Say Anything Blog

This just got brought to my attention this morning. I can't believe I missed it, but I guess I know why I missed it. I haven't had a whole lot of time, of late, to spend on reading blogs. I've been relying on big-media sources for my news, and this story has largely flown under the radar there so far.

Looks like its getting some attention now though:

WASHINGTON — The federal commission that probed the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks was told twice about "Able Danger," a military intelligence unit that had identified Mohamed Atta and other hijackers a year before the attacks, a congressman close to the investigation said Wednesday.

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.

Ace has a summary of the story up:

I think the Able Danger story is going to be the biggest of the year.

A. A SOCOM unit, run by Gen. Shelton himself, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, identifies Atta and the Brooklyn cell as a threat as early as 1999. (It doesn't hurt that the unit has a cool sounding name, too.)

B. A year before 9/11, they recommend that that the FBI close down the cell. (Who was president a year before 9/11 again?)

C. DOD lawyers (lawyers!) overrule this recommendation, and refuse to allow the Able Danger guys to pass this information on to the FBI, because Atta has a legal immigration status, and they are worried about political fallout after Waco. They put Post-It notes over Atta's face so that all reference to him is kept secret (a nice touch, don't you think?).

D. The 9/11 Commission chose to omit any reference to it or investigate. This is inexcusable, regardless of how accurate the story is. It clearly deserves to be addressed and the facts explored, to be proved or disproved.

Wondering why the 9/11 Commission chose not to investigate this? Could it be because Jamie Gorelick, the Clinton stooge and former deputy Attorney General responsible for the "wall of separation" between America's domestic law enforcement and international intelligence and security forces that may have been what allowed 9/11 to happen in the first place, did some "cover-your-ass" work for herself and her former boss as a member of the 9/11 Commission?

Seems like a reasonable (and down-right pathetic) explanation to me.