Former Congressman Curt Weldon Says “Dick and Don” Planned 9/11

Twenty-five years after September 11, 2001, former Congressman Curt Weldon is reopening one of the darkest chapters in American history—and his claims are extraordinary. In a recent interview with Jimmy Dore, Weldon discussed his new book, Able Danger: What the 9-11 Commission Never Told You, and revealed what he says are previously undisclosed documents and testimony concerning what the U.S. government knew before the attacks.

At the center of Weldon’s claims is Able Danger, a real and highly classified Army intelligence program established to identify information concerning al-Qaeda around the world. Weldon says the program identified Mohamed Atta and other members of the future 9/11 network before the attacks. According to Weldon, the team attempted three times to transfer information about Atta to the Justice Department but was blocked. He says the 9/11 Commission ultimately failed to adequately investigate or disclose what Able Danger had uncovered.

Then Weldon revealed what he considers his most explosive piece of evidence. He says that on October 16, 2006—the same day federal agents raided his daughter’s home—he received a personal message from a senior adviser to then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. According to Weldon, the message said: “Kurt, I warned you about Able Danger. Dick and Don are now going to destroy you.” Weldon says “Dick and Don” referred to Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. He says the message described Able Danger as a mechanism for determining what intelligence agencies knew about the coming 9/11 attack and implied that senior officials were using that information to monitor what was about to happen.

When Jimmy Dore asked Weldon directly whether U.S. officials planned the 9/11 attack, Weldon’s answer was blunt: “Absolutely. According to that memo.” He went on to say that, according to the information he received, the attack was actually carried out by people inside the U.S. government and that Cheney and Rumsfeld were involved in planning it.

Weldon also claims that a former CIA employee involved in open-source intelligence told him that by June 1, 2001, U.S. intelligence knew an attack against the United States was going to occur sometime between September and December of that year. He says the source also described how intelligence officials allegedly played games with Mohamed Atta’s name to make it appear that the Army intelligence program had never identified him.

Another extraordinary claim concerns the USS Cole bombing in October 2000. Weldon says American intelligence had a source in Europe who warned that an attack on the USS Cole was going to take place in Aden, Yemen. According to Weldon, that warning never reached the military commander responsible for the ship. Seventeen American sailors were killed.

Weldon further claims that a senior FBI official provided him with documentation stating that two of the 9/11 hijackers were on the CIA payroll. He says he possesses the identity of the FBI official and the underlying document and intends to provide the information to President Donald Trump. If the document can be authenticated and independently corroborated, the claim would be enormously significant.

The former congressman also revisited the controversial treatment of Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, one of the officers associated with Able Danger. Weldon says Shaffer met 9/11 Commission director Philip Zelikow in Afghanistan and told him about the intelligence program. According to Weldon, Shaffer subsequently lost his security clearances and had his records taken. Shaffer later wrote Operation Dark Heart, but Weldon says the government intervened and purchased approximately 9,500 copies of the original edition before destroying them. Weldon says he later asked Shaffer what information the government wanted removed and was told that the name Philip Zelikow was the critical item.

Weldon also claims that approximately 2.5 terabytes of Army intelligence data were ordered destroyed. According to his account, the material contained information related not only to Able Danger but also to the controversial transfer of American technology to China during the Clinton administration. Weldon says that, as a congressional overseer of military intelligence, he was aware of what was happening.

Perhaps most disturbing to Weldon is what he says happened to the 9/11 Commission itself. He does not accuse every commissioner of participating in a cover-up. Instead, he argues that critical information never reached the commissioners and that the commission’s staff controlled what ultimately appeared in the final report. Able Danger received no meaningful treatment in that report, despite the claims of military intelligence personnel who said the program had identified members of the al-Qaeda network before 9/11.

Weldon was also at Ground Zero following the attacks. A former firefighter and fire chief, he says he personally walked through the enormous cloud of dust after the towers collapsed. He rejects the idea that the official explanation has answered every question surrounding the destruction of the buildings and argues that the physical evidence deserves another independent examination.

For Weldon, this is much larger than a dispute over one intelligence program. He believes the American public was deliberately kept from information concerning what government agencies knew before 9/11, what happened to that intelligence afterward, and who ultimately controlled the response. He argues that an entirely independent investigation is necessary—one free from political parties, intelligence agencies and defense contractors.

Twenty-five years after the attacks, Weldon says he still has documents, recordings and witnesses that can shed light on what happened. His message is straightforward: the American people were never given the complete story of September 11, and the evidence he has spent decades collecting deserves to be examined.