Press Conference of Rep Curt Weldon: 9/11 Commission and Operation "Able
Danger"

9/11 Commission suppressed the evidence



September 17, 2005

US House of Representatives

WELDON: Good afternoon.

I'm Curt Weldon, and I'm here to provide a response to the 9/11 Commission
in their statements this week about Able Danger and the outrageous statement
made by Slade Gorton that it just didn't exist.

And it is absolutely outrageous, especially from a commission that I
supported, that spent $15 million with 80 staffers to give the American
people and the Congress a full and complete understanding of what happened
prior to 9/11.

They have maintained there is no information about Able Danger or the data
mining work. They couldn't find anything.

So I brought some charts for you. These are all original charts. None of
these charts were made after 9/11. These charts were all made before 9/11.

Now, granted, they're not all about Able Danger. They're not all about
Mohammed Atta, nor Al Qaida.

They're about drug trafficking. They're about terrorist cells. They're about
crime in Russia. They're about crime in Serbia. They're about the World
Trade Center bombing in '93.

So this information is a compilation of work being done by the Army's LIWA
Center, as well as some of the work being done by Able Danger on Mohammed
Atta and Al Qaida.

It's absolutely unbelievable to me that a commission would come out and say
that this program just didn't exist.

The Pentagon has acknowledged now, publicly, that they have identified five
defense employees who either vividly remember identifying Mohammed Atta
prior to 9/11 or seeing his name linked with a Brooklyn cell prior to 9/11.

We have Scott Philpott (ph), a Navy commanding officer, who's commanded one
of our naval warships, an Annapolis graduate, who has come out publicly and
risked his entire career to say what he'll say next Wednesday under oath:
that he specifically remembers identifying Mohammed Atta in January and
February of 2000, specifically; that he would stake his career on it. And
that he was the leader of Able Danger.

We have Lieutenant Colonel Tony Shaffer -- who's outside in the hallway, who
I couldn't bring into the House Gallery because of House rules, but who's
available for you to talk to, outside -- who will testify under oath on
Wednesday before the Senate that as a DIA liaison to Special Forces Command
for Able Danger, he attempted to present information to the FBI on three
occasions in September of 2000 about the Brooklyn cell and Mohammed Atta.

WELDON: We've identified the woman at the FBI who set those three meetings
up. She will testify under oath at the Senate hearing next Wednesday that
she actually organized three meetings. She knew the topics of the meetings
because there had been other discussions that occurred prior to the attempt
to set up those three meetings.

And in each of the cases of those three meetings, they were abruptly
canceled by Pentagon lawyers hours before those meetings were to take place.

I asked the Pentagon had they talked to that FBI person. They said, "No."

And, by the way, the Pentagon did not conduct an investigation. There were
no subpoenas. There were no witnesses under oath. It was an inquiry. There's
a big difference between an inquiry and an investigation, as my colleagues
on the Armed Services Committee brought up when we had a briefing last week
with six or seven members of the committee.

What will be the added dimension to the Senate investigation and hearing
that will take place on Wednesday is not just the five people that the
Pentagon has confirmed, identified and knew about Mohammed Atta prior to
9/11, but we'll bring out the person who actually did much of the data
analysis. Actually, his name, I think, has already been brought out in the
public. That's J.D. (ph).

But the person who's not been brought out in the public yet, this individual
who will testify that he was actually the one who destroyed 2.5 terabytes of
data about Able Danger that included the Brooklyn cell and Mohammed Atta.

Now, I'm not a computer expert. I don't know what 2.5 terabytes of data are.
But, John, I read your story. You called the Library of Congress.

And the Library of Congress, if we can believe this great reporter down here
who I trust fully, told him that it's basically one-fourth of all the
printed material that the Library of Congress has in their collection. Now,
that's a lot of material.

So what we will have is a person who will testify under oath, on the record,
that in the summer of 2000, he was ordered -- or he would lose his job
and/or go to jail if he didn't comply -- he was ordered to destroy 2.5
terabytes of data specific to Able Danger, the Brooklyn cell and Mohammed
Atta.

He will name the person who ordered him to destroy that material. And,
furthermore, he will note that a commanding general from SOCOM -- Russ, what
was his name?

STAFF: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: General Lambert was incensed when he found out that material that he
was a customer for was destroyed without his approval.

So here we have a case where General Lambert at SOCOM was not told that an
employee had been ordered to destroy all the material that he was a customer
for. And that material related to Able Danger, it related to Al Qaida and it
related to Mohammed Atta.

In addition, I urge you to go back and review, on the Heritage Commission
Web site, a speech that I gave on May 23rd of 2002. That speech, which is
one hour and 20 minutes long with questions, is about stovepipes. In fact,
you'll see a chart there that I referred that I can't find.

WELDON: That chart refers to Able Danger.

It refers to the data mining. I'm not definitely sure that specific chart
referred to Able Danger. But you can see the chart.

But what is in that speech are the exact details I've been talking about for
the last two months. What was also in that speech, which I had forgotten and
which I'm now public acknowledging, is that there was a three-hour briefing
provided to General Shelton in January of 2001.

And furthermore, what Tony Shaffer will tell you in the hallway outside is
that he personally briefed General Shelton on Able Danger, and in a briefing
in the first quarter of 2001, and he will name the people that were in the
room. He was giving a briefing on another topic, remember the name of that?

STAFF: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: Door Hop Galley (ph) which is another classified program.

In the course of that briefing -- and there was a Navy admiral in the room,
Admiral Wilson, in charge of DIA, and Richard Schiefren (ph) was in the
room. Richard Schiefren (ph) was an attorney at DOD.

In the course of that discussion, Richard Schiefren (ph) discussed Able
Danger. I did not know that up until I watched the Heritage Foundation
speech that I gave in 2002, where I document the meeting, in the briefing
that was done for General Shelton. When I asked Tony Shaffer this morning
about that, he said, "Yes, I briefed General Shelton. I was also involved in
a Door Hop Galley (ph) brief, where Steve Cambone" -- he was not in the
position he's in today. He was a special adviser to Don Rumsfeld.

My concern is if there were 2.5 terabytes of data that were destroyed in the
summer of 2000, there had to be material in 2001 if you briefed General
Shelton. Where is that material? Where is that briefing?

In addition, there is a question about the possibility of additional data
that was in Tony Shaffer's office that was removed, not all of which was
turned over to the 9/11 Commission.

As most of you know by now, when Tony Shaffer returned in January of 2004,
Tony Shaffer -- or 2003, get my dates right, 2003 -- 2004 -- in January
2004 -- right, because it was in October of 2003 when he first briefed the
9/11 Commission's staff over in Baghram.

In January of 2004 when he was twice rebuffed by the 9/11 Commission for a
personal follow-up meeting, he was assigned back to Afghanistan to lead a
special classified program.

When he returned in March, he was called in and verbally his security
clearance was temporarily lifted. By lifting his security clearance, he
could not go back into DIA quarters where all the materials he had about
Able Danger were, in fact, stored. He could not get access to memos that, in
fact, he will tell you discussed the briefings he provided both to the
previous administration and this administration.

For the 9/11 Commission to say that this does not exist is just absolutely
outrageous.

It is a total denial of the facts. It's a denial of information the Pentagon
has affirmed. And to say that we just don't have data to back it up is not
enough.

WELDON: They had 80 staffers and spent $15 million and came up with nothing
and didn't mention Able Danger once in their report, and I'm convinced never
briefed the 9/11 commissioners.

In one month we provided all these charts, we reconstructed the original
Mohammed Atta chart, which I've showed many times, with the linkages -- from
the original data, I might add, that people had available.

All of this will come out on Wednesday, but I could not sit by and have
Slade Gorton make the statement he made. He has not interviewed personally
any of the Able Danger staff. He talked about a disagreement between a
Defense Department female employee and Tony Shaffer. I've talked to both of
them and he's totally wrong. He didn't speak to either one of them.

Tim Roemer, a good friend of mine, came out and said, "Well, they couldn't
have had a photograph of Mohammed Atta because he wasn't in the country
before a certain date." That obviously came from staff of the commission.

Well, as we now know, the photograph did not come from an immigration
picture or a driver's license. An individual who will testify on Wednesday
will say they bought that photograph from a woman in California who was
researching the activity at selected mosques. That's where the photograph
came from.

It's very troubling to me that people are going out of their way not to want
to know the details of what happened here, to distort and spin.

In the time that I have known about this, I have not tried to spin this any
way. I have not made any comments as to the intent or the effort by any of
the 9/11 commissioners. In fact, I have defended them. I don't think any of
them were ever briefed.

I can tell you, to not have this covered by the 9/11 Commission, to not have
it mentioned, for them to say, as they did initially, that it was
historically insignificant -- 2.5 terabytes of data about Mohammed Atta and
Al Qaida, a three-hour briefing for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff is historically insignificant? A briefing that included Richard
Schiefren (ph), with Steve Cambone, in March of 2001, five months before
9/11, is historically insignificant? I don't think so.

And so the more information I get, the more questions arise. The American
people deserve to have answers.

One of the pilots of one of the airplanes on 9/11, Michael Horrocks, was a
neighbor of mine. He went to the same university I went to. He was a
dedicated Navy pilot. He was killed. He left behind a wife and two kids.

The chief of all rescue for New York City Fire Department, Ray Downey, was
one of my best friends. Ray had taken me through the Trade Center in 1993
when I went up. Ray was the one who convinced me to introduce the language
to create the Gilmore commission. The Gilmore commission made three reports
before 9/11. Ray Downey was a member of that commission, chaired by former
Governor Jim Gilmore.

WELDON: The 3,000 people and the families of those people and their friends
and loved ones, the American people and the Congress, when we approved the
9/11 Commission, asked to know all the facts.

How could anyone not only ignore this particular situation before they made
the report but then when the report comes out and they're embarrassed and
changed their story three times in one week about this particular Defense
program, then come out with a statement they made yesterday that it didn't
exist?

There's something wrong here, something tragically wrong.

The American people, the families, the country and the Congress need to know
the truth, the whole truth, the complete truth. And so far we haven't gotten
it.

I wanted to bring Tony Shaffer in to talk to you about the briefing that he
was involved with with General Shelton in January of '01 and the briefing --
again, this second briefing, as Tony will tell you, was not specifically
about Able Danger. It was about a program called Door Hop Galley (ph).

But during that briefing with Admiral Wilson and with Richard Schiefren
(ph), the topic of Able Danger came up and Richard Schiefren (ph), who was
the legal counsel at the Pentagon, knew about Able Danger.

Somebody's got to connect the dots and answer the questions. If the 9/11
Commission won't do it, then Congress has to do it.

I applaud Senator Specter and his staff for scheduling a hearing on
Wednesday where all of these people can testify.

To say that nothing existed in spite of five people, the Pentagon
acknowledged, knew about this information, in spite of what documentation we
can provide as evidence of some of the work they were doing on a number of
different programs -- the commission's attitude has been, "We don't want to
go there."

The same response -- the acting staff director of the 9/11 Discourse Project
told my chief of staff, when he made a call at my request, when I found out
the details of Able Danger in May of this year.

And his response to Russ when he did not remember the first day when Russ
called, the second day was, "Yes, you were briefed on Able Danger. Well, why
wasn't it included in your report?" "We decided to not go down that route,"
whatever that means -- "down that route."

I talked to two of the commissioners personally, Tim Roemer and John Lehman.
Neither of them had been briefed on Able Danger. To my knowledge, no member
of the 9/11 Commission was ever briefed on Able Danger.

The facts are the facts. And it really is very discouraging to me that the
9/11 Commission's response is to do what they allege this administration and
others have done: not be candid and forthcoming.

Now, I tried to get to the 9/11 Commission. I contacted the commission
through staff.

WELDON: I offered to go in and give them a briefing while they were doing
their investigation. They could have seen the Heritage tape that's on the
Heritage Commission's Web site of the speech I gave in May of 2002. It's a
public document. If they would have talked to me, I would have given them
that link. I would have given them every piece of information that I had to
reconstruct what I've reconstructed.

Do we have the actual date when I presented this document? Was it April?

STAFF: I think it was April -- one of the two hearings in the Hart Building.

WELDON: In the Hart Building, when the 9/11 Commission brought in George
Tenet, and I was watching the hearings from my home, I couldn't believe the
questioning. So I drafted this document and had my staff director hand
deliver it to the 9/11 Commission. They never asked a question. This is the
actual document.

The next week, they sent a staffer over to pick up some additional materials
about the NOA (ph), about the concept, and about information I had briefed
them on. They never followed up and invited me to come in and meet with
them. So they can't say that I didn't try.

I had one phone conversation with Tom Kean, and it took me a long while to
get him. That lasted about five minutes. He was in a big rush.

And I tried to explain to him in that five-minute time period all of the
parameters of this information, so they could do what the Congress asked
them to do. He assured me that 9/11 commission staff would follow up and
they never did.

So we had Scott Philpott (ph) voluntarily go to the commission, Tony Shaffer
voluntarily go to the commission. I went to the commission. And they choose
to ignore the information. They choose to categorize it as historically
insignificant, which the Pentagon will not do. They won't characterize it as
that.

A three-hour briefing for General Hugh Shelton, a briefing on Door Hop
Galley (ph) that included Richard Schiefren (ph) and Admiral Wilson and
Steve Cambone, where Able Danger was discussed, and no one wants to get to
the bottom of what really happened.

The 9/11 Commission has lost my confidence.

I voted for the commission. I supported the commission. I talked about the
commission. I have given speeches around the country supporting the
commission's recommendations.

WELDON: I was so frustrated when I could not get a face-to-face meeting with
the commission staff or commissioners, that the day that Lee Hamilton and
Tom Kean briefed Congress, that was right before the 9/11 commission's
report was to be released, in the Cannon Caucus Room they invited members
over. I got there first. I was the first member to raise my hand to ask the
first question.

And I stood up and I said to the two of them, "I support your work. I
support your recommendations. Many of your recommendations are
recommendations previously made by the Gilmore commission. But I am
extremely upset that you would not meet with members of Congress who were
involved with these issues."

Lee Hamilton's response to me, in front of my colleagues in Congress, was,
"Well, Curt, we couldn't meet with everyone."

So I tried.

And so I felt, after seeing what I thought was a ridiculous press conference
yesterday and knowing what's going to come up on Wednesday at the Senate
hearing -- unless somebody is gagged between now and Wednesday, because I
have talked to all the witnesses -- there are some serious questions that
need to be answered.

Who -- and why -- ordered 2.5 terabytes of data referring to Able Danger, Al
Qaida, and including Mohammed Atta, in the summer of 2000? And why did they
not seek the approval of General Lambert before his data was destroyed,
especially given the fact that Madeleine Albright, the secretary of state,
had declared Al Qaida an international terrorist organization? How could you
destroy that volume of material about one of the top terrorist cells in the
world?

I don't buy the idea that there was information about American persons -- or
I guess, if you include Mohammed Atta in there, he would be considered an
American person. I don't buy that as an excuse to justify destroying that
kind of data.

Number two, who ordered -- either within the Pentagon legal staff or higher
up -- the blockage of meetings on three separate occasions in September of
2000 where Able Danger material was going to be briefed to the FBI?

WELDON: And again, we have that person who set those meetings up who will
testify on Wednesday. Who stopped those meetings and why did they stop them?

Number three, what was in the three-hour briefing that was prepared for
General High Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in January of
'01, and where is that brief, since it would still have existed, even though
the bulk of the data had been destroyed in the summer of '00?

What materials did Richard Schiefren (ph) discuss in a briefing that was
held with Colonel Shaffer, Steve Cambone and Admiral Wilson in the Door Hop
Galley (ph) briefing in the winter of '01? What was the Able Danger material
discussed in that meeting?

And finally, and most importantly, why did the 9/11 Commission, charged with
the responsibility by the Congress with my support, choose to totally ignore
the work of Able Danger? And why did they not pursue the people that I've
pursued over the last 35, 40 days that would have provided them the same
information that I've provided?

We, today, do not have a clear picture of what happened before 9/11 because
this vacuum exists. I'm offering no conspiracy theories. I'm not making any
allegations.

As a member of Congress, as the vice chair of two security and intelligence
committees -- Armed Services and Homeland Security -- all I want are answers
for the American people.

I'll be happy to make the document available of the questions that I've
presented to a 9/11 commissioner and carried by my chief of staff in one of
their hearings in '04.

QUESTION: What do you think is the whole truth?

WELDON: I think the whole truth is, bureaucrats in Defense intelligence
don't want this story to be told. I don't know why.

I don't believe it's a coincidence that Colonel Shaffer, a Bronze Star
recipient, 23-year career decorated veteran, put in charge of assignments
working with SOCOM in the jungles of Afghanistan undercover, doing work that
allowed him to brief George Tenet and other senior leaders on a number of
occasions -- and you can talk to him outside -- that the work that he was
doing relative to Able Danger and Al Qaida, interacting with the Army's
information dominance center at Fort Belvoir, was not significant.

I think here are those, perhaps, that are going to be embarrassed by this:
embarrassed in the previous administration, and now it looks like
embarrassed in this administration.

WELDON: And I can tell you I met with Steve Cambone right after the story
broke in the New York Times. And, as you all know, I did a floor speech a
month before that. So this wasn't something I did for the media.

The New York Times did not pick up on this story until a trade publication
called Defense Security News published it. And then the New York Times
picked it up. That was a month after I gave the floor speech in late June of
this year.

When Steve Cambone came in to meet with me, he said, "Congressman, you know
more about this program than I do."

I brought Tony Shaffer in to meet with Steve Cambone, with the understanding
his career would not be ruined. In the 19 years I've been in this city, I
have seen people's careers ruined. I saw it with Notra Trulock, I saw it
with Jay Stewart (ph), I saw it with Dr. Gordon Ehlers, I saw it with Mike
Maluf (ph), I saw it with Jack Daly (ph).

I've seen it time and again.

My concern was that these military people, who wanted to simply tell the
truth, would not have their careers ruined.

Steve Cambone never mentioned to me that Able Danger was ever discussed in a
meeting on Door Hop Galley (ph). Now, maybe he didn't remember that. That's
understandable. And I'm not faulting him for that.

But in that meeting with Richard Schiefren (ph) and Admiral Wilson, as you
can ask Tony Shaffer outside, Able Danger was discussed. It was not the
purpose of the meeting, but it was discussed.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: I think my own perception is the 9/11 Commission staff did not want
this story to be pursued. As John Lehman and Tim Roemer told me, I don't
think this was ever briefed to 9/11 commissioners.

I think, for some reason, there was a staff effort deliberately put forward
not to allow this information to be brought forward.

Now, a couple of strange things have happened during this time period, and
one thing I've never mentioned publicly.

The first week the story broke in the New York Times, I was in Pennsylvania
that Friday doing district work and I got a call at my office. My chief of
staff took the call, and it was from a person I'd never met in my entire
life. I'd never mentioned her name. She was on vacation and asked my chief
of staff for me to call her back.

Her name was Jamie Gorelick.

I said, "What does she want, Russ? I don't know the woman." I said, "I'm
tied up. Would you please call her back and ask her what she wants?"

WELDON: Russ called her back on her cell phone. She was on vacation. And her
response to my chief of staff was, "Please tell Congressman Weldon I've done
nothing wrong."

Am I correct, Russ?

There are a lot of things here that leave a lot of unanswered questions.

I don't know why Al Feltzenberg (ph) got mad. I don't even know the guy. I
don't know why Al Feltzenberg (ph) came out the first day the New York Times
asked him and said they were never briefed. And the second day, he said they
were briefed, but they never mentioned Mohammed Atta. On the third day, he
said, "Well, we were briefed and they did mention Mohammed Atta, but only in
passing and it was too late."

How many times can you change the story?

There's something deeper here that I don't understand, but that the American
people need to have the answer to. And the only reason I'm doing this today
is because the 9/11 Commission came out with their presentation yesterday
that to me is just outrageous.

I listened to it. I read the transcript. And to read the statement of Slade
Gorton, it just turned my stomach.

First of all, let me say this to you: I'll believe Commander Philpott (ph)
100 times before I'll believe politician Slade Gorton.

Scott Philpott (ph) jeopardized his entire naval career to state
emphatically that he will swear on his career that they knew about not just
Able Danger, but Mohammed Atta and ties to the Brooklyn cell in January and
February of 2000. I believe Scott Philpott (ph).

And for them to say that this didn't exist, that this is not real -- what
was the exact comment he used? This never happened? I mean, how could you
say this never happened with everything I've given you, with all the people
that have come out, with five people the Pentagon has confirmed, with the
person at the FBI who set the meetings up, with the man who's going to
testify next week on Wednesday that he destroyed the data and was ordered to
destroy the data? How could you say this never happened?

How could you say there was never a three-hour briefing with General
Shelton? How could you say that that briefing material never existed?

QUESTION: So who was it at the Pentagon that canceled those meetings with
the FBI? Because you know Pat Downes (ph) and Tom Gandy (ph) gave a briefing
a couple of weeks ago at the Pentagon and denied, absolutely, categorically,
that there was ever any effort on the part of anyone at DOD to stop
information being transferred.

WELDON: I wasn't there. And neither were the two men that you just referred
to there. So we're all going on second- and third-hand information.

I can tell you that two of the people involved with this will testify under
oath on Wednesday: Lieutenant Colonel Tony Shaffer, who's in the hallway and
the FBI woman whose name has been out in the news, who set the meetings up.
Neither of them are backing down on their statements.

So they can swear all they want; they can be as emphatic as they want. We
have two people who will testify under oath that, number one, they set the
meetings up; and, number two, that the purpose of those meetings was to
transfer information that Able Danger had produced about Al Qaida and about
the linkages of the Brooklyn cell and Mohammed Atta.

And let me also give you this point. They've constantly focused this on a
chart. Well, we can't find the chart.

WELDON: This is not just about a chart. I've showed you 13 charts here. This
is about 2.5 terabytes of information about Mohammed Atta and Al Qaida, the
group that attacked us. It's not about one chart, the chart that I gave to
Hadley, with Dan Burton present with me in the White House.

And for them to just try to brush this aside and hope it goes away -- the
same problem that you identified I was told by Fox News that the press guy
over at the Pentagon actually went in the room and told Fox News and the New
York Times, "When you going to let this story go?"

This is the largest disaster in the history of the country. I mean, it would
be like saying we don't want to know the details of Pearl Harbor. Three
thousand innocent people were killed; the Congress, Democrats and
Republicans, want the answers; why are we not getting straight talk? Why is
there a constant effort to spin?

Why would you say, as Larry Di Rita said from the Pentagon after referring
to Tony Shaffer and Scott Philpott's (ph) recollections, "Well, you know,
memories sometimes play games on people."

Well, how about now that they've acknowledged five people recalling seeing
Mohammed Atta's photograph and the linkage to the Brooklyn cell?

And how about now the witness that's going to testify that all this data was
deliberately destroyed, in spite of the fact that the general was not aware
his material was being destroyed?

There are just too many unanswered questions.

I wish I had a full staff to investigate all this. I don't. I hope the
American media follows up on this material. I'm going to continue to use my
influence to do that.

But there's something rotten here. And I'm not saying it's rotten in the
conspiracy standpoint, I'm saying it's rotten from the standpoint that the
American people are not getting answers.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: I've been told that the woman at the FBI has e-mails that will
verify the meetings.

I can tell you that Tony Shaffer will tell you his e-mails, all classified,
on his system, were deleted. They were deleted during the time that he could
not get access because they had temporarily lifted his security clearance.

WELDON: And that in itself is absolutely outrageous.

You've all seen the charges they've trumped up against him, which were that
he transferred a cell phone that amounted to $60 while he was working over
in Afghanistan undercover to his personal phone, and that he had gotten
reimbursed for mileage to a training course at Fort Dix that they said he
wasn't entitled to even though it was a military training program which is
$109.

And for that, they temporarily lifted his security clearance, conveniently
after he gets back and had told the 9/11 Commission staff all the documents
were in his office at DIA headquarters, but he could not get back into DIA
headquarters because they had temporarily lifted his clearance for these
three stupid allegations. But all during this time the Army's paying him
$100,000 a year as a military officer -- and, oh, by the way, during that
time they promoted him to lieutenant colonel.

Does something sound fishy there? It sure does to me.

QUESTION: I believe you said you spoke with the FBI woman...

WELDON: I didn't.

QUESTION: Oh, you didn't?

WELDON: But I know people who have. And she's also come out publicly. But
I'll tell you what she said. I didn't talk to her personally.

QUESTION: I'm wondering about the why of this. Does the FBI woman know and
will she testify why the Pentagon canceled the...

WELDON: She doesn't know.

QUESTION: She doesn't know.

WELDON: No. All she knows is the meetings were set up, and that's what
she'll testify to.

QUESTION: OK.

And how...

WELDON: Now, Tony Shaffer talked to her, and you can talk to him outside.

QUESTION: And the other "why" question is why were the 2.5 terabytes of data
destroyed? And since we're going to hear from the DOD person who destroyed
the data, are we going to hear on Wednesday why?

WELDON: I don't know that anyone knows that. What the Pentagon's saying is
that they routinely destroy data. We're trying to get to the bottom of what
that means.

What I don't understand, as the vice chairman of the House Armed Services
Committee, is if you have 2.5 terabytes of data about Al Qaida; and
Madeleine Albright, the secretary of state, has declared Al Qaida a national
terrorist organization; and if that data -- which is largely open-source
data, so it's not classified -- contains some information that may have
involved U.S. persons, why wouldn't you want to retain the bulk of that data
for your own use against Al Qaida in the future?

Now, Tony Shaffer will tell you that there were efforts to bring out the
U.S. person information from that data but in the end that was dropped and
the data was destroyed.

I don't know why it was destroyed. Pentagon is saying it was routine. To me,
that doesn't make sense.

And if it's routine, the American people need to know that. If it's routine
that the summer before 9/11 we routinely destroyed 2.5 terabytes of data
about Al Qaida, then the American people, as a run- up to 9/11, need to know
that that happened and they need to ask the question why did that happen.

For the 9/11 Commission to ignore that and say it wasn't historically
significant is ridiculous.

Maybe it was justified but I would like to know that as the vice chairman of
the committee.

QUESTION: It's also been reported that you gave an original chart, including
the (inaudible). Is anybody asking the White House to look for this
document?

WELDON: No, but I had a meeting -- I briefed -- you have asked him, right?

STAFF: Yes.

WELDON: I briefed Steve Hadley two weeks after 9/11, exactly, with Dan
Burton and one of the analysts who did this work.

WELDON: And I took the chart down that was given to me. And the chart was a
chart that was made before 9/11.

And in the speech that I did in 2002 on the Heritage Commission files, I
said the same thing then that I've been saying recently. So the story hasn't
changed.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: I have and he's asked them. I think the Senate asked for it. I don't
even know if they have it. I think the Senate -- one of the Senate
committees asked for it. I assume Specter's probably asked for it --
Judiciary.

I don't know the status. When I met with Steve, he acknowledged me giving
him a chart.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: I don't know. Never met the woman. Never knew her, never mentioned
her name. I've never said anything negative about her.

No other commissioner called me but she did.

It was the Friday after the New York Times ran a front-page story on
Tuesday. They ran three straight stories, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. The
call came into my office on Friday. He took the call. I wasn't there. When
he called back at my request, she said, "I just want to tell the congressman
I did nothing wrong."

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: I don't want to do this. I'll let you guys do that.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: I don't want to get involved with the commission directly per se
after this (inaudible).

I would have hoped they would have done a thorough investigation. They
didn't even call me in.

I sent a letter to the commission that week, three-page letter. You all got
copies of it. I've never been given the courtesy of a response.

I have never said anything negative about any commissioner. I have said
positive things about the commissioners I know: John Lehman, Bob Kerrey, Lee
Hamilton, Tom Kean and Tim Roemer. I know them all personally. I have said
positive things about the commissioners and about the commission.

I've never received a response. There were two questions in that letter I
asked, never a response.

And for them to come out the way they did yesterday and make that
statement -- now I can tell you I'm already networking with members of the
Congress about all this, and Senator Specter's doing his hearing.

WELDON: We had a briefing for members of the Armed Services Committee last
week in a closed session. And we're going to continue to pursue it.

I don't know the answers. And again, I don't have an agenda. I mean, I don't
know -- but it's amazing that more facts continue to come out as they're
saying there's nothing there. It didn't exist.

Well, those two things just don't jibe. And there I find out this morning
that Tony Shaffer -- and going back to my speech in '02, there was a
three-hour briefing, and I remember this now, that was presented to General
Shelton.

And then Tony Shaffer says, yes, he was involved in the briefing with
General Shelton. And then, separately, as a part of this other briefing,
Able Danger came up, Richard Schiefren (ph), and Admiral Wilson were
involved. I was not aware of that.

Isn't this what the 9/11 Commission was supposed to do? Wasn't this what
those 80 staff people were for?

I shouldn't be doing this.

And these are all questions the American people need to have answers to,
because all this happened before 9/11.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: Well, I know this, because I was very heavily involved with LIWA.
What happened was, as the chairman of the R&D Subcommittee, back in the late
'90s -- and I was briefed on the information dominance centers of the
services, the Army's being LIWA -- I was very supportive, and I saw them
doing amazing things.

And I had a discussion with John Hamre, deputy secretary of defense. I said,
"John, you should go down and see what they're doing down there. It's
amazing."

He went down, and John came back and we had a discussion. He said, "You're
right, Congressman." He said, "This is amazing."

He tasked them to do a special briefing on Chinese proliferation. And I was
aware of that. And I was aware that, when that briefing was done, there were
some very sensitive human person issues that came up. Because the technology
that China was acquiring, through researchers that were here in our country,
in many cases were at Stanford University and other universities in America.
And because of that, the two names surfaced that had been reported in the
press.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: Condoleezza Rice and Bill Perry.

And I'm not saying they did anything wrong -- absolutely, unequivocally.
They simply were associated with Stanford.

And Stanford was one of the most significant schools where Chinese
post-doctoral students and researchers were focusing on very, very specific
technology for our military that was being used in sensitive military
programs.

There were other universities as well.

When that information reached Congress, it caused an uproar. And you can
imagine the pressure the Army got, because the Army's not, in most people's
minds, supposed to be doing that. This is a prototype capability.

At the time that was being done, there was an effort -- and I understand the
effort -- to suppress that from coming out. And that was misread by some
people as though there was an attempt to destroy data.

Sam Johnson, Congressman Johnson's son, Dr. Bob Johnson, was working for
Raytheon down in Texas. And Special Forces Command was setting up a separate
operation for data mining at Garland, Texas, separate from LIWA, partly
because the Army was getting cold feet because of the pressure they were
realizing.

WELDON: Dr. Bob Johnson told his father that the military was deliberately
destroying data. Sam Johnson came to a number of members, including Dan
Burton. And, as the chairman of the government oversight committee, Dan
Burton subpoenaed documents and files.

That caused a major uproar back and forth. And so, that did contribute to
the ending of the LIWA.

And my understanding is -- correct me if I'm wrong -- that Richard Schiefren
(ph) was the individual who ordered the destruction -- or the stoppage of
the LIWA. Is that correct?

Richard Schiefren (ph), the same lawyer who was in the briefing with Steve
Cambone in the winter of '01, was the lawyer who caused the data mining at
LIWA to stop.

QUESTION: How prominent do you think the Chinese connection is, or was, in
the process of ending the LIWA?

WELDON: I think it was significant. I think it was a major reason why it was
ended. I don't think it had anything to do with Able Danger. I think it was
that that came up with some sensitive names that should not have been
brought out to the public and caused this big uproar back and forth.

And that's really, to my opinion, a non-issue. And people have tried to
discredit the work that was being done because of that. And that should not
be the case.

QUESTION: So, I guess what I'm asking here now is that, do you feel like it
was the embarrassment that that could have created for certain
individuals...

WELDON: For the Army?

QUESTION: Yes -- that led to them just saying, "OK, we've got to throw this
whole thing out, including Able Danger and everything"?

WELDON: No, I don't think that was the case. Because General Lambert wanted
that Able Danger information. He was incensed when he found out that it had
been destroyed.

And, let's face it, Madeleine Albright had by then declared Al Qaida an
international terrorist organization.

I don't just think you throw out that kind of data if this is a major
terrorism group that you've got focus on.

Now, maybe there's some American nationals in there you have to go through
there and pull out; that's understandable. But the bulk of this information
is open source.

I mean, let me compare this for you: In the campaign season that just ended
last year, both political parties used something called smart voting.

What they did is they took massive data mining, looked at people's -- what
magazines they buy; they looked at what their habits are. And from that,
they profiled people to most likely vote for Republican or Democrat
candidates.

STAFF: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: I've got to go?

STAFF: (OFF-MIKE)

WELDON: So, it's not something that's not been done before.

Any other questions: Tony Shaffer's outside and he'll be glad to talk to
you, and you can follow up with any questions you want with him.

Thank you.

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This could be the biggest coverup/scandal this country has ever seen.

This could be the biggest coverup/scandal this country has ever seen.

Interesting group to put it on, though.