Atta had been identified as a terror risk in 2000

[welshTerrier2]

there are a few very troubling pieces of information in the attached article ... most notably, if Atta had been identified in 2000, why did information about the risk he posed not travel through the necessary channels ... or did it?

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/politics/09intel.html?hp&ex=1123646400&en=8cdd39c879100274&ei=5094&partner=homepage

More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of a cell of Al Qaeda operating in the United States, according to a former defense intelligence official and a Republican member of Congress.<skip>

The report produced by the commission last year does not mention the episode. "We knew these were bad guys, and we wanted to do something about them," the former intelligence official said.<skip>

In the interview on Monday, Mr. Weldon said he had been aware of the episode since shortly after the Sept. 11 attack, when members of the team first brought it to his attention. He said he had told Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, about it in a conversation in September or October 2001, and had been surprised when the Sept. 11 commission report made no mention of the operation.<skip>

The former intelligence official said the first Able Danger report identified all four men as members of a "Brooklyn" cell, and was produced within two months after Mr. Atta arrived in the United States. The former intelligence official said he was among a group that briefed Mr. Zelikow and at least three other members of the Sept. 11 commission staff about Able Danger when they visited the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in October 2003.

The official said he had explicitly mentioned Mr. Atta as a member of a Qaeda cell in the United States. He said the staff encouraged him to call the commission when he returned to Washington at the end of the year. When he did so, the ex-official said, the calls were not returned.

[Old and In the Way]

1. Very interesting.....but not surprising.

The Commission wasn't interested in investigating 9/11....the point was how to prevent future 9/11's. Of course, one could make the case that future 9/11's can't be stopped because we never really got to the root cause of 9/11.

Atta must have been one of those rare triple-double agents. I don't think we'll ever know what and who he was doing and dealing.

[Donna Zen]

2. No mention of Coffer Black?

Strange that this article doesn't mention Black, who made the decision to shelve the CIA's information because he, Black, was not interested in pursuing it, and not interested in sharing it.

I'll have to go back and reread that part in "Pretext for War," a book that has received mixed revues. The information in the book is sound, but Bamford rushed the writing which gave his critics fits.

The bush cabal spends more time covering up the messes of their cronies than they spend actually doing their jobs.

Is Coffer still gainfully employed? Probably, if since it remains business as usual.

[bribri16]

3. You a swallowing the Kool-Aid. Designed to shift blame back to Clinton.

Haven't you noticed how when Bush gets into deep doo-doo there is always some US intel to bail him out?

[RamboLiberal]

4. Don't believe Curt Weldon - he's a whack job

ala Zell Miller. Guess the NYT has found a new version of Judith Miller to peddle this crap. Weldon's got his own version of Curveball called Ali. Curt is peddling this book.

Countdown to Terror: The Top-Secret Information that Could Prevent the Next Terrorist Attack on America... and How the CIA has Ignored it

Could the next September 11 be nuclear? This is no theory, says Congressman Curt Weldon, in his shocking new book Countdown to Terror. It is a fact as real as the arrest of Muslim terrorists who planned to crash a plane into the Seabrook nuclear power plant in New Hampshire in 2004. What’s even more stunning, Congressman Weldon tried to warn American intelligence about the attack—but no one in America’s intelligence community would listen. How did Congressman Weldon know about it? Because of a secret source, an intelligence contact code-named Ali who has been a treasure trove of reliable intelligence—intelligence that, despite Congressman Weldon’s strenuous efforts, has been routinely ignored by the CIA and the rest of America’s intelligence services. But in Countdown to Terror, Congressman Weldon lets you know what the CIA doesn’t want to know. You’ll learn, straight from Ali’s actual reports: · Why Iran will decide the next terror strike on America · How a major planned terror strike was called off because the terrorists thought it would help President Bush politically · Why Iran, not al Qaeda, is the command post of radical Islamic terror · Who is undercutting American efforts to create a peaceful, stable Iraq · Why Iran is like the Soviet Union in the 1980s: extremely dangerous, the iron glove behind all our enemies—yet on the verge of internal collapse · The Iranian nuclear program: red-hot and more advanced than you think Congressman Weldon’s sharing of vital intelligence with you, the reading public, is unprecedented. But it is necessary so that the American people can be informed and pressure our government to do what needs to be done to protect our country, fix our still broken intelligence services, and win the war on terrorism. Countdown to Terror is a frightening book—but it is all true. And if we act now, we can avoid its grimmest scenarios.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0895260050/qid=1123587519/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_sbs_1/002-3799168-3214420?v=glance&s=books&n=507846