Joining Lt Col Tony Shaffer are the until now unknown Navy officer who briefed the 9-11 commission shortly before it issued its final report and a former DoD contractor, both of whom confirm the essentials of the story: that AD existed, that it was a successful datamining operation and that it IDd Atta a year prior to 9-11, with the Navy officer concurring that the 9-11 commission didn’t follow up on what he told them. But Navy Captain Scott Philpott moves up the Atta ID further than Shaffer:

The officer, Scott J. Phillpott, said in a statement today that he could not discuss details of the military program, which was called Able Danger, but confirmed that its analysts had identified the Sept. 11 ringleader, Mohamed Atta, by name by early 2000. “My story is consistent,” said Captain Phillpott, who managed the program for the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command. “Atta was identified by Able Danger by January-February of 2000.”

If he’s right, we actually had a few extra months to stop the plot. As for the contractor:

Representative Weldon also arranged an interview with a former employee of a defense contractor who said he had helped create a chart in 2000 for the intelligence program that included Mr. Atta’s photograph and name.

The former contractor, James D. Smith, said that Mr. Atta’s name and photograph were obtained through a private researcher in California who was paid to gather the information from contacts in the Middle East. Mr. Smith said that he had retained a copy of the chart for some time and that it had been posted on his office wall at Andrews Air Force Base. He said it had become stuck to the wall and was impossible to remove when he switched jobs.

In its final report last year, the Sept. 11 commission said that American intelligence agencies were unaware of Mr. Atta until the day of the attacks.

Does Mr. Smith mean to say that that chart–the one with Atta’s name and picture that everyone’s been scratching our heads over–is still stuck permanently to a wall in his old office at Andrews? This is truly one strange saga we have on our hands. But his story should be easy enough to confirm with a quick road trip to the base with Smith in tow. Someone has to remember a large chart stuck to a wall with Mohammed Atta’s easily noticed scowl, if it’s not actually still there.

In any case, we now have three witnesses saying pretty much the same thing. Contrary to popular belief over the past few days, Shaffer hasn’t changed history on the Atta ID. And contrary to the skeptics’ take, Rep. Weldon just keeps putting up instead of shutting up. And per my own prediction last week, the Pentagon is being quite bland and uninteresting about this whole thing. That could mean very little or a great deal–we just don’t know yet. But further digging seems to be the rational course of action.

(via CQ)

UPDATE: 9-11 commission member Sen. Slade Gorton apparently did his best Lawrence O’Donnell impression on O’Reilly last night.