts hired by Doug Feith to find connections between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, the progenitor to the infamous Office of Special Plans, has a frankly astonishing article in the Washington Times yesterday. Ostensibly a defense of Able Danger, in the oped Maloof says that before his work for Feith, he got hired by Weldon to datamine open source material to find Chinese tech proliferators on Weldon's behalf:

...Following the initial DoD turndown, Ellen Preisser and this writer then data-mined unclassified information to report to Mr. Weldon on possible Chinese front companies in the United States seeking technology for the People's Liberation Army.

It showed how Chinese front companies in the United States listed as U.S. corporations were acquiring U.S. weapons technology from U.S. defense contractors, and improving China's military capability. Such access to U.S. technology then would allow the Chinese over time to duplicate U.S. military systems down to the widget.

Indeed, a June 27, 2005 article in The Washington Times reported U.S. investigators were concerned with China and its middlemen increasingly and illegally obtaining "sensitive or classified U.S. weapons technology" from U.S. companies.

Reaction to the study on Chinese front companies in the United States from the Army and the General Counsel's office in the Office of the Defense Secretary was immediate. In November 1999, they ordered the study destroyed, but not before Mr. Weldon complained to then Army Chief of Staff Eric K. Shinseki.

Mr. Weldon also wrote a letter to then-FBI Director Louis Freeh requesting an espionage investigation. Mr. Freeh never responded to the Weldon request...

What Maloof doesn't say here but has been reported elsewhere is that his project got shut down by armed federal agents after it fingered now-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Defense secretary Bill Perry among others as Chinese tech proliferators, because of their connections to Stanford. Check out this NY Post story:

...Cyber-sleuths working for a Pentagon intelligence unit that reportedly identified some of the 9/11 hijackers before the attack were fired by military officials, after they mistakenly pinpointed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other prominent Americans as potential security risks, The Post has learned.

The private contractors working for the counter-terrorism unit Able Danger lost their jobs in May 2000. The firings following a series of analyses that Pentagon lawyers feared were dangerously close to violating laws banning the military from spying on Americans, sources said.

The Pentagon canceled its contract with the private firm shortly after the analysts — who were working on identifying al Qaeda operatives — produced a particularly controversial chart on proliferation of sensitive technology to China, the sources said...

It would be funny if this guy didn't have such huge sway on the Pentagon's deceptions and delusions going into Iraq.

And under what authority does a public official have to hire people like Maloof to conduct their own counterintelligence investigations? Who's paying for this stuff? Several people have told me Jim Woolsey sat in on their presentations to Weldon of their datamining projects, and that his role was described as being a consultant to Weldon. It's worth noting that Maloof was fired from the Pentagon after he lost his security clearance.

Posted by Laura at October 10, 2005 09:15 AM