The longest missing American in Iraq is a contractor by the name of Kirk von Ackermann. Von Ackermann was a former intelligence officer, who served in the Asymmetric Threat Division, or DO5, at Joint Forces Command while in the US Air Force. While questions surround his disappearance, its his former work in counter terrorism that provides a sharp contrast to what can only be described as bizarre behavior on the day he disappeared.
In August of 2003, von Ackermann went to Turkey to work for a logistics company serving US military bases in the Tikrit region of Iraq. Several hours after a meeting at Camp Anaconda just outside of Balad, Iraq, von Ackermann's vehicle was found abandoned on an isolated road between Tikrit and Kirkuk. He was never heard from again. Today, he remains the longest missing American in Iraq.
CID likes to believe Kirk von Ackermann deliberately chose to drive alone over 160 miles, without a translator, on a bad tire through Saddam Hussein's tribal territory with $40,000 in cash. But that neat and tidy scenario gets utterly shattered by his prior experience with DO5: Kirk von Ackermann analyzed and conceived of threats. Something far worse had to have happened to catch Kirk von Ackermann not on guard.
The eight year anniversary of his disappearance is next month, on October 9. He left behind a wife and three young children. At the time, they were preparing to move to Turkey.
As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 rapidly approaches, Kirk von Ackermann's former intelligence unit, DO5, is in the news.
New Documents Suggest DoD Watchdog Covered Up Intelligence Unit's Work Tracking 9/11 Terrorists
By Jeffrey Kaye and Jason Leopold
Truthout, September 9, 2011
Senior Pentagon officials scrubbed key details about a top-secret military intelligence unit's efforts in tracking Osama bin Laden and suspected al-Qaeda terrorists from official reports they prepared for a Congressional committee probing the 9/11 terrorist attacks, new documents obtained by Truthout reveal.
Moreover, in what appears to be an attempt to cover up the military unit's intelligence work, a September 2008 Defense Department (DoD) Inspector General's (IG) report that probed complaints lodged by the former deputy chief of the military unit in question, the Asymmetrical Threats Division of Joint Forces Intelligence Command (JFIC), also known as DO5, about the crucial information withheld from Congress, claimed "the tracking of Usama Bin Ladin did not fall within JFIC's mission."
But the IG's assertion is untrue, according to the documents obtained by Truthout, undercutting the official narrative about who knew what and when in the months leading up to 9/11.
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