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That is the claim by Weldon, vice chairman of the House's Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, that a military intelligence unit had identified Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers a year or more before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Weldon told the audience of about 50 that the Army unit, called Able Danger, which used superfast computers and "data mining" techniques to profile potential terror activities, had identified the four as part of a cell in Brooklyn, and that a photo of Atta was included in a chart of the Al Quaeda network.
The unit had provided the information to Pentagon officials as early as 1999, but it was not passed on to the FBI, Weldon said. Information about Able Danger and its reports were also not included in the 9/11 Commission's report last year, he said, even though it was available to the commission.
Why it was not pursued, Weldon predicted, would be the subject of a "major scandal about to erupt over the 9/11 Commission," a scandal "as big as Watergate."
In fact, the revelation was a major story for several days last week, as spokespersons for the commission first said they had not been informed about Able Danger, then said they were aware of it as the report was being written. Most recently, Weldon's information about Atta has been called into question, as commission members have said the timelines don't add up and it's uncertain Atta's name was ever mentioned.
But Able Danger and missed opportunities to use its type of integrated data analysis are not Weldon's main topic in "Countdown to Terror," published in June.
The book details information that Weldon says a source, an Iranian exile in Paris, began providing to him in early 2003. Weldon said it outlines the determination of Iran's current leaders to disrupt a new, democratic Iraq and inflict harm on the U.S.
Among its specific claims are that Osama Bin Laden was in Iran in 2003, given shelter in a house near Tehran. The source, code-named "Ali," reports that the regime in Iran has pursued a crash program to make or obtain atomic bombs, and supported a plan to hijack an airliner in Canada and fly into the Seabrook nuclear power plant near Boston, spreading radiation over New England and the Mid-Atlantic.
In addition, "Ali" reported, leaders in Iran have endorsed an even more calamitous attack on the U.S., referred to as the 12th Imam Operation. The name alludes to a messianic figure who miraculously vanished centuries ago. His return is looked to as "the ultimate day for the Islamic faith," Weldon said.
Weldon said he has provided all of the information to intelligence agencies and other authorities. Yet the CIA and others have failed to pursue the information and cultivate "Ali" and his reputed sources in Iran. He said he wrote the book as an "act of desperation," to take the information to the American people."
Because of its allegations, Weldon said the "spin" some have put on the book is that it lays out a rationale for war against Iran. "Ali" speaks repeatedly of the need for a regime change there. But Weldon insisted "The Iranian people are not our enemy." He said he had the book translated into Farsi, so Iranians can read what their leaders have planned.
Since the book's publication, "Ali" has been widely identified as Fereidoun Mahdavi, a former member of the Shah of Iran's government, and an associate of Manucher Gorbanifar, a figure in the Iran-Contra affair.
An audience member had read those reports. "Hasn't he been discredited as just a rag-tag politician?" the man asked.
It may be a case of bureaucrats trying to save their careers, Weldon suggested. "The problem with the CIA is that it manipulates information; it leaks [certain] information to reporters."
"Does this put me at risk? Probably," he said, referring to the publication of "Countdown to Terror" and the revelation of the Atta information.
"I hope it will make you shake in your boots," Weldon added. "I hope you will be disgusted, and say, 'This can't be the America I grew up in.'"
