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General Shelton admits authorizing Able Danger
Gen. Hugh Shelton has confirmed that four years before the 2001 attacks, he authorized a secret computer data-mining initiative to track down Osama bin Laden and operatives in al-Qaida.

Shelton was the military’s top commander during the attacks.

In his first public comments on the initiative, which some former intelligence officers say was code-named Able Danger, Shelton confirmed that he received two briefings on the mission — both well before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“Right after I left SOCOM (Special Operations Command), I asked my successor to put together a small team, if he could, to try to use the Internet and start trying to see if there was any way that we could track down Osama bin Laden or where he was getting his money from or anything of that nature,” Shelton said Monday in an interview.

“It was just kind of an experiment,” Shelton said. “What can we do? So, he pulled together a bunch of really bright, computer-literate guys from across the services.”

Shelton’s assertions raise new questions about the government’s knowledge of the al-Qaida network before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and about the subsequent findings of a commission set up to investigate the attacks.

Shelton was responding to allegations by former Pentagon intelligence officers, who say they used a data-mining program code-named Able Danger to identify terrorist Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers in early 2000, but that Pentagon lawyers blocked them from relaying their findings to the FBI.

Before the Defense Department issued a gag order that prevented them from testifying to Congress in September, the former intelligence officers said they were assigned to use sophisticated software to perform complex computer searches of “open-source” data to locate links among al-Qaida operatives.

Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott said he led the program that identified Atta in January or February 2000. Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer said that Shelton had issued a directive establishing Able Danger, and that he and other intelligence officers on the top-secret program briefed Shelton on its findings in early 2001.

While Shelton said he never heard the program referred to as “Able Danger” until news reports on it first emerged in the summer, the retired general said he authorized a data-mining effort aimed at bin Laden and his associates.

Shelton said he did not recall hearing or seeing Atta’s name in briefings or before the attacks.

Shelton said he also did not recall seeing a large chart that the former Able Danger officers claim to have produced, displaying as many as 60 al-Qaida operatives, including Atta.

In its final report last year, the Sept. 11 commission spread blame across the government but said it had not identified any of the 19 hijackers before the attacks.

Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican who has led a congressional push for the Pentagon to allow open Able Danger hearings, said the Sept. 11 commission failed to adequately investigate the program or its findings.
Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-12-09
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=137001