Posted on 09/15/2005 7:20:02 PM PDT by cope85
Weldon: Atta Papers Destroyed on Orders By DONNA DE LA CRUZ Associated Press Writer September 15, 2005, 9:09 PM EDT WASHINGTON --
A Pentagon employee was ordered to destroy documents that identified Mohamed Atta as a terrorist two years before the 2001 attacks, a congressman said Thursday.
The employee is prepared to testify next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee
and was expected to name the person who ordered him to destroy the large volume of documents, said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa.
Weldon declined to name the employee, citing confidentiality matters. Weldon described the documents as "2.5 terabytes" -- as much as one-fourth of all the printed materials in the Library of Congress, he added.
A Senate Judiciary Committee aide said the witnesses for Wednesday's hearing had not been finalized and could not confirm Weldon's comments.
A message left Thursday with a Pentagon spokesman, Army Maj. Paul Swiergosz, was not immediately returned. Weldon has said that Atta, the mastermind of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and three other hijackers were identified in 1999 by a classified military intelligence unit known as "Able Danger," which determined they could be members of an al-Qaida cell.
On Wednesday, former members of the Sept. 11 commission dismissed the "Able Danger" assertions. One commissioner, ex-Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., said, "Bluntly, it just didn't happen and that's the conclusion of all 10 of us." Weldon responded angrily to Gorton's assertions.
"It's absolutely unbelievable that a commission would say this program just didn't exist," Weldon said Thursday. Pentagon officials said this month they had found three more people who recall an intelligence chart identifying Atta as a terrorist prior to the Sept. 11 attacks. Two military officers, Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott, have come forward to support Weldon's claims.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
It's that evil bush administration!
*chuckles*
As the liberal media continues to ignore able danger, it continues to grow into the scandal we all knew it would be.
Either the "documents" consist of copious video surveillance or Weldon is full of it. I certainly hope the former.
when were these orders given, and by whom?
"Weldon declined to name the employee, citing confidentiality matters. Weldon described the documents as "2.5 terabytes" -- as much as one-fourth of all the printed materials in the Library of Congress, he added."
Hmmm...2.5 terabytes on Atta... hmm...
I'm guessing he means the whole Able Danger database. Which I wonder was an illegal operation?
2.5T for a data warehouse application is not that much.
I have a feeling names are going to become un-confidential very soon.
This is eventually going to get out.
probably was, they probably had alot of private records in there - banking and travel transactions, etc.
I think we have a mole
"when were these orders given, and by whom?"
Bill Clinton's personal and direct orders if you want to believe some. I'm betting Able Danger was an illegal surveillance/data mining operation. I notice nobody wants to talk about what authorized it, just whether Atta was idenitified on the rumored poster or not.
If it's 2.5t for one set of documents, that is a lot of data to eliminate.
If Able Danger used a data mining program, then looks like the entire database was ordered destroyed. This has Clinton-Gorelich's fingerprints on it, IMO.
Cover-up charged
over Able Danger
Defense worker says ordered to destroy documents identifying Atta, will testify
Posted: September 15, 2005
7:33 p.m. Eastern
An employee of the Defense Department says he was ordered to destroy documents identifying Mohamed Atta as a terrorist two years before the 2001 attacks on the U.S., Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., announced today.
According to the congressman, the employee is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week and will name the person who ordered the documents destroyed.
Weldon says the documents were extensive, making up 2.5 terabytes which he says represents as much as one-fourth of all the printed material in the Library of Congress.
The Pennsylvania lawmaker has been revealing information coming from people involved in the Pentagon's "Able Danger" project, which, beginning in 1999, identified and targeted al-Qaida on a global basis using advanced technology and data analysis. Personnel involved in the project have said even though they ID'd Atta and three others two years before the 9-11 attacks, they were prevented from sharing the information with the FBI apparently due to the Clinton-era "wall of separation" between intelligence and law enforcement.
The Associated Press reported that yesterday, former members of the Sept. 11 commission dismissed the "Able Danger" assertions. One commissioner, ex-Sen. Slade Gorton, R- Wash., said, "Bluntly, it just didn't happen and that's the conclusion of all 10 of us."
This despite the fact Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, who was part of Able Danger, says he personally told 9-11 commission staff both about the project's findings and the fact personnel were prevented from passing along the information to federal law enforcement officials.
"What we talked about to the 9-11 commission was we found that these guys matched a pattern that matched the Brooklyn location" of an al-Qaida sleeper cell, Shaffer told Fox News last month.
Weldon slammed Gorton for his dismissal of Able Danger.
"It's absolutely unbelievable that a commission would say this program just didn't exist," the lawmaker told AP.
Pentagon officials said this month they had found three more people who recall an intelligence chart identifying Atta as a terrorist prior to 9-11.
The Clinton-era "wall" placed between foreign intelligence-gathering agencies and domestic law-enforcement agencies was erected by Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, whose later presence on the 9-11 commission was criticized by Attorney General John Ashcroft and others because she was placed in a position of reviewing her own policies during the Clinton administration.
You could be right.
Please G*d, let this be true! =)
"If Able Danger used a data mining program, then looks like the entire database was ordered destroyed"
Where was Wesley Clark and when did he know it? :)
Nah, just typical lawyers.
Not that they shouldn't be brought up for sedition...
see post 8, I agree with you. we were asking that a while back - where the hell did they get all this data from? I mean, some of it comes from government recrods - but where did they get the private transaction information?
mole
Sandy "Pantload" Burglar, perhaps -- then finishing off the task at the Archives?
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