Post by altpoliticsgwbush on Apr 3, 2004 22:29:51 GMT -5
From: black_ice (black-ice@bellsouth.net)
Subject: Bush Resistance Against 9/11 Probe Raises Concerns
This is the only article in this thread
View: Original Format
Newsgroups: , alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics, alt.politics.democrats
Date: 2004-04-03 15:02:49 PST
Gee GW, why would the President resist getting to the bottom of who and
what allowed 9/11 to happen on US soil?
see
www.nytimes.com/2004/04/03/opinion/03SAT1.html?ex=1082022333&ei=1
&en=b32cad0767018000
The Mystery Deepens
Published: April 3, 2004
The Bush administration's handling of the bipartisan commission
investigating the 9/11 tragedy grows worse ‹ and more oddly
self-destructive ‹ with each passing day. Following its earlier
attempts to withhold documents from the panel and then to deny its
members vital testimony, we now learn that President Bush's staff has
been withholding thousands of pages of Clinton administration papers as
well.
Bill Clinton authorized the release of nearly 11,000 pages of files on
his administration's antiterrorism efforts for use by the commission.
But aides to Mr. Clinton said the White House, which now has control of
the papers, vetoed the transfer of over three-quarters of them. The
White House held the documents for more than six weeks, apparently
without notifying the commission, and might have kept them indefinitely
if Bruce Lindsey, the general counsel of Mr. Clinton's presidential
foundation, had not publicly complained this week. Yesterday the
commission said the White House had agreed to allow its lawyers to
review the withheld documents, but without guaranteeing any would be
released.
This latest distressing episode followed the White House's pattern of
resisting the commission in private and then, once the dispute becomes
public, reluctantly giving up the minimum amount of ground. Earlier in
the week, Mr. Bush finally agreed to allow Condoleezza Rice, the
national security adviser, to testify under oath ‹ but only after
extracting a commitment that the commission would not seek any further
public testimony from any White House official. After months of
foot-dragging, Mr. Bush also grudgingly agreed to let the panel
question him and Vice President Dick Cheney privately. Last year the
Pentagon, the Justice Department and other agencies stonewalled the
commission's requests for documents until its chairman, Thomas Kean,
the former Republican governor of New Jersey, complained publicly.
Explaining the latest act of obstruction, Scott McClellan, the
president's spokesman, said on Thursday that some documents were
duplicative, unrelated or "highly sensitive." The White House, he said,
had given the commission "all the information they need." Mr. Bush's
staff should not be making that judgment. The commission's 10 members
can be trusted with sensitive material.
Moreover, given the repeated criticism of this administration's
obsessive secrecy on other issues, it is astonishing that it would
still withhold anything that did not pose an immediate and dire threat
to national security. The American people would like to know that they
have a government that freely gives information to legitimate
investigations on matters of grave national interest, not one that
fights each reasonable request until it is exposed and forced to
submit. The White House is serving no public purpose by acting less
interested than the rest of us in having this commission do its vital
work. Its ham-handed behavior is also gravely damaging the entire
concept of executive privilege.
Subject: Bush Resistance Against 9/11 Probe Raises Concerns
This is the only article in this thread
View: Original Format
Newsgroups: , alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics, alt.politics.democrats
Date: 2004-04-03 15:02:49 PST
Gee GW, why would the President resist getting to the bottom of who and
what allowed 9/11 to happen on US soil?
see
www.nytimes.com/2004/04/03/opinion/03SAT1.html?ex=1082022333&ei=1
&en=b32cad0767018000
The Mystery Deepens
Published: April 3, 2004
The Bush administration's handling of the bipartisan commission
investigating the 9/11 tragedy grows worse ‹ and more oddly
self-destructive ‹ with each passing day. Following its earlier
attempts to withhold documents from the panel and then to deny its
members vital testimony, we now learn that President Bush's staff has
been withholding thousands of pages of Clinton administration papers as
well.
Bill Clinton authorized the release of nearly 11,000 pages of files on
his administration's antiterrorism efforts for use by the commission.
But aides to Mr. Clinton said the White House, which now has control of
the papers, vetoed the transfer of over three-quarters of them. The
White House held the documents for more than six weeks, apparently
without notifying the commission, and might have kept them indefinitely
if Bruce Lindsey, the general counsel of Mr. Clinton's presidential
foundation, had not publicly complained this week. Yesterday the
commission said the White House had agreed to allow its lawyers to
review the withheld documents, but without guaranteeing any would be
released.
This latest distressing episode followed the White House's pattern of
resisting the commission in private and then, once the dispute becomes
public, reluctantly giving up the minimum amount of ground. Earlier in
the week, Mr. Bush finally agreed to allow Condoleezza Rice, the
national security adviser, to testify under oath ‹ but only after
extracting a commitment that the commission would not seek any further
public testimony from any White House official. After months of
foot-dragging, Mr. Bush also grudgingly agreed to let the panel
question him and Vice President Dick Cheney privately. Last year the
Pentagon, the Justice Department and other agencies stonewalled the
commission's requests for documents until its chairman, Thomas Kean,
the former Republican governor of New Jersey, complained publicly.
Explaining the latest act of obstruction, Scott McClellan, the
president's spokesman, said on Thursday that some documents were
duplicative, unrelated or "highly sensitive." The White House, he said,
had given the commission "all the information they need." Mr. Bush's
staff should not be making that judgment. The commission's 10 members
can be trusted with sensitive material.
Moreover, given the repeated criticism of this administration's
obsessive secrecy on other issues, it is astonishing that it would
still withhold anything that did not pose an immediate and dire threat
to national security. The American people would like to know that they
have a government that freely gives information to legitimate
investigations on matters of grave national interest, not one that
fights each reasonable request until it is exposed and forced to
submit. The White House is serving no public purpose by acting less
interested than the rest of us in having this commission do its vital
work. Its ham-handed behavior is also gravely damaging the entire
concept of executive privilege.