Looks like Able Danger source #1, Anthony Shaffer, has been shifting his story a bit. Laura Rozen, flagging a Fox News story, points out that Shaffer recently said he didn't remember Atta's name but now is claiming he raised a stink specifically about Atta. Neat trick. Here's another comes from Shaffer's apparently fragile memory of his ecounter with the 9/11 commission:
From the original NYT story:
The former intelligence official said he was among a group that briefed Mr. Zelikow and at least three other members of the Sept. 11 commission staff about Able Danger when they visited the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in October 2003.
The official said he had explicitly mentioned Mr. Atta as a member of a Qaeda cell in the United States. He said the staff encouraged him to call the commission when he returned to Washington at the end of the year. When he did so, the ex-official said, the calls were not returned.
From Fox News today (thanks to Laura):
Although Shaffer conceded that during his own personal briefing of Sept. 11 commission staffers in Afghanistan in Oct. 2003, he didn't specifically name the terrorists. Instead, he detailed how Able Danger had uncovered information about three terror cells with the use of then-advanced data-mining techniques.
That would help explain why none of the four staffers present at the interview remember any Atta mention.
Kind of makes you wish Weldon would hold hearings on the Able Danger issue, huh?
Posted by: Laura | August 20, 2005 at 10:37 AM