DOD worker told to destroy Atta documents will talk to Judiciary Committee News
DOD worker told to destroy Atta documents will talk to Judiciary Committee

[JURIST] US Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) [official website] said Thursday that an unnamed Pentagon employee was ordered to destroy documents that identified Mohammed Atta [Wikipedia profile] as a terrorist two years before the 9/11 attacks [JURIST news archive], and was prepared to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week and reveal the identity of who directed the documents' destruction. Mastermind Atta and three other hijackers were allegedly identified in 1999 by a military intelligence unit called Able Danger [Wikipedia backgrounder] as potential members of al Qaeda [Wikipedia backgrounder]. In late August US Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) [official website] specifically asked the FBI to investigate Able Danger [JURIST report] as well as information-sharing procedures between the FBI and the Pentagon. Two military officers have said that military lawyers dissuaded members of Able Danger from further pursuing Atta and sharing information with the FBI because he was legally in the US at the time. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.