Looks like Republican 9/11 panel chief Tom Kean is getting ticked about the WH's silence too. From Time:
[T]he chairman of the defunct 9/11 commission has lashed out at the Bush Administration for failing to address publicly claims that the panel ignored a tip that Atta had been flagged in the U.S. as a terrorist well before he led the 2001 attacks.
Former chairman Tom Kean told TIME that the White House should confirm whether, right after 9/11, Congressman Curt Weldon handed then Deputy National Security Adviser Steven Hadley a 1999 Pentagon chart pegging Atta as a member of al-Qaeda. Weldon makes the allegation in a book he published this summer and claims the commission failed to scrutinize a Pentagon data-mining program called "Able Danger." "I'm offended, because people say, 'Well, why didn't you do anything?'" says Kean.
As I've already mentioned, I spoke to an "administration official" who spoke on behalf on the White House and strongly suggested that the White House is simply not interested in ferreting out the facts. From my previous post:
Here's what an "administration official" told me: "The 9/11 commission has already responded to Congressman Weldon. On your particular question [about Weldon's puportedly handing the 'Atta Chart' to Hadley], I've got nothing for you on that."
I wish the "administration official" hadn't been so insistent on the vague I.D. ("an administration official"). Given the banal statement what would be the harm in not even a name but a more specific I.D.?
More importantly, I wish the administration hadn't decided to punt. Afterall, say the adminsitration had no info about Weldon's purported chart hand-off, why not simply say that? Could it be--and I'm just guessing here--that not pissing off a sympatico congressman was deemed to be more important than giving citizens a glimpse of the truth?
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