Questions Mount on Able Danger

Last night, Rusty at the Jawa Report asked for more information on the Able Danger program and any related issues. I was more than helpful in providing him with what meager scraps I could find.

However, it would appear that the questions I pose to the general audience are the ones worth asking, and that the answers might help figure out what exactly the government knew, and when it knew, and why no one who was in a position to act on that information was up to speed.

Here is the list of questions I provided (and I've further edited multipart questions into individual parts):

I would break it down by pre 9/11 and post 9/11
issues:

Pre 9/11:
~ What specific steps were taken by the DoD in culling this data to send it up to those who might act on the information?
~ Who was involved in the decision making process?
~ Why did they stop this information from being passed on to law enforcement - if only to keep an eye on Atta's associations?

Post 9/11:
~ Why was the program disbanded if it was successful in naming 4 of 19 hijackers?
~ Was there political pressure to can the project?
~ Has the program been subsumed into other data mining projects?
~ What other information, if any, was overlooked by the 9/11 Commission in the course of its investigation?
~ Was that oversight politically motivated is a subpart of the prior question, but I frankly feel that politics permeates the entire process at this point?

All of these questions are the groundwork of any good journalist. Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How?

You have to establish the groundwork, so let's start with the papertrail. How did Rep. Weldon come to have this information? Was it a leak? Was it part of some classified or unclassified briefing to Congress (or some subpart of Congress)? If it was to a group of members of Congress, how come Weldon is the only one who thinks this information is newsworthy, which it would appear to be? Wouldn't the words Atta and cell ring bells at any meeting relating to 9/11 events? If they didn't, were they paying attention or were they not mentioned at all?

Also, we get conflicting reports on whether Able Danger was known to the Commission or not. One early report says that they didn't know, but a later report says that they did, but discounted the results. Either situation is troubling, but the latter case would indicate that the Commission either thought the intel fit with other information and not important enough to be considered on its own, or the characterization of the data mining by Weldon is suspect. Now, it's possible that the Commission thought the information from Able Danger fit with other intel, but why was there no mention of the program in the Commission's report or preliminary reports, if only to show that they examined all the government intel operations.

That sounds like an oversight to me. A pretty profound one at that.

Others are working on timelines (Dr. Sanity), and they should be applauded for their work.

Last nite, Captain Ed reported:

Tomorrow's [which would be the Thursday edition] New York Times reports that members of the 9/11 Commission reversed themselves and now acknowledge being briefed on the Army's data mining project, Able Danger, prior to the publication of their report to the American people. After over 24 hours of denying that anyone had told the Commission about the secret project, their spokesman now says that commission officials met with a uniformed officer who told them about the identification of Mohammed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers in 2000, over a year prior to the attacks[.]

The NYT changed the headlines to boot. Curious.

Captain Ed has more this AM, including why the 9/11 Commission didn't make mention of Mohammed Afroze, who was convicted in India of conspiring to attack targets in India, Australia, and England simultaneously with the US attacks. That raises further issues.

Did Able Danger mention Afroze?

UPDATE:
More people are starting to view Able Danger as a major story, including, but not limited to: Michelle Malkin, Jim Geraghty , Baldilocks, Just One Minute, and The Anchoress.

Good.

Also, Comments from Left Field makes an interesting observation - namely that the incoming Bush Administration had little faith in whatever the outgoing Clinton Administration thought was serious.

That was both a function of political and practical considerations, but it had its consequences, not the least of which is a failure of massive proportions to keep this nation safe from all threats, foreign and domestic. It also underscores the absolute necessity to maintain a non-political intelligence system, so that the information can flow to all those that need it in a timely fashion without being shaped by political considerations.

Villainous Company is more skeptical of Weldon.

UPDATE 6:24PM 8/11/2005
New York City area talk show host Mark Levin had Rep. Weldon on last night. I'm working to get either a link to the interview, or the interview itself. MarkLevinFan is a good source of sound clips from Levin's shows. So MLF, if you're reading, we could use the clips/transcript.