US military team tried to alert FBI about attack in 2000
 

US military team tried to alert FBI about attack in 2000



A US military intelligence team had tried to alert the FBI in 2000 about the existence of an American-based terrorist cell that included the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, but its efforts had been blocked by US military lawyers, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

The newspaper quoted Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a veteran Army intelligence officer, as saying that the small, highly classified intelligence program, known as Able Danger, had identified the terrorist ringleader, Mohamed Atta, and three other future hijackers by name by mid-2000, and tried to arrange a meeting that summer with FBI agents to share its information.

But according to Shaffer, US military lawyers forced members of Able Danger to cancel three scheduled meetings with the FBI at the last minute because they feared controversy if Able Danger was portrayed as a military operation that had violated the privacy of civilians who were legally in the United States.

The information that Able Danger tried to pass on to the FBI might have led to Atta and the other terrorists while the Sept. 11 attacks were still being planned, Shaffer said.

Shaffer also told the newspaper that he was not involved in the details of the procedures used in Able Danger to gather information from terrorist databases, nor was he aware of which databases had supplied the information that might have led to the name of Atta or other terrorists so long before the Sept. 11 attacks.

But he said he did know that Able Danger had made use of publicly available information from government immigration agencies, Internet sites and paid search engines like LexisNexis.


:Oh crap :Oh crap :Oh crap

http://english.people.com.cn/200508/...18_203177.html

I have heard about those speculations. so much lessons have 9/11 taught those feds.

The powers that be knew 9/11 was gonna happen, they let it happen.

Just like they'll let the next one happen so they can go after Iran with public support.

wasn't 9/11 in 2001?

"US military intelligence team had tried to alert the FBI in 2000 about the existence of an American-based terrorist cell that included the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, but its efforts had been blocked by US military lawyers"

misleading thread title... it can be interpreted both ways :thumbsup

yep

don't know if it was US military lawyers per say.

more like Clinton lawyers

NO doubt why US intelligence sucks..lol

US Intelligence don't suck asshole, we're decades ahead of anybody else

must stink to be the others .... :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Maybe if congress had sent up a bill to tap suspected terrorists phones in 1996 like Clinton begged them to, this would have been prevented. You can alter a giant asteroids course easliy if you deflect it soon enough.

"We are fighting terrorism on all fronts with a three-pronged strategy. First, we are working to rally a world coalition with zero- tolerance for terrorism. Just this month I signed a law imposing harsh sanctions on foreign companies that invest in key sectors of the Iranian and Libyan economies.

As long as Iran trains, supports and protects terrorists, as long as Libya refuses to give up the people who blew up Pan Am 103, they will pay a price from the United States.

Second, we must give law endorsement the tools they need to take the fight to terrorists. We need new laws to crack down on money laundering and to prosecute and punish those who commit violent acts against American citizens abroad; to add chemical markers or taggants to gunpowder used in bombs so we can track the bombmakers.

To extend the same power police now have against organized crime to save lives by tapping all the phones that terrorists use. Terrorists are as big a threat to our future, perhaps bigger, than organized crime. Why should we have two different standards for a common threat to the safety of America and our children?

We need, in short, the laws that Congress refused to pass. And I ask them again -- please, as an American, not a partisan, matter, pass these laws now."

Excerpt from Clintons 1996 democratic convention speech.

Can we drop the 9/11 "what ifs' yet? It's over.