Operation Dark Heart (38 page)

He was clearly caught off guard by my comment. I could see anger start to flash, but he stopped, gave me a humorless smile, and turned to the sergeant. “Go ahead and give him back his documents.”

The sergeant handed me the manila envelope and then started to give me my DIA badge.

“Except for the badge,” Colonel Sadler added.

What the hell was going on?

Colonel Sadler picked up a sheet of paper and proceeded to read aloud from it.

“Don’t interrupt me until I’m done,” he ordered me. It was the IG’s findings. “The DIA has found three serious items …”

As he spoke, I looked around the room at the other people. I knew everyone except one guy—drawn, gaunt, and leathery, who remained by the door. He reminded me of the
X-Files
’ Cancer Man. He never said a word or changed his expression.

I recognized a guy from Huntington’s office, one of his personal staff, and another guy from DAC—DIA’s counterintelligence and security activity office. He handled security clearances.

It was then I knew they were about to do something about my clearance.

Colonel Sadler droned on. “Undue award of the Defense Meritorious Service Medal.” DIA was claiming I’d received a major award unlawfully—despite the fact that the award was for my documented work on Able Danger and other leadership roles.

“Misuse of a government telephone” adding up to $67. I had periodically programmed my government phone to my personal cell phone for a 25-cent charge for every call forwarded. This added up to $67.

“Filing a false voucher” for $180. I attended army training at Fort Dix that was required for my expected promotion to lieutenant colonel, but DIA was claiming it was a false claim because I was only authorized to attend the Command and General Staff School at “no expense to the government.”

Total alleged loss to the government: less than $300. Wow, and I was worried that they had actually found something serious.

Colonel Sadler finished up. I was being reassigned to Fort McNair pending disciplinary action.

Then he came to his real point.

“On this day,” he read, “your security clearance is suspended.”

I was so surprised that I smiled.

They were suspending my security clearance over
this
?

Colonel Sadler looked up. “Do you have any questions?”

I stared at him.

“You’ve
got
to be kidding,” I said.

Colonel Sadler stared back. “Good luck, Major Shaffer. You will need it,” he said tonelessly, and turned around a folder to face me with some papers to sign.

With that, I was escorted out of the building.

After all the warnings I’d gotten in Afghanistan, I knew to expect something, but I had no idea this body blow was coming. It was clear they had decided to aim not over my head, but right for it. Decapitate me from my career.

It was all over. My career, and my days as a clandestine officer, were finished. There was no doubt, even if the accusations didn’t match the severity of the punishment.

I walked into the courtyard next to the Clarendon Metro station thinking over the consequences. Around me, the drone of the Monday morning rush-hour traffic was increasing and people were rushing out of the Metro, headed for the start of a new workweek.

This was a death sentence. Real tough to take for a guy who always wanted to be a spook. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else in the world.

I headed for my car and gave myself to the moment. It was a bright spring day, and the wind’s chill bounced off my GORE-TEX jacket. This was OK, I told myself. This was happening for a reason. This all meant something. Perhaps this day would end on a low note, but the story wouldn’t end, and I believed somehow, someway, this was meant to happen and would lead me to another dangerous and challenging adventure. I was right.

EPILOGUE

I spent the next three months in limbo, then left active duty and resumed my position as a DIA civilian employee in June 2004. I was placed on paid administrative leave while the security clearance suspension wound its way through the system—a process that could take years. So I settled in for the long haul. It took the better part of two years before they finally fired me.

I remained serving in the Army Reserves. The army took no adverse action against me and promoted me to lieutenant colonel in February 2005. I remain a reserve lieutenant colonel to this day. I am now assigned to a U.S. Army Reserve Division, which I serve as a primary staff officer with three different key areas of responsibility: Assistant Chief of Staff for Information Management as well as the command’s Anti-Terrorism Officer and its Public Affairs Officer. I never could stick to doing one job at a time.

No one could understand why DIA was taking such an extreme action over minor allegations that the army refused to even accept as valid, and it took almost two years before I figured out DIA’s vendetta. Finally, with the help of my attorney and friend Mark Zaid and others, the picture started to take form.

The first realization came in May 2005 when, as an army reservist on active duty, I was attached to Deep Blue, the U.S. Navy’s counterterrorism think tank at the Pentagon, where I was working to re-create the Able Danger capability. *** ******* *** ****** *********** ****** *** *** ***** *** ** ******* ******* *** ********* ********* *******

I was sent by the navy to Capitol Hill to request money to fund the project. I took a chart with me that showed some of the previous results of Able Danger and was asked by the navy to provide Congressman Curt Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, a full background on the original Able Danger.

I gave Representative Weldon pretty much the same briefing I gave Philip Zelikow at Bagram in October 2003, and Representative Weldon was equally stunned at my information. He then asked me whether I knew that there was no information in the commission report about Able Danger. I said I assumed that, because of its sensitive nature, it was in the classified annex of the 9/11 Report.

Congressman Weldon looked me square in the eye and told me, “Colonel Shaffer, there is no classified annex.”

Now I knew that something was wrong. How could a major effort driven by the top management of the Department of Defense focused on conducting offensive operations against al Qaeda—an operation that had discovered Mohamed Atta—a full year before the 9/11 attacks not be mentioned at all?

Congressman Weldon’s chief of staff, Russ Caso, was the first to figure out DIA’s reason for coming after me. It was not about the $300 I was accused of misusing. It all came from my disclosure of the existence of Able Danger to the 9/11 Commission.

In August 2006, I ended up going public with my revelations about Able Danger—the unclassified part—and the fact that it had not been included in the 9/11 report. It caused a media sensation. To quote one of my favorite characters of science fiction, Agent Mulder of
The X-Files
, I became “the key figure in an ongoing government charade.” The Defense Intelligence Agency moved to have my security clearance permanently revoked, and senior DoD leadership engaged in what is called a “whisper campaign” to discredit me.

To do that, they went as far back as they could—back through every statement I ever made as part of my clearance process. They even found my admission in 1987 to taking U.S. government Skilcraft pens from the American Embassy in Lisbon and sharing them with friends in high school at the age of fourteen. Yes, they were digging deep for anything, but they could find nothing of substance.

The entire weight of DoD leadership came down on me—with the exception of the army. God bless the U.S. Army. When I had gone to the Hill to ask for money for the navy, I called back to my boss on the army staff to ask for direction because I was being asked hard questions about Able Danger. I was told, “Tony, tell them the truth.” And I did.

DoD denied the request that I testify in September 2005 in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, claiming that the Judiciary Committee “had no standing” to investigate DoD passing or not passing information to the FBI. Instead I sat, silently, wearing my army uniform in the chamber while the hearings were held.

I eventually testified twice, both times in February 2006, to the House Armed Services Committee and the House Government Reform Committee in open and closed sessions. I concluded in my testimony that the Able Danger project might have prevented 9/11—and in closed (top-secret) session, I outlined exactly my judgment in great detail based on the larger work, which is still unknown to the public.

After multiple denials, DoD was eventually forced to confirm that Able Danger did exist, and to confirm that it was an offensive operation designed to identify and attack al Qaeda in a preemptive manner, two years before the 9/11 attacks. General Hugh Shelton publicly confirmed the existence of the operation and that he had come up with the idea and tasked it to General Pete Schoomaker, then commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM).

Despite this admission, DoD refused to admit that Atta’s photo or information was contained in the data despite the fact that, by late August 2006, six people within DoD confirmed the Atta identification. Still, DoD refused to accept their confirmation and, instead, redoubled efforts to discredit and fire me.

Congress requested that the DoD Inspector General investigate Able Danger, but that was kind of like having the fox investigate why chickens were missing from the henhouse. What resulted was a complete sham report. The IG report concluded that while there were multiple witnesses, there was no credible evidence that Atta was found. While it found 10,000 Able Danger–related documents during the investigation, it claimed that nothing was found to support my claims and the claims of other witnesses. Yet not one of these 10,000 documents—95 percent of which are unclassified—was ever released to the public.

One of the key conclusions to the DoD IG report on Able Danger was aimed directly at me. I was called a “marginally qualified intelligence officer” in an effort to discredit my credibility and the fact that I was the most accurate, consistent witness. Given my twenty years of training and experience, I would say that is patently untrue and a sign that their larger investigation was equally lacking in accurate content and veracity. The report—and the Senate Intelligence Committee report that followed in November 2005—were both whitewashes of the facts, and contained no discernable truth that I could tell.

Eventually the truth does come out, and little by little it has.

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Lambert, the SOCOM operations officer under Schoomaker from 1998 to 2000, who also was the supervisor of the Able Danger team, recently confirmed in a book called
Horse Soldiers
the three key points of my testimony to the 9/11 Commission and to Congress. The view from the military lawyers, General Lambert says, was simple: If we don’t pass intelligence to the FBI, it cannot be used and therefore, if it is not used, nothing can go wrong to potentially put SOCOM in a bad light.

So that is it. You know the rest of the story—and how, in the middle of combat in Afghanistan, I unknowingly sowed the seeds of my own career’s demise. I revealed embarrassing mistakes made by Defense Intelligence and by multiple senior leaders in DoD in mismanaging pre-9/11 intelligence information and then trying to cover up their incompetence from the 9/11 Commission.

Fast-forward to today. My work continues to focus on global security—a different path from my work at Defense Intelligence. As a senior fellow and director of external communications for the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, I perform as the center’s spokesman and expert on intelligence-gathering operations and transnational terrorist threats. A key area of my work is Afghanistan and, because of its inexorable historic and cultural link, Pakistan.

I frequently appear on television and radio as an expert and analyst on the full spectrum of military and intelligence issues, and I work as a consultant for multiple organizations that perform support to the Department of Defense.

As for my personal life, Rina and I were married in 2006, and our son Ryan was born later that year. My son Alexander is now in high school. He continues to excel in Boy Scouts and is working to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout.

It’s been said that you never know the value of light until you’ve walked through the darkness. Well, I’ve walked through more darkness than I ever expected, and now stand in the light of a new day, but the daylight I find myself in is no safer or secure than the one I left—and that is why I continue to do the work that I do.

HOW TO WIN IN AFGHANISTAN

Right now we appear to be barreling down the same path as the British did twice, the Soviets did once, and others as far back as Alexander have done. All ended with disastrous outcomes.

We have to abandon the current policy.

The constant minor adjustments to theme and style are akin to shuffling the deck chairs on the
Titanic
. We continue to do the same thing over and over, and expect to achieve different results. In Alcoholics Anonymous, we call this insanity.

Talking tactics—for example, whether Provisional Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) are the right way to go—is useless. Tactics do not matter if your strategy is flawed, but that is the path we are currently on.