A 2005 technical analysis found that up to 1,000 days of e-mails were missing from White House servers during a 2-1/2 year period, amounting to more than 1 million separate e-mail messages, according to statements from a former White House technology manager released today.

Steven McDevitt also said in written answers to questions from a House committee that the White House’s e-mail system was so “primitive” that there was a high risk that data would be lost.

McDevitt, who formerly oversaw many of the White House’s computer systems, said he oversaw a wide-ranging study that found e-mail missing for hundreds of days from January 2003 through August 2005. He also told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that security was so lax that e-mail could be modified by anyone on the computer network until the middle of 2005.