Reply #16: Four in 9/11 Plot Are Called Tied to Qaeda in '00 (info ignored under Bush

[papau]

More than a year before 9/11, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit, using data-mining techniques modeled after those used in the Information Dominance Center, at Fort Belvoir, Va. (formerly called the Land Information Warfare Assessment Center) on non-classified publically available information, 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 Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA). Weldon's book "Countdown to Terror: The Top-Secret Information That Could Prevent the Next Terrorist Attack on America and How the C.I.A. Has Ignored It." has been disputed by CIA spokespersons.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/politics/09intel.html

Four in 9/11 Plot Are Called Tied to Qaeda in '00
By DOUGLAS JEHL
WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 - 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.

In the summer of 2000, the military team, known as Able Danger, prepared a chart that included visa photographs of the four men and recommended to the military's Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the congressman, Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, and the former intelligence official said Monday. <snip>

The report produced by the commission last year does not mention the episode.<snip>