Able Danger: Questions and Concerns

I've reprinted the comments I made over at LGF because they bear repeating:

It's tough to figure out why these career soldiers would throw out their careers on unsubstanitated claims. That we're getting more people to come forward suggests that there is more to the story.

There are a couple of threads to the story right now:

1) 9/11 Commission actions relating to Able Danger, White memos, and the timeline. Why were the program and memos not mentioned, and why did the Commission refuse to acknowledge that there was information that cast doubt on the timeline. Was the Commission needlessly politicizing their work to protect administration officials of both Clinton and Bush?

2) What was actually uncovered by Able Danger? Did they really discover Atta (or the Atta doppleganger as Kaus and McGuire suggested over the weekend)?

3) Did the Wall really keep the parties from talking to each other?

4) Are the intel, DoD, law enforcement groups communicating better now after 9/11 or are their still problems getting info sharing?

The aforementioned 1-3 are questions of historical significance, political ramifications notwithstanding. Figuring out the timeline is significant to quell the conspiracy mongerers and gives historians something to write about. It also undermines the Commission findings that intel failed to uncover a plot, which was an underpinning for reorganizing the intelligence community.

Number 4 is the crucial question since it is the only one of importance for national security going forward. Are the policy makers getting all of the information that they possibly can from the intel and law enforcement groups - are they communicating potential threats to each other so that they can better inform those who can act on that data? And that leads to other questions: Has the intel reorganization actually provided better communication? Is Congress doing a better job of oversight?

UPDATE:
Andy McCarthy makes some very good observations:

The commission could, of course, be right. It’s quite possible Atta never went to Prague in April 2001. But the commission could also be dead wrong. And for present purposes, the point is: how sure can we be of its Atta timeline? The timeline based on which the commission insists Atta was not in the U.S. before June 2000, and based on which it rejected Phillpott, whose account has now been seconded.

UPDATE II:
Mickey Kaus writes (via Slate):

Do I Hear 4? Maguire notes that the presence of two Mohamed Attas in Prague--the 9/11 hijacker and a Pakistani businessman with the same name--within days of each other (May-June 2000) helped confuse investigators after 9/11. But that means, of course, that there were not "Two Attas" but Three Attas potentially on Able-Dangeresque data-mining radar screens prior to 9/11: 1) the future 9/11 hijacker; 2) the Abu Nidal terrorist extradited to Israel; 3) the Pakistani businessman who flew to Prague from Saudi Arabia. ... 11:10 A.M. link

Curious.