Official: (Curt Weldon) Attack on Cole foreseen (ABLE DANGER)

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Thu Nov-10-05 08:50 AM
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Official: (Curt Weldon) Attack on Cole foreseen (ABLE DANGER)

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/nation/13128683.htm

Official: Attack on Cole foreseen

By Eric Rosenberg

Hearst Newspapers

WASHINGTON - A senior Republican congressman said Wednesday that the Pentagon's Able Danger intelligence program had detected preparations for the terrorist attack on the USS Cole but that American military leaders failed to act on the warnings.

Citing information provided to him by Navy Capt. Scott Philpott, the former manager of the Able Danger project, Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., said that two weeks before the Oct. 12, 2000, attack - and then again two days before - the intelligence unit uncovered evidence of a plot against an unnamed U.S. target in Yemen.

"They saw information that led them to unequivocally understand that something was going to happen in the port at Yemen involving an American entity," said Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

"Two days before the attack, they were jumping up and down because they knew something was going to happen ... at the port of Aden," Weldon told a Capitol Hill news conference.

Philpott passed the information up his chain of command at the U.S. Special Operations Command based in Tampa, Fla., Weldon said, adding: "We don't know where the information went to or what they did with it."

At the time of the attack, the USS Cole was operating under the aegis of the U.S. Central Command, which has responsibility for American forces in the Middle East.

http://www.leadingthecharge.com/stories/news-0097317.html

U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon (, , ), a Pennsylvania Republican who has championed Able Danger and other data-mining projects, told reporters on Wednesday that Able Danger also uncovered evidence of a threat to U.S. interests in Yemen two days before the 2000 bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole, which killed 17 sailors.

Weldon, who attributed his information to Phillpott, said the Able Danger team passed along the warning through proper channels but no word of danger ever reached the Cole.

"They sent it up but they don�t know what happened," Weldon said. "That�s part of what needs to be investigated."

Meanwhile, Shaffer�s attorneys say their client is in danger of losing his job because the DIA has accused him of obtaining a medal under false pretenses, improperly showing his military identification while drunk and stealing ink pens.

Shaffer�s supporters, including Weldon, say the charges are trumped up.

Weldon and Shaffer attorney Mark Zaid both said the DIA recently returned Shaffer�s personal effects from his office but mistakenly included several classified documents and another employee�s mail.

"There are several inconsistencies between the DIA and LTC Shaffer concerning the facts," Hunter said in his letter to Rumsfeld. "The committee also has concerns with certain aspects of how the DIA has handled this matter."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=O'20051110&articleId=1224

New Skirmish in War Over 9/11 Information
Congressman challenges Department of Defense

by Rory O'Connor

November 10, 2005
Rory O'Connor's blog

Representative Curt Weldon, Republican from Pennsylvania, has just fired another salvo in his ongoing battle against the Defense Department over the Able Danger �information warfare� program. According to at least five DOD employees, the controversial data-mining project, which ended in 2000, identified Mohamed Atta and other 9/11 hijackers a year before the worst terror attacks ever on US soil.

Weldon believes that the 9/11 Commission�s work investigating the attacks has proven �to be a disappointment and a failure, especially as it pertains to Able Danger.� Possible explanations for this failure, says Weldon, include �gross incompetence either on the part of the Commissioners or the Commission staff, or both,� or more alarmingly, �a deliberate cover-up that would make the Watergate scandal pale in comparison.�

In an effort to get to the bottom of the mystery, and to get the 9/11 Commission to �take seriously its mission to gather all available facts and information relevant to whatever pre-9/11 activities might have impacted the tragedy,� Weldon has been using every opportunity to draw official and public attention to the Able Danger findings. To date his efforts have included an angry speech on the floor of Congress and letters to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Senate Judiciary Committee heads Senator Arlen Specter, (also a Republican from Pennsylvania) and Sen. Patrick Leahy, Democrat from Vermont. He has also given frank interviews with everyone from Lou Dobbs to Rush Limbaugh to yours truly.

Dissatisfied with the response, Weldon today announced new revelations, which he says, �expose even more blunders prior to 9/11 and point to a wider coverup.� The latest findings include Able Danger information provided to defense officials about terrorist activity in the Port of Aden prior to a deadly attack on the USS Cole in October 2000; the discovery of another Able Danger member who confirms a set of data not accounted for by the Pentagon; recent statements by the 9-11 Commission about Able Danger; and the latest efforts by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to smear Able Danger member Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, who broke the silence about the Pentagon�s efforts to track al-Qa�ida worldwide prior to September 11.

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=32774&dcn=todaysnews

During the hearing, Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., erupted with accusations that Hamilton and other commissioners ignored information that the government knew about possible al-Qaida members before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Weldon, citing a secret military intelligence program called Able Danger that he said identified some of the future hijackers by the fall of 2000, reiterated recent criticism that the commission failed to address this intelligence in its final report last year.

The Pentagon, however, has not confirmed that 9/11 terrorists such as Mohammed Atta had been identified as potential threats.

Weldon stormed out of the hearing after becoming upset with Hamilton's answers and accusing the former commission vice chairman of lying and being part of a cover-up by the Bush administration.

"I'm going to get to the bottom of this," Weldon warned as he headed out the door.