Bush: Still Paving The Way For Osama

The Bush administration gave Dubai Ports World, owned by the United Arab Emirate of Dubai, a $6.8 billion deal last week in which they will buy control of six of our largest and most crucial ports: New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia. Only a flimsy investigation and weak "good faith" agreements guarantees the company in charge will - or can - stop Osama bin Laden operatives from infiltrating its workforce.

Given that the United Arab Emirates gave the Taliban refuge, this is an unbelievably stupid move. As Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. told "Fox News Sunday":

"It's unbelievably tone-deaf politically at this point in our history, four years after 9/11, to entertain the idea of turning port security over to a company based in the UAE, (which) vows to destroy Israel."

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., demanded that President Bush personally intervene.

"The president must act," he said at a news conference with New York Harbor as a backdrop. "Outsourcing the operations of our largest ports to a country with long involvement in terrorism is a homeland security accident waiting to happen."

But Bush, approved it and, as usual, is unconcerned. He dropped the ball before 9-11. He dropped the ball before and after Katrina. He's created a Medicare mess, a mess in our schools, a disaster in Iraq and is bankrupting us.

Another terror attack would certainly give the GOP the absolute power it craves, since it is so close now.

And, although Bush perports to love the U.S. he spouts rhetoric as opposed to analyzing what's best for her. As Bush said himself while aboard Air Force One on June 4, 2003:

"I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking... about why I do things."

And don't we see the result of that! Now, to crown his legacy of disastrous leadership, he's throwning open the door to another terrorist attack.

Write to your representatives. If they don't care, organize a protest.

Regarding a related issue, has anyone actually read the 2/15/06 testimony of Anthony A. Shaffer, Lt. Colonel, U.S. Army Reserve, Senior Intelligence Officer in regard to project ABLE DANGER in which he maintains that 9-11 terrorist Mohammed Atta and his al Quaeda cell were identified a year before 9-11?

Here are some quotes:

Pg. 7: "...much of the critical data that was harvested for the ABLE DANGER project, that could be used again now in the search for sleeper cells and others that matched the 'Atta' profile is now gone - destroyed at the direction of the DoD officials in the 2000 timeframe. You have heard from Eric Kleinsmith of his work on ABLE DANGER, and his receiving direction to 'destroy the data and background documents or go to jail' - which he did."

Pg. 16: "Mr. William Huntington, who was just promoted to serve as the Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who after becoming the Deputy Director of HUMINT in the early 2001 timeframe passed the buck. When I attempted to brief him on the DORHAWK GALLEY project, to include information on the ABLE DANGER project that was to use specific portions of the ABLE DANGER methodology to sort through and separate U.S. Person information from Foreign Intelligence information, he refused to hear the briefing, announcing that 'I can't be here, I can't see this' as he left his office and refused to return to hear the information. By doing this, he could later feign ignorance of the project."

Pg. 22: "In the late January early February 2000 timeframe...all information relating to Atta, and the other terrorist[s] that are identified as working and living in the U.S. or have connections to U.S. persons become 'off limits'."

Pg. 25: "Late Spring/Early Summer 2000. [ ]Based on my unit's enhanced relationship with the FBI, I set up three separate meetings between SOCOM (COL Worthington the then ABLE DANGER chief) and FBI Counter-terrorism Special Agents in Washington DC. SOCOM cancels all three meetings."

Pg. 28: "May 2001. Scott Phillpott calls me in desperation in the May 2001 timeframe on my mobile phone. He asked if he can bring 'the ABLE DANGER options' that ABLE DANGER had come up with to DC and to use one of my STRATUS IVY facilities to do the work. I tell him with all candor that I would love nothing better than to loan him my facility and work the options with him (to exploit them for both Intel potential and for actual offensive operations) but tell him that my DIA chain of command has directed me to stop all support to him and the project.

In good faith, I ask my boss, COL Mary Moffitt if I can help Scott and exploit the options - and that there would be a DIA quid pro quo of obtaining new 'lead' information from the project. She takes [offense] at me even mentioning ABLE DANGER in this conversation, tells me that I am being insubordinate, and begins the process of removing me from my position as chief of STRATUS IVY. As a direct result of this conversation, she directs that I be "moved" to a desk officer position to oversee Defense HUMINT operations in Latin America."

"11 Sep 2001. We are attacked."

"Late September 2001 Eileen Preisser calls me for coffee and tells me she has something she needs to show me.

At coffee she shows me a chart she had brought with her - a large desk top size chart. On it she has me look at the 'Brooklyn Cell.' I was confused at first - but she kept telling me to look - and in the 'cluster'. I eventually found the picture of Atta. She [continued in testimony on page 29] pointed out ( and I recognized) that this was one of the charts I LIWA had produced in Jan 2000, and that I had taken down to Tampa.

I was shocked - and had a sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach - I felt that we had been on the right track - and that because of the bureaucracy we had been stopped - and that we might well have been able to have done something to stop the 9/11 attack. I ask Eileen what she plans to do with the information/chart - she tells me that she does not know but she plans to do something."

Throughout his testimony Shaffer conveys his experience and perception of how the administration - through the DIA - has worked to discredit and harass him. He certainly makes his point that what has been used against him seems flimsy. And on page 39 he reports finding out in June or July of 2004 that his office documents and holdings had been moved and his classified documents destroyed.

He gives his opinion that agency bureaucrats are more interested in protecting their jobs than protecting America and calls for better protection for whistleblowers.

Shafter also raises what should be an important question:

"If there can be a cover-up on a [cut-and-dried] issue like the truth about Sgt. Tillman's death, [who was killed as a result of friendly fire, not in fighting insurgents as reported] to what length do you think government bureaucrats, who were never held accountable for their failures to detect and prevent the 9/11 attack would do to suppress direct evidence that we had an offensive capability that could well have been used to pre-emptively target and destroy Al Qaeda a full year before we were attacked?"

On 2/16 William M. Arkin wrote about the ABLE DANGER issue in The Washington Post. He concluded that Under Secretary of Defense Stephen Cambone, who refutes Shaffer's testimony that Mohammed Atta and other terrorists were known and their pictures were on a chart, "...cannot necessarily be believed because he is the mouthpiece for a damaged administration and a Pentagon that is not above lying when it suits it."

However, he also says Shaffer can not be relied upon "...because he is a nut."

After reading through Shaffer's testimony, I disagree.

Shaffer does not sound insane. He does convey the kind of fervor that is common in the military, which is the desire to be a hero, to fight the bad guys and win.

The fact that his testimony leads one to believe he believes he inadvertently discovered evidence of a conspiracy by the U.S. government to cover up information, does not necessarily make him crazy nor paranoid. We've seen ample incidences of cover-ups and conspiracies orchestrated by the U.S. government, with Watergate holding the number one spot for the worst abuses uncovered to date.

What detracts from Shaffer's testimony is the fact that he, obviously, did not have his prepared testimony proofread. There are a number of grammatical errors, misspellings and misuse/overuses of quotes which have the effect of detracting from his credibility as a communicator and professional.

He also reaches in making his points, looking even to obscure historical references for evidence to show that he is not the first to be maligned and that it is those who are discrediting him who need investigation.

Lastly, he rambles at times, as most of us would ramble if we were to find ourselves torn between allegiance to the U.S. and stunned consternation that our government is discrediting us and our direct experience. This emotional component does not make him crazy. It shows he's upset.

And if Shaffer is emotional, it may be akin to the emotional turmoil that Hal, in Kubrick's 2001, was shown to go through in trying to keep his charges safe while he, himself, was expected to operate on two conflicting and mutually exclusive premises.

Bottom line, it's obvious that Shaffer loves his country and he was trying to keep her safe, but seems to have found himself up against an agenda that not only was never adequately explained, but was denied.

Shaffer thinks bureaucrats killed his program and destroyed his files in an effort to protect their jobs and butts. Most likely, but why?

Between the lines is the subtext that the government was conducting secret, illegal surveillance and there was fear that this would come out and fall under the scrutiny of civil rights activist groups. The argument he claims he was given was that data mined from spying could not be kept, for fear that these groups would discover how it was gathered and make waves.

If he did not give the start of this shut down as occuring just before Bush's election, I would scoff at this idea, given how little this administration cares for civil rights - or about what those, concerned with constitutional rights, think.

But what happened once BushCo got into office? Did personnel not probe into these intelligence issues? They were not completely ignorant of them, for we were told that the President was given a report on the potential for a terrorist attack only one month before 9/11. But did that information rely, in part upon ABLE DANGER's data?

Did they receive a general warning? Or did they find out they had specifics?

We don't know. But the administration's spokesperson seems to be denying that they had specifics.

Yet we know the new administration was itching for a reason to invade Iraq.

Because of this, I cannot shake the idea that someone, somewhere, in the new administration got wind of how close Shaffer and his group were to preventing a terrorist attack on home soil. If so, what could possibly prevent them from pounding nails in the coffin of ABLE DANGER?

For only an attack here, on our soil, would have aroused the American people to support a war.

The fact that records were destroyed under Bush's watch is suspicious. And the word of the Bush administraton appointee who refutes Shaffer's testimoney isn't worth much.

After all, every time we turn around the White House is discovered to have manufactured another lie. The most flagrant of these was in telling us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in order to get us to go to war.

As for Shaffer, who once thought of himself as being on the "side of good," he has now been expelled from that roll. Imposing that kind of powerlessness and identity change on a formerly competent and respected intelligence profession might be seen as a deliberate attempt to drive him over the edge, when he and we are continually being told that the next terrorist attack is not an issue of if but of an imminent when.

Sadly, there is no political will to uncover the truth, even if it were possible.

And I doubt that Bush knows. After all, he doesn't seem to know much before it happens. Besides, we saw his face on 9/11 and he seemed stunned.

But we never saw Cheney's first reaction.

Judging from the secrecy of this administration, it's doubtful we'll ever know the truth. From all appearances Watergate didn't teach Republicans to stop overreaching themselves, but simply to orchestrate better cover-ups when they do.