from PK in an e-mail
i got this in an e-mail from pieter earlier today. i found it quite interesting, so i figured i would share. sorry if there are some typos ... translation problems.
latimes article
link to original athttp://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer19oct19,1,4021122,print.column?coll=la-home-utilities
The 9/11 Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket
The agency is withholding a damning report that points at senior officials
by Robert Scheer
October 19, 2004
It is shocking: The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. Although thereport by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed inJune, it has not been made available to the congressional intelligencecommittees that mandated the study almost two years ago.
"It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level peoplewere not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 isbeing suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the reporttold me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing forthe administration, because it makes it look like they weren'tinterested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in thegovernment responsible afterward."
When I asked about the report, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), rankingDemocratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she andcommittee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) sent a letter 14 days agoasking for it to be delivered.
"We believe that the CIA has been toldnot to distribute the report," she said. "We are very concerned."
According to the intelligence official, who spoke to me on conditionof anonymity, release of the report, which represents an exhaustive17-month investigation by an 11-member team within the agency, has been "stalled." First by acting CIA Director John McLaughlin and nowby Porter J. Goss, the former Republican House member (and chairman ofthe Intelligence Committee) who recently was appointed CIA chief byPresident Bush.
The official stressed that the report was more blunt and more specificthan the earlier bipartisan reports produced by the Bush-appointedSept. 11 commission and Congress.
"What all the other reports on 9/11 did not do is point the finger atindividuals, and give the how and what of their responsibility. Thisreport does that," said the intelligence official. "The report foundvery senior-level officials responsible."
By law, the only legitimate reason the CIA director has for holdingback such a report is national security. Yet neither Goss norMcLaughlin has invoked national security as an explanation for notdelivering the report to Congress."It surely does not involve issues of national security," said theintelligence official.
"The agency directorate is basically sitting on the report until afterthe election," the official continued. "No previous director of CIAhas ever tried to stop the inspector general from releasing a reportto the Congress, in this case a report requested by Congress."
None of this should surprise us given the Bush administration's greatdetermination since 9/11 to resist any serious investigation into howthe security of this nation was so easily breached.
In Bush's muchballyhooed war on terror, ignorance has been bliss.The president fought against the creation of the Sept. 11 commission,for example, agreeing only after enormous political pressure wasapplied by a grass-roots movement led by the families of those slain.
And then Bush refused to testify to the commission under oath, or onthe record. Instead he deigned only to chat with the commissionmembers, with Vice President Dick Cheney present, in a White Housemeeting in which commission members were not allowed to take notes. All in all, strange behavior for a man who seeks reelection to the topoffice in the land based on his handling of the so-called war onterror.
In September, the New York Times reported that several family membersmet with Goss privately to demand the release of the CIA inspectorgeneral's report.
"Three thousand people were killed on 9/11, and noone has been held accountable," 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser toldthe paper.The failure to furnish the report to Congress, said Harman, "fuels theperception that no one is being held accountable. It is unacceptablethat we don't have [the report]; it not only disrespects Congress butit disrespects the American people.
"The stonewalling by the Bush administration and the failure ofCongress to gain release of the report have, said the intelligencesource, "led the management of the CIA to believe it can engage in acover-up with impunity. Unless the public demands an accounting, theadministration and CIA's leadership will have won and the nation willhave lost."
latimes article
link to original athttp://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer19oct19,1,4021122,print.column?coll=la-home-utilities
The 9/11 Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket
The agency is withholding a damning report that points at senior officials
by Robert Scheer
October 19, 2004
It is shocking: The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. Although thereport by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed inJune, it has not been made available to the congressional intelligencecommittees that mandated the study almost two years ago.
"It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level peoplewere not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 isbeing suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the reporttold me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing forthe administration, because it makes it look like they weren'tinterested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in thegovernment responsible afterward."
When I asked about the report, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), rankingDemocratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she andcommittee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) sent a letter 14 days agoasking for it to be delivered.
"We believe that the CIA has been toldnot to distribute the report," she said. "We are very concerned."
According to the intelligence official, who spoke to me on conditionof anonymity, release of the report, which represents an exhaustive17-month investigation by an 11-member team within the agency, has been "stalled." First by acting CIA Director John McLaughlin and nowby Porter J. Goss, the former Republican House member (and chairman ofthe Intelligence Committee) who recently was appointed CIA chief byPresident Bush.
The official stressed that the report was more blunt and more specificthan the earlier bipartisan reports produced by the Bush-appointedSept. 11 commission and Congress.
"What all the other reports on 9/11 did not do is point the finger atindividuals, and give the how and what of their responsibility. Thisreport does that," said the intelligence official. "The report foundvery senior-level officials responsible."
By law, the only legitimate reason the CIA director has for holdingback such a report is national security. Yet neither Goss norMcLaughlin has invoked national security as an explanation for notdelivering the report to Congress."It surely does not involve issues of national security," said theintelligence official.
"The agency directorate is basically sitting on the report until afterthe election," the official continued. "No previous director of CIAhas ever tried to stop the inspector general from releasing a reportto the Congress, in this case a report requested by Congress."
None of this should surprise us given the Bush administration's greatdetermination since 9/11 to resist any serious investigation into howthe security of this nation was so easily breached.
In Bush's muchballyhooed war on terror, ignorance has been bliss.The president fought against the creation of the Sept. 11 commission,for example, agreeing only after enormous political pressure wasapplied by a grass-roots movement led by the families of those slain.
And then Bush refused to testify to the commission under oath, or onthe record. Instead he deigned only to chat with the commissionmembers, with Vice President Dick Cheney present, in a White Housemeeting in which commission members were not allowed to take notes. All in all, strange behavior for a man who seeks reelection to the topoffice in the land based on his handling of the so-called war onterror.
In September, the New York Times reported that several family membersmet with Goss privately to demand the release of the CIA inspectorgeneral's report.
"Three thousand people were killed on 9/11, and noone has been held accountable," 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser toldthe paper.The failure to furnish the report to Congress, said Harman, "fuels theperception that no one is being held accountable. It is unacceptablethat we don't have [the report]; it not only disrespects Congress butit disrespects the American people.
"The stonewalling by the Bush administration and the failure ofCongress to gain release of the report have, said the intelligencesource, "led the management of the CIA to believe it can engage in acover-up with impunity. Unless the public demands an accounting, theadministration and CIA's leadership will have won and the nation willhave lost."
posted by jeames morgan at
9:10:00 PM
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