It appears the 9/11 Commission knew about the claims raised yesterday by Curt Weldon, and chose to dismiss them:
The Sept. 11 commission was warned by a uniformed military officer 10 days before issuing its final report that the account would be incomplete without reference to what he described as a secret military operation that by the summer of 2000 had identified as a potential threat the member of Al Qaeda who would lead the attacks more than a year later, commission officials said on Wednesday.
The officials said that the information had not been included in the report because aspects of the officer’s account had sounded inconsistent with what the commission knew about that Qaeda member, Mohammed Atta, the plot’s leader.
But aides to the Republican congressman who has sought to call attention to the military unit that conducted the secret operation said such a conclusion relied too much on specific dates involving Mr. Atta’s travels and not nearly enough on the operation’s broader determination that he was a threat.
The briefing by the military officer is the second known instance in which people on the commission’s staff were told by members of the military team about the secret program, called Able Danger.
The meeting, on July 12, 2004, has not been previously disclosed. That it occurred, and that the officer identified Mr. Atta there, were acknowledged by officials of the commission after the congressman, Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, provided information about it.
Something else for us to keep our eyes on…
tzs
Also, as has been pointed out time and time again, even if data mining does bring up candidates, the question is what percentage are false positives.
Given my own experience with the (in)accuracy of data in databases, I’m very skeptical of data mining.
Slartibartfast
Well, of course you wouldn’t just do data mining. The data mining would simply be a filter; you’d then do a bit more research. Some information, even if some of it’s bad, is better than none.
Geek, Esq.
Apparently, this source of Weldon’s claimed they knew Atta was in the US in late 1999/early 2000.
Since Atta didn’t enter the US until June 2000, he didn’t strike them as credible.
Don Surber
“It appears the 9/11 Commission knew about the claims raised yesterday by Curt Weldon, and chose to dismiss them”
Hmm. Why would they do that? 1. The 9/11 Commission is in cahoots with the devil. 2. The 9/11 Commission is a pack of incompetents. 3. The 9/11 Commission checked it out and the story was not credible.
I’d place my money on No. 2 but No. 3 sounds plausible as well. You keep your eye on it.
ppGaz
Apparently enough information got through the wires to make it to Bush’s briefing on August 6 2001.
His response:
Bush Speaks
Uh, yeah.
db
I said this yesterday about the yesterday’s Times article:
Well, today’s story is making me eat my words. Actually, I am too proud to do that, so I am going to take my words and jam them up the commissioners’ asses. I hate when I “trust” a public official and they are pulling b.s. like this. Sort of reminds back in March 2003 and I was defending the administration’s claims about WMD to a class of cynical college students. I said something to the effect of, “We should have faith on our public officials or else what sort of democract do we live in?” And mumbled under my breath, “God, I hope they find those WMDs.”
Nevertheless, I will still stand by my assertion yesterday:
In fact, today’s NY Times piece points out:
And what they knew was that Atta was not in the U.S. at the time the intelligence official was saying he was. Either way, I am smelling b.s. on both sides. And for the commissioners to say “sounded inconsistent” is the pot calling the kettle black. I mean seriously, look at there statements from yesterday to today. And they have the audactiy to say somebody else sounds inconsistent?
db
Lots of misspellings in my previous quote… too early and too pissed off at those 9/11 commissioners right now to even care about speling corecttly.
tzs
Considering how things have been carried out so far, I’m sceptical that whatever group of people that had been sorted out by data mining would be treated as innocent-until-proven-guilty. Immediate placement on no-fly lists, tax audits, etc., etc., etc. And no way to get themselves off the list.
Jimmy Jazz
Heh. How’d that happen?
Gadzooks
So how does this tie into the responsibility the Zionists have for causing 9/11?
Anderson
Via Kevin Drum:
So let’s not talk about what “the Commission” should’ve done; let’s talk about what Zelikow should’ve done.
neil
Sounds like the college students were just being critical thinkers, not cynics.
db
There is a difference between being critical and cynical. If you want me to recall the whole damned interaction with those students to convince you they were being cynical, I’d be happy to. Or you can just trust me that I know the difference between being cynical (e.g., relying on what other people say with no evidence) vs critical (e.g., coming to an informed judgement with factual evidence) and believe me that these students were being cynical (as most college students are, unfortunately; and lately and unfortunately, I don’t blame them for being so).
db
I’ll keep talking about the commissioners. The article is about the commissioners actions with respect to Able Danger (i.e., the drafting of the commission report in post 9/11 days).
Discussions of Zelikow and Able Danger in pre-9/11 days is an entirely different conversation. I am not saying it’s not a conversation worth having. It’s just different from these reports on hand right now.
Once JC posts something about Zelikow, I’d be more than happy to read your thoughts about the nut-fuck. But that is NOT what we are talking about here. Nor was it the subject of the article that JC posted yesterday; and how quickly that discussion devolved into: “It’s the right’s fault” vs “It’s the left’s fault.”
Now, what the article does talk about (and I am assuming that everyone here reads the articles posted by JC before discussing them here) that might be an interesting line of inquiry tangential to your bitching about Zelikow is that the administration required the commission to have one of its own people at every interview the commission had with an executive branch official. The article talks about that and it is something that seems really fishy to me (something that could very well explain why there was “miscommunication” between executive branch officials and the commissioners drafting the 9/11 report).
And just to talk in terms that all the flamers here can understand, IT’S EVERYONE’S FRICKIN’ FAULT, EXCEPT FOR ME!
jg
Bush wouldn’t be interviewed unless Cheney was at his side. They also did everything they could to prevent the committee from forming and didn’t cooperate much. Whateer happened to the second inquiry? The one that was going to look into the WH role. It was put off until after the election (what a shocker that was), where is it now?
db
My apologies Anderson.
I didn’t read the Drumm post carefully enough. This was post 9/11. It is relevant. But to say, “Let’s not talk about the ‘commission’.” C’mon. That takes away from the relevancy of Drumm’s post. What the commissioners did or did not do is just as relevant to what Zelikow did or did not do.
And again, the article’s reference to the administration requiring one of its own people present at every interview. Unfrickin’ believable. I don’t know why I still get shocked at stories like that. I guess I still hold on to the belief that deep down our elected officials will do the right thing as often as possible.
Yet another Jeff
You’re confusing the 9-11 commission with the Senate bi-partisan panel that looked into pre-war Iraqi WMD intel. The first panel covered looked at the intelligence agencies. There was supposed to be another panel that was going to look at how policy makers used that intelligence, but of course that’s not going to happen while Bush is in office. Too bad. I thought the Senate report did a fantastic job covering the data, and I’d like to see them analyze how intel was used to sell the war.
jg
This part of my post had to do with the 911 commission.
Tim F
Before I decide to care about this I need to know how many arab-looking furriners were not flagged by AD as potential threats. If this data-mining exercise flagged fourteen people and one of them was Atta, then I care a lot. If it flagged fourteen thousand, please. Don’t praise me if I pick up an entire haystack and claim that I found the needle.
Of course if Geek is right then who cares, squared.
db
Exactly!!
I think this needs to be sent to all those journalists working on this. This is such an obvious question. Why the f@$% are they not asking this?!??!?!
Don
For the same reason they never talk about false positives in facial recognition systems and the fact that too much noise means the signal is lost? Because they’re lazy and know as little math and statistics as most of their audience.
Brian
What was Jamie Gorelick’s role on the Commission? We now know. To cover-up the mistakes she, Janet Reno, and the Clinton Administration in general made.
Tim F
It’s spooky. Just an hour ago I shook my magic rightwing eight-ball and it came up ‘blame Clinton.’
db
How does it smell up there? Really. How does it smell? Can you figure out what you had for breakfast this morning?
Once you figure out how to get your head out of your ass and the shit wiped out of your eyes, can you please answer me this question since you seemed so well-informed about the commission’s work:
Why did the administration require that they be present at every interview with executive branch officials?
Oh yeah, I am sorry. I know. To be sure that there was accurate reporting about Clinton’s failures, right?
Defense Guy
Mine does too, but considering mine is issued from the source it’s not surprising. A bit of nostalgia caused me to dig up my democrat one, which is still stuck on ‘start war’. To be fair that one tends to oscilate between ‘bomb something’ and ‘define is’.
Rocky Smith
Jamie Gorelich set up “the wall” between intel agencies so it must be Bush’s fault. Right? Jamie surely wouldn’t be participating in any CYA, would she?
Tim F
Defense guy,
inane.
Rocky,
That would be no. The ‘wall’ came from various intelligence laws enacted in the 1970s and formally put into practice under Reagan and the first Bush administration. Next we’ll hear that Clinton invented El Nino because, you know, El Ninos happened while Clinton was in office.
John S.
We’ve secretly replaced Defense Guy’s ‘Democratic’ magic 8-ball with a ‘Republican’ magic 8-ball…
And nobody could tell the difference.
Defense Guy
Tim F & John S
We mostly are using ouji boards these days anyway. You know to try and contact Reagan. We had FDR on the line, but he just kept saying ‘dont talk to the press’ over and over.
John S.
I’m surprised you even got through to FDR…Scotty McClellan has been channeling him for quite some time now.
ppGaz
That’s right, your country is bogged down in a war it can’t win, got into for reasons that turned out to be bogus, for which there is no apparent strategy for bringing to a close, administered by a bunch of potatoheads who can’t find their asses with both hands and a GPS device and a guide dog ….
… but let’s talk about Jamie Gorelick.
And Republicans wonder why public support for this president and his foolish war are in the tank.
Note to self: The phrase “out of touch” is going to be heard during next year’s news cycle quite a bit. Get used to it.
Stormy70
Isn’t this the fifth August in a row the press has claimed this is it for the Bush Presidency?
Wonder what old Sandy Berger stuffed down his pants?
ppGaz
Isn’t this the 500th post in a row in which you just make stuff up and sling it out there?
Slartibartfast
Crap. Can we perhaps all agree that the various government agencies and their interfaces with each other were devised so as to almost preclude any effective dealings with Islamic terrorist? I don’t think the Clinton administration did a stellar job in this regard (Juan Cole’s erroneous Millenium Plot claims to the contrary), but neither did any other administrations, including this one.
I’m going to predict that, as Moe said in an earlier thread, reason will continue to be thrown aside in favor of the escalation of sneering.
jg
My beef with the Bush administration pre-9/11 is that they were more concerned with building a missile sheild than anything to do with terrorism. They were caught completely by surprise by 9/11. Completely! Thats inexcusable.
Slartibartfast
Yes, particularly since the Clinton administration was hot on the tail of Mohammed Atta.
Next silly argument, please. Even if Clinton had another term left and had been reelected in 2000, the WTC attacks would have gone on unimpeded, I say. Unless you’ve got some compelling evidence to the contrary, that is. We’re only now looking for the sort of activity that preceded 9/11 because we’ve got the benefit of hindsight.
DougJ
Why doesn’t Tobin deserve legal representation? If he were a crackhead or a murderer, you’d be all for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to help defend him, maybe even get him off on a technicality. But since he committed the most horrible crime in your eyes, the crime of being a loyal republican, you want him thrown in jail without a trial, in effect. Typical liberal hypocrisy.
DougJ
Whoops, put that in the wrong thread!
Rick
Sound advice from one of those scary, neo-con Joos.
Cordially…