[IP] Weldon: Atta Papers Destroyed on Orders
Begin forwarded message:
From: EEkid@xxxxxxx
Date: September 15, 2005 8:49:36 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Weldon: Atta Papers Destroyed on Orders
Weldon: Atta Papers Destroyed on Orders
Thursday September 15, 2005 11:31 PM
By DONNA DE LA CRUZ
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - 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.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-5281566,00.html
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