'was given a chart shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks '

October 1, 2005

2nd Lawmaker

Credits Secret

Intelligence Program

By DOUGLAS JEHL
Link Here


WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - A second Republican member of Congress has said that Stephen Hadley, who was then the deputy national security adviser, was given a chart shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks that showed information collected about Al Qaeda before the attacks by a secret military intelligence program called Able Danger.

The account was provided by Representative Dan Burton of Indiana, who said in an interview that on Sept. 25, 2001, he attended a meeting with Mr. Hadley in the White House along with Representative Curt Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania. Mr. Weldon has said that he gave Mr. Hadley such a chart at the meeting, but the White House had refused to comment on Mr. Weldon's account.

Told about Mr. Burton's account, a spokesman for Mr. Hadley, who is now the national security adviser, confirmed for the first time last week that Mr. Hadley recalled seeing such a chart in that time period. But the spokesman, Frederick Jones, said that Mr. Hadley did not recall whether he saw it during a meeting with Mr. Weldon, and that a search of National Security Council files had failed to produce such a chart.

Mr. Weldon has sought to call attention to the Able Danger program in arguing that the Clinton and Bush administrations and the Sept. 11 commission all failed to pay heed to work done by Able Danger, which used advanced computers to sift data in an effort to identify possible Qaeda members.

Mr. Weldon, along with several military officers who participated in the program, have said that it identified Mohammed Atta and other future hijackers as potential threats by the fall of 2000, but the Pentagon has said it has been unable to corroborate the accounts.

In a letter to Congress last week, a former member of the Sept. 11 commission, Slade Gorton, defended the commission's decision not to mention Able Danger in its report last year. Mr. Gorton questioned Mr. Weldon's account, saying Mr. Hadley did not recall seeing the chart described by Mr. Weldon.

But in the White House response, Mr. Jones said: "Mr. Hadley did in fact meet with Congressman Weldon on Sept. 25, 2001. He recalls in that same time period receiving a briefing on link analysis as a counterterrorism tool, and being shown a chart that was an example of link analysis. But he does not recall whether he was shown that chart in the meeting with Mr. Weldon or in some other meeting. Either way, Mr. Hadley does not recall seeing a chart bearing the name or photo of Mohammed Atta."

Mr. Jones said that security council staff members reviewed the files of Mr. Hadley and others who attended or might have attended such a meeting, but no chart was found.


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