A report commissioned in mid-1999 by Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) looks into possible Chinese front companies in the US seeking technology for the Chinese military. Dr. Eileen Preisser and Michael Maloof are commissioned to make the report. Dr. Preisser, who runs the Information Dominance Center at the US Army’s Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) and will later become closely tied to Able Danger, uses LIWA’s data mining capabilities to search unclassified information. According to Maloof, their results show Chinese front companies in the US posing as US corporations that acquire technology from US defense contractors. When the study is completed in November 1999, the General Counsel’s office in the Office of the Defense Secretary orders the study destroyed. Weldon complains about this to Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, and apparently delays the destruction of the report. Weldon also writes a letter to FBI Director Louis Freeh requesting an espionage investigation into these Chinese links, but Freeh never responds to this. [Washington Times, 10/9/2005] As part of this report, LIWA analysts had produced a chart of Chinese strategic and business connections in the US. But this data mining effort runs into controversy when the chart apparently shows connections between future National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, former Defense Secretary William Perry, and other prominent US figures, and business deals benefiting the Chinese military. [New York Post, 8/27/2005; Washington Times, 9/22/2005] The China chart was put together by private contractor James D. Smith, who will come forward in August 2005 to corroborate revelations about the Able Danger unit and its findings (see August 22-September 1, 2005). The New York Post later says there is “no suggestion that Rice or any of the others had done anything wrong.” [New York Post, 8/27/2005] However, articles first appear one month later and through 2001 in the conservative publications WorldNetDaily and NewsMax, which connect Perry and Rice to Hua Di, a Chinese missile scientist and possible spy, and question the nature of their relationship with him. [WorldNetDaily, 12/21/1999; WorldNetDaily, 4/5/2000; NewsMax, 1/24/2001] Di defected to the US in 1989 and worked most of the 1990s at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Arms Control, which was co-directed by Perry. Di later returned to China and is subsequently sentenced to ten years in prison for writing influential articles said to reveal vital Chinese state secrets. [Stanford Report, 2/7/2001] However, other accounts claim that he was in fact passing on disinformation through these articles, successfully misleading the US military for a couple of years about the abilities of certain Chinese missile programs. [WorldNetDaily, 12/21/1999] Additionally, Hua Di teamed in 1994 with Stanford professor Dr. John Lewis and William Perry to buy an advanced AT&T fiber-optic communications system for “civilian” use inside China that instead is used by the Chinese army. The General Accounting Office later criticized the sale. In 1997, Stanford University investigated Dr. Lewis for his role in it, but Condoleezza Rice, serving as a Stanford provost at the time, apparently stopped the investigation. [WorldNetDaily, 4/5/2000; NewsMax, 1/24/2001] Able Danger and LIWA’s data mining efforts will be severely proscribed in April 2000 as part of the fallout from this China controversy (see April 2000), and the destruction of their collected data will follow shortly thereafter (see May-June 2000).
Shortly Before 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001: Army Director at the Pentagon Informed of Suspected Hijacked Aircraft Approaching Washington
Major General Peter Chiarelli, the Army’s director of operations, readiness, and mobilization, is informed that a hijacked aircraft is thought to be heading toward Washington, DC, and is possibly aiming for the Pentagon. Chiarelli was in his office at the Pentagon, preparing to go to a scheduled meeting, when he learned of the attacks on the World Trade Center. In response, he instructed a colleague to activate the Army’s Crisis Action Team (CAT) (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Shortly after doing so, he was phoned by General Eric Shinseki, the Army’s chief of staff who is currently in Singapore, attending a conference. Shinseki asked for a situation report. “All I could tell him, basically, was what I had seen on TV,” Chiarelli will later recall. “I didn’t have any time to leave the room, to go to the CAT, to check with the intel folks,” he will add. Now, while Chiarelli is still on the phone with Shinseki, Oscar Benjamin, an analyst in the Army’s Antiterrorism Operations Intelligence Cell (ATOIC), comes into his office. [US Army Center of Military History, 2/5/2002; Rossow, 2003, pp. 65; Lofgren, 2011, pp. 95-98] The ATOIC is responsible for providing terrorism early warning to the Army. [University of Wisconsin, 2/25/2009] Benjamin reports that additional aircraft have been hijacked and one of these aircraft is thought to be heading toward Washington—“in his opinion for the Pentagon,” according to author Robert Rossow. Chiarelli passes this information on to Shinseki. Realizing there is little he can do from Singapore, Shinseki says he will call back later and ends the call. Chiarelli then heads to the Army Operations Center in the basement of the Pentagon, where the CAT is assembling. Just after he arrives on the CAT floor, one of his intelligence officers (possibly Benjamin, although this is unstated) comes in and, he will recall, tells him “that they had credible information that one of the [additional hijacked] aircraft was headed for DC.” Chiarelli will then hear the sound of the impact as the Pentagon is hit. [US Army Center of Military History, 2/5/2002; Rossow, 2003, pp. 65-66; Lofgren, 2011, pp. 98-99] (The Pentagon is hit at 9:37 a.m. (see 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 10] )
