This round up is going to be brought to you, to a great extent, by Tom Maguire at Just One Minute. Tom has been doing some good research on this (where he gets the time is beyond me) in this post.

Tom begins with some comments by Richard Clarke in the LA Times where he claims no knowledge of Able Danger -with references to another article that paints an unflattering, but very recognizable, example of a government employee with a self image much grander than the image people who work around hold. Check out a good round up developed by Tom.

The best link in his post is this one – so read it no matter what.

General Hugh Shelton , then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , is quoted by former CENTCOM Commander Tommy Franks as saying : “ Clarke’s been over at the National Security Council so long that he thinks he owns Counter Terrorism- and knows more about the subject than anybody in government. He likes to talk,drops a lot of names,and thinks highly of himself-but in many ways,he’s not very practical. Be careful in dealing with him. “

With Katrina and Justices Roberts and Rehnquist topping the news, information on Able Danger and the pending hearings will probably be delayed for another few days.

The Washington Time has a UPI story out today here, which includes a lot of whining by the 9-11 commission:

“Other people have questions they need to answer,” said Al Felzenberg, spokesman for the commission’s embattled successor body, the 9/11 Public Discourse Project.

“The American people deserve answers,” Mr. Felzenberg said, adding that both the White House and the Pentagon had left questions about the issue unresolved for weeks — something other commission sources say has exposed them to a fierce backlash.

This response is great:

Others, including Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, say the commission is merely getting “a little bit of its own medicine,” being second-guessed in hindsight, as it judged the actions of officials before September 11.

“In hindsight it is always easy to see people’s mistakes,” he said. “You have to be sympathetic to people in hindsight. More sympathetic than they were.”

While searching for materials for today’s update I ran across this Times UK piece on new footage on one of many opportunities to target and take out Bin Laden. Worth a bit of a side track.

They include at least three further occasions in Afghanistan between 1998 and 2000 when the CIA had Bin Laden in its sights but was prevented from acting. There were divisions between the agency and the White House over who would have the authority to fire and the legality of killing the Al-Qaeda leader.
…
The nearest the CIA came to killing Bin Laden was on the hunting trip in February 1999, just a few months before the Predator incident. The site was a camp in the desert south of Kandahar where Bin Laden had gone with wealthy visitors from the United Arab Emirates.

Afghan agents reported the trip to a CIA station. Tracking teams were immediately dispatched and by February 9 they had located the isolated camp, close to a large airstrip.
…
This time, with a smaller, more clearly defined target, the intelligence experts believed they would have more luck.

The attack was planned for February 11, but according to Scheuer the White House stalled. Officials wanted more information about Bin Laden’s movements.

In addition it was now clear that the hunting party consisted of minor princes from the United Arab Emirates, an American ally in the Gulf.

As the White House dithered, the hunting party moved on
…
The failures revealed in the Al-Jazeera documentary were echoed last week by further revelations about the so-called Able Danger military intelligence unit.

Two members of this unit have come forward in recent weeks to say that Mohammed Atta, leader of the September 11 hijackers, was known as a terrorist suspect at least a year before the attacks.

I have not linked to this Powerline post on the subject a few days back (I think – so many posts and stories!).