This NYT story broke on Tuesday about 9-11 plotters being...

[whistle]

...identified back in 2000 as a threat by a special unit in the CIA, but that information was never shared with the FBI:

<snip>
Four in 9/11 Plot Are Called Tied to Qaeda in '00
By Douglas Jehl
The New York Times

Tuesday 09 August 2005

Washington - 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.

The recommendation was rejected and the information was not shared, they said, apparently at least in part because Mr. Atta, and the others were in the United States on valid entry visas. Under American law, United States citizens and green-card holders may not be singled out in intelligence-collection operations by the military or intelligence agencies. That protection does not extend to visa holders, but Mr. Weldon and the former intelligence official said it might have reinforced a sense of discomfort common before Sept. 11 about sharing intelligence information with a law enforcement agency.

A former spokesman for the Sept. 11 commission, Al Felzenberg, confirmed that members of its staff, including Philip Zelikow, the executive director, were told about the program on an overseas trip in October 2003 that included stops in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But Mr. Felzenberg said the briefers did not mention Mr. Atta's name.

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

<more>
<link> http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080905I.shtml

Right wingers are jumping all over this blaming Clinton administration of a cover-up. How so, it was shared in early 2001 before 9-11 happened?

[madeline_con]

1. They want to forget DUH-bya let it happen...

so they go on about how Clinton could have gotten them, blah blah.

It's sour grapes about the fact that DUH-bya's crew was warned and did nothing about Al Qaeda.

It seems to indicate the Right is running scared.

[TheDebbieDee]

2. I think this is the latest attempt to smear the Big Dog......

this article, along with the posturing of Curt Weldon, has already been debunked several times today on this site alone.

[wli]

3. identified as a threat by the CIA or as agents of the CIA/DIA/ONI?

The latter is more probable given the rest of what we know.

[Endangered Specie]

4. Just more proof that our 'intelligence' agencies need a

major renovation