Reply #10: Larry Johnson: "HIDDEN DANGERS IN ABLE DANGER"

[understandinglife]

HIDDEN DANGERS IN ABLE DANGER

by Larry C Johnson

August 11, 2005

Before conspiracy theories get too far down the road a few cautionary notes on the Curt Weldon generated "ABLE DANGER" conspiracy. Let's start with the source of this information--Congressman Curt Weldon. Congressman Weldon's track record on issues like this is consistently spotty. Usually he gets a portion of the story correct but screws up the most important parts. That appears to be the case here.

The biggest flaw in Weldon's scenario appears to be the role of SOCOM aka the Special Operations Command. SOCOM in 2000 was a weak command with no operational role in 2000. Even after 9-11 SOCOM struggled to try to function like the other regional CINCs. Prior to January 2003 SOCOM was barely a "supporting" command and did not function as a "supported" command. A "supporting" command has resources it can give to "supported" commands. In other words, a "supported" command has the authority to call upon and employ military assets from other commands. In the case of SOCOM it was essentially an administrative headquarters command but did not have a battlestaff nor did it control deployable military forces. It was only in early 2003 that Secretary Rumsfeld directed SOCOM to play a more aggressive role in tracking and killing Al Qaeda operatives.

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The real failing, which the 9-11 Commission refuses to embrace, is that the various agencies of the Federal Government had enough pieces of the puzzle that, if assembled into a coherent picture, could have prevented the attacks on 9-11. There was enough public info in 2000 about the need to focus on the threat posed by Bin Laden. Milt Bearden and I called for this in November of 2000. Richard Clarke presented National Security Advisor Condileeza Rice with a memo outling a more comprehensive strategy to find and finish Bin Laden. At the end of the day, the Bush Administration ignored the issue of terrorism until 10 September 2001, when the National Security Council held a meeting to discuss terrorism policy. Regrettably that meeting was too little, too late.

More at the link:

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/08/hidden_dangers_.html

Glad the experts are blogging ....


Peace.