posted on July 11, 2003 06:43:55 PM new
Washington - US government blunders and Saudi financing of terrorists will be revealed in a long-awaited final report on the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, a US congressman said on Thursday.
Representative Tim Roemer, an Indiana Democrat and former member of the House Intelligence Committee who said he had read the report, described it as "highly explosive".
It is "compelling and galvanizing and will refocus the public's attention on September 11," said Roemer, predicting that "certain mistakes, errors and gaps in the system will be made clear".
Eleanor Hill, the staff director for the investigative panel created by the joint House and Senate intelligence committee, said on Wednesday that several lengthy battles with the Bush administration over how much secret data to declassify have been resolved.
She said she expects the declassified version of the 800-page report to go to the Government Printing Office late this week and then be made public about a week later.
Roemer would not discuss details of the report, saying he expects the public version to be a compromise between intelligence officials who wanted to hold back data and congressional leaders and staffers who pressed for more disclosure.
The classified version was completed in December. A source familiar with the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, said two "sensitive areas" of the public report are especially likely to make headlines.
One section provides new information on ties between the Saudi royal family, government officials and terrorists.
It suggests the FBI may have mishandled an investigation into how two of the September 11 hijackers received aid from Saudi groups and individuals.
John Lehman, a member of the separate and independent National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, said at a hearing Wednesday: "There's little doubt that much of the funding of terrorist groups - whether intentional or unintentional - is coming from Saudi sources."
Another section of the report, according to Roemer, is a narrative of intelligence warnings, some of them ignored or not shared with other agencies, before the hijacked airliners were crashed into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
The report, he said, will show that top Bush administration officials were warned in the summer of 2001 that the al-Qaeda terrorist network had plans to hijack aircraft and launch a "spectacular attack".
[ edited by bigcitycollectables on Jul 11, 2003 06:46 PM ]
posted on July 12, 2003 11:27:43 AM new
Tuesday, New York Senator Charles Schumer accused the Bush administration of intentionally impeding the investigation for political reasons. The Senator called for an independent investigation of the matter, including whether witnesses have been intimidated. The Bush administration denies the charges.
posted on July 12, 2003 11:59:26 AM new
After months of defending the Bush administration's decision to go to war in Iraq, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is accusing the White House of "stonewalling" the independent commission set up to examine why America was vulnerable to the 9/11 attacks.
"While I don't want to believe such a basic lack of cooperation was intentional, it nonetheless creates the appearance of bureaucratic stonewalling," the influential Republican told the commission, in comments reported Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal.
"Excessive administration secrecy on issues related to the Sept. 11 attacks feeds conspiracy theories and reduces the public's confidence in government," he added.
The criticism from McCain, who was a main sponsor for the bill that created the independent probe, has Democrats piling on, with commission member Max Cleland, the former senator from Georgia, complaining that the White House is "cherry picking" the documents it wants to turn over for review.
"It's obvious they're sifting the information to the 9/11 commission now," he told the Journal. "The picture is not encouraging."
For its part the White House says it has nothing to hide.
"The president believes the commission should carefully investigate the evidence and follow all the facts wherever they should lead," White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett told the paper. "What the investigation would show is that we took terrorism very seriously."
Still, administration critics complain that access to key documents has to be routed through the Justice Department and that subpoena power will be restricted under rules required by the White House.
The Bush administration insisted that the 10-member panel be evenly spilt between Democrats and Republicans, requiring at least one Republican to go along before any witness is subpoenaed.
A controversy is also brewing over claims from former Clinton administration officials that their warnings about Osama bin Laden went unheeded by Bush officials.
"I know that during the transition between the Clinton and Bush administrations that the outgoing administration told the incoming one that they would spend more time on terrorism and bin Laden than anything else," Sen. Hillary Clinton complained earlier this year, adding, "That wasn't their priority. Their priorities were different."
posted on July 14, 2003 11:14:04 AM new
Graham Continues 9/11 Cover-Up Charge on Sunday Shows
by Tom Flocco
In a revealing interview on Bob Schieffer’s CBS-TV Sunday news show, “Face the Nation,” presidential candidate and Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) persisted in his charges that the Bush Administration was covering up information about terrorist activities they knew were being carried out in the United States long before the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"This administration has probably been one of the most secretive administrations in American history. And one of the areas over which they have thrown a particularly heavy blanket has been information about terrorism, including terrorism [against] the United States," Senator Graham said.
However, for those still concerned about the real mysteries of September 11, such issues as: 1) poorly documented visas -- issued fraudulently by immigration officials failing to follow the law, 2) restrained -- even failed -- standard U.S. military air defense protocols, 3) millions of dollars in suspicious pre-attack stock market insider trading profits as yet unclaimed and unrevealed within a still-unpublicized Securities Exchange Commission 9/11 “Control List,” 4) redacted presidential intelligence documents, plus other unanswered questions directly related to prior knowledge of the attacks all seem fair game -- given the explosive evidence.
Presidential candidate Graham also added that "By continuing to classify that information so that it's not available to the American people, the American people have been denied important information for their own protection; for the protection of the communities, local agencies have been denied information which would help them be more effective first responders, and the American people do not have the information upon which they can hold the administration and responsible agencies accountable," the senator said. "I call that a cover-up."
“BUSH MAY INVOKE 9/11 EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE AND SECRECY”
More strangely (given the astonishing evidence), directors and subordinates of government entities such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), Justice Department (DOJ) -- and current senior Bush Administration officials and cabinet members -- have not publicly testified regarding their activities, discussions and meetings in the months and days leading up to September 11.
UP TO THE JOB?
But even if the "Independent" 9/11 Commission is, by some miracle, able to compel by subpoena the testimony of the President, his brother the Governor of Florida, and other senior officials with their subordinates, etc., there should be serious concern as to whether there is enough talent on the Commission to deliver tough, truth-seeking interrogation -- again, given the incredible prior knowledge implications leaking out in spite of administration secrecy.
Therefore, if Graham's 9/11 congressional report ultimately fails to address the real issues of September 11, some of which are enumerated above, the fact that the president's lawyers may classify it, redact it, modify it, or even withhold it from the public altogether will make little difference regarding the ascertainment of the real truth surrounding the attacks.
Numerous pundits and news people in Washington have already noted that one of the key issues in the 2004 presidential race will center around which candidate will do the best job in protecting Americans from terrorists -- a key poll issue.
Moreover, as more pieces of information continue to leak out over time, the public will be less and less likely to fall for whitewashed and redacted reports -- but especially a 9/11 Commission literally loaded with a conflicted political coterie of party operatives from both sides of the aisle, all toting a variety of hidden agendas.
"Foreign Governments Are Aiding Terrorists in the United States"
(Senator Robert Graham, CBS Face the Nation, 5-11-2003)
Graham has begun to hit on a political hot button which is propelling his name quickly and forcefully into the forefront of the daily news cycles, developing further name recognition for the Senator from Florida for those Americans who are unfamiliar with him.
In the afternoon today, John Loftus -- former federal prosecutor and current investigator for attorney Ronald Motley’s lawsuit on behalf of 9/11 victim families against the Saudi government and others -- revealed additional information on Fox News related to Graham’s earlier cover up charge .
“The United States government is sitting on information indicating they knew that Saudi royal family members were funding terrorists in our country long before the attacks on September 11,” adding “contributors to Muslim charities in America are even taking tax deductions to fund terrorists already here in the U.S.”
Asked where he was obtaining this information, Loftus said "Our investigators for the Motley firm are buying up old Al Quada computers and acquiring the information from the hard drives."
The astonishing validation in recent news reports of presidential prior knowledge that a major attack would occur against the American people on U.S. soil is only superceded by still-hidden evidence regarding the specificity of the details, how the information was obtained, and the complete list of pre-9/11 meetings and briefings recipients. This, as supposedly redacted papers were sent to the people’s elected representatives -- thus far mum about that subject.
Given the Commission's conflicts of interest, probable lack of superbly talented interrogators, and "stacked deck" subpoena procedures, etc., the likelihood that 9/11's secrets will be exposed is very small.
So small, in fact, that it may be time for American citizens to force Congress to re-open the People's 9/11 case, since elected leaders are the only ones who can be held accountable by a citizen electorate for their actions -- or the lack thereof.
For if the majority of the American people ever find out that there is already enough incontrovertible evidence to indicate that so-called 9/11 negligence was really intentional, there will be hell to pay.
Moreover, all the weak congressional report redactions, executive privileges, and even Executive Order 13233 on presidential document secrecy will not prevent ultimate administration accountability.
That's why the President's lawyers are floating "executive privilege" and "classified congressional report" trial balloons.
posted on July 25, 2003 07:31:33 PM new
9/11 Report
REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 –
BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
posted on July 25, 2003 07:42:16 PM new
I haven't read the text of the report as yet. I'm most interested in the redacted areas. I expect after reading this report the lone gunman theory will make perfect sense.
posted on July 25, 2003 08:53:34 PM new
I've just read a few of over 800 pages. This is a good article about the report, Report Raises More Questions About 9/11, published in The Nation.
excerpt.
The attacks of September 11 might have been prevented had the U.S. intelligence community been more competent. And the Bush Administration is refusing to tell the public what intelligence the president saw before 9/11 about the threat posed by Al Qaeda.
~
The report is a good start in establishing the historical record. It reads at times like tragedy, at other times almost as farce. The signs were there. Few paid attention. Two, if not more, of the hijackers were within reach of US law enforcement, but nobody saw that. Five days after the attacks, Bush said, "No one could have conceivably imagined suicide bombers burrowing into our society." And in May 2002, Rice said, "I don't think anyone could have predicted these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center." Actually, the report has proof that the attacks of 9/11 were foreseen. Not in terms of date and time. But intelligence reporting indicated and terrorism experts warned that Al Qaeda was interested in mounting precisely these types of attacks. Yet the US government – the Bush II and Clinton administrations – did not prepare adequately. The attacks were far less outside the box than Bush and his aides have suggested. Thwarting them was within the realm of possibility.
The Administration has yet to acknowledge that – let alone reveal how – Bush responded to the intelligence he saw. The joint inquiry's work provides a solid foundation for the 9/11 independent commission, which is now conducting its own inquiry. Perhaps that endeavor will be able to learn even more and address the questions the Bush Administration did not allow the committees to answer.
posted on July 26, 2003 05:04:10 AM new
"Graham has begun to hit on a political hot button which is propelling his name quickly and forcefully into the forefront of the daily news cycles, developing further name recognition for the Senator from Florida for those Americans who are unfamiliar with him."
LOL Yeah....right...his poll numbers are really climbing....LOL
posted on July 26, 2003 05:54:47 AM new Good observations by Graham...
"This administration has probably been one of the most secretive administrations in American history. And one of the areas over which they have thrown a particularly heavy blanket has been information about terrorism, including terrorism [against] the United States," Senator Graham said.
Presidential candidate Graham also added that "By continuing to classify that information
so that it's not available to the American people, the American people have been denied
important information for their own protection; for the protection of the communities, local
agencies have been denied information which would help them be more effective first responders,
and the American people do not have the information upon which they can hold the administration
and responsible agencies accountable," the senator said. "I call that a cover-up."
posted on July 26, 2003 10:44:09 AM new
White House Website photo essay - "International Response to 9/11."
Caption: President Bush meets with Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince
Saud al-Faisal in the Oval Office Sept. 20. "The President, from the first
day, has been very satisfied with the actions of the Saudi government and
the Saudi people," said White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.
