Reason's Paul Sperry tries to do his best to rebut the Able Danger story about two weeks after the Pentagon not only stopped debunking it but also admitted finding three additional witnesses that corroborate Col. Tony Shaffer, Captain Scott Phillpott, and J.D. Smith. Normally, I'd have taken some time to rebut such a silly and poorly conceived article, but in this case it would only detract from the effort already expended by AJ Strata:

Accuracy is not one of Mr. Sperry’s strong suits. There were something like 60 possible terrorists in the final version of the chart, with about one third having photographs. And there were at least two versions of the chart: the one supporting the study publish around April 2000 and the one published at the end of the program around February 2001.

As we said, a good fisking uses the author’s own words to rebutt his own words:

Are there other copies of the chart floating around? Unfortunately not. The Pentagon has found no evidence that such a chart ever existed.
…
the Pentagon did turn up a “similar” chart showing links to a “Brooklyn cell.” But it did not contain a photo or a reference to Atta (or any of the other 18 hijackers), just two individuals with similar names—Mohammed Ajaz and Mohammed Arateff—who could easily have been confused for Mohamed Atta.

Similar chart? You mean a version without Atta on it? That is evidence a chart could have existed with Atta’s name on it! But Mr. Sperry is very, very gifted in the art of twisted logic. You see, a similar chart of that type made by Able Danger is evidence that no chart of that type ever existed! The mind staggers at the intellect that came up with that rationalization.

Reason usually does better than this. Read all of AJ's post.

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» Able Danger, Fools Rush In, 09/13/05 from The Strata-Sphere
UPDATE: Instead of burying this at the end of a terminally long post, let me thank Captain Ed Morrissey up front for the kind words and link to this post. I agree with his sentiment on Reason Magazine Reason usually does better than this. That was... [Read More]

Tracked on September 13, 2005 10:20 PM