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******************************************************************Will the 9/11 Commissioners Cave?
By Ray McGovern
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Will the Sept. 11
Commission follow the example set by Congress and
the Intelligence Community and let itself be
intimidated by Vice President Dick Cheney?
Now that the commission's
staff report has pulled the rug out from under
the notion so successfully fostered by the
administration that Iraq played a role in the
attacks of 9/11, no one should be surprised if
the commissioners pull the rug out from under the
staff. There are disquieting signs that this has
already begun to happen.
The stakes could not be
higher for the president and vice president.
Arguably, the commission is in position to play
in 2004 a role analogous to that played by the
Supreme Court in 2000 in ensuring the election of
George W. Bush and Cheney. This, I believe,
accounts for the dyspeptic reaction of the two to
the staff report and the press play accorded it
last week.
New York Times pundit
William Safire is also outraged. In his column
today he lashes out at the commission chairman,
Republican Tom Kean, and the vice chairman,
Democrat Lee Hamilton, for letting themselves be
"jerked around by a manipulative
staff." Safire drives home the point that
the staff conclusion concerning Iraq and 9/11 was
"not a judgment of the panel of
commissioners," but rather "an interim
report of the commission's runaway staff."
Republican Commissioners
Fall Into Line
Appearing Sunday on ABC's
This Week, Sept. 11 commission chairman Kean fell
in line, saying repeatedly that the staff report
is only an "interim report." Not only
did he note it is "not finished," the
commissioners themselves have not been involved
in it so far and the final report will include
whatever "new information" becomes
available.
It is not hard to see
what is coming. On Thursday Cheney told the press
that he "probably" had more
intelligence information than had been made
available to the commission. Commissioner John
Lehman, another Republican stalwart, told Meet
the Press Sunday "the vice president was
right when he said that he may have things that
we don't have. And we are now in the process of
getting the latest intelligence."
Flash back, if you dare,
to other "intelligence" promoted by
Cheney: the aluminum tubes that turned out not to
be suitable for fashioning nuclear materials
after all; the mobile "biological warfare
labs" that produced nothing more lethal than
hydrogen for weather balloons; the infamous
report, based on forged documents, alleging that
Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa.
The Perils Of
Partisanship
What is clear is that
Washington is in for a month of partisan
wrangling among the commissioners and staff
before the July 26 deadline for the report -
partisanship of the kind demonstrated at the
grilling of former counter-terrorism chief
Richard Clark. This time it will all take place
behind closed doors. Lehman conceded on Meet the
Press, "We're under tremendous political
pressure…in this election year."
Indeed, the commission
was highly politicized from the get-go, with its
work carefully choreographed. Subpoena power, for
example, requires a majority vote among the five
Republican and five Democrat commissioners. And,
as the public hearings have already shown, the
White House can count on seasoned protection from
heavy hitters like Fred Fielding, legal counsel
to Presidents Nixon and Reagan, as well as from
Lehman and the other Republican commissioners.
Once again,
"intelligence" will be front and
center, with Cheney in the background as
super-analyst. CIA Director George Tenet is
packing his bags for his July 11 departure, and
there is zero chance his well-mannered deputy,
John McLaughlin, will depart from what has become
customary practice - at the CIA and elsewhere -
and stand up to the vice president.
The Neuralgic Point
When Meet the Press' Tim
Russert quoted The New York Times' contention
that the commission staff report "directly
contradicts public statements by Bush and Cheney
regarding Iraq and 9/11," Lehman, borrowing
from Cheney's lexicon, branded the Times report
"outrageously irresponsible
journalism." Echoing Kean's remarks, Lehman
added parenthetically, "And, again, this is
a staff statement; the commissioners have not yet
addressed this issue."
Democrat Commissioner
Richard Ben-Veniste had just told Russert,
"There was no Iraqi involvement in 9/11.
That's what our commission found. That's what our
staff, which included former high-ranking CIA
officials, who know what to look for
(found)."
Interesting. Ben-Veniste
saying it is what the commission found; Kean and
Lehman saying the commissioners have not yet
addressed the issue. A harbinger of the wrangling
to come.
That Troublesome
Constitution Again
Most observers are
familiar with the rhetorical landscape with which
Bush and Cheney persuaded a large majority of
Americans that Iraq played a role in the attacks
of 9/11, and many shrug this off as familiar spin
by politicians inclined to take liberties with
the facts. So far little attention has been given
to the fact that a constitutional issue is
involved.
On March 19, 2003, the
day the war began, President Bush sent a letter
to Congress in which he said that the war was
permitted under legislation authorizing force
against those who "planned, authorized,
committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that
occurred on September 11, 2001." If the
staff's finding that there is "no credible
evidence that Iraq and al-Qaeda cooperated on
attacks against the United States" is
allowed to stand, the Bush administration will be
shown to have gone afoul of the Constitution yet
again.
Watch For New
"Intelligence"
So expect new
"intelligence" (and hope against hope
that there is time to give it the smell test).
Lehman's assurance that the commission report
will be updated with new intelligence "right
up until we go to press" is by no means
reassuring. If it is the truth that is sought,
there should by now be widespread awareness of
the pitfalls of cherry-picking unevaluated,
uncorroborated, "this-just-in" pieces
of intelligence.
Also watch for
administration attempts to change the final draft
report, if the Republican commissioners do not
succeed in neutralizing offending passages.
Tim Russert called
attention Sunday to reports that the White House
had been allowed to review the staff reports just
made public, and asked if that was appropriate.
Ben-Veniste indicated that the purpose of
reviewing the reports is supposed to be to find
and eliminate any classified information. He also
said, though, that the White House "went
somewhat beyond that and took issue with some of
what the staff had concluded."
Indeed, an early draft of
one draft report was changed, according to
Newsweek. A passage expressing skepticism about
the account of Cheney getting Bush's approval for
the shoot-down order was reportedly removed after
the White House objected.
Ben-Veniste told Russert
that the White House will review the final report
before it is made public. Thus, there will be
considerable opportunity for the manufacture of
"insurmountable" classification
problems, for delay and for other mischief -
given the potential political explosiveness of
the commission's final report.
It will not be surprising
if the final report is not made public until well
after the target date of July 26 (the same day
the Democratic Convention opens in Boston). If
the report does meet that target, it is likely
that it will appear in significantly truncated
form.
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