Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
December 27, 2006
Pg. 23
WASHINGTON, Dec. 26 (AP) — A Senate investigation has found no basis for suggestions by a Republican congressman that military analysts had identified Mohamed Atta and other Sept. 11 hijackers as terrorists before the attacks, according to a letter to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee that was obtained by The Los Angeles Times.
A committee aide said that Senators Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, and John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, dismissed assertions by Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania that defense analysts ignored information that could have prevented the attacks.
Mr. Roberts will be replaced by Mr. Rockefeller as the committee chairman next month, when the Democrats take control of the Senate. The senators concluded that there was “no evidence Mohamed Atta or any hijackers were identified prior to 9/11,” said the committee aide, who said he was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject.
The letter from the senators was first reported Tuesday by The Los Angeles Times.
In September, the Pentagon inspector general reported that some employees had recalled seeing an intelligence chart identifying Mr. Atta as a terrorist before the attacks. But the report said that those accounts “varied significantly” and that witnesses were sometimes inconsistent in their statements.
A 10-term Republican who lost his seat in the Nov. 7 election, Mr. Weldon asserted that a secret military unit called Able Danger had linked four Sept. 11 hijackers to Al Qaeda more than a year before the attacks.
Mr. Weldon, who could not be reached for comment on Tuesday, had questioned the “motives and the content” of the Pentagon report and rejected its conclusions, which he said relied on cherry-picked testimony.
December 27, 2006
Pg. 23
WASHINGTON, Dec. 26 (AP) — A Senate investigation has found no basis for suggestions by a Republican congressman that military analysts had identified Mohamed Atta and other Sept. 11 hijackers as terrorists before the attacks, according to a letter to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee that was obtained by The Los Angeles Times.
A committee aide said that Senators Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, and John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, dismissed assertions by Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania that defense analysts ignored information that could have prevented the attacks.
Mr. Roberts will be replaced by Mr. Rockefeller as the committee chairman next month, when the Democrats take control of the Senate. The senators concluded that there was “no evidence Mohamed Atta or any hijackers were identified prior to 9/11,” said the committee aide, who said he was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject.
The letter from the senators was first reported Tuesday by The Los Angeles Times.
In September, the Pentagon inspector general reported that some employees had recalled seeing an intelligence chart identifying Mr. Atta as a terrorist before the attacks. But the report said that those accounts “varied significantly” and that witnesses were sometimes inconsistent in their statements.
A 10-term Republican who lost his seat in the Nov. 7 election, Mr. Weldon asserted that a secret military unit called Able Danger had linked four Sept. 11 hijackers to Al Qaeda more than a year before the attacks.
Mr. Weldon, who could not be reached for comment on Tuesday, had questioned the “motives and the content” of the Pentagon report and rejected its conclusions, which he said relied on cherry-picked testimony.