"Able Danger": Still Alive

NY Times: Officer Says Pentagon Barred Sharing Pre-9/11 Qaeda Data With F.B.I.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 - A military intelligence team repeatedly contacted the F.B.I. in 2000 to warn about the existence of an American-based terrorist cell that included the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a veteran Army intelligence officer who said he had now decided to risk his career by discussing the information publicly. The officer, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, said military lawyers later blocked the team from sharing any of its information with the F.B.I.

Colonel Shaffer said in an interview that the small, highly classified intelligence program known as Able Danger had identified by name the terrorist ringleader, Mohammed Atta, as well three of the other future hijackers by mid-2000, and had tried to arrange a meeting that summer with agents of the F.B.I.'s Washington field office to share the information.

But he said military lawyers forced members of the intelligence program to cancel three scheduled meetings with the F.B.I. at the last minute, which left the bureau without information that Colonel Shaffer said might have led to Mr. Atta and the other terrorists while the Sept. 11 plot was still being planned.

"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 said of his efforts to get the evidence from the intelligence program to the F.B.I. in 2000 and early 2001.

This really sounds like the military was protecting these terrorists from scrutiny by the FBI.

Of course, the important questions are:
1) who gave Mohamed Atta a Green card?
2) why does the FBI timeline show that Mohamed Atta came into the US much later than the Able Danger exercise would indicate?
3) did Atta train at a US military base as early media reports suggested?
4) when will the mainstream media really start looking into these critical questions?