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September 17, 2005

Able Danger and the jiggered timeline

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In its latest response to the report that it failed to account for the Able Danger report, the 9/11 Commission spokesman indicates the report was inconsistent with the INS records as to the date of Atta's entry into the US.
 
Of course, the very idea of considering INS entry records dispositive is itself a howler to anyone who pays attention.Aside from the sloppiness of the controls at our borders and the inadequacy of the INS' record keeping, we know that Atta's April 2001 entry upon which the Commission apparently relies, is itself mysterious. He is recorded as having entered twice on the same day at the same entry point under two different visa numbers. 

The mystery of Atta's doppelganger remains unresolved.

The INS inspector general noted in his report that Atta appeared to have entered the US twice on January 10th 20001. That is because Atta had been given two separate admission numbers——— 68653985709, expiring 9/10/01, and 10847166009 expiring July 9th (INS report, p.48).

Mark Steyn reminds us that another narrative was also missing from the report, a sighting of Atta in the US prior to his official entry date and consistent with Able Danger's report that Atta was in the US in 1999. The missing report is the  account of U.S. Agricultural Department employee, Johnelle Bryant that she'd met with Atta in her offices in Florida in April or May of 2000  when he tried to get a farm loan for a crop duster. .
 
And he notes about the Commission's failure to include her report in its findings:

Some of us are on record at the time as querying both the Commission's shameless politicking and the bureaucratic mindset of their conclusions. It turns out there's quite a few people who "do not appear" in their final report — not just Ms Bryant but also US Army intelligence. The scandal here is that for political reasons the Commission wedded itself to some predetermined conclusions — of which the Atta timeline was one critical factor — and then excluded any evidence that contradicted it.

It's easier I suppose to complete the jigsaw puzzle if you use a scissors to trim the pieces to fit, but you'll end up with the wrong picture. Won't you?
 
Clarice Feldman   8 12 05