according to German police records, Atta was nowhere near the U.S. then. He was in Hamburg. And it wasn't until March 22, 2000, that Atta, an Egyptian national, began contacting flight schools here to see about taking lessons. He emailed 31 different schools. In one email, he wrote: "We are a small group of young man [sic] (2-3 persons) from several different Arab countries. We would like to start a course for professional airplane-pilots." He then applied for his visa, got it May 18, and arrived here June 3—several months after the Able Danger team allegedly placed the future hijacker in Brooklyn. By July, Atta had settled in Florida, far from his alleged Brooklyn base. But isn't it still possible the Able Danger team could have identified Atta as a member of an American cell before he got here, perhaps from records of his foreign travels? ...... they more than likely would not have found Atta in them for the simple reason that he didn't use that last name (nor did anyone in his family). He went by Mohamed el-Amir, not Atta. That's the way he was listed on flight manifests and travel documents—until, that is, he got his U.S. visa in May 2000. It was issued using his first and last names (his full name was Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta). So when Atta arrived in America in June 2000, he in effect had a brand new identity as Mohamed Atta, making it highly unlikely Able Danger would be able to identify him by that name six months earlier as claimed.

Add in Weldon's goofball embrace of every absurd lie peddled by Iranian con man Manucher Gorbanifar, his ties to the Rev. Moon (a.k.a. God's vice regent on earth) and his taste for whacky stunts -- like pinning an American flag pin on Moammar Kadafi's lapel -- and you can see that Curt reached the level of his own incompetence when he became a volunteer firefighter in Marcus Hook, PA.

wiredog: "Why didn't they pay attention?" It wasn't just the FBI and CIA who ignored it. How many in depth stories on the Year 2000 bombing plot were there? Last summer a former administration official (Sec. Def. Cohen, IIRC) had an op-ed about the threat of terrorism. I don't recall any letters to the editor about it. Or any follow up to testimony to that effect to the House and Senate. Matthew Brzezinski: Because no one was paying attention. I don't want to sound flip, but we were all too busy watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire and gov't agencies often reflect the priorities of the prevailing culture.

To be fair, it's a big leap from stealing a Cessna to commandeering a Boeing 767. "It's the imagination that failed us," says a former senior CIA agent, "not the system." He dismissed the connection to Bojinka as a "hindsight is cheap" theory..... One reason U.S counterterrorism officials may not have been able to outwit the terrorists, critics charged, is because the entire intelligence community has become too reliant on technology rather than human resources. "Where the system breaks down," says a former staff member of President Clinton's National Security Council who regularly attended briefings on bin Laden at Langley, "is not at the hunting and gathering stage" -- the ability to electronically intercept information. "We are probably tapped into every hotel room in Pakistan. We can listen in to just about every phone call in Afghanistan," explains the former NSC staffer. "Where the rubber hits the pavement is with the analysts. They are a bunch of 24-year-old recent grads from Middlebury or Dartmouth who have never been to Pakistan or Afghanistan, don't speak any of the relevant languages, and seem more knowledgeable about the bar scene in Georgetown. They just don't compare to the Soviet specialists we used to have. I'm not surprised they missed it."

He then applied for his visa, got it May 18, and arrived here June 3—several months after the Able Danger team allegedly placed the future hijacker in Brooklyn. By July, Atta had settled in Florida, far from his alleged Brooklyn base.

their conclusion was, if anything, that poor interpretive skills on the part of the military resulted in the failed transfer of data, not any overt act on the part of ms. gorlick.

and you can see that Curt reached the level of his own incompetence when he

he real truth is that if the memo had not existed the meeting would not have taken place.

....Able Danger whistleblower Anthony Shaffer on MSNBC's "The Big Idea" on Aug. 23rd, and he speculated that the reason Able Danger was shut down was because it had accidentally brought up ties between prominent Americans and overseas criminal activity. He didn't get any more specific except to say it wasn't connected to al-Qaeda. So this is undoubtedly another reference to Condi Rice and William Perry. ... I hope the DUers who have seen Able Danger as merely some kind of Curt Weldon smear campaign against Clinton can see now that there's much more to it.....No wonder, for instance, when Weldon says he gave the Able Danger chart showing Atta's photograph to Condi Rice's assistant Steve Hadley just after 9/11, the chart was "lost" and the whole story was buried. Hadley and Rice are very close, and Hadley has since taken over Rice's job as National Security Advisor. When Able Danger was shut down there still was seven months to follow up its leads connecting Mohamed Atta to al-Qaeda, but instead the program was shut down to protect Condi Rice?!