This operation apparently identified 9/11 mastermind Mohommad Atta and his cell as terrorists in 1999. The 9/11 commission says it never happened. Now, we have a mysterious Pentagon employee claiming he was ordered to destroy all the documentation on Atta, a whopping 2.5 terabytes of information. Interesting to say the least...

Weldon: Atta Papers Destroyed on Orders

By DONNA DE LA CRUZ, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 1 minute ago

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 identify the person who ordered him to destroy the large volume of documents, said Rep. Curt Weldon (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa.

Weldon declined to identify 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 hearing had not been finalized and could not confirm Weldon's comments.

Army Maj. Paul Swiergosz, a Pentagon spokesman, said officials have been "fact-finding in earnest for quite some time."

"We've interviewed 80 people involved with Able Danger, combed through hundreds of thousands of documents and millions of e-mails and have still found no documentation of Mohamed Atta," Swiergosz said.

He added that certain data had to be destroyed in accordance with existing regulations regarding "intelligence data on U.S. persons."

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.
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Nothing? This could be pretty big, potentially. I thought for sure IEB! would have a theory for this.

I just assumed it was common practice in this administration to destroy evidence of their fuck-ups. Doesn't everyone assume that?

Yeah, but in looking at this a little deeper, I wonder why the 9/11 Commission is denying this so forcefully. It's clear that it existed, yet they deny it. Why? If it comes out that this stuff was real, it raises red flags IMO that the Commission hasn't told us everything, which is what their purpose was in the first place.

1999 william.


This spans administrations and authority. It's very interesting. I believe a book is coming out.

This pretty much proves the red tape and beuracracy of our defense agencies proved to fuel their collective ingnorance, this failure, led to a gigantic failure on 9-11. It's not one political party responsible, it's much more serious than that. Incompetent people in positions of power in our defense agencies. Then not only did they fuck up royally, they then covered up thier fuck up.

Does "1999 william" mean that Bill Clinton destroyed information in 1999?

No but you made is sound like Bush destroyed them himself, so quit being a fucking retard.

Electromatic has a point; in this government, it's hard to blame one person when so much red tape is involved over a span of presidential offices.

Inheritance of mistakes is 9/10's the rule in policy.

Dude, don't call me a retard because I blame Bush for the shit his flunkies do.

Also, I have a problem putting Clinton in the same ballpark as Bush in blocking/destroying information because I saw Clinton sign FOIA into law opening up thousands of previously unavailable documents to the public and the first thing I hear about Bush doing when he takes office was block access to documents applying to his dad and Reagan.

Why, oh why, would a rational person think Bush was not forthcoming with information?

*LIBTARD

its been said before, but if clinton had the stones to nail osama when he had the chance, alot of 9-11 may not have happened (who knows if another radical would have taken his place), so maybe bush wouldnt have gotten the second term or maybe even the first term.

Wait a second B...

You seriously think this would be an instance of THIS administration hiding their fuckups? Man, you are blinder than I thought. This Able Danger shit goes straight to the heart of the Clinton Administration and the 9-11 commission, and particular people that were on it.

I cannot believe how you admonish Clinton era doings and transpirings. Don't care about Gorelick. Ya don't care about Sandy Berger. Then you try and make Able Danger out to be a Bush cover up.

I don't know whether it's just over your head, or whether you're just THAT delusional.

Curt Weldon is a nutcase...in fact, all congressmen are nutcases. They're just trying to get press so that one day all the noise they made amounts to noteriety and the get to run for the senate.

I mean, come on! Are we really supposed to believe that ONE MAN had as much documentation as 1/4 of the printed materials in the Library of Congress? If that's the case, Mohammed Atta would be the most famous man in the world! I'm willing to wager nobody has that kind of documentation--maybe Jesus takes up that much disk space...

This won't be the first nor the last time we have to listen to a congressman that's full of shit. They typically talk out of their asses, just like regular people on matters of war and terrorism--because they ARE just normal people! Congressmen aren't special and they have no expert authority on anything!

what, you mean to tell me that our gov't destroy's documents?

seriously?

i had no idea this kind of mis-conduct was going on.