After the 9/11 Commission staff released its memo flatly denying that the commission had been told about Mohammed Atta in Afghanistan in 2003 by a then-unnamed officer, I said the memo was pretty compelling. And I got hammered for saying so by a lot of folks.

Now we know his name. His name is Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer. And he went on “Hannity and Colmes” Thursday night and said, basically, no, he hadn’t told the 9/11 Commission in Afghanistan that Able Danger had had the name of Mohammed Atta in 2000. Or maybe he did. Or maybe he didn’t:

“In my October discussion with [9/11 Commission staff director Philip Zelikow],” Shaffer said, according to the transcript available on Nexis, “I did not discuss the names of the terrorists. I’m not saying that. I never said that. I did talk about the fact that we found three cells through the use of some advanced technology, two to three cells which conducted 9/11 attacks, to include Atta. Now, that was the only name I remembered.”

This is totally confusing. And it’s not helped by the fact that Shaffer says it doesn’t really matter whether he told them specifically about Atta or not, because they were told about Atta in July 2004 by his colleague, a Navy officer.

Wait a minute. The entire case against the 9/11 Commission here rests on its having been cavalier or dishonest or engaged in a coverup after hearing of Mohammed Atta. What Shaffer is saying, clearly, is that he told the Commission staff about the existence of a program called Able Danger. What we know is that the Commission staff went to the Pentagon and asked for files on Able Danger. We also know that the staff went over to the Pentagon and examined the files the staff was given — and that those files didn’t amount to anything.

So then, in July 2004, the Commission meets with Shaffer’s colleague, the Navy officer, who tells them that Able Danger collected Mohammed Atta’s name in 2000 — but offers no proof.

Now, I think what Shaffer is saying is that this was actually the first time Atta’s name was mentioned to the staff in connection with Able Danger — fully nine months after Shaffer talked to the staff in Afghanistan. I could be misunderstanding Shaffer, but I don’t think I am.

This completely tracks with the memo produced by the 9/11 Commission staff. And as I said last week, the Commission staff was right to be skeptical — that this kind of information wasn’t even worthy of a footnote without any substantiating evidence of any sort.

So unless we hear anything more that contradicts what Shaffer said on Thursday night, I am hereby apologizing to the 9/11 staff for anything I might have said or written that cast aspersions on the staff’s professionalism with regard to the Able Danger matter.

Remember, this is an apology to the staff, not to the commissioners…