9
9 Trillion Dollar Republican Natio
Guest
WTC 1 Attack = George H Bush totally to blame.
Bush Sr. was responsible for the first WTC attack, he was President
for the entire 4 years preceding the attack just before a wiser Bill
Clinton inherited Bush's mess and was reigned in that very first month
of January.
WTC 2 Attack = George W Bush totally to blame
Bush Jr. was the reason why the WTC 2 attacks happened, he was in
office for nearly one whole year at the time and rather than fight
terrorism and formulate a plan to stop Bin Laden, Bush played golf.
For more than half his first 9 months in office in fact, while Bin
Laden readied to attack the USA, W. Bush was out on the golf course
and vacationing.
Terrorists plan attacks all the time, they have been for many years,
long before Clinton was in office, just ask Bush Sr., so it isn't that
the terrorists were planning, they always do and have done that, it is
all about which Presidents were NOT planning to stop the terror
attacks. The two Presidents that did nothing to stop terrorism were
Bush Sr and Bush Jr, like father like son. Don't ever trust a
Republican with National Security, they are all talk, no action, and
when they do take action, well you see the results, just look at what
a complete disaster IRAQ is..
9-11 = ALL THE BUSH FAMILY'S FAULT, JUST ASK THE 9-11 FAMILIES WHAT
THEY THINK
IT''S THE BUSH FAMILY vs. 9-11 FAMILY
Bush's 9/11 coverup
Family members of victims of the terror attacks say the White House
has smothered every attempt to get to the bottom of the outrageous
intelligence failures that took place on its watch.
By Eric Boehlert
June 18, 2003 | For family members of those who died on Sept. 11, last
week brought a rare chance to meet face-to-face with a man who has
become a symbol of their dissatisfaction -- FBI director Robert
Mueller. The bureau had quietly invited several dozen family members
to Washington to hear a presentation on the war on terrorism, but for
the small band of husbands, wives and parents who successfully lobbied
Congress last year for an independent 9/11 commission to investigate
the attacks, it was a chance to ask some of the troubling questions
they have about that day.
They weren't simply queries about the national security collapse that
occurred on 9/11, and how a hijacked plane, flying hundreds of miles
off course, was able to dive-bomb untouched into the Pentagon a full
hour after the World Trade Center had already been attacked twice. Or
how more than a dozen terrorists were able to enter America illegally
and then live here undetected for weeks and months, and why U.S.
intelligence sources failed to piece together significant clues that
emerged in advance of the attack.
Family advocates also wanted to know why the government -- and
specifically the Bush administration -- has been so reluctant to find
answers to any of the obvious questions about what went wrong that
day, why so little has been fixed, and why virtually nobody has
accepted any responsibility for the glaring failures.
While the administration of President George W. Bush is aggressively
positioning itself as the world leader in the war on terrorism, some
families of the Sept. 11 victims say that the facts increasingly
contradict that script. The White House long opposed the formation of
a blue-ribbon Sept. 11 commission, some say, and even now that panel
is underfunded and struggling to build momentum. And, they say, the
administration is suppressing a 900-page congressional study, possibly
out of fear that the findings will be politically damaging to Bush.
"We've been fighting for nearly 21 months -- fighting the
administration, the White House," says Monica Gabrielle. Her husband,
Richard, an insurance broker who worked for Aon Corp. on the 103rd
floor of the World Trade Center's Tower 2, died during the attacks.
"As soon as we started looking for answers we were blocked, put off
and ignored at every stop of the way. We were shocked. The White House
is just blocking everything."
Another 9/11 family advocate -- a former Bush supporter who requested
anonymity -- was more blunt: "Bush has done everything in his power to
squelch this [9/11] commission and prevent it from happening."
Thus far, the administration has largely succeeded. Its stonewalling
has gotten little news coverage, and there is scant evidence that the
public is outraged. The national discussion has moved on -- to Iraq,
to that country's still-missing weapons of mass destruction, to Laci
Peterson. But there are increasing signs that White House efforts to
blunt a full inquiry into the domestic failures that preceded Sept. 11
could emerge as an issue in the 2004 presidential campaign, in which
Bush and his handlers hope to exploit 9/11 for maximum political
advantage.
Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat and former chair of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, has raised the profile of his presidential
campaign with sharp criticism of Bush for both his administration's
intelligence failures before Sept. 11 and its attempt to paper them
over since. "The public has the right to know what its government has
done and is doing to protect Americans and U.S. interests," Graham
told Salon Monday. "Potential embarrassment isn't a good enough reason
to keep these government materials secret."
Other Democrats almost certainly will realize that the issue is one
way to counter the public's belief that Bush has been an effective
leader in the war on terrorism.
Perhaps it was fear of a backlash that provoked Bush's staff to invite
the Sept. 11 families to the Mueller seminar. But by the accounts of
several people who attended the briefing at FBI headquarters, in a
wing named after Bush's father, the mood was often contentious as the
FBI chief and Department of Justice prosecutors answered questions for
more than two hours. One flash point came during a sharp exchange
about what the FBI had -- or had not -- done with several internal
memos filed by field agents detailing concerns that al-Qaida
operatives may be training at U.S. flight schools. Mueller confirmed
that weeks before the Sept. 11 attack, one young FBI agent had seen
two such memos but that she did not act on them.
According to family representatives, Mueller defended the agent,
saying she did not have the proper training or tools to take action on
the information. But when pressed on how such egregious oversight was
able to occur, the director grew defensive and then demanded: "What do
you want me to do, fire her?"
The remark was meant to be rhetorical, but in unison family members
responded audibly: "Yes!"
"We're the most skeptical audience Mueller will ever have, and I think
it showed," says Sept. 11 widow Beverly Eckert, whose husband, Sean
Rooney, died in the twin towers. "We want answers."
Just over a year ago, the families' questions were at least being
asked. During May 2002, controversy swirled when CBS News reported
that five weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush had been briefed
about an active plot by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida operatives to seize
civilian aircraft. The revelations stood in stark contrast to White
House spin in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks that nobody in the
administration or the intelligence community had "specific
information" about a possible hijacking plot.
Into that combustible mix came revelations that FBI special agents in
Phoenix and Minnesota had warned their superiors about suspected al-
Qaida operatives training at U.S. flight schools. For the White House,
the "what did Bush know and when did he know it" narrative was its
first real political crisis after Sept. 11, the first time the press
along with Democrats were asking pointed questions -- and gaining
traction by the day. Even the New York Post, usually a reliable White
House ally, ran a headline that declared "Bush Knew"; the conservative
Weekly Standard warned that "the administration is now in danger of
looking as if it has engaged in a cover-up."
But the White House, aided by global circumstances and a distractible
news media, conspired to change the subject.
First, a succession of senior administration officials made dire
warnings about the certainty of suicide bombers striking inside
America. Then, on June 6, 2002, the administration abruptly reversed
itself and announced it was backing the creation of the Department of
Homeland Security, as first proposed by Democrats. And the White House
made the historic announcement the same day FBI agent Colleen Rowley
testified before Congress about her famous Minneapolis memo, ensuring
that the Department of Homeland Security was the next day's top
headline.
Then, by last August, the Capitol was abuzz in talk of war with Iraq,
and the buzz persisted for the next nine months. "Iraq changed
everything with the press," says one victims' advocate whose wife died
in Tower 1. "Nobody cares about this after Iraq."
"It was a successful attempt to change the story," notes John Pike,
director of GlobalSecurity.org, a nonprofit defense policy group.
"From the White House's perspective, no good can come of these [9/11]
investigations. So I think their approach has been entirely
predictable, and easy to understand."
Adding insult for some family activists was the fact that Bush used
the 9/11 attacks as a justification for the war on Iraq. "I sat and
listened to the State of the Union speech [last January] when Bush
mentioned 9/11 12 or 13 times," recalls Kristin Breitweiser, whose
husband, Ronald, was killed when United Flight 175 slammed into Tower
1. "At the same time, we were having trouble getting funding for the
independent commission."
Gabrielle was equally upset: "Bush has never personally met with the
[9/11] families to discuss any of this, so for him to use Sept. 11 and
its victims to justify his agenda, I myself am disgusted."
In the face of today's public indifference, the victim activists have
placed their faith in two investigations they hope will finally answer
some key questions. Though the Sept. 11 attacks were arguably one of
the decisive moments in U.S. history, both investigations appear mired
in a deadly Beltway mixture of bureaucratic morass and political
sniping.
The first was a bipartisan joint inquiry conducted by the House and
Senate examining intelligence and law-enforcement failures that led up
to the Sept. 11 attack. Its relatively narrow scope came about after
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney personally phoned then-Senate
Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., in late January 2002, pressuring
him to limit the congressional investigation surrounding Sept. 11.
Despite budget restraints and complaints from Sen. John McCain, R-
Ariz., that the White House had "slow-walked and stonewalled" the
joint inquiry, the panel's 900-page report was completed late last
year. Today it remains stuck in national security limbo as the joint
inquiry staff negotiates with the White House and its intelligence
agencies over what portions can and cannot be released in the public
version of the report. The release date has already been pushed back
several times as the declassification process drags on into its
seventh month. Even the Republican chairman of the joint inquiry, Rep.
Porter Goss of Florida, a former CIA operations officer, has expressed
deep frustration at the pace of the process.
"It appears the joint intelligence committee did too good of a job,"
quips Breitweiser. Indeed, last fall the New York Times reported that
"the findings of a joint committee have been far more damaging than
most officials at either agency expected when the panel's inquiry
began [in early 2002]." The report is expected to detail disturbing
lapses in counterterrorism at the CIA and FBI, where warnings about
the Sept. 11 attacks went unheeded. They're revelations that are sure
to be uncomfortable for the administration.
"I understand when you have national security issues, that's fine,"
says Breitweiser. "But I hope [the delay] is about national security
issues and it's not about embarrassment. Because for people to be
holding up making this nation safe because they fear embarrassment, I
don't have any time for that. We need to fix the egregious errors of
9/11."
Raising concerns about the joint inquiry review process was the
revelation that the administration wanted some information that had
already been made public during open hearings to be reclassified in
the joint inquiry report. Also alarming was the news from this spring
when former Rep. and current 9/11 commissioner Tim Roemer, an Indiana
Democrat, tried to read transcripts from the joint inquiry's closed-
door hearings. Even though he had actually served on the joint inquiry
a year earlier, Department of Justice attorneys refused to let him
read the transcripts, insisting that the White House needed five days
to decide whether it wanted to exert executive privilege to keep the
information under wraps. The White House eventually relented.
"It was upsetting to find out the White House was trying to block the
independent commission's access to the joint inquiry information, when
we all know the mandate that created the independent commission states
clearly that the commission is to use the joint inquiry as a starting-
off point," notes Breitweiser, who also voted for Bush in 2000. "So
why would they be blocking access to that?"
Today, the negotiating continues over what gets declassified. "We're
making some headway. It's a very long, complicated process. But the
public deserves to be told as much as we can tell them about what
happened on Sept. 11," reports Eleanor Hill, who directed the joint
inquiry staff. Asked whether she's happy with the level of cooperation
she's receiving from the administration's intelligence community, Hill
responded: "I'll reserve judgment on that."
As Breitweiser noted, the joint inquiry report is supposed to serve as
a springboard for the independent 9/11 commission, which is charged
with taking a much broader view of the terrorist attack -- everything
from border security to immigration. (A classified version of the
joint inquiry report has already been made available to the
commission.)
Known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon
the United States, the panel has been bogged down by delays in
obtaining security clearances, setting guidelines for how the group
would handle classified material, and selecting members. The White
House first proposed Henry Kissinger to chair the panel, which
provoked some bitter complaints. Kissinger eventually withdrew after
refusing to make public the list of his consulting clients.
"I would've thought it'd be further along by now," says Gabrielle.
"The length of time it's taken to get up and running is astonishing."
Commission spokesman Al Felzenberg calls the panel's inquiry "the most
important investigation ever done in American history, given its
scope." The final report, due next May, will be "the definitive
account of what took place on Sept. 11," he says, "how it could happen
and what went wrong, as well as what worked and what did not work and
what recommendation would we have for the American government and the
American people to make it safer."
But the investigation almost never happened at all.
Family advocates complain it was created virtually in spite of the
White House; they point to the extraordinary game of hardball the
administration practiced right on the eve of last year's midterm
elections when it derailed a bipartisan congressional deal to form the
commission, citing concerns with its potential scope and subpoena
power. Members of both parties who had already scheduled a press
conference to announce the panel were stunned by the turn of events.
Weeks after the 2002 election, and following a candlelight vigil by
9/11 victim families held in Lafayette Park across the street from the
White House, the independent commission was finally formed, more than
a year after the terrorists attacked.
"Bush begrudgingly signed [the commission] into law," complains one
family advocate. "Since it was created, he's done everything to take
the teeth out of it. His fingerprints and Karl Rove's are all over
this."
"If President Bush and the administration are not happy with the
independent commission, then it's their own fault because all they had
to do was set up a commission on their own," adds Breitweiser. "But
they didn't, so it was left to other people to make sure it got done.
Undeniably the administration has dragged its feet."
In the past the White House has denied the charge, insisting it's
cooperating with the commission. Yet even during hearings, that
cooperation has seemed lackluster at best.
Unlike congressional inquiries, the commission's witnesses have not
been asked to testify under oath. As a result, federal officials under
Bush's command have not always been forthcoming. At their May 23
public hearing in Washington, commissioners were trying to piece
together what, if any, defensive measures the government took on the
morning of Sept. 11. Specifically, they wanted to know whether the
military's North American Aerospace Defense Command, once notified by
the Federal Aviation Administration, should have been able to scramble
jets in order to intercept some of the hijacked aircraft. Yet 20
months after the attack, 9/11 commissioners still could not get
straight answers from NORAD and FAA representatives who testified as
to when the FAA notified NORAD about the wayward jets on the morning
of 9/11.
Adding to the general confusion that day was baffling testimony by
Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta. "I don't think we ever
thought of an airplane being used as a missile," he told the
commissioners. But it was widely reported last year that several
government studies had warned of just such a scenario.
For months, the commission was struggling to get by on a minuscule
budget of $3 million. That low funding and the yearlong delay in
creating the commission stand in stark contrast to previous panels
formed to investigate momentous disasters in American history.
For instance, on April 15, 1912, the Titanic sank after hitting an
iceberg, killing approximately 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers.
According to historians , Titanic survivors began disembarking in New
York at 10 o'clock on the night of April 18. The next morning at
10:30, a special panel of the Senate Commerce Committee was gaveled
into session inside the ornate East Room of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
in New York.
Last year, when Cheney called Daschle to urge him to limit any
hearings into 9/11, the V.P. argued it would drain sources away from
the war on terrorism. By contrast, just 11 days after Japanese bombers
hit the U.S. with a sneak attack killing nearly 3,000 people,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order creating a
commission to "ascertain and report the facts relating to the attack
made by Japanese armed forces upon the Territory of Hawaii on December
7, 1941 ... and to provide bases for sound decisions whether any
derelictions of duty or errors of judgment on the part of United
States Army or Navy personnel contributed to such successes as were
achieved by the enemy on the occasion mentioned." It was the first of
eight government-led investigations into the Pearl Harbor.
The Warren Commission, headed by Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren,
was formed just seven days after President Kennedy was assassinated.
Last February, after seven astronauts died when the Space Shuttle
Columbia disintegrated 200,000 feet above Texas, NASA's Columbia
Accident Investigation Board was created 90 minutes after the
incident; $50 million was immediately set aside for the probe. And in
just four months, the board has already made public significant
findings about the crash investigation.
By contrast, nearly two years after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World
Trade Center, the 9/11 commission only recently opened up its New York
City office. The commission's budget has been increased to $14
million, but many experts say that's still far short of the sum needed
to do the job right.
Given that perspective, there's a growing sense among some 9/11
advocates that the news media have let them -- and the nation -- down.
"I'm very disappointed in the press," says Breitweiser. "I think it's
disgusting the independent commission is doing the most important work
for this nation and it's not even reported in the New York Times or on
the nightly news. I've been scheduled to go on 'Meet the Press' and
'Hardball' so many times and I'm always canceled. Frankly I'd like
nothing better than to go head to head with Dick Cheney on 'Meet the
Press.' Because somebody needs to ask the questions and I don't
understand why nobody is."
Among frustrated family members of Sept. 11 victims, there's a feeling
they're losing the battle of time in their struggle to get answers
from the Bush administration. "There's a very, very small window to
effect changes," says one 9/11 widower, Bill Harvey. "And
unfortunately, that window is closing."
Bush Sr. was responsible for the first WTC attack, he was President
for the entire 4 years preceding the attack just before a wiser Bill
Clinton inherited Bush's mess and was reigned in that very first month
of January.
WTC 2 Attack = George W Bush totally to blame
Bush Jr. was the reason why the WTC 2 attacks happened, he was in
office for nearly one whole year at the time and rather than fight
terrorism and formulate a plan to stop Bin Laden, Bush played golf.
For more than half his first 9 months in office in fact, while Bin
Laden readied to attack the USA, W. Bush was out on the golf course
and vacationing.
Terrorists plan attacks all the time, they have been for many years,
long before Clinton was in office, just ask Bush Sr., so it isn't that
the terrorists were planning, they always do and have done that, it is
all about which Presidents were NOT planning to stop the terror
attacks. The two Presidents that did nothing to stop terrorism were
Bush Sr and Bush Jr, like father like son. Don't ever trust a
Republican with National Security, they are all talk, no action, and
when they do take action, well you see the results, just look at what
a complete disaster IRAQ is..
9-11 = ALL THE BUSH FAMILY'S FAULT, JUST ASK THE 9-11 FAMILIES WHAT
THEY THINK
IT''S THE BUSH FAMILY vs. 9-11 FAMILY
Bush's 9/11 coverup
Family members of victims of the terror attacks say the White House
has smothered every attempt to get to the bottom of the outrageous
intelligence failures that took place on its watch.
By Eric Boehlert
June 18, 2003 | For family members of those who died on Sept. 11, last
week brought a rare chance to meet face-to-face with a man who has
become a symbol of their dissatisfaction -- FBI director Robert
Mueller. The bureau had quietly invited several dozen family members
to Washington to hear a presentation on the war on terrorism, but for
the small band of husbands, wives and parents who successfully lobbied
Congress last year for an independent 9/11 commission to investigate
the attacks, it was a chance to ask some of the troubling questions
they have about that day.
They weren't simply queries about the national security collapse that
occurred on 9/11, and how a hijacked plane, flying hundreds of miles
off course, was able to dive-bomb untouched into the Pentagon a full
hour after the World Trade Center had already been attacked twice. Or
how more than a dozen terrorists were able to enter America illegally
and then live here undetected for weeks and months, and why U.S.
intelligence sources failed to piece together significant clues that
emerged in advance of the attack.
Family advocates also wanted to know why the government -- and
specifically the Bush administration -- has been so reluctant to find
answers to any of the obvious questions about what went wrong that
day, why so little has been fixed, and why virtually nobody has
accepted any responsibility for the glaring failures.
While the administration of President George W. Bush is aggressively
positioning itself as the world leader in the war on terrorism, some
families of the Sept. 11 victims say that the facts increasingly
contradict that script. The White House long opposed the formation of
a blue-ribbon Sept. 11 commission, some say, and even now that panel
is underfunded and struggling to build momentum. And, they say, the
administration is suppressing a 900-page congressional study, possibly
out of fear that the findings will be politically damaging to Bush.
"We've been fighting for nearly 21 months -- fighting the
administration, the White House," says Monica Gabrielle. Her husband,
Richard, an insurance broker who worked for Aon Corp. on the 103rd
floor of the World Trade Center's Tower 2, died during the attacks.
"As soon as we started looking for answers we were blocked, put off
and ignored at every stop of the way. We were shocked. The White House
is just blocking everything."
Another 9/11 family advocate -- a former Bush supporter who requested
anonymity -- was more blunt: "Bush has done everything in his power to
squelch this [9/11] commission and prevent it from happening."
Thus far, the administration has largely succeeded. Its stonewalling
has gotten little news coverage, and there is scant evidence that the
public is outraged. The national discussion has moved on -- to Iraq,
to that country's still-missing weapons of mass destruction, to Laci
Peterson. But there are increasing signs that White House efforts to
blunt a full inquiry into the domestic failures that preceded Sept. 11
could emerge as an issue in the 2004 presidential campaign, in which
Bush and his handlers hope to exploit 9/11 for maximum political
advantage.
Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat and former chair of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, has raised the profile of his presidential
campaign with sharp criticism of Bush for both his administration's
intelligence failures before Sept. 11 and its attempt to paper them
over since. "The public has the right to know what its government has
done and is doing to protect Americans and U.S. interests," Graham
told Salon Monday. "Potential embarrassment isn't a good enough reason
to keep these government materials secret."
Other Democrats almost certainly will realize that the issue is one
way to counter the public's belief that Bush has been an effective
leader in the war on terrorism.
Perhaps it was fear of a backlash that provoked Bush's staff to invite
the Sept. 11 families to the Mueller seminar. But by the accounts of
several people who attended the briefing at FBI headquarters, in a
wing named after Bush's father, the mood was often contentious as the
FBI chief and Department of Justice prosecutors answered questions for
more than two hours. One flash point came during a sharp exchange
about what the FBI had -- or had not -- done with several internal
memos filed by field agents detailing concerns that al-Qaida
operatives may be training at U.S. flight schools. Mueller confirmed
that weeks before the Sept. 11 attack, one young FBI agent had seen
two such memos but that she did not act on them.
According to family representatives, Mueller defended the agent,
saying she did not have the proper training or tools to take action on
the information. But when pressed on how such egregious oversight was
able to occur, the director grew defensive and then demanded: "What do
you want me to do, fire her?"
The remark was meant to be rhetorical, but in unison family members
responded audibly: "Yes!"
"We're the most skeptical audience Mueller will ever have, and I think
it showed," says Sept. 11 widow Beverly Eckert, whose husband, Sean
Rooney, died in the twin towers. "We want answers."
Just over a year ago, the families' questions were at least being
asked. During May 2002, controversy swirled when CBS News reported
that five weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush had been briefed
about an active plot by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida operatives to seize
civilian aircraft. The revelations stood in stark contrast to White
House spin in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks that nobody in the
administration or the intelligence community had "specific
information" about a possible hijacking plot.
Into that combustible mix came revelations that FBI special agents in
Phoenix and Minnesota had warned their superiors about suspected al-
Qaida operatives training at U.S. flight schools. For the White House,
the "what did Bush know and when did he know it" narrative was its
first real political crisis after Sept. 11, the first time the press
along with Democrats were asking pointed questions -- and gaining
traction by the day. Even the New York Post, usually a reliable White
House ally, ran a headline that declared "Bush Knew"; the conservative
Weekly Standard warned that "the administration is now in danger of
looking as if it has engaged in a cover-up."
But the White House, aided by global circumstances and a distractible
news media, conspired to change the subject.
First, a succession of senior administration officials made dire
warnings about the certainty of suicide bombers striking inside
America. Then, on June 6, 2002, the administration abruptly reversed
itself and announced it was backing the creation of the Department of
Homeland Security, as first proposed by Democrats. And the White House
made the historic announcement the same day FBI agent Colleen Rowley
testified before Congress about her famous Minneapolis memo, ensuring
that the Department of Homeland Security was the next day's top
headline.
Then, by last August, the Capitol was abuzz in talk of war with Iraq,
and the buzz persisted for the next nine months. "Iraq changed
everything with the press," says one victims' advocate whose wife died
in Tower 1. "Nobody cares about this after Iraq."
"It was a successful attempt to change the story," notes John Pike,
director of GlobalSecurity.org, a nonprofit defense policy group.
"From the White House's perspective, no good can come of these [9/11]
investigations. So I think their approach has been entirely
predictable, and easy to understand."
Adding insult for some family activists was the fact that Bush used
the 9/11 attacks as a justification for the war on Iraq. "I sat and
listened to the State of the Union speech [last January] when Bush
mentioned 9/11 12 or 13 times," recalls Kristin Breitweiser, whose
husband, Ronald, was killed when United Flight 175 slammed into Tower
1. "At the same time, we were having trouble getting funding for the
independent commission."
Gabrielle was equally upset: "Bush has never personally met with the
[9/11] families to discuss any of this, so for him to use Sept. 11 and
its victims to justify his agenda, I myself am disgusted."
In the face of today's public indifference, the victim activists have
placed their faith in two investigations they hope will finally answer
some key questions. Though the Sept. 11 attacks were arguably one of
the decisive moments in U.S. history, both investigations appear mired
in a deadly Beltway mixture of bureaucratic morass and political
sniping.
The first was a bipartisan joint inquiry conducted by the House and
Senate examining intelligence and law-enforcement failures that led up
to the Sept. 11 attack. Its relatively narrow scope came about after
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney personally phoned then-Senate
Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., in late January 2002, pressuring
him to limit the congressional investigation surrounding Sept. 11.
Despite budget restraints and complaints from Sen. John McCain, R-
Ariz., that the White House had "slow-walked and stonewalled" the
joint inquiry, the panel's 900-page report was completed late last
year. Today it remains stuck in national security limbo as the joint
inquiry staff negotiates with the White House and its intelligence
agencies over what portions can and cannot be released in the public
version of the report. The release date has already been pushed back
several times as the declassification process drags on into its
seventh month. Even the Republican chairman of the joint inquiry, Rep.
Porter Goss of Florida, a former CIA operations officer, has expressed
deep frustration at the pace of the process.
"It appears the joint intelligence committee did too good of a job,"
quips Breitweiser. Indeed, last fall the New York Times reported that
"the findings of a joint committee have been far more damaging than
most officials at either agency expected when the panel's inquiry
began [in early 2002]." The report is expected to detail disturbing
lapses in counterterrorism at the CIA and FBI, where warnings about
the Sept. 11 attacks went unheeded. They're revelations that are sure
to be uncomfortable for the administration.
"I understand when you have national security issues, that's fine,"
says Breitweiser. "But I hope [the delay] is about national security
issues and it's not about embarrassment. Because for people to be
holding up making this nation safe because they fear embarrassment, I
don't have any time for that. We need to fix the egregious errors of
9/11."
Raising concerns about the joint inquiry review process was the
revelation that the administration wanted some information that had
already been made public during open hearings to be reclassified in
the joint inquiry report. Also alarming was the news from this spring
when former Rep. and current 9/11 commissioner Tim Roemer, an Indiana
Democrat, tried to read transcripts from the joint inquiry's closed-
door hearings. Even though he had actually served on the joint inquiry
a year earlier, Department of Justice attorneys refused to let him
read the transcripts, insisting that the White House needed five days
to decide whether it wanted to exert executive privilege to keep the
information under wraps. The White House eventually relented.
"It was upsetting to find out the White House was trying to block the
independent commission's access to the joint inquiry information, when
we all know the mandate that created the independent commission states
clearly that the commission is to use the joint inquiry as a starting-
off point," notes Breitweiser, who also voted for Bush in 2000. "So
why would they be blocking access to that?"
Today, the negotiating continues over what gets declassified. "We're
making some headway. It's a very long, complicated process. But the
public deserves to be told as much as we can tell them about what
happened on Sept. 11," reports Eleanor Hill, who directed the joint
inquiry staff. Asked whether she's happy with the level of cooperation
she's receiving from the administration's intelligence community, Hill
responded: "I'll reserve judgment on that."
As Breitweiser noted, the joint inquiry report is supposed to serve as
a springboard for the independent 9/11 commission, which is charged
with taking a much broader view of the terrorist attack -- everything
from border security to immigration. (A classified version of the
joint inquiry report has already been made available to the
commission.)
Known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon
the United States, the panel has been bogged down by delays in
obtaining security clearances, setting guidelines for how the group
would handle classified material, and selecting members. The White
House first proposed Henry Kissinger to chair the panel, which
provoked some bitter complaints. Kissinger eventually withdrew after
refusing to make public the list of his consulting clients.
"I would've thought it'd be further along by now," says Gabrielle.
"The length of time it's taken to get up and running is astonishing."
Commission spokesman Al Felzenberg calls the panel's inquiry "the most
important investigation ever done in American history, given its
scope." The final report, due next May, will be "the definitive
account of what took place on Sept. 11," he says, "how it could happen
and what went wrong, as well as what worked and what did not work and
what recommendation would we have for the American government and the
American people to make it safer."
But the investigation almost never happened at all.
Family advocates complain it was created virtually in spite of the
White House; they point to the extraordinary game of hardball the
administration practiced right on the eve of last year's midterm
elections when it derailed a bipartisan congressional deal to form the
commission, citing concerns with its potential scope and subpoena
power. Members of both parties who had already scheduled a press
conference to announce the panel were stunned by the turn of events.
Weeks after the 2002 election, and following a candlelight vigil by
9/11 victim families held in Lafayette Park across the street from the
White House, the independent commission was finally formed, more than
a year after the terrorists attacked.
"Bush begrudgingly signed [the commission] into law," complains one
family advocate. "Since it was created, he's done everything to take
the teeth out of it. His fingerprints and Karl Rove's are all over
this."
"If President Bush and the administration are not happy with the
independent commission, then it's their own fault because all they had
to do was set up a commission on their own," adds Breitweiser. "But
they didn't, so it was left to other people to make sure it got done.
Undeniably the administration has dragged its feet."
In the past the White House has denied the charge, insisting it's
cooperating with the commission. Yet even during hearings, that
cooperation has seemed lackluster at best.
Unlike congressional inquiries, the commission's witnesses have not
been asked to testify under oath. As a result, federal officials under
Bush's command have not always been forthcoming. At their May 23
public hearing in Washington, commissioners were trying to piece
together what, if any, defensive measures the government took on the
morning of Sept. 11. Specifically, they wanted to know whether the
military's North American Aerospace Defense Command, once notified by
the Federal Aviation Administration, should have been able to scramble
jets in order to intercept some of the hijacked aircraft. Yet 20
months after the attack, 9/11 commissioners still could not get
straight answers from NORAD and FAA representatives who testified as
to when the FAA notified NORAD about the wayward jets on the morning
of 9/11.
Adding to the general confusion that day was baffling testimony by
Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta. "I don't think we ever
thought of an airplane being used as a missile," he told the
commissioners. But it was widely reported last year that several
government studies had warned of just such a scenario.
For months, the commission was struggling to get by on a minuscule
budget of $3 million. That low funding and the yearlong delay in
creating the commission stand in stark contrast to previous panels
formed to investigate momentous disasters in American history.
For instance, on April 15, 1912, the Titanic sank after hitting an
iceberg, killing approximately 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers.
According to historians , Titanic survivors began disembarking in New
York at 10 o'clock on the night of April 18. The next morning at
10:30, a special panel of the Senate Commerce Committee was gaveled
into session inside the ornate East Room of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
in New York.
Last year, when Cheney called Daschle to urge him to limit any
hearings into 9/11, the V.P. argued it would drain sources away from
the war on terrorism. By contrast, just 11 days after Japanese bombers
hit the U.S. with a sneak attack killing nearly 3,000 people,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order creating a
commission to "ascertain and report the facts relating to the attack
made by Japanese armed forces upon the Territory of Hawaii on December
7, 1941 ... and to provide bases for sound decisions whether any
derelictions of duty or errors of judgment on the part of United
States Army or Navy personnel contributed to such successes as were
achieved by the enemy on the occasion mentioned." It was the first of
eight government-led investigations into the Pearl Harbor.
The Warren Commission, headed by Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren,
was formed just seven days after President Kennedy was assassinated.
Last February, after seven astronauts died when the Space Shuttle
Columbia disintegrated 200,000 feet above Texas, NASA's Columbia
Accident Investigation Board was created 90 minutes after the
incident; $50 million was immediately set aside for the probe. And in
just four months, the board has already made public significant
findings about the crash investigation.
By contrast, nearly two years after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World
Trade Center, the 9/11 commission only recently opened up its New York
City office. The commission's budget has been increased to $14
million, but many experts say that's still far short of the sum needed
to do the job right.
Given that perspective, there's a growing sense among some 9/11
advocates that the news media have let them -- and the nation -- down.
"I'm very disappointed in the press," says Breitweiser. "I think it's
disgusting the independent commission is doing the most important work
for this nation and it's not even reported in the New York Times or on
the nightly news. I've been scheduled to go on 'Meet the Press' and
'Hardball' so many times and I'm always canceled. Frankly I'd like
nothing better than to go head to head with Dick Cheney on 'Meet the
Press.' Because somebody needs to ask the questions and I don't
understand why nobody is."
Among frustrated family members of Sept. 11 victims, there's a feeling
they're losing the battle of time in their struggle to get answers
from the Bush administration. "There's a very, very small window to
effect changes," says one 9/11 widower, Bill Harvey. "And
unfortunately, that window is closing."
