Read the post at Shrink Wrapped, who has coined the best new nickname for the Danger Enablers on the 9/11 Commission who neglected to inform the American public about Operation Able Danger:

The 9/11 Omission.

Excerpt from Shrink Wrapped’s analysis:

There are really only a few possible explanations for the Able Danger story.

One possibility is that it could all be bogus and Representative Weldon, the motive force behind this, might have drifted into tin foil hat territory. This can be easily dismissed by the fact that all sorts of confirmation is starting to make its way into the MSM (though don’t look for anything interesting in the Old York Times.)

More likely is a combination of factors. The Clinton administration liberals clearly did not see al Qaeda as a significant threat to cause harm on our shores. From that perspective, they could plausibly have argued that protecting our privacy was a more important consideration than allowing military intelligence to communicate across the wall of separation (which had been strengthened by Jamie Gorelick, later to be a member of the 9/11 Omission) with the FBI. I do not doubt that if they had thought it through, and I would give them the benefit of the doubt that they did, the civil liberties groups, among whom was William Safire at the time, would have come to this conclusion and acted accordingly. It would have then taken great courage for the architects of the wall to have admitted the existence of the Able Danger reports. Sadly, courage is in short supply in Washington…

Jim Geraghty dissects the 9/11 Omission’s latest contradictory statements.

The 9/11 Omisssion’s statement on Able Danger is here in PDF form. Tom Maguire has given it a read, and believes that the panel members “do not seem to have been derelict, non-responsive, or uninterested.” He also raises the possibility that Bush administration official Philip Zelikow, who served as 9/11 executive director and now works at the State Department, had an incentive to cover up.

Curiouser and curiouser. Add Zelikow to the list of people Congress needs to haul up.

Meanwhile, Dr. Sanity adds a visual footnote on the Clinton administration’s deaf/dumb/blind approach to terrorism:

And on a related note, check out The Carnival of the Insanities.

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Update: A reader points to this reference to the “9/11 Omission” at Captain’s Quarters.

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Update II: Jim Geraghty agrees with Maguire that the 9/11 panel’s statement on Able Danger “looks pretty comprehensive:”

We’re in an ugly spot. We’ve got Curt Weldon and bunch of anonymous sources making one of the biggest, most shocking allegations ever, and we’ve got the 9/11 Commission saying, ‘nope, not true, and no evidence to back it up.’

The worst scenario would be for the public to not get any further information out of this. One could see “Able Danger” reaching the phenomenon of urban legend quickly. Those who would be inclined to believe it would believe it; those who would not be inclined would not, and it would just be one more divisive prism through which to view the worst day of our lives. Either Weldon and his sources have run around spreading lies and crazy stories (and managed to get them on the front page of the New York Times) or the 9/11 Commission completely dropped the ball on this, and is attempting to cover up a glaring omission.

Clearly, the Commission feels that their statement is the last word on this subject.

Weldon said he had discussed this with four people involved with the program. Unless we hear from one of these anonymous sources, and/or the unnamed Naval officer, or Weldon can show us some sort of paper trail, then I think we’re stuck with this “he said, they said” situation. And this entire controversy – which once loomed as huge news, fundamentally altering the way we saw the 9/11 commission and the attacks themselves, will fade from the public consciousness…

John Podhoretz walks back.

Update III: I walk back…

Captain Ed recounts the 9/11 Commissioners’ shifting statements ths week and concludes that nothing they say can be taken at face value. Fair enough. Even so, those of us who reported unequivocally that Able Danger identified Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers a year before the 9/11 attacks simply were not on solid ground. That is an allegation, not a proven fact. And the allegation is looking pretty shaky unless Curt Weldon can come up with some contemporaneous documentation that supports his claims.

It wasn’t just bloggers who got the story wrong. A lot of newspaper headline writers made the same mistake. A few bloggers, such as Tom Maguire and Kevin Drum, were skeptical from the start.

Update IV: Weldon waffles. Ugh. Via Time magazine…

In a particularly dramatic scene in Weldon’s book, Countdown to Terror, the Pennsylvania Republican described personally handing to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Steve Hadley, just after Sept. 11, an Able Danger chart produced in 1999 identifying Atta. But Weldon told TIME he’s no longer certain Atta’s name was on that original document. The congressman says he handed Hadley his only copy. Still, last week he referred reporters to a recently reconstructed version of the chart in his office where, among dozens of names and photos of terrorists from around the world, there was a color mug shot of Mohammad Atta, circled in black marker.

Pentagon officials are playing down any controversy. They say they can find nothing produced by the Able Danger program, which involved fewer than half a dozen intelligence analysts, mentioning Atta’s name. A senior Pentagon official briefed on the program told TIME, “This is much ado about nothing.” a source close to the former 9/11 commission aides who chased down the story last week said they had been led to believe the Pentagon would issue a statement along these lines on Friday. But as of Sunday, this had not occurred. “We have been working with the 9/11 public discourse project to gain more clarity into this issue,” said a Pentagon spokeswoman, Air Force Lieut. Col. Ellen Krenke. “Clearly there was information that was developed through this program, but it is unclear what was provided to the 9/11 Commission.” Krenke said she did not know about any statement planned that would say no information had been developed about Atta before the Sept. 11 attacks.

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