AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
A Pentagon investigation has dismissed as unsubstantiated allegations that a secret military intelligence program called Able Danger identified lead September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta a year before the attacks on New York and Washington.
The Pentagon's inspector general also found no evidence of workplace reprisals against Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, a Defense Intelligence Agency employee, for making the allegations to members of Congress and the media.
“The evidence did not support assertions that Able Danger identified the September 11, 2001 terrorists nearly a year before the attack, that Able Danger team members were prohibited from sharing information with law enforcement authorities, or that DoD officials reprised against (Lieutenant Colonel) Shaffer for his disclosures regarding Able Danger,” the acting inspector general Thomas Gimble said in a letter.
The inspector general's report, dated September 18, was released Thursday.
The allegations caused a furor when they first surfaced in news reports in August 2005 and were championed vociferously by Representative Curt Weldon, a Republican from Pennsylvania.
They reinforced the view that the attacks might have been prevented if Atta's supposed presence in the United States as part of a Brooklyn cell had been passed on to law enforcement authorities.
“We concluded that prior to September 11, 2001, Able Danger team members did not identify Mohammed Atta or any other 9/11 hijacker,” the inspector general's report said.
Four witnesses remembered seeing Atta's name or photo on a chart that identified terrorist cells, including a Brooklyn cell, the report said.
The report concluded that the chart was one produced by a contractor in May 2000 which showed the names or photographs of 53 terrorists, but not Atta's or that of any other 9/11 hijacker.
It said it found that the witnesses recollections were not accurate.
Their testimony “varied significantly from each other, and in some instances testimony obtained in reinterviews was inconsistent with testimony that witnesses provided earlier.”
“In particular, we found inaccurate (Lieutenant Colonel) Shaffer's assertions regarding the existence of pre-9/11 information on the terrorists and his suggestion that DoD officials thwarted efforts to share Able Danger information with law enforce authorities,” the report said.
“All witnesses who were in a position to know denied (Lieutenant Colonel) Shaffer's claim that efforts to meet with FBI antiterrorism units were made, much less thwarted by DoD officials,” it said.
The DIA halted Shaffer's access to classified information in September, 2005 after the first stories appeared. His security clearance was formally revoked in February, ending his career as an intelligence officer.
But the inspector general found that those actions were based on other unidentified misconduct and would have been justified regardless of the Able Danger disclosures.
