Last year Tony Shaffer was a media sensation, as the spy in from the cold with his riveting account of what a secret military unit called Able Danger had uncovered long before the Sept. 11 attacks. But recently, the Pentagon's Inspector General's office released a report that basically whitewashes Shaffer's account.
All the insiders who supported Shaffer's account have since changed their minds and are calling Schaffer a liar. One example of leaving Tony Shaffer to hand is Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott.
The goal of Able Danger, established at U.S. Special Operations Command in October 1999, was to track al-Qaeda operatives using data-mining techniques. Phillpott served as the unit's operations officer.
Shortly after Shaffer went public in mid-August of 2005, Phillpott, by then working at the Pentagon, issued a brief statement backing him.
"My story has remained consistent. Atta was identified by Able Danger in January/February 2000," Phillpott said.
That story would unspool when he was questioned by the inspector general's office.
During the first interview, Phillpott, whose name is redacted from the report, said he was "100 percent [certain]" there was a chart with Atta's photograph. During the second interview, he wavered, saying he was not sure he'd seen Atta.
By the third interview, he was convinced Atta was not on the chart. (TBO.com)
The Able Danger story surfaced last year, and most readers of the media do have short memories. The new report which whitewashes the Able Danger findings made cloud the memory of even more readers.