Here is a link to the now famous Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) that the White House declassified Saturday. It's very short, and some of it seems frightening, especially the part about FBI information that "indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York," by Bin Laden operatives. But you can read it and make your own judgement about what President Bush did know or should have known and when he did or should have known it. Though, of course, this kind of warning is politically damaging to the president, I'll leave it to other people to make that case against him, because I'm not an expert on this kind of stuff. I want to talk about something that's a little better documented, and seems to confirm a pattern we've seen during the Bush administration: their inability to be straightforward about just about anything.
The reason this memo has taken this long to be declassified, is that the administration has been engaging in a campaign to block the 9/11 commission's work for a long time. Actually, President Bush opposed the very creation of the Commission. On May 23, 2002, Bush made the following statement to reporters at a Press Conference in Germany:
I, of course, want the Congress to take a look at what took place prior to September the 11th. But since it deals with such sensitive information, in my judgment, it's best for the ongoing war against terror that the investigation be done in the intelligence committee. We don't want to give away sources and uses and methodology of intelligence gathering.
The "Intelligence Committee" must mean either the U. S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence or the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence, Bush doesn't specify. But it doesn't matter, in May 2002, the House was controlled by Republicans, and the Senate by Democrats by 1 vote (the Republican Party puts lot of money into taking back the Senate in November 2002, which they did, and I imagine Bush would have been counting on it). Bush might say that he opposed the 9/11 Commission's creation because it would compromise intelligence sources, but that doesn't seem credible, does it? It seems more like that he opposed it because it would be independent, not made up of a majority of sitting Congressmen in Bush's own party. After all, the Commission has been meeting for a while, and there's no indication of any compromised intelligence sources. In fact, the recently declassified PDB has sensitive names blacked out.
Salon.com reported that in Jan. 2002 Bush and Cheney personally called then-Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) and "pressuring him to limit the congressional investigation surrounding Sept. 11."
When Bush begrudgingly signed the 9/11 Commission into law, he proposed former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, not known for his forthcoming nature, to be the chairperson of the Commission. In case you're interested, here is a page devoted to document warcrimes that Kissinger may have committed. Kissinger withdrew his name after the outcry that ensued.
The Commission was at first given a budget of $3 million. After they complained for a long time, they were promised an extra $11 million. Perhaps $14 million seems like a lot, but it pales in comparison to the $50 million set aside for the Commission investigating the disintegration of the Space Shuttle Columbia last year. Not to mention the fact the Columbia Commission was created 90 minutes after the disaster. The 9/11 Commission wasn't created until more than a year after the event.
As for the actual work of the Commission... to take the current example, the declassification of the August 6 PDB has happened only after a protracted battle. At first the White House wouldn't even let the Commission look at any PDBs, claiming "executive privilege." The Commission then threatened to subpeona the Summer 2001 PDBs. The White House then offered to let two people examine them: Commission Chairman Thomas Kean (R-New Jersey) and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton (D-Indiana); to see them, of course, in private, not to have copies of them. According to the White House offer, they would have been allowed to view them and take notes on them; their notes would have been subject to White House review. In November 2003, the White House and the Commission struck a deal that allowed 3 people to see them, but only in redacted versions. In February, the administration, threatened with a legal showdown with the Commission over what could be told to the other seven members, allowed all 10 to read a 17-page summary of the PDBs. Eventually, the White House also agreed to let all 10 Commissioners see the August 6 PDB, the one in question. It was only after Condoleezza Rice's testimony last Thursday that the White House allowed it to be declassified and made public, a year and half after the Commission's creation.
Oh, and why oh why didn't Dr. Rice, Bush's National Security Advisor, testify earlier? Because the White House didn't want her to, claiming it violated Constitutional separation of powers. Maybe it does, I don't know. Certainly, though, saying that her testimony would be unconstitutional -- then reversing yourself and allowing her to testify because of public pressure -- is not what one would call the mark of a forthcoming group of people. What actually happened was another negotiation with the Commission; the Commission could interview Dr. Rice, as long they agreed to allow President Bush to bring Dick Cheney along with him to his interview. Though the mind reels with babysitting jokes, this is actually quite disturbing. At this point, it seems hardly worth noting that President Bush will not be under oath when he testifies.
The original deadline for the Commission's report was May 27. When the Commission said that it could not complete its work on time and asked for an extention, Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert initially refused, and White House aides came out against it as well. What a surprise. Eventually, a two month extension was allowed when it became clear that refusing it would create more bad publicity for the administration.
Yesterday at a press conference with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, President Bush said that "Condi mentioned the other day something very interesting, and that is that now may be a time to revamp and reform our intelligence services." Very interesting indeed Mr. President. What else? "And we look forward to hearing recommendations. We're thinking about that, ourselves and we look forward to working with the commission." I bet you are. You should have clear about that when you opposed the creation of the Commission you could have said "I don't want them to exist, but I look forward to working with them." Then everything would have been alright.
Whatever one says about the Bush administration -- and personally, I have a lot to say about it -- one thing is for sure. They did not want an Independent 9/11 Commission to be successful, and their actions indicate a clear pattern of obstructionism. At best, this pattern reflects an executive branch that jealously guards its power and its secrets; at worst, it reflects an administration that is so intent on keeping its own power that it's willing to disemble on something as important and emotional as the 9/11 attacks for political gain. Personally, I think the administration is disgustingly cynical about something that is important to a lot of people for a lot of very good personal reasons, and should be important to all of us as Americans and human beings. And personally I think anyone with a brain should be outraged by their behavior. And personally I think this kind manipulation is not worthy of the leader of the so-called free world. But that's just my opinion.
-- Michael
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