Weldon: Osama bin Laden Is Dead

He could be right and we'll never know. And he did have something with Able Danger. Guess we'll have to wait for the next video tape to come out. via NewsMax

Rep. Curt Weldon, who broke the Able Danger story last year revealing that military intelligence had identified lead hijacker Mohamed Atta as a terrorist threat before the 9/11 attacks, now says that Osama bin Laden has died.

Weldon made the stunning claim during an interview Wednesday with the Philadelphia Inquirer, which reported: "Weldon is making explosive new allegations. He says a high-level source has told him that terrorist leader Osama bin Laden has died in Iran, where he has been in hiding."

Weldon cited as his source an Iranian exile code-named Ali, telling the paper: "Ali's told me that Osama bin Laden is dead. He died in Iran."

Comments

[*flo*]

Too many sworn congressional testimonies to ignore Able Danger's probe. Apparently Philly Inquirer journalist Goldstein has not been keeping up with the hearings. Rep Weldon knows more then MSM is providing the public. From what I gathered, Weldon embarassed Philly Inquirer journalist Goldstein, he offered Goldstein the Able Danger Story, NY Times instead ran with it ....just need to see how this unfolds ... as mention on Inthebullpen.com, Leader of Al-Qaeda, Bin Laden deceased, yep, its old news. Its suspected this happen when Americans Bomb Toro Bora mountains, besides, extremist Jihads would die without Bin Ladens direction.

ref:
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=11063A3DA599B3B0&p_docnum=1
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14099912.htm
http://www.abledangerblog.com/2006/03/goldstein-strikes-back.html

[*flo*]

Sorry about the 1st link in my post above, its link to the Archive in Philadelphia Inquirer, and its not working, heres the story:

Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
March 15, 2006
Section: NATIONAL
Edition: CITY-D
Page: A07

Some Weldon-backed allegations unconfirmed
Among them: A plot to crash planes into a reactor, and missing suitcase-size Soviet atomic weapons.
Steve Goldstein and Chris Mondics INQUIRER WASHINGTON BUREAU

Able Danger is merely the most recent in a litany of controversial allegations championed by Rep. Curt Weldon (R., Pa.).

Last year, in a book called Countdown to Terror, Weldon detailed the revelations of an Iranian exile code-named "Ali" who, among other things, described a plot to crash planes into a U.S. nuclear reactor. In the mid-1990s, Weldon made headlines with charges that missing "suitcase-sized" nuclear weapons produced in the former Soviet Union had been secretly buried throughout the United States during the Cold War.
Neither allegation has ultimately been confirmed.

In an interview last week, Weldon delivered this news from Ali: "Ali's told me that Osama bin Laden is dead. He died in Iran." Weldon said he last spoke to Ali three weeks ago.

In 2003, Weldon's belief that bin Laden was being harbored in Iran drove the congressman to contact then-CIA Director George J. Tenet with information provided by Ali. CIA officials discredited Ali, whom they identified as Fereidoun Mahdavi, an exile living in Paris, because he was a close associate of fellow exile Manucher Ghorbanifar, a discredited arms dealer involved in the 1980s Iran-contra scandal.

Ali came into contact with Weldon through an intermediary who knew former Rep. Ron Klink (D. Pa.). The intermediary led Weldon to a Wisconsin-based bounty hunter, who had a source - Ali - who said bin Laden was in Iran.

The bounty hunter asked Weldon to help him get CIA assistance so he could "do a hit" on the terrorist mastermind.

Weldon said he was prepared "to go over and meet with the parliamentary leaders of Iran . . . but I was never going to go down there on the hit. That was between him and the CIA."

Weldon became incensed that the CIA ignored all the information that Ali provided, including a prediction that little known hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be elected president of Iran. He was elected in 2005.

Weldon's frustration led him to write the book in which he alleged pre-9/11 failures by the U.S. intelligence community.

"In my opinion, I can't name one thing that Ali said that I haven't been able to prove," Weldon said.

In August 2003, several months after Ali told Weldon of a plot to hijack a commercial airplane in Canada and fly it into the Seabrook nuclear reactor in New Hampshire, Canadian authorities arrested 19 men, mostly Pakistani, suspected as being part of a terrorist cell.

One of the men was allegedly taking flying lessons.

Canadian officials later dropped all security-related charges against the men, leaving only routine immigration charges.

"It certainly hasn't been disproved," Weldon insisted. "The fact is. they broke up a 19-member Pakistani cell."

Also remaining to be disproved - or proved - was Weldon's sensational allegation that the Soviets buried dozens of suitcase-size nuclear devices on U.S. soil during the Cold War.

Weldon based his 1999 charges on congressional testimony from former Soviet general Alexander Lebed and Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB defector. In January 2000, former Soviet spy Stanislav Lunev alleged, also in congressional testimony, that weapons - perhaps even small nuclear devices - had been hidden in California and other states as a part of a Russian plan to destabilize the United States.

Lunev said he could not pinpoint those cache sites.

Searches have been conducted, according to published reports, but law-enforcement officials have never found such weapons caches, with or without portable nuclear weapons.

Contact staff writer Steve Goldstein at 202-383-6048 or slgoldstein@krwashington.com.

Past charges

by Weldon

They included

a plot to crash planes into

a reactor. A7.

[FloridaPatty]

we can only wish.