meta-roj

one thing the bush administration apparently hasn’t learned from previous republican adminitrations is how much trouble a little lying can cause…

i draw your attention to the “9/11 commission vs. bush administration” prize fight on the subject of the iraq-al qaida connection.

the prize is the truth.

to refresh your memory a bit, the bush administration has made many efforts, both bold and covert, to prevent the commission from doing its job – all the way back to opposing the formation of the commission in the first place.

Bush Opposes 9/11 Query Panel [cbs news, may 23, 2002]

President Bush took a few minutes during his trip to Europe Thursday to voice his opposition to establishing a special commission to probe how the government dealt with terror warnings before Sept. 11

Cheney Rejects Broader Access to Terror Brief [new york times, may 20, 2002]

Vice President Dick Cheney said today that he would advise President Bush not to turn over to Congress the August intelligence briefing that warned that terrorists were interested in hijacking airplanes, and he insisted that the investigation into Sept. 11 should be handled by the Congressional intelligence committees, not an independent commission.

cheney himself was apparently point-man to block formation of the commission, exerting influence even after the administration’s public endorsement.

Cheney: Investigators, Keep Out [newsweek, 21 october, 2002]

Dick Cheney played a behind-the-scenes role last week in derailing an agreement to create an independent commission to investigate the 9-11 attacks. Last month the White House endorsed the formation of the panel. But on Thursday, hours after congressional negotiators hailed a final deal over the scope and powers of a 9-11 panel, Cheney called House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Porter Goss, sources told Newsweek.

Later that day Goss told a closed-door conference committee he couldn’t accept the deal, citing instructions from “above my pay grade,” sources say. Goss later said he was referring to other House leaders, not Cheney. Goss wouldn’t discuss his call from the VP but said it wasn’t the “determining factor” in his stand.

and after waffling (ahem) on that, it’s worth noting that the chair of the commission is a presidential appointment, one thomas h kean, which makes this not a strictly congressional endeavour. in any case, kean was the second choice for the chair, but henry kissinger wouldn’t disclose his client list to take the job.

anyway, we eventually got a commission, and i won’t bore you with quotes for all the other obstructions, but there’s news about the administration blocking funding, withholding documents, delaying security clearances for commission members and a myraid of other delaying and obstructionist tactics – even sending condoleeza rice out on the talk-show circuit to make the administration case while claiming that she couldn’t address the same questions under oath.

and these backfired, it would seem, with the administration being backed into supporting an extension for the commission, which pushes the report release date further into the election year – july 26. that leaves about three months for the administration to re-spin the report.

since then, bush and cheney testified together (odd, that – everyone knows you separate the witnesses so they can’t influence each other, and so you can find contradictions in their stories). there’s also some questions about chain-of-command that this joint-testimony brings up (the vice president is specifically not in the chain of command, yet he apparently gave shoot-down orders on september 11), but that’s something for another day. even with that testimony, the commission has come forward suggesting it has found no connection between iraq and al qaida. and then it really starts to hit the fan.

A vice president unbound [us news and world report, 6/28/2004 (!)]

“Do you know some things that the commission does not know?” I asked Cheney. “Probably,” he said.

excuse me? you’ve been asked to provide all relevant documents and given testimony, in private, to a group of people tasked with determining the facts of the events surrounding september 11 – people who were scrutinized for months and ultimately given the highest security clearances – operating under a chair picked by the administration, and you’ve still withheld information?

flop around on this for a moment – either the iraq-al qaida connection is relevant to the events of 9/11, and thus within the purview of the commission, or it’s not part of the story, in which case you shouldn’t be out making the case.

ok, you can stop flopping. isn’t that sort of statement just begging for a reponse?

9/11 Panel Wants Evidence From Cheney [ap via abc news, june 20, 2004]

“We would certainly welcome any information bearing on the issue of assistance or collaboration with al-Qaida by any government including Iraq,” said commission member Richard Ben-Veniste. Commission chairman Thomas Kean and vice chairman Lee Hamilton made similar comments to The New York Times.

the bluff has been called, time to show the cards, gentlemen.