[thunderous_funker]

Published on Monday, January 19, 2004 by the Long Island, NY Newsday
Bush Opposes Extension of 9/11 Probe


President George W. Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) have decided to oppose granting more time to an independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, virtually guaranteeing that the panel will have to complete its work by the end of May, officials said last week.

A growing number of commissioners had concluded the panel needed more time to prepare a thorough and credible accounting of missteps leading to the attacks. But the White House and leading Republicans have informed the panel they oppose any delay, which could mean Sept. 11-related controversies emerging during the heat of the presidential campaign, sources said.

The 10-member bipartisan panel has decided to scale back the number and scope of hearings it will hold for the public, commission members and staff said. The commission is rushing to finish interviews with as many as 200 remaining witnesses and to examine about 2 million pages of documents.

Public hearings in coming months will include testimony from key members from the Bush and Clinton administrations. The roster is likely to include Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, CIA Director George Tenet, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Defense Secretary William Cohen and the current and former FBI directors, two officials said. The next hearing, scheduled over two days beginning Jan. 26, will focus on border and aviation security. Commission members also are trying to secure private testimony from Bush, former President Bill Clinton, Vice President Dick Cheney and former Vice President Al Gore.

The statute that created the panel in 2002 requires it to complete a report for the president and Congress by May 27, with 60 days available after that to tie up loose ends, officials said. The commission has been beleaguered by organizational problems and fights with the Bush administration and New York City about access to documents.

"We need at least a few more months to complete our work," said commission member Timothy Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana. "We have a breathtaking task ahead of us, and we need enough time to make sure our work is credible and thorough."

[thunderous_funker]

Published on Thursday, January 15, 2004 by UPI
"Whitewash': 9/11 Director Gave Evidence to Own Inquiry
by Shaun Waterman

WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- The panel set up to investigate why the United States failed to prevent the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was rocked Thursday by the bizarre revelation that two of its senior officials were so closely involved in the events they are investigating that they have had to be interviewed as part of the inquiry.

Philip Zelikow, the commission's executive director, worked on the Bush-Cheney transition team as the new administration took power, advising his longtime associate and former boss, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, on the structure of the incoming National Security Council.

"He came forward in case he might have useful information," said commission spokesman Al Felzenberg.

Zelikow, who the commission says has withdrawn himself from those parts of its investigation directly connected with the transition -- a process known as recusal -- was also appointed to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in October 2001.

The board provides the White House with advice about the quality, adequacy and legality of the whole spectrum of intelligence activities.

Jamie S. Gorelick, one the 10 members of the commission and the other official who has answered investigators' questions, was a senior official under Attorney General Janet Reno in the Clinton administration.

"(Zelikow) recused himself from those relevant parts of the inquiry," said Felzenberg. "Frankly, we don't see what the fuss is about."

But the revelations have been greeted with dismay by the commission's critics, especially survivors and relatives of the dead, because they suggest the investigation will be -- in the words of Kristen Breitweiser, who lost her husband Ron in tower 2 of the World Trade Center -- "a whitewash."

The families have said for many months that they are unhappy with Zelikow's role, and are furious that they were not told he would be giving evidence.

"Did he interview himself about his own role in the failures that left us defenseless?" asked Lori Van Auken, the widow of Kenneth. "This is bizarre.

"We entered a looking glass world on Sept. 11 and we're still in it."

The news is a particularly sharp blow to the commission's credibility because Gorelick and Zelikow are the two officials to whom the White House has granted the greatest access to the most secret and sensitive national security documents of all, the presidential daily briefings.

Last year, officials acknowledged that one such briefing in August 2001, more than a month prior to the attacks, warned that al-Qaida was determined to strike in the United States. Some reports suggested that hijacking -- and even the use of airplanes as missiles -- was mentioned as the mode of assault.

The question of the transition is a significant one, because critics of President Bush say the incoming administration "dropped the ball" on the fight against Osama bin Laden, which had been ramping up under President Clinton after a suicide attack by the al-Qaida network nearly destroyed the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000.

Bush's supporters counter it was Clinton's failure to capture or kill bin Laden after his network destroyed two U.S. embassies in east Africa in 1998 that emboldened the extremists to attack the United States on Sept. 11.

The families planned a meeting on the issue Thursday evening with commission members and staff, which one predicted would be a "slugfest."

[Lerkfish]

I am so, so, soooooo not surprised.

[Nonsuch]

And Bush hands Kerry/Edwards/Dean et al a nice fat issue to campaign and raise money on. "What is the President hiding?"—betcha it'd look great on a flyer.