9/11 Cell Known Before 9/11?

Here is an interesting bit of news.

Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican who serves as vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said a classified military intelligence unit known as "Able Danger" identified the men in 1999.

That's an earlier link to Al Qaeda than any previously disclosed intelligence about Atta if the information, which Weldon said came from multiple intelligence sources, is true.

With the 9/11 commission disbanded for a year under provisions of the legislation that created it, some of the panel's members have said congressional committees should investigate Weldon's assertions.

According to Weldon, Able Danger identified Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi as members of a cell the unit code-named "Brooklyn" because of some loose connections to New York City.

Weldon said that in September 2000 Able Danger recommended that its information on the hijackers be given to the FBI "so they could bring that cell in and take out the terrorists." However, Weldon said Pentagon lawyers rejected the recommendation because they said Atta and the others were in the country legally, so information on them could not be shared with law enforcement.

I wonder if those big stone walls that the Clinton administration forced between intelligence agencies had anything to do with this. Could it be that Military Intelligence, like the CIA, wasn't supposed to be involved in intelligence regarding affairs on US soil?

The NYT has a piece on topic:

A spokesman for the Pentagon, Lt. Col. Christopher Conway, said later that "there were a number of intelligence operations prior to the attacks of 9/11" but that "it would be irresponsible for us to provide details in a way in which those who wish to do us harm would find beneficial."

An intelligence official said Tuesday that the office of John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, was "working closely with the Department of Defense to learn more" about Mr. Weldon's statements. The official confirmed that the congressman recently met with Mr. Negroponte, but declined to discuss the subject.

I suppose that is no real big surprise that Military Intelligence doesn't want to discuss it.

An outspoken member of Congress on military and intelligence questions, Mr. Weldon, a champion of military data mining like Able Danger, has helped arrange interviews for reporters with the former military intelligence official. The official insisted on anonymity, saying he did not want to jeopardize political support for future data mining in the military.

Jeopardize political support? Why would you think that? I would think that this would be perfect evidence for how such data mining would extremely valuable as a tool for intelligence.

The big question is, do we really need another commission to study this? These commissions put out big documents that no one apparently reads. Especially the MSM who continue to put out misinformation related to the subjects. Will anything useful come out of another study? I'm thinking no. It would just provide further evidence of how very very broken the overall intelligence scenario was prior to 9/11.