Robert Scheer, SPECIAL TO THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
EDITORIAL BOARD
Thursday, October 21, 2004
...
"It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward."
...
According to the intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, release of the report, which represents an exhaustive 17-month investigation by an 11-member team within the agency, has been "stalled." First by acting CIA Director John McLaughlin and now by Porter J. Goss, the former Republican House member (and chairman of the Intelligence Committee) who recently was appointed CIA chief by President Bush.
...
"What all the other reports on 9/11 did not do is point the finger at individuals, and give the how and what of their responsibility. This report does that," the intelligence official said. "The report found very senior-level officials responsible."
...
"It surely does not involve issues of national security," the intelligence official said. "The agency directorate is basically sitting on the report until after the election," the official continued. "No previous director of the CIA has ever tried to stop the inspector general from releasing a report to the Congress, in this case a report requested by Congress."
....
Then Bush refused to testify to the commission under oath, or on the record. Instead he deigned only to chat with the commission members, with Vice President Dick Cheney present, in a White House meeting in which commission members were not allowed to take notes. All in all, strange behavior for a man who seeks re-election to the top office in the land based on his handling of the so-called war on terrorism.
In September, The New York Times reported that several family members had met with Goss privately to demand the release of the CIA inspector general's report. "Three thousand people were killed on 9/11, and no one has been held accountable," 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser told the newspaper.
....
The stonewalling by the Bush administration and the failure of Congress to gain release of the report have, the intelligence source said, "led the management of the CIA to believe it can engage in a cover-up with impunity. Unless the public demands an accounting, the administration and CIA's leadership will have won and the nation will have lost."
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/10/21scheer_edit.html?UrAuth=aNaNUOaNXUbTTUWUXUUUZTZU`UWUbUbUZU\UZUcTYWYWZV
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