9/11 Hijackers "Well Known" To Law Enforcement?

WASHINGTON - The Sept. 11 commission will investigate a claim that U.S. defense intelligence officials identified ringleader Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers as a likely part of an al-Qaida cell more than a year before the hijackings but didn't forward the information to law enforcement.

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa. and vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said Tuesday the men were identified in 1999 by a classified military intelligence unit known as "Able Danger." If true, that's an earlier link to al-Qaida than any previously disclosed intelligence about Atta.

Sept. 11 commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton (R-Bush Family Toady) said Tuesday that Weldon's information, which the congressman said came from multiple intelligence sources, warrants a review. He said he hoped the panel could issue a statement on its findings by the end of the week.

"The 9/11 commission did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of surveillance of Mohammed Atta or of his cell," said Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana. "Had we learned of it obviously it would've been a major focus of our investigation."

The Sept. 11 commission's final report, issued last year, recounted numerous government mistakes that allowed the hijackers to succeed. Among them was a failure to share intelligence within and among agencies.

Good old Lee Hamilton. He did such a fine job of generalizing the holes in the intelligence with that "the report recounted numerous government mistakes that allowed the hijackers to succeed" bullshit so as not to embarrass our incompetent president and his cabinet. But what else could we have expected from a man who helped deflect scrutiny from the crimes committed by Reagan and Bush I during Iran-Contra?

According to Weldon, Able Danger identified Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi as members of a cell the unit code-named "Brooklyn" because of some loose connections to New York City.

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.

Weldon did not provide details on how the intelligence officials identified the future hijackers and determined they might be part of a cell.

A good guess why is that they had the details all along, but, like the vacationing president and the eerily incompetent National Security Adviser (now Secretary of State) Condi "I believe the PDB was titled Bin Laden determined to strike at U.S." Rice, they couldn't be bothered to do their fucking jobs.

Full story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050809/ap_on_go_co/sept_11_hijackers

Jay Severin was ranting about this story as I listened to his knuckles scraping away on the local Fascist radio station, and it was all about "blame Bill Clinton", as if the perceived disconnect between different arms of law enforcement only occurred between 1993 and 2000. Jay, I have a ready answer for you: 36 days. In case you are, as I suspect, clueless as to what that time frame refers, it is the time between Condi, Colin, Cheney, Rummy, Wolfie and President Brain-Dead reading the August 6th Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Bin Laden determined to strike at U.S." and when the planes struck the Twin Towers in New York City, the Pentagon in D.C. and the field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

And lest we forget, when Bill Clinton ordered air strikes against Iraq, he was accused of "wagging the dog" to divert attention from Monica Lewinsky. Maybe if the morally and hypocritically motivated Republicans who thirsted for Clinton's head on a platter had stepped back, maybe law enforcement would have done a better job of tracking these men, since they would have been spending less time and money combing through every Arkansas trailer park in search of Paula Jones clones to tell Kenny "Trojan Man" Starr that Clinton once looked at them for more than eight seconds.

Oh, and while we are on a "lest we forget" footing, remember when the World Trade Center was attacked in 1993 a mere five weeks into the new Clinton presidency? Clinton didn't sit in some classroom reading "My Pet Goat" for an eternity. He didn't hide the Constitution on us. He didn't call for people he deemed to be terrorists to be thrown into cells at Gitmo without charging them with a crime. Bill Clinton did none of those things. He simply worked like a madman to track, capture and prosecute those guilty of the attack. In addition, there was none of this finger-pointing at the Bush I or Reagan administrations as to why they hadn't handed Clinton adequate intelligence to handle such situations. There is a lesson for President Petty Little Shithead, but as usual, he's on vacation and doggone it, that brush has to be cleared!