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Home Front: WoT
Pentagon team spotted Sept 11 leader a year before attacks
2005-08-10
A secret US military intelligence team identified the September 11 hijack leader Mohammed Atta and three of his accomplices as probable al-Qa'eda terrorists a year before the attacks.
I'm not real confident about the veracity of this story, for what the story's worth. It sounds like somebody's being fed a line of bull...
But its suspicions were never shared with the FBI because the military was nervous about breaking restrictions on spying on US territory imposed after the Watergate scandal.
I think this guy's seen one too many movies where rogue elements within the government set up their own illegal operations and unfairly target the nice-looking young guy who doesn't know what's going on but they do terrible things and that cheeses him off so that he turns into a killing machine and many car chases and explosions follow.
But he and the bottle blonde always figure it out at the end ...
Until yesterday it was believed that Atta was never identified as a threat before leading the 19-man suicide squads which hit New York and Washington in 2001. However, according to an intelligence official, a Pentagon team, Able Danger, named Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hamzi as members of an al-Qa'eda squad which it dubbed the "Brooklyn cell" a year earlier.
"Able Danger"? Oh, yes. I recall it well. It was a sub-project within "Frightening Claw."
"We knew these were bad guys and we wanted to do something about them," the intelligence officer told the New York Times.
"We tried to enlist the A-Team, but their car blew up. Again."
The officer took the information to the Special Operations command headquarters in Florida with a recommendation that it be passed to the FBI. It was not.
"Bob, I've got a report here from some operation called 'Able Danger.' Can I use your shredder?"
Able Danger, which used computers to throw up links in information from unclassified sources, had another purpose. "Ultimately, Able Danger was going to give decision-makers options for taking out al-Qa'eda targets," the officer said.
Maybe I should just rename Rantburg as "Able Danger" and submit a budget request for next fiscal year...
Posted by:DanNY

#20  Dan, forget the MSM - the original source material is linked below. Can you list the "bad details"?

The story was broken in GSN: Goverment Security News.

Rep. Curt Weldon is a longtime Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who is currently vice chairman of both the House Homeland Security and House Armed Services Committees. His testimony was entered into the Congressional Record: June 27, 2005. It was universally ignored.

Goodwin was interviewing Weldon on another matter when Weldon interjected Able Danger (from Savage interview of Goodwin today). Goodwin broke the story in GSN yesterday & it was finally picked up widely today.
Posted by: Bernie   2005-08-10 21:39  

#19  Why Sandy Berger stuffed his underwear & socks Able Danger?
Posted by: Bernie   2005-08-10 21:09  

#18  Sorry posted on duplicate thread. I repeat:

Michael Savage's entire show today devoted to this story. 2nd hour is interview with Jacob Goodwin, who broke story

Will be repeated at 6pm pst MichaelSavage
Posted by: Bernie   2005-08-10 21:07  

#17  ed, thanks for the timeline. There are people with other ideas about Atta's timeline. This fellow (link) thinks the FBI isn't being very honest about where Atta was, and so the timeline is unreliable. Unfortunately, Hopsicker subscribes to the "inside job/war for oil" school of thought. Nevertheless, I believe his research commands attention. He's stumbled onto part of the whole, and doesn't know what to make of it.
Posted by: Rory B. Bellows   2005-08-10 17:34  

#16  Thanks, LotP! To me, though, it seems asinine that the military (intelligence) can't watch these guys. I know you'll get the ACLU crying "They're looking at what books Achmed checked out at the library", but if they were truly searching PUBLICLY available info (e.g. Google), why can't they follow-up? It's one thing to place military in use against the citizenry (Posse Comitatus), it's another to just gain intel on foreigners (non-U.S. citizens) in the WoT.
Posted by: BA   2005-08-10 15:17  

#15  If the DoD's intel units were knowledgable of a jihadi overseas and said jihadi shows up in the U.S., can they still track him? Or do they have to hand over tracking to the FBI. Or is it even legal for them to hand over tracking to the FBI?

a) my understanding is that the ID was done via datamining from open source materials, i.e. sifting through masses of published info and correlating details. there hasn't been any hint that military people physically surveilled or tracked anyone within the US.

b)the military is pretty much forbidden from such tracking activities within the country

c) they can hand over info. however, it was a sensitive political call since under the Clinton admin strong firewalls were erected to make that hard to do

d) it was also politically sensitive because, although the datamining in question used publicly available info, it could be mischaracterized as "electronic invasion of privacy" and therefore was touchy ....
Posted by: leader of the pack   2005-08-10 15:10  

#14  I saw PA Rep. Curt Weldon on Fox and Friends, saying he wants to get to the bottom of this. He said it was a top secret military intelligence unit that was prevented from giving the info to the FBI by the Clinton's DOJ lawyers. They were still reeling about Waco and said they were here with green cards and gathering intelligence on them was illegal. Supposedly some on the 9-1-1 Commission was briefed but it wasn't in the report and killed by higher ups. I think he said he thought the military was circumventing the CIA because of previous intel failures. Sounds truthful fo me. Weldon was researching his book Countdown to Terror.
Posted by: Danielle   2005-08-10 14:50  

#13   So many bad details ...
Posted by: Dan Darling   2005-08-10 14:39  

#12  If this is true, I want my money back for that fraudulent 9-11 Commission book.
Posted by: Chris W.   2005-08-10 13:31  

#11  Even if the intel reached the FBI, Gorelick at the DOJ, put a wall up.

I don't think this is a MSM spill, this hurts the Clinton's more than anyone else.
Posted by: Poison Reverse   2005-08-10 12:29  

#10  Thanks for the tip, Ed! However, this raises an interesting question. If the DoD's intel units were knowledgable of a jihadi overseas and said jihadi shows up in the U.S., can they still track him? Or do they have to hand over tracking to the FBI. Or is it even legal for them to hand over tracking to the FBI? Enquiring minds, ya know?
Posted by: BA   2005-08-10 11:27  

#9  Here is an Atta timeline: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/atta/maps/timeline.htm
His first known entry into the US is June 2000.
Posted by: ed   2005-08-10 10:20  

#8  Red flag alert! I thought Atta and Co. were all in Germany (Hamburg, I think) up until about a month or so before 9/11. Thus, maybe, just maybe the DoD DID tag them as potential AQ baddies. However, the 2nd paragraph says they didn't forward the info because of domestic spying concerns. Something doesn't jive. Quite possible they tagged them overseas???? But couldn't tell the FBI cause they were (by then) on US soil? Doesn't fly to me.
Posted by: BA   2005-08-10 10:06  

#7  Yeah. All his gold kept setting off the metal detectors...
Posted by: tu3031   2005-08-10 09:09  

#6  The A-D Team was going to take them down on the flights, but B A Baracus wouldn't get on the plane.
Posted by: ed   2005-08-10 02:19  

#5  Sounds plausible to me. And I thought the A-Team had a van.
Posted by: Rory B. Bellows   2005-08-10 01:18  

#4  Let's say that Atta was ID'ed in early 2001 just for the sake of arguement. Now the question is just what agency ID'ed him and who under federal guidlines or law could they share information with or whop would they have to rely on to pass the information to the party they wanted. And could all of this been done legally. the intelligence sharing system was a mess in 2001 and I am not sure it is fixed today (I have the feeling the people at the floor level are doing just fine, it is the agency heads that are butting heads over territory
Posted by: Cheaderhead   2005-08-10 00:52  

#3  But with a change in mayoral administrations the whole operation was shut down, too politically incorrect.

This "desire" to be politically correct needs to taken out back and shot twenty times. We as a nation are paying too high a price for it.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2005-08-10 00:49  

#2  It wasn't the military, though...
Posted by: Fred   2005-08-10 00:39  

#1  Actually the FDNY had very good intel coming out of the Arabic community in Brooklyn during the late 70s and early 80s. Informers were IDing bad guys in relation to arsons, etc... But with a change in mayoral administrations the whole operation was shut down, too politically incorrect.
Posted by: DanNY   2005-08-10 00:25  

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