Free Republic

"The commission's refusal to investigate Able Danger after being notified of its existence, and its recent efforts to feign ignorance of the project while blaming others for supposedly withholding information on it, brings shame on the commissioners, and is evocative of the worst tendencies in the federal government that the commission worked to expose," Weldon added.

...Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), the No. 2 man on both the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, revealed that an elite military-intelligence unit known as Able Danger identified Atta and three other hijackers as likely members of a terror cell in this country as early as 1999. The spies wanted to turn the info over to the FBI in 2000, Weldon said, "so they could bring that cell in and take out the terrorists." He claimed Pentagon lawyers rejected the recommendation because they mistakenly believed that since Atta and the others were in the country legally on visas, they...

The F.B.I. missed at least five chances in the months before Sept. 11, 2001, to find two hijackers as they prepared for the attacks and settled in San Diego, the Justice Department inspector general said in a report made public on Thursday after being kept secret for a year. Investigators were stymied by bureaucratic obstacles, communication breakdowns and a lack of urgency, the report said. The blistering findings mirror those of the independent Sept. 11 commission last summer and a joint Congressional inquiry in 2002 but they also provide significant new details about the many bureaucratic breakdowns that plagued the...

WASHINGTON - Two Republicans on the Sept. 11 commission have given money to President George W. Bush's re-election campaign while serving on the panel, and a Democrat has donated to three of her party's presidential candidates. In total, half of the 10 commission members have made contributions to federal candidates or organizations since their appointment in late 2002. snip Jamie Gorelick, a Democrat and former deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton, has given more than any commission member - $13,250 in the last 16 months, including $2,000 last spring to Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign. She also gave to...