Able Danger

Fox News has the latest on Able Danger, the military intelligence unit that had identified Mohamed Atta and other hijackers as members of an al Qaeda cell a year before the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001.  It seems the 9/11 Commission, claiming never to have heard of Able Danger, was briefed about it twice.  Or, at least commission staffers had been briefed.

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., a champion of integrated intelligence-sharing among U.S. agencies, wrote to the former chairman and vice-chairman of the Sept. 11 commission late Wednesday, telling them that their staff had received two briefings on the military intelligence unit — once in October 2003 and again in July 2004.

Weldon said he was upset by suggestions earlier Wednesday by 9/11 panel members that it had been not been given critical information on Able Danger's capabilities and findings.

"The impetus for this letter is my extreme disappointment in the recent, and false, claim of the 9/11 commission staff that the commission was never given access to any information on Able Danger," Weldon wrote to former Chairman Gov. Thomas Kean and Vice-Chairman Rep. Lee Hamilton. "The 9/11 commission staff received not one but two briefings on Able Danger from former team members, yet did not pursue the matter.

The 9/11 Commission which has always looked like a cover for the Clinton Administration, may now be proving itself to be one in fact.  First we have Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, famous for building that wall that prevented intelligence agencies from sharing information in the months before the 9/11 attack. This is the Jamie Gorelick who was Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton administration and who as such should have been a witness instead of a commissioner.  Next we're treated to the spectacle of top Clinton Administration national security aide Sandy Berger stuffing classified documents into his pants in the National Archives, as part of his preparation to testify before the 9/11 Commission.  And oh by the way, he misplaced some of them. 

And now we have Able Danger, revealing that Clinton Administration intelligence gathering had identified some of the hijackers as an al Qaeda cell.  Here is the Guardian.

Weldon said that in September 2000 Able Danger recommended that its information on the hijackers be given to the FBI ``so they could bring that cell in and take out the terrorists.'' However, Weldon said Pentagon lawyers rejected the recommendation because they said Atta and the others were in the country legally so information on them could not be shared with law enforcement.

Information couldn't be shared?  Did somebody mention a wall?  Back to Fox News:

"The 9/11 commission took a very high-profile role in critiquing intelligence agencies that refused to listen to outside information. The commissioners very publicly expressed their disapproval of agencies and departments that would not entertain ideas that did not originate in-house," Weldon wrote in his letter Wednesday night.

"Therefore it is no small irony," Weldon pointed out, "that the commission would in the end prove to be guilty of the very same offense when information of potentially critical importance was brought to its attention."

On Thursday, Weldon told FOX News that the military official, who was under cover when he was in Afghanistan for the October 2003 briefing, is certain he told the staffers about Atta at that time.

The military intelligence officer who attended that meeting with staffers "kept notes of that meeting and will testify under oath that he not only told" the staffers about Able Danger's mission, but about Atta. (my emphasis)

The 9/11 Commission is making steady progress.  From being merely a bad joke they're well on their way to becoming a national disgrace.  Are we really ready for Hillary in '08?