Congressman Curt Weldon (R-Pen.) announced on Tuesday that defense intelligence agencies had identified Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the September 11 attacks and three of his fellow terrorists more than one year prior to the attacks. However, information about Atta and his possible ties to al-Qaeda was never forwarded to law enforcement officials.
Weldon, the vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said that Atta and his associates were identified in 1999 by a classified military intelligence unit known as 'Able Danger.' Members of 'Able Danger' strongly suspected Atta was a member of al-Qaeda.
Weldon told reporters that in September 2000, the unit recommended that information on Atta be turned over to the FBI 'so they could bring that cell in and take out the terrorists' but that never happened. Lawyers at the Pentagon rejected the advice since Atta and his cohorts were in the country legally.
'In fact, I'll tell you how stupid it was, they put stickies on the faces of Mohammed Atta on the chart that the military intelligence unit had completed and they said you can't talk to Atta because he's here on a green card,' Weldon said.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the 9/11 commission looked into the matter during its investigation into government missteps leading to the attacks and chose not to include it in their final report.
