Govt Agency Identified Sept 11 Attackers Over a Year Before, Hands Tied by You Know Who

In a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives in June, Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) disclosed the existence of a heretofore secret military unit called "Able Danger" which was tasked with collecting and analyzing information on terrorists using data mining technology. If you asked, who was connecting the dots before September 11th it was these folks.

In late 1999 or early 2000, this unit identified a terrorist cell based in Brooklyn, NY, one of whose members was 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta, and recommended to their military superiors that the FBI be called in to "take out that cell," (from news report in Government Security News).

A government lawyer in the Department of Defense refused permission for the information to be passed to the FBI. No more dots were connected, and an opportunity to prevent September 11th was missed.

WHY?

Clinton Administration "Wall" Prevents Agency Information Sharing

In dramatic testimony before the September 11 Commission, Attorney General Ashcroft stated:

The single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents. Government erected this wall. Government buttressed this wall. And before September 11, government was blinded by this wall.

In 1995, the Justice Department embraced flawed legal reasoning, imposing a series of restrictions on the FBI that went beyond what the law required. The 1995 Guidelines and the procedures developed around them imposed draconian barriers to communications between the law enforcement and intelligence communities. The wall "effectively excluded" prosecutors from intelligence investigations. The wall left intelligence agents afraid to talk with criminal prosecutors or agents. In 1995, the Justice Department designed a system destined to fail.

In the days before September 11, the wall specifically impeded the investigation into Zacarias Moussaoui, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. After the FBI arrested Moussaoui, agents became suspicious of his interest in commercial aircraft and sought approval for a criminal warrant to search his computer. The warrant was rejected because FBI officials feared breaching the wall. When the CIA finally told the FBI that al-Midhar and al-Hazmi were in the country in late August, agents

in New York searched for the suspects. But because of the wall, FBI Headquarters refused to allow criminal investigators who knew the most about the most recent al Qaeda attack to join the hunt for the suspected terrorists.

At that time, a frustrated FBI investigator wrote Headquarters, quote, "Whatever has happened to this -- someday someone will die -- and wall or not -- the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain 'problems'. Let's hope the National Security Law Unit will stand behind their decision then, especially since the biggest threat to us, UBL [bin Laden], is getting the most protection."

The "wall" was a set of guidelines introduced by Jamie Gorelick, Assistant Attorney General in the Clinton Administration, former counsel at the Department of Defense and a member of the September 11th Commission. In addition to previously legislated guidelines Ms. Gorelick instructed the chief prosecuter in New York, Mary Jo White, who was investigating terrorism, that:

[W]e believe that it is prudent to establish a set of instructions that will clearly separate the counterintelligence investigation from the more limited, but continued, criminal investigations. These procedures, which go beyond what is legally required.

(Read the actual signed memo here in PDF form. Text version is here)

New York Times Reports Story, But Who Was President?

Reaction to this story is falling into predictable patterns with the usual suspects implying that President Bush hasn't been very effective in the war on terror. "Where's bin Laden" they parrot over and over. But trying to suggest that Bush's response to terrorism is as inept as Clinton's is delusional in the extreme. Who was it that tore down the wall that the Clinton Administration built that prevented us from connecting the dots before September 11th and finding bin Laden?

In reporting the Weldon revelations, the New York Times failed to identify, even once, the administration in power at the time. Can you imagine the scream headline if this occured under Bush's watch?

Imagine how much more effective we would be in our efforts to prevent another September 11th if the left could leave behind their defense of the indefensible and unite behind a common goal of victory in the war?