February 14, 2006: Congressman Says Mohamed Atta’s Name Appears 13 Times in Pre-9/11 Government Databases

Representative Curt Weldon (R-PA) says that he is in contact with people who are still able to do data mining on pre-9/11 data, and, in “those data runs that are now being done today, in spite of what DOD [Department of Defense] said, I have 13 hits on Mohamed Atta.” He also says that additional Able Danger material continues to be found in Pentagon files, and that in early February, a general was present as Able Danger was recovered from filing cabinets. This came from the early 2000 version of Able Danger that supposedly had all of its data destroyed by Erik Kleinsmith. Weldon also claims, “At least one additional witness has come forward who just retired from one of the intelligence agencies, who will also testify under oath that he was well aware of and identified Mohamed Atta’s both name and photo prior to 9/11 occurring.” The Defense Department claims to have performed recent data mining on pre-9/11 data and failed to find Mohamed Atta’s name. A Defense Department official also says one day after Weldon’s claims: “It is true that in the course of this more recent review, we have indeed unearthed additional documents related to Able Danger. These documents were found, I must say, with some considerable effort, only because they were filed and misfiled and in a place where they weren’t easily gotten to, not because they were being hidden.” [Associated Press, 2/14/2006; CNS News, 2/15/2006; US Congress, 2/15/2006]