Anthony Shaffer (intelligence officer)

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Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer

Anthony Shaffer is publicly known for his connections and revelations regarding the United States Army's LIWA (the Land Information Warfare Activity) and Special Operations Command (SOCOM) program Able Danger. He contends that the program uncovered two of the three terrorist cells involved with 9/11 one year before the attacks, as well as identifying Mohamed Atta, an instrumental figure in the attack.

He made a protected disclosures to the 9/11 Commission staff director, Dr. Philip D. Zelikow, while undercover in Afghanistan in October 2003 regarding the existence of the ABLE DANGER program and the pre-9/11 intelligence and intelligence sharing problems. Within this disclosure, he briefed Dr. Zelikow about the fact that when he and others involved in ABLE DANGER decided they should share this information with the FBI, that they were blocked from doing so by lawyers in SOCOM over concerns over legality and by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) senior leadership from sharing with SOCOM the most current intelligence information on Al Qaeda.

These concerns may have included using publicly available information as intelligence sources upon the citizens of the U.S. Shaffer Interview on GSN. DIA, in retaliation for his disclosures regarding their (DIA) senior leadership failures to support the ABLE DANGER project, proceeded to revoke his security clearance over Shaffer's minor administrative oversights (oversights that the Army reviewed and dismissed without any adverse action).

On August 15, 2005, Army intelligence officer Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, and Congressman Curt Weldon (R-Pa), charged before the Senate Judiciary Committee that a Special Operations Command data mining program run by a secret US intelligence unit had identified alleged 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta and three other al-Qaeda operatives operating in the United States prior to 9/11. The 9/11 commission rejected the claim after citing a lack of supporting evidence. Dr. Phillip Zelikow later admitted in closed hearings in front of the House Armed Services Committed on 15 February 2006 that there was no follow-up by the 9/11 Commission on Lt. Col. Shaffer or Captain Scott Phillpott's disclosures to the Commission due to "lack of time and resources".

Shaffer's contentions were followed up upon by Representative Curt Weldon who believes that 9/11 could have been prevented if the information gained by ABLE DANGER was properly dealt with. At the time, Weldon was seeking contributions and was selling his own book, "Countdown to Terror". For the publicity alone his patronage of Shaffer was temporarily profitable until the reality of Shaffer professional and personal issues began to surface.

The DoD IG report on the ABLE DANGER issue in September 2006 did confirm that Mohammed Atta's name was in an Army LIWA database before 9/11, but the DoD IG found that Atta's name being in this database was not relevant as it was found in an Army database. This finding was made despite the fact that the Army LIWA database was the primary source for the ABLE DANGER team's SOCOM database. The name was among hundreds of thousands of others as it represented one node in another terrorists social network. Arresting him without any indication of a crime about to be perpetrated would have been illegal. Further, if every node of every terrorist social network were arrested, millions of innocent people would be in custody. The idea of just having one name and preventing 9/11 because of that is absurd.

Other Personal information

Lieutenant Colonel Tony Shaffer is a Bronze Star recipient who is a CIA trained senior intelligence operations officer and Army Reserve lieutenant colonel with more than 25 years of experience in the intelligence community.

As the director of DIA Task Force STRATUS IVY, he led this special mission unit in the conduct of some of the most daring and innovative Human Intelligence collection and information operations support projects ever undertaken by the Department of Defense, to include providing direct support to ABLE DANGER.

During his tenure as director of STRATUS IVY he personally briefed the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, on three separate occasions regarding his unit's activities.

During his 30 month recall to active duty for the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) he commanded Field Operating Base (FOB) Alpha - a Defense Intelligence operating base that is the equivalent of an Army brigade, focused on special operations support and intelligence collection in Sub-Sahara Africa (to include Somalia). During this recall to active duty he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal (BSM) for the first of his two deployments to Afghanistan and is credited(background found at link below, at ABLEDANGER BLOG.COM) with playing a major role in breaking the back of a Taliban Offensive in the autumn of 2003. While in Afghanistan he also participated in an air assault with the 75th Ranger Regiment during WINTER STRIKE 03 to bring critical information and supplies to his HUMINT team located in a forward combat area with the Rangers in the Hindu Kush Mountains.

In addition to his Afghanistan military deployment, he has been deployed as a military officer to Germany, Thailand and New Zealand.

Lt. Col. Shaffer is a 1986 graduate of Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio where he holds a B.A. in political science and environmental studies. He is a member of the Pi Sigma Alpha honor society.

Currently, Shaffer is a Senior Fellow, External Communications Director and Special Lecturer at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies in Washington, D.C.. He instructs classes in psychology of terrorism and intelligence analysis.

He is a partner with Evolution Performance Technology, a company based in Atlanta, GA, in addition to his consulting activities.

Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer continues to serve in the Army Reserve, and is currently assigned as the G6, Information Officer of the 94th Division (Force Sustaninment), Ft. Lee, VA.

External links

• 'Able Danger' and Coordinating Pre-September 11 Intelligence -- Interview on NPR's Talk of the Nation including Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, Thomas Kean, Harry "Skip" Brandon, and Tom Fitton.
• Able Danger Blog.