Was Mohammed Atta Overlooked?

TIME ^ | Sunday, Aug. 14, 2005 | BRIAN BENNETT, TIMOTHY J. BURGER AND DOUGLAS WALLER

[george76]

New questions about whether the U.S. had information about the 9/11 mastermind years before the attacks

Just how damning are allegations by Congressman Curt Weldon that a secret Pentagon intelligence operation pegged hijacker Mohammed Atta as a threat nearly two years before he led the 9/11 attacks? When Weldon first made the charge in a new book and in a June speech on the House floor, it met with little attention, but perhaps due to the August heat or the approaching fourth anniversary of the attacks, the accusation ignited controversy last week.

The question is whether it has any substance. Weldon says a data-mining exercise, called Able Danger, spotted Atta and other hijackers in 1999, but Pentagon lawyers in September 2000 blocked officials running the program from handing the tip to the FBI.

Weldon’s further allegation that the 9/11 commission was alerted to the alleged oversight but ignored it prompted the defunct panel to conduct an investigation last week before issuing a statement late Friday saying members had received only an 11th-hour mention of Atta that “was not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the report or further investigation.”

Meanwhile, at Weldon’s request, House intelligence committee chairman Peter Hoekstra told TIME he is investigating the matter...

Pentagon officials are playing down any controversy. They say they can find nothing produced by the Able Danger program...

[tet68]

Anonymous sources say, "Able Danger, who he?".

[EagleUSA]

Overlooked?? Hardly. He was deliberately ignored...

[samadams2000]

Pulizer prize awaiting the first leftist carreer "journalist" that wants to sneak behind their editors desk.

[GBA]

"They say they can find nothing produced by the Able Danger program..."

Have they looked in Sandy Burgalar's pants?

[ValerieUSA]

When Weldon first made the charge in a new book and in a June speech on the House floor, it met with little attention,

Why not explain this little detail further, TIME?

[the invisib1e hand]

spin/obfuscation cycle about to go into full gear.

[the Real fifi]

Well, maybe they wrote this before the Commission's latest report and 4 page apologia. Weldon may be wrong, but Captain's Quarters blog is right, there's a lot of 'splainin for them to do before this is over.

[KAUAIBOUND]

Not one word about the "wall" imposed by Jamie Gorelick and the Clinton Administration. The MSM continues its practice of telling only half the story - the half that makes the Demo-RATS scapegoat de jour look bad, either the Department of Defense or the Bush Administration.

[spycatcher]

Exactly. It's not even about Mohammad Atta specifically.

If the whole program was examined and it's results could have been passed to the FBI, then we may have prevented the attack. So why didn't the 9/11 Commission tell us?

JAMIE GORELICK

[Congressman Billybob]

Here's part of the spin in this story. It says that "the Able Danger program,... involved fewer than half a dozen intelligence analysts...." Given how Able Danger was conducted, it could have been done by one computer geek and an unlimited supply of pizza and coffee.

Time does not bother to explain how Able Danger was conducted. So, I will:

The researchers in this project never had to leave their cubicles. They gathered "open source" information, meaning publicly available speeches, articles, broadcasts, from many nations and in many languages. They entered all this data into a huge computer (perhaps a Cray), and asked the computer to identify and quantify all connections between data points.

The results of this were the identification of five of the hijackers (including the 20th one, who was prevented from entering the US at a Florida airport) and the identification of several cells, including one in Brooklyn and one in Hamburg (where we now know the main planning for 9/11 took place).

For anyone in the military to dismiss the value of this breakthrough analysis is as stupid as the Army Air Corps officers who court-martialed Billy Mitchell for his assertions that air power would become essential in warfare. It is as dumb as the Secretary of the Army who referred in his 1933 annual report to "the tried and proven horse."

It is impossible to tell from this Time magazine story whether the three writers had a clue of what Able Danger did, and how it did it. It is clear that they were predisposed to reject this as an important story.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column: "The 9/11 9/11 Commission" (Not a Misprint)

[A.A. Cunningham]

[Peach]

Posted by Peach to george76
On News/Activism 08/14/2005 2:15:42 PM EDT · 25 of 37


This article states that apparently Able Danger puts Atta in Prague with an Iraqi intel officer.

Has anyone heard Weldon or anyone else state that Able Danger can place Atta in Prague? If we can do this, it will virtually kill the left and their mantra that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/pp/05226/553271.stm

[Reactionary]

"Overlooked?"

No. Mohammad Atta was being protected by people at the highest levels of power.

And, wouldn't you know, it all happened at the same time the Chinese were stealing the plans for the W88 nuclear warhead and buying off the Leftist swine, Billy Boy Clinton.

[LA Conservative]

Is it time to start the Gore-licker death count.

Who knew that Clinton's China Gate scandal would blowback into the hobbling of our national defense to the extent that it did. What other type of administration would even think to block off cooperation between the FBI and the CIA?

Carter may have enabled Islamofascism in Iran, but Clinton put a knife into the backs of the American people.

I used to find Michael Savage a little over the top, but he has been so right on talking about the leftists lawyers hobbling this country, partucularly Jamie Gorelicker, WHO WAS ABLE TO REMAIN ON THE 911 COMMISSION, even though she was a bad actor in the events that led up to it.

[george76]

To: Peach

"This article states that apparently Able Danger puts Atta in Prague with an Iraqi intel officer..."

You have an excellent point.

I enjoy your comments.

I will continue to look deeper into this to find more information, as we all are.


34 posted on 08/14/2005 11:36:51 AM PDT by george76

---

To: george76

Thank, George.

I hope that newspaper wasn't expanding on Weldon's assertion that Able Danger had tracked Atta and knew he wsa part of the Brooklyn cell.

I'm trying to find out if anyone has heard Weldon or read in his book that Able Danger is able to place Atta in Prague meeting with an Iraqi goverment official in April 2001.

35 posted on 08/14/2005 11:41:08 AM PDT by Peach

---

I have not read the book nor heard any verbal discussion that you mention. If I find something related, I will post it.

This is copied from the other postings that you mentioned.

[Jim_Curtis]

Does anyone know where Atta stayed during his several visits to Boston?

[Milhous]

When Weldon first made the charge in a new book and in a June speech on the House floor, it met with little attention, but perhaps due to the August heat or the approaching fourth anniversary of the attacks, the accusation ignited controversy last week.

Too cute by half, clumsy Olds Media spin trying to make Able Danger little more than a summer flash in the pan. The most green cub reporter knows that Weldon took this story public for the good of our nation because of beltway bureaucratic indifference to the lessons of Able Danger.

[kabar]

A senior Pentagon official briefed on the program told TIME, “This is much ado about nothing.” a source close to the former 9/11 commission aides who chased down the story last week said they had been led to believe the Pentagon would issue a statement along these lines on Friday. But as of Sunday, this had not occurred.

Now we know why the Sunday talk shows downplayed AD, e.g., Krauthammer, Kristol, Wallace, etc.

[the Real fifi]

Some commentators have said that the Commission rejected the report because it didn't fit a pre-set timeline and connected this to its too easy dismissal of the Atta in Prague report. Kelly's statement, not sources, may be a sloppy iteration of this argument. If it isn't--if there is in fact Able Danger corroboration of that trip--the Commission Report is toilet paper.