Snort.
"BLITZER: Welcome back. There's word today of a top-secret military intelligence unit that identified four of the future 9-11 hijackers more than a year before they struck.
That intelligence unit reportedly named ringleader Mohammad Atta and three others as likely members of an al Qaeda cell operating in the United States. That intelligence was not shared with the FBI and never showed up in the report by the 9-11 Commission.
The information all included in the "New York Times" today, comes in part from Congressman Curt Weldon, a Republican on the Arms Services Committee, from Pennsylvania. He's joining us now, live from Capitol Hill.
This is pretty shocking material, Congressman. You got it from a former DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, official. Is that right?
REP. CURT WELDON (R), PENNSYLVANIA: Well, More than one. I've got about a dozen that I've been working with and Wolf, this goes back to '99 and 2000, when as the chairman of the Defense Research Subcommittee, I was pushing money in for the increasing use of data collaboration and data mining.
The prototype for that was being used by special forces command in the Army on this project called Able Danger. Now, I wasn't aware of the specifics of what they did until two weeks after 9-11, when they brought me a chart that I took down to the White House and gave to Steve Hadley, that actually showed al Qaeda cells, including...
BLITZER: Steve Hadley was then the president's deputy national security advisor.
WELDON: Exactly.
BLITZER: He's now the national security advisor.
WELDON: I gave the chart to him. He took it. He said, "where did you get this?" I said, "this is the process I tried to push the CIA to move into for the past two years and they refused."
When I published my book this year, which had been very critical of some of the folks of the CIA, I went back to get the copy of that chart and my friends in defense intelligence who are still there, came back and said "we didn't tell you the whole story, Congressman. We actually identified..."
BLITZER: I'm going to interrupt for a second, Congressman Weldon. What's most shocking here is that if in fact elements of the DIA -- officials at the Defense Intelligence Agency were tracking Mohammad Atta and three of the other future hijackers, they decided they couldn't share this information with the FBI because what? They were -- these guys were in the United States legally and it would be inappropriate to let the FBI know to watch what they were doing?
WELDON: What we now know is that lawyers within the administration -- we don't know whether they were DOD lawyers or White House lawyers -- lawyers within the administration told the special forces folks three times, you cannot share this information with the FBI.
They even put stickies over top of the faces of Mohammad Atta, saying they're here legally. They have green cards. You can't give anything to the FBI. The second reason they gave them was, we're concerned about the political fall-out that occurred after Waco. So, we don't want special forces command giving information of that type to the FBI. That stopped it dead in its track.
BLITZER: That's one shocking element of this story. The other shocking element of this story, is that the 9-11 Commission, which was supposedly reviewing every aspect of the build-up to what happened on 9-11, they say they never knew about this.
Al Felzenberg, the former September -- 9-11 Commission spokesman, tells the "New York Times" today, "they [the 9-11 Commission staffers] all say that they were not told anything about a Brooklyn cell. They were told about the Pentagon operation. They were not told about the Brooklyn cell. They said that if the briefers had mentioned anything that startling, it would have gotten their attention." The Brooklyn cell, referring to Mohammad Atta and his cohorts.
WELDON: Wolf, I have a solution for that. Let's put the intelligence folks under oath and let them be cross-examined and let's put the staffers on the 9-11 Commission under oath and let those under oath tell what information they gave.
The intelligence officials I've been talking to and it's well more than one, have told me they identified the cell and they mention Mohammad Atta. That's not one person, that's several people. The question the American people deserve to have answered is: Why did the 9-11 Commission staff decide this wasn't worth pursuing?
I've talked to two commissioners. Democrat Tim Roemer, a good friend of mine; John Lehman, Republican, good friend of mine. Over the past two months, each of them separately told me they were never briefed on Able Danger.
How could the 9/11 commissioners never be briefed on a secret task force that was designed by the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Shelton and carried out by General Schumacher (ph). To me, that's just unexplainable.
BLITZER: Well, there's a lot of unexplained questions right now that cry out for answers on all of these fronts. Congressman Curt Weldon, unfortunately we're out of time, but thanks so much for joining us.
WELDON: My pleasure. My pleasure, Wolf. Thank you.
BLITZER: Congressman Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania."