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TKS....

What we know:

* In 1999, the Pentagon established an intelligence unit called Able Danger, assigned to seek out and identify al-Qaeda cells and members for U.S. Special Operations Command. This group reportedly used data mining from open sources.

* Approximately August or September 2000, Able Danger identified an al-Qaeda cell in Brooklyn. An intelligence official and Rep. Curt Weldon claim that the AD unit identified Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, and included a photo of Atta. (Weldon claims that he has spoken to four persons involved with the program.) At least two of those men were pilots on the hijacked flights.

* Able Danger analysts recommended the information be passed on to the FBI so that the cell could be rounded up. Accounts in Government Security News, the New York Times, and the Associated Press indicate that Pentagon lawyers decided that anyone holding a green card (as it was believed the cell members did) had to be granted essentially the same legal protections as any U.S. citizen. Thus, the information Able Danger had gathered could not be shared with the FBI, the lawyers concluded. This is in keeping with “the wall” philosophy and policy established in 1995 by Assistant Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, in which intelligence and law enforcement were directed to go beyond what the law requires to keep intelligence-gathering and criminal law enforcement separated.

* The prohibition against sharing intelligence on Atta and the others should not have applied since they were in the country on visas. They did not have permanent resident status.

What we don’t know:

* Just how many names Able Danger wanted to forward to the FBI. However, the wording in the Government Security article indicates that these four names were the only four that popped up on AD’s data-mining operation.

Thus, the information Able Danger had amassed about the only terrorist cell they had located inside the United States could not be shared with the FBI, the lawyers concluded.
Unless the former intelligence officer quoted in the story is lying, these four guys were all that Able Danger found.

* Whether the military lawyer who denied Able Danger’s request to pass on the information checked with any superiors.

* It seems very hard to imagine this information would not be passed on to Secretary of Defense William Cohen, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, and the White House’s point man on counterterrorism, Richard Clarke. Yet, as of this moment, we have no direct confirmation that this information went any higher than the Pentagon lawyer.

What is speculation, but is interesting speculation:

* The 9/11 Commission staffers who felt the information about Able Danger wasn’t worth mentioning to their bosses could, conceivably, be imbeciles.

* No one has concretely tied this new information to the strange, felonious behavior of Sandy Berger, smuggling documents out of the National Archives. But boy, if the document in question related to Able Danger’s warning and the decision to not act upon it, his actions would make a lot more sense, wouldn’t they?

http://tks.nationalreview.com/archives/072802.asp