[Update 8/10 Skynews report: video link]

Douglas Jehl, New York Times
August 9, 2005

WASHINGTON, D.C. — More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military-intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of an Al-Qaida cell operating in the United States, according to a former defense intelligence official and a Republican congressional member.

In the summer of 2000, the team, known as “Able Danger,” prepared a chart that included visa photos of the four men and recommended to the military’s Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the FBI, said Pennsylvania Rep. Curt Weldon and the former intelligence official Monday.

The recommendation was rejected, and the information was not shared, they said, apparently at least in part because Atta and the others were in the United States on valid entry visas. Under American law, U.S. citizens and green-card holders may not be investigated in intelligence-collection operations by the military or intelligence agencies. That protection does not extend to visa holders, but Weldon and the former intelligence official said it may have reinforced a sense of discomfort common before Sept. 11 about sharing intelligence information with a law enforcement agency.
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