9/11 coverup intensifies as Able Danger whistleblower punished by Pentagon

Sploid
Oct. 01, 2005

The Pentagon has begun punishing and smearing the officer who was set to reveal details of how 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta was identified by secret intelligence programs over a year before the attacks.

The Associated Press reports:

An officer who has claimed that a classified military unit identified four Sept. 11 hijackers before the 2001 attacks is facing Pentagon accusations of breaking numerous rules, charges his lawyer suggests are aimed at undermining his credibility.

The alleged infractions by Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, 42, include obtaining a service medal under false pretenses, improperly flashing military identification while drunk and stealing pens, according to military paperwork shown by his attorney to The Associated Press.

Shaffer was one of the first to publicly link Sept. 11 leader Mohamed Atta to the unit code-named Able Danger. Shaffer was one of five witnesses the Pentagon ordered not to appear Sept. 21 before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the unit's findings.

The military revoked Shaffer's top security clearance this month, a day before he was supposed to testify to a congressional committee.

Mark Zaid, Shaffer's attorney, said the Pentagon started looking into Shaffer's security clearance about the time in 2003 he met in Afghanistan with staff members of the bipartisan commission that studied the Sept. 11 attacks and told them about Able Danger.

Zaid said he can't prove the Pentagon went after Shaffer because he's a whistleblower, but "all the timing associated with the clearance issue has been suspiciously coincidental."

It has become clear that the Pentagon knew everything about Atta and kept that information totally secret. And in the spring of 2001, just months before the attacks, the Bush administration destroyed every bit of evidence showing they had allowed Atta to live openly in Florida, obtain a driver's license and federally issued pilot's license, and travel without hassle on both international flights and throughout the United States.