Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

The Able Danger disaster will soon be coming to a newspaper near you. Much of the information contained in this column can be found on various blog sites, both liberal and conservative, now crackling with the story. This is what is known so far about the brewing scandal: • Able Danger, an intelligence unit established by the Pentagon in 1999 to identify al-Quada affiliated members and cells for U.S. Special Operations Command, hit pay dirt sometime in August or September of 2000. According to a military intelligence official and U.S. Rep Kurt Weldon, who claims to have spoken to four people involved with Able Danger, the intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi as members of an al-Quada cell named “Brooklyn” by the internet sleuths because of the cell’s loose connection with Brooklyn, New York. Atta and two other cell members went on to achieve notoriety by steering planes into the Trade Tower buildings in New York, killing upwar...